Mains Best British Horror 2014

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78463-007-2
Verlag: Salt
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 432 Seiten

Reihe: Best British Horror

Welcome To The New Home Of Horror 'Johnny Mains is the go-to man for horror in the UK. His extensive knowledge of and unbound passion for the genre is amazing. If there was a government Ministry of Horror (which there should be), Johnny would be in charge. He is the Minister for Horror. He has extraordinary energy and is fighting a one-man battle to preserve and revitalise the noble tradition of the horror anthology. Oh, and he is a nice bloke as well.' -Charlie Higson 'Mercy stands before her, wielding a mud-caked pickaxe in both hands ...' -When Charlie Sleeps, Laura Mauro 'Too much Semtex was an obvious, beginner's mistake, and I noted I needed to remove more brain in future ...' -Exploding Raphaelesque Heads, Ian Hunter 'There isn't much time. Blood is already spattering the paper on which I am writing ...' -The Secondary Host, John Probert 'It appeared to be an insect of some kind, perhaps a beetle or a spider with a bloated body ...' -Come Into My Parlour, Reggie Oliver Best British Horror is a new anthology series dedicated to showcasing and proving, without doubt, that when it comes to horror and supernatural fiction, Britain is its obvious and natural home. This new anthology includes stories by: Ramsey Campbell, Kate Farrell, Gary Fry, Muriel Gray, Ian Hunter, Joel Lane, Tanith Lee, V.H. Leslie, John Llewellyn Probert, Michael Marshall Smith, Laura Mauro, Mark Morris, Adam Nevill, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, Marie O'Regan, Robert Shearman, Elizabeth Stott, Anna Taborska, Stephen Volk and D.P. Watt.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mains, Johnny

Leseproben

Doll Hands

ADAM NEVILL

I am the one with the big white head and the doll hands. I work behind the desk in the West block of Gruut Huis. When I’m not taking delivered medicines upstairs to the residents who slowly die in their beds, I watch the greenish screens of the security monitors that cover every inch of Gruut Huis’s big red brick walls and its empty tarmac forecourt.

I watch out for deliveries and for intruders. Deliveries come every day. Intruders not so much anymore. They have mostly died out there in the draughty buildings of the dead city, or are lying still on the dark stones before The Church of Our Lady. In Brugge the dying shuffle and crawl to the church. It’s like they have lost everything but a memory of where to go.

Last Christmas I was sent out with two porters to find the baboon child of Mr Hussain who lives in the east wing. The baboon boy escaped from his cage and blinded his carer. And as I searched for the boy in Guido Gezelleplein, I saw all of the wet stiff bodies beneath the tower, lying down in the mist.

One of the day porters, Vinegar Irish, beat the baboon boy when we found him feeding amongst the bodies. Like the residents, the baboon boy had grown tired of the yeast from the tanks in the basement. He wanted meat.

At ten in the morning, there is movement on the monitor screens. Someone has arrived at the goods and services entrance of Gruut Huis. Out of the mist the squarish front of a white truck appears and waits by the roller gate. It’s the caterers. Inside my stomach I feel a sickish skitter.

With my teeny fingers I press the buttons on the security console and open Door Eight. On the screen I watch the metal grill rise. The truck passes into the central court of Gruut Huis and parks the rear doors by the utility door of the service area. Behind this utility door are the storage cages for the resident’s old possessions, as well as the porter’s dormitory, the staff room, the stock cupboards, the boiler room, the workshop, the staff washroom, and the yeast tanks that feed us with their yellow softness. Today, the caterers will need to use the staff washroom for their work.

Yesterday, we were told a delivery of food was arriving for the Head Resident’s Annual Banquet. Mrs Van den Broeck, the Head Resident of the building, also informed us that our showers were to be cancelled and that we were not allowed into the staff room all day because the caterers needed to use these areas to prepare the banquet. But none of the staff ever want to go into the washroom anyway if the caterers are on-site. Despite the sleepiness of the White Ape, who is nightwatchman, and the drunkenness of Vinegar Irish, and the slow movements of Les Spider, handyman, and the merry giggles of the two cleaning girls, we can all remember the other times when the little white truck came to Gruut Huis for the banquets. None of the staff talk about the days of the General Meetings and Annual Banquets. We all pretend they’re normal days, but Vinegar Irish drinks more cleaning fluid than usual.

Using the desk phone I call Vinegar Irish who is the porter on duty in the East wing. He takes a long time to answer the phone. On the security console, I switch to the camera above his reception desk to see what he is doing. Slowly, like his pants are full of shit and he can’t walk straight, I see him stumble into the green underwater world of the monitor screen. Even on camera I can see the bulgy veins under his strawberry face. He’s been in the key cupboard drinking fluids and not beside his monitors like he is supposed to be at all times. If he was behind his desk he would have heard the alarm sound when I opened the outer gate, and he would have known a delivery had arrived. His barking voice is slurred. ‘What you want?’

‘Delivery,’ I say. ‘Watch my side. I’m going down.’

‘Aye. Aye. Trucks come. What you need to do –’ I put the phone down while he is speaking. It will make him go shaky with rage in the east wing. He’ll call me a bastard and swear to punch his trembly hands at my big head, while spit flies out of his vinegar mouth. But he won’t remember the altercation tonight when we finish the day shift, and I have no time right now for a slurred lecture about all the things I already know about our duties that he cannot manage to do.

As I walk across the lobby to the porter’s door, with my sack-cloth mask in my doll hands, the phone rings behind my desk. I know it is Vinegar Irish in a spitting rage. All the residents are still asleep. Those that can still walk never come down before noon.

Smiling to myself, at this little way I get revenge on Vinegar Irish, I stretch the brownish mask over my head. Then I open the airlock and duck through the escape hatch to the metal staircase outside. As I trot down the stairs, the mist rushes in to cover my little shiny shoes. Even with the mask pulled over my fat Octopus head, I can smell the sulphur-rust of the chemical air.

At the bottom of the staircase, I enter the courtyard. The courtyard is right in the middle of all four blocks of flats. The resident’s can look down and into the courtyard from their kitchen windows. I bet their mouths fill with water when they see the white van parked by the utility door. What the Head Residents don’t eat, we porters deliver up to their flats in white plastic bags.

Seeing the caterer’s truck makes my stomach turn over with a wallop. The two caterers who came in the white truck are standing by the driver’s door, talking, and waiting for me to open the utility area. Both of them are wearing rubber hoods shaped into pig faces. The pig faces are supposed to be smiling, but they look like the faces in dreams that wake you up with a scream.

The caterers are wearing rubber boots to their knees too, and stripy trousers tucked into the tops of their boots. Over their stripy trousers and white smocks they wear long black rubber aprons. They are both putting on gloves made from wire mesh.

‘Christ. Would you look at the cunt’s head,’ the older caterer says. His son giggles inside his rubber pig mask.

I clench my tiny hands into marble hammers.

‘Awright?’ the father says to me. Under the mask I know he is laughing at my big white head and stick body. The father gives me a clipboard. There is a plastic pen under the metal clasp that holds the pink delivery note to the clipboard. With my doll hands I take the pen and sign and print my name, then date the slip: 10/04/2152. They watch my hands in silence. The world goes quiet when my hands go to work like no one can believe they have any use.

On the Grote and Sons Fine Foods and Gourmet Catering sales slip, I see I am signing for: 2 livestock. Extra lean, premium fresh. 120 kilos.

The caterers go into the cabin of their truck and drag their equipment out. ‘Let’s get set up. Give us hand,’ the father says to me.

From behind the two seats in the dirty cabin that smells of metal and floor bleach, they pass two big grey sacks to me. They are heavy with dark stains at the bottom and around the top are little brass holes for chains to pass through. Touching the sacks makes my legs shake. I tuck them under my arm. In my other hand I am given a metal box to carry. It has little red numbers by the lock. The box is cold to touch and is patterned with black and yellow stripes.

‘Careful with that,’ the fat father says as I take the cold box in my small hand. ‘Is for the hearts and livers. We sell them, see. They is worth more than you are.’

The son hangs heavy chains over one arm and grabs a black cloth bag. As he walks, the black cloth sack makes a hollow knocking sound as the wooden clubs inside bang together. The father carries two small steel cases the size of small suitcases in one hand, and two big white plastic buckets in the other that are reddish-grubby inside. ‘Same place as before?’ he asks me.

‘Follow me,’ I say, and walk to the utility door of the basement. We go inside and pass the iron storage cages and are watched by the rocking horse with the big blue eyes and lady lashes. We go through the white door with the staff only sign on it, and the floor changes from cement to tiles. In the white tiled corridor I take them to the washroom where they will work. In here it always smells of the bleach used by the whispering cleaners. The cleaners sleep in the cupboard with all the bottles, mops and cloths and are not allowed to use the staff room. When the white ape catches them in there smiling at the television, he roars.

I take the caterers into the big washroom that is tiled to the ceiling and divided in two by a metal rail and shower curtain. There is a sink and toilet on one side and the other half has a floor that slopes to the plug grate under the big round shower head. Against the wall in the shower section is a wooden bench, bolted to the wall. The father drops his cases and mask on to the bench. His head is round and pink as the flavoured yeast the residents eat from square ration tins.

The son coils his chains on the bench and removes his hood too. He has a weasel face with many pimples among the scruffy whiskers on his chin. His tiny black eyes flit about and his thin lips curl away from long gums and two sharp teeth like he is about to laugh.

‘Luvverly,’ the father says, looking around the wash room. I notice the father has no neck.

‘Perfek,’ the weasel son adds, grinning and sniffing.

‘Your night boy asleep?’ the father asks. His fat body sweats under his smock and apron. His sweat smells of beef powder. Small and yellow and sharp, his...