The Year's Best Horror Stories 9 (9 page)

He called his housekeeper. “Have you moved a box from here?”

“No, Mr. Tate.” When he frowned, dissatisfied, she said haughtily, “Certainly not.”

She seemed nervous—because of his distrust, or because she was lying? She must have thrown away the box by mistake and was afraid to own up. Questioning her further would only cause unpleasantness.

He avoided her throughout the morning, though her sounds in other rooms disturbed him, as did occasional glimpses of her shadow. Why was he tempted to ask her to stay? It was absurd. When she’d left, he was glad to be able to listen to the emptiness of the house.

Gradually his pleasure faded. The warmly sunlit house seemed too bright, expectantly so, like a stage awaiting a first act. He was still listening, but less to absorb the silence than to penetrate it: in search of what? He wandered desultorily. His compulsion to glance about infuriated him. He had never realized how many shadows each room contained.

After lunch he struggled to begin to organize his ideas for his next book, at least roughly. It was too soon after the last one. His mind felt empty as the house. In which of them was there a sense of intrusion, of patient, distant lurking? No, of course his housekeeper hadn’t returned. Sunlight drained from the house, leaving a congealed residue of heat. Shadows crept imperceptibly.

He needed an engrossing film—the Bergman at the Academy. He’d go now, and eat in London. Impulsively he stuffed
The Black Road
into his pocket, to get the thing out of the house. The slam of the front door echoed through the deserted rooms. From trees and walls and bushes, shadows spread; their outlines were restless with grass. A bird dodged about to pull struggling entrails out of the ground.

Was the railway station unattended? Eventually a shuffling, hollow with wood, responded to his knocks at the ticket window. As he paid, Tate realized that he’d let himself be driven from his house by nothing more than doubts. There were drawbacks to writing fantastic fiction, it seemed.

His realization made him feel vulnerable. He paced the short platform. Flowers in a bed spelt the station’s name; lampposts thrust forward their dull heads. He was alone but for a man seated in the waiting room on the opposite platform. The window was dusty, and bright reflected clouds were caught in the glass; he couldn’t distinguish the man’s face. Why should he want to?

The train came dawdling. It carried few passengers, like the last exhibits of a run-down waxworks. Stations passed, displaying empty platforms. Fields stretched away toward the sinking light.

At each station the train halted, hoping for passengers but always disappointed—until, just before London, Tate saw a man striding in pursuit. On which platform? He could see only the man’s reflection: bluish clothes, blurred face. The empty carriage creaked around him; metal scuttled beneath his feet. Though the train was gathering speed, the man kept pace with it. Still he was only striding; he seemed to feel no need to run. Good Lord, how long were his legs? A sudden explosion of foliage filled the window. When it fell away, the strider had gone.

Charing Cross Station was still busy. A giant’s voice blundered among its rafters. As Tate hurried out, avoiding a miniature train of trolleys, silver gleamed at him from the bookstall.
The Black Road,
and there again, at another spot on the display:
The Black Road.
If someone stole them, that would be a fair irony. Of the people around him, several wore denim.

He ate curry in the Wampo Egg on the Charing Cross Road. He knew better restaurants nearby, but they were on side streets; he preferred to stay on the main road—never mind why. Denimed figures peered at the menu in the window. The menu obscured his view of their faces.

He bypassed Leicester Square Underground. He didn’t care to go down into that dark, where trains burrowed, clanking. Besides, he had time to stroll; it was a pleasant evening. The colors of the bookshops cooled.

He glimpsed books of his in a couple of shops, which was heartening. But Skelton’s tide glared from Booksmith’s window. Was that a gap beside it in the display? No, it was a reflected alley, for here came a figure striding down it. Tate turned and located the alley, but the figure must have stepped aside.

He made for Oxford Street. Skelton’s book was there too, in Claude Gill’s. Beyond it, on the ghost of the opposite pavement, a denimed figure watched. Tate whirled, but a bus idled past, blocking his view. Certainly there were a good many strollers wearing denim.

When he reached the Academy Cinema he had glimpsed a figure several times, both walking through window displays and, most frustratingly, pacing him on the opposite pavement, at the edge of his vision. He walked past the cinema, thinking how many faces he would be unable to see in its dark.

Instinctively drawn toward the brightest lights, he headed down Poland Street. Twilight had reached the narrow streets of Soho, awakening the neon. SEX SHOP. SEX AIDS. SCANDINAVIAN FILMS. The shops cramped one another, a shoulder-to-shoulder row of touts. In one window framed by livery neon, between
Spanking Letters
and
Rubber News,
he saw Skelton’s book.

Pedestrians and cars crowded the streets. Whenever Tate glanced across, he glimpsed a figure in denim on the other pavement. Of course it needn’t be the same one each time—it was impossible to tell, for he could never catch sight of the face. He had never realized how many faces you couldn’t see in crowds. He’d made for these streets precisely in order to be among people.

Really, this was absurd. He’d allowed himself to be driven among the seedy bookshops in search of company, like a fugitive from Edgar Allan Poe—and by what? An idiotic conversation, an equally asinine jigsaw, a few stray glimpses? It proved that curses could work on the imagination—but good heavens, that was no reason for him to feel apprehensive. Yet he did, for behind the walkers painted with neon a figure was moving like a hunter, close to the wall. Tate’s fear tasted of curry.

Very well, his pursuer existed. That could be readily explained: it was Skelton, skulking. How snugly those two words fitted together! Skelton must have seen him gazing at
The Black Road
in the window. It would be just like Skelton to stroll about admiring his own work in displays. He must have decided to chase Tate, to unnerve him.

He must glimpse Skelton’s face, then pounce. Abruptly he crossed the street, through a break in the sequence of cars. Neon, entangled with neon after-images, danced on his eyes. Where was the skulker? Had he dodged into a shop? In a moment Tate saw him, on the pavement he’d just vacated. By the time Tate’s vision struggled clear of after-images, the face was obscured by the crowd.

Tate dashed across the street again, with the same result. So Skelton was going to play at maneuvering, was he? Well, Tate could play too. He dodged into a shop. Amplified panting pounded rhythmically beyond an inner doorway. “Hardcore film now showing, sir,” said the Indian behind the counter. Men, some wearing denim, stood at racks of magazines. All kept their faces averted from Tate.

He was behaving ridiculously—which frightened him: he’d let his defenses be penetrated. How long did he mean to indulge in this absurd chase? How was he to put a stop to it?

He peered out of the shop. Passers-by glanced at him as though he was touting. Pavements twitched, restless with neon. The battle of lights jerked the shadows of the crowd. Faces shone green, burned red.

If he could just spot Skelton . . . What would he do? Next to Tate’s doorway was an alley, empty save for darkness. At the far end, another street glared. He could dodge through the alley and lose his pursuer. Perhaps he would find a policeman; that would teach Skelton—he’d had enough of this poor excuse for a joke.

There was Skelton, lurking in a dark doorway almost opposite. Tate made as if to chase him, and at once the figure sneaked away behind a group of strollers. Tate darted into the alley.

His footsteps clanged back from the walls. Beyond the scrawny exit, figures passed like a peepshow. A wall grazed his shoulder; a burden knocked repetitively against his thigh. It was
The Black Road
, still crumpled in his pocket. He flung it away. It caught at his feet in the dark until he trampled on it; he heard its spine break. Good riddance.

He was halfway down the alley, where its darkness was strongest. He looked back to confirm that nobody had followed him. Stumbling a little, he faced forward again, and the hands of the figure before him grabbed his shoulders.

He recoiled gasping. The wall struck his shoulder blades. Darkness stood in front of him, but he felt the body clasp him close, so as to thrust its unseen face into his. His face felt seized by ice; he couldn’t distinguish the shape of what touched it. Then the clasp had gone, and there was silence.

He stood shivering. His hands groped at his sides, as though afraid to move. He understood why he could see nothing—there was no light so deep in the alley—but why couldn’t he hear? Even the taste of curry had vanished. His head felt anesthetized, and somehow insubstantial. He found that he didn’t dare turn to look at either lighted street. Slowly, reluctantly, his hands groped upward toward his face.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of editing such an anthology as
The Year’s Best Horror Stories
is that I’m continually coming upon horror stories which were published in some of the least likely places. “The Cats of Pere LaChaise” is one such story: it was published in France in
A Touch of Paris
, an English-language magazine aimed at tourists in that city, and I should never have encountered it had not another writer, Tim Sullivan, called it to my attention.

Neil Olonoff was born in Brooklyn in 1950, graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and currently resides in Miami, Florida. He was living in Paris at the time he wrote this story, teaching English and writing articles for a news magazine,
Metro
. The editor of
A Touch of Paris
expressed interest in fiction relating to Paris, and Olonoff responded with “The Cats of Pere LaChaise.” The editor there retitled the story, to no good effect, and I have restored the author’s title at his request. Olonoff has also worked as a psychiatric aide and as an exporter, among other jobs, and had lived a year in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hardly one to let the grass grow under his feet. Just now, Olonoff writes, “I’m finishing my first novel, begun four years ago. It’s about death.”

Bateman hated to be late. He was irritated, after wasting half the morning trying to convince his wife to come to Oscar’s funeral. Now, ascending to the entrance of the Pere LaChaise Crematorium, he was further annoyed at having to weave his way among a group of large cats sunning themselves on the broad steps. Near the top, tired of watching his feet, he carelessly trod on a tail. The yowl was quite loud enough, he thought with amusement, to wake the dead. But the cats did not scatter with alarm. Instead, they arched their backs and glared at him with malevolence. With a nervous backward glance at the cats, Bateman passed into the cool gloom of the crematorium.

He delayed a moment in the doorway of the crematory chamber. Pierre was seated among the small clot of mourners who faced the door of the funerary oven. It reminded Bateman of the time he peered into the courtroom during Pierre and Alicia’s divorce, twelve years before. Now he hesitated, preparing an explanation for Alicia’s absence. Damn her stubbornness! The children were a good excuse, of course, or perhaps she could have a cold. A cold, he decided. Let him mention the children first. Perhaps he could avoid Pierre’s reproachful glances, which always made him feel so guilty.

The furnace door was rising to reveal the red glow within. With a whine of automatic machinery the plain pine coffin slid inwards. Bateman seated himself behind Pierre and his sister. The door descended. That was it. As the group rose with a collective sigh, Pierre turned and saw Bateman. He noticed Pierre’s disappointment at not seeing Alicia by his side. Bateman said, “We’re really very sorry, Pierre.”

Pierre answered almost rudely with a perfunctory nod and told his sister to go along home, that he would wait to receive the ashes alone. The group left, and the two men stepped out of the crematorium and strolled across the broad paved plaza.

Oscar, the deceased, had been Pierre’s brother-in-law. He had died of drink, one might say, but in a most macabre way. Oscar drowned after passing out cold under the Pont Neuf during a rainstorm; the river simply rose around him. The police found him there with no
carte d’identiti
. They took fingerprints, but Oscar was born in Toulouse, and before they reached the family the body had been bound over to the public crematorium at Pere LaChaise, the famous cemetery in the 20th
arrondissement.
It was simpler to go ahead with the pauper’s funeral.

“We were lucky they did him alone,” Pierre said to Bateman. “They usually cremate indigents four at a time.”

Bateman looked up in surprise, but said nothing. They scuffed along one of the gravel paths of the cemetery, blinking at puddles of light stippled on the ground. It was a lovely late afternoon, and the leaves of the ancient trees rustled above their heads.

“How is she feeling?” asked Pierre, meaning Alicia.

“She’s fine,” said Bateman, reflecting that he was no more certain of her feelings than Allan Kardek’s, the long-dead spirit medium whose granite tomb they were passing.

“And Janine?” asked Pierre.

“She’s fine, too,” said Bateman. Janine was Pierre’s daughter. She had been just a baby when Alicia divorced him.

Pierre was a morose, silent man by nature, but today he seemed to be groping for a way to prolong the conversation. Bateman felt sorry for him, knowing Pierre found it difficult to overcome his shyness and self-restriction. But Bateman wasn’t feeling his usual voluble self, either.

Their path was crossed then by one of the enormous cats which resided in the cemetery. They seemed to be everywhere, peeking at one from behind tombstones, skulking in the musty vaults. They were huge, and Bateman supposed they made their diet on field mice and other rodents.