The Best Horror of the Year – Volume One

The RisingRiver by Daniel Kaysen

The pressure started in August with a long-distance call.

"We'd all love to have you here, Amy. It would be great if you could come. Really great."

I didn't say anything, I never do. Not when my brother gets on to that topic. I just stay silent, when the pressure starts.

I listened to the hum of the phone line.

He didn't give up. He never does. "Sarah and me. And the girls. We'd all love to see you. I mean it."

I hung up the phone.

"Bad news?" said Tish, my flat-mate, from the couch.

"Christmas," I said.

"Christmas is bad news," she said. "When you're older than eight it always sucks."

She'd been my flat-mate for a whole two weeks and we still knew little about each other, but we both knew we were going to get on.

"Hey, want to do Christmas together?" she said. "Here? Just the two of us?"

"Tish, it's

August. It's a bit early to be making plans."

"You think you're going to get a better offer? Think about it-Christmas here, no family, no forced smiles at crap presents, just drunkenness and back-to-back DVDs. What's not to like?"

"Who's going to cook?"

"The Indian down the road will be open. We'll get a takeaway. Curry for Christmas lunch, what could be better?"

It didn't take much thinking about.

It was a prior engagement. It was a ready-made cast-iron excuse.

"Done deal," I said.

"Good," she said. "Just don't buy me bloody candles."

In September my brother called again.

For once I had an answer.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I've got plans already."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. It's firm. I'm sorry, but-"

"It's just… "

"I know," I said.

We hung up awkwardly.

When he rang in October he gave me bad news, and a different kind of pressure.

I couldn't bear to go to the funeral. I hate funerals. I always have done, ever since I was a child.

My brother insisted I went to this one, but I pictured my favourite grandmother looking down from heaven and telling me: "You stick to your guns, girl. Don't take any rubbish from him." She said things like that. It's why she was my favourite grandmother.

That and the fact that she'd said in her will that she wasn't fussed about a funeral but she definitely wanted a wake. My brother hated the idea. That added to the appeal.

So I skipped the funeral and drove instead to the designated pub.

Inside it was cosy and warm and already well-filled with saddened friends of the deceased. They were all in their eighties and nineties and couldn't possibly have made the church service, given that they could barely walk unassisted. But the pub, well that was entirely different. They gained new life, when it came to the pub.

I got a drink and found a table with two familiar faces. The old man's eyes lit up at the sight of me.

"It's the little'un!"

"Hello, Mr Nash," I said.

"Eva, she remembers my name! Come little'un, sit down, sit down."

"Is there room?" I said.

"Room? Sure there is, sure there is. Move yourself over, Eva, let the little'un sit down next to me. Not often I get to sit next to such a pretty young thing."

Eva, distant, moved over.

I hesitated, wondering how brave I was feeling, but I sat down between the two of them.

"Hello, Mrs Nash," I said to Eva.

Her hearing's not so good. Most times she doesn't hear you and stares into space, preoccupied.

She died five years ago, but she had gone through and beyond and retained her Eva-ness.

And she recognised me. "Oh my. The little'un! How lovely."

"See!" said Mr Nash, to me. "See!"

We smiled at each other, me and Mr Nash, like the living do in the presence of ghosts.

"But-" said Tish.

I knew I was gabbling, but I couldn't help it. I just wanted to get it out in the open.

After the funeral I had taken a risk and told her everything. The unabridged version.

Tish was under her duvet on the couch.

Looking scared.

"Amy," she said, "are you on anything?"

"No. This is real."

"You spoke to a dead woman."

"Lots of dead women. And men."

"But… "

There were further questions.

We talked some more.

Then another question.

"Is this like

The Sixth Sense?" she said, brow furrowed. "Am I dead too?"

"No. You're not dead. I'm not dead. No one is. I mean, lots of people are, but none that you know."

"Right," she said. "Okay," she said. "So. You talk to dead people, that's all." She tried to look alright with the idea.

"It's just good manners," I said. "Like: speak when you're spoken to."

She nodded, slowly. Taking it in.

"And those pills in the bathroom cabinet?"

"Thyroid," I said. "Promise."

We talked some more.

Then another, worse, thought struck her and she pulled the duvet tight around her.

"What?" I asked her.

"Are they here? The dead?" She looked round, frantic. Thin air was suddenly a threat.

"No," I said. "No dead here. No ghosts. None."

"Promise?"

To be honest, a home always has the dead in, but they're usually very faint. Far too faint to see. Just a sense of a whisper, here and there. I didn't tell her that, though.

"No, there's no ghosts here, at least none that I've seen," I said, wording it carefully.

"Thank God," said Tish. "So who knows about your sight?"

"My family. A few very close friends. You."

Then she looked at me a long time, making up her mind. "Okay. You have spiritualist tendencies. I've heard of it before, and I sort of believe in it and I can live with it just about, but don't do it anywhere near me, ever. I'm serious. No ghosts here, promise?"

I nodded. Sober and trustworthy.

"And you promise me we're all alive?"

"Totally alive," I said.

"There's no twist at the end?"

"None," I said, "I swear."

We survived it, Tish and I.

Useful, that.

Because in November it was back to the pressure from my brother.

"Why does it get to you so much?" said Tish, holding me as I wept after the call.

"Long story," I said, when I could speak. "Long fucking story."

"One of those long fucking stories which has such a happy ending that it makes a girl cry for half an hour?"

"No," I said. "Not one of those."

"Thought not," she said, softly.

And I cried some more. Proper crying. Ugly snot and tears and despair crying.

You'll know it if you've done it.

"Hush," said Tish. "Hush."

I did my best to hush. My best wasn't very good.

"You want to tell me the story?" she asked, when I was quieter.

"You up for it?"

"Hey, I know everything else. I know that you're see-ghosts-girl. I know your target weight. I know what you shout when you come."

Our bedrooms were next to each other. I'd had some dubious one-night stands.

I wiped some snot from my upper lip. "No you don't. You know what I shout when I'm faking it."

"Just tell me the story," she said.

And she held me real close then. Real close.

So I told her.

Her name was Alice. Alice-Jane.

She was five when she died.

I was seven, my brother was nine.

She was my little sister, and she died.

It was murder.

The story got a lot of coverage. There was a picture of me crying at the funeral. It made one of the national papers.

Farewell to an Angel, said the headline.

But it wasn't farewell, not really.

The night after her murder, Alice-Jane came into my bedroom.

A few hours later they took me to hospital.

I stopped and blew my nose.

Tish carried on holding me.

I asked her where I'd got to in the story.

"They sent you to hospital."

"Yeah. And I was grateful. I didn't want to stay in the house, not after seeing her. I was sedated and when I woke up a shrink asked me some questions. He gave me a teddy bear."

I began to feel cold.

Tish turned up the heating.

"So what did you tell the shrink?"

"I told him my parents had killed Alice-Jane."

Tish put her hand to her mouth.

I carried on with the story.

I told her how the shrink's face went very still behind his smile and then he asked me some more questions. I asked him when my parents would come to visit me. He said that they loved me but he didn't think they'd be able to come visit for a while.

He was right. They didn't come.

Instead there were a lot of whispered conversations in the corridors, and a lot more questions. Detectives came. There were more teddy bears. One day a social worker carefully asked me who I'd like to live with, if I had a choice. I said I wanted to live with my grandparents. So I went to live with my grandpa and grandma Robinson, may she rest in peace.

"She's the one whose funeral you went to?" said Tish.

"Yeah. It's why I was the star turn at the wake. All my grandma's friends and neighbours remembered me. I was the little'un. Mr Nash and Mrs Nash lived next door to my grandparents, and Mrs Nash used to babysit for me when my grandparents were out."

I stopped.

Tish stroked my hair.

I looked at my empty glass.

She poured me some more vodka.

And then, suddenly, I'd had enough of ancient history. I went to bed.

All night I heard Tish in the next room, unable to settle.

Early December was drab and flat. The shopping was hollow. The rooms at home were cold.

It is hard to be cheerful when I know what I know, and the other person knows it too. Or most of it.

Tish and I bought all the Keanu Reeves DVDs we could find.

We spent too much money on each other, and told each other, so the other person knew.

Mid-December my brother rang.

"Hey," said Tish, after the call. "Hey."

She couldn't say bland comforting things like: it can't be that bad, because she still didn't really know how bad it was. We hadn't talked since that last conversation.

"I just want to make it past Christmas," I said.

"Sure," she said. "Sure."

On Christmas Day Tish and I watched back-to-back Keanu movies, one after the other.

His suit is nice in

Johnny Mnemonic.

His everything is nice in

Point Break.

But

Speed was our favourite.

It's the t-shirt, and the body, and the way he rescues the heroine. It's nice to think there's someone out there who will always save the girl.

We ate curry on the couch, wrapped in duvets, wishing we were Sandra Bullock for a day.

That night, when we pressed eject on the final DVD Tish poured us more mulled wine, and we toasted a Christmas survived.

"A good plan of yours," I said.

"I like to think so." She smiled, and then, just casually, said: "How's it going, kid?"

"It doesn't get more relaxed than this," I said. And it was true. Movies and drink and not cooking always do it for me.

"Good," said Tish.

She was right, it was good. Except for the sudden sense of a whisper I had, the sense of words in the air around me. I looked round, wondering if I could see the speaker.

"What is it?" said Tish.

An image in the room then. A body, a face. Clearer and stronger than I'd seen in years.

"Can you hear someone at the door?" she said.

"Not exactly," I said. "Look, Tish, you might want to go bed now. Or phone a friend, see if you can stay at their place."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I need to have a conversation."

"Well, fire away, let's talk," she said, uneasily.

"The conversation isn't going to be with you," I said.

"Then who-"

I watched her face change as it hit her. "Oh God. Not here. Not with… You promised."

"Just go to your room, it'll be fine."

She ran.

Little Alice-Jane appeared as the door slammed shut.

She'd come to wish me Happy Christmas.

After, I took Tish hot sweet tea. She was in shock and couldn't stop shaking, even though the heating was turned up high. I put a couple of blankets over the duvet. Still she shook.

I climbed in beside her and held her and said hey, hey, hey, as she cried. As you do.

It didn't make much difference.

Never does.

She slept till long past noon and when she woke she tried to pretend that everything was okay, but she wasn't even fooling herself.

I waited till she'd had a shower, and coffee, and something to eat, and then I asked her, just casually, "How's it going, kid?"

"You never finished the story," she said, not bothering to fake that she was alright. We have neighbouring bedrooms. She can't fake for shit, we both knew that. "You didn't say whether-"

She stopped.

"It's okay," I said. "Ask me anything."

"Did your parents really kill your sister?"

"No, they didn't," I said.

Tish shook her head, as if I were a sudden stranger.

"But you told the shrink at the hospital that they did."

"Yes. And the police. And the social workers. And they all believed me. In fact, there was enough evidence for a conviction. My parents went to prison, and they committed suicide there. Not because they'd done it, but because they hadn't."

Tish stared at me. I watched her calmly, waiting for the inevitable next question.

It came out in a whisper.

"Amy, did you kill your sister?"

I shook my head. "No. I didn't kill my sister."

Tish breathed with relief. But then another question. There's always more.

"Then why? Why tell everyone your parents did it?"

I imagined my parents' ghosts, there at my brother's Christmas dinner table, happy in the bosom of their family, even though the living could not see them. Would they be bitter at their lives cut short? No, they wouldn't, even though their deaths had been ugly.

"The dead are very forgiving," I said. "There is a peace in heaven. They let bygones be bygones there."

"So who killed her?"

I sighed.

I hate that question.

It makes the world go blurry, like a night of vodka suddenly taking hold.

"Amy, who killed her?"

The question was like another double vodka on top of all you've had before. It was like late night and just wanting to sleep.

"Who killed who?" I said, trying to keep up.

All this talk of people killing each other. It had been the longest night. All I wanted was bed and eyes-shut and silence.

"Amy, look at me."

No, I didn't think I wanted to do that.

"Amy, it's Tish."

Do you know how much effort it takes, to keep everything going?

Do you know how much hard work it takes?

And always, the pressure, the pressure.

From everywhere.

"I used to like you," I said. My voice sounded slurred, even to me.

"Do you need pills or something?" she said. "Amy, focus."

She was a long way away.

I was too far gone.

It's always the way.

As soon as the killing questions start, things begin to drift out of order, and I really can't be going round dragging them all back into place.

I let them just be whispers, mostly, the questions, the voices.

Somewhere someone was saying: "Amy, I'm calling an ambulance."

An ambulance?

Preposterous, I'm fine.

But the words no longer came out.

The police came, as they do on such occasions.

I felt sorry for Tish. I'd lied to her, long ago, when I had told her there wasn't a twist.

Of course, there was.

Of course there was a fucking twist.

With ghosts, there always is.

But some girls are stronger than others.

Tish was a strong one. She came to see me in hospital, as soon as my doctor declared I was fit enough for visitors.

She brought a teddy bear. That made me smile. Gifts are always better when they're furry.

She sat on the edge of my bed, took my hand, smiled.

"How are you?" she said.

"Oh, you know. Clowns to the left of me." I lowered my voice. "Doctors to the right."

She took a split-second to decide that I was joking, which I was, pretty much.

She kissed my forehead.

I readied myself for the undoing of it all.

"So," I asked her, "have you talked to them?"

"Who?"

"Who do you think?"

"I think you mean your parents."

"I do. Have you talked to my parents, and Alice-Jane?"

"Yeah, I met them. They came round to the flat."

"What do you think?"

"Your parents seem, you know, pretty private. And your sister's… "

She tried to think of a polite word.

"It's okay," I said, "you can say it. She's a bitch. She was nicer when she was five. That's why she's always five years old, to me."

"Makes sense," said Tish.

She smiled.

"I like this bear," I said, clutching him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Have you moved out yet?"

"Out of where?"

"The flat."

"No. Why? Do you want me out?"

"Of course not. I want you there. If you want to be there."

"I want to be there."

"That's good," I said. "That's very good. One thing, though. We buy an answering machine. My brother rings me when the leaves start changing. Before, sometimes. Next year, I don't want to speak to him. Not in the run-up to Christmas. He's always the same. It drives me nuts. The pressure's-"

"We'll get an answering machine," Tish said.

"That's good," I said. "That's good. I hate that he rings me."

I held on to the bear.

"I know," said Tish.

"That's good too," I said.

She smiled, kissed my forehead again. "I should go, I'll come back tomorrow. Oh, I tell you someone else I met. I went to the pub. Mrs Nash is-"

"Alive and well, I know," I said. "It's just this thing I have. I get mixed up. It's… "

"I know," she said. "I know."

She stood up to go.

"Wait," I said, "I have a present for you."

I opened the drawer in the bedside table.

"You do?" she said.

The drawer was empty.

"Well, no. Not at the moment. But when I get home, I'll buy you something. Lots of things. Not candles though."

"You don't have to buy anything," she said. "Just look after the bear for me."

"Yes," I said. She turned to go. "And Tish?"

"What?"

"I know it's strange, but if my brother rings, could you tell him what's happened to me?"

"He already has," said Tish. "I spoke to him and told him everything's fine. He sends his love. He says to tell you the fishing's great."

She smiled.

She left.

I looked at the bear.

The bear looked back at me, not up to speed.

I did my best.

"See," I said to the bear, "my brother worries about me, especially at Christmas. So he phones. You understand?"

Silence. Bears are slow, sometimes. Perhaps they give him drugs.

I sympathised. Been there, done that.

I carried on with the story. Slowly.

"My brother fell in the river, while he was fishing, when he was nine, and he didn't get out again. Actually, when I say he fell it was more like he was pushed. And guess who pushed him?"

Bear didn't care to guess, so I put my lips to his ear, and whispered it.

"It was little Alice-Jane that pushed him. But she was only five and she's forgotten. I saw it and I didn't forget, but I never told. I was seven, and I saved her from knowing what she did. But because of what she did she died in my mind, and because I couldn't tell my parents, they died too. It got mixed up. But it doesn't matter. My brother's body is water under the bridge and everything's fine. Except, well, he phones sometimes. That's not so fine."

And then I fell quiet and thought about all the ghosts who weren't ghosts, not really, and I thought about the single ghost who was.

"My brother doesn't have the family I made for him. There's no Sarah or the girls, not really. It's just him."

I looked at the bear.

I'd never told anyone any of this stuff.

"When we go home again, you mustn't tell Tish about my brother. She wouldn't like that. She'd leave. Bad enough living with someone who talks to a dead person. She'd hate it if she knew that she talks to him as well."

The bear looked dubious.

"Believe me," I said, "she'd hate it. Let's spare her that. She'd only leave."

And then I fell silent again, and thought about home, and how nice it would be when I got back. This time I'd be good and stay on the pills. I'd flushed them in July, before Tish moved in, and just stayed on the thyroid ones. This time, I'd be good, and Tish would help me take them.

"Everything is going to be fine," I said to the bear, to see what the words sounded like.

But he stayed quiet and stared glass-eyed at the ceiling, a million miles away, and it reminded me of my brother.

I closed my eyes against the idea of our telephone ringing, and Tish answering again, and his voice coming all the way from his far and empty home, where there was no family, no company, no fishing, no anything, just confusion and worrying when the leaves began to change.

I thought of the lonely flat I would go home to, if my brother told Tish where he was, under the water.

And then it would be me and the telephone, forever, just me waiting for his voice and-

But no.

This was a time for getting well and positive thinking.

"Everything is going to be fine," I whispered to the bear.

A phone rang, then. It made me jump, just for a second.

But then I realised it was the phone that rang far down the hospital corridor. It was not an omen or a sign.

People ring telephones all the time, in hospitals.

I opened my eyes again.

I shifted so I lay on my back.

The bear and I stared at the ceiling together.

"What do you see?" I said to the bear.

But the bear kept his counsel and we lay there in silence, waiting for tomorrow and for Tish to come again and everything to be fine, as it would be, surely.

The phone rang down the corridor, many times.

And though I jumped each time, it was okay. Bears stay quiet and telephones ring and girls get jumpy.

It's just the nature of things.

It's fine, it really is.

And pressure sometimes builds until you break.

We lay there, staring up at the white of the ceiling all afternoon, and we stared up at the grey as the room turned darker as evening approached.

As night fell we stared at the darkness, lying still, just thinking.

And when the phone rang again and footsteps came down the hall towards my room to give me a message, it wasn't from my brother.

Someone else entirely had sent the message. The nonsense one about fishing and leaves, and water under the bridge.

It wasn't my brother. Of course not.

But the nurse said it was, and left the message on my bedside table.

Bear and I stared at it for most of the night, wondering if the world had gone quite mad.

My flat-mate came to visit the next day.

I found out the most amazing thing: it's catching.

She, it seemed, saw ghosts now too. My parents, my sister-she saw them all.

Oh, the long conversations she'd had with them, face to face.

I told my doctor he should write it up. The second sight is a communicable disease. It would make his name.

We'd be famous. All of us.

She did her best, my flat-mate. But she smiled too much.

I offered her some vodka, she certainly looked like she needed it, but they must have taken my bottle away, because the drawer was empty.

Or, I'd drunk it all.

"I feel like I've downed a whole bottle," I said.

She smiled. Too much.

And then she said: "Your brother rang. He sends his love."

Whoever she was went away, then, and it was me and the bear and a nurse looking jolly and worried, and fuck them all, really, apart from the bear.

He just stays quiet, like people should.

None of this shit about messages. None of this sending of love, which really means: "You really must come and stay with us for Christmas."

But it sounds so cold and far away, where he lives.

So I'll try to hang on. I'll try not to go.

We'll try to hang on together, won't we, bear?

But the furry brute's silent.

And the river is rising and Christmas is coming.

And I guess I really should go.