Free Haunted Legends by Ellen Datlow, Nick Mamatas Page B

to live life away from prostitution, away from itchy labia, away from madmen with knives.
    When she reaches the park gates, Ruth does not pause. She walks away slowly, deliberately. She no longer needs giant leaps to know where she’s going. She glances skyward and sees the merest hint of the Spring Heel on his evening prowl.
    “You’re much misunderstood, sir,” Ruth whispers to no one but the night and the devilish glow dancing amongst the chimney pots.
    For an instant Ruth wonders if she’s really there. Is this her Heaven, and her body lies broken against some hospital wall?
    Ruth shakes her head. It doesn’t matter. This is where she’s at peace.
    “Long may you leap, Mr Spring Heel,” she says. “Your wonders to perform.”
Afterword
    I’ve always been fascinated by the Spring Heel Jack legends. I love the way Jack was somehow able to show himself in great leaps and bounds even during daylight and yet still remain elusive and mysterious. I tried to mimic this in the story; to have the Spring Heel’s appearances seem fleeting, as if he’s almost incidental to Ruth’s tale, yet at the same time to reveal him as a catalyst to bring on Ruth’s (apparent) salvation. I added a little creative license to suggest that in Ruth’s ragtag friends perhaps the Spring Heel didn’t quite work alone. Living in Liverpool, where a great many of Jack’s appearances came, also makes the legend special to me.

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN
As Red as Red
    Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of seven novels, including the award-winning
Threshold
and, most recently,
Daughter of Hounds
and
The Red Tree.
Her short fiction has been collected in
Tales of Pain and Wonder; From Weird and Distant Shores; To Charles Fort, with Love; Alabaster;
and
A Is for Alien.
Her erotica has been collected in three volumes:
Frog Toes and Tentacles, Tales from the Woeful Platypus,
and
Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart.
She is currently beginning work on her eighth novel. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

 
     
     
     
     
1.
    “So, you believe in vampires?” she asks, then takes another sip of her coffee and looks out at the rain pelting Thames Street beyond the café window. It’s been pissing rain for almost an hour, a cold, stinging shower on an overcast afternoon near the end of March, a bitter Newport afternoon that would have been equally at home in January or February. But at least it’s not pissing snow.
    I put my own cup down—tea, not coffee—and stare across the booth at her for a moment or two before answering. “No,” I tell Abby Gladding. “But, quite clearly, those people in Exeter who saw to it that Mercy Brown’s body was exhumed, the ones who cut out her heart and burned it, clearly
they
believed in vampires. And that’s what I’m studying, the psychology behind that hysteria, behind the superstitions.”
    “It was so long ago,” she replies, and smiles. There’s no foreshadowing in that smile, not even in hindsight. It surely isn’t a predatory smile. There’s nothing malevolent, or hungry, or feral in the expression. She just watches the rain and smiles, as though something I’ve said amuses her.
    “Not really,” I say, glancing down at my steaming cup. “Not so long ago as people might
like
to think. The Mercy Brown incident, that was in 1892, and the most recent case of purported vampirism in the Northeast I’ve been able to pin down dates from sometime in 1898, a mere hundred and eleven years ago.”
    Her smile lingers, and she traces a circle in the condensation on the plate-glass window, then traces another circle inside it.
    “We’re not so far removed from the villagers with their torches and pitchforks, from old Cotton Mather and his bunch. That’s what you’re saying.”
    “Well, not exactly, but . . .” and when I trail off, she turns her head toward me, and her blue-grey eyes seem as cold as the low-slung sky above Newport. You could almost freeze to death in eyes like those, I think, and