She stretched and creaked and rubbed herself along the carpet and her past started to fall from her. She sat up and helped it: she peeled away the dead skin. It felt dry and cool, just as the snake skin had. Lifeless. No power. The flowers came away, Bobbie’s face, her mother’s eyes, the weeds, the ship on her back, the snake, the blood. All of it. She stood and dropped the past onto the carpet. She shook herself, causing the last pieces of skin to fly away. She looked down at her body. She was white and pink. New. Only the rose on her buttock remained, without the crown of thorns.
The tattooist stood in the doorway. He leaned over and picked up the skin.
Rose touched his arm. “Leave it,” she said. “I don’t need it anymore.” She reached down and smoothed her hand over her rose tattoo and smiled. “I am myself again.”
MOM SCHOOL by Rand Soellner
“Faster, faster!” J’hompool ordered.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Txly answered. Txly’s dark talons clawed at black soil in the lightless hole, scraping it around her furry gray body. J’hompool pushed it down the opening behind them. Their round bodies bored a four-foot tunnel up from the cavern under Muncie, Indiana. “The sun’s down. I can feel the difference,” said J’hompool. “We need to hurry. There is much to do tonight.” Txly bit her gray, wormlike lips and continued her angled ascent. After several hours, they neared their goal.
Thirty feet above, Mrs. Kraft warned her daughter Kate, “Your teeth are gonna rot outta your head!” Kate finally relented and jammed her toothbrush into her mouth. She and her little brother Kevin never brushed or spent much time grooming unless Mom made them. Kevin smiled his buck-toothed “Ha-ha You Gotta Do Something I Don’t Gotta Do” smile at her from across the hall; he had missed this routine. Kate did not care. She and her brother helped each other get away with lots of things. She did not believe her teeth or Kevin’s would really rot, but obeyed her mother’s incessant orders because Mom was bigger than she was, and Kate had learned that You Better Do What Mom Says if you want to keep your privileges. Thirteen-year-old Kate had experienced a full day: birthday party, afternoon rock concert, video tape movies with her friends in the family room until midnight, and crude instructions from these same friends on the proper usage of tampons. She had received several miniskirts and low cut blouses and looked forward to wearing them tomorrow along with her usual gloppy mascara and eyeshadow.
“Good night, dear,” said Mr. Kraft, winking at his daughter as he plodded to his bedroom. His graying hair was as rumpled as his pajamas.
“Nighty-night,” added Mrs. Kraft. She looked immaculate in her pressed housecoat and fresh, though modest makeup. Kate had never seen her sweat. Neither had Mr. Kraft.
“Night, Mom and Dad,” Kate responded, drooling mint Crest into her sink. She held her blonde hair back as she rinsed.
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” called Mr. Kraft with a tired smile.
“My, she’s getting old,” Mrs, Kraft whispered to her husband. “On her way to becoming a woman. Just think. Some day, she’ll be a mom, too.”
“Not too soon, I hope,” commented Mr. Kraft as they entered their bedroom. Kate’s parents loved her dearly and wrestled with the problem of how to educate her in the ways of adulthood.
In her room, Kate jumped into bed and turned off the light. She gathered her stuffed animals around her: Mr. Bunny-Hugs, Lady SoftAsMink, and a time-worn Teddy. She knew her friends would have made fun of her had they known she still slept with these toys, but she was used to Teddy and the others; they made her feel safe and soft and warm inside. As her head hit the pillow, a pile of earth puffed out a four-foot pit below the raised floor of her bedroom. This crawlspace gave Mr. Kraft a place to store tools. He had also stuffed pink fiberglass insulation between the joists to insulate the floor against the harsh Midwestern winters. Although it was only September, the trees were rusting, losing their green clothes. Kate did not understand that. Soon it would be cold. If she had to stay outside all winter, she would want a thick coat to keep warm, and would not take it off.
CREAK said a floorboard.
“What’s that?” Kate wondered.
CREAK.
Rats? Sometimes they got under the home and into the crawlspace.
Daddy has to set traps sometimes, and—
CREAK. BOOMP.
That sounds like a board coming loose.
Two round shapes the size of her father’s snow tires burst up through the floor. Through Kate’s window, pale moonlight revealed little, only their rotund bodies and shining green eyes. Their hind claws grated on the maple floor. Kate’s eyes widened and cold sweat popped out on her forehead. She trembled under the blanket and sheet, her arms stiffly clutching them to her chin. The creatures’ shining green eyes scanned the room, casting emerald sabers like flashlights, then fixed on her quivering lump on the bed. Before she could scream, one invader rolled to her bedside, bumped into it and lifted a stuffy arm. From its armpit sprayed a purple fog that made Kate groggy. The gas smelled like sweaty cinnamon toast. The ... gremlins, Kate decided to call them, snapped her out of bed, snarfled her down the hole in the floor. Oh God, I’ve seen movies like this: ATTACK OF THE KILLER MOLEMEN. Please don’t rape me. I haven’t even learned what sex is yet ... Gremlins and girl disappeared down the tunnel below the Kraft house while Mr. and Mrs. Kraft and Kate’s little brother Kevin slept soundly.
For a half hour Kate saw nothing. Black on black. Smells of earth. Clawed hands pawing at her, dragging her relentlessly down, down. Green eyes suspended in darkness. Her thin cotton nightie scraping against dirt walls. Finally, flickering light ahead.
The gremlins rolled out of the tunnel and bounced like rubber balls onto the cavern floor thirty feet below. Kate screamed, her shredded nightgown flapping as she fell. She plunged into a deep pool. Cold. Am I going to drown? She fought her way up to the surface, wondering if her heart would stop, frozen and shocked by the cold. Gasping like a fish, she swam to the pool’s edge and scrambled onto the floor. Her tiny nipples hardened. Good grief, I’m naked! Self-consciously, she pulled her arms about her body, vainly trying to conceal herself. Goosebumps made her skin look like cottage cheese. The two gray gremlins that had brought her beckoned silently. No way I’m following you guys! Kate noticed bulges on the gremlins’ chests. They’re female. That was a little better. Not much, but something.
Kate’s blue eyes surveyed the huge cavern. Stalactites hung overhead. Between them were hundreds of holes, just like the one from which she had fallen. Signs hung above each hole. She could not read them from the floor. A wooden catwalk crisscrossed the ceiling about five feet below the holes, and offset just enough so that things could fall out to the pools below. Hundreds of pools. Something screamed from two of the holes. Flesh-colored lumps splashed down before her. In seconds, two thirteen-year-old girls popped to the surface, gulping air. I’m not the only one. Four gray lizard hands grabbed Kate’s arms and legs, carrying her flailing, screaming body to a bonfire at the cavern’s center. A part of her mind detached itself from the shrieking portion and asked: Are they going to cook me? Eat me? Tears gushed across her face; her nose became congested. She wished she had a tissue. She would have to snort like the street people she had seen behind dumpsters downtown. She realized one’s dignity evaporates quickly without clothing and comforts.
Through the gremlins’ sharp teeth huffed smells of something sickly sweet, like the rotten steak Kate had helped her mother throw into the trash last week. Kate’s stomach churned. She wondered where these things obtained their meat.
There at the center of the cave, before the raging fire, an old female gremlin with sagging breasts waved a baton like an orchestra conductor. A thousand human girls chanted. The girls sat on crude wood benches in concentric, stepped semicircles around the grandam. This is like a movie theater or band shall, thought Kate. The fire warmed her skin, calming her gooseflesh. Her two overseers sat her down on a seat at the end of a bench by the other chanting adole
scents. What are these girls saying? Kate frowned. The multitude of voices made it hard to understand.
“... milk ...
Chew ... food.
Don’t be crude.”
Gradually Kate interpreted the mind-numbing chanting around her.
“... starving people in China. Clean your plate.
Go to bed, it’s late.”
“Pick up your clothes.
Wear a sweater.
Don’t pick your nose.
Try to do better.
“Be home by ten.
Study for your test.
Don’t forget your pen.
Do your best.
“I had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to school when I was your age.
Clean your hamster’s cage.
Go to the bathroom before we get in the car, or we’ll not get very far.
“Wash your face, brush your teeth, scrub your hands before you leave.
Drink your milk, cut your meat, these are good things for us to eat.”
Hundreds of girls in the amphitheater mindlessly repeated this litany, their glazed eyes registering a trance. The other children were mostly nude, but tattered nightgowns and T-shirts clung to a handful of them. All were wet.
A hundred gremlins moved through the crowd of mesmerized adolescents. The beasts lifted their armpits, spraying numbing purple cinnamon gas. Kate held her breath and chanted with the other girls:
“Wear clean underwear in case of an accident and you go to the hospital.
“Oh, you kids are just impossible.”
Her two gremlins passed with their noxious purple pits opened. Kate continued holding her breath for at least a minute, giving the fog time to dissipate. With her reddening cheeks puffed out like Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet and her blue eyes bulging, she finally sucked in a fresh breath, then another and another. She remained conscious.
I always wondered where girls learned all that stuff women know—how to be moms. I never imagined ... The gremlins moved, working the far side of the crowd. Kate saw her chance. Running from the amphitheater to the cavern’s side wall, she scampered up a rickety wooden stair, her small, unrestrained breasts bouncing. Its steps were smaller than she was used to; she climbed two and three at a time. In moments, a shout rose from the amphitheater, unintelligible shrieks from a score of gremlins, dismayed at her defection. They tucked their arms and legs, becoming huge dirty tennis balls, rolling after her. Right up the stairs they came, emitting little “Oofs” and “Arghs” as they bounced up the treads. Kate ran along the catwalks frantically, searching for escape.
“Milwaukee” read a sign above her.
“Detroit” said another.
The signs were posted above tunnel holes in the cave’s ceiling. Where’s Muncie? Her heart beat loudly in her ears, like when she ran the mile once a year in gym class. The catwalk divided, one path left, the other right. Gremlins behind. Without thinking, she felt the right path was the correct choice.
“Evansville.”
“Indianapolis.”
“Fort Wayne.”
“Muncie!”
Kate smiled grimly and jumped to the railing Damn, a splinter in my toe! and jumped up into the hole. It ascended at an angle, so she clambered through it on all fours. Her delicate, pampered skin was chafed and scraped, but she ignored the pain, squeezing her body through, hoping she could squirm fast enough, God it has to be fast enough, has to be ... Heavy breathing at the hole’s entrance below her. Got to go faster! Clammy sweat peppered her brow; grit clung to her damp naked skin. Strange gibbering behind. Faster! Clawing sounds. Darkness.
An alarm shattered the cold morning air. Kate sprang out of bed. Got to ... What? My, what’s all this dirt? I’m filthy! Kate jumped into the shower, the layer of dirt turning to mud, then washing away, swirling down the drain. The warm water stung her abrasions at first, like old-fashioned Mercurochrome on a hundred knife gashes. She sucked in her breath and tensed her punished back, leg and arm muscles. Gradually the water’s soothing wet warmth calmed her complaining body.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” she singsonged as she turned off the water. Kate selected a modest matching plaid outfit her mother had purchased for her birthday. She dressed, cleaned her teeth, brushed her hair back from her face, and decided against the heavy makeup she normally wore. Although she usually skipped breakfast, she looked forward to it today.
She opened her bedroom door. Her mother walked by. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” Kate chanted. Her mother beamed at her appreciatively. Kate’s little brother Kevin zoomed down the hall, half clothed. Mrs. Kraft opened her mouth, ready to reprimand him, but Kate beat her to the punch. “Kevin!” ordered Kate, “march back to your room, young man. Put some decent clothes on. And brush your teeth.”
In Kevin’s betrayed gaze was the understanding that his relationship had changed in some fundamental way with his sister and all females past her age. “Geez! Where do you girls learn that stuff?”
THE HYACINTH GIRL by Mary Ann Mitchell
“—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”
T. S. Eliot—“The Wasteland”
Beverly adjusted the jalousie on the living room window in order to view Carl. Among his blond strands stood some conspicuous grays. The gray hairs were coarser, sturdier than the blond wisps which had carried him through his fifty years. He swept his callused hand through his locks and settled into his chair.
“Carl, do you want something to drink?”
Carl waited for Beverly to come to the porch door, then shook his head. Beverly, dressed only in her underwear, walked out onto the porch and sat at his feet. The cold wooden planks touched her thighs and caused her shoulders to shiver.
“Night is creeping up on us,” she said.
“I’ve got to go home.”
“Stay, Carl, please. I’ll make bouillabaisse and fresh garlic bread.”
Carl shook his head. She knew he could see the lake peeking out from behind the trees. His rowboat would be just on the edge of the lake. If he started rowing upstream now, he would be home before dark. He rubbed his hands together, then stretched his arms out wide. As he brought his hands down to his knees to rise, Beverly grabbed one hand.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
He looked at her without expression. With a free hand he reached into the pocket of his white trousers and pulled out a piece of paper. It was folded into a small square. Uninvited, she took the paper from his hand and unfolded it. There was her body, sketched out in pencil; her long legs, the slightly domed tummy with the public hair rising almost to her navel, the funnellike breasts peaking in dark swirls, and the slender nape reaching behind the earlobes. But it was the perfection of the facial features which gave her the confidence to smile up at him. He stood.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
He shrugged and moved down the steps to the gravel path. She waved, but he never turned to see it. He probably would listen to some Mahler, she thought, and finish the book by Nietzsche, which they had discussed earlier that day. He’d have a light supper.
Most of the next day Beverly pecked at letters on her computer keyboard, forming words that ran into sentences. The sketch lay to the right of the board. She was sorry she hadn’t asked him to sign it, “Love, Carl.” Maybe tonight.
She had dinner late that night. She didn’t know whether to make it for one or two. Eventually she put single portions on the stove. At bedtime she plumped up some pillows along his side of the bed and threw her left leg across the bottom pillow.
The pillow was still buried between her thighs when she felt a hand slide up her buttocks. She looked at the clock. Seven a.m. The hand felt rough against her. It coursed her flesh like sandpaper leveling a
rough board. His full lips touched her shoulder blades, then she felt the hair of his chest rest softly against her back. She could feel her wetness spreading across the pillowcase as her pelvis pushed into it.
Later at breakfast she noticed how dark Carl’s skin was, as if he had been working outdoors all the previous day. His blond hair had been whitened by the sun, almost camouflaging the gray. His hands were raw. Many calluses had broken open into wounds.
“You must have worked hard yesterday.”
He didn’t say anything.
“By the way, I’d like you to sign the sketch.”
He looked at her and shook his head. His handsome features were pensive. She saw a cruelty that had never been there before.
“Why not?”
“I shouldn’t have given it to you. I should have kept it for myself.”
She smiled.
“I’m sure you can duplicate it.” She started to remove her bathrobe. “I’ll even pose for it.”
Beverly dropped the robe over the back of the chair and stood.
“Let’s go back to the bedroom and see if we can manage a repeat performance.”
A few hours later there was a blank paper and pencil on the nightstand. On the bed Carl and Beverly lay entwined. She was awakened by the jolting movement of his body. Carl was trying to reach for the drawing material. Beverly moaned and Carl terminated his attempt, and instead lay still beneath her. His breath halted a second or two and then slowly gained its rhythm. She waited. Ten minutes, a half hour, a day later she didn’t know which, then she suckled his teat. Beverly spread her legs across his hips and sat atop his body; she smiled, satisfied but hungry. He picked up the pencil and paper. Immediately she stood up on the mattress and heaved her auburn hair up across her forearms. He sketched.
The Year's Best Horror Stories 21 Page 10