The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition

by Rich Horton

  Everyone watches you. Even when they’re pretending not to. Even when they aren’t watching you, you think they are. And you know what? You’re right. Eyes will find you. Becoming famous, this kind of fame: it’s luck indistinguishable from catastrophe. You’d be dumb not to recognize it. What you’ve become.

  When people disappear, there’s always the chance that you’ll see them again. The rain comes down so hard the demon lover can barely see. He thinks he is still moving in the direction of the craft tent and not the lake. There is a noise, he picks it out of the noise of the rain. A howling. And then the rain thins and he can see something, men and women, naked. Running toward him. He slips, catches himself, and the rain comes down hard again, erases everything except the sound of what is chasing him. He collides headlong with a thing: a skin horribly clammy, cold, somehow both stiff and yielding. Bounces off and realizes that this is the tent. Not where you’d choose to make a last stand, but by the time he has fumbled his way inside he has grasped the situation. Not dead nudists, but living people, naked, cursing, laughing, dripping. They carry cameras, mikes, gear for ghost hunting. Videographers, A2s, all the other useful types and the not so useful. A crowd of men and women, and here is Meggie. Her hair is glued in strings to her face. Her breasts are wet with rain.

  He says her name.

  They all look at him.

  How is it possible that he is the one who feels naked?

  “The fuck is this guy doing here?” says someone with a little white towel positioned over his genitals. Really, it could be even littler.

  “Will,” Meggie says. So gently he almost starts to cry. Well, it’s been a long day.

  She takes him to her trailer. He has a shower, borrows her toothbrush. She puts on a robe. Doesn’t ask him any questions. Talks to him while he’s in the bathroom. He leaves the door open.

  It’s the third day on location, and the first two have been a mixed bag. They got their establishing shots, went out on the lake and saw an alligator dive down when they got too close. There are baby skunks all over the scrubby, shabby woods, the trails. They come right up to you, up to the camera, and try like hell to spray. But until they hit adolescence all they can do is quiver their tails and stamp their feet.

  Except, she says, and mentions some poor A2. His skunk was an early bloomer.

  Meggie interviewed the former proprietor of the nudist colony. He insisted on calling it a naturist community, spent the interview explaining the philosophy behind naturism, didn’t want to talk about 1974. A harmless old crank. Whatever happened, he had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t lecture people into thin air. Besides, he had an alibi.

  What they didn’t get on the first day or even on the second was any kind of worthwhile read on their equipment. They have the two psychics—but one of them had an emergency, went back to deal with a daughter in rehab; they have all kinds of psychometric equipment, but there is absolutely nothing going on, down, or off. Which led to some discussion.

  “We decided maybe we were the problem,” Meggie says. “Maybe the nudists didn’t have anything to say to us while we had our clothes on. So we’re shooting in the nude. Everyone nude. Cast, crew, everyone. It’s been a really positive experience, Will. It’s a good group of people.”

  “Fun,” the demon lover says. Someone has dropped off a pair of pink cargo shorts and a T-shirt, because his other clothes are in his suitcase back at the airport in Orlando. It’s not exactly that he forgot. More like he couldn’t be bothered.

  “It’s good to see you, Will,” Meggie says. “But why are you here, exactly? How did you know where to find me?”

  He takes the easy question first. “Pike.” Pike is Meggie’s agent and an old friend of the demon lover. The kind of agent who likes to pull the legs off small children. The kind of friend who finds life all the sweeter when you’re in the middle of screwing up your own. “I made him promise not to tell you I was coming.”

  He collapses on the floor in front of Meggie’s chair. She runs her fingers through his hair. Pets him like you’d pet a dog.

  “He told you, though. Didn’t he?”

  “He did,” Meggie said. “He called.”

  The demon lover says, “Meggie, this isn’t about the sex tape.”

  Meggie says, “I know. Fawn called too.”

  He tries not to imagine that phone call. His head is sore. He’s dehydrated, probably. That long flight.

  “She wanted me to let her know if you showed. Said she was waiting to see before she threw in the towel.”

  She waits for him to say something. Waits a little bit longer. Strokes his hair the whole time.

  “I won’t call her,” she says. “You ought to go back, Will. She’s a good person.”

  “I don’t love her,” the demon lover says.

  “Well,” Meggie says. She takes that hand away.

  There’s a knock on the door, some girl. “Sun’s out again, Meggie.” She gives the demon lover a particularly melting smile. Was probably twelve when she first saw him on-screen. Baby ducks, these girls. Imprint on the first vampire they ever see. Then she’s down the stairs again, bare bottom bouncing.

  Meggie drops the robe, begins to apply sunblock to her arms and face. He notes the ways in which her body has changed. Thinks he might love her all the more for it, and hopes that this is true.

  “Let me,” he says, and takes the bottle from her. Begins to rub lotion into her back.

  She doesn’t flinch away. Why would she? They are friends.

  She says, “Here’s the thing about Florida, Will. You get these storms, practically every day. But then they go away again.”

  Her hands catch at his, slippery with the lotion. She says, “You must be tired. Take a nap. There’s herbal tea in the cupboards, pot and Ambien in the bedroom. We’re shooting all afternoon, straight through evening. And then a barbecue—we’re filming that too. You’re welcome to come out. It would be great publicity for us, of course. Our viewers would love it. But you’d have to do it naked like the rest of us. No clothes. No exceptions, Will. Not even for you.”

  He rubs the rest of the sunblock into her shoulders. Would like nothing more than to rest his head there.

  “I love you, Meggie,” he says. “You know that, right?”

  “I know. I love you too, Will,” she says. The way she says it tells him everything.

  The demon lover goes to lie down on Meggie’s bed, feeling a hundred years old. Dozes. Dreams about a bungalow in Venice Beach and Meggie and a girl. That was a long time ago.

  There was a review of a play Meggie was in. Maybe ten years ago? It wasn’t a kind review, or even particularly intelligent, and yet the critic said something that still seems right to the demon lover. He said no matter what was happening in the play, Meggie’s performance suggested she was waiting for a bus. The demon lover thinks the critic got at something true there. Only, the demon lover has always thought that if Meggie was waiting for a bus, you had to wonder where that bus was going. If she was planning to throw herself under it.

  When they first got together, the demon lover was pretty sure he was what Meggie had been waiting for. Maybe she thought so too. They bought a house, a bungalow in Venice Beach. He wonders who lives there now.

  When the demon lover wakes up, he takes off the T-shirt and cargo shorts. Leaves them folded neatly on the bed. He’ll have to find somewhere to sleep tonight. And soon. Day is becoming night.

  Meat is cooking on a barbecue. The demon lover isn’t sure when he last ate. There’s bug spray beside the door. Ticklish on his balls. He feels just a little bit ridiculous. Surely this is a terrible idea. The latest in a long series of terrible ideas. Only this time he knows there’s a camera.

  The moment he steps outside Meggie’s trailer, a PA appears as if by magic. It’s what they do. Has him sign a pile of releases. Odd to stand here in the nude signing releases, but what the fuck. He thinks, I’ll go home tomorrow.

  The PA is in her fifties. Unusual. There�
�s probably a story there, but who cares? He doesn’t. Of course she’s seen the fucking sex tape—it’s probably going to be the most popular movie he ever makes—but her expression suggests this is the very first time she’s ever seen the demon lover naked or rather that neither of them is naked at all.

  While the demon lover signs—doesn’t bother to read anything, what does it matter now anyway?—the PA talks about someone who hasn’t done something. Who isn’t where she ought to be. Some other gopher named Juliet. Where is she and what has she gone for? The PA is full of complaints.

  The demon lover suggests the gopher may have been carried off by ghosts. The PA gives him an unfriendly look and continues to talk about people the demon lover doesn’t know, has no interest in.

  “What’s spooky about you?” the demon lover asks. Because of course that’s the gimmick, producer down to best boy. Every woman and man uncanny.

  “I had a near-death experience,” the PA says. She wiggles her arm. Shows off a long ropy burn. “Accidentally electrocuted myself. Got the whole tunnel-and-light thing. And I guess I scored okay with those cards when they auditioned me. The Zener cards?”

  “So tell me,” the demon lover says. “What’s so fucking great about a tunnel and a light? That really the best they can do?”

  “Yeah, well,” the PA says, a bite in her voice. “People like you probably get the red carpet and the limo.”

  The demon lover has nothing to say to that.

  “You seen anything here?” he tries instead. “Heard anything?”

  “Meggie tell you about the skunks?” the PA says. Having snapped, now she will soothe. “Those babies. Tail up, the works, but nothing doing. Which about sums up this place. No ghosts. No read on the equipment. No hanky-panky, fiddle-faddle, or woo-woo. Not even a cold spot.”

  She says doubtfully, “But it’ll come together. You at this séance barbecue shindig will help. Naked vampire trumps nudist ghosts any day. Okay on your own? You go on down to the lake, I’ll call, let them know you’re on your way.”

  Or he could just head for the car.

  “Thanks,” the demon lover says.

  But before he knows what he wants to do, here’s another someone. It’s a regular Pilgrim’s Progress. One of Fawn’s favorite books. This is a kid in his twenties. Good-looking in a familiar way. (Although is it okay to think this about another guy when you’re both naked? Not to mention: who looks a lot like you did once upon a time. Why not? We’re all naked here.)

  “I know you,” the kid says.

  The demon lover says, “Of course you do. You are?”

  “Ray,” says the kid. He’s maybe twenty-five. His look says: you know who I am. “Meggie’s told me all about you.”

  As if he doesn’t already know, the demon lover says, “So what do you do?”

  The kid smiles an unlovely smile. Scratches at his groin luxuriously, maybe not on purpose. “Whatever needs to be done. That’s what I do.”

  So he deals. There’s that pot in Meggie’s dresser.

  Down at the lake people are playing volleyball in a pit with no net. Barbecuing. Someone talks to a camera, gestures at someone else. Someone somewhere is smoking a joint. At this distance, not too close, not too near, twilight coming down, the demon lover takes in all of the breasts, asses, comical cocks, knobby knees, everything hidden now made plain. He notes with an experienced eye which breasts are real, which aren’t. Only a few of the women sport pubic hair. He’s never understood what that’s about. Some of the men are bare, too. O tempora, o mores.

  “You like jokes?” Ray says, stopping to light a cigarette.

  The demon lover could leave; he lingers. “Depends on the joke.” Really, he doesn’t. Especially the kind of jokes the ones who ask if you like jokes tell.

  Ray says, “You’ll like this one. So there are these four guys. A kleptomaniac, a pyromaniac, um, a zoophile, and a masochist. This cat walks by and the klepto says he’d like to steal it. The pyro says he wants to set it on fire. The zoophile wants to fuck it. So the masochist, he looks at everybody, and he says, ‘Meow?’ ”

  It’s a moderately funny joke. It might be a come-on.

  The demon lover flicks a look at him from under his lashes. Suppresses the not-quite-queasy feeling he’s somehow traveled back in time to flirt with himself. Or the other way round.

  He’d like to think he was even prettier than this kid. People used to stop and stare when he walked into a room. That was long before anyone knew who he was. He’s always been someone you look at longer than you should. He says, smiling, “I’ll bite. Which one are you?”

  “Pardon?” Ray says. Blows smoke.

  “Which one are you? The klepto, the pyro, the cat-fucker, the masochist?”

  “I’m the guy who tells the joke,” Ray says. He drops his cigarette, grinds it under a heel black with dirt. Lights another. “Don’t know if anyone’s told you, but don’t drink out of any of the taps. Or go swimming. The water’s toxic. Phosphorous, other stuff. They shut down the muck farms, they’re building up the marshlands again, but it’s still not what I’d call potable. You staying out here or in town?”

  The demon lover says, “Don’t know if I’m staying at all.”

  “Well,” Ray says. “They’ve rigged up some of the less wrecked bungalows on a generator. There are camp beds, sleeping bags. Depends on whether you like it rough.” That last with, yes, a leer.

  The demon lover feels his own lip lifting. They are both wearing masks. They look out of them at each other. This was what you knew when you were an actor. The face, the whole body, the way you moved in it, just a guise. You put it on, you put it off again. What was underneath belonged to you, just you, as long as you kept it hidden.

  He says, “You think you know something about me?”

  “I’ve seen all your movies,” Ray says. The mask shifts, becomes the one the demon lover calls “I’m your biggest fan.” Oh, he knows what’s under that one.

  He prepares himself for whatever this strange kid is going to say next and then suddenly Meggie is there. As if things weren’t awkward enough without Meggie, naked, suddenly standing there. Everybody naked, nobody happy. It’s Scandinavian art porn.

  Meggie ignores the kid entirely. Just like always. These guys are interchangeable, really. There’s probably some website where she finds them. She may not want him, but she doesn’t want anyone else either.

  Meggie says, touching his arm, “You look a lot better.”

  “I got a few hours,” he says.

  “I know,” she says. “I checked in on you. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t run off.”

  “Nowhere to go,” he says.

  “Come on,” Meggie says. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Ray doesn’t follow; lingers with his cigarette. Probably staring at their yoga-toned, well-enough-preserved celebrity butts.

  Here’s the problem with this kid, the demon lover thinks. He sat in a theater when he was fifteen and watched me and Meggie done up in vampire makeup pretend-fucking on a New York subway car. The A train. Me biting Meggie’s breast, some suburban movie screen, her breast ten times bigger than his head. He probably masturbated a hundred times watching me bite you, Meggie. He watched us kiss. Felt something ache when we did. And that leaves out all the rest of this, whatever it is that you’re doing here with him and me. Imagine what this kid must feel now. The demon lover feels it too. Love, he thinks. Because love isn’t just love. It’s all the other stuff too.

  He meets Irene, the fat, pretty medium who plays the straight man to Meggie. People named Sidra, Tom, Euan, who seem to be in charge of the weird ghost gear. A videographer, Pilar. He’s almost positive he’s met her before. Maybe during his AA period? Really, why is that period more of a blur than all the years he’s spent drunk or high? She’s in her thirties, has a sly smile, terrific legs, and a very big camera.

  They demonstrate some of the equipment for the demon lover, let him try out something called a Trifield Meter.
No ghosts here. Even ghosts have better places to be.

  He assumes everyone he meets has seen his sex tape. Almost wishes someone would mention it. No one does.

  There’s a rank breeze off the lake. Muck and death.

  People eat and discuss the missing PA—the gopher—some Juliet person. Meggie says, “She’s a nice kid. Makes Whore-igami in her spare time and sells it on eBay.”

  “She makes what?” the demon lover says.

  “Whore-igami. Origami porn tableaux. Custom-order stuff.”

  “Of course,” the demon lover says. “Big money in that.”

  She may have some kind of habit. Meggie mentions this. She may be in the habit of disappearing now and then.

  Or she may be wherever all those nudists went. Imagine the ratings then. He doesn’t say this to Meggie.

  Meggie says, “I’m happy to see you, Will. Even under the circumstances.”

  “Are you?” says the demon lover, smiling, because he’s always smiling. They’re far enough away from the mikes and the cameras that he feels okay about saying this. Pilar, the videographer, is recording Irene, the medium, who is toasting marshmallows. Ray is watching too. Is always somewhere nearby.

  Something bites the demon lover’s thigh and he slaps at it.

  He could reach out and touch Meggie’s face right now. Through the camera it would be a different story from the one he and Meggie are telling each other. Or she would turn away and it would all be the same story again. He thinks he should have remembered this, all the ways they didn’t work when they were together. Like the joke about the two skunks. When Out is in, In is out. Like the wrong ends of two magnets.

  “Of course I’m happy,” Meggie says. “And your timing is eerily good, because I have to talk to you about something.”

  “Shoot,” he says.

  “It’s complicated,” she says. “How about later? After we’re done here?”

  It’s almost full dark now. No moon. Someone has built up a very large fire. The blackened bungalows and the roofless hall melt into obscure and tidy shapes. Now you can imagine yourself back when it was all new, a long time ago. Back in the seventies when nobody cared what you did. When love was free. When you could just disappear if you felt like it, and that was fine and good too.