The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

All the way downstairs in the lift, Abbie’s thinking this can’t be real, thinking this has to be a dream, thinking please let me wake up before—

But it is, it isn’t, she can’t.

The lift doors open in the basement and she heads out, Dermot following in her wake. He’s trotting after her, she realises with disgust. Trying to hide his excitement and failing. Miserably.

But who’s more disgusting, him or her?

The custody sergeant doesn’t look up from his paper at either of them as they pass. Determinedly. He knew they were coming. And he knew, just as well, that he wasn’t going to, didn’t want to see them.

Abbie leads Dermot down past the row of cells. They’re all empty tonight. That’s been arranged.

There’s a slap of paper, the sound of boots on a tiled floor. She glances round to see the custody sergeant walking out fast. Getting out before the sounds start. Well, there’ll be nothing else in here demanding his attention tonight.

She puts the key in the lock and opens the cell door. Light from the corridor spills into the darkness.

“Mummy?” The voice is tiny, thin and blurred. “Daddy?”

Dermot stands at the threshold, not going in yet.

“Go on then,” she says. He doesn’t move.

“Mummy?”

This time she prods his shoulder. “Go on.”

Dermot’s head snaps round and for a second Abbie is afraid. But he’s only smiling. Smiling and holding her with his eyes. Till she drops her gaze.

Then he’s moving, tired of the game, and into the cell. Abbie pulls the door shut behind him, but not fast enough to evade a glimpse of the child’s face, bewildered and afraid, or shut out the beginnings of her cry.

Dermot hears Stone’s footsteps recede down the corridor. He puts the briefcase down on the floor and loosens his tie.

The little girl has backed up against the far wall.

Dermot opens the briefcase and takes his tools out one by one. He puts them on the floor beside the case. And then he starts to undress.

In the pub, afterward, Carnegie is on his third double Scotch and Abbie’s forsaken her usual white wine spritzer for a vodka tonic. She’s on her third. There’s been less and less tonic in each one.

“You did good today,” he says. Thick and slurred, but drunkenly sincere.

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“It’s got to be done,” he says. “They need us. Otherwise…”

She knows. Knows what would happen without Dermot to tell them where the latest batch of creatures are incubating, ready to wake to murderous life. Knows you do your time in Special Projects — a year, two, maybe three — and then the world’s your oyster, a fast track to any job you want, or if you don’t want one anymore, early retirement on a fat pension. There’s a reason for that. A price you pay.

She downs her vodka, digs out her mobile, rings for a cab. She feels bad, a little, about leaving Carnegie to drink alone, but sharing the bar with him just makes her remember what she’s now part of.

“What time do you need me in tomorrow?”

“Don’t bother. Come in in the afternoon.” His watery blue eyes are bloodshot. “You passed the test, Abbie. You’re in. I’ll handle the cleanup.”

Normally, she’d object to being treated like the little woman. But this time around, she doesn’t mind.

She weaves out the door to the waiting cab.

Alone now, Carnegie downs the last of his whisky. Without being asked, the barman brings him another.

Carnegie bolts half of it in one, feels it burn its way down. Tomorrow, he’ll go to cell thirteen, like so many times before. Dermot will be lying there, naked and pallid as a grub, clothes bagged up in a Tesco plastic carrier, tools already wiped spotless and back in the briefcase.

Carnegie will wake him up and take him to the showers. Get the blood off. When he’s clean and dressed, he’ll drive Dermot home. But first he’ll have to go back into the thirteenth cell, and before they come to hose it down, he’ll have to gather the bones.

BLACK FEATHERS Alison Littlewood

There was a raven at the edge of the woods. It was huge — even its beak looked as long as Mia’s fingers. She stared at it and Little Davey laughed at her. Mia wrinkled her nose. Little Davey was younger than her by a year, but he wasn’t that little anymore. He was as tall as she was and twice as loud, and he rode a bike much quicker than she could. He stood in front of her now, him and Sam Oakey and Jack Harris from down the road, and Sarah Farnham who was more like a boy than one of the boys. Mia stared at the raven. She didn’t want to go into the woods, could smell its rank green warmth even from here. It was loaded with dark, with mystery, with her brother’s mocking laughter as he turned his bike towards the trees.

“Come on,” he said. “Last one in’s a chicken.” He started pedalling and the others followed him one by one, Sarah giving one ring of her bicycle bell, but none of them saying a word.