The Best New Horror 2 (23 page)

He’d thought the old man was in his rear-view mirror, but the wrinkle-smoothing shock on the aged face when the Mini snarled forward brought Linden’s foot crashing down on the brake pedal. The car juddered and stalled. Linden sank his head onto the wheel and waited for the old man and several bystanders to stop screaming at him.

As soon as he got in he went to the fridge for a long drink of cold milk. He opened the fridge door and recoiled. There were two bottles of blood on the shelf.

He washed and shaved to see if that would remove some of the tension. He looked awful in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot.

He switched on the television, but the newsreaders’ eyes were all bloodshot as well, and their red teeth made them look like they’d just been eating raw hamburgers with Egerton.

He got hungry but couldn’t bring himself to touch the eggs which were all that he had in the way of food. He went out to a restaurant and ordered a salad. He shouted at the waitress: how dare she put tomato
ketchup on his salad? Drawing angry red stares he stalked out of the restaurant and crossed the road to a fish and chip shop, but the woman started sprinkling little dried flecks of bloody dandruff onto his chips, so he left in disgust.

By morning there was milk in his fridge again and he could enjoy a normal breakfast before driving to work.

“Are you all right, Brian?” Whitehead wanted to know.

“Yes. Why?” he snapped.

“You look a bit harassed, that’s all.” Defensive. “You will get that editing done, won’t you?”

There seemed to be more red cars on the roads than ever. The days were already getting shorter: as he drove up Holloway Road the premature sunset was turning low clouds vermilion.

He finished at the computer on Friday morning and spent the rest of the day checking the hard copy in spite of the eyestrain. There would be no use anyone else in the office proofing it. Although he considered himself underpaid for the work he was doing, he wanted to make sure it was right, in the unlikely event of someone, somewhere appreciating the hard work that had gone into the handbook.

He drove away from the Angel, down towards the roundabout. An enormous sense of release jostled with him for space in the Mini; the end of another week in the office, no more Egerton for two days, liberation from that infernal green computer screen. Since he’d finished on-screen editing before lunch, the effect had already begun to wear off.

He just had to call in at the flat to collect his bag and any messages, then head off up the A1 to the M1 and freedom. Melanie had been working out in W14 and so was going up in her own car. She would probably have been able to get away early, so would be first at the cottage. By the time he got there she’d have it all cosy for him.

The northbound lanes on Holloway Road were chock-a-block, as Linden knew the motorway would also be when he finally reached it. Through the windscreen he admired the beginnings of the sunset; the skies above Highgate were aglow with strange lilacs. Hadn’t he seen yesterday’s sunset in his rear-view mirror rather than through the windscreen? A small detail.

He reached the turn-off for Sussex Way and his flat. The traffic being as bad as it was, he was glad he’d put his bag in the car that morning and didn’t have to make the detour to go and get it now.

He watched a Beetle worm its way out of a side street between two Escorts into the traffic-flow. If this was a stream of traffic then it was a stream of mud. He looked for the Beetle again: was it an old one with a tiny back window and semaphore indicators or a more recent model
with big rear-light clusters and fat bumpers? But he couldn’t see it and when he thought about it he couldn’t remember if he’d caught sight of it in his rear-view mirror or through the windscreen.

On the other side of the road a red Escort nosed out from beside the snooker centre and was allowed to pass between two VW Beetles. The driver of the Escort waved her thanks. Behind Linden impatient drivers pipped their horns, making him jump: the queue in front of him had moved forward.

The traffic didn’t get any better; when the M1 intersected the M25 and then merged with the M10, it got worse.

He asked Melanie to put on a tape. She chose the Organ Symphony; at least while they proceeded at 10 miles per hour he was able to hear it.

“Why don’t you go to sleep?” he asked her.

“Your car’s too noisy,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to.”

Every few hundred yards the congestion would just dissolve and Linden would get up to 30 or 40. However, it was always a brief respite and inexplicably the queue tightened up again. Eventually, though, thanks to the domestic attraction for the majority offered by places like Luton, Leighton Buzzard, Milton Keynes, Newport Pagnell and Bedford, there were fewer cars sharing the same lanes and all of them travelling at at least 65 miles per hour. The novelty soon wore off and the tedium of motorway driving set in, exacerbated by the fact that it was by now quite dark.

The tape clicked off, but since he hadn’t been able to hear it for the last half hour he didn’t bother putting another one on. He wished Melanie were with him to keep him awake. Would she be at the cottage yet, he wondered. He tried to guess who might be driving the Fiesta in front. What kind of person? He accelerated to get closer. A woman, he decided, but not like Melanie, more of a career woman, someone who saw great intrinsic worth in
belonging
to a company, a Company Girl. A female Egerton. He toed the accelerator again. Her hair would be fixed in a ‘go-ahead’ style like some kind of fossilized bird’s nest, the brain-eggs long since hatched and flown the nest, leaving only the corporate gloss of cranial vacancy in her eyes.

He was suddenly right on top of the Fiesta.

When the back end collapsed at his side and the car began to swerve, he had no idea what had happened.

He glanced at the passenger seat and seized the steering wheel like the reins of a bolting horse. Steer into the skid, they always said. But what did that mean? Go with it or against it? He swung to the left, trying to aim the front of the car at the hard shoulder and braking as gently as he could without sliding into a new skid.

He never knew how close he came to being hit by the cars which flew past him as he shuddered to a halt on the hard shoulder. He didn’t need to hold his hands out to see how much he was shaking: he was still holding the steering wheel and it was trembling, and not on account of the engine, which had stalled. Climbing over the empty seat, he got out on the passenger side, and walked unsteadily round the back of the car to see what had happened. A blowout. The back tyre on the driver’s side was shredded. He could just make out the word REMOULD.

He got back in the car and told Melanie what had happened. She was calmer now; the shock had been greater for her since she’d been asleep when it had happened.

He took his spanner and a jack from the boot and set about taking the wheel off. The first nut was a bit difficult so he worked at the other three, which all came off after some effort. The first one wouldn’t budge; the spanner’s grip began to slide on the nut.

“Shit!” He leant against the Mini, watching the cars streaking past.

He tried the nut again but the spanner was now far too big for it; he was just wearing the edges away; if he continued, it would become impossible to remove.

Linden stopped for breath and looked back up the hard shoulder to see if he could still see the Mini. The car itself was invisible but the hazard lights flashed on and off and on again. They were much brighter than he would have imagined and he was grateful for them. He continued walking.

Cars sped past him, occupants’ faces blank white spaces turned towards him, yet he’d never felt more alone. The sky was black, clouded over; the darkness of the land beyond the motorway uninterrupted by lights. Not even farmers lived here. People only drove through. He fastened all three buttons of his jacket and pulled up the collar. Where the hell was the emergency telephone? One just a few yards from his car was out of order. As was its opposite number which he had reached illegally by crossing the six lanes of the motorway.

Eventually he came upon a telephone which worked and he was able to call for assistance. It seemed so unlikely, that there should be a man waiting by a telephone to take his call and send another man out in a van to rescue him. And yet that was the system he paid for. He was of course glad now that he
had
subscribed.

He began to walk back. The cold penetrated his thin jacket. Cars swept by only a few feet away, making him feel vulnerable. He lost count of the bridges he passed under. The horizon failed to yield the flashing orange of his hazards. He began to worry that somehow he’d gone wrong. He’d not crossed back after running over to try the telephone on the other side. “Don’t be stupid,” he said out loud, but the sound of his voice, so feeble and vain, frightened him. He decided
that he would turn back at the next bridge, and as the next bridge came into sight, so too did the hazard lights.

They belonged to a P-reg Ford Cortina. A woman with bad teeth sitting in the passenger seat threw him a nervous glance then looked away.

The Mini was another 200 yards further up. As he narrowed the gap from behind, a trick of the shadows cast by passing headlamps made it look like there were two people already sitting in the front seats.

He clambered in and waited for the van to arrive.

Each passing car shook the little Mini. He put some music on but imagined that it prevented him from hearing the footsteps of an interloper approaching the car. He pressed EJECT. Melanie said: “They won’t be long.”

It started to rain. Big fat drops exploded on the windscreen. He pictured Melanie at the cottage: making a drink, running a bath, watching the television. He wished he were with her. How long would it be before she started to worry? The rain rattled on the roof as if it were a tent. Suddenly a brilliant flash created a second’s daylight in the night. Then the thunder began to roll, like a solo by a drunken timpanist.

When the serviceman arrived, Linden joined him in the teeming rain, but the man couldn’t shift the nut either.

“It’s only a mile to the next services,” the man shouted over the noise of the storm. “I’ll tow you there. It’ll be easier. I’ll be able to get this nut off. More space, more light.”

Linden nodded and climbed into the cab as directed.

“It’s not far,” the man said, when he’d hitched up the back of the Mini to his truck. They moved off and stayed on the hard shoulder. After ten or fifteen minutes the lights of the services sparkled through the rain. Linden left the man to change the wheel and walked across the rain-slick tarmac to the complex.

In the self-service restaurant he sat down in a red plastic seat with a cup of stewed tea. He was alone in the place apart from a smartly dressed couple who stared miserably at each other’s shoulders across a crumb-strewn table.

He stood looking at the telephones, wishing they’d gone to the trouble and expense of installing one in the cottage.

Crossing over the covered footbridge, he stopped in the middle and watched the traffic sweeping underneath in both directions. He felt like a pivot between the two carriageways, as if with his mind he could just switch them. A flash of lightning printed a colour negative on his retina, sending a shiver down his back and dropping a chilled weight in his stomach. With a vague sense of foreboding he reached the end
of the bridge and walked down the steps. In the hall area a number of people were grouped around a video game. He joined the back of the group, which was murmuring its praise of the game-player. Someone moved to give Linden a better view. He stood behind a man with tight curly blond hair, whose hands, he now saw, were manipulating the game’s joystick and firing button.

Ships and creatures fell from the top of the screen towards the bottom. The game-player had his own unit which he had to defend and from which he could attack the ships and creatures which if they came into contact with his unit would destroy it. The game was probably an old one, but the curly-haired man was obviously playing it extremely well to have attracted spectators.

The screen was bright green.

Linden was transfixed. He barely registered the man clicking his fingers as he relaxed between one attack and the next.

The screen seemed to get brighter, like a television in a darkening room.

Linden leaned closer. Slowly he began to turn his head to see the face of the man who was playing. But before he finished the turn he shot round the other way and barged his way out of the crowd, running for the doors.

His head pounding, he searched for his car. On the far side of the parking area he saw the serviceman’s truck, its orange light still revolving. The man was bending down at the Mini’s rear nearside, just tightening the last nut on the changed wheel.

“Quickly,” Linden croaked. “I’ve got to go.”

“All right, all right,” the man said, kicking the wheel trim into place. “You’ve got to sign my forms.”

The man walked too slowly to the cab of his truck and shuffled around some papers on a clipboard. Linden hovered at his shoulder.

“There,” the man said, pointing with a stubby finger.

Linden leaned over. The paper was red. He looked at the man, who pointed again and rubbed a sore red eye with his free hand. Linden scrawled his signature.

“And there.”

He signed again and dropped the pen onto the floor of the cab in his haste to get away.

He jumped into the Mini, rammed it into first, thrust the key into the ignition and started the engine as he released the handbrake and turned the wheel. He accelerated and stamped on the brake when he thought he was going to run the serviceman over: but he was behind him in the rear-view mirror, waving his arms and shouting something Linden couldn’t hear. He screeched away and built up speed, aiming for the slip road to get back on the motorway. He ignored a road sign
which he didn’t recognise—a solid red circle—and sped between two bollards. The man’s alarmed face receded to a fleck in his mirror.

The motorway was fairly clear so he accelerated straight into the centre lane, pressing the pedal to the floor. He soon caught up with the red lights ahead. Too quickly, in fact. Suddenly there were swarms of red lights apparently speeding towards him in all three lanes, as if reversing down the motorway at 70 miles per hour.