The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

PAUL KANE Rag and Bone

WHEN TED OPENED his eyes, he realised he was hanging in a room, surrounded by corpses.

Not hanging, as in hanging out — but in the literal sense. Suspended by the wrists, feet dangling with no sense of the floor below them. It was quite dark, and he was only able to see the dead people because of the moonlight, filtering in from a small grilled window to the left. The angle of that moon told him he was underground.

Ted blinked a few times, taking in the shapes of the suspended bodies. They were hung, just as he was, like meat in a freezer. He could see the wounds that had been inflicted on some of them: cuts, savage and unforgiving — the blood now dried in the slits. Some were naked, some wore scraps of clothing, torn away during whatever struggle had ensued before their deaths, or perhaps even afterwards? Some had been so brutally attacked, that he could see bone poking through in places: at the knee in one case, the forearm in another, ribs in a third.

Ted squinted, attempting to make out more, but it was impossible. Some had their backs to him, some were further away, some in corners. The ones closest appeared to be female, that much he could tell. One’s shapely legs were in view, and another’s breasts were exposed — were it not for the fact they both had jagged slashes across them, he might have been quite aroused by the sight.

Jesus, he told himself, not now, and definitely not here. Wherever “here” was. But he couldn’t help himself. It had always been his weakness. If the average man thought about sex every seven seconds, then Ted was so far above average it was ridiculous. It was a wonder he could concentrate on work half the time.

Concentrate now, though. Try to figure out what you’re doing here. Or, more importantly, how to escape.

He struggled to pull himself up, maybe try and work his wrists free of the bonds holding him, but it was too difficult. For one thing he didn’t feel like he had any energy, perhaps an effect of being in this position for too long? A torturer’s potential victim. Because he’d seen this pose before in TV shows and movies, hadn’t he. They always did this to the people they’d captured, usually questioning them for information in thrillers. Was that it, was this work related? Some old business enemy, of which admittedly there were many.

That didn’t make sense. Why all the others? Maybe he was the subject of a serial killer. They did the same thing sometimes, stringing up folk like animals, cutting off skin to use for God knows what purposes. It would certainly fit with the corpses who had been mutilated. He tried not to think about it.

Ted attempted again to pull free. Maybe he was still feeling the after-effects of whatever drug had been used to incapacitate him?

He remembered that much: whoever had done this had come up behind him in the car park, silent and deadly. By the time he’d known there was someone there, it was already too late — he’d felt the prick of a needle in his neck and it was all over. Blackness, that’s all he could remember. until this. And part of him now wished he was still unconscious.

He closed his eyes, perhaps to pretend, but all he could see were those cuts. Ted could imagine the pain, putting himself in the dead people’s places — could feel what he was surely about to experience, when whoever had done this returned.

Ted heard a sound and snapped himself out of his thoughts. A voice. Dear Christ, the killer was coming back already, before he’d even had a chance to formulate a plan of action. But no, it wasn’t that at all. Someone was speaking, yes, but it wasn’t in the assured voice of a murderer. Someone in control of the situation, without compassion — someone who could do the things that had been done in this slaughterhouse.

This was more like a whimper, a groan. “Help me,” it said. Then there was movement. One of the “corpses” nearest to him shifted position, spinning round on the rope that was holding it. her. Because as Ted could see, this was a woman too; the blouse and skirt, as ragged as they were, gave it away. Her face caught the light from the moon and he almost gasped in horror at what had been done to it. Part of the woman’s cheek had been ripped away, a large flap of skin peeled off, revealing cheekbone and teeth. The edge of her lip had been torn as well, leaving her with a permanent frown on one side — like a person who’d suffered a severe stroke. No wonder she was having trouble speaking.

Her hair — it appeared silver, but then that was probably just the effect of the light. more probably blonde — looked like it had been hacked at as well: one side cut short, possibly with a knife, while the other was still long and fell over her left shoulder. That too was exposed and horribly scarred. Her head was tilted, and to be honest she still looked dead, but she was moving, and she was speaking. “H-Help. Help me,” repeated the woman, and this time Ted saw a saliva bubble form in that ruined cheek, popping as she spoke her next word, “P-Please.”

What could he do? Ted was in no position to help anyone, even if they were gazing at him like that — so pleadingly. It was all he could do to even look at the poor wretch, her appearance so far removed from the usual beauties he liked to associate with. He said nothing, merely attempted a half-hearted shrug.

“P-Please,” came the voice again, filled with such agony Ted felt compelled to finally say something.

He’d opened his mouth, but before any words could emerge something else moved in the darkness. Something silent and deadly. The something that had come up behind him in the car park, hidden in the shadows all this time. A figure, which sidled up behind her now, grabbing the woman’s neck and jerking it backwards, so the cords there were standing proud. Ted wanted to look away, but it all happened so fast. The large knife was suddenly up and being drawn over the woman’s throat, like a cellist with a bow. Except the only music that emerged were the deep grunts and chokes of someone trying to breathe. A concerto in death minor. It took just moments for the noise to stop, but it seemed like hours to Ted — must have seemed like years to the woman with the ruined face.

The figure still held back behind the hanging body, for now it was a body and nothing more. That final bit of life had been extinguished, such as it was. Ted wanted to ask who this person was, but couldn’t get a word out now through fear. Blood was pouring from the slit in the blonde woman’s throat, spilling over her shredded blouse. Ted caught a flash of eyes looking at him, the killer’s wild stare sending chills through his body. When the figure revealed itself, he did gasp.

Audrey? No, it couldn’t be!

Ted took in the sight before him, the small woman dressed in dark clothes, almost like she was in mourning: black top, black trousers. black gloves. It matched her raven-coloured hair, which, unlike the dead blonde woman’s, had been styled by a professional. Even after all that excitement there was barely a curl out of place, the mark of an expert hairdresser. An expensive one, at that.

Ted could do nothing but gaze at her, that knife still in her hand, dripping with the blood from her fresh kill. Audrey? His Audrey. She was no murderer. She wouldn’t even let him kill spiders in the bath.

His mind flashed back to their first meeting, at that club in the city. She’d been with a couple of friends, he’d been alone and had zeroed in on her, flashing that confident, charming smile, guaranteed to work. Her friends had giggled at his jokes, Audrey had told him she wasn’t interested, that she even had a boyfriend — he hadn’t lasted long once Ted was on the scene — but by the end of the night he’d secured her phone number.

On their first date, he’d picked her up in his Corvette ZR1 and impressed her with talk about his business ventures. He found out that she was very family orientated — devoted to her father, because he’d brought her up when her mother had died in childbirth.

“I feel so comfortable telling you all this,” Audrey had said. “Don’t know why.”

“I do,” Ted replied, grinning.

It hadn’t been long before he’d become a permanent fixture in her life. and her bed. Soon after, they were dividing their time between his place and her apartment. Not long after that, she’d taken Ted to meet her father, Frank, at the family home — a huge house just outside the capital. It was far enough away to pretend it was the countryside, but just close enough to smell the exhaust fumes from the cars. Here Frank lived, all alone — retired due to ill health, but content. Ted had done the same with her silver-haired father, charming him as they drank wine out in the garden, finding out more about the family business.

Frank had made his money through scrap over the past few decades, but the trade went back a long way. “I can remember doing the rounds with my dad as a kid, collecting all kinds of stuff in a horse-drawn cart on the streets, ringing the bell. Nowadays it’s all in trucks and vans,” he laughed. “You know, a lot of people think that Rag and Bone men only go back a couple of hundred years, but some say it’s further. To the middle ages, or maybe even before that.”

“That’s fascinating,” Ted told him, stifling the yawn that was building.

“They got their name because they’d even collect rags, which could be sold to paper-makers and weavers, and the bones from meat. That could be turned into bone char, bone ash, bone carver. even glue!”

Ted listened, humoured the man, but he didn’t care about how Frank had come by his cash — the heritage obviously important to the guy. He was only interested in the fact that Audrey would come by it one day. Less than a week later, and with Frank’s approval, Ted proposed and was delighted when Audrey said yes. They were happy, both of them, and went on that way for a good year or more—

So why was she doing this? He felt like asking her, then hesitated, still seeing that crazed look in her eyes. Something had changed. She was no longer the woman he knew as his fiancée. She was something else — something unhinged.

His eyes were at least adjusting to the light better, and he could see more of his surroundings. More of the corpses that filled this place, although he still didn’t recognise it.

“There, that’s better,” Audrey said, stepping away from the dead woman, her voice cold and hard. “Another one of your whores silenced.”

Ted frowned. What was she talking about? His eyes flitted from the psychopathic Audrey to the dead woman. Did he know her? Forget about the scarred face and body, the blood; take all that away and did she look familiar? Ted still couldn’t see it. He looked around at the other bodies nearby, and beyond Audrey. Yes, they were all female, he could see that. But—

Another one of your whores.

He tried to swallow, but was having difficulty. He’d never known their names, any of them, but yes, the more he looked, the more his eyes adjusted to the light in here. Jesus, he said to himself. He thought he’d been so careful.

It stood to reason, no one woman was ever going to satisfy him. That wasn’t how he was made. He loved Audrey, in his own way, and the others were just conquests — to keep his hand in. Sex, nothing more. Plus which, they all knew he was engaged: he’d told them and they hadn’t seemed to mind. If anything, some of them found this a turn-on.

The more he focused, forcing himself to see the walls of that room, the more he could make out the evidence of those encounters he couldn’t resist. No, that made it sound like they seduced him, when it was so obviously the other way around.

All those nights working late, at conferences or attending business meetings, when actually he was on the prowl again, on the hunt. The photos were there, tacked up on those walls: large, grainy, black and white prints. Some of him and women at bars, at hotels, at clubs like the one where he met Audrey. Some were even worse. Snapshots of the hot, frenzied couplings, rutting like animals — through windows, and some from inside the room itself (a professional then, some kind of PI. so Audrey hadn’t been as naïve as he thought; it explained why she’d stalled over the wedding).

Ted looked from the pictures of those women alive, to the dead bodies hanging in that basement lair. And, God help him, he was able to match them up. Well, most of them. Some were beyond even his identification.

Ted could imagine the pain Audrey had felt when she’d seen some of those photographs. Pain that might tip you over the edge. Pain he now saw in her look — along with revenge. She’d been on her very own hunting trip and now that she’d punished the women who’d slept with him, Ted was next. What was the betting she’d saved the most brutal tortures for last?

He was about to plead with her, but knew that would do no good. Once Audrey had made her mind up about something, that was it. But as she approached, still wielding the knife, he found himself whimpering, “Please, no.”

When she continued on anyway, he gritted his teeth, the real Ted emerging. “You’ll never get away with this, Audrey. I’m telling you. What the fuck do you think you’re going to do with all these bodies anyway?”

She paused, as if contemplating this — maybe the first time she’d even considered it during this whole spree. But Ted should have known better. Just as she’d been clever enough to hire the snoop, she’d had her endgame figured out well in advance. Audrey leaned in, too quick for him to flinch, and whispered, “He knows what you’ve done, and he’s coming for you.”

What? What the fuck did that mean? Ted braced himself for Audrey to strike, to begin slashing him with the knife. But she didn’t. Instead she pulled back, grinning (it reminded him of his grin, that — the satisfied one he couldn’t help whenever he’d scored). She was stepping away, leaving him alone. Don’t question it, he told himself, it at least buys you some time.

Then he heard the sound. At first it seemed a long way off, that bell. Then the call followed it, equally distant. “Rag and Bone!” it went.

Ted cocked an ear. There it came again. The bell, and the cry: “Rag and Bone!”

Audrey’s grin widened and she moved over to the side of the room, climbing some steps. At first Ted thought she might be ascending to an upper floor, but then she reached above her and undid a latch. Audrey flung open the doors — cellar doors that led to the outside.

His first thoughts were: I can use that to escape, if only I can get free of these bloody ropes. His next thoughts, when the light from the moon illuminated more of that place, were about those wine bottles at the back of the cellar. Ted knew where he was now, even though he’d never been down here. Had only been to the place itself on a handful of occasions.

It was the wine cellar in the family house: a hobby of Frank’s and perfect for something like this. No one would hear the screams. And they were far enough away from civilisation that nobody would hear the cry drawing closer and closer, louder and louder.

“Rag and Bone!”

It was a strange call, like the person shouting it couldn’t quite say the words. It reminded Ted of how newspaper sellers on street corners shout out the names of the tabloids.

“Audrey,” Ted began, but she was taking no notice. She was too busy looking out through the trap door. Ted heard the sound of hooves next, accompanying the bell and the cries.

Jesus, what was going on here? One of her dad’s old mates drafted in to help? It made sense. Like Audrey, they really wouldn’t have been too happy if they knew the truth.

“He knows what you’ve done, and he’s coming for you.”

But what had he done, really? All Ted had suggested was that Audrey invest in a few of his ventures — she had the money now, and it would really help him out (his flashy cars and dinners a front for covering how badly he’d got into debt). Selling the family business wasn’t asking too much, was it? Her father had been the one hanging on to the past; why should she?

And she’d done it, even though she was doing other things behind his back (he could talk), hiring that PI for example. Audrey had sold up because she loved him.

The scrap business scrapped, Ted bailed out.

He saw the horse’s feet now, pulling up outside; the cart behind. And from this angle, Ted could also see the boots when they jumped down — big, hobnailed ones, crunching the gravel round the back of the house. A faint whistle drifted down into the cellar, echoing throughout.

Audrey pulled back, waving a hand and inviting the newcomer in. The larger figure descended. Bulky, wearing some kind of long coat, he also sported a cap that was pulled down low on his head. His frame virtually blocked out any light from above, leaving the figure in silhouette as he glanced at Audrey — awaiting orders, it seemed. She pointed to the bodies and the man nodded, stomping over to the first. He hefted it onto his shoulder like it weighed nothing, whistling happily.

So that was the plan? thought Ted. Get this bastard to dispose of the evidence of Audrey’s sick and twisted exploits? He said nothing as, one by one, the corpses were carried up the steps and — though he couldn’t see properly — he assumed, dumped into whatever cart was up there. Why a cart, he had no idea. Why not a van or truck? Was he some kind of purist or something? Not even Frank had been that bad.

Frank. Ted thought about the old man now, and about what he’d done.

He shook his head; there wasn’t time for that. He was in real trouble. As the last of the women were carried and loaded up, Audrey pointed towards Ted. She obviously couldn’t bring herself to do anything to her lover. Instead, she’d shown him what she’d done to his “whores” and was now leaving Ted to the attentions of this nutter. He didn’t know which was worse. At least he might stand a chance of talking Audrey round. Possibly. Maybe.

But there was no chance of that now, because the collector was next to him, whistling, shouldering Ted and cutting the rope attached to the ceiling. Ted groaned as he was given the fireman’s lift, the rotten stench of the man like garbage. It was only when he was being carried that Ted noticed the shabby clothes the man was wearing, the state of the coat not dissimilar to the dress of Audrey’s victims; the man’s trousers scuffed and tatty.

Then Ted was being hauled up into the night air. He tried to struggle, but again it was either the position he’d been in or the after-effects of the drugs that prevented him — he had hardly any strength at all. So, when he was thrown in the back of that cart, an old-fashioned wooden one just like those Frank had described, he couldn’t fight back.

“Audrey?” he just about managed, as the Rag and Bone man left him, skirting round to the driver’s seat at the front.

But Ted’s fiancée simply stared after them. Then, as the transportation set off, Ted saw her retreat back down into the cellar — no doubt to clean up — leaving him to his fate.

The ride wasn’t a comfortable one. Apart from the stench, some of it from the bodies, most of it from the cart and the man driving it, there were the jolts as it went over rocks or uneven terrain.

On one particular bump, Ted found himself rolling over to face a girl who’d had her eyes plucked out, the black sockets staring back at him (what had been her name? Jackie, Debra, Sandra? Who the Hell knew?). He couldn’t even muster a scream and was thankful when the next jolt came and righted him again.

They seemed to be travelling quite fast though, hardly enough time for Ted to worry about where this guy would be dumping them: burying them in a wood, weighing them down in a lake perhaps? In a deserted quarry?

He was wrong on all counts, because when the cart eventually arrived at its destination, the Rag and Bone Man had returned to his home (one of Audrey’s dad’s old places perhaps? Had this bloke bought it?). Ted took in the yard when they rode through the gates — a typical scrap merchant’s, with bits of old bicycles, worn-out beds, washing machines and every other bit of discarded detritus you could imagine piled on every side. It wouldn’t be hard to lose a few bodies in that lot. The perfect place, in fact.

The man pulled his horses to a standstill and clambered down. The moon was slipping behind a cloud so Ted still couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face as he began to unload the contents of his cart. He needed to see him, for when he got away — he’d need to describe him to the police. Audrey first. Then this guy. The cops would throw the book at them both.

(Oh yes, and what happens when they go digging around in your past? What happens when they find out about Frank?)

The huge figure began picking up the corpses again, putting them over his shoulder. He whistled once more as he worked, which made what he was doing all the more disturbing. He tossed them on the heaps of rubbish as if he was flinging old tyres.

Ted tried to twist away, to get his legs and arms moving, to climb out and get free of this place. Run, find a phone and—

But he was going nowhere. They were down to the last few women in the cart, which didn’t take the man long to clear.

“Look. Hey, I have money,” Ted managed. (Oh yeah, whose?)

The man ignored him, heaving the last of the scrawny bodies onto a pile of trash.

He turned and began making his way back towards Ted.

“Can’t we at least talk about it, please?”

“Help me. P-Please!” The words of that woman back in the cellar rattled around in his head.

The man was drawing nearer. “Please, I don’t want to die!” shouted Ted, with more force than he’d been able to muster since he woke.

His captor paused then, lingering as if mulling something over. Then he began to walk off to one side.

Yes! I’ve got through to him, thought Ted. Maybe I should offer him some money again? He frowned, though, as he watched the man rooting around in the rubbish there, fishing something out. As the large figure turned, Ted saw he was holding up a cracked mirror.

And, as the guy came back, the moon passed from behind those clouds at the same time as the Rag and Bone Man lifted his head. Ted just about had time to register those features — and realise just how appropriate his name was — before the mirror was lifted.

Then it all fell into place. Flashes of the man’s face, so similar to Frank’s, something he himself had inherited through a bloodline and profession that went back so far. (A lot of people think that Rag and Bone men only go back a couple of hundred years, but some say it’s further. To the middle ages, or maybe even before that.)

A trade plied during plague times, when they would carry the dead away from infected areas? You don’t, you can’t, do something like that without being granted some kind of immunity by Death himself. They were His helpers, in effect: some even changing to resemble their master.

The rags and bones, all that was left of the dead, were collected by them. By people who were little more than rag and bones themselves. It was a bloodline that had been broken when Ted came along — not simply persuading Audrey to sell up, but engineering the little “accident” that would take Frank’s life and provide the means for her to do so.

Frank was an old man, his heart weak: it wasn’t that hard to sneak inside the house and give him a little. scare.

Just like Ted was scared now. Because not only was he seeing something he really didn’t want to in the mirror, he was also remembering. That it hadn’t been the first time he’d woken up back there in the cellar, that Audrey had already done things to him which made the others look like she was just getting started. Pain so intense he’d blocked it out, kept alive — barely — while he watched her cut up the women.

But not kept alive long enough.

The image, the face — or what was left of it — staring back at Ted was barely recognisable as his own. It had been shredded, along with the rest of him: skin flayed from his body so that you couldn’t tell where his clothes ended and his flesh began. Ted recalled the whipping now with some kind of cat o’ nine tails, spiked ends digging deep with each swipe. He howled then, just as he had when Audrey had done her worst, finally getting up close and personal, pulling off his finger- and toe-nails, doing hideous things to his privates that meant he’d never be capable of cheating on anyone again.

Ted looked away and the Rag and Bone Man dropped the mirror. His charge had seen enough obviously, but things were only just getting started.

Ted looked past the skeletal figure, whose coat could no longer conceal its ribcage, open to the air. This representation of everything Frank held so dear, this figure that was all the Rag and Bone Men there’d ever been rolled into one, had made its home in a fittingly nightmarish place.

Because the more Ted looked, the more he saw of the yard, filled not only with ordinary rubbish, but the more specific junk of human waste. Bones, organs, scraps of clothing, all plugged the gaps where he’d dared not look before.

Ironically, Ted felt like laughing. He’d been pleading for his life when all along there was no life to spare. No wonder Audrey had been ignoring him — had he really been speaking at all? Had any of this actually been happening? It certainly felt real to him, but that didn’t mean anything.

Somehow Ted knew he would soon fill the spaces here, just like those women who wronged Audrey, who’d wronged the line. Trapped in their own private Hell. (For a moment, Ted wondered if they were seeing this, or something else entirely; perhaps this little treat had been reserved only for him?)

But it was time, he saw. When the Rag and Bone Man came for him now, Ted surrendered without protest.

To be carried over to the pile of junk, of scrap human life.

To join the walls of organs, body parts and muscle.

To join. no, finally to become the rag.

and the bone.