The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2016 Edition

by Paula Guran

  “I’m home now. We’ll not talk about these past, dark years. It’ll be how it was before. Better. You’ll see. Us taking care of each other.”

  Georgia’s unusual for a photographer in that she’s more beautiful than her models. They’re gap toothed, gawky things that only find luminosity through the lens. Georgia’s arresting in the flesh.

  I hover beside our host who’s introducing me to everyone as though I’m a curio. We approach a group who talk too loudly, as if they’re the epicenter of the party.

  “I find Georgia distant. And ambitious.”

  “She lives on Martin’s Heath. In one of the old houses.”

  “Bloody hell, is that family money?”

  “Rosie, you’ve modeled for Georgia. Have you been there?”

  “No.”

  Rosie sounds so quiet and reflective that the pain of her unrequited love is palpable. At least I hope it’s unrequited.

  “Have you seen her girlfriend?”

  “Everyone, meet Eliza,” our host steps in before they have a chance to pronounce judgment on me within my earshot, “Georgia’s partner.”

  I shake hands with each of them.

  “Georgia’s last shoot made waves. And I didn’t realize that she was such a stunner.”

  We all look over at Georgia. Among all the overdressed butterflies, she wears black trousers, a white shirt, and oxblood brogues.

  “Don’t tell her that,” I smile. “She doesn’t like it.”

  “Why? Doesn’t every woman want that?” The man falters, as if he’s just remembered that I’m a woman too.

  These people with their interminable words. I came from a place where a slap sufficed.

  “Don’t be dull,” I put him down. “She’s much more than her face.”

  “What do you do, Eliza?” another one of them asks, unperturbed by my rudeness.

  “I’m a herpetologist.”

  They shudder with delicious revulsion.

  I glance back to Georgia. A man with long blond hair reaches out to touch her forearm and he shows her something on his tablet.

  I’m a pretender in my own life, in this relationship. I know how my jealousy will play out when we get home. I’ll struggle to circumnavigate all the gentility and civility that makes me want to scream.

  Eventually Georgia will say, What’s the matter? Just tell me instead of trying to pick a fight.

  She’ll never be provoked, this gracious woman, to display any savagery of feeling. I should know better than to try and measure the breadth and depth of love by its noise and dramas but there are times that I crave it, as if it’s proof that love is alive.

  Ami took Tallulah away with her the first night that Kenny came to the flat.

  “But it’s a school night. And all my stuff’s here.”

  “You’re not going to school tomorrow.” Ami picked up her handbag. “We’re going out with Kenny.”

  Tallulah didn’t move.

  “Mind your mum, there’s a good girl.” Kenny didn’t even look up.

  After the front door closed, Kathy locked and chained it.

  “Get your rucksack. Put some clothes in a bag. Don’t pack anything you don’t need.”

  “Why?” I followed her into her bedroom.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “Why?”

  “Just get your stuff.”

  “What about college?”

  Kathy tipped out drawers, rifling through the untidy piles that she’d made on the floor.

  “What about Tallulah?”

  She sank down on the bed.

  “There’s always someone that I have to stay for. Mum. Ami. Tallulah.” She slammed her fist down on the duvet. “If it had been just us, we’d have been gone long ago.”

  “Stay?”

  She wasn’t listening to me anymore.

  “I waited too long. I should’ve run when I had the chance. Fuck everyone.”

  She lay down, her face to the wall. I tried to put my arms around her but she shrunk from me, which she always did when I touched her and which never failed to hurt me.

  If we were his princesses then Kenny considered himself king.

  “Kath, stop fussing and come and sit down. It’s good to be back among women. Without women, men are uncivilized creatures.” He winked at me. “Tell me about Ma’s funeral again, Kath.”

  Ami sat beside him, looking up at him.

  “There were black horses with plumes and brasses. Her casket was in a glass carriage.” Kath’s delivery was wooden.

  “And all the boys were there?”

  “Yes, Kenny. All the men, in their suits, gold sovereign rings, and tattoos.”

  “Good,” he said, “I would’ve been offended otherwise. Those boys owe me and they know it. I did time for them. Do you know the story?”

  “Bits,” Tallulah said.

  “I told her, Kenny.” Ami was keen to show her allegiance.

  “You were what, twelve?” He snorted. “You remember nothing. We did a job in Liverpool. A jeweler who lived in one of those massive houses around Sefton Park. We heard he was dealing in stolen diamonds. I went in first,” he thumped his chest. “At twenty-three I was much thinner back then, could get into all sorts of tight spots. I let the others in afterwards. We found his money but he kept insisting the diamonds were hidden in the fireplace, but his hidey-hole was empty. He kept acting all surprised. He wouldn’t tell, no matter what.” Kenny shrugged. “Someone grassed. A copper picked me up near home. Under my coat, my shirt was covered in his blood. I kept my trap shut and did the time. The others were safe. Eighteen years inside. My only regret is what happened to Ma. And missing her funeral.”

  “There were white flowers, everywhere, spelling out her name.” Ami said. He patted her arm in an absent way, like she was a cat mithering for strokes.

  “I wish they’d let me out for it. Ma was a proper princess, girls. She was touched, God bless her, but she was a princess.”

  Kath sat with her hands folded on her knees.

  “Do you remember what Dad said when he was dying?”

  Kath stayed quiet.

  “He said, You’re the man of the house, Kenny. And you’re the mother, Kathy. Kenny, you have to look after these girls. Poor Ma, so fragile. When I heard about her stroke, I was beside myself. It was the shock of me being sent down that did it. Whoever grassed me up has to pay for that, too. I should’ve been here, taking care of you all.”

  “I managed,” Kathy squeezed the words out.

  “I know. I hate to think of you, nursing Ma when you also had a baby to look after. You were meant for better things. We didn’t always live in this shithole, girls. We grew up in a big rambling house. You won’t remember much of it, Ami. Dad bred snakes. He was a specialist. And Ma, she was a real lady. They were educated people, not like ’round here.”

  The words stuck in my gut. ’Round here was all I knew.

  “Happy days, weren’t they, Mouse?” Kenny looked directly at Kathy, waiting.

  “Mouse,” Ami laughed like she’d only just noticed Kathy’s big eyes and protruding ears, “I’d forgotten that.”

  Mouse. A nickname that diminished her.

  “What’s my pet name?” Ami pouted.

  “You’re just Ami.” He said it like she was something flat and dead, not shifting his gaze from Kathy.

  There it was. Even then, I could see that Kathy was at the center of everything and Ami was just the means to reach her.

  There’s a photograph in our bedroom that Georgia took of me while we were traveling around South America. It embarrasses me because of its dimensions and scares me, because Georgia has managed to make me look like some kind of modern Eve, desirable in a way that I’ll never be again. My hair is loose and uncombed and the python around my shoulders is handsome in dappled, autumnal shades. My expression is of unguarded pleasure.

  “Let’s stay here, forever,” I said to her when she put the lens cap back on. “It’s paradise.”

  What
I was really thinking was What would it be like to change, forever, and have the whole jungle as my domain?

  “Do you love it that much?” Georgia replied in a way that suggested she didn’t. “And put him down. Poor thing. If he’s caught he’ll end up as a handbag.”

  So it is that serpents are reviled when it’s man that is repulsive.

  I got off the bus at the end of Argyll Street and walked towards home. Kenny sat on a plastic chair outside The Saddle pub, drinking a pint. He was waiting for me.

  “What have you been doing today?” He abandoned his drink and followed me.

  “Biology.” I was at college, in town.

  “Clever girl. That’s from your grandparents. I used to be smart like that. You wouldn’t think it to look at me.”

  There was an odd, puppyish eagerness to Kenny as he bounced along beside me. I darted across the road when there was a gap in the traffic. The railway line was on the other side of the fence, down a steep bank. Part way down the embankment was a rolled up carpet, wet and rotted, and the shopping trolley that it had been transported in.

  “Let me carry your bag. It looks heavy.”

  “I can manage.”

  “I wasn’t always like this. I had to change for us to survive. Fighting and stealing,” he shook his head, embarrassed. “I only became brutal to stop us being brutalized. Do you understand?”

  The sky had darkened. Rain was on its way.

  “We lost everything when Dad died. The house. The money. Your grandma lost her mind. It was the shock of having to live here. We were posh and we paid for that. On our first day at school a lad was picking on Kathy. Do you know what I did? I bit him, Lola. Right on the face. He swelled up like a red balloon. He nearly choked. Nobody picks on my princesses.”

  Nobody except him.

  “Are you special, Lola?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I dodged him as he tried to block my path. Tallulah wouldn’t have told him anything. Ami though, she had told him to prevent Pauline and Jade getting a battering.

  “I can wait,” he didn’t pursue me, just stood there in the drizzle. “We have lots of time now.”

  “We’re going for a ride today.” Kenny followed Kath into the kitchen. He’d started turning up at the flat every day.

  “I can’t, Kenny, I’ve got loads to do.”

  “It can all wait.”

  Kenny had the last word.

  “Where are we going?” Tallulah asked.

  “You’re not going anywhere except to Ami’s. She needs to get her house in order. A girl needs her mum. She’s sorting your bedroom, so you’re going to live with her. Properly.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Want’s not in it.”

  Kathy stood between them. He pushed her aside.

  “I live here.” Tallulah wouldn’t be moved.

  “You live where I tell you.” He had this way of standing close to you, to make himself seem more imposing, and lowering his voice. “You act like you’re something with that pretty little face of yours. Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re not special. You’re fucking Mikey Flynn’s daughter. And he’s a piece of dead scum.”

  Poor Mikey Flynn, rumored to have done a runner. I wondered where Kenny had him buried.

  “Go home, Tallulah.” Kathy raised her chin. “Kenny’s right. You’re not my girl. You should be with your own mother.”

  Tallulah’s eyes widened. I could see the tears starting to pool there.

  “Go on, then,” Kathy carried on, “you don’t belong here.”

  “Mum,” I opened my mouth.

  “Shut it.” Kathy turned on me. “I’ve been soft on you pair for too long. Now help Tallulah take her stuff to Ami’s.”

  “No,” Kenny put a hand on my arm, “Lola stays with us.”

  As Kenny drove, the terraces changed to semis and then detached houses. Finally there were open fields. It felt like he’d taken us hours away but it wasn’t more than thirty minutes. We turned up an overgrown drive. Branches whipped the windscreen as Kenny drove.

  “Kenny.” Kath’s voice was ripped from her throat. He patted her hand.

  The drive ended at a large house, dark bricked with tall windows. It might as well have been a castle for all its unfamiliar grandeur. Overgrown rhododendrons crowded around it, shedding pink and red blossoms that were long past their best.

  “Come on.”

  Kenny got out, not looking back to see if we were following.

  Kath stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the open front door. There were plenty of window bars and metal shutters where I grew up, but the windows here were protected by wrought iron foliage in which metal snakes were entwined. The interior was dim. I could hear Kenny’s footsteps as he walked inside.

  “This is where we used to live.” Kathy’s face was blank. She went in, a sleepwalker in her own life. I followed her.

  “Welcome home.” Kenny was behind the door. He locked it and put the key on a chain around his neck.

  Kenny showed us from room to room as if we were prospective buyers, not prisoners. Every door had a lock and every window was decorated in the same metal latticework.

  I stopped at a set of double doors but Kenny steered me away from it. “Later. Look through here, Kathy. Do you remember the old Aga? Shame they ripped it out. I thought we could get a new one.”

  He led us on to the lounge, waving his arm with a flourish.

  “I couldn’t bring you here without buying some new furniture.” He kept glancing at Kathy. “What do you think?”

  The room smelt of new carpet. It was a dusky pink, to match the sofa, and the curtains were heavy cream with rose buds on them. Things an old woman might have picked.

  “Lovely, Kenny.”

  “I bought it for us.” He slung his arm around her neck. It looked like a noose. “You and me, here again, no interference.” His face was soft. “I’ve plenty of money. I can get more.”

  “Go and play,” Kath said to me.

  It’ll shame me forever that I was angry at her for talking to me like I was a child when all she was trying to do was get me out of his way.

  I went, then crawled back on my belly to watch them through the gap in the door.

  Kath broke away from him and sat down. Kenny followed her, sinking down to lay his head on her knee. Her hand hovered over him, the muscles in her throat moving as she swallowed hard. Then she stroked his head. He buried his face in her lap, moaning.

  “What happened to us, Mouse?”

  Mouse. He’d swallow her whole. He’d crush her.

  “You said you can get more money. Do you mean the money from the job in Liverpool?”

  He moved quickly, sitting beside Kathy with his thigh wedged against the length of hers.

  “Yes.” He interlaced their fingers, making their hands a single fist. “I want you to know that I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “You didn’t? You were covered in blood.”

  “It was Barry’s son, Carl. He always had a screw loose. The man wouldn’t tell us where the diamonds were and Carl just freaked. He kept on beating him.”

  “But you admitted it.”

  “Who would believe me if I denied it? I did the time. Barry was very grateful. I knew it would set us up for life. I hated waiting for you. I imagined slipping out between the bars to come to you. I was tempted so many times. I hated the parole board. There were diamonds, Kath. I took them before I let the others in. I stopped here and buried them under the wall at the bottom of the garden. I nearly got caught doing it. Then the police picked me up, on my way back to you. That’s why I had to do the stretch, so nobody would suspect. They’re safe, now. Shankly’s looking after what’s left of them.” He laughed at his own cryptic comment. Every Merseysider knew the deceased Bill Shankly, iconic once-manager of Liverpool Football Club. “Did I do right, Kath?”

  Then she did something surprising. She kissed him. He writhed under her touch.

&nbs
p; “Mouse, was there anyone else while I was inside?”

  “No, Kenny. There’s never been anybody else.”

  He basked in that.

  “It’ll be just like I said.”

  I sensed her hesitation. So did he.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It won’t be like we said though, will it?”

  “Why?”

  “It should be just us two.” She leaned closer to him. “Lola’s grown up now. She can look after herself.”

  “Lola’s just a kid.”

  “I was a mother at her age.” She put her hand on his arm.

  “No, she stays.”

  Her hand dropped.

  “Lola,” Kenny called out. “Never let me catch you eavesdropping again. Understand?”

  “I’ll just say goodnight to Lola.” Kath stood in the doorway to my new bedroom, as if this game of fucked-up families was natural.

  “Don’t be long.”

  I sat on the bed. The new quilt cover and pillowcase smelt funny. Kenny had put them on straight out of the packaging without washing them first. They still bore the sharp creases of their confinement.

  “Lola,” Kathy pulled me up and whispered to me. “He said to me, when we were kids, ‘I’m going to put a baby in you and it’s going to be special, like me and Dad,’ as if I had nothing to do with it. I can’t stand him touching me. When I felt you moving inside me, I was terrified you’d be a squirming snake, but you were mine. I’d do anything to get him away from us and Ami. I was the one who told the police.”

  Uncle. Father. Any wonder that I’m monstrous?

  “Kenny’s always been wrong. He thought it was from Dad, although he never saw him do it. It’s from Mum. It drove her mad, holding it in. She nearly turned when she had her stroke. I have to know, can you do it too?”

  “What?”

  “We can’t waste time. Can you turn into,” she hesitated, “a snake?”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Good. Do it as soon as I leave.” She opened the window. “Go out through the bars. Will you fit?”

  “I don’t know if I can. I’m not sure that I can do it at will.”

  “Try. Get out of here.”