The Black Phone(8)

Albert dropped his shattered hand and looked up, an animal sound rising in his throat. Finney hit him again to shut him up, clubbed the receiver against the bare curve of his skull. It hit with a satisfying knocking sound, and a spray of glittering sand leaped into the sunlight. Screaming, the fat man propelled himself off the floor, staggering forward, but Finney skipped back—so much faster than Albert—striking him across the mouth, hard enough to turn his head halfway around, then in the knee to drop him, to make him stop.

Al fell, throwing his arms out, caught Finney at the waist and slammed him to the floor. He came down on top of Finney’s legs. Finney struggled to pull himself out from under. The fat man lifted his head, blood drizzling from his mouth, a furious moan rising from somewhere deep in his chest. Finney still held the receiver in one hand, and three loops of black wire in the other. He sat up, meant to club Albert with the receiver again, but then his hands did something else instead. He put the wire around the fat man’s throat and pulled tight, crossing his wrists behind Al’s neck. Albert got a hand on his face and scratched him, flaying Finney’s right cheek. Finney pulled the wire a notch tighter and Al’s tongue popped out of his mouth.

19

20TH CENTURY GHOSTS

Across the room, the black phone rang. The fat man choked.

He stopped scratching at Finney’s face and set his fingers under the wire around his throat. He could only use his left hand, because the fingers of his right were shattered, bent in unlikely directions. The phone rang again. The fat man’s gaze flicked toward it, then back to Finney’s face. Albert’s pupils were very wide, so wide the golden ring of his irises had shrunk to almost nothing. His pupils were a pair of black balloons, obscuring twin suns. The phone rang and rang. Finney pulled at the wire.

On Albert’s dark, bruise-colored face was a horrified question.

“It’s for you,” Finney told him.

20





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book was originally released by PS Publishing in England, two years ago. Thanks are owed to those who gave so much of themselves to make that first edition happen: Christopher Golden, Vincent Chong, and Nicholas Gevers. Most of all, though, I want to express my gratitude and love to publisher Peter Crowther, who took a chance on 20th Century Ghosts without knowing anything about me except that he liked my stories.

I’m grateful to all the editors who have supported my work over the years, including but not limited to Richard Chizmar, Bill Schafer, Andy Cox, Stephen Jones, Dan Jaffe, Jeanne Cavelos, Tim Schell, Mark Apelman, Robert O. Greer Jr., Adrienne Brodeur, Wayne Edwards, Frank Smith, and Teresa Focarile. Apologies to those I might have left out. And here’s a special holler of thanks to Jennifer Brehl and Jo Fletcher, my editors at William Morrow and Gollancz, respectively; two better editors a guy could not wish for.

Thanks also to my Webmaster, Shane Leonard. I appreciate, too, all the work my agent, Mickey Choate, has performed on my behalf. My thanks to my parents, my brother and sister, and of course my tribe, whom I love dearly: Leanora and the boys.

And how about a little thanks for you, the reader, for picking up this book and giving me the chance to whisper in your ear for a few hours?

Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman have both hidden stories in introductions, but I don’t think anyone has ever buried one in

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

their acknowledgments page. I could be the first. The only way I can think to repay you for your interest is with the offer of one more story:

SCHEHERAZADE’S TYPEWRITER

Elena’s father had gone into the basement every night, after work, for as far back as she could remember, and did not come up until he had written three pages on the humming IBM electric typewriter he had bought in college, when he still believed he would someday be a famous novelist. He had been dead for three days before his daughter heard the typewriter in the basement, at the usual time: a burst of rapid bang-bang-banging, followed by a waiting silence, filled out only by the idiot hum of the machine.

Elena descended the steps, into darkness, her legs weak. The drone of his IBM filled the musty-smelling dark, so the gloom itself seemed to vibrate with electrical current, as before a thunderstorm. She reached the lamp beside her father’s typewriter, and flipped it on just as the Selectric burst into another bang-bang flurry of noise. She screamed, and then screamed again when she saw the keys moving on their own, the chrome typeball lunging against the bare black platen.

That first time Elena saw the typewriter working on its own, she thought she might faint from the shock of it. Her mother almost did faint when Elena showed her, the very next night.

When the typewriter jumped to life and began to write, Elena’s mother threw her hands up and shrieked and her legs wobbled under her, and Elena had to grab her by the arm to keep her from going down.

But in a few days they got used to it, and then it was exciting. Her mother had the idea to roll a sheet of paper in, just before the typewriter switched itself on at 8 p.m. Elena’s mother wanted to see what it was writing, if it was a message for them from beyond. My grave is cold. I love you and I miss you.

But it was only another of his short stories. It didn’t even start at the beginning. The page began midway, right in the middle of a sentence.

It was Elena’s mother who thought to call the local news.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A producer from channel five came to see the typewriter. The producer stayed until the machine turned itself on and wrote a few sentences, then she got up and briskly climbed the stairs.