Martin and Stan leaned over the pictures, amazed. They hadn’t seen them before.
“Us three, Greta, and the girl—Alia.” Harrison said. “All bound up in the same web.”
“I see it,” Stan said quietly. “You see the lines?”
“Alia too,” Martin said. “Weird.”
“But there’s a piece missing,” Harrison said. “The Scrimshander left another portrait, on Barbara’s chest. The forensic techs didn’t open her up there.” He put a finger down in the empty center. “Here”
“Who’s there? Barbara?” Martin asked.
“That what I thought at first,” Harrison said. “But Barbara’s the canvas—in a way she’s already there. It’s someone else.” He looked at Jan. She was staring at the table, holding herself still. Keeping control.
“You brought us together,” Harrison said to her. “I think it’s time to hear why you did that. Why you put yourself on the line for us.”
Jan looked up. “I couldn’t tell you,” she said. “It wasn’t ethical. The group is about you, not me.”
“Wait a minute,” Stan said. “What are we talking about?”
She began to tell them her story. Harrison had already figured out most of it, but Martin was amazed. Stan, for whom the story mattered most, was beyond stunned. He seemed to barely process the information.
Jan spoke for nearly a half hour. When she finished, she reached across the table and placed her hand on Stan’s arm. “I have something to show you,” she told him. “Something in my house.” She looked up at the others. “Do you all have time for a short trip?”
Martin and Harrison carried Stan in his chair up the steps and into the house. Jan unlocked a door that led to the basement. She did not turn on the lights.
“I think Stan should see this on his own,” Jan told them. “I can take him from here.”
“Are you sure?” Martin said. “He’s heavy.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she said.
Jan levered Stan down a step, then two. Then she reached back and shut the door behind her.
Harrison and Martin exchanged a look, then went into the living room. After a while Martin said, “You’re going after her again, aren’t you?”
Harrison nodded.
“She’s a mass murderer,” Martin said.
“It’s true.”
“But dozens of people. She let that thing burn them.”
Harrison sighed. “Yes.”
“And she’s still carrying the monster inside her.”
“Still . . .”
“Yeah,” Martin said.
They were quiet for a while. Then Harrison said, “The Scrimshander went to a lot of trouble to send a message to us.”
“What’s the message?” Martin asked.
“I don’t know. The little girl’s part of it, though.”
“What?”
“I think there’s something big coming.”
“Jesus,” Martin said. He took off the frames and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is it ever over? Do we ever get to just . . . win?”
Harrison chuckled. After a moment he said, “When I was a kid I used to play soccer. This was in San Diego, before we moved to Dunnsmouth. It was this park district league, and they didn’t keep score. Losing would be bad for self-esteem. So at the end of the season, every player got a ribbon. A blue ribbon, stamped in gold, that said ‘Participant.’”
Martin looked at the glasses in his hand. “Fuck.”
“Congratulations,” Harrison said.
In the basement, Dr. Sayer and Stan had reached the cement floor. She still had not turned on the lights.
Stan stared into the dark. There was a familiar smell in the dank air. His heart beat very fast. “You always took care of me,” he said. “You were always so kind. None of the others—”
“I didn’t stop them,” she said.
“You were a child.” He smiled. “The Pest. And all this time I thought you were a boy. You would climb up there with me . . .”
“I still have trouble sleeping,” she said. “That’s when I come down here.” She stepped away from him, and then the lights came on.
“Oh,” he said.
Along the far wall, scores of thick ropes formed a dense web that stretched from ceiling to floor and wall to wall. The ropes were tied into steel hoops that were bolted into the floor, the wooden joists, and the cinderblock walls. It was the Weavers’ barn, in miniature.
“It’s—” His voice broke. “It’s perfect.” He looked at her. “May I?”
She wheeled him to the web. He ran a stump along one of the ropes. Then he looked at her again and she nodded. She squatted in front of his chair, put her arms under his, and lifted him. Lifted him easily.
He placed one arm through a loop in the net. She hoisted him higher so that he could get his legs between the ropes. The web cradled him.
“Not too tight?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “I should hate this,” he said. “I should hate this. But . . .”
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re different from other people.” She climbed up into the web, moving carefully to keep from shaking him. She slipped her arms and legs between the ropes and settled beside him, and whispered into his ear.
After perhaps an hour, Harrison and Martin heard the wheelchair thunking up the stairs. Jan emerged from the basement backward, pulling Stan and after her. The old man slouched in the chair, looking almost drunk.
“You okay?” Martin asked.
“I napped,” Stan said. “Best sleep I’ve had in years.”
We said the things people always said, promising to keep in touch, making vague plans to meet again soon. We went to our homes congratulating ourselves on being a little stronger than before we met.
That was in daylight. By nightfall, our thoughts had turned to the promise written on Barbara’s bones. We went about our evening routines, trying to think of something else. Harrison poured himself one last drink. Martin strapped Stan into his frame. Jan made her way down the stairs. And Greta, in some city unknown to the rest of us, locked the door of her hotel room.
Each of us, as we turned off the light, felt a tingle of dread.
But that was all right. The feeling was as familiar as the dark. Some of us thought of what Jan had whispered in the basement, words that Stan had repeated for the others as we said our goodbyes. We’re different from other people, she’d said. We only feel at home when we’re a little bit afraid.
Daryl Gregory is an award-winning writer of genre-mixing novels, stories, and comics. His first novel, Pandemonium, won the Crawford Award and was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. His other novels include the Philip K. Dick Award finalist The Devil’s Alphabet, and Raising Stony Mayhall, which was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal. His science fiction novel Afterparty came out in April 2014.
Many of his short stories are collected in Unpossible and Other Stories, which was named one of the best books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. The stories previously appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and MIT Technology Review Magazine, and in such anthologies as The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Year’s Best Fantasy.
Gregory’s comics work includes the Planet of the Apes series, the Dracula: The Company of Monsters series (co-written with Kurt Busiek), and the graphic novel The Secret Battles of Genghis Khan. He lives in State College, PA, where he writes programming code in the morning, prose in the afternoon, and comics at night.
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We Are All Completely Fine Page 13