The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

THE GRAB by Richard Laymon

There’s a point of view that writers are born, not made, and it’s one that has its pros and cons. If you ask around, however, you’ll perhaps be surprised to learn just how many published writers had that “burning urge to write” at about the time they first learned to push a pencil across a ruled page. Case in point: Richard Laymon, who confesses: “I have always, for as far back as I can recall, wanted to be a fiction writer. When I was a kid, I used to fool around writing a novel after school, when I was supposed to be doing my homework. I submitted my first story to a magazine at age 12. The magazine, Bluebook for Men. didn’t see its merit.” Well, Bluebook was always a tough market to crash, as the older pulp writers will tell you, and Laymon did manage to sell his first story seven years later—to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (no easy mark, at that). More stories followed.

Born in Chicago in 1947, Laymon moved to California in 1963, and is now a resident of Los Angeles. He was an English major at Williamette University in Salem (Oregon) and took an M.A. in English literature from Loyola University of Los Angeles, after which he taught ninth grade for one dismal year before turning to librarianship. Proceeds from his first novel, The Cellar, rescued Laymon in 1980 and allowed him to write full time. Warner Books also published Laymon’s second adult horror novel, The Woods Are Dark, in 1981, and this year has published Out Are the Lights. In Britain, New English Library is bringing out two other horror novels, Beware! and Night Show. For young horror addicts, Scholastic Books has published Your Secret Admirer (as by “Carl Laymon”), and Dell has just brought out Nightmare Lake. Perhaps these will inspire other young readers to ignore their homework.

“The Grab” is a story that would have fit perfectly in one of the old E.C. horror comics—drawn, no doubt, by Jack Davis.

My old college roomie, Clark Addison, pulled into town at sundown with a pickup truck, a brand-new gray Stetson, and a bad case of cowboy fever.

“What kind of nightlife you got in this one-hearse town?” he asked after polishing off a hamburger at my place.

“I see by your outfit you don’t want another go at the Glass Palace.”

“Disco’s out, pardner. Where you been?”

With that, we piled into his pickup and started scouting for an appropriate night spot. We passed the four blocks of downtown Barnesdale without spotting a single bar that boasted of country music or a mechanical bull. “Guess we’re out of luck,” I said, trying to sound disappointed.

“Never say die,” Clark said.

At that moment, we bumped over the railroad tracks and Clark punched a forefinger against the windshield. Ahead, on the far side of the grain elevator, stood a shabby little clapboard joint with a blue neon sign: THE BAR NONE SALOON.

Short of a bucking machine, the Bar None had all the trappings needed to warm the heart of any yearning cowpoke: sawdust heaped on the floor, Merle Haggard on the juke box, Coors on tap, and skin-tight jeans on the lower half of every gal. We mosied up to the bar.

“Two Coors,” Clark said.

The bartender tipped back his hat and turned away. When the mugs were full, he pushed them toward us. “That’s one-eighty.”

“I’ll get this round,” Clark told me. Taking out his wallet, he leaned against the bar. “What kind of action you got here?” he asked.

“We got drinking, dancing, carousing, and The Grab.”

“The Grab?” Clark asked. “What is it?”

The bartender stroked his handlebar moustache as if giving the matter lots of thought. Then he pointed down the bar at a rectangular metal box. The side I could see, painted with yellow letters, read, TEST YER GUTS.

“What’s it do?” Clark asked.

“Stick around,” the bartender said. With that advice, he moved on.

Clark and I wandered over to the metal box. It stood more than two feet high, its sides about half as wide as its height. THE GRAB was painted on its front in sloppy red letters intended, no doubt, to suggest dripping blood. Its far side was printed with green: PAY $10 AND WIN.

“Wonder what you win?” Clark said.

I shrugged. Leaning over the bar, I took a peek at the rear of the box. It was outfitted with a pound of hardware and padlocked to the counter.

While I checked out the lock, Clark was busy hopping and splashing beer. “No opening on top,” he concluded.

“The only way in is from the bottom,” I said.

“Twas ever thus,” he said, forgetting to be a cowboy. He quickly recovered. “Reckon we oughta grab a couple of fillies and raise some dust.”

As we started across the room toward a pair of unescorted females, the juke box stopped. There were a few hushed voices as everyone looked toward the bartender.

“Yes,” he cried, raising his arms, “the time is now! Step on over and face The Grab. But let me warn you, this ain’t for the faint of heart, it ain’t for the weak of stomach. It ain’t a roller coaster or a tilt-a-whirl you get off, laughing, and forget. This is a genuine test of grit, and any that ain’t up to it are welcome to vamoose. Any that stay to watch or participate are honor bound to hold their peace about what takes place here tonight. Alf s curse goes on the head of any who spill the beans.”

I heard Clark laugh softly. A pale girl, beside him, looked up at Clark as if he were a curiosity.

“Any that ain’t up to it, go now,” the bartender said.

The bartender lowered his arms and remained silent while two couples headed for the door. When they were gone, he removed a thin chain from around his neck. He held it up for all to see. A diamond ring and a small key hung from it. He slid them free, and raised the ring.

“This here’s the prize. Give it to your best gal, or trade it in for a thousand dollars if you’re man enough to take it. So far, we’ve gone three weeks with The Grab, and not a soul’s shown the gumption to make the ring his own. Pretty thing, isn’t it? Okay, now gather ’round. Move on in here and haul out your cash, folks. Ten dollars is all it takes.”

We stepped closer to the metal box at the end of the bar, and several men reached for their wallets—Clark included.

“You going to do it?” I whispered to him.

“Sure.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“Can’t be that bad. They’re all gonna try it.”

Looking around at the others as they took out their money, I saw a few eager faces, some wild, grinning ones, and several that appeared pale and scared.

The bartender used his key to open the padlock at the rear of the metal box. He held up the lock, and somebody moaned in the silence.

“Dal,” a woman whispered. She was off to my left, tugging on the elbow of a burly, bearded fellow. He jerked his arm free and sneered at her. “Then go ahead, fool,” she said, and ran. The muffled thud of her cowboy boots was the only sound in the room. Near the door, she slipped on the sawdust and fell, landing on her rump. A few people laughed.

“Perverts!” she yelled as she scurried to her feet. She yanked open the door and slammed it behind her.

“Gal’s got a nervous stomach,” Dal said, grinning around at the rest of us. To the bartender, he said, “Let’s get to it, Jerry!”

Jerry set aside the padlock. He climbed onto the bar and stood over the metal container. Then he raised it. The cover slid slowly upward, revealing a glass tank like a tall, narrow aquarium. All around me, people gasped and moaned as they saw what lay at the bottom, barely visible through its gray, murky liquid. A stench of formaldehyde filled my nostrils, and I gagged.

Face up at the bottom of the tank was a severed head, its black hair and moustache moving as if stirred by a breeze, its skin wrinkled and yellow, its eyes wide open, its mouth agape.

“Well, well,” Clark muttered.

Jerry, kneeling beside the glass tank, picked up a straight-bent coat hanger with one end turned up slightly to form a hook. He slipped the diamond ring over it. Standing, he lowered the wire into the tank. The ring descended slowly, the brilliance of its diamond a dim glow in the cloudy solution. Then it vanished inside the open mouth. Jerry flicked the hanger a bit, and raised it. The ring no longer hung from its tip.

I let out a long-held breath, and looked at Clark. He was grinning.

“All you gotta do, for the thousand dollar ring, is to reach down with one hand and take it out of the dead man’s mouth. Who’ll go first?”

“That’s me!” said Dal, the bearded one whose girl had just run off. He handed a ten-dollar bill to Jerry, then swung himself onto the bar. Standing over the tank, he unbuttoned his plaid shirt.

“Let me just say,” Jerry continued, “nobody’s a loser at the Bar None Saloon. Every man with grit enough to try The Grab gets a free beer afterwards, compliments of the house.”

Throwing down his shirt, Dal knelt behind the tank. Jerry tied a black blindfold over his eyes.

“All set?”

Dal nodded. He lowered his head and took a few deep breaths, psyching himself up like a basketball player on the free-throw line. Nobody cheered or urged him on. There was dead silence. Swelling out his chest, he held his breath and dipped his right hand into the liquid. It eased lower and lower. A few inches above the face, it stopped. The thick fingers wiggled, but touched nothing. The arm reached deeper. The tip of the middle finger stroked the dead man’s nose. With a strangled yelp, Dal jerked his arm from the tank, splashing those of us nearby with the smelly fluid. Then he sighed, and shook his head as if disgusted with himself.

“Good try, good try!” Jerry cried, removing the blindfold. “Let’s give this brave fellow a hand!”

A few people clapped. Most just watched, hands at their sides or in pockets, as Jerry filled a beer mug and gave it to Dal. “Try again later, pardner. Everyone’s welcome to try as often as he likes. It only costs ten dollars. Ten little dollars for a chance at a thousand. Who’s next?”

“Me!” called the pale girl beside Clark.

“Folks, we have us a first! What’s your name, young lady?”

“Biff,” she said.

“Biff will be the very first lady ever to try her hand at The Grab.”

“Don’t do it,” whispered a chubby girl nearby. “Please.”

“Lay off, huh?”

“It’s not worth it.”

“Is to me,” she muttered, and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. She handed her purse to the other girl, then stepped toward the bar.

“Thank you, Biff,” Jerry said, taking her money.

She removed her hat, and tossed it onto the counter. She was wearing a T-shirt. She didn’t take it off. Leaning forward, she stared down into the tank. She looked sick.

Jerry tied the blindfold in place. “All set?” he asked.

Biff nodded. Her open hand trembled over the surface of the fluid. Then it slipped in, small and pale in the murkiness. Slowly, it eased downward. It sunk closer and closer to the face, never stopping until her fingertips lit on the forehead. They stayed there, motionless. I glanced up. She was tight and shaking as if naked in an icy wind.

Her fingers moved down the head. One touched an open eye. Flinching away, her hand clutched into a fist.

Slowly, her fingers fluttered open. They stretched out, trembled along the sides of the nose, and settled in the moustache. For seconds, they didn’t move. The upper lip wasn’t visible, as though it had shrunken under the moustache.

Biff’s thumb slid along the edges of the teeth. Her fingertips moved off the moustache. They pressed against the lower teeth.

Biff started to moan.

Her fingers trembled off the teeth. They spread open over the gaping mouth, and started down.

With a shriek, she jerked her hand from the tank. She tugged the blindfold off. Face twisted with horror, she shook her hand in the air and gazed at it. She rubbed it on her T-shirt and looked at it again, gasping for air.

“Good try!” Jerry said. “The little lady made a gutsy try, didn’t she, folks?”

A few of the group clapped. She stared out at us, blinking and shaking her head. Then she grabbed her hat, took the complimentary beer, and scurried off the bar.

Clark patted her shoulder. “Good going,” he said.

“Not good enough,” she muttered. “Got spooked.”

“Who’ll be next?” Jerry asked.

“Yours truly,” Clark said, holding up a pair of fives. He winked at me. “It’s a cinch,” he said, and boosted himself onto the bar. Grinning, he tipped his hat to the small silent crowd. “I have a little surprise for y’all,” he said in his thickest cowboy drawl. “You see, folks…” He paused and beamed. “Not even my best friend, Steve, knows about this, but I work full time as a mortician’s assistant.”

That brought a shocked murmur from his audience, including me.

“Why, folks, I’ve handled more dead meat than your corner butcher. This is gonna be a sure cinch.”

With that, he skinned off his shirt and knelt behind the tank. Jerry, looking a bit amused, tied the blindfold over his eyes.

“All set?” the bartender asked.

“Ready to lose your diamond ring?”

“Give it a try.”

Clark didn’t hesitate. He plunged his arm into the solution and drove his open hand downward. His fingers found the dead man’s hair. They patted him on the head. “Howdy pardner,” he said.

Then his fingers slid over the ghastly face. They tweaked the nose, they plucked the moustache. “Say ahhhh.”

He slipped his forefinger deep between the parted teeth, and his scream ripped through the silence as the mouth snapped shut.

His hand shot upward, a cloud of red behind it. It popped from the surface, spraying us with formaldehyde and blood.

Clark jerked the blindfold down and stared at his hand. The forefinger was gone.

“My finger!” he shrieked. “My God, my finger! It bit… it…”

Cheers and applause interrupted him, but they weren’t for Clark.

“Look at him go!” Dal yelled, pointing at the head.

“Go, Alf, go!” cried another.

“Alf?” I asked Biff.

“Alf Packer,” she said without looking away from the head. “The famous cannibal.”

The head seemed to grin as it chewed.

I turned to Biff, “You knew?”

“Sure. Any wimp’ll make The Grab, if he doesn’t know. When you know, it takes real guts.”

“Who’s next?” Jerry asked.

“Here’s a volunteer,” Biff called out, clutching my arm. I jerked away from her, but was restrained by half a dozen mutilated hands. “Maybe you’ll get lucky,” she said. “Alf’s a lot more tame after a good meal.”