The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2010

by Elizabeth Bear

  “Oh my God,” she said, “Go get your mom,” and Mark ran.

  There was a path worn between their backdoors. He dodged the kitchen table, gave it the same move he did when Peter was chasing him in from something. “Mom!” he called, “Mom!”

  She was upstairs sewing costumes for the haunted house, pins between her teeth. She was so used to him screaming she didn’t even get up. She talked out of the side of her mouth. ”What is it now?”

  “I shot him,” Mark said, and tried to explain, but suddenly he couldn’t talk, and then he was crying just like Derek, trying to get enough air.

  His mother spit the pins out and grabbed his arm, dragged him along behind her as she ran down the stairs. He couldn’t believe she was so fast, banging out the storm door and flying across the yard and into the Rotas’.

  Derek was sitting at the kitchen table with Sarah holding a baggie of ice on his eye. He still had his jacket on. He wasn’t crying, just hunched over, rocking back and forth, saying, “Ow, ow, ow.”

  “Is he all right?” Mark’s mom asked.

  “No,” Sarah said. “It’s his eye. I called 911, they said they’d send an ambulance.”

  “Let me take a look at it.” His mother plucked the bag away and put it back fast. “When did they say they’d get here?”

  “Five minutes.”

  His mother sat down, then got up again and walked around the room, biting her thumbnail and looking out the windows.

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said, and again he began to cry, right in front of Sarah.

  “It was an accident,” his mom said.

  “It’s okay,” Derek said, but this only made it worse, and Mark ran out into the yard and didn’t stop until he reached the back lot.

  There was the gun next to the pallet of bricks, and there on a yellow leaf was a dark spot of blood, and another.

  “Mark,” his mom called. “Mark, get in here now!”

  He picked up the gun and the BBs shifted and clicked in the barrel. He loved the Daisy, the afternoons they spent winging cans and bottles and old archery targets Derek’s stepfather kept in the shed, but now as he walked across the yard, he promised—honestly, to God—that this was the last time he’d ever touch a gun.

  It wasn’t even a real gun.

  “Give me that,” his mom said on the porch, and snatched it by the barrel, something you weren’t supposed to do. He knew to just keep quiet.

  The kitchen was empty. They’d moved Derek to the front porch to wait for the ambulance. He sat on the glider, still nodding and rocking, making it move. “It hurts,” he said.

  “I know,” Mark’s mom said. “It’ll be here soon.” To Mark, she said, “I’m not mad at you, no one’s mad at you, just don’t run off like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said.

  “We know you are,” she said. “It was an accident, everyone knows that, now just calm down.”

  “Here it comes,” Sarah said, pointing at the ambulance.

  It didn’t even have its lights on, or its siren. It pulled into the drive and the EMTs jumped out. One looked at Derek while the other talked with Mark’s mom. The one with Derek knelt down by the glider and pulled out a mini-flashlight and waved it in front of his face.

  “Can you see it now?”

  “No,” Derek said.

  “How about over here?’

  “Yeah.”

  The EMT stood up and told Mark’s mom they were taking him to Butler Memorial and that she should contact his parents.

  “I already have,” his mom said.

  They put him in the back, and the one got in with him.

  “You can follow us if you want,” the other one said.

  The nurse at the emergency room said Mark’s mom could go in with Derek but Mark and Sarah would have to wait outside. Sarah lost herself in Cosmopolitan and Mark got up and looked at everything in the vending machines. The hospital had taped up the same cardboard decorations his Sunday school class had—the same pickle-nosed witches and rearing black cats and ogling, wide-eyed pumpkins. Mark tried to read a Sports Illustrated but it was too old. The last time he’d been here was when he broke his wrist trying a grind on a concrete bench in the back lot, and now he wondered if he was bad luck, if the rest of his life would be like this. It would be okay, he thought.

  Derek’s stepfather showed up first, his work gloves stuffed in his back pockets. He was small but he had a huge mustache; he wore his Steeler cap everywhere except church, where he played guitar up front with Mark’s dad.

  Mark stood up but he went straight to Sarah.

  “They were messing around with the BB gun,” she said, pointing to Mark.

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I thought I showed you two how to handle that thing.”

  Mark just nodded.

  “Well, accidents will happen, I guess. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Mark said.

  “Okay,” he said, and put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze before he went off to find the nurse.

  Ten minutes later, Derek’s mom ran through the electric doors. She was dressed for the mill, still wearing her clip-on nametag, and she smelled like pencil lead. She had steeltoed boots like Mark’s father and a line of grease across the front of her uniform. It looked like a costume on her.

  “How is he?” she asked Sarah, and when she didn’t like her answer, stalked right past Mark to the nurse.

  Mark’s mom came out after a while and said the doctors weren’t sure. He might lose the eye or it might get better, only time would tell. He’d probably have to stay in the hospital for a day or two, they’d see. While she was explaining everything to them, Mark’s dad walked in.

  The first thing he did was sit down. It was a thing he had; anytime they had to discuss something serious, he made everyone sit down. His other rule was no shouting, no matter how angry you were. His mom told him the whole thing, and then he stood up and took Mark’s hand and then his mom’s and then Sarah joined the circle and they all bowed their heads and they prayed.

  “Amen,” his father said, and gave a little squeeze which Mark returned out of habit.

  Sarah suddenly broke into tears, and his mom held her for a while, and then Derek’s stepfather came back out and gave his father a hug. Derek was resting, they’d given him something; Derek’s mom would stay with him tonight. Meanwhile it was probably best if they all went home.

  “Can we visit him later?” Mark asked.

  “Tomorrow,” his mom said.

  It was night out now, the moon almost full. In the parking lot they split up. “Why don’t you go with dad?” his mom said, so Mark climbed into the pick-up and buckled himself in.

  His dad would tell him a story, Mark knew that. It would be something from the Bible, a parable Mark could learn from, and he waited for it as they got on the highway and headed out of town. It wasn’t until they passed the salvage yard by the firehouse that his dad cleared his throat and said, “You know something?”

  “What?” Mark said.

  “It could have just as easily been you. You know that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you remember what it says in John about the two farmers?”

  “No,” Mark said, because he never knew what the Bible said. In Sunday school they read stories together that everyone had heard before, but his father knew all of it, pulled it out like a favorite wrench.

  “There were two farmers who lived next to each other, and one day a plague, of locusts came along, so thick they could hardly see. When the locusts flew off, the one farmer’s crop was all gone, bitten down to the roots. But the other farmer’s crop wasn’t touched at all. It was like a sign, people said.” His dad looked to him, and Mark said, “Uh-huh.”

  “The farmer who lost his crop thought it was the work of sorcery. The farmer whose crop wasn’t touched thought it was the hand of God. The two of them accused each other of being in league with the devil. Ea
ch of them set about to prove it in the courts. In the meantime no one was tending the fields and it was high summer. And you know what happened?”

  “What?” Mark said.

  “The whole crop burned up and was lost.”

  His dad looked to him again as if to make sure he understood, and then they drove along, nothing but the truck’s engine and the tires whining over the road.

  It was past supper so Mark’s mom heated up some lasagna from yesterday. Peter was home, and they had to tell him what happened.

  “Your brother and Derek were playing around out back,” his mom said. “And somehow . . . ”

  Every time Mark heard someone tell it, he could feel them blaming him. That was fine, it was his fault; he just wondered if it would get better. He hoped so.

  Peter washed while he dried and put the dishes away.

  “You weren’t trying to hit him,” Peter asked

  “No,” Mark said, angry at him. But was that really true?

  It was just a game. Now the crop was gone, the fields burnt.

  “He’ll be okay,” Peter said. “Plus he’s still got the other one, it’s not like he’s blind.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m just saying,” he said.

  It was a school night, and they had homework to do, and then when they were done they were allowed an hour of TV. His dad went over to the Rotas’ during Seinfeld and came back during Suddenly Susan. Nothing had changed; Derek’s mom was still at the hospital. Maybe they’d know something in the morning.

  In bed, Mark pictured the celebration they’d have when they found out Derek was okay. His dad would call for a prayer circle and they’d bow their heads and all of them—Mark, especially—would thank God.

  But in the morning Derek’s stepfather said the doctors still couldn’t say one way or the other. Derek’s mom was taking the day off to stay with him. Peter and Sarah walked together to the bus stop; the grass was frosted and they left footprints. Mark’s bus came later. He scuffed through the drifted leaves, his backpack a load on his shoulder. It was the last stop on the route, which was good in the morning but bad after school. On a regular day, he and Derek would jag around, maybe play kill-the-man-with-the-ball until the bus came. Today it was just him, and he waited outside the shelter, kicking stones across the road and thinking how impossible the shot was, the terrible odds of it, and how unlucky it was that the person firing the rifle had been him. Sometimes he couldn’t believe it was real, he could pretend it never happened. But it did.

  In school he didn’t mention it.

  “Is Derek sick, do you know?” Mrs. Albright asked him, and he said yes.

  After school he had haunted house practice, but his mom called Father Don, who said it was okay if he missed it to visit the hospital. The Creature from the Black Lagoon suits weren’t in yet anyway, and they knew what to do, they didn’t have to practice being monsters.

  “Do you not want to go?” his mom said in the car.

  “No, I do”

  “He’s not going to be mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I know,” Mark said but he was thinking about the farmer who’d lost his crop. How could you not be angry?

  Derek’s room was on a floor just for children; the halls were crowded with parents, and the decorations were the same as downstairs. The shades were down and Derek was asleep. His stepfather and mom were both there. His roommate had just been released, so there was an empty bed next to his. Derek’s mom took them out in the hall to talk to them.

  “They say the eye itself isn’t as bad as they thought, but the thing is lodged in there. They’re going to try to get it out but they say there’s a chance the retina might detach.”

  “Is there any way to reattach it?” Mark’s mom asked.

  “No, if it detaches you lose the eye.”

  The surgery was scheduled for tomorrow morning. That night they prayed for him, Mark’s father talking about the mystery of God’s purpose and their acceptance of His will. Mark thought it was wrong, that there must be something they could do to fix things. It felt like giving up to him.

  And then after the surgery they still had to wait another day to see if it worked. The doctors said everything went well but with something like this there was no guarantee.

  Sunday before church Derek’s mom came over; she was in the same clothes as yesterday and said she hadn’t slept. They weren’t going to be there, so she wanted Mark to say Derek’s name during the Prayers for the People. Everyone thought it was a good idea, and Mark did too. Maybe this would help a little. He’d already planned what he was going to say during the Confession. It would be like an offering. He didn’t think it would change anything, but still, it was something.

  His mom laid out his good white shirt and Mark buttoned it till it pinched his neck. His hair was still wet; it combed down dark in the mirror so you wouldn’t know he was blond. He fixed his part and leaned close to his own reflection, looking at his eyes, one and then the other. The black part and the green around it and then the white was like a bullseye, three rings. He put his hand over his right eye and everything off to that side disappeared.

  It wasn’t that much different, was it?

  But he could always take his hand away, he thought. Derek couldn’t.

  His mom drove and he and Peter sat in the back, his dad’s guitar case across their laps. Even the new part of the parking lot was full; Mr. Jenner waved people in with a blaze orange vest and parked them on the grass. Mark waited for his dad to slide his guitar out, then followed him around the car to where Peter and his mom were waiting. He saw the Tates across the lot, all dressed up, and Mrs. Lerner in her white gloves, carrying a lily in purple foil. The bells were playing from the loudspeakers above the front doors, and everyone was headed for them. It wouldn’t be hard, Mark thought. All he had to do was stand up and say Derek’s name.

  Inside, it was warm with voices. Since Derek’s stepfather wasn’t there, Charlie Wycoff was up front tuning up, and Mark’s dad needed to go over some changes with him.

  “Play well,” his mom said, and gave him a kiss.

  She let Mark into the pew first and sat down with Peter on the other side of her, on the aisle. They shared the pew with the Rotas, and Mark wasn’t used to all the space. His slacks slid on the wood, and he pushed himself side to side like a goalie fixing his crease, his feet on the kneeler. “Stop,” his mom said, a hand on his leg. “Now are you all set with what you’re going to say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here.” She had her prayer book open to where they said it. “Right after Father Don says this here.”

  She marked the place with a white ribbon and gave him the book.

  His dad and Charlie Wycoff started playing and people stopped talking. Father Don came out in his robes with his old Bible and raised his arms to welcome everyone, and Mark wondered what Father Don would say to him. It wouldn’t be like his dad and his farmer story, it would be different. If Derek’s eye was all right, then it was a chance for Mark to learn something. In school, Mrs. Albright drew a minus sign on the board, then waited a second till they all saw it and made it into a plus. “Make a positive,” she said, “out of a negative.” Now Mark wondered how that fit with the two farmers. What could you make from a burnt up field?

  Not much.

  It was just a story, it wasn’t something that actually happened.

  They stood to sing and knelt to pray, and he read the whole program, seeing who donated the flowers for the altar this week, whose birthday was coming up. During the announcements before the sermon, Father Don reminded everyone that there would be a sneak preview of the haunted house this Wednesday for church members only, so it would be a good time to beat the lines. Last year they raised over five thousand dollars, so how about a big hand for all those folks who helped put it together?

  “That’s us,” Mark’s mom said as they clapped.

  And then the sermon, which seemed long, and the off
ering, and another hymn, until finally Father Don raised his arms and said, “Let us pray,” and lowered them for everyone to kneel down.

  Mark had the book turned to the right page. They prayed for the president and they prayed for the bishop and for Father Don. They prayed for all those struggling against injustice and oppression and for the poor and the unfortunate. And then they prayed for the sick and infirm, and Father Don asked God to especially keep in mind those members of the congregation in special need of His healing

  It was quiet then, and Mark’s mom touched his arm. He stood up.

  The church was a field of heads bent down, and he was taller than all of them, except Father Don, who turned to look at him, as if he expected this.

  “Derek Rota,” Mark said, and Father Don nodded.

  He wasn’t loud enough, he thought, but it was too late and he knelt dawn again.

  “Eileen Covington,” someone else said, and then it was quiet.

  “Gertrude Wheeler.”

  “Jan Tomczak.”

  It went on for eight names. Mark thought it was a lot, all of those people in the hospital, and all their families worried about them. Some of them were probably going to die. He’d barely noticed this part of the service before, and now it seemed terrible to him, proof of something gone wrong.

  But none of the other people had shot anyone, had they?

  They finished and everyone sat up with a rumble of kneelers. “You did very well,” his mom said, and then his dad stepped to the center and played and they all stood up to watch the altar boys take the cross away.

  In the receiving line, Father Don shook his hand in both of his. “Are you ready to be the Creature?” he said, because the suits had come in yesterday.

  “Sure.”

  He’d have to come by and try it on tomorrow. Mark’s mom said it wasn’t a problem.

  Outside, the little kids were running around on the new sod, one girl crying because she’d gotten grass stains on her white dress. They waited for Mark’s dad, who had to pack up his stuff. When he came out he was still talking with Charlie Wycoff.

  “He’s pretty good,” Mark’s dad said in the car. “He’s really been practicing a lot.”