The phone rang. Only twice but enough to wake Diggs up.
The clock radio’s green display glared that it was only seven-fifteen. Unfortunately, once awake, Diggs found it impossible to go back to sleep. So he climbed out of his nice, warm bed and took a shower that turned cold halfway through. This was definitely not going to be a Saturday to remember.
He made the coffee too strong. The milk had soured. And the thin sliced white sandwich bread was moldy. He also had a headache.
The pupilless gray eye of the TV set stared from across the room, beckoning him to another session of aimless key punching.
He flipped on the system. “ENTER TEXT,” materialized in crisp, white letters.
Biting his left thumbnail, Diggs sat for a good while wondering why the most frequently used letters were scattered about the keyboard and not on home row. There was a small piece of fuzz between “O” and “P,” and he picked it out, blew it from his fingertips, and watched it drift to the floor.
“Serth circled the peak of the hill twice, then glided to a landing among the huts of the tribe. His majestic, white wings folded snugly against his back as he strode toward the chief who looked greatly displeased.”
Diggs had noticed an interesting combination of letters on the keyboard. And “S-E-R-T-H” became a winged man.
“Ignoring his leader, Serth walked past him into a nearby hut and began the ritual that would bring rain to the tribe’s thirsty crops. He meticulously ground the herbs he had gathered, making a pulp that he spread on his face and arms. Then he began the ceremonial chant. Sacred syllables flowed from his lips, words that only he could understand. His hands made circular, twisting motions. Sweat dripped into his open, staring eyes and burned with salty fire. Serth was growing old. The ancient rituals were becoming increasingly difficult for him to perform. It was time he chose a successor.”
Diggs read over his creation. He liked it. It needed work, but he liked it all the same. Counting words again, he found one hundred and fifty. Better than yesterday. Double the amount, in fact, in the same amount of time.
Leaning back in his chair, he looked into the kitchen. It was nine o’clock, and he was getting sleepy. Saving the fledgling paragraphs onto disk, he got up and wandered into the bedroom. He could take a quick nap and finish the story in the afternoon.
Diggs drifted off to slumberland with the happy thought that he was finally pushing that pesky writer’s block out of the way.
He woke with a start.
A racket was coming from the living room.
Grabbing a granite bookend off the shelf, he crept around the corner, then stopped dead in his tracks.
His disk drive hummed softly. Out of the computer, from every crevice and port, came a multitude of creatures.
Diggs recognized all of them. The gray slime he had created yesterday. An old man, three boys, and an undead rat from last Tuesday. Winged Serth from this morning. Fluid mercury aliens. A miner from an unnamed planet. A three-headed, talking toad… he had been out of it that day. Various mutant beings, some fragmentary and incomplete, all from the past month of unfinished stories.
“What a terrific dream,” Diggs muttered.
This was going to make a great story when he woke up.
He was delighted as the rabble slowly began to push forward.
The horde of creatures forced him against the dining room wall.
Then they lashed out with talons, teeth, clubs, pickaxes, and all manner of nasty-looking weapons.
The pain was proof that Diggs was not dreaming. But by then it was too late for him to escape.
His only scream was muffled and gurgling as a milky gray tentacle reached out to crash his larynx.
Having left no remains of He Who Had Summoned Them, the creatures returned to the computer and, through it, to the swirling macrocosm of all that exists: matter, energy, thought. None of which is ever created or destroyed, but merely transmuted into another form.
They returned to rest and wait. Wait for another who would send out a call and grant them life through words. Or be consumed by them.
FISH HARBOR
by Paul Pinn
Paul Pinn is another newcomer to The Year’s Best Horror Stories. When asked to give some account of himself, Pinn responded: “Born London 1955 under a disturbing mass of conjunctions, oppositions, and things. Been writing since knee-high to a grasshopper, but only with deadly serious intent since 1989. From then until now over 60 short story acceptances (about a third so far published) by UK mags such as Dementia 13, Strange Attractor, Orion, Works, Peeping Tom, Fear, etc., plus mags in Canada and Finland. Recently finished two collaborations with D.F. Lewis, and finished (solo) a cross-genre psychological novel which is ‘doing the rounds.’ Currently working on another about a schizophrenic girl on the run through Asia. Living with long-term soulmate Elaine, no kids, plenty of booze. After 20 years recently upgraded intelligence (ho ho) with exam passes in Child Development Psychology and Abnormal Psychology. Working as an administrator in London, but would much rather be writing and once again traveling aimlessly overseas (with Elaine). In the meantime keep sharp listening to Ministry and Mindfunk, Black Sabbath and Motorhead, the Outlaws (Green Grass High Tides—know?) and Freebird by you-know-who.”
Nice to find a horror writer with such quiet tastes.
“You sleep to escape.”
I pulled the sheet up to my navel and would have fallen asleep immediately had Marjory not chosen that precise moment to exercise her penchant for ill-timing.
“You were bored of my company so you fell asleep on the sofa,” she said as she sat up and glared spitefully at me. “Or perhaps it was just a way of avoiding a night out with me.”
With her beaklike nose and the icy myopic stare she favored at moments like this, I sometimes thought my wife would have made a good hanging judge. What had upset her, if indeed she was upset and not just nit-picking, was that I had fallen asleep for three hours after dinner.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked as I adjusted my pillow.
“I did.”
And she certainly had, at an hour too late to seek entertainment, at least for people like us, too old for trendy discos and noisy bars full of brash youngsters. I wished she had left me sleeping on the sofa; it had been comfortable and dream-free. Now I was beginning to lose my sleepiness.
“I don’t understand why you’re so tired,” Marjory complained. “You haven’t done anything today except allow us to get dragged off by those awful timeshare touts.”
They hadn’t been so awful and my resultant chat with the main representative had been interesting. Not that I would seriously consider investing in Lanzarote. The volcanic island reminded me too much of Marjory, except her grumbling was audible.
“We got a bottle of gin out of it,” I countered.
She grunted and craned her neck at me, her eyes as cold and blue as the early morning water in our apartment complex swimming pool.
“If I hadn’t been there, you would have signed on the dotted line.”
The rep. had never come that close to sealing the deal. Marjory’s haughty silent stare had seen to that. Not that I had needed her support. Still, she had already made good use of the gin, and now she would sleep soundly, filling the still warm air with a flurry of snoring while I tossed and turned, too much awake to follow.
“Turn your light out,” she ordered. “It’s in my eyes.” Then, as I reached for the switch: “But first, give me a good night kiss.”
Her tone was a shade sweeter, the difference between a lump of sugar and a lump with an extra grain. The request took me by surprise, then I remembered the gin.