Obsidian: A Decade of Horror Stories by Women Read online

  OSIDIAN

  A DECADE OF HORROR STORIES BY WOMEN

  NewCon Press

  First edition, published in the UK January 2016

  by NewCon Press

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Compilation and introduction copyright © 2016 by Ian Whates

  “Do You See?” copyright © 2008 by Sarah Pinborough, originally appeared in Myth-Understandings

  “Indicating the Awakening of Persons Buried Alive” copyright © 2011 by Liz Williams, originally appeared in A Glass of Shadow

  “The Cradle in the Corner” copyright © 2012 by Marie O’Regan, originally appeared in Hauntings

  “Seaborne” copyright © 2008 by Kari Sperring, originally appeared in

  Myth-Understandings

  “Underfog (The Wreckers)” copyright © 2008 by Tanith Lee, originally appeared in

  Subterfuge

  “Young Bloods” copyright © 2010 by Kelley Armstrong, originally appeared in

  The Bitten Word

  “On the Grey Road” copyright © 2012 by Alison Littlewood, originally appeared in

  Hauntings

  “Living with the Dead” copyright © 2008 by Molly Brown, originally appeared in Celebration

  “The Grimoire” copyright © 2014 by Donna Scott, originally appeared in Noir

  “Lifeline” copyright © 2010 by Susan Sinclair, originally appeared in

  Shoes, Ships, and Cadavers

  “Paul’s Mother” copyright © 2012 by Lisa Tuttle, originally appeared in

  Objects in Dreams

  “Home” copyright © 2012 by Emma Coleman, originally appeared in

  Dark Currents

  “Valerie” copyright © 2014 by Maura McHugh, originally appeared in La Femme

  “Obsidian” copyright © 2016 by Laura Mauro and is original to this anthology.

  All rights reserved, including the right to produce this book, or portions

  thereof, in any form.

  Cover design © 2016 by Ian Whates

  eBook conversion by Gavin Pugh at handebooks

  Contents

  Introduction Ian Whates

  Do You See? Sarah Pinborough

  Indicating the Awakening of Persons Buried Alive Liz Williams

  The Cradle in the Corner Marie O’Regan

  Seaborne Kari Sperring

  Underfog (The Wreckers) Tanith Lee

  Young Bloods Kelley Armstrong

  On the Grey Road Alison Littlewood

  Living With The Dead Molly Brown

  The Grimoire Donna Scott

  Lifeline Susan Sinclair

  Paul’s Mother Lisa Tuttle

  Home Emma Coleman

  Valerie Maura McHugh

  Obsidian Laura Mauro

  Introduction

  Ian Whates

  Ten years? That doesn’t seem remotely possible. I would have said, if asked, that NewCon Press doesn’t really do horror; no, science fiction and fantasy, that’s where the focus is. And yet, I’ve published an existential zombie novel (Andrew Hook’s And God Created Zombies) and a chillingly-plausible end of the world novel (Gary McMahon’s The End) – both of which I’m proud of and both of which were shortlisted for British Fantasy Awards – an anthology of original vampire stories (The Bitten Word) and an anthology of original ghost stories (Hauntings), while horror features prominently in anthologies such as Noir, La Femme, and Dark Currents. In fact, horror stories have lurked within the pages of NewCon anthologies since the very beginning, with the likes of Sarah Pinborough’s “Do You See” winning a British Fantasy Award and Tanith Lee’s “Underfog (The Wreckers)” being selected by Stephen Jones for his Year’s Best Horror.

  So, what do I know?

  Well for one, I know that many of the best horror stories NewCon have published were written by women authors – by no means all: there are some great stories written by men as well, but that set me thinking. The third volume NewCon Press ever released was an anthology featuring only women authors, Myth-Understandings. Why not do something like that again, to celebrate the work of some of the women authors I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over the past decade? That is how Obsidian: A Decade of Horror Stories by Women and its sister volume, Digital Dreams: A Decade of Science Fiction by Women, came about. In Obsidian, I gather my personal pick of the horror stories written by women that have appeared in NewCon titles during the imprint’s first decade, while in Digital Dreams it’s SF that holds sway.

  I was also keen to bring Obsidian bang up to date, so as well as delving into past anthologies – the earliest of which were never issued as eBooks, so some of these stories appear here in digital form for the first time – I commissioned a new story from Laura Mauro.

  Laura and I had both contributed to the 2014 anthology Mind Seed, edited by David Gullen and Gary Couzens, and I was sufficiently impressed by her story to know that she wouldn’t let me down. Nor has she. “Obsidian” provides the perfect end note to the anthology, which is all the more impressive when you realise that I gave Laura not merely a theme as I might normally, but a title to write to: “Obsidian”.

  I hope that you, the reader, enjoy the results.

  Ian Whates

  Cambridgeshire

  November 2015

  Do You See?

  Sarah Pinborough

  We didn’t speak. Not at first. Not for a long time. But then, London’s like that sometimes, isn’t it? Thousands of people occupying the same few miles, sitting on the same buses day in and day out on their way to wherever, recognizing the faces but never giving more than perhaps a nod and a grunt of recognition. It just isn’t done, talking to strangers. Not when you’re a grown up.

  So that’s how it was. At first the bench was solely my own, as it had been for years. I had probably become almost invisible to the regular visitors to the children’s play area in Paddington Street Gardens, as if I were maybe a statue that they saw so often it faded out of their immediate vision, creating space for newer and more exciting colours and shapes.

  I remained constant and it was they that changed; a rotation of children who toddled and then grew and then grew too big for the pleasures of swings and slides and cold hands in mittens. I didn’t mind. It was good to see new chubby faces, flushed red in the cold and screaming for five minutes more when their frozen mothers and nannies and occasionally fathers told them it was time to leave, stamping their feet into the hard concrete path, trying to batter warmth back into them before starting the walk back to their various homes with numb toes.

  Paddington Street Gardens is beautiful in the summer. I can see it from the window of my flat above All Bar One. It wasn’t All Bar One when I bought the thousand year lease to the small maisonette, but like the children, the businesses below me come and go, and at the moment it’s the sleek bar filled with grown-ups who rush in against the cold and have forgotten that they too once shrieked for five more minutes of sliding down cold metal with the burn of frost on their tongues. Funny how times change. Or how time changes.

  Yes, the gardens are lovely in bloom, but I don’t sit there much after late-April. The sun attracts ice-creams and picnics, and then the rubbish bins attract flies no matter how often they’re emptied, and there is nothing tranquil about sitting on a park bench with flies buzzing around and tickling at your nose. Flies like me but I don’t like them. Neither do I like to sweat under my best polyester underskirts, and so a long time ago I decided it was best to save my par
k days for the cool crisp winter and damp autumn afternoons.

  Anyway, I didn’t go every day back then when the bench was my own. Sometimes the arthritis in my knuckles was just too much to handle, especially on the wet afternoons when the chill seeps right into your bones, and so on those days I’d take a seat by the window instead and sip tea and eat bourbon biscuits while watching the children play from a distance. I still thought of the bench as mine though. Occasionally someone might sit there for a while, but never frequently as I had done for so many years. It was my bench.

  And then one November day, she was there. And again the next day. And the one after that. After a few weeks I think she was becoming as invisible to the rest of the park inhabitants as I was. Not to me though. Every time I saw her she became a little clearer. More interesting.

  But of course, we didn’t speak. Not at first. We were grown ups. And strangers. And more than that, we were very different creatures indeed. Perhaps if she’d been more like me, an elderly woman, well turned out in a winter coat and hat, handbag on her knee, tan tights above sensible brogue shoes, then perhaps we would have spoken sooner. When it would have been politeness rather than curiosity that forced me to break the comfortable, expected silence.

  She was not like me, though. She was fat for a start; her pale face doughy as if she’d spent her thirty years or so eating far too many chips and burgers and not nearly enough Brussel sprouts, and her dark hair was pulled into a greasy, untidy pony tail, hanging lank down her broad back.

  She often wore an anorak that almost covered her shiny tracksuit, the sort with stripes down the legs that come cheap at any market or discount store. I never recognized the labels and logos that adorned her thick legs nor those on her trainers, and although I may be old, I still have eyes. In London, labels are everything and even a dried up invisible woman like me knows their Nike and their Puma. And even if I hadn’t, I’d have known from the shine and the poor stitching that her clothes were cheap. She wore a heavy signet-ring on the middle finger of her right hand and it would flash garishly in the bright afternoon sunlight as she smoked, staring intently at the playing children. She didn’t have any of her own, I realized after her first visit. Like me, she just came to watch.

  I decided that she must come from one of the tower blocks half a mile away or so, near Paddington Station. London was sometimes like that. Wealth and poverty placed side by side. Different worlds existing within the space of a few streets. I wasn’t wealthy, not when compared to some London residents, but it would be safe to say that we came from different classes, if it were still politically correct to use such a term.

  I came from steely middle-class stock, my grandfather returning from India with jewels and secrets that would create a life of comfort and good education for my father and then for me, but the woman beside me on the bench reeked of the gutter, all working class aspirations coated in cheap perfume and stale smoke. That didn’t bother me. In fact, it made her more interesting.

  I’ve often thought that my heart belonged in the gutter. There is honesty to be found there. No pent-up emotions hidden behind a tight-lipped smile. In the gutter, rage is allowed to rage, hate spits foul words in the street, and drunken lustful fumbles make a whole new generation. When working class children go missing their parents wail and shriek their honest grief at the cameras. No stiff upper lip for them. You have to admire that ability for emotional release, don’t you?

  So there we were, sitting on the same bench, a polite foot or so between us, the same cold biting at our different noses in the watery sunshine of a November afternoon when a ball rolled across the path, bounced off the edge and landed by my shoe. Ignoring the ache that flared into a sharp stiff pain down my back as I leaned forward, I picked the ball up. There was a cartoon character on the side that I didn’t recognize, bright and garish with wide eyes and big teeth. I didn’t see the appeal. But then it had been a long time since I’d played with childhood things.

  A small boy, perhaps six years old, trotted over. I’d watched him playing with his little brother on the slides for maybe a year or so now on and off, but as he smiled shyly I do believe it was the first time he’d really seen me at all. He wiped his nose on his padded sleeve. I despaired of the coat. Why did parents seek to wrap their offspring up in cotton wool, as if by adding layer after layer they could somehow save them from the world? I remembered the blitz and the boys out in the cold in their short trousers and thin jerseys rummaging through the wreckage of houses looking for shrapnel. Times changed. Children couldn’t be saved from the world. Better to prepare them for it. Better to make them just a little bit afraid. I looked at the boy. Harry. His name was Harry and his little brother was Tom.

  ‘Could I have my ball, please?’ His voice was small and shy, not the brash yell I’d heard from him so many times as he charged through the rope netting bridge to the slide and frame beyond.

  ‘Of course you can,’ I said, but I kept it in my lap. Instead of handing the ball back, I rummaged in my handbag and pulled out some pick n mix. ‘Have one of these. You’ll need the energy for all that playing.’ Looking up, I peered over to where his mother watched carefully from the sidelines. I nodded towards the sweets. After a moment she smiled back. Harry was hesitating. Don’t take things from strangers. He’d been brought up safely, but then I’d known that from the coat that was more like a quilt than a jacket.

  ‘Go on. Your mum says it’s all right.’ He glanced over to double check and then with a grin began to rummage in the paper folds for the brightest or the biggest or the tastiest.

  ‘Are you scared of the dark?’ The words were so quiet they slipped straight out of me and into him, barely touching the air in between. He looked up and right into me with wide, innocent eyes. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He nodded.

  I leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Soft words that went on for no more than twenty seconds. For a moment his hand froze, before it latched onto the nearest sweet and absently put it in his mouth. I smiled.

  ‘Well, run along then.’

  He chewed and stared at me for a second before taking his ball and running back across the path and in through the gate in the railings. He didn’t look back. Looking down into the crumpled bag I pulled out a licorice comfit. Those were my favourite after strawberry bonbons. I’ve always had good strong teeth and I could still chew on the hard toffee centres without any problems. Sometimes God smiles.

  I looked over to the stranger sharing my bench and found she was looking back at me. She had dark rings under her puffy eyes. I held the bag out. ‘Pick and mix?’

  She smiled a little and shook her head. ‘I’m on a diet. And sugar’s not good for me.’

  ‘Not a lot is these days if you believe the papers.’ I chewed on the licorice and wondered if she saw the irony as she pulled a pack of Marlboro lights from her anorak pocket. Lighting one, she inhaled deeply. I watched the smoke drift off to go and play with the pollution on the Marylebone Road

  ‘Children from this park go missing,’ she said, eventually.

  I felt a little shiver prickle on the base of my spine. We both stared ahead, me chewing on my sweet and her smoking. ‘Unfortunately, children seem to go missing everywhere these days.’ I sighed. ‘Apparently nowhere is safe.’

  ‘They don’t go from here. They’re not taken.’ She emphasized the last word, the t and the k cutting into the air between us. ‘Something…else…happens to them. At home. Later.’ She paused. I took another sweet from the bag. Sugar was good for me and the afternoon was becoming more interesting.

  ‘It happened to my nephew,’ she said.

  ‘What happened, dear?’ On the other side of the path that separated the observers from those in the midst of the action, I watched Harry’s mother strapping his little baby brother into the pushchair, wheeling it awkwardly round while trying to hold her older son’s hand at the same time. She was flustered in the cold and they hadn’t even left the park yet. I kept my eyes carefully on the boy as h
e walked away. Eventually, just as they reached the gate, it happened. He looked back, directly at me. I smiled secretly. The words weren’t lost on that one. He’d remember.

  ‘They don’t believe me, but I know what happened.’

  I watched the boys until they’d disappeared before turning to look at her. ‘And what was that?’

  She sniffed, and just like Harry had done, wiped her nose on the sleeve of her anorak before staring down at her shoes. The signet-ring flashed as her hand flicked ash on the pavement.

  ‘It was almost two years ago now. I was babysitting Courtney because Jodie wanted to go out. She hadn’t been out, not properly, not in ages and she was only a kid herself really. She was sixteen when he was born and when…’ she faltered a little, ‘when it happened, he was five. Everyone needs to go out and let off steam at twenty-one, don’t they? Especially when they’ve been doing their best to raise a kiddie on their own.’

  I nodded sympathetically, although I’m not sure she really saw me. She was lost somewhere in her own story. Trapped in a place and time where it all went wrong.

  ‘And it wasn’t as if our mum was much good for anything. Not anymore. All Jodie had was me and Courtney.’ She threw the cigarette butt down and ground it out under her trainer. ‘I think maybe that’s why she used to like bringing him down here to play. Because our mum brought us here when we were kids. Before the booze really got her. I think Jodie had happy memories of this park.’

  She frowned. ‘I never came with her when she brought Courtney though, as much as I loved him. I used to avoid it. Find other things to do. Something about this place, it ...it gave me the shivers. Because of that thing with Jason Arnold’s little brother.’