The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2012

by Guran, Paula

  Most people look as human as you’d find anywhere, though they’ve got a more individual and varied fashion sense that seems vaguely out-of-date. I was expecting something like a FaerieCon with everybody dressed up in their faerie gear. But it’s more like a mash-up of a punk rock concert with a hippie festival.

  But the elves. I get a real pang in my heart when I see my first honest-to-goodness one. Tall, slender and pale, with the high pointed ears and the silvery hair. I just think about how much Juliana would have loved to see one. To be here.

  They don’t call themselves elves, or faerie, River informs me. They’re True Bloods, which I’ve got to admit, sounds a bit too White Supremacist for my tastes. I didn’t imagine Bordertown to be racist, but apparently there’s a real hierarchy here starting with high born and low born elves, through to halflings with humans at the bottom. Which would make a guy with my skin color at the bottom of the bottom.

  River shrugs. “You can get all in a twist about it, or you can just let it go. So long as you stay out of the way of the True Bloods, and don’t piss off one of the gangs, no one’s going to care.”

  Says the white kid.

  He never asks me why I’ve come and I don’t volunteer the information. I do tell him I’m interested in the Realm—which is what they call Faerieland here—and he just laughs.

  “No kidding?” he says. “You and every other newbie. But forget about ever getting over there. I mean, seriously. Forget about it. You might be thinking, ‘Hey, I made it to Bordertown, which is like a miracle all by itself. Getting into the Realm is just one more impossible thing I’m going to do.’ But it’s never going to happen. And if you try, you’ll just bring a world of hurt down on yourself.”

  He doesn’t know about the world of hurt I carry around inside myself every day, but I just nod in agreement.

  River hangs around with me until about mid-morning, which is about when he realizes that the flow of free food and drinks has dried up.

  “I’ve got to motor,” he says the third time he’s unsuccessfully tried to get me to buy him something. “I’ll catch you around.”

  “Thanks for the tour,” I tell him.

  He waves a hand, then disappears into the crowd, skateboard under his arm.

  I spend the rest of the day getting the lay of the land, staying out of the areas River warned me about. I still get a kick out of seeing the True Bloods, though I can’t pretend that what they stand for doesn’t irritate me. You have to have been on my side of the race issue to really get it, I suppose. It’s just not something I can ignore.

  As the sun goes down, I sit on a low wall by the Mad River whittling an acorn and considering what I’ve been told about the water flowing by below. I know the river has its source in the Realm. I’ve been told that drinking it, or even swimming in it, messes you up worse than any bad drug trip and there’s no coming down from it. I haven’t decided how much of it I believe but I’m not ready to try that route yet. Sneaking onto one of the boats that plies its trade between here and the Realm is an option that I’m liking better and better after everything else I’ve seen.

  I had a good look at Elfhaeme Gate earlier in the afternoon. The damn thing’s huge and there’s no way I’m getting through it—not with how well it’s guarded. I also scouted the Nevernever—the Borderlands between the Realm and Bordertown. When I stepped out into them I thought I was having an acid flashback. Seriously. The landscape seemed to change underfoot whenever I turned in a new direction. Pastoral woodlands became a wasteland more barren than anything in my home turf, which in turn became wheat fields, arctic tundra, redwoods, you name it. It felt like it was going to snow, then it was sunny, then it rained.

  It gave me vertigo but I trudged on until I finally saw the shimmering curtain that divides the Realm from the World. I stared at it for a long time. It was beautiful, but it made the vertigo so bad that I could barely stay upright. Trying to make my way through that shimmer was going to be a last resort. Especially when these boats seem like such an easy option.

  The problem is, none of them appear to be going anywhere right now. The barges are all empty with no place to hide. I have to wait until they start to load them in the morning.

  With that decided, I stick the finished acorn in my pocket. I close up my jackknife, shoulder my knapsack and head back into the part of Soho where I first met River. I’ll get some shut-eye in one of the abandoned buildings. Have an early breakfast. Maybe find a place where I can grab a shower or at least wash up.

  Walking down Ho Street feels like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There are kids everywhere, music spilling out of the clubs, everyone having a good time. I get lots of friendly nods and invitations to join in on the fun, but I just smile, or say no thanks, and walk on. Fun’s not a word that’s in my vocabulary any more. It’s been seven months, but it still feels like yesterday when I was sitting in the ICU holding Juliana’s hand as she drifted away.

  I’m not alone in keeping my distance. I see kids in the shadows, skulking in the mouths of alleys, or in the doorways of businesses that are closed for the night. They shrink back when they see me looking at them. Street kids. Some of them are younger than River. One pair of girls I’m sure can’t be more than twelve or thirteen. I don’t know their stories but I’m guessing that actually being here in Bordertown turned out to be a whole lot different from what they thought it would be—and maybe not so different from whatever they were trying to escape in the World.

  I turn off the party street and find a quieter avenue that’s heading in the same direction. The buzz from Ho Street still reaches me here so I almost don’t hear the whimper in the alley as I pass its mouth. It’s followed by the sound of rough laughter. I pause, and take a few steps back to peer down its length.

  The light’s not good, but I can make out three guys clustered around a body on the ground. They’re taking turns kicking it. I reach into my pocket and pull out my jackknife. Then I step into the alley.

  As I get closer I see it’s a dog that they’re tormenting. It’s a mid-sized animal, shorthaired with a long face, big shoulders and trim hips. There’s blood on its yellow fur. It keeps trying to crawl away but whenever it does, one of the guys gives it another kick.

  Except they aren’t guys—they’re True Bloods. Tall and handsome, maybe, but with a cruel light in their eyes and knives in their hands. Now I know why the dog’s bleeding.

  “The big thing to remember,” River told me this morning, “is you won’t get in over your head if you mind your own business. You especially don’t want to get on the wrong side of the True Bloods.”

  Screw that.

  I open my jackknife and snatch up the metal lid from a garbage can.

  “Get away from the dog!” I call to them.

  They start to turn in my direction and I can see them smiling at the thought of some new entertainment. But I learned a long time ago that if there’s going to be trouble, you don’t stand around and talk about it, working up your courage. You just go for it.

  I’m already in motion when I call out to them. By the time they turn around I’m close enough to hit the front guy in the face with the garbage can lid. I’m not ready to cut yet, but I aim the hilt of my knife at the head of the guy on my right. It never connects. He’s fast. They’re all fast. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.

  The guy on my left moves in and his blade punches me in the side, going in up to its hilt before he rips it out. The guy I missed ducks under my swing and he stabs me in the chest. The one I hit slaps aside the lid. I have the momentary satisfaction of seeing the blood spilling from his broken nose before he knifes me as well.

  Fast.

  So fast.

  The jackknife drops from my fingers to clatter on the cobblestones. My mouth fills with the taste of copper.

  They each get a couple more stabs in before I’m falling to the ground beside the dog. The one with the broken nose drops down, sleek as a panther. His face is inches from my own.

 
“You think this was a game, human?”

  He spits the words into my face. I’m trying to focus on him but my gaze is swimming. I know I should be in a world of pain, but I can’t seem to feel my body. I think he’s licking my blood from the blade of his knife, but that doesn’t make any sense.

  “No one interferes with us. Too bad you had to die to learn that.”

  Except he doesn’t look sorry at all. Then he’s standing again—so fast I don’t see him move. They kick me a few more times before I hear them leaving the alley.

  I drag myself to the wall. I’m bleeding out, but there’s nothing I can do. I’ve been cut too many times. I still don’t feel the pain. I pull the dog’s head onto my lap and stroke his bloody fur.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I tell him. “I wish I’d gotten here sooner, but it probably would have ended just the same. Though maybe you could have had time to run off.”

  I would have had your back, a voice says in my head.

  “The hell . . . ?”

  I look down into the dog’s face. His big brown eyes are looking up into mine. I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s like the dog was talking to me.

  Their generosity is legendary, the voice goes on, but so is their cruelty.

  I look around. My vision’s been fading in and out, but there doesn’t seem to be anybody else here but the dog and me. I look back at him.

  “Are you—are you talking to me?”

  I think it’s just the two of us here, so I must be talking to you.

  “Yeah, but dogs can’t . . . ”

  What makes you think dogs can’t talk?

  “I didn’t—I mean, it never occurred to me one way or the other.”

  Maybe the ones you knew didn’t have anything to say. Or maybe you just didn’t know how to hear them.

  “I never thought about it. They were just always around on the rez.”

  And yet without stopping to consider the consequences, you gave your life for me.

  That brings me right back down to earth.

  “So we’re dying . . . ?”

  I’m afraid so.

  “I don’t feel any pain.”

  Some of the Bloods coat their blades with poison to guarantee the death of their foe. But it has the side effect of numbing the pain.

  “I can’t die. I mean, I’m not supposed to die. Not yet. I was supposed to rescue her first.”

  Why don’t you tell me who she is and what you were rescuing her from?

  “I wasn’t there for her when she fell,” I say.

  Time is crawling by in slow motion. I don’t know if it’s from shock, or something in the poison. But somehow I manage to tell him about Juliana and how she died.

  What makes you think she wants to be rescued? he says when I’m done.

  I remember Seamus asking me the same thing, but I still say, “What do you mean?”

  Death is only a passage to another world. We leave this place and go to what you call the Summer Country, but eventually we leave it as well and go somewhere else. That is how it is forever. Your mate has finished the journey she had in this world. Why would she want to return to travel the same road again?

  “She said we’d be together forever,” I say. “She said whichever one of us went first would be waiting for the other.”

  And you doubt it?

  “I—I don’t know what to think. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does now.”

  I will tell you what always matters, the dog says. Shining a light into the darkness. Standing up to injustice. Just as you did earlier this evening. There aren’t so many willing to offer help as selflessly as you have.

  “Except we’re both dying.”

  It doesn’t have to be that way.

  “I don’t get it. And Juliana . . . ”

  No matter how long you live, she will always be waiting for you. You do believe her, don’t you?

  “I still don’t get what you’re saying.”

  Just as your friend pushed you from the train into Bordertown, I can push you back from death. Choose life and see what happens.

  “But without her—”

  She will be waiting for you. She promised. But go only when your work is finished.

  “What work?”

  The work of living, and showing other how to survive. They come here to this city because they have nothing left in the World to comfort them, but they don’t always find comfort here, either. You saw it yourself this evening. Bordertown can be a harsh mistress to the unwary. You can stay and be a strength for others, or give up and go to her. But ask yourself, will you be proud of your choice? Will she?

  He’s right. Juliana would want me to stay and make myself useful. I know that because it’s what I’d want for her. I’d want her to live.

  “So how do you push me back?” I ask.

  There’s no reply for a long moment, and then I realize that the dog’s gone. He passed away between one breath and the next. I stroke his fur.

  “Thanks for the company, buddy,” I say.

  I shift my position a little and something digs into my back. My jacket got twisted around when I pulled myself up to lean against the wall. What I’m feeling is the acorn I carved while watching the Mad River.

  Choose, the dog told me.

  Now I know what I’d choose, but it’s too late.

  I pull the acorn out of my pocket and turn it over in my hand a few times. Then I toss it away and listen to it bounce down the alley.

  Either it’s gotten completely dark now, or my vision’s gone. It’s really quiet, too. My tongue feels thick in my mouth. I’m falling. I’m in the alley, propped up against a wall, but at the same time I’m falling.

  I try to find something to hold onto, but I can’t feel my fingers anymore.

  Falling . . .

  Something the dog told me . . .

  Falling . . .

  Then I remember.

  Will you be proud of your choice? Will she?

  And as soon as I remember, I think I hear it. I hear her. That familiar bell-like laugh. Delicate and intoxicating.

  I reach for her with hands I can’t feel, stretching farther and farther until I can almost imagine her fingers close around my own.

  The soft laughter is all around me now, just like my Juliana, sweet and happy.

  Choose life and see what happens.

  I want to be with her so badly.

  But I remember walking down that party street. Everybody having fun, laughing and dancing and filled up with the music. But I also remember those kids I saw standing just beyond the noise and light. Came all this way but they’re still just as much on the outside as they were before they got here.

  I think of the True Bloods, and the gangs River told me about, pushing their weight around.

  If the dog hadn’t died, if I could still make the choice, I know what I’d choose.

  I’d do what I could to make things right. That’s what would make Juliana proud. That’s the guy I’d want to be.

  But it’s too late.

  The sweet laughter grows softer and I hear something else. I don’t realize what it is until the acorn I threw away bounces back against my leg. I reach for it, close my fingers around it.

  I can push you back from death.

  I open my eyes. I clutch the acorn tight and lift my free hand to my chest. My shirt’s still all cut up and it’s soaked with blood. But the wounds are gone.

  Juliana’s presence has completely faded.

  I sit there for a long time, aching to be with her.

  Finally, I tuck the acorn away in a pocket. I get up and cradle the dog’s body in my arms and go looking for a place to lay it in the ground.

  I know that Juliana’s waiting for me, but that’s not going to be for a while.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

  The start of something, I guess.

  A new turn of the wheel, Uncle Herbert would say.

  The promise of hope, Tom Hill would probably say.

 
Maybe I’ll see if they have any Green Men in this place.

  About the Authors

  Joan Aiken (1924-2004) British writer and daughter of Conrad Aiken, Joan Aiken worked as a librarian for the UN Information Committee and as features editor for Argosy. Her many books for children include All You’ve Ever Wanted, The Kingdom and the Cave, Tales of Arabel’s Raven, Voices Hippo, and Dangerous Games. Among her adult novels are The Silence of Herondale and Mansfield Revisited. A 2011 posthumous collection, The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, published by Small Beer Press included six never-before published stories.

  Kelley Armstrong is the author of the Women of the Otherworld paranormal suspense series and the Darkest Powers YA urban fantasy series. She grew up in Ontario, Canada, where she still lives with her family. A former computer programmer, she’s now escaped her corporate cubicle and hopes never to return.

  Adam Callaway was born in 1989 in Madison, Wisconsin, and has slowly migrated north to his current home in Superior, where he lives with his wife and two small dogs. He read Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer when he was nineteen, and it has driven him to write and write and write in his attempt to reverse-engineer genius. You can find him at www.adamcallaway.net.

  Tananarive Due is an American Book Award-winning, Essence best-selling author of Blood Colony, The Living Blood, The Good House, Joplin’s Ghost, and, most recently, My Soul to Take. She is also co-author of the NAACP Image Award-winning Tennyson Hardwick mystery series. She lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and co-author Steven Barnes. Visit her at www.TananariveDue.blogspot.com.

  Dennis Etchison’s stories have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies since 1961. He is a three-time winner of both the British Fantasy Award and the World Fantasy Award. His collections include The Dark Country, Red Dreams, The Blood Kiss, The Death Artist, Talking in the Dark, Fine Cuts, and Got To Kill Them All & Other Stories. He is also a novelist (Darkside, Shadowman, California Gothic, Double Edge), editor (Cutting Edge, Masters of Darkness I-III, MetaHorror, The Museum of Horrors, Gathering the Bones), and scriptwriter. In 2002 he began adapting the original Twilight Zone television series for radio, followed by further scripts for The New Twilight Zone Radio Dramas and Fangoria Magazine’s Dread Time Stories. Forthcoming are a career retrospective from Centipede Press’s Masters of the Weird Tale series and a volume of new short stories from Bad Moon Books.