The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four

by Jonathan Strahan

  "Yeah," I said. "Tomorrow night, Phil Lattimore—" I floundered, trying to think of the right words. "OK, look—if you knew you could save someone's life, wouldn't you do it? Even a fuckhead?"

  Ambrose's face turned serious. "What are you saying?"

  "It's a car accident. Phil Lattimore—he—he'll be hurt."

  He stared at me for I don't know how long. "You really, like . . . know this?" he said finally.

  I nodded.

  "Anyone else going to get hurt with him?"

  "Not that I . . . uh . . . know of."

  "Damn." Ambrose shook his head and gave a short, amazed laugh. "You really haven't told anyone else?"

  "No one. Just you."

  "I don't know why not." He ran a hand through his thick, brown hair. "If I could warn people when they were going to have an accident instead of just telling them where they left their keys—man, that would be fuckin' awesome." He gave me a significant look. "A hell of a lot better than telling people when they were going to die."

  There are so many ways you can go wrong without meaning to.

  You can make a mistake, an error, or a faux pas. You can screw things up, you can screw things up royally, or just screw the pooch. Or you can fuck up beyond all hope, like I did. Deliberately.

  I knew it was wrong but I was afraid he wouldn't help me. But a life was at stake and that was more important than anything, I told myself. As soon as Phil Lattimore was safe, I'd tell Ambrose the truth. He might be angry with me at first but then he would understand, I told myself. So would the rest of the family. They couldn't possibly not understand. I told myself. I was thirteen.

  "But why don't you want to tell anyone?" Ambrose asked as he worked on a Wiggins butterscotch shake.

  "It's complicated. And keep your voice down." We were sitting outside at one of the bright yellow plastic tables near the entrance to the parking lot.

  Ambrose made a business of looking around. The only other people there were a young couple with a baby three tables away. "Right. Because they might hear us over the traffic noise!" He bellowed the last words as a truck went by on the street. The couple with the baby never looked in our direction.

  "Fine, you made your point," I said. Normally two scoops of coffee ice cream topped with hot fudge was enough to put the world right but not today. The people with the baby had arrived after we had and they were directly in my line of sight.

  "You know, it's rare but there are a few other people in the family with your trait," Ambrose was saying.

  "There are?"

  "Yeah, one of our cousins, she lives in California, I think. My dad mentioned her once. Also one of his aunts, which I guess makes her our great-aunt. Dad said she so was high-strung that sometimes she was afraid to go out."

  "Because of what she knew?" I said.

  Ambrose frowned. "Not exactly. Something real bad happened—I don't know what—that everyone thought was an accident. Only it wasn't, because she didn't know about it in advance. Since she had no connection to anyone involved and no evidence, there was nothing she could do. Dad said she freaked out and never really recovered."

  "She couldn't have made an anonymous call to the police? Or sent a letter or something?"

  Ambrose shrugged. "I don't know the whole story. Maybe she tried that and it didn't work." His expression became slightly concerned. "I hope nothing like that ever happens to you."

  "I can't worry about that right now," I said. "Are you sure Phil the Fuckhead's gonna be here?"

  "I told you, my friend Jerry works weekends here and Phil always shows. After the fill-in manager goes home, he comes in to hassle the girls on the counter. Is there something about those people that bothers you?"

  The sudden change in subject caught me by surprise. "What people? Why?"

  "You keep putting up your hand to your head like you want to block out the sight of them but at the same time you're sneaking little peeks. Something wrong with them?"

  Not really. Other than the fact that in nine years, seven months, and one week, the kid is going to drown, it's all good. I had to bite my lip.

  Ambrose's eyes widened as he leaned forward. "Are they going to have an accident?"

  The dad and mom would go on for another forty-five and sixty-eight years respectively before they died of two different cancers. I hoped they'd have other children.

  "Nothing in the immediate future," I said.

  "What about you and me?" His face was very serious now. "Are we gonna be OK?"

  Ambrose had another fifty-two years ahead of him. Not as long as anyone at my house but not what I'd have called being cut off in his prime. "We're fine," I said. "We seem to be pretty l—ah, lucky." I'd been about to say long-lived.

  "For the immediate future," he said, still serious. "How far ahead do you know about—two months? Six months? Longer?"

  I took an uncomfortable breath. "I-I don't know. I haven't picked up on anyone else yet. What about the cousin and that great-aunt? How far ahead did they see?"

  "My dad said the great-aunt wouldn't tell. He thinks maybe six months for the cousin but he couldn't remember."

  "Six months would be pretty helpful," I said lamely.

  Ambrose wasn't listening. He was looking at a car pulling into the parking lot.

  "Fuckhead alert," he said. "Driving his land yacht. The only thing big enough for his fuckhead posse."

  Land yacht was right; the metallic brown convertible was enormous, old but obviously cared for. The top was down, either to show off the tan and plaid upholstery or just to let the guys enjoy the wind blowing through their crew cuts. Phil parked down at the far end of the lot by the exit, taking up two spaces. Not just typical but predictable, like he was following a program laid out for him. The Fuckhead Lifeplan. Maybe I really was supposed to leave him to his fate.

  As if catching the flavor of my thoughts, Ambrose said, "You sure you want to help this asshole? He's got plenty of friends. Let them rush him to the hospital."

  "Shut up." I slipped over to Ambrose's side of the table. "And turn around, don't let them see we're looking at them."

  "Whatever." Pause. "Hey, we're not doing this because you have some kinda masochistic crush on him, are we?"

  "No, I hate him."

  "Oh, look—it's my little girlie friend!" bellowed that stupid, awful voice. "And who's that with her? Hey, you're not cheating on me, are you? Better not or I'll have to teach you both a lesson—"

  I wiped both hands over my face, begging the earth to open up and swallow me but as usual it didn't. Phil Lattimore loomed over me like the Thug of Doom, his chuckling goon squad backing him up. I glanced at Ambrose. He sat with his arms crossed, staring straight ahead.

  "Oh, hey, you got a pet fag!" my thug said with loud delight. "I got no problem with fags as long as they're housetrained and don't try to hump my leg or nothing. You wouldn't do something like that, would you, pet fag? Hey, you got a name? You look like a Fifi. Right, guys?"

  Fuckin' A, said the guys, high-fiving each other.

  Phil Lattimore bent down so we were eye to eye. "Who said you could eat ice cream here?"

  Would his buddies be in the car with him when it happened, would they be hurt? If so, they'd recover. The soonest any of them would pass away was thirty years from now; the goon on Phil's immediate left would die of blood poisoning. Another avoidable death. I Should make a note to phone him in three decades, two months, and six days: Hey, if you get a splinter today, you'd better go to the hospital immediately because you'll die if you don't.

  All this went through my head in a fraction of a second, before Phil straightened up and went on. "Any a you guys get a memo saying girlie and Fifi could eat here?"

  The goon squad chorus didn't answer; instead, they all turned and went into Wiggins.

  I turned to Ambrose, stunned. "What just happened?"

  "A minor miracle." He pointed; a police car had just pulled into the lot. "Maybe they've been following him." We watched as the cops got out of th
e car and went inside. "Bunch of guys riding around on Saturday night. Could be trouble."

  "It's not night yet," I pointed out.

  "But it will be soon. Let's get out of here before Phil and the posse come back out. They're not gonna feel like hassling the waitresses with a couple of cops watching."

  We threw our empty dishes away and got into the VW. Technically the car was his mother's but she had left it behind after moving out. His parents, like mine, both carried traits but, unlike mine, had gotten married. Despite splitting up, however, they still weren't divorced.

  "You sure this isn't a pervy crush?" Ambrose grumbled as he backed out of the parking space. "Wanting to help that asshole—"

  "I don't want to," I said. "I have to."

  "Because?" Ambrose prompted as we approached the exit; it was right near where Phil Lattimore had parked his land yacht. "Or is that a deep, dark, pervy secret?"

  "Because I said something to him about what I know."

  Ambrose slammed on the brakes so sharply I flopped in my shoulder harness.

  "You told Phil the Fuckhead that you know he's gonna have an accident tomorrow night?" My cousin's voice was half an octave higher than I'd thought it could go. "You really are fucking crazy!"

  "I didn't mean to—"

  "Don't you realize that he might think you threatened him?"

  The idea of Phil Lattimore thinking I could threaten him was so funny I laughed out loud.

  "You idiot," Ambrose said. "He could say you did something to his car! For all you know, he told his father or his mother—or maybe he's telling the cops in Wiggins right now."

  "I don't think so," I said unhappily, looking at the side view mirror.

  "OK, maybe not, but—"

  "Definitely not. He—"

  Phil Lattimore slammed up against the driver's side door and stuck his head through the window. "Hey, why're you sittin' here starin' at my car? What's goin' on, Fifi?"

  Ambrose stamped on the accelerator and we shot out of the parking lot, barely missing an oncoming SUV.

  "Don't talk," Ambrose said for the fifth or sixth time.

  "I wasn't," I said, glaring at him.

  "I thought I heard you take a breath like you were gonna say something."

  "You were mistaken."

  "OK. Don't talk any more now."

  "Fine. I won't." I stared out the passenger side window. We were out in the countryside now, taking the long way back to my house. The really long, long way, all the way around town, outside the city limits; a nice drive under other circumstances. "Phil Lattimore would never in a million years believe me," I added under my breath and waited for Ambrose to tell me to shut up. He didn't so I went on muttering. "He wouldn't believe it if you'd said it. That's why we don't tell anyone outside the family anything—"

  "Shut the fuck up," Ambrose growled. "You think I spent my life in a coma? I know all that. Now I'm gonna drive you home and you're gonna tell your mom everything, what you know and what you said to Phil—hey, just what did you say? No, don't tell me," he added before I could answer. "I'm probably better off not knowing. If I don't know, I'm not an accessory."

  "A what?" I said, baffled.

  "An accessory to your threatening Phil."

  "He threatened me, just because I wanted to use a payphone," I protested. "I only told him he was going to have a bad night."

  "I told you not to tell me!" Ambrose gave me a quick, pained glance. "OK, never mind, just don't tell me any more."

  "There isn't any more to tell," I said, sulking now.

  Ambrose eased off the accelerator and only then did I realize how fast we'd been going. "Are you shitting me?" He looked at me again and I nodded. "Oh, for cryin' out—that's not a threat. We're gonna go home and forget the whole thing. And don't worry, I won't remind you."

  "We can't," I said.

  Ambrose shook his head in a sharp, final way. "We can and we will."

  "I thought you said you hadn't spent most of your life in a coma. Don't you get it? I can't just turn my back. If Phil the Fuckhead is in the hospital for months and months, that's on me for not doing anything. If he ends up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, that's on me."

  "He could also just walk away from the wreckage with nothing more than a scratch on his empty fuckin' head," Ambrose said. "Guys like him usually do."

  "What about any other people in the accident? If they're crippled or—or worse? That's on me, too. And you. For not doing anything."

  Ambrose didn't say anything for a long moment. "It could happen no matter what we do."

  "Yeah, but we'd have tried. It wouldn't be like we just stood by."

  "Shit." Ambrose turned on the radio and then immediately turned it off again. "But you don't know anything about any other people, do you?"

  "I only know about Phil Lattimore getting badly hurt in an accident. If I don't try to do something about it, I might as well stand next to the wreckage and watch him d—suffer."

  "And that's why you need to tell your m—"

  "No! If I tell my mother, then I have to tell her what I said to him."

  "But it's not that bad," said Ambrose. "It really isn't. If you're that scared, I'll tell her for you. You can hide in your room."

  "Please, Ambrose, I'm begging you—do this my way. I swear I'll confess everything to everyone after it's all over, even if the worst happens. I just—I need to do this as a test. I'm testing myself."

  Ambrose gave me a startled glance and I realized I was crying. "But it's not just you," he said. "You dragged me into it."

  "And that's on me, too, making you share this," I said. "I know that."

  "You better know it." His voice was grim. "If I had any sense, I'd take you straight home and tell your mom the whole thing. But I'm not a rat, because—" he took a deep breath. "Just between you and me, OK?"

  I looked at him warily. "OK. What."

  "I came into my own a year and a half before Aunt Donna gave me that party."

  "You did?" I was stunned. "Why did you hide it?"

  "Because I felt weird about it. Some of the things that people had forgotten—my father would have realized I knew some things that—well, it wouldn't have been good. But Aunt Donna found out."

  "How?"

  "She just asked me. I tried to lie by being evasive but I was too young and stupid to do it right. We had a talk and she promised not to tell on me. And she didn't."

  I was flabbergasted.

  "I know, everyone was suspicious anyway because of how well I always did in school," he said, chuckling a little. "You, too, maybe. But I hadn't come into my own when I started school and after I did, it didn't matter. I was already in the smart-kid classes and smart kids don't forget much. I get straight A's because I'm smart, too, and I study my ass off. Anyway, you can trust me. I won't say anything. But promise me that tomorrow night, when this is all over, you'll tell your mom."

  "OK," I said.

  "Good." He looked at me sternly. "Because it's not ratting you out if I make you keep that promise."

  I got home and went straight upstairs to run a bath for myself. When I took off my clothes, I discovered I had gotten my first period and burst into tears.

  My mother waited until I had quieted down before coming to check on me. To my relief, she didn't rhapsodize about becoming a woman or ask me any questions. She just put a new box of sanitary pads on the counter by the sink, gathered up my clothes and let me have a good cry in peace, up to my neck in Mr. Bubble.

  The next morning, I came down to breakfast to discover that she had sent Benny and Tim off to Donna's for the day.

  "Estrogen-only household, no boys allowed," she said cheerfully as she sat at the kitchen table with the Sunday paper. "We've got plenty of chocolate in a variety of forms and an ample supply of Midol. There's also a heating pad if you need it."

  "Thanks, but I'm OK," I said. She started to say something else and I talked over her. "I'm going over to Ambrose's. Algebra."

  She lo
oked surprised and then covered it with a smile. "All right. It's your day, after all." And she wished I were spending it with her. So did I.

  I started back upstairs to get dressed.

  "Hannah," she called after me suddenly. I stopped. "No later than five. You've got school tomorrow. OK?'

  Phil Lattimore would die at six-fifty-two unless I saved him. "OK."

  "I mean it," she added sharply.

  "I know," I said. "No later than five, it's a school night."

  Her expression softened. "And if you decide to knock off the studying early, the chocolate and everything else will still be here."

  "Thanks, Mom." I got two steps farther when she called after me again.

  "Are you really having that much trouble with algebra that you have to spend all weekend working on it with your cousin?"

  "You have no idea," I replied.

  I'd gone another two steps when she said, "Just one more thing."

  I waited.

  "Is there anything else you want to tell me about?"

  "Not yet."

  "Leave it open," Ambrose told me as I started to close the door to his room. "New rule. All the time we're spending together is making my father nervous."

  I blinked at him. "You kidding?"

  Ambrose shook his head gravely. "I wish I were. He thinks it's more than algebra."

  "But we're cousins," I said, appalled and repelled.

  "No shit. Just remember to keep your voice down and your algebra book handy for those moments when he just 'happens' to pass by on his way to the linen closet." He gave a short laugh. "You know, I thought that when I finally told him what we're doing, he'd be mad at me for hiding stuff from him. Now I think he'll just be relieved."

  The day crawled by. Ambrose sat at his desk, tapping away on his computer while I stretched out on the bed, trying to ignore the mild discomfort in my lower belly. But after Uncle Scott went past a couple of times, he called Ambrose out of the room for a quick word. Ambrose returned with a request for me to sit up, preferably in one of the two straight-back chairs. I compromised by stretching out on the floor. "If your dad has a problem with this," I said, "I'll give him a complete description of how my first period is going."