The Spectral Book of Horror Stories (33 page)

“Are you going to look for that severed head?” she murmurs, half-asleep.

“How did you guess?” I say, but her breathing has already slowed to a regular pace.

I lie there thinking about getting up early and catching the train. I think about taking the Northern line to Highgate and finding my way on to the Parkland Walk, heading south towards Finsbury Park under the tree canopy, eventually coming across a thicket of blue and white police tape, a uniform standing guard, fielding questions, perhaps, from a female reporter. She’ll be in her late twenties, working for a local paper, thinking it may not be civil war in Syria, but it’s a big story nevertheless. Her big break. I’ll listen in, follow her when she leaves, introduce myself. She’ll be suspicious, bound to be. I’ll explain that I know something, I have information. She’ll be dubious. I’ll tell her I can help with identification. I just need to see a picture of the head. She must have seen one, or be able to find one. A headshot. Video removed from YouTube, grainy frame grab. She’ll know all about it, she’ll have access. Maybe we’ll end up in a pub. Two halves of lager, one left untouched. I’ll sense the possibility of the beginning of something-

It’s no good. I can’t sleep. I slip out of bed, reach for my dressing gown and leave the bedroom. Upstairs in my study I open the laptop. While it powers up, I turn to my right and crane my neck to look out of the window. The only reflection I see is of the bookshelves behind me. I turn back and lean forward over my desk, a middle-aged man roaming the internet in the middle of the night while his wife lies asleep, dreaming perhaps of new rooms discovered in old houses, of a more caring, less distracted husband.

I find nothing in the obvious places. A million distractions fail to distract me. I refine my search terms.

The first two links lead only to black oblongs, dead screens. Across the middle of each one runs a line:
This video does not exist
. The third link takes me to a page of text, no video. I read the report, which says nothing of interest. I go back to an earlier search term and modify it slightly. I scroll down the page of links, navigate to the second page, click on the third link down, one I have yet to try. The name of the web site is not familiar to me. In both the headline and the standfirst I am warned that the video contains ‘graphic images’. I reflect on how the meaning of this word, ‘graphic’, has changed over a relatively short period of time. I read a paragraph that explains the context, then scroll down and click on the arrow on the video, which starts to play. I click on the full-screen symbol.

Beneath a forget-me-not blue sky with scattered puffs of white cloud, three men kneel, heads down, on a grassy hillside, hands tied behind their backs. A man wearing an Afghan-style soft cap and carrying an automatic weapon over his shoulder addresses a crowd of men and boys who wait in patient ranks like paparazzi at a première. The man in the cap, speaking in Arabic, talks about the men kneeling on the ground, indicating them in turn. In the background another man waits, a thickset Rasputin with his long dark straggly hair and long beard and black long-skirted costume. On a sign or a word from the man in the cap, the man with the long hair and the long beard pushes the first of the three condemned men face first on to the ground. The crowd becomes excited as everyone jostles for the best positions not only to see what is happening but to film it on their cameraphones. At the same time, the crowd finds its voice.
Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar
. I turn the volume down, briefly aware of my increased heart rate. The camera on which the video is being shot momentarily cuts out and when the picture is restored the man with the long hair is straddling the first of the condemned men and sawing at his neck with a ten-inch knife. The man with the long hair keeps having to stop and start, looking for a better angle. This is no easy task. He saws and he saws at the man’s neck while other necks are craning for a better view and the camera lurches to one side. A shoulder moves into shot and, by the time it is possible to see clearly once more, the job is done and another man lifts the severed head to show it to the crowd before placing it, upright, facing forwards, on the dead man’s back. It no longer looks real, but nor does it resemble a prop; it exists somewhere between reality and illusion. It no longer belongs to its former owner, but is part of something else now, something more abstract.
Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar
.

Attention turns to the second of the condemned men. He is wearing a blue suit. His blindfold is removed. Immediately to his left lies the first man’s corpse. The condemned man does not turn to look, but continues to stare at the ground. The man with the long hair now pushes him forwards and then on to his side. He pulls the condemned man’s head back and draws the blade across his throat back and forth, back and forth, like a child with a cello. The knife is not really suitable. A man I haven’t noticed before hands him another knife and he drops the first knife on the grass, which is no longer green. This is a job for a serrated knife, but these knives do not appear to be serrated and the blood will make maintaining a steady grip on the slippery handle almost impossible. But still he cuts, still he works away at the crimson gash, pulling the head back by the chin, aided by hands from the crowd that pull on the man’s arm. Finally, the head is detached and the man with the long hair places it on the dead man’s back just in front of his still-bound hands. Another man picks it up to show it to the crowd and then he replaces it on the dead man’s back. A boy of eleven or twelve in a yellow T-shirt and blue jeans and a green sweatshirt tied around his waist approaches for a closer look.
Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar
.

The video finishes before the execution of the third man is carried out.

I click in the top left-hand corner of the window and then close the laptop. My heart is beating fast and I realise I have a headache. I stand up too quickly and have to lean on the back of the chair for support. I look around my study. Everything in it—the books, the DVDs, the magazines; my chair, the desk, my laptop—looks the same and yet different. I leave the room and stand on the upper landing gazing up at the skylight in the sloping ceiling, my arms wrapped tightly around my body. I sit down on the top step and stare into the darkness of the stairwell for an indeterminate length of time. It could be minutes; it could be an hour.

I re-enter the bedroom and walk around the end of the bed to the window. I open the curtain and stand looking out at the street in the night, focusing and unfocusing my vision. I am still standing there when it begins to get light and my reflection gradually fades. Soon I can no longer see my face, the look in my eyes.

My wife stirs. “I thought you were going to London,” she says.

“No,” I say. “Not anymore.”

NEWSPAPER HEART

Stephen Volk

A rocket whooshed and pop-popped somewhere in the night. Iris Gadney’s heart jumped. She hated this time of year. It always crept up on her, and her biology reacted before her brain did. It was funny like that. She should know by now, but she never did. It was always unexpected, the knotting in her stomach that came with the smell of sulphur in the air. What was in fireworks anyway? Gunpowder, she imagined. She didn’t really know. She could ask her husband. He taught chemistry after all. He’d know. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t care. She just wanted November the fifth to come and go and everything to return to normal. That’s all she ever wanted—normality.

Des hadn’t so much as twitched at the noise. In fact hadn’t moved from behind the
Daily Express
for at least twenty minutes, but she knew better than to try to winkle him out of his shell into conversation. When he came home from work he was like one of those deep sea divers who have to go into a decompression chamber. He was never himself—whatever ‘himself’ was—until he’d gone through the sports results, always reading the paper backwards, as if world events like the Vietnam War and the famine in Biafra, the latest pronouncement by Prime Minister Ted Heath (‘Ted
Teeth
’ as Des called him) or the army firing rubber bullets in Northern Ireland, were of far less importance than men kicking a ball around—which, to him, they probably were.

She went into the tiny scullery at the back of the house, and was halfway through making tea, buttering sliced bread for some corned beef and Branston sandwiches, when she heard the familiar ding-dong (
Avon calling!
) of the doorbell.

“Who’s that?”

“I don’t know, do I?” Iris lowered her voice to a sarcastic murmur as she wiped her hands on a tea towel and strode past the expanse of newspaper. “I expect it’s for me. I expect it’s Blue Boy from
The High Chaparral
…”

By the time she got to the front door Kelvin had already opened it and her mood instantly lightened because he was facing another eight-year-old, Gareth Powell (she knew his mum Gloria, only by sight, mind). It hadn’t happened much before—a friend coming to call. It hadn’t happened
ever
before.

“Mum!” Her son looked over his shoulder at her with eager eyes under the scissor-line of his fringe. “Gareth wants me to go out to play. He says a whole pile of boys are up the quarry making a bonfire!”

“Well you can forget that for a start,” Des said from the sitting room before she could answer. “There’s probably a load of yobs from the Sec Mod up there, and I’m damned if I’m running you to hospital because some head case does something bloody daft.”

“They’re only collecting wood,” Kelvin bleated.

“You’re telling me they’re not going to be messing round with sparklers? And matches? And
bangers
? ‘Course they are—and little nippers like you are the ones that get picked on. When I was in school a lad called Truscott got a jackie jumper put in the hood of his duffel coat. We never saw him again after that.”

“Gareth, love. Why don’t you come in and play?” Iris offered, ever the peacemaker. “You can go in the middle room.”

Kelvin frowned hard. “He
wants
to go up the
quarry
!”

“Yes, well,
you
’re not—and that’s final,” his father called, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie still on. “If he wants to go, he can go on his own.”

Kelvin swivelled his head back to his friend, who was already looking sheepish and backing away as if frightened. Perhaps his dad didn’t talk to him the way Kelvin’s dad talked to Kelvin.

“Gareth?” Iris said.

The boy didn’t meet Kelvin’s eyes and his cheeks reddened as he faded into the shadows beyond the glow of the porch light.

“I—I’ll see you in school tomorr-”

The word was broken by a crackling rasp in the sky and splutter of magenta, the explosion above spilling arrows of sodium yellow. Iris’ heart sank and he was gone.

“Hey. Children’s hour is on.” She pressed the door shut. Kelvin was already climbing the stairs, head downcast. “Tea’s ready in a minute.”

“I’m not
hungry
.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You got to eat. Get down here.
Now
.” The slight lift in his dad’s voice was more than enough to get Kelvin to do as he was told. “I’m not in the mood for it, all right?”

#

The corned beef and pickle sandwiches were eaten in silence. Kelvin had a face that looked like it was chewing cardboard, and that annoyed his father, who glowered. “Having a meal together is important. He can see his friends in school.”

“Lots of things are important, Des,” Iris said quietly. “Lots of things.”

“Please may I leave the table?”

Kelvin’s mother told him of course he could. His father told him not to slam the door. Both adults listened to his small footsteps on the stairs.

“He needs to watch that. The face on him.” Des drank the last of his tea and replaced the cup in its saucer.

“He’s only a kid. God help him, whatever he does he can’t please you.”

“Maybe he can’t.” Des said. “I never pleased
my
dad.”

“That’s no reason to take it out on him.”

“Let’s just pack it in there, can we? Christ…” Des ran his fingers through his flat Brylcreem-slick of hair.

“If it’s work, don’t take it out on him. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not his fault you don’t get on with the new Head. It’s not his fault you’re taking on extra duties to try to impress her, things you—”

“It’s not work,” Des cut in.

And she knew it wasn’t. She also knew he wouldn’t talk about what it was. How the hell could he talk about it when he couldn’t even look her in the eyes? In the beginning she’d wanted to say something, and sometimes she tried, but all she got was a stone wall, and no tears. Never any tears. The tears were all hers. And if he’d let go—just once—she might have thought they were sharing something. But he never did. Never could. And it made her feel like a cow, bringing this badness into his life every time she opened her mouth and every time she walked through the door. Sometimes she wanted to ask him if he wanted her gone. And she
would
go, except deep down she knew he needed her to cling to, like a drowning man needed driftwood. Not a particularly nice or wonderful piece of driftwood, just something that was better than nothing to keep him afloat.

He caught her wrist as she gathered the plates. “Hey. I love you.”

“Well, love him too, occasionally.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Yes, you can,” Iris said firmly, managing to avoid her voice cracking. “If I can, you can.”

#

Kelvin was monosyllabic over his cornflakes, and Des seemed to want to match him for sullenness, as if two could play at that game. Iris, as ever, was piggy in the middle, relieved to have the house to herself as Des drove off up to Porth in time for assembly and Kelvin left to trudge his weary way down to the Primary School in Tyfica Road. By himself, of course. Always by himself. A lonely little figure—but perhaps he wasn’t lonely at all. Still, it gave her a little stab in the heart every morning as she waved him goodbye. She always told herself he’d probably meet some mates on the way and chat and have a lark around, as boys do. But
what
mates? He never talked about any. Or he’d talk about one, and the next week they wouldn’t be friends any more. She remembered the awful perils of her own playground life: finding a best friend one minute who turned into a horrible enemy the next. A bit like marriage. God, did she really think that?