Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths: And Other Tales Of Dark Fantasy

by Harry Connolly

  I also have three male friends willing to make the buy for me. There are nearly 200 backers at the Black Fedora level right now; how are you going to know which of those male names will be turning their potions over to me and my friends? Or to Peggy and her friends? Or to the other groups of women pooling their resources even now?

  It's called "Getting a taste of your own medicine," Flex. If you have no problem dosing other people with love potions, I'm sure you have no problem with them doing it to you.

  Besides, if there's a product I want to pay for, who are you to "censor" me?

  PEGGY:

  lolfrirl.

  Vine or it didn't happen, everyone. Which subreddit was this again?

  Project Update #3

  It is with great regret that I must cancel this project. This morning, my mother came home from a doctor's visit with a very upsetting diagnosis, and I'm going to have to put all my time and attention into caring for her.

  My sincere apologies to everyone who pledged in good faith, but no amount of money is worth the pain and worry that my mother is experiencing.

  Don't Chew Your Food

  Many game companies commission novels set in the world of their games, but few do what Evil Hat did for their horror game Don't Rest Your Head. They commissioned an anthology, called Don't Read This Book, and every story in it had a title in the format of "Don't ____ Your ____". This is the story I wrote for them.

  The game itself is pretty cool: Players control a character who has awakened in a nightmare city (called Mad City) of dream monsters and irrationality. The characters have lucid-dreaming type abilities that become more powerful as their exhaustion and madness increase. Eventually, it becomes too much and the characters fall asleep, rendering them helpless until their exhaustion and madness begin to return.

  For me, this was an opportunity to write some straightforward horror, and I was glad for it. The anthology was edited by Chuck Wendig and also featured Mur Lafferty, C.E. Murphy, Laura Anne Gilman, and many other terrific authors. If you're curious about the game or the anthology--or you just want to buy them--the best place to do that is www.evilhat.com.

  ------ ---- ------

  As soon as Owen Keller saw the sneaker, he should have known. It was small, bright red, and the knotted lace had been cut instead of untied. He'd caught a sudden whiff of sour milk, wet wipes, and dust bunnies from it.

  He should have known right then.

  * * *

  He stood on the street corner trying to get his bearings. This wasn't a dream; it had taken him a full hour, but he'd finally convinced himself that, whatever this place was, it was as real as his Upper East Side condo, the studio, or any of his restaurants.

  An old man shuffled by him, smelling of cat food, stale garlic bread, and loneliness. God, the smells here were so strong, and so filled with weird associations. Sometimes it seemed Owen could smell their memories.

  He leaned against a brick wall as a couple of wind-up cops walked past, their frozen grins turned toward him, then toward no one in particular. They smelled of mineral oil and broken bones. The wall rippled. From somewhere down the block, a group of kids started scream-laughing, but it was impossible to tell if they were playing, fighting, or both.

  This was no good. Scents surrounded him, but he couldn't focus. The streetlights were too bright and the sidewalks were filled with creeps. A pair of old men in tails and top hats strutted by, loudly abusing their black servants. Coming the other way were a group of ten men--all hollow-eyed with slicked back hair and skinny ties of the kind his father used to wear--advancing toward him with the hungry eyes of muggers.

  Owen backed away from them reflexively, half-expecting one of them to backhand him the way his father used to, but they looked him over and turned away, uninterested. A group of young girls in poodle skirts floated behind them, their hair standing straight up like bundled hay, their cloven feet gliding above the sidewalk.

  The creeps and not-hallucinations kept distracting him from the task at hand. Their smells were so strong, but when he tried to sift through them for the scent he wanted, one of them would break his concentration with a leer, scowl, or predatory lick of the lips.

  He glanced down the alley across the street. There was a fire escape down there, and although the buildings looked like upside down pyramids half sunk in the street--the roofs encroaching over the road so they nearly touched above--Owen was sure he could climb above the streetlights. Maybe he would be safer in the dark.

  Every car on the road pulled to the curb to let a glass truck full of murky water pass by, and Owen took advantage of the lull in traffic to run to the mouth of the alley. His foot struck an empty plastic blister pack, and the noise it made echoed.

  A woman stepped out from behind a Dumpster. "Who's there?" she shouted. Then she pointed a gun at him.

  Owen stared in open-mouthed shock. A second person he couldn't really see bolted from beside the woman, running so fast down the alley that it was little more than a blur.

  "No!" the woman cried, spinning to aim her pistol in the other direction but it was too late. The figure was gone.

  Just as Owen belatedly thought it would be a good idea to duck out of sight beyond the mouth of the alley, the woman aimed her weapon at him again. "You." Her voice was low and dangerous. "Tubby. Come here."

  There was no arguing with a woman holding a gun. Owen showed his empty hands and shuffled forward. The stink of rotting garbage washed over him and he staggered but didn't fall. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "You sad son of a bitch. You're Awake, aren't you?" She looked Vietnamese and her accent was pure South Jersey. Her nose had been broken and never reset, and she had three scars running parallel across her face. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, but her hair was as white as a ghost's. The dark circles under her eyes made her look more tired than him. "Look at you."

  Owen did as he was told. He wore a heavy white chef jacket stretched over his belly, striped pants, and orange crocks over wool socks. They were work clothes, and they weren't meant to impress. He didn't need clothes for that, in his world.

  The breeze shifted and he could smell her--gun oil, sore-muscle cream, and lightning-hot anxiety. "I didn't mean to interrupt--"

  "Shut the fuck up. Do you know how long I've been chasing that Shameful? I'm trying to think of a reason not to waste a bullet on you."

  "I can help you!" Owen blurted out. "I can help you find it again."

  She hesitated, then lowered her weapon, stepping back to let him step into the place the--what had she called it? A Shameful?--had been. It was a swirl of awful smells, but Owen's nose found the one he wanted quickly. He'd always had a sensitive nose, but in this strange place, he could track like a blood hound.

  What's more, he could smell the thing--he knew instantly that this wasn't a human being he was smelling. It was something much more and much less. It was another not-hallucination. In his insane city, he could actually smell its shame. The trail stood out like a neon light.

  "I can track it," he said, "but you have to help me in return."

  "Not killing you immediately is my best offer."

  "Fuck that," Owen said, although her gun made his guts watery. "Kill me and you'll have to start all over again. Trade with me and I'll lead you to it right now. And all I want is your help in finding something."

  "And what's that?"

  "A green door with two dragons on it, facing each other."

  She was no poker player; her expression made it clear that she knew the place. "It's a deal."

  He followed the scent into the next street. Buildings here were angled so steeply over the road that he had to duck low to avoid bumping his head on the window sills. The trail led through a basement door that inexplicably opened onto a rooftop somewhere, then down the gigantic broken marble forearm of a statue, then into a burned out bakery.

  "In there," Owen said, standing at the edge of a dirt lot. "I can smell it, whatever it is, crouching inside. I can smell it bre
athing."

  "You have super smell? Here?" She gave him a pitying look.

  "I've always been sensitive--wait!" he hissed as she advanced toward the house. "What if it's a trap?"

  Gun drawn, she slipped inside. Owen felt a sudden stench of fear and shame wash over him, and the gunfire started.

  Without thinking, Owen jumped to his feet. He tried to think of a safe place he could run to, and that moment's indecision was too much.

  Two figures leapt over a second floor balcony and struck the ground running like streaks. One of them, wrapped in brown robes and green garbage bags, collided with him.

  Owen hit the sidewalk hard, and the robed thing fell partly on top of him. The hood of its robe fell back, exposing its face.

  It was horrifying. The Shameful had a face like a rotting pear. Its cheeks and forehead were covered with weeping sores, and its bulging, panicked eyes rolled crazily. "You saw me!" It bellowed. Then it laid a meaty hand on Owen's chest.

  Owen tried to roll away, but the creature was powerful enough to pin him in place.

  "You saw me!" It bellowed again in a dullard's voice. It lifted itself onto his chest and, with its other hand, drew out a long boning knife. "Can't let you tell." Owen grabbed its wrist with both hands, but it was strong. The dirty tip of the knife moved toward his mouth. "Take your tongue. Can't let you tell."

  The stink of it was so strong he gasped, and then the knife was in his mouth. He bit down on the blade, hoping to trap it, but he knew it was hopeless. He was about to be maimed--killed--by a fucking monster in a crazy dream city it didn't make any sense--

  He bit down as hard as he could, and the knife blade suddenly shattered. The Shameful was as shocked as he was, and it pulled its hand back to look at the ruined weapon.

  A gunshot tore through its shoulder and it collapsed to the side. Owen rolled out from beneath it, spitting out sharp pieces of the knife.

  The white-haired woman held her gun on the wounded creature. "Let's try this again," she said. She raised an old-fashioned Polaroid camera in her other hand, and snapped a picture.

  "NO!" The Shameful screamed, its misery real and potent.

  The woman was unimpressed. "Yes! Do you want this?" she pulled out the undeveloped picture with her teeth, threw the camera aside, then held the photo up. "You can have it! But first you have to tell me where my mother is!"

  Owen backed away. Whatever she was doing, it had nothing to do with him, and he wanted as much space between them as he could get while keeping her in sight. It took him a moment to remember that he had a knife of his own, his best Wusthof, hidden under his shirt, but he hadn't brought it for fighting. After less than a minute of talking with the creature, the woman dropped the photo onto its chest then shot it in the head.

  "My turn," Owen said to her as she jogged toward him.

  "I know," she snapped. "Shut up and follow me."

  She led him through an alley into a public gym. Behind the front desk was a wall of mirrors, each of which reflected a different image. She grabbed Owen by the elbow and pulled him through one. They ended up in a darkened, empty movie theater. The woman led him up to the balcony.

  "It don't understand," Owen said. "It tried to stab me with a knife made out of... hard candy or something. Or thin ceramic. It was unbelievably brittle. Everything in this city is wrong."

  The woman gave him an odd look. "I'm Gina."

  "I'm Owen Keller."

  "Christ, I knew I recognized you from somewhere. You're that guy on that cooking show!"

  "Wrong," Owen said. "I'm that guy on the cooking show."

  "Don't get all arrogant with me," Gina said. "Not in this place."

  Owen shrugged. She was probably right. "I'm sorry about your mother. I hope she's going to be okay."

  "No chance of that. But maybe, if I make the right deal, I can get her out of here in not too many pieces. So, what's keeping you awake?"

  "A job." Owen didn't want to talk about it, but in that moment it was irresistible. It had been days and he couldn't talk to anyone about this--not even Roscoe--without risking everything. "I do private parties sometimes, and my fee is huge. As it should be. But this time... I let them bring me blindfolded to the kitchen. I let them bring me the food I was supposed to prepare--they didn't tell me..." He thought of that tiny red sneaker again, lying in the doorway, and he realized he didn't really want to talk about it after all.

  "Okay," Gina said. "I can guess the rest."

  "I have to find out who it was," Owen said. The words wouldn't stay inside of him. "I have to know."

  "Well, even if I was in the market for a noob to train, I wouldn't take you. You're too fat and you think too slow. I wouldn't bet a dollar on you to last the night." She stood. "Sit tight. We're going to hole up here for a little while, until the Shamefuls forget us. After a bit I'm going to go out to make sure. I'll be back for you, don't worry."

  "I'm too damn tired to worry," Owen said. He walked up the rake of the balcony aisle. There was a broken section of the wall, and he stood beside it, letting the air from outside wash over him. Thousands of scents entered him, and he closed his eyes to sort them. The unwashed knife was under his jacket in case he needed to refresh his memory, but he didn't need it. He did the uninterrupted work he'd tried to do on the street corner.

  He didn't think about what Gina had said about surviving the night. He didn't think about how close he'd come to having his tongue cut out. He didn't think about how long he'd smelled that smell the very first night he'd came here, for a private job that had paid in solid gold, when he should have known what he was slicing and roasting.

  There it was. The scent.

  He was so excited he nearly cried out. Gina wasn't with him so there was no one to tell. He rushed down the stairs to the nearest exit.

  The street was more crowded now. He oriented himself to the direction that the wind was blowing and there was the scent of that tiny shoe, and the cut of meat he'd prepared. He followed the trail for ten harrowing blocks, but everyone around him, even the things that were clearly not human, seemed jumpy and nervous. Finally, he came to a city park--which looked like it had been constructed on the site of a meteor strike--and down inside it was a vast flea market.

  The scent led down there, and Owen couldn't quit now. There was a long set of concrete stairs to his left, but the crowds making their way up or down were crammed together and moving so slowly they were practically standing still. Owen stepped over the edge of the crater and slid down the loose dirt toward the outer circle of stalls.

  It was like jumping into a lake of stench. Below the rim of the crater, the breezes couldn't stir the scents, and they lingered, mixed and concentrated. Owen could smell the joys and miseries attached to old lipstick nubs, VHS copies of kung fu videos, cracked coffee thermoses, spent bullet casings, rusted camp stoves, and ten thousand other objects. He reeled as his momentum carried him deeper into it, and it was so powerful he nearly shut his eyes and collapsed.

  Not here. Even he knew better than to close his eyes in a place like this. Owen opened his jacket, drew the knife partway, then pressed it to his nose. He could smell that same smell again, and as he slid the knife back under his jacket he found the trail again.

  It was the shoe. The same shoe. He found it in a stall near the center, in a jumble of discarded junk. "Where did you get this?"

  The stall's proprietor was barely more than skin stretched over bone. It smiled widely, revealing 50 or 60 long yellow teeth, and said: "Oh no, sir. We don't do provenance here. No coin, either. Barter only."

  Useless. Owen picked up the shoe and took a deep whiff. He could smell the sweat of climbing, plastic building blocks, and the dust of a baseball field. It wasn't like sight, but he would recognize that boy again as easily as if he'd studied a photo of him. He put the shoe back.

  "THIEF!" the proprietor screamed. "You stole from me!"

  Owen stepped back in panic. "No, I--" He bumped into a figure behind him and fell into the mud.
It was one of the wind-up cops. It clamped a hand on his wrist, its frozen smile chilling.

  "Officer, he stole memories from my merchandise--"

  Owen drew his chef's knife. The cop might have had a key in its back, but it felt like flesh. Maybe a quick slash--

  "What's this?" the proprietor said, snatching Owen's knife out of his hand as though he was a child. The proprietor held the knife up to its ear, then examined the edge. Something made it very happy, because it smiled and said: "What have you been slicing with this, hmm?"

  It pulled open its shirt, revealing a set of scales where its heart and lungs should have been. It placed the blade on one side and the shoe on the other. The blade was heavier.

  "This will do for a trade," it said, "And more. Would you like to choose another item?"

  "No," Owen said, standing. That knife was a gift from his father--almost a sign of approval--but the cop had his arm and he wouldn't risk his life for it. "I want the provenance."

  The proprietor bowed. "I traded for it from a woman with a mop for a leg and vinegar eyes. That is all I can tell you." The side of the scale with the shoe seemed to grow heavier until they were almost balanced. The cop released him.

  Owen took the shoe and ran like hell. The crater was too steep to climb out, so he had to suffer the interminable delay of the stairs. Someone stole the shoe from his pocket in the press of bodies, and he was too frightened to make a fuss. Back on the street, it seemed that everything had changed, but he was able to follow his own scent trail of helpless shame and terror back to the theater.

  Gina still hadn't returned. Or she had returned and, finding him gone, had left again. He sat helpless and miserable for nearly an hour until she slipped in through a side door. "It's time," Gina called.

  * * *

  He joined her. "Is it far?"

  "No," Gina said, "But listen. You follow me from a distance, at least fifteen feet. I will lead you past the door and I will glance up at it. You'll know the door and I'll keep walking. Capishe?" She cracked the door open a few inches, peered through, and gasped. She held still so Owen did, too. There was a sound of crinkling paper outside, but he didn't know what it meant.