999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [142]
He stood swaying a little, unable to retreat from the sight. He heard the policemen murmur together and withdraw, and their descent of the stairs, and eventually the dual slam of car doors and the departure of the vehicle. His reflection still hadn’t allowed him to move. It was no use his telling himself that some of the tangle of wrinkles might be cobwebs, not when his hair was no longer graying but white. “All right, I see it,” he yelled—he had no idea at whom. “I’m old. I’m old.”
“Soon,” said a whisper like an escape of gas in the corridor, along which darkness was approaching as the lamps failed one by one. “You’ll be plenty of fun yet,” the remains of another voice said somewhere in his room. Before he could bring himself to look for its source, an item at the end of most of an arm fumbled around the door and switched out the light. The dark felt as though his vision was abandoning him, but he knew it was the start of another game. Soon he would know if it was worse than hide-and-seek—worse than the first sticky unseen touch of the web of the house on his face.
Edward Lee
ICU
Edward Lee appeared like a gift on my doorstep. I don’t mean literally; I mean only that his story “ICU” is one of the few in this hook that I didn’t specifically commission but which knocked my socks off when I had it in my hands. The story has the finger-snapping graphic-image intensity of a Quentin Tarrantino script, with, I think, a little more juice in the veins and conscience in the cabeza.
Lee has published steadily in the field since the early 1980s; his work includes older books like Incubi and Succubi, as well as more recent efforts such as Sacrifice (as Richard Kinion). A limited edition short story collection, The Ushers and Other Stories, was published in 1998.
It chased him; it was huge. But what was it? He sensed its immensity gaining on him, pursuing him through unlit warrens, around cornerways of smothered flesh, and down alleys of ichor and blood …
Holy Mother of God.
When Paone fully woke, his mind felt wiped out. Dull pain and confinement crushed him, or was it paralysis? Warped images, voices, smears of light and color all massed in his head. Francis “Frankie” Paone shuddered in the terror of the nameless thing that chased him through the rabbets and fissures of his own subconscious mind.
Yes, he was awake now, but the chase led on:
Storming figures. Concussion. Blood squirting onto dirty white walls.
And like a slow-dissolve, Paone finally realized what it was that chased him. Not hitters. Not cops or feds.
It was memory that chased him.
But the memory of what?
The thoughts surged. Where am I? What the hell happened to me?
This latter query, at least, shone clear. Something had happened. Something devastating …
The room was a blur. Paone squinted through grit teeth; without his glasses he couldn’t see three feet past his face.
But he could see enough to know.
Padded leather belts girded his chest, hips, and ankles, restraining him to a bed which seemed hard as slate. He couldn’t move. To his right stood several metal poles topped by blurred blobs. A long line descended … to his arm. IV bags, he realized. The line came to an end at the inside of his right elbow. And all about him swarmed unmistakable scents: antiseptics, salves, isopropyl alcohol.
I’m in a fucking hospital, he acknowledged.
Someone must’ve dropped a dime on him. But … He simply couldn’t remember. The memories hovered in fragments, still chasing his spirit without mercy. Gunshots. Blood. Muzzleflash.
His myopia offered even less mercy. Beyond the bed he could detect only a vague white perimeter, shadows, and depthless bulk. A drone reached his ears, like a distant air conditioner, and there was a slow, aggravating beep: the drip-monitor for his IV. Overhead, something swayed. Hanging flowerpot? he ventured. No, it