The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

The snarl rose to a ready shrillness, and he felt a clutch on his silver weapon. He drew it out, and thought the edge sliced something. Louder rose the voice, a true scream now, and something showed itself there in the swampiness.

A lump like a head rose into view, with two larger lumps like shoulders just below it. Thunstone made a long, smooth stride backwards, keeping his light trained on what was there. Two slablike paws caught the bald rim of the circle, and a great, shaggy shape humped itself up and out and stood erect before him.

It was taller even than Thunstone, broader even than he was. And it looked like nothing natural. In the dancing light of the torch, it seemed to be thatched over with dark, wet fronds and tussocks. Its head was draped with such stuff, through which gleamed to closely set eyes, pale as white-hot iron.

A mouth opened in the tangle and out came a grumbling shout, like the roar of a great beast.

It slouched heavily toward him, on two feet like shovels.

Thunstone slid warily to one side, keeping the beam of the light upon the creature, at the same time poising his blade.

“So here you’ve stayed,” he said to it. “Marrowby repented, forswore you. He’s dead, but you’re alive. You’re evil.”

It roared again. Its great, long forelimbs rose like derricks. Thunstone saw talons, pale and deadly.

“Well, come on,” said Thunstone, his voice quiet and steady. “Come on and see what you can do, and what I can do.”

It approached in a squattering charge. Thunstone sidestepped at the last instant and sped a slashing cut at the bulk as it floundered past. This time it screamed, so shrilly that his ears rang. It swung around toward him, and he turned the ray of his flash back upon it.

“Hurt you, did I?” said Thunstone. “That’s the beginning. Come again. Maybe I won’t dodge this time.”

It rushed at him with ungainly speed. He stood his ground. As it hurtled almost upon him, he lunged, a smooth fencer’s lunge.

His point went home where its chest should be. The blade went smoothly, sleekly in, with a whisper of sound. It penetrated to the very hilt, and liquid gushed upon Thunstone’s hand. He smelled an odor as of ancient decay.

A louder, more piercing scream than before. The weedy bulk almost forced him back. Then, abruptly, it fell away and down, and as it went he cleared his point with a strong, dragging pull. He stood over his adversary, shining his light to see it thrash and flounder on the ground.

“Did that do for you?” he asked it. “Perhaps not quite. Here, I’ll do this.”

He probed with the point where the neck would be, and lifted the blade and drove it down with all his strength, as he would swing an axe.

The head-lump went bounding away on the coarse grass, full a dozen feet. The body slumped flaccidly and lay still.

“Sic pereant inimici tui, Domine,” intoned Thunstone, like a priest saying a prayer for the dead. He stood tense and watched. No motion. He walked to where the head lay. It, too, was as silent as a weed-tufted rock.

A moment, and then he turned back and went to the house, finding his way with the flash beam. His feet felt tired and heavy as he mounted the steps. Pocketing his flashlight again, he opened the door.

Bill and Prue Bracy stood inside, arms around each other, eyes strained wide in terror.

“It’s all over,” Thunstone comforted them, and went to the sofa and sat down heavily. He fished out a handkerchief and wiped his silver blade. The liquid on it was thick and slimy, like blood, but it was green and not red.

“When old Mr. Ritson said that Marrowby had warned about something familiar, I felt pretty sure,” he said.

“F-familiar?” stammered Prue.

“A sorcerer makes his pact with the powers of evil,” said Thunstone, “and from the powers of evil he receives a familiar. Marrowby repented and died repenting, but his familiar stayed here, stayed hidden, without guidance, but wishing to do evil. I’ve put an end to that.”

“What was it?” wondered Bill Bracy.

“It’s hard to describe. When it’s light tomorrow morning, maybe you and I will take spades and bury it. It’s not pretty, I promise you that. But its evil is finished. I know words to say over its grave to insure that.”

He smiled up at the blank-faced Prue.

“My dear, could we have a fire there on the hearth? I want to burn this filthy handkerchief.”

Still smiling, he slid the cleaned blade into the cane again.

SPARE THE CHILD by Thomas F. Monteleone

Thomas F. Monteleone is another of those writers who were drawn into the field through an early love for science fiction. His first effort was a juvenile science fiction novel written at summer camp; writer’s block developed by page 40, and his mother later inadvertently threw the manuscript away. Monteleone persevered, and his first published story appeared ten years ago in the March 1973 issue of Amazing, followed in 1975 by his first novel, Seeds of Change. This was the first in the unlamented Laser science fiction line from Harlequin, and the publisher used his novel as a promotional give-away. Subsequent science fiction novels (not for Laser) include The Time Connection and Time Swept City. In ten years Monteleone has had nine novels published as well as about forty short stories; in addition he has edited an anthology, The Arts and Beyond, and has had two of his plays produced. Two more novels are scheduled for 1983: Day of the Dragonstar (with David Bischoff) from Berkley and Night Train, a mainstream horror novel from Pocket Books.

Monteleone was born in Baltimore in 1946 and currently makes his home there with his wife, Linda, and son, Damon. Again, as has happened with other writers who began in science fiction, Monteleone has become disenchanted with the genre: “I don’t write any sf any more, preferring fantasy/horror because of the freedom to work more thoroughly with character development.” Monteleone’s last horror novel, Night Things, has recently been optioned for a film, while the following story has been optioned for a new cable television horror/suspense series called Darkside. Monteleone reports that he is working on “a new horror/suspense novel about Sicily, the Cosa Nostra, and the Devil.”

The nightmare began quite simply.

In fact, Russell Southers had not the slightest inkling that he was entering into a nightmare at the time. He was passing his Sunday as he always did in the fall: seated before the Zenith Chromacolor III, watching the Giants invent new ways to lose a football game, while his wife Mitzi read The New York Times.

“Jesus Christ!” yelled Russell, as the Giants’ fullback bucked the middle of the Packer’s goal-line defense for the fourth time without scoring.

“Oh, Russell, look at this picture…” said Mitzi, showing him a page from The Times Magazine.

“First down on the two! On the two, and they can’t score! I can’t believe it…”

“Russell?”

“What, honey?” He looked at his wife as the thought of how she could dare interrupt him during a football game (especially after thirteen years of marriage) crossed his mind.

“Look at this picture,” she said again.

A razor blade commercial blared from the Zenith, and he turned to regard his wife. She was holding up a full-page advertisement from The Times Magazine, which featured a sad-eyed child in