Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014

by Penny Publications

  "You're a queer bait ass hat, and a waste of space to boot." Beau smiled. His teeth were white and straight. "I'm hoping you'll get pissed off enough that you'll take a swing at me so I can stomp your ass hat head into a greasy spot."

  "Get a life." Leon's balls felt like they wanted to crawl up inside him, and he gripped the desk's edge so as not to bolt from the classroom.

  "Get a death," replied Beau. He raised his hand. Leon flinched. "Bathroom, Mr. Gleedy," Beau said before pushing from his chair. He threw an elbow at Leon's head as he passed, but Leon ducked. Mr. Gleedy had looked back to his computer as soon as he'd given Beau permission to leave, so he missed the exchange.

  No one else seemed to notice either, or if they did, they weren't meeting Leon's eyes as he scanned the room. Then he saw Beau had left his hat on his desk, a worn Colorado State University cap that had faded to a blotchy green with the rams logo partly peeled away. It was an ugly hat.

  Leon checked the room again. Everyone had their head buried in their books or were sleeping (or texting under their desks, glancing up at Gleedy to make sure he wasn't looking).

  Leon slid the hat off the desk and into his backpack.

  The bell rang before Beau returned to class, so Leon left without having to face him.

  Liselle Benividas wore a black, tight and very short leather skirt over black stockings. She preferred black boots, and she liked low cut shirts that revealed she didn't have much cleavage but way more skin than most girls showed. No one knew her hair's true color because it had changed every month or so since third grade. Today's version featured a light brown with green streaks.

  She leaned against the lockers next to Leon while he tried his combination for the third time. It never opened on a first attempt.

  "You know the smart girls stay away from Beau Harmon. He's got a permanent case of genital herpes. Beau's an STD buffet. The smart girls, if they see some dumb girl hanging with him, call her Petri dish."

  "Why are you telling me this?" Leon couldn't remember ten words she'd spoken to him this year.

  "No point. Just saying." She pushed herself away from the locker, put her ear buds in, then said, a little louder than necessary, "He might have a thing for sheep, too. Have you seen how much wool he wears?"

  At lunch in the library, Leon cruised websites looking for information on velociraptors. They weren't huge as they were in Jurassic Park: three feet tall, but six to seven feet long and feathered. Serrated teeth, like a shark. A mouthful of steak knives. They were related to larger raptors, who had similar characteristics. He spent a long time studying the dinosaur's sickle claws, long, sweeping, retractable, curving bones. One article suggested velociraptors jumped their prey, using the long claws to hook on while they began to feed. The prey might not be dead, even, but die later from blood loss as the velociraptor tore away more and more flesh.

  By the end of lunch he'd read four more articles. It turned out that scientists argued all the time. Were the long curved claws sharp enough to disembowel the prey? Did the velociraptor flap its arms, the vestigial wings, to keep itself in place as it fed on struggling animals? Did it hunt in packs? What color were its feathers? Did it have a voice?

  They agreed on some ideas, though. The velociraptor wasn't sluggish. It must have been quick to catch its prey. The long tail would have stabilized it when it ran, and it may well have been intelligent. Fast, smart, and built to kill. You wouldn't hear them coming, low to the ground, sprinting on bird legs, until they were on you, which would be too late. Cretaceous back-alley muggers.

  Student Senate kids surrounded Mrs. Dorsey, who stood in the library hallway. She taught math for four periods and did student senate the fifth. Her grey hair matched her grey face, which looked even greyer because she wore bright red lipstick. The kids held felt-tip markers and encouraged other students to sign the poster.

  "Will you take the pledge?" Mrs. Dorsey said to Leon as he passed, on his way to P.E.

  "What are you selling?"

  "No sale," she said, brightly. "This is anti-bullying week. If we get 50 percent of the school to sign by Friday, Dunlop Photography has offered to do pictures at the dance for half price. It's a good cause."

  A student senate member said, "The theme is 'Mountains Under the Stars.' We're going to turn the football field into the best outdoor dance floor ever, if the weather holds."

  On the poster were slogans: NICENESS IS PRICELESS—IT ISN'T BIG TO MAKE OTHERS FEEL SMALL—STEP UP SO OTHERS WON'T GET STEPPED ON, and BULLYING IS MEAN AND SHOULD NOT BE SEEN.

  "Are you a freshman?" Mrs. Dorsey said. "The freshmen sign in green, sophomores in orange, juniors in red, and seniors black." She held out a green pen.

  Leon shrugged. "I don't like dances."

  She didn't remember him. He'd had Mrs. Dorsey for math for his first three years and she didn't remember him.

  After the other boys had changed and headed to the gym for day four of ping pong rules, Leon went through the unsecured lockers. He found two twenty-dollar bills in Simon True's jeans that he put back and a quart-sized plastic bag filled with pot that didn't interest him, but he took one of Simon's socks. Simon hung out with Beau Harmon, serving as Beau's chief of staff. Beau provided malevolent intent and muscle. Simon brought the brains, telling Beau when to back off, and mouthing lies that sounded so plausible after. "The kid was hurt when we got there, Mr. Quinault," he'd said to the assistant principal. "Beau wasn't even there," he'd said another time.

  Leon took one sock each from two other lockers: Grant Haver and Lewis Lake, both part of the loose group who hung out with Beau. Each had stashed something interesting in his backpack. Grant had a pair of pink panties, which made Leon a little sick. There had been a story last year about Beau Harmon, his buddies, and a girl from the middle school the police found drunk, wandering beside the highway. Leon regretted picking the panties up. In Lewis's bag he found a gun, a small one with a pearl handle like a lady's antique.

  Leon paused at the gun, a serious breach, like a federal crime, the kind that could get a kid tossed in jail. He placed it back, thought for a second, took the weapon out again, unloaded it, and then returned it. He tossed the bullets in the trash can on his way out to the gym.

  During P.E. Leon lost every game, until he played Grant Haver, a biggish lump with a circus juggler's hand-eye coordination, who decided to switch to lefty when he saw he'd drawn Leon. Grant said, "It wouldn't be fair to show him my good hand."

  Liselle played two tables down, knocking off one opponent after another with a mean slicing backhand and a backspin shot that hit the table at an angle but popped straight up, making it nearly impossible to return.

  Grant won the first six points in a row against a listless Leon who didn't like ping pong, P.E., or Grant.

  Grant stuck his right hand behind his back. "Maybe I should turn my paddle around and hit with the handle, or I could spot you twenty points." His served a high-sailing softball next, so Leon lashed at it, sending it toward Grant faster than anything he'd seen all period. Without rushing, Grant returned it too, then looked down the tables at the other players, hitting the ball languidly to Leon without appearing to pay attention. "Hey, Liselle," Grant said. "Did you get those gym shorts on sale?"

  Liselle looked confused. "I don't know. Maybe."

  Grant leered. "Because if you were with me, they'd be one-hundred percent off."

  Leon swung at the ball coming toward him, let his paddle go, nailing Grant square on the cheek. The bigger boy howled and dropped as if he'd been poleaxed. The P.E. teacher rushed over with a towel. "What happened, boys? What happened?"

  Leon folded his arms across his chest. The other players stopped as the P.E. teacher pressed the towel against Grant's face, who muttered a continuous litany of "Damn, damn, damn."

  "I think you'll need stitches," the P.E. teacher said.

  "I don't know," said Leon. "The paddle just slipped."

  It was the only winning shot he made that day.

  Le
on didn't go cat hunting that night or the night after.

  Wednesday night, he put a quarter pound of hamburger in a sock he'd stolen—he didn't know whose sock belonged to who—took it out to the shed and dropped it through the window. He could barely see his hands in the moonless night. Stars glittered with the peculiar intensity they were capable of in unpolluted, high country air, not competing with the light wash that hid them in the city.

  Inside the shed, something scrambled over the dirt. Its voice vibrated dryly, like a nail rasp drawn across a rock.

  Leon worked his way around the building, trying not to let the scrub oak catch his coat. "Do you want more, boy?" he said, as he unclasped the door and swung it open. A black shadow, much longer than a dog, not moving like a dog at all, whipped past him into the dark. Leon took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it into the shed. Bones, everywhere. Fine, delicate cat bones and skulls and fur. He wrinkled his nose against the smell. Looks like it's time to muck out the shed again, he thought.

  By midnight under a camp lantern's hissing brightness that threw sharp edged contrasts everywhere, he'd filled five heavy black plastic trash bags with shovelfuls of broken bones, uneaten skin and scat. He'd wrapped a scarf across his nose and mouth, but it didn't help much.

  The turkey raptor appeared noiselessly at the door, watching Leon. Its head moved like a bird's—quick, jerky switches from position to position—but it didn't have a beak, and nothing bird-like peered from its eyes. The library said velociraptors were only about three feet tall, and weighed thirty or so pounds. Must be average height, Leon thought, because when the two-legged creature stretched up, it stood almost five feet tall, and he guessed it weighed more like seventy or eighty pounds. Maybe his creature came from velociraptors' bigger relatives. What caught his eye most, though, were the feathers. When he found it last summer, a third the size it was now, he'd misidentified it as a turkey, not a dinosaur, because in his mind dinosaurs were scaly. The reddish and beige feathers looked as if they were designed for a creature that lived in the desert, not the mountain forests. Longer feathers draped like a veil from the clawed front legs that folded against the turkey raptor's chest when not in use, more like wings than arms if it weren't for the claws, and the tail feathers were also long. They rustled when it moved. Small, form fitting feathers covered its body except for the well-muscled legs and the face; the long, tooth-filled, deadly face that stared at him so intelligently.

  The turkey raptor bent around, licking the feathers on its shoulder, preening like a cat.

  "Good boy," said Leon, petting its head as he dragged the last bag out the door. The raptor rumbled in its throat.

  Rumors about Lewis Lake circulated around the school all morning. "I heard a mountain lion got him," a freshman said while talking to a friend in the bathroom as Leon washed his hands. "A mountain lion wouldn't break through a window," said the other boy. "I think Lewis torqued someone off, and they made it look like a mountain lion."

  "Possible. He didn't have many friends."

  During homeroom announcements, the principal reminded the students to always store food safely and to bear-proof their trashcans. "When you live in the wild, you have to respect the wild animals," she said. "Remember, they were here first."

  Leon thought about Lewis's gun. He wondered if he had time to get it out. He wondered if Lewis pulled the trigger on the empty chamber.

  Liselle leaned on the locker next to Leon's for the second time that week. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face looked drawn and tired.

  A student senate member, a perky girl in tennis shoes and rolled up jeans, stopped in front of Liselle, her arms covered in bright yellow, plastic bracelets. "Would you like an anti-bullying wristband?" she asked. "We could really use your support. Half off pictures at the dance if we can get enough kids involved."

  "Choke on it." Liselle stared at her with eyes so flat the student senate girl froze in uncertainty; then she clicked. Leon thought it very interesting to see—he could almost hear the student senate girl's synapses resetting—she turned to Leon. "Would you like an anti-bullying wristband? They're free and for a good cause." She smiled, pointedly not looking at Liselle who glared into the girl's ear.

  "Sure," he said, which earned him another smile that flicked on and off like a light switch.

  When she greeted the next student in the hallway, Leon dropped the wristband in his locker.

  Liselle didn't look at Leon. "Did you hear about Lewis Lake?" He wasn't sure at first she'd directed the question to him.

  "Just some stories about a mountain lion," he ventured, not positive she wanted an answer.

  "I don't think a lion did it."

  Leon wondered why she seemed so sad. He tried to think about what to say, but nothing came, so he shut his locker and walked toward class. Before he turned the corner, ten feet away, he looked back. She hadn't moved. In her hand, which he didn't notice before, she held a long, sand-colored feather. In the hallway light, it looked almost pink. She twirled it between her fingers, back and forth.

  Evidently, half the students signed the anti-bullying poster because at day's end, the principal announced Saturday's dance pictures would be half price. Leon read the signatures. Near the bottom on the left, he found Beau Harmon, who had signed his name (Leon had to squint to read it), BEAU F.U. HARMON. Simon True and the two other evil musketeers had signed it too. Beside Lewis Lake's signature, someone had added RIP, and another wrote WE'LL MISS YOU. A third message, poorly scratched out, read WHAT DO WE EAT? WHAT DO WE EAT? LEWIS MEAT! LEWIS MEAT!

  Gleedy passed out an essay question for English class for Crime and Punishment. It read, "Discuss Dostoevsky's use of coincidence as a plot device in the novel. Does it affect the narrative's plausibility?"

  Beau Harmon opened the essay book Gleedy had passed out and began writing. Leon had to admit that while Beau served as a role model for douches and sociopaths, he always did his homework.

  Leon glanced at Beau's booklet.

  "Take a picture, dickwad. It will last longer."

  Leon opened his own exam book, and drew a mountain range. In the foreground, stick-figure dinosaurs ran in a herd from left to right.

  Gleedy put his hand on Leon's shoulder. Leon jumped. "A picture may be worth a thousand words," Gleedy said, "but at least it has to be about something Dostoevsky wrote. I don't recognize that scene. How about Raskolnikov's or Razumikhin's portrait instead?"

  Leon considered stealing from Gleedy, maybe his jacket that hung from the office chair, but he decided the teacher wanted to be funny and kind, not mean.

  Saturday night, Leon approached the shed cautiously. He'd never not fed the turkey raptor for two days in a row. He held two socks with a hamburger ball in each, and a Colorado State University ball cap he'd smeared meat on.

  When he dropped them in the window, the turkey raptor snarled, a sound that made hair stand up on the back of Leon's neck. He realized he didn't know how fast the rap-tor would grow (or how much). Sure, the animal acted cute now and let him pet its saw-toothed head, but how big would it get? What if it decided it would be easier to just eat him and not run all over the mountains looking for a good meal, especially ones Leon sent it to find? He opened the door, and the raptor poured out like a black flash.

  Leon ran back to the house, grabbed his binoculars. The dance would have already started on the football field. He'd be able to get a good view from a hill overlooking the school.

  Through the binoculars, illuminated by the DJ's colored spotlights and strobes, the dance looked more like a play or an animated diorama than real life. Student Senate had strung balloons, streamers, and Christmas lights from poles set along the sidelines. Even a hundred yards away, the music reverberated in his chest. Most kids were dancing, many grinding when they didn't think the chaperones were watching, a dance style involving the girl turning her back against the boy so he could rub himself against her butt.

  The breezeless and warm night had to relieve Student Sen
ate. In the mountains, weather remained undependable. It had snowed on this date last year.

  Some kids stood or wandered next to the field. Leon recognized a few. He didn't see Liselle, but he couldn't identify most of the students in the darkness and chaotic light. He wasn't sure dances were even her thing, but he did see Beau Harmon standing with a girl Leon didn't know. The strobe flashed them into brilliance and then hid them in between.

  Leon hadn't been watching for more than five minutes when several kids at the far end of the football field raced toward a teacher. Leon studied the scene. Two boys in suits and ties, and three girls in long, formal dresses gestured frantically, pointing in the direction they'd come from. The teacher followed.

  Leon wondered if the turkey raptor would stay with an attack, or hit and run with so many people around.

  Within a minute, on the other side of the field from Leon, the crowd moved. Leon knew sudden crowds in a school often meant a fight had broken out, although in this case he doubted it. Above the music, someone screamed, and then several screams. The principal rushed to the DJ, waving his arms. The music stopped, and in the sudden silence, students yelled. Hundreds of students crowded toward the disturbance, except for a handful who ran toward the school. The DJ turned on all his lights, including the strobe that freeze framed the action. The big field lights flickered, but they would take minutes to grow to helpful brightness.

  By the colored lights and strobe, Leon tracked Beau Harmon. Beau peered into the gathering crowd, then ran toward the parking lot, away from the lights and away from everyone's attention. Did he know Simon True and Grant Haver were down? Had he connected the dots? His date clung to his arm for a second, but he shook her off and she fell.

  Flash, darkness, flash. Only the strobe light shone bright enough to reach Beau as he ran, incongruously formal for a boy who almost always wore lumberjack shirts and beat-up ball caps. A flash caught the turkey raptor, tail extended, head low, on a charge ten feet behind Beau, and in the next f lash Beau was down, the raptor crouched over him like a pale specter. The tableau repeated for a half dozen flashes before Beau's date reached him. Leon couldn't believe anyone cared enough about Beau to follow, but she did. For a flash the raptor stood on top of the body, its jaws rending jacket and the flesh beneath, and in the next, the girl stood beside the remains, hands on her face, frozen, the raptor gone.