18
THE BLACK PHONE
Finney stood a yard away, breathing shallowly, holding the receiver to his chest in one hand. In the other hand was a coil of black wire, the wire that had connected the receiver to the black phone. It had been necessary to chew through it to pull it off.
The wire itself was straight, not curly, like on a modern phone.
He had the line wrapped three times around his right hand.
“You see this,” Albert said, his voice choked, uneven. He looked up. “You see what you made me do?” Then he saw what Finney was holding, and his brow knotted with confusion. “What the fuck you do to the phone?”
Finney stepped toward him and snapped the receiver into his face, across Al’s nose. He had unscrewed the mouthpiece and filled the mostly hollow receiver with sand, and screwed the mouthpiece back in to hold it all in place. It hit Albert’s nose with a brittle snap like plastic breaking, only it wasn’t plastic breaking. The fat man made a sound, a choked cry, and blood blurted from his nostrils. He lifted a hand. Finney smashed the receiver down and crushed his fingers.
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: