You see, the radiation'd caused her to mutate in the grave. The coffin had become her — her second womb. And she like… gestated… aye, evolved into something that — well — was not human."
"Did you touch it?"
"Not on your nelly. We ran like hell. But when the Cemetery Board found out, we had to go back to… IT." The gravedigger leaned back against the freezer. "We found it had changed. Just sort of a soft mound and, aye, it had grown. Tuesday was that sunny day — scorching hot. The heat must have brought it on, and it were growing fast."
"Jesus. Then what?"
"We tried to lever it into a skip to take it down to the Crem. Burn it. But… but it'd taken root. Mue-tay-shun caused what were left of the intestin' to grow and worm into the earth like a long yellow snake. It ended up us cutting it through with a shovel. She… it screamed. Pain, real pain! God, it were a nightmare. Then — there it were up and moving. What were left of her arms and legs had turned into like swollen yellow stumps with back-to-front feet and hands that had twisted up into hooves like… oh, I tell you — revolting.
"It were growing dark and we were trying to get into the hut. That's when we noticed the worse part. I held a torch to it and looked at it close up. This yellow stuff were almost transparent, like yellow jelly and I–I could see inside it."
The young man's eyes bulged. "What ya' see?"
"Terrible. Just under the surface, about four, maybe six inches down through this thick jelly, I could see — clearly see — Rose Burswick's face. Or what was left of it. Wide, staring eyes coming out of their sockets three inches or more like red raw sausages. The tongue… long, thrusting out the mouth, up through the skin until the top wiggled all pink and wet above the surface. Aye, and the mouth… opening, shutting like this." Wordlessly, he solemnly slapped his lips together like a goldfish. "I reckon she were trying to say something; call for help. You know, that expression on her face will stick in my mind forever. Sheer terror, like — like a continual state of shock, as if she knew what had happened… mue-tay-shun."
"What happened to it?"
"Well. It kept growing. So we had to find a way to stop it."
"And how…" The electrician trailed off in horror as if guessing.
"Sub-zero temperatures." The gravedigger tapped the freezer lid with a nicotine-stained forefinger. "Why else do you think that a cemetery store would keep a freezer." He began to lift the lid. "Look."
"No!" The electrician's voice rose to a shriek. Slamming the part opened lid down, he tightly shut his eyes. "No!"
Enjoying himself hugely, the gravedigger kept a straight face but couldn't keep the mischievous twinkle from his eye. "Suit yourself."
"I–I — I've got to go. I'm late." The electrician snatched his tools together, then holding onto his limp, white hat he ran from the building.
The electrician was starting the van when the gravedigger hobbled breathlessly up.
"Hey… oh, my leg is giving me hell. Hey, you've forgotten this." The gravedigger waved the screwdriver in the air.
"Oh, ta." Opening the door, the electrician hurriedly took the screwdriver and tossed it into the back.
"You know, as long as the freezer's working," said the gravedigger, "nothing'll happen. Old Rose Burswick is frozen solid — like a block of ice cream."
Something occurred to the electrician. "How long since the freezer packed in?"
"Ah… let's see. I saw some water on the floor yesterday mornin', but Bill said, don't bother, it'll only be —»
"Jesus! It's been off more than twenty-four hours? You're lucky it didn't thaw." He suddenly looked hard at the gravedigger. "You've got it on fast-freeze; on full?"
"No. I haven't touched it. Thought you did."
"It's still switched off! Jesus Johnnie! Just pray we're in time." He jumped out of the van and hurried back in the direction of the hut, the gravedigger trailing behind and grumbling about his dicky leg.
Too late.
They heard a noise from inside like dozens of loose boards being knocked over, a succession of thumps, then with a loud crunch the twin doors burst open. And what had once been Rose Burswick, swelled and flowed out onto the path. A mass of quivering yellow, the size of a beached whale, it moved as fast as a man could walk.
The gravedigger shouted a warning to the electrician, turned, and then ran. The limp forgotten, he sprinted across the cemetery, leaping clean over headstones at such a hell of a rate it would have drawn murmurs of approval from any two hundred meter hurdles champion.
Luck had deserted the electrician. Stumbling backward over a mound of soil, he slipped and fell into Mayor Hudson's grave-to-be. Down at the bottom, the electrician opened his eyes to darkness. Something had blocked out the daylight. Looking up, he saw that covering the grave like a lid was the yellow form of Rose Burswick. For a second, the sun shone through the yellow to reveal shapes suspended in the translucent body, like fruit suspended in a dessert jelly — an arm, a leg, splinters of bone, distended internal organs. And a head. The head turned in the jelly; rotating slowly but smoothly until its face was turned, gradually, to the electrician.
The face. That expression…
At the bottom of the cemetery, the gravedigger, scrambling over a brick wall, heard the muffled scream. He wanted to go back and help, he really did, but something drove him from the cemetery as fast as his legs could carry him.
In the grave, the electrician's eyes were fixed on that face as Rose Burswick plopped into the hole.
And after more than sixty years of solitude in her cold and lonely grave, Rose Burswick hugged the handsome young man in the floppy white hat in an embrace that seemed to last forever.
And the expression on her face stayed on the electrician's mind as if burnt there by fire.
She was smiling.
Meeting The Author by
RAMSEY CAMPBELL
My mother has often asked me why don't I write children's books instead of that awful horrible stuff. If I could get her to read "Meeting the Author," she might leave well enough alone. Ramsey Campbell here explores the dark side of children's books, and this seems fair enough. After all, Campbell was just a kid of sixteen when he was writing his first book of horror stories (The Inhabitant of the Lake, 1964), while more recently he has edited a collection of grisly delights designed to terrify young readers (The Gruesome Book, 1983). Campbell and his wife now have two little monsters of their own, and I know they're a constant source of inspiration.
Born in Liverpool on January 4, 1946, Ramsey Campbell has become a mainstay of The Year's Best Horror Stories and, indeed, of British horror fiction. Twenty-five years after, with dozens of novels, collections, and anthologies and hundreds of short stories to his credit, Campbell may justly be considered the dean of British horror writers. And he's just a kid of forty-four. Camp-bell's recent books include Obsession (1985), The Hungry Moon (1986), The Influence (1987), Ancient Images (1989), and Midnight Sun (1990). Just now he's taking a short time out to write a novella, "Needing Ghosts," for Legend and a batch of short stories. In addition, several of his stories are being adapted into graphic form for comic books. Should be fun reading for the kids.
I was young then. I was eight years old. I thought adults knew the truth about most things and would own up when they didn't. I thought my parents stood between me and anything about the world that might harm me. I thought I could keep my nightmares away by myself, because I hadn't had one for years — not since I'd first read about the little match girl being left alone in the dark by the things she saw and the emperor realizing in front of everyone that he wasn't wearing any clothes. My parents had taken me to a doctor who asked me so many questions I think they were what put me to sleep. I used to repeat his questions in my head whenever I felt in danger of staying awake in the dark.