The Dark Issue 17: The Dark, #17

By Kristi DeMeester, Gary McMahon, Elaine Cuyegkeng and Robert Shearman

Each month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Edited by award winning editor Sean Wallace and brought to you by Prime Books, this issue includes two all-new stories and two reprints:

“The Sound That Grief Makes” by Kristi DeMeester
“My Boy Builds Coffins” by Gary McMahon (reprint)
“The House That Creaks” by Elaine Cuyegkeng
“The Gift” by Robert Shearman (reprint)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Nov 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540110879

Book preview

THE DARK

Issue 17 • October 2016

The Sound That Grief Makes by Kristi DeMeester

My Boy Builds Coffins by Gary McMahon

The House That Creaks by Elaine Cuyegkeng

The Gift by Robert Shearman

Cover Art: Baal 1 by Tomislav Tikulin

ISSN 2332-4392.

Edited by Sean Wallace.

Cover design by Garry Nurrish.

Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

Copyright © 2016 by Prime Books.

www.thedarkmagazine.com

The Sound That Grief Makes

by Kristi DeMeester

Caleb had been dead for two weeks when I started pretending to be his ghost.

After the funeral, Hudson couldn’t sleep. I lay in my room and listened to my son crying. Quiet tears. A big boy suddenly aware that solid things can snap and break and bleed and end up buried under freezing earth. A big boy who didn’t understand how his father could have been so sad when the smile he saw everyday was brighter than the sun.

Over and over, I’d creep across the hallway and touch his doorknob, but I couldn’t bring myself to open the door. It wasn’t me he wanted. Wasn’t my face he wanted to see when he turned over. As much as it hurt, I couldn’t fault him that.

My own eyes were dry.

At first it was an accident. My hand slipping from where I’d laid it against his door so that my knuckles rapped against the wood, and I went to push the door open, opened my mouth to tell Hudson I was sorry, but his breath hitched, and I heard his bedsheets rustle.

Dad? he said, and everything inside of me went heavy.

I should have opened the door. Should have whispered that it was just me. Just mom. Should have held him too tight and lied to him. I’ll never leave you. I should have said, but it was the sound of his voice settling around me so filled up with a hurt he shouldn’t have to understand that kept me from moving.

I knocked again and fled back to my room.

In the morning, Hudson ate his cereal without looking up, and I pretended to eat a halved grapefruit, but all I did was mash the pulp down with my spoon and drink the juice.

Mom? he said, and his eyes were dark and heavy. His skin too pale.

I looked back at him, waited for him to tell me what he’d heard in the night, but he shook his head.

Nothing. It’s nothing.

Thirty minutes later, he climbed onto the bus. I waved from the doorway, but he didn’t turn back.

It was a game they used to play in the house when it was raining. Hide and seek, but Caleb would play the monster while Hudson hid. Quiet and tiny as a mouse, Caleb would say, and Hudson would giggle and nod his head, downy, tow-colored hair flying as he took off running down the hallway.

Slow down! I’d say, but he never listened.

In a few minutes, I’d hear Caleb banging on the closet door, and Hudson—tucked away in his hiding spot—would start giggling.

Let me in! Caleb’s voice booming. Too big for the house. Too big for the world.

I was already late for work. Already too late to blame traffic. Instead, I went to Hudson’s room, opened his closet, and crept inside. The warm dark smelled of sweat and of rubber. I breathed in my son. Tried to hold him for just a little bit longer. I put my hand on the door, traced the razor thin edge of light peeking through.

I waited for my husband to knock.

He didn’t.

On the third night, Hudson knew to sit up. Knew to wait for the knocking. I heard his breathing. Irregular and jagged. The sounds of sleep swallowed down as he forced himself to be still.

I thought he would get up, thought he would open the door and find me standing there. I knew the way his face would contort, knew the way he’d pull his lips back from his teeth in anger at finding me there and not his dad. He never opened the door.

I thought he wanted to believe.

So I stood away from the door so he wouldn’t see my feet underneath, and I knocked and I shook the doorknob, and I licked the salt from my lips and forced myself to be quiet. Quiet as a mouse.

Each time, I’d walk back to my bedroom. Slow and steady so I wouldn’t make any sound, and I’d stare at the ceiling until it was time to pretend that life was still happening.

On the fifth day, Hudson got up before I did, was waiting in the kitchen, already dressed, his hair dripping and slicked tight against his skull.

You’re up early, I said, and he shrugged his shoulders, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Like he was waiting for something.

Couldn’t sleep.

I know.

He took a breath. Let it out and looked back at me. When had he started to look so old?

I keep having this dream. Every night since— He paused and chewed on a cuticle. Since it happened.

I waited for him to tell me about it; waited for him to tell me he’s dreaming about hiding inside his closet, his lungs full and aching from holding his breath. For him to tell me he was waiting on the other side of that door for his father to knock, and that he knew if he opened the door, if he just cracked it a little, it meant that Caleb would come back.

He didn’t.

Instead, he picked up his back pack and slung it over his shoulder. I’m going to wait at the bus stop.

Before he reached the door, he turned back but didn’t look at me. I love you, he said and then he was gone.

I didn’t go to work that day. My cell phone chirped at me until I shut it off and hid it under a couch cushion.

Inside of Hudson’s closet, I waited. My knees pressed to my chest and my teeth against my wrist to keep me from screaming.

Please, I whispered when the light filtering through the door turned early afternoon amber. Caleb, please.

You need to sleep, honey.

I can’t. The dream. Hudson looked up at me from the nest of his blankets.

I knew what he meant. It wasn’t a dream keeping him awake. It was the waiting. The waiting to hear me knocking at his door while he lay dry-mouthed and wide-eyed in his bed.

Tell me about your dream, I said, and he shook his head.

I can’t.

I opened my mouth to ask him please. I needed to know that he found comfort in imagining it was his father on the other side of the door. Needed to know that even though he wasn’t sleeping, there was a part of him that nestled inside the sound and rested.

He pressed his lips together and turned his face into the crook of his arm.

I leaned over to kiss the top of his head, to breathe in the boyhood smell