Secret Story by Ramsey Campbell Page B

she said.
    He took time to laugh before saying “About as much as a little girl having a tantrum.”
    She rammed the accelerator down and gave him a tight smile that widened in triumph. “You’re sweating cobs.”
    He finished wiping his forehead and showed her the back of his hand. “That’s rain. Can’t you tell the difference? You’re no more scary than any other woman driver.”
    “Aren’t I?” she cried with a vehemence that left reason behind. “Try this.”
    It was happening, he thought—in fact, she was improving on his plan. As the car swerved down the nearest slipway he saw how high the tide had mounted. It must have thrown Shell too, because she tramped on the brake so hard that the wheels on his side of the car skidded almost to the edge of the concrete. The vehicle shuddered to a halt halfway down the ramp. “How’s that then, Mr Frightening Writer?” Shell demanded. “Will that do you?”
    A wave caught the headlamp beams before flattening itself under the car, and Dudley thought he felt it tug at the front wheels. “You want to back up now while you can,” he said.
    He was just in time to turn her against putting the car in reverse. “Come ahead, tell me why I shouldn’t,” she said, hardly bothering to scoff.
    “You might be too scared to work it. You don’t want to be alone down here with me where nobody can see us.”
    Her hand darted from the gear lever to the handbrake, on which she hauled with all her strength, adding her right hand to drag it another ratchet higher. “Now you’ve got what you’ve been drooling for. Let’s find out who scares who.”
    “You can’t scare me. You don’t even make me laugh.”
    “Half of that back at you, Dud.”
    He stared into her face, which looked squashed into hiding by the cap she had yanked lower. “That doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said as rain clattered the windscreen wipers against the glass.
    “You’re never going to scare me. You’re even more pathetic when you try. You’re a joke, a crap one. You make me laugh ’cos that’s all I can do with creeps like you.”
    He let her wonder what was in his eyes before he spoke. “You’ve never met anyone like me.”
    “Christ, is that what your mam tells you? Maybe she thinks it and maybe she doesn’t, but it won’t fool the rest of us.”
    “Don’t you talk about my mother. She doesn’t know all about me.” That was far too defensive, and so he added “She’d be scared if she did.”
    “You’ve only got one line, have you, Dud? Do you try it on all the girls? No wonder you’re on your own. It won’t work with me either.”
    The corners of his mouth began to creep up. “But it does,” he said.
    “I’ve got to hear this. You’re an act all by yourself, you are. I could get you booked along with me if they mightn’t think you’re funnier than I am. Are you sure the girls you try it on don’t? Go on then, what do they do?”
    “Some of them scream. Some of them can’t.”
    Her lips twitched in disgust, putting him in mind of worms turned up from beneath the rock that was her cap. “Jesus, you’re really trying to convince yourself of all your garbage. Maybe you even have. You want to see somebody.”
    “I’m seeing you.”
    “Not for much longer,” Shell said, reaching for the handbrake.
    “You’re scared at last, then. You’re scared to hear about them.”
    “No, I’m bored of hearing you come out with so much bollocks.” Nevertheless she twisted her body, so far as he could distinguish it within its camouflage, towards him as though to issue an additional challenge. “You won’t give up till you’ve told me a bedtime story, will you? Let’s see if you can even do that. Your mam sent in the story, maybe she wrote it as well.”
    That almost goaded him to waste time denying it. “You should have known where it came from. I thought you were supposed to be from Liverpool.”
    “I’m Scouse and proud of it. I reckon you’re the kind