by Ellen Datlow
Words to live by. She touched the nape of her neck. Definitely prickling, definitely goosebumps and not from the chill. She climbed out and made her way into the bushes, clumsier than a prey animal born to the art of disappearing, but with no less alacrity.
She stood behind a large spruce, hand braced against its rough bark. Sap stuck to her palm. It smelled bitter-green. Her thigh stung where a raspberry bush had torn her stocking and drawn blood. A starfield pulsed through ragged holes in the canopy. She knew jack about stars except the vague notion that mostly they radiated old, old light. Stars lived and died and some were devoured by black holes.
Nearby, J whooped, then whistled; shrill and lethal as a raptor tuning a killing song. Happy and swift.
He sounds well-fucked. Why did her mind leap there? Because his O-face was bestial? Because he loved to squeeze her throat when they fucked? The subconscious always knows best. As did Mama and big brother, apparently.
J’s shadow flitted near the car. His whistle segued to the humming of a nameless, yet familiar tune. Delia shrank against the bole of the tree and heard him open the driver’s door. After a brief pause, he called her name. First, still inside and slightly muffled (did he think she was hiding under a seat cushion?); second, much louder toward the rising slope behind him; last, aimed directly toward her hiding spot. Her residual alcohol buzz evaporated as did most of the spit in her mouth.
“Delia, sweetheart,” he said. “Buttercup, pumpkin, sugar booger. I meant to say earlier how much I adore the fact you didn’t wear makeup tonight. The soap and water look is sexxxxxy! I prefer a girl who doesn’t put on her face when she meets the world. It lights my fire, boy howdy. But now you gotta come here.” His voice thickened at the end. By some trick of the dark, his eyes flared dull-bright crimson. His lambent gaze pulsed for several heartbeats, then faded, and he became a silhouette again. “No?” he said in his regular voice. “Be that way. I hope you brought mad money, because you’re stranded on a lee shore. Should I cruise by your apartment instead? Would your roomies and your dog be pleased to meet me while I’m in this mood? Fuck it, sweetheart. I’ll surprise you.” He laughed, got into the car, and sped away. The red taillights seemed to hang forever; unblinking predatory eyes.
The entire scene felt simultaneously shocking and inevitable.
Of course, she speed-dialed her apartment to warn Housemate B. A robotic voice apologized that the call would not go through. It repeated this apology when she tried the police, her favorite taxi service, and finally, information. Static rose and rose until it roared in her ear and she gave up. She emerged from cover and removed her heels and waited, slightly crouched, to see if J would circle around to catch her in the open. A coyote stalking a ptarmigan. Yeah, that fit her escalating sense of dread—him creeping that ancient car, tongue lolling as he scanned the road for her fleeting shadow.
The cell’s penlight projected a ghostly cone. She followed it up the hill to her nearest chance for sanctuary, the house of Barry F. Ah, dear sweet Barry F, swinging senior executive of a successful mining company. He wore wire rim glasses and expensive shirts, proclaimed his loathing of physical labor and cold weather (thus, he was assigned to Alaska, naturally), and hosted plenty of semi-formal parties as befitted the persona of a respectable corporate whip hand—which meant prostitutes were referred to as companions and any coke-snorting and pill-popping shenanigans occurred in a discreet guestroom.
Notwithstanding jocular collegiality, Barry and J weren’t longtime friends, weren’t even close; their business orbits intersected and that was the extent of it. J collected acquaintances across a dizzying spectrum. Scoffing at the quality of humanity in general, he rubbed shoulders with gold-plated tycoons and grubby laborers alike. Similar to the Spartan furnishings of his apartment, individual relationships were cultivated relative to his needs.
What need do I satisfy? Physical? Emotional? Victim? Delia recalled a talk show wherein the host interviewed women who’d survived encounters with serial killers. One guest, a receptionist, had accompanied a coworker on a camping trip. The “nice guy” wined and dined her, then held a knife to her throat, ready to slash. At the last second, he decided to release her instead. I planned to kill you for three months. Go on, the fear in your eyes is enough. The receptionist boogied and reported the incident. Her camping buddy went to prison for the three murders he’d previously committed in that park. Which was to say, how could a woman ever know what squirmed in the brains of men?
As Delia approached the house, the porch light and the light streaming through the windows snuffed like blown matches. Muffled laughter and the steady thud of bass also ceased. At moments such as this, what was a humble arts and entertainment reporter to do? Nothing in her quarter century of life, on the Last Frontier notwithstanding, had prepared her for this experience: half-frozen, teeth chattering, absolutely alone.
Darkness smothered the neighborhood. Not a solitary lamp glimmered among the terraced elevations or secluded cul-de-sacs. She looked south and west, down into the bowl of the city proper. From her vantage, it appeared that the entire municipality had gone dark. Anchorage’s skyline should have suffused the heavens with light pollution. More stars instead; a jagged reef of them, low and indifferent. Ice Age constellations that cast glacial shadows over the mountains.
The phone’s beam flickered, perhaps in response to her fear. She assumed the battery must be dying despite the fact she’d charged it prior to the evening’s events. It oozed crimson, spattering the stone steps as if she were swinging a censer of phosphorescent dye. She barged through the front door without a how-do-you-do. Warm, at least. In fact, humid as the breath of a panting dog. Her thoughts flashed to dear sweet Fido at the apartment. God, please don’t let J do anything to him. Oh yeah, and good luck to my housemate too.
She hesitated in the foyer beneath the dead chandelier and put her shoes on. Her sight adjusted enough to discern the contours of her environment. No one spoke, which seemed ominous. Most definitely ominous. A gaggle of drunks trapped in a sudden blackout could be expected to utter any number of exclamatory comments. Girls would shriek in mock terror and some bluff hero would surely announce he’d be checking the fuse box straight away. There’d be a bit of obligatory ass-grabbing, right? Where were all the cell phones and keychain penlights? A faucet dripped; heating ducts creaked in the walls. This was hardcore Bermuda Triangle-Mary Celeste shit.
Snagging a landline was the first order of business. Her heels clicked ominously as she moved around the grand staircase and deeper into the house to its spacious, partially sunken living room.
Everyone awaited her there. Wine glasses and champagne flutes partially raised in toast; heads thrown back, bared teeth glinting here and there; others half-turned, frozen mid-glance, mid-step, mid-gesticulation. Only mannequins could be frozen in such exaggerated positions of faux life. The acid reek of disgorged bowels and viscera filled Delia’s nostrils. She smelled blood soaked into dresses and blood dripping from cuffs and hosiery; she smelled blood as it pooled upon the carpet and coagulated in the vents.
Her dying cell phone chose that moment to give up the ghost entirely. She was thankful. Starlight permitted her the merest impressions of the presumed massacre, its contours and topography, nothing granular. Her nose and imagination supplied the rest. Which is to say, bile rose in her throat and her mind fogged over. Questions of why and how did not register. The nauseating intimacy of this abominable scene overwhelmed such trivial considerations.
A closet door opened like an eyeless socket near the baby grand piano. Atticus trotted forth. Delia recognized his general shape and the jingle of his vaccination tags and because for the love of everything holy, who else? The dog stopped near a throng of mutilated party-goers and lapped the carpet between shoes and sandals with increasing eagerness. A human silhouette emerged next and sat on the piano bench. The shape could’ve been almost anybody. The figure’s thin hand passed through a shaft of starlight and plinked a key several times.
B-flat? Delia retained a vague notion of chords—a high school crush showed her the rudiments as a maneuver to purloin her virtue. Yes, B flat, over and over. Heavily, then softly, softly, nigh invisibly, and heavily again, discordant, jarring, threatening.
I’m sorry you had to bear witness. These words weren’t uttered by the figure. They originated at a distance of light years, uncoiling within her consciousness. Her father’s voice. The human animal is driven by primal emotions and urges. How great is your fear, Delia? Does it fit inside a breadbox? Does it fit inside your clutch? This house?
The shape at the piano gestured with a magician’s casual flourish and the faint radiance of the stars flickered to a reddish hue. The red light intensified and seeped into the room.
The voice in her head again: Looking for Mr. Goodbar stuck with you. Diane Keaton’s fate frightened you as a girl and terrifies you as a woman. In J, you suspect you finally drew the short straw. The man with a knife in his pocket, a strangling cord, a snub-nose revolver, the ticket stub with your expiration date. The man to take you camping and return alone. And sweetie, the bastard resembles me, wouldn’t you say?
Ice tinkled in glasses—spinning and slopping. Glasses toppled and fell from nerveless fingers. Shadow-Atticus ceased slurping and made himself scarce behind a couch. He trailed inky pawprints. Timbers groaned; the heart of the living room was released from the laws of physics—it bent at bizarre, corkscrew angles, simultaneously existing on a plane above and below the rest of the interior. Puffs of dust erupted as cracks shot through plaster. The floor tilted and the guests were pulled together, packed cheek to jowl.
There followed a long, dreadful pause. Delia had sprawled to her hands and knees during the abrupt gravitational shift. Forces dragged against her, but she counterbalanced as one might to avoid plummeting off a cliff. She finally got a clean, soul-scarring gander at her erstwhile party companions.
Each had died instantaneously via some force that inflicted terrible bruises, suppurating wounds, and ruptures. The corpses were largely intact and rigidly positioned as a gallery of wax models. Strands of metal wire perforated flesh at various junctures, drew the bodies upright, and connected them into a mass. The individual strands gleamed and converged overhead as a thick spindle that ascended toward the dome of ceiling, and infinitely farther.
The shape at the piano struck a key and its note was reciprocated by an omnidirectional chime that began at the nosebleed apex of the scale and descended precipitously, boring into plaster, concrete, and bone. The house trembled. Delia pushed herself backward into a wall where normal gravity resumed. She huddled, tempted to make a break for it, and also too petrified to move.
There are two kinds of final girls. The kind who escape and the kind who don’t. You’re the second kind. I am very, very proud, kiddo. You’ll do big things.
Cracks split the roof, revealing a viscid abyss with a mouthful of half-swallowed nebulae. It chimed and howled, eternally famished. Bits of tile plummeted into the expanse, joining dead stars. Shoe tips scraped as the guests lifted en masse, lazily revolving like a bleeding mobile carved for an infant god. The mobile jerkily ascended, tugged into oblivion at the barbed terminus of a fisherman’s line.
Delia glanced down to behold a lone strand of the (god?) wire burrowing into her wrist, seeking a vein or a bone to anchor itself. She wrenched free and pitched backward against a wall.
The chiming receded, so too the red glow, and the void contentedly suckled its morsel. Meanwhile, the shadow pianist hunched into a fetal position and dissolved. Run along, her father said. Run along, dear. Don’t worry your pretty head about any of this.
Delia ran along.
Alaska winter didn’t kill her. Not that this was necessarily Alaska. The land turned gray and waterways froze. Snow swirled over empty streets and empty highways and buried inert vehicles. Powerlines collapsed and copses of black spruce and paper birch stood vigil as the sun paled every day until it became a white speck.
Delia travelled west, then south, snagging necessities from deserted homes and shops. Her appearance transformed—she wore layers of wool and flannel, high-dollar pro ski goggles, an all-weather parka, snow pants, and thick boots. Her tent, boxes of food, water, and medical supplies went loaded into a banana sled courtesy of a military surplus store. She acquired a light hunting rifle and taught herself to use it, in case worse came to worst. She didn’t have a plan other than to travel until she found her way back to a more familiar version of reality. Or to walk until she keeled over; whichever came first.
In the beginning, she hated it. That changed over the weeks and months as the suburban softness gave way to a metallic finish. Survival can transition into a lifestyle. She sheltered inside houses and slept on beds. She burned furniture for warmth. However, the bloodstains disquieted her as did eerie noises that wafted from basements and attics during the bleak a.m. hours. She eventually camped outdoors among the woodland creatures who shunned abandoned habitations of humankind as though city limits demarcated entry to an invisible zone of death. The animals had a point, no doubt.
Speaking of animals. Wild beasts haunted the land in decent numbers. Domestic creatures were extinct, seemingly departed to wherever their human masters currently dwelled. With the exception of the other Atticus. The dog lurked on the periphery of her vision; a blur in the undergrowth, a rusty patch upon the snow. At night he dropped mangled ptarmigans and rabbits at the edge of her campfire light. He kept his distance, watching over her as she slept. The musk of his gore-crusted fur, the rawness of his breath, infiltrated her dreams.
In other dreams, her mother coalesced for a visit. Now it can be said. Your father murdered eight prostitutes before lung cancer cut him down. The police never suspected that sweet baby-faced sonofabitch. You were onto him, somehow. She woke with a start and the other Atticus’s eyes reflected firelight a few yards to her left in the gauze of darkness that enfolded the world.
“Thanks for the talk, Mom.”
Delia continued to walk and pull the sled. Sometimes on a road, or with some frequency, on a more direct route through woods and over water. She didn’t encounter any human survivors, nor any tracks or other sign. However, she occasionally glimpsed crystallized hands and feet jutting from a brush pile, or an indistinct form suspended in the translucent depths of a lake. She declined to investigate, lowered her head and marched onward.
One late afternoon, near spring, but not quite, J (dressed in black camo and Army-issue snowshoes) leaped from cover with a merry shriek and knocked her flat. He lay atop her and squeezed her throat inexorably, his eyes sleepy with satisfaction.
“If it were my decision, I’d make you a pet. You don’t belong here, sugar pie.” He well and truly applied his brutish strength. Brutish strength proved worthless. His expression changed as terror flooded in and his grip slackened. “Oh, my god. I didn’t know. They didn’t warn me . . .”
Her eyes teared and she regarded him as if through a pane of water. Her eyes teared because she was laughing so hard. “Too late, asshole. Years and years too late.” She brushed his hands aside. “I’m the second kind.”
He scrambled to his feet and ran across fresh powder toward the woods as fast as his snowshoes could carry him, which wasn’t very. She retrieved the rifle, chambered a round, and tracked him with the scope. A moving target proved more challenging than plinking at soda bottles and pie tins. Her first two shots missed by a mile.
Delia made camp; then she hiked over to J and dragged him back. He gazed at her adoringly, arms trailing in the snow. He smiled an impossibly broad, empty smile. That night, the fire crackled and sent small stars homeward. J grinned and grinned, his body limp as a mannequin caught in the snarled boughs of a tree where she’d strung him as an afterthought. The breeze kicked up into a Chinook that tasted of green sap and thawing earth.
“Everything will be different tomorrow,” she said to the flames, the changing stars. Limbs creaked to and fro and J nodded, nodded;
slavishly agreeable. His shadow and the shadow of the tree limbs spread grotesquely across the frozen ground.
The wind carried to her faint sounds of the dog gnawing and slurping at a blood-drenched snowbank. The wind whispered that Atticus would slake himself and then creep into the receding darkness, gone forever. Where she was headed, he couldn’t follow.
“So, while there’s time, let’s have a talk,” Delia said to Grinning J. “When we make it home, tell me where I can find more boys just like you.”
THUMBSUCKER
ROBERT SHEARMAN
My father has become a thumbsucker. I know, it took me by surprise too. I’d taken him out to dinner, and it had been a fine dinner—my father and I always try to have dinner together once a month or so, but sometimes I get busy, I have to cancel and he always understands—but I’d made the time, we’d been out and had this most excellent steak in a restaurant I’d seen reviewed quite favourably in one of the Sunday supplements. We were talking about something inconsequential—cricket probably, or which Wodehouse novel he was re-reading—and the plates were being cleared. And he sighed contentedly, he smiled. He folded his hand into a fist, tapped it gently a couple of times to make the thumb pop out—and then, without any embarrassment or explanation, proceeded to put the thumb into his mouth and hold it between his teeth like the stem of a pipe.
I made no comment on it. And we continued our conversation: “What about that Bertie Wooster?” he’d say, or maybe, “What about that test match?” Puffing on the thumb as he listened to me, then removing it from his mouth and jabbing it in the air to emphasise a point in reply.
The waiter had been attentive all evening, checking that we were enjoying our meal and keeping our wine glasses filled. And when he approached we assumed it was to offer us dessert, and Father had decided upon the tiramisu, and I thought I’d plump for a crème brûlée.