Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2

by Wrath James White

“Want some?”

  “Pardon?”

  She held out a graham cracker and the can of frosting. “It’s the best snack I ever invented.”

  Tate shook his head. “Sounds great, but it’s not for me.”

  “Y’know, people with nothing to lose usually come to a bad end. Think about that before you give up everything good in life.”

  She looked so utterly serious, and Tate couldn’t help himself. He swiped a dot of icing from the corner of her mouth with his thumb, and licked it clean. “I haven’t given up everything good.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She grinned and brushed crumbs off her orange tights. “So? How may I serve you today?”

  Tate splashed through the brackish convergence of thoughts at the inlet of his mind, trying to locate the reason he’d popped into the office.

  “There’s a couple kids living here. Boy and a girl?”

  Clueless eyes stared up at him.

  “Do you know who they belong to?” he prompted.

  Her nose wrinkled. “That’s a terrible question.”

  “It is?”

  “Who do you belong to? Who does anyone belong to?” She stuck out her confetti-hued tongue. “That’s super personal. You can’t just … It’s a weird question. You’re weird for asking it.”

  He was weird? Maybe she wasn’t craft beer. Maybe she was something else. Like a syrupy white zin. Any self-respecting grownup would be embarrassed, but somehow, she turned it around so he was the loser, in business casual, with his glass of pinot noir.

  Tate jammed his hands in his back pockets. “They run wild. Follow me around the building. I hear them outside my door. Couple days ago they were in the basement, skulking about. Someone just needs to tell them it’s not cool to sneak up on strangers, and I’m not sure it should be me.”

  Cymbria tilted her head. “Are you strange?”

  “I’d like to speak to their parents,” he said. “I should probably meet my neighbors, anyway.”

  “Do you want to meet them?”

  Tate considered it. He heard water running, footsteps, and latching doors. He received either a cheery wave from Cymbria, or a grudging nod from Will almost every day when he passed the office on his way out of the building. Otherwise, it was easy to pretend he had Leighaven all to himself.

  “Guess I’ve been enjoying the bubble,” he admitted.

  A curious smile slanted across Cymbria’s face. “Did you get yourself a present?”

  Tate followed her pointing finger to a cardboard slab resting against the wall. “Must be the desk I ordered.”

  Her face fell. “That’s not a present. People use desks for work.”

  “Or watching cat videos.” Tate crouched in front of the box, inspecting the bill of lading taped to the side. “But work is the idea, yes.”

  Cymbria knelt beside him, her elbow not quite touching his. She gathered her hair, exposing her pale nape before tossing the dark mass over her shoulder. She smelled like kindergarten—graham crackers and hot, sticky hands. “What do you do for work, Tate?”

  “Shelve books at the library.”

  Cymbria ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. “I mean before you came to Leighaven.”

  Not the name of the city, or even a vague ‘here.’ Leighaven. Like it had been his plan, all along.

  “Speaking of personal questions.” Tate stood up. Cymbria remained on her knees, staring up at him, her mouth soft, damp, and open just a little. He gripped the edge of the box. “Uh, I ought to get this put away, but if you want to come by later, I could pour you a cup of coffee and tell you all about it.”

  She blinked, a slow sweep of eyelashes. “I should get Will.”

  Granted it wasn’t Tate’s smoothest move. The kind of invitation usually met with some version of, ‘Jeez, I would but I have jury duty.’ It was Cymbria though, and because she had to be weird about everything, she shut him down with one unexpected syllable.

  “Will?” he asked.

  Cymbria bounced up and drummed her fingers on the cardboard. “To help you. Little Brother moves heavy stuff all the time. He’s really strong.”

  Rejection, followed by three flights of hate-face?

  “It’s not that heavy.”

  It was very heavy.

  “Once I get it on the first step, it’ll slide up, no problem.”

  He said a prayer for his back.

  Sweat prickled along his hairline and his shoulder ached. He focused on the door to the third floor. One more flight. He gripped the sides of the box and shoved. His toe slipped off the edge of the stair, the box slid back, hitting him in the chest. Tate’s hand flew out, but his fingertips only grazed the rail as he fell backward.

  His tumble stopped suddenly as it started, when a hot manacle locked around his wrist.

  Will stood above him, one hand holding the box, the other holding Tate. Dark eyes blazed behind his shaggy hair. Heat from Will’s hand travelled up Tate’s arm and gathered in his chest. It was the first time in weeks that someone had touched him. Despite the severe expression on Will’s face, despite being suspended mid-crash over the stairs, Tate felt oddly cared for.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Will’s forearm corded as he pulled Tate upright. “Looking a little doughy there, Tater Tot.”

  “What?” Tate yanked his wrist free and his stomach sucked itself in, retreating from the pointy words. “Doughy?”

  “Pale, like bread dough?” Will explained, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Good timing,” Tate said, gripping the bannister. “Could’ve broken my neck.”

  Will grunted. “What a waste that would be.”

  “Where’d you come from, anyway?”

  Will glanced over his shoulder. “Most people call it a door.”

  “Right.”

  Will leaned his hip against the rail, one hand steadying the box like it weighed precisely nothing. “What are you doing, trying to move this by yourself?”

  “Didn’t seem that heavy at first.”

  “They never do.”

  Will hauled the box up the rest of the stairs with grace. Bastard. Cymbria was right. Will was strong. And naturally thin. And good looking. Not quite handsome though, like his sister wasn’t quite pretty. Both attractive, but in an androgynous way. It was Will’s attitude that lent him a caustic masculinity.

  Outside number nine, Tate dug in his pocket for his key.

  “Need help setting it up?” Will asked.

  “Think I can manage.” Tate slid the key in the lock. “Thanks again. I owe you one. Really, if there’s anything I can do for you, just ask. I’m happy to help.”

  Will’s annoyance swarmed around them like a cloud of wasps. “If you wanna blow me that bad I won’t stop you. But I’d just as soon leave it here, yeah?”

  “Consider it left.”

  “Try not to stab yourself with a hammer.” He clapped Tate on the back. “Later, Tater.”

  The door squealed shut behind Will, muting his footfalls down the stairs. Tate stood in the hall, the skin between his shoulder blades stinging. He listened for silver giggles or footsteps. Silence. Cymbria never did answer his question.

  Inside the apartment, he opened the box and found all the parts and hardware he needed. Cymbria was right. He planned to use the desk to work. The work had already begun, in fact. He had plans.

  Tate’s eye wandered to his computer, currently sitting on the coffee table. Maybe he should contact Brad? That last conversation hadn’t ended well. Tate did miss his brother and his nephews, but in a detached way. It didn’t sit right. He wanted to miss them more. They were the only family he had.

  The desk went together easy enough. As Tate tightened the final screw, he noticed the discoloration circling his wrist. Pink and tender, like a sunburn. In the shape of a handprint.

  ***

  A knock at the door wrenched Tate out of his computer screen trance.

  “Shit,” he muttered, noting the
late hour. He pushed away from the desk and shuffled over to the peephole. He yawned and opened the door.

  Cymbria held up a plate of cinnamon rolls. “I made you a special treat.”

  The smell smashed into him, neither good nor bad, just overwhelming. He stared at the floor, searching for his words. “Cymbria, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “You asked me to come by later.”

  “It’s past midnight.”

  One eye narrowed as she pressed a finger to the bow of her upper lip. “Too late?”

  “Well, yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Or too early, depending on how you look at it. Jesus.”

  “Shoot, I’ve never been good with these …” the finger snap again. “Conventions.”

  Tate couldn’t help noticing her chalky face, the purple shadows under her eyes, and the way her collarbones punched up too hard under her skin.

  “Cymbria, are you okay?” he asked.

  “I screwed up.” She shoved a flour-streaked tendril of hair behind her ear. “When you visit, you’re supposed to bring something. It’s polite. But it took longer than I thought and time is like, something I don’t really notice, and I do things without thinking them through, at least that’s what Little Brother says, but he’s wrong, because I think a lot, about all kinds of things, but they’re always the wrong thing, you know?” She thrust the cinnamon rolls at him. “Anyway, here.”

  He took the plate and caught her arm as she pivoted to leave. “Wait.”

  Her face swiveled back to his, eyes bigger than ever. “I’m sorry, Tate.”

  Sorry. The sound of that word coming out of her mouth, the shape of it on her lips. It felt wrong. He never wanted her to say it again.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “I was up anyway. Please, come in.”

  “I should leave you alone.”

  He pressed his thumb firmly into the hot crease of her elbow. “Come in.”

  She shivered as he pulled her across the threshold. Once inside, she slipped through his grasp, inch-by-inch, until her fingers glided over his. She clomped across the parquet floor in knee-high shitkickers, paired nicely with her white wife beater, like Johnny Walker and cigarettes. In between, a pink skirt flounced down her legs, and a matching ribbon secured her sloppy ponytail.

  Goodbye Big Bird.

  Hello Kitty.

  “Wow.” She stomped around his living room. “You’ve done a whole lotta nothing with the place.

  “It’s a good scotch,” Tate said. “Doesn’t need much. Just a few drops of water.”

  “You drink a lot of scotch?”

  “Not as much as I’ve served. Before I came to Leighaven, I was a bartender.”

  Cymbria mimed a free pour. “That’s always a sexy job in the movies.”

  “Yeah, a sexy consequence of an English degree.”

  Her mouth turned down. “You like to ruin the fantasy, don’t you?”

  “Constant source of disappointment, right here.”

  “Didn’t mean it like that.” She gave his arm a squeeze, a simple, tender touch that demanded nothing in return and stirred him more deeply than it should have. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Go for it.”

  “It’s personal,” she warned.

  He gave her a look. “I let you into my apartment in the middle of the night. Just ask.”

  “People quit their jobs all the time, Tate. You quit your whole life. Why?”

  Tate paced back and forth for a long moment. “It’s complicated. My brother thinks I’ve cracked up. That I’m selfish.”

  “Brothers are a chore sometimes.”

  “But it is selfish, isn’t it? To suddenly blow town without telling anyone?”

  Cymbria perched on the edge of his new desk, smoothing her cotton candy skirt over her knees. “A lot of things look sudden, Tate. Maybe some things are. But not people.”

  Tate continued pacing. “You know that content look people get on their faces when a person falls exactly in line? When all expectations are met and you’ve neatly slotted yourself into the space where they think you belong?”

  Cymbria nodded, her eyes following him back and forth.

  “My whole life,” he said. “I’ve tried to be the guy my family and friends needed. I never stepped outside of the parameters they’d set. I’m a responsible business partner, a tireless worker, a last minute babysitter, a good brother, and by necessity the second best son, a place to crash, a bank to borrow from, a comic foil … whatever they wanted, I made it happen. I existed to put that look on their faces. I never questioned it.”

  Cymbria swung her crossed ankles. “They were happy. You thought you were happy too.”

  “That night, I realized my life wasn’t even mine. I was a drone, performing as programmed. I saw a way out. So, I followed the trail.”

  “Into the woods,” Cymbria said, catching his hand as he passed, arresting his pattern. They shared a moment of silence until the smell of cinnamon drove him to distraction.

  He lifted the edge of the plastic on the plate. “It’s a little late for me, but do you want one?”

  “I already ate four.” She clutched her stomach. “Can’t help myself. Treats always make me happy. For a while, anyway.”

  Tate gazed at the pastries. “Sometimes that’s enough.”

  “Are you writing something?” Cymbria touched the word-filled screen of his laptop.

  Heat blasted into his ears as he snapped the screen down. “I was. Before you inappropriately neighbor’d me.”

  “A story?”

  “Sort of, I’m not sure yet.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Why was he telling her this? Why was she here? It was all so personal.

  Cymbria hopped off his desk. “I love stories, so does Little Brother. For the longest time, we read the same old books over and over. But now, with the Internet, you can get anything you want, anything in the whole wide world!” She threw her arms out and twirled around his living room. Her skirt flew up, displacing cinnamon scented air and exposing her creamy thighs. Also, no bra.

  He rubbed his eyes. “Can I ask you something now?”

  “Want to play twenty questions? I love that game, even though Will hates it.”

  “Is there anything he doesn’t hate?”

  Cymbria’s gaze dropped to the floor. “You don’t like him.”

  Tate bobbled around all the words that wanted to go first. “I don’t think he likes me. Or that I’m here, at Leighaven.”

  “He’s a barky dog, but he’d never bite anyone who didn’t deserve it.” A softness crept into her expression as she defended her brother. “What was your question?”

  “At the library, I found a book on the city’s historical buildings. Leighaven was in there.”

  Cymbria’s hands fluttered to her stomach. “So?”

  “Wasn’t much information. Stuff about the architecture and that it was built by Reinhold and Glory Leighaven in 1901.”

  “Guess there’s not much to tell.”

  “Maybe, but I was interested, so I went down the street to land titles. Sweetie-pied a clerk half to death, hoping she could dig deeper into the building’s history. Turns out Reinhold and Glory died just a few months after the building was finished, and ownership passed not to any family, but to The Leighaven Group, Reinhold’s investment firm. In 1970, the Leighaven Group successfully lobbied the province to have the building declared a heritage sight, and they’re still paying the taxes on it today out of a trust. Administered by Cymbria and William Leighaven.”

  “And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you pesky kids,” she crowed. “Nice work, Scooby.”

  “I’ve been living here almost two months. We see each other almost every day. Why didn’t you tell me your last name is Leighaven, or that you own this building?”

  A dark look clouded her face. “Most times I feel like it owns us.”

  His heart squeezed out a run of irregular beats. “I get that.”

  She
clutched his hands, her fingers threading through his wherever they found a gap. “Since we’re confessing stuff, I may as well admit that when you emailed your application, I searched you up on the Google. I found an article on food and beverage spots. There was a picture, of you and your brother, in front of your bar. So, when you showed up last week …”

  Tate pulled his hands free. “You expected a fat guy?”

  “You’ve been preparing, Tate. Even if you didn’t know it. You came here empty, just waiting to be filled up again. I knew you were the one to let in.”

  Cymbria didn’t know Fat Tate. She didn’t know that Fat Tate was a lot nicer than not Fat Tate. But Fat Tate was a doormat. Fat Tate couldn’t say no. Fat Tate laughed it off but still cringed inside when his brother or his friends employed varied sobriquets like ‘Tubs’ or ‘Tits’ or the crowd favorite, ‘Tater Tot’, unwittingly resurrected by a certain lanky bastard in residence.

  Cymbria dragged her finger down the middle of his chest. “I never expected Ken to turn up on my stoop.”

  “Ken?”

  “Barbie’s boyfriend. You know, blond and handsome.” She scraped his hair back from his forehead. “I always wanted to be glamorous like Barbie.”

  On impulse, Tate tugged the pink ribbon on the back of her head. The bow slipped open and her hair tumbled down like a warm pelt. “You look better than any Barbie.” His thumb brushed over her suddenly flushed cheek. But people were never sudden, were they?

  Her hand closed around his wrist. “Tate, don’t write about Leighaven.”

  “Why?”

  “Because history is never over. It’s never dead. You get real close and real quiet and you’ll see it breathing.”

  Her queer-eyed stare held a plea, a warning, and something else. An affliction. Tate couldn’t get a fix on her. Charming. Puzzling. Shifting to the left whenever he thought he had her pinned. A child with her goofy outfits. A woman, braless and knocking on his door in the small hours. Or a creature, with hidden fangs and dark eyes full of old secrets.

  Cymbria Leighaven.

  Her arm hooked around his neck and she pulled his mouth down to hers. They kissed with uncoordinated tongues, held breath, and clashing teeth. Everything terrible about first kisses, except it wasn’t terrible at all. His hands slid under her shirt over the bare skin of her waist.