Scary Holiday Tales to Make You Scream (12 page)

The face and name that love had assumed this time were Leah's, and the boy was keenly affected by her uniqueness. It was all part of the secret now his. In all of history there would only be one Leah, and since she was already not long for this world, it seemed that all of time and creation had rejected a beauty too great for it. Only the boy was there to see it. He saw it in the treacly dimple of her cheek, the jutting of one of her teeth, the way her hair seemed to melt into wisps, making the slightness of her whole frame something gossamer that might disappear in too bright a light. He saw these things, and he also numbered among the privileged few in all the starry span of time to know her voice. Oh, most indescribable of all things, the human voice! In hers he sensed a gentleness and shy intelligence that must understand him, and yet which could only be too good for him. The boy could not imagine that such beauty could ever touch something so intrinsically lowly as 'himself'. Nor could he imagine that it could possibly spurn him, since his love was that beauty's mirror. All that he could do was try and grasp the unique and elusive thing called Leah in the deer-like movements of her body and as it trembled in her voice.

He saw this uniqueness as a colour, the rarest ethereal blue, bordering on turquoise. His memories of Leah were full of this colour and serene. But when he saw her now, her voice was wracked with tears and that beauty was a naked, devastating thing. If the blue of his memories was like the flashing limpidity to be seen sometimes in a peaceful stream, then that colour was transformed now into the frothing, violent white where the stream meets the rapids.

Leah brimmed and overflowed with tears for the passing world that was her self. Night after night, how many tears had fallen on that patch of earth next to the door? The boy could think of nothing more sacred than those tears. So, when Leah had utterly exhausted herself with crying and withdrawn into the muffled darkness of her room, he crept right down to beneath her windowsill and looked for any trace of them. They had melted the frost a little, and the earth had drunk them up. This was what the boy found the first time. The second and third time tiny shoots were pushing themselves up through the stony earth and into the unwelcoming autumn air. They grew with astonishing speed, until, in a week or so, they were recognisable as a kind of cowslip.

But there had never been cowslips like these before. They reminded the boy of something. Just as Leah's sobs had expressed a sadness and beauty transcending nature, so these flowers, too, seemed to be something other than nature's scions. They were not of nature, and not of the everyday world of humankind. They were visitors from the world of faerie. When Leah, exhausted of all tears, withdrew and closed her window, the boy would draw close and examine the blossoms. They were a silvery blue colour, almost turquoise, like Leah's teardrops in the moonlight. When the boy breathed in their scent he was taken by an irresistible nostalgia, like the knowledge that youth is the most ancient of all things. Their scent could have been Leah's very breath, and no doubt their nectar was warm and salty. It was certain that these flowers were the external, living efflorescence of all Leah's beauty.

Leah herself must have been blinded by her tears, till all the world blurred and ran and the stars were drowning in the sky. She did not seem to see the flowers till they had grown a little over waist height. She had been weeping almost silently, one night, when her attention seemed to be caught by her own falling teardrops, as if there might be some consolation in watching her own sorrow fall through the empty space, detached from her, like rain. Then she saw the flowers where her teardrops fell and the night was made intimate with her little gasp of wonder. She appeared to forget her sadness as she gazed. She must have been strangely moved by the strength of such fragile-looking flowers, blooming effortlessly amidst the icy bleakness of the season.

"If only I could live as long as one of those," she said to herself, "just to see Christmas Day again, I would be happy."

As he watched, the boy's eyes followed Leah's down. As if both of them had forgotten her words they saw only the pearly wonder of the flowers. And while their eyes were drawn downwards, Leah's words went up, up like a prayer, into the night where no human eyes were now turned. The sky stretched out more vast than any landscape below it. The stars and the webbed effulgence of the moon shed a cold, marmoreal light upon the clouds below, as if they were ruins and the clouds were the desert dunes they stood in. But the skyscape was not empty. In the vapours of the clouds, stirring in the deepest pools of night's blackness, throwing out an arm in the midst of their slumber, or muttering words that make sense only in dreams, were all the demons, bugbears and gooligars that look down upon our world and make sure that no part of existence goes by unwitnessed. They are the far-off things for whom dreaming and waking is one. All things happen under the same sky, and because of the far-off, grey and shapeless things that dwell there, the unseen background to all that passes in the world, in a sense all things are far-off, one thing from another.

There, in their cracked and crumbling Olympus of weirdly glinting stars and bottomless night, gargoyles of cloud vomit in play over bat-winged cherubim; there lesser imps disport upon the backs of sky-borne behemoths. And there in the teeming loneliness and the howling silence, Leah's prayer could be heard.

Something wonderful had occurred to the boy. He did not need to hide and watch any longer. So far his love had simply been the act of seeing. Now he could step into the picture of his own love. It was a simple matter, and yet the plan the boy had made was such that he began to feel himself walking in that other world to which Leah already belonged, a fateful world where all deeds were as the language of the gods. All he had to do was to show Leah her own beauty. He was the only one who could show it to her because he was the only one who understood it. The savage emptiness of Leah's lot was real. All the possibilities of the infinite had been broken off to leave something merely incomplete. It was unbearable. But the fact of its unbearableness turned what was small once more into an infinite platform for beauty. It was not a real beauty as the emptiness was real. Not yet. But if he showed it to her it would be. He could not speak, but if he only gave Leah the gift of her own beauty their hearts would not need words. Then something would happen that had never happened before in the history of the world.

Somehow this plan was so awesome that the boy just could not hurry to carry it out. To hurry was not in the spirit of the thing. Then, suddenly, Leah stopped appearing at her window, and the boy was plunged into misery. He was afraid that she might already be dead, and that his chance was gone forever, and he cursed himself for his slowness. But as he sat on the doorstep of his house, his head in his arms, lost in his dreary pain, without word and without vision, he heard the footsteps of people passing and a bright voice chirped, like the sun piercing a sky packed with a cumulus of grey clouds.

"Yes. Not a whisper of her illness. It's just like she woke up one day and it melted away."

"It makes you wonder, don't it? Maybe we could all cure ourselves if we just woke up in the right mood."

"Yes. Straight away she said she wanted to work on the farm again."

The voices disappeared off down the road. The boy lifted his head from his arms in joy. All around him now was that bleak no-man's-land that might be autumn or winter, and the cold stones of the town. But to him it was spring and birdsong. Without waiting he leapt up and ran over the hills to the farmhouse. Leah, it seems, had just finished milking and was carrying two steaming pails from the barn, her soft cheeks flushed in the cold air. Watching from his habitual hiding place behind a stone wall, it seemed to the boy that Leah's renewed health was even more precious than her illness had been. She looked more beautiful than ever. He noticed the faerie flowers still grew by the door. If he could carry out his plan now, with Leah restored to the world, perhaps there could even be a lifetime of…of what? Of that unimaginable state the plan was to bring about. But when to do it? The timing must be right. And then it struck him as obvious. For something of such magic and moment he must choose the most magical date on the calendar. It must be Christmas Day, buried deep in the folds between autumn and winter. It was not long now. He only had to wait a few more days.

Christmas Day dawned. It was still early, and the cold of the air and the white of the snow made everything seem fragile. Something of the deeper blue of night stained the edges of the sky, fading to a very rare blue, almost tremulous, if a colour can be said to tremble. It was a blue that the boy knew in his heart.

From the lintel of the door there hung icicles. Under a dusting of snow the flowers still bloomed, as if they lived on the darkness and cold as some flowers do on sunshine. The boy knocked on the door. What would he do if it was not her? But it must be her. Who else could come to answer when such a blue was in the sky? There were no voices from within, but there were movements. Someone was coming. His heart beating in happiness, the boy knew it was her before she opened the door. Sure enough, she had been the only one awake so early on Christmas Day.

The door opened. She looked at him, puzzled, but with a sense of pleasant anticipation, as if anything that happened today must be part of the day's festivities. She was not wrong. The boy had never seen her so close, and now the freshness of her beauty startled him, so that he realised it was not an easy thing he meant to do at all. But he wanted to now more than ever. This was the moment. After a few seconds of flustered silence he took his left hand from behind his back and offered something to her. She looked down. In his grasp there was something beautiful, a turquoise, opalescent flower, just like the ones that grew by the door…Her eyes widened for a moment and then she fainted away, as lightly as a snowflake falling to earth, in a swoon of death.

What happened on that Christmas morning became my greatest secret, and one that has guaranteed my silence all these years, if any such guarantee were needed. Perhaps it is best I can never tell this tale, and not merely because my guilt is thereby hidden. Since it will never meet the harsh air of the world, in this tale, at least, something of the magic of those far-off things, happy or unhappy I no longer know, will be preserved.

Now I am old and hoary. I have enough wit to tend to my bees and sell their honey and keep myself warm in my shed. My eyes are still clear, and my hearing keen, and every day more is added to my store of secrets. In secrets I am richer than any man that ever lived. And though I am old, the sun on the grass looks the same to me as it ever did, and the grass beneath my feet feels the same. I have no need to envy the spring. I have not opened my mouth to speak, and what is inside me has remained the same and ever-young. Perhaps I am the idiot people say I am, for every day the world's cruel wonder leaves me speechless. And I know that even if I tried to speak, even if I forced a sound, with the first, painful birth cry of my voice there would start a wailing, weeping howl that would go on forever.

QUENTIN S. CRISP

was born in 1972 in Devon, England. He has written stories since his childhood, generally in a dark and fantastic vein. His first collection of short stories, The Nightmare Exhibition, was published in 2000 by BJM Press, receiving praise from Thomas LIgotti amongst others. Another collection, Rule Dementia!, is expected from Rainfall Books in 2004. His influences range from Lovecraft through Burroughs to the likes of Mishima Yukio and Nagai Kafu. His interest in Eastern culture has led him to live in Taiwan and Japan, where he was generally to be observed walking aimlessly about alleyways and drinking great quantities of green tea. He is currently hovering in limbo somewhere between the planes of life and death.

By Mark West

The party had been going well, until Tim Garrett decided to make his move.

The Brooks-Hammond Associates Christmas party was a big occasion, with every member of staff - from warehouse operatives through to the directors - attending. Held in the Gaffney Royal Hotel, everyone was expected to dress the part and behave accordingly. Of course, this never usually happened but minor infringements of both - like the sales girls in their tiny handkerchiefs of tops, or a warehouse man doing a drunken dance - were overlooked.

Amanda Clarkson was standing outside the ballroom, quietly smoking a cigarette, to get a respite from the pounding beat of the disco. For some reason, her office had sat at a table next to a set of speakers, where it was impossible to hear any conversation or think straight.

Even with the ringing in her ears, the hotel had that quietness to it that well-heeled establishments tend to have. Thick carpets muffled footsteps, the walls were covered with expensive wallpaper and paintings and the noise of the party was contained by the heavy doors. Out here, on her own, she could collect her thoughts before heading back into the onslaught of loud music and drunken conversation.

"Well hello there."

Amanda turned to see the speaker and cringed. She'd only been working at B-HA for six months, but had heard all about Tim Garrett, National Retail Sales Manager. A short, pudgy, balding man, he thought he was God's gift to young women and didn't hesitate to prove it. Amanda had been informed that, at twenty-one, she'd be a prime target and had better watch out.

"Hi," she said.

"Tim Garrett," he said, smiling broadly at her, "NRSM. And who might you be?"

"Amanda, I work in Finance."

"A new girl, eh?" The smile dissolved into a leer.

She nodded, moving slowly towards the ballroom door.

Garrett was leaning on the doorframe of the Gents. His tie was halfway down his chest, the knot tiny where he'd pulled it without loosening it first. His shirt - dark blue with white collars and cuffs - was dark at the armpits and there was a crusty trail of gravy down his front. His face was streaked with thin streams of red, where sweat had caused the colour to run in the party hat he was wearing at a jaunty angle.