The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

The footsteps came up on the passenger side.

In the moonlight he saw…

He almost collapsed with relief. The face pressed to the window was that of a young girl. A pretty young girl, smiling and shivering and pointing at the lock on the door.

He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

She tumbled into the seat with a shy laugh, bouncing up and down. She was young, perhaps nineteen, with tousled black hair and bright dark eyes. Her cloth coat, loafers, and white knee socks seemed kind of dated, somehow this only added to her charm.

“Brrrrr! Am I glad to see you! I never thought I’d find a way back to town!”

“Well,” said Taylor, “I can’t take you right back, because I’m the security cop here tonight. But I can call in and have the dispatcher call you a cab. How would that be?”

“Grrrrreat!”

“What happened, car run out of gas?”

She nodded, frowning.

“I think so. Must have bumped my head or something when it stopped.”

She rubbed her forehead briskly. “Ouch! Yep, there’s a bruise all right, funny…”

Slowly she turned toward Taylor, a look of almost theatrical surprise on her face.

“Yes! I kinda remember…”

Her voice went flat on “remember,” but he hardly noticed. This girl was pretty indeed! Maybe he could put off calling a cab for a while, say, an hour or two. It wasn’t long to dawn. She might like a little breakfast.

She was quiet, watching him with an almost embarrassing intensity. Nervously she pulled up those funny knee socks. He was not, he knew, entirely unattractive, as far as that went. Then for the first time he consciously noticed her perfume, a very faint, sweet scent. Fruity.

Cherries.

Her face contorted, maniacal, teeth bared like a beast.

Long pointed nails streaking for his face.

Cherries.

Taylor screamed and lashed out. The impact of the blow flung her across the seat, against the half-latched passenger door as he jammed the car into gear, still screaming.

The Chevy spun in a full circle in the loose gravel as he fought to straighten it out, not realizing that he had the accelerator all the way to the floor. He was vaguely aware of the passenger door swinging open and slamming shut again as it crashed against a post going through the entrance.

Taylor did not slow until a State trooper racing beside him fired a shot across the hood. By that time, he was halfway through Kentucky.

Slowly he rolled down the window. Somewhere deep inside a touch of rationality surfaced, reminding him of the size of the fine he could well wind up paying. Loss of money is always good for restoring sanity. The voice told him, gathering confidence, that he’d had one hell of a nightmare, a stupid, vivid nightmare, and that now he’d make a total ass of himself as a result.

The trooper flashed his light around the front seat.

“What’s the gun doing there?”

“I’m a security cop.”

“I’d hate to have you watching my place.”

He flashed his light back to Taylor’s face.

“Shoulda been a race driver, buddy. If you’re not sober, your ass is fried.” The cop peered closer. “Say what’s that on your face? Jesus Christ! You been makin’ out with a wildcat, or what?”

But Taylor, whose hand had lightly traced the dried blood from the five deep scratches in his cheek, had fainted.

A POSTHUMOUS BEQUEST by David Campton

Robert Bloch has commented that horror and humor are two sides of the same coin, and while this is true, it demands a certain elegance of wit and precise control of language to preserve a genuine mood of fear in the presence of underlying humor, however morbid. David Campton is one of the few writers today who is capable of accomplishing this. A native of Leicester, Campton is far better known as a playwright, having written some seventy plays, in addition to numerous radio and television dramas. Born June 5, 1924, Campton served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and afterward performed on stage himself before giving up acting in 1963. Beginning with Going Home in 1950, Campton’s plays have ranged from romantic comedy (Roses Round the Door) to imaginative drama (The Life and Death of Almost Everybody) to science fiction satire such as Mutatis Mutandis, Then, Incident, Soldier from the Wars Returning, or Little Brother, Little Sister, a post-nuclear holocaust drama in which two children are raised in a bunker by the family cook. The Haymarket Theatre in Leicester recently produced Campton’s stage adaptation of Frankenstein. This past year, however, has been very ordinary: “The highest point has been the launching of a new soap opera I am writing for local radio here in Leicester—about an Asian immigrant family. However they are all very normal, and there is nothing horrific about it at all (except perhaps in the very idea of writing soap opera).”

The message from Miss Coule turned up at the bottom of Hugo Pentrip’s morning mail. At first he refused to believe that it had really come from her, even though he recognized her distinctive handwriting: like sparrow tracks in the snow, as he had once described it. All the other letter’s had been considered and neatly stacked to await dictated replies. This sinister scrap alone lay in the middle of the polished expanse of the lawyer’s desk, disturbing and confusing. For Miss Coule had been buried almost a year earlier.

This in fact was the anniversary of the day when a home-help had found her, slumped over a window sill, breadcrumbs still in her hand, having breathed her last while feeding the robins. Recalling his client’s death perfectly well, Pentrip at first refused to believe his eyes—changing his spectacles then cleaning them. At last, though, he was left with no alternative but to read on.

“Pray do not allow me to take precedence over more important matters,” the note began. He could almost hear her voice, like a bird scratching dry leaves. “There is little urgency, as I have all the time in the world. I have been somewhat remiss in not communicating earlier; but I fail to mark the passing of time as I used to. I fear my birds wait in vain for their breakfast.” Until that point the lawyer had been prepared to believe the letter might have been delayed in the post for a year; but those words indicated not only that Miss Coule was dead, but that she was aware of the fact.

“I wish to pursue the matter of my will,” she went on. “I realize, of course, that extra detail must constitute a considerable chore, but I trust you to bear such additional work in mind when you submit your account.

“We have already agreed on the main bequests, have we not? My feathered friends must be provided for. The bulk of my estate is to be divided, therefore, among various ornithological charities—and how painstakingly you have researched those various headquarters and offices, thank you so much—with a little over for a local reminder of our mutual affection, to take the form of a bird sanctuary. But…” Pentrip could imagine Miss Coule holding up a forefinger which any bird might have mistaken for a twig. “But on reflection I have reached the conclusion that in my preoccupation with humbler creation, I have done less than justice to my nephew, Roger. I believe you yourself once brought up this very point, but at the time I failed to grasp the full import of your suggestion.”

“Please take note, then,” concluded Miss Coule, “that I now wish my nephew to enjoy my garden. I leave my nephew to the garden.”

“You mean leave the garden to your nephew,” mentally corrected the solicitor, then continued to repeat “garden to nephew” “nephew to garden” until his head swam and he paused to rub his eyes. But how does one reply to a communication not of this world? One doesn’t. Obviously the whole fabrication was an unfunny attempt at a practical joke, probably concocted by Roger Coule himself, who had always displayed an unreliable sense of