Best New Horror #26

Richard Gavin THE PATTER OF TINY FEET

AGAINST HIS BETTER judgement Sam stopped the car and allowed his smart phone to connect with Andrea’s. The ear-piece purled enough times to allow him to envision Andrea sitting smugly cross-armed, eyeing her vibrating phone, ignoring his extension of the olive branch. Choking back the indignation he still believed was truly righteous, Sam obeyed the recorded instructions and waited for the tone.

“Hi, it’s me,” he began, trying not to be distracted by the escarpment’s belittling sprawl of glacial rock and ancient forests. “Look, I’m sorry I stormed out like that. It was childish of me, I admit. I’m happy about your promotion, I truly am, it’s just…well…I suppose I was a little shocked by how much your new position alters our plans.” He was lecturing again. Andrea had accused him of it often enough. Was he also being high-handed, as she liked to claim?

“Anyhow, I really do have some scouting to do, that wasn’t a lie. But I wanted to call you before I got too far out and lost the signal. I’ve got my equipment in the car with me. I’m going to snap a few locations just to get Dennis off my back. I should be back in a few hours, so hopefully we can talk more then. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and get you to change your mind about anything. I…I guess I just need to know that a family’s not completely off the table for us. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but at some point in the not too distant future I’d…”

He could feel himself babbling. Already his first few statements had grown hazy; he winced at their possible fawning stupidity.

“I’ll see you when I get home. Love you lots.”

The jeep that was scaling the mountain behind him gave Sam an unpleasant start when he spotted its swelling reflection in his rear-view mirror. The deafening beat of its stereo, no doubt worth more than the vehicle itself, caused the poorly folded maps on Sam’s dashboard to hum and vibrate as though they were maimed birds attempting to flap their crumpled wings. The jeep rumbled past and the girl in its passenger seat was whooping and laughing a shrill musical laugh that Sam half believed was directed at him. He started his engine and cautiously veered back onto Appleby Line to resume his half-hearted search for a paragon of terror.

He’d not been lying about the mounting pressure from Dennis, a director who possessed the eccentricities and ego of many legendary cineastes, but completely lacked their genius. After helming two disastrous made-for-television teen comedies Dennis broke off to form his own minuscule film production company, Startling Image. Freak luck had furnished his operation with a grant from the Ontario Film Board, which Dennis said he planned to stretch as far as it could go. His scheme was to produce shoestring-budget horror films that would be released directly to DVD. Dennis believed this plot was not only foolproof but, in fact, an expressway to wealth and industry prestige.

Although Sam’s experience in movie-making allowed him to see the idiocy of Dennis’s delusions, being a freelancer required Sam to accept any jobs that came his way during leaner times. Location Manager was an impressive title on paper, but with anorexic productions such as Gnawers, Startling Image’s inaugural zombie infestation film, Sam found himself working twice as hard for a third of his usual compensation. He was contracted for a major Hollywood studio film that was going into production in Toronto next spring and had only accepted Dennis’ offer in order to bring in some extra money. The draconian hours, the director’s tantrums, and the risible script for Gnawers would have all been worth it had Andrea kept her word.

But now it seemed there would be no need to furnish their guest bedroom with a crib and rocking chair and a chiming mobile on the ceiling. Instead there would only be Andrea’s customary seven-day workweeks, her quarterly bonuses spent on ever-sleeker gadgets and more luxurious clothing. Sam’s wants were simple: to know the pleasures of progeny, fatherhood, to watch someone born of love and blessed with love growing up and sequentially awakening to all the wonders of life. His grandfather had advised Sam years ago that there comes a time in every man’s life when all he wants is to hear the patter of tiny feet.

Now thirty-eight, Sam had come to appreciate the wisdom of the cliché, and also the cold sorrow of realising that this natural desire might shrivel up unfulfilled. What then? Sunday afternoon cocktails with Andrea’s fellow brokers, with him chasing an endless string of movie gigs until, perhaps, he could found a company of his own?

Only when the car began to chug and lurch in an attempt to scale the road’s sudden incline did Sam realise he’d allowed his foot to ease off the gas pedal. He stomped down on it, and the asthmatic sounds the engine released made him wince. This far up the escarpment, well past the Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area, the road hosted surprise hairpin turns that required a driver’s full alertness. Sam shook the cobwebs from his head and willed his focus on the narrow road before him.

Had he not been so determined to exceed Dennis’ expectations, Sam might have let the peripheral image pass by unexplored. But his determination to prove his worth, now not only to Dennis but also to Andrea (maybe even to himself as well), inspired Sam to edge his car onto the nearest thing the narrow lane had to a shoulder. He gathered his hip-bag and exited the vehicle. With eyes fixated on the alluring quirk in the landscape, he began to climb the rocky wall that fed off the laneway.

The stiff pitch of a shingled roof was what had commanded his attention after a rather long and uneventful drive around the escarpment. It jutted up, all tar shingles and snugly carpentered beams, amidst the leafless knotty tree-line. As he climbed upward and then began to wriggle across the inhospitable terrain, Sam questioned the housetop’s reality. Had his anxious state conspired with his imagination to impress a structure where one could not be?

A few more cautious footsteps were all that was required to confirm the substance of his glimpse.

It was a wooden-frame house whose two storeys might have sprouted stiffly from the overgrown rockery that ringed its base. Blatantly abandoned, Sam couldn’t help but note how the house’s battered walls, punctured roof, and boarded windows did not convey the usual faint melancholy or eeriness that most neglected homes do. Instead, there was an air of what might be called power. Sam wondered if the house had drawn strength from its solitude, become self-perpetuating, self-sufficient, like the mythical serpent that sustains itself by devouring its own tail.

The site was so tailored to his wishes that for a moment Sam almost believed in providence. Lugging the film crew’s equipment up and along this incline would be arduous, but he was confident that it would be worth the extra effort. Given the anorexic budget for Gnawers, even Dennis could not balk at the richness of this location.

The place was almost fiendishly apt. They would have to bring generators here to power the equipment, and a survey of the house would be required to gauge its safety hazards, but it could work. More than work; it could shine.

As he entered the clearing where the farmhouse stood, Sam lifted his hands to frame his view in a crude approximation of a camera lens. Yet this simple gesture was enough to transform his roaming of the derelict grounds into a long and elaborate establishing shot. One by one he took in the set-pieces that may well have been left there just for him: the crumbling stone steps that led up to the empty doorframe, the rust-mangled shell of a tractor that slumped uselessly at the head of the gravel clearing, the wind-plucked barn whose arches resembled the fossilised wings of a prehistoric bird of prey. It was glorious, perfect.

Sam wished he had someone there to share it with. But surely Andrea would not draw as much pleasure from this as he did. Her interest in movies extended only as far as attending the local premieres of any productions Sam had worked on. Beyond that, Andrea’s world revolved around crunching numbers for her clients.

For a cold moment Sam imagined one day teaching his son or daughter the thrill of seeking out the special nooks of the world. For Sam, movies were secondary. Their presentation invariably paled against the sparkling wonder of discovering the richly atmospheric settings that often hide out from the rambling parade of progress: art deco bars, grand old theatres, rural churches, and countless other places like this very farm.

He fought back the wring of depression by freeing the camera from his hip-bag and beginning to snap photos of the potential set. Moving around to the rear of the house chilled Sam, even though the April sun was still pouring modest warmth on the terrain. Perhaps the sight of the high shuttered room unnerved him. Regardless, it would make an excellent shot in Gnawers. With this many possibilities Sam’s mind began to thrum with startling revisions that could be made to the script.

A wooden well sat at the edge of the property, mere inches from the untamed forest. Sam approached it, struck by just how crude it was. The surface had not even been sanded. It still bore the mossy flaking bark of the tree from which it had been hewn. Sam might have mistaken it for the stump of a great evergreen had the mouth of the stout barrel not been secured with a large granite slab that was held in place by ancient-looking ropes. Or were they vines?

Regardless, the well or cistern could have been part of the topography, for it did not look fashioned in any way, merely capped. It was as if a massive log had been shoved down into the mud. Its base was overgrown with weeds so sun-bleached they resembled nerves.

Sam frowned at the thought of how its water might taste.

The house had no back door, so Sam hastened his way to the open door-frame that faced the incline, excited by the prospect of the house’s interior.

The forest had shared its debris with the main hall. The oiled floorboards were carpeted with broken boughs and leaves and dirt. Sam clicked several shots of the living room with its lone furnishing of a broken armchair, of the pantry that was lined with dusty preserves, of the kitchen with its dented wood stove.

To his mind he’d already collected more than ample proof that this location would suit the film, but just to cross every “T”: a few quick shots of the second storey. After that he would go back home. He had a strange and sudden need to snuggle up to Andrea, in a well-lit room, with the world held at bay beyond locked doors.

Something in the way the main stairs creaked underfoot gave Sam pause. He came to question whether the house was truly abandoned after all. It must have been the echo of the groaning wood, but the sound managed to plant the idea that the upper floor was occupied.

“Hello?” he called, only scarcely aware of the fact that his hand had begun fishing one of the contracts for location use out of his hip-bag. Drawing some absurd sense of security from the legal papers in his fist, Sam scaled the steps, listening all the while for noises that never managed to overpower his own.

An investigation of the first two rooms revealed precious little beyond more dust, greater decay. Sam’s discovery of a dismantled crib in the front bedroom did summon a lump in his throat. Why should he be so moved by so banal an image—slatted wood stacked in a corner? No doubt because he and Andrea would likely never have to do the same in their home.

His emotions were running unbridled, a delayed response to his argument with Andrea. One last room and then home to see if his own desire for a family could be rescued or simply left to erode until his heart became as rotted and hollow as this house.

The final room sat behind a door that was either locked or merely stuck in a moisture-warped jamb. Amidst the gouges on its surface was a carving of a humanoid figure dancing upon what Sam assumed was intended to be a tomb. In place of a head the figure bore an insect with thin legs represented by jagged slashes in the door wood. Beneath this glyph the word SEPA had been scratched.

Sam wriggled the iron doorknob until frustration and mounting curiosity impelled him to wrench it, slamming his weight against the door itself.

If the owner had secured the door with a lock, it had snapped under Sam’s moderate force. Still, Sam allowed a quick pang of guilt to pass through and punish him for the damage he’d wrought. But really, who would ever discover it?

The window in the room was half-covered by planks, but poor workmanship did not allow the wood to block out the light or protect the grimy glass. A cursory glance led Sam to believe that this room has been used for storage, for there were more items here than in all the other rooms combined: a long table, a wall-mounted shelf upon which books and what looked to be little wooden toys or figurines had been set, even a thin cot mattress carpeting the far corner. Bulging black trash bags were heaped along the wall. Sam daringly peeked into one of the open hems, discovering a bundle of old clothing, men’s and women’s both, wadded up in a gender-bending tangle.

All the items in the room suddenly quilted themselves together in Sam’s mind, forming a larger picture that suggested the house was someone’s home. He felt his bones go as cold and stiff as pipes in midwinter. Fear had bolted him to the spot. He listened, cursing himself for lumbering through the house so brazenly, so noisily.

Ribbons of sunlight poured in between the askew planks. Sam’s gaze followed them as they seemed to spotlight the coating of dust that covered the mattress, the rodent droppings that littered the brownish pillow. The table reposed under streamers of cobweb and the titles on the book spines were occluded by dirt. A bedroom or squatter’s den it might have been, but no longer. Sam exhaled loudly with relief.

After three or four shots of the room he indulged himself by stealing a few pictures of the neglected items: first the grubby bed, then the desk, and finally the items that lined the bowing shelf.

He regretted blowing on the row of books once the dust mushroomed up, flinging grit into his eyes and choking him. When the cloud settled Sam squinted his runny eyes at the spines: The Egyptian Book of the Dead, De Vermis Mysteriis, The Trail of the Many-Footed One. Leaning against these clothbound books was what looked to be a photo album or scrapbook. Sam carefully shifted this volume to face him and pulled back its plain brown leather cover.

Photographs that looked to have been torn from entomology textbooks were sloppily pasted next to Egyptian papyri that, if the ugly hand-written footnotes were to be trusted, all dealt with an Egyptian funerary god named Sepa. There were also sepia-toned photographs of tiny churchyards. Some of the graves appeared upset. Repeated misspelled notes praised the Guardian of the Larvae of the Dead. Upon one of the pages was a poem in faded pencil scrawling:

Sam closed the cover and wiped his fingers on his jacket. His attempt to return the scrapbook to its perch was made sloppy by his unsteady hand. Something fell from the shelf and landed on the table with a clunk. Not wanting to touch anything else in the room, Sam tugged his jacket sleeve down to protect his hand while he lifted the Mason jar from the tabletop. Whatever the brownish substance was inside, it certainly had heft. Sam rotated the jar slowly, trying to discern its contents without truly wanting the answer. He took a step toward the window. Through the boards he could see the capped well, looking much like an ugly coin lying within the weedy lawn.

Holding the jar up to the light, Sam saw enough to suggest that what it held was indeed a wad of centipedes preserved in some sludgy liquid. His stomach turned, and he quickly returned the jar to the shelf. Next to it Sam noticed what looked to be a wooden phallus. But this sexual aid was spiked with a number of toothpick legs. He did not bother to count them.

Shock was the only force that retarded Sam. Had his brain not registered the sight of the closet door opening, had his eyes not caught the suggestion of the shape in the darkened alcove, he would have run wildly, been out of this house, been racing through the sunlit woods, his car keys in his fist.

But the image of the seated cadaver was strange enough, stunning enough, to momentarily stifle Sam’s instinct to flee. Its flesh was the colour of fresh concrete, causing it to glow like greying embers within the lightless closet. The legs were spindle-thin and the chest was sunken. Its head was obscured by a cowl of some kind.

What an awful way to be interred, Sam thought. He marvelled at how the mind almost short-circuits when its limitations are exposed.

When the figure suddenly rose and bounded into the room it was clear it had not been left to rot in some locked farmhouse room. It had been waiting in the closet, like an ascetic in a confessional. Its face was shaded by what looked to be a flowing habit of fringed brown leather that crackled as the figure advanced, sounding like something dry, something moulted.

Sam wondered if he had stumbled into one of the improved scenes he’d been imagining.

But in the movies the dead do not move this quickly.

In a swift and seamless motion the monkish figure reached into one of the piled trash bags, causing it to tip. The bones it held clattered out onto the dusty floor like queerly shaped dice. The skulls stared with grinning indifference as the figure clutched Sam with one hand, while the other raised the chunky femur and brought it down like a primitive club. Sam never even had time to scream.

The pain in the back of his skull woke Sam and also played havoc with his perceptions. What else could explain the presence of the moon or the fact that everything else around him had been swallowed by darkness?

He pressed his hands down on the cushiony surface beneath him and slowly, achingly, pushed himself upright before slumping right back down again. The air was frigid and damp. He could see his breath forming ghosts on the blackness. Confusion over where he was gave way to a sharp panic as memories of the farmhouse shuffled their way back into Sam’s consciousness like cards being dealt: the tomes and the symbols and the grey attacker…

With an unsteady hand Sam prodded his trouser pockets, pleading silently that his smart phone was still there. It was, though its screen was cracked. He mashed at it with bloodless fingers, trying to connect with the world by any means possible. But the device’s only use was as a source of weak glowing light. Its graphics were but a smear of colour.

Sam waved the phone about like a torch. What it illuminated was an upright tunnel of textured wood. Grubs and clumped soil dangled here and there. The atmosphere was uncomfortably moist.

The well…

Craning his aching head, Sam watched as clouds scuttled across the moon’s face and he wondered how long he had been down here. The light on his phone began to flicker like a guttering candle.

Another shadow suddenly blocked the moon. This one did not pass but instead stretched across the crude mouth of the well.

The figure that was bent over the rim then made a gesture.

Only after Sam had screamed out “Help me! Please!” did he conclude that this shadowy visitor must be the man who’d attacked him.

Words came down the chute, ricocheting off the wooden walls. They were indecipherable, guttural, almost inhuman. Whether there was meaning to them or whether it was merely the vibration of the alien voice, the ground began to shift in response to the stimuli. And soon Sam felt himself being flung as the cushioned base upon which he’d been lying began to rise and scale the side of its den.

It was immense. Sam foolishly wondered how long it must have taken his attacker to find a log large enough to shelter such a creature. By the moon’s pallor-glow Sam could just see the man raising his arms to imitate the flailing mandibles of the great scuttling thing that bucked its head in mirror-perfect mimicry of these gestures. The barbarous words were now being bellowed in a euphoric tone. Their rhythm matched the clacking of the thick stingers that parted and shut on the insect’s rump.

Horror and irony besieged Sam in a great steely wave. He could only listen to the sound he’d so longed to hear: the patter of tiny feet. Only this time they were multiplied a hundredfold. Sam almost laughed, and a second later his light went out.