The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 1

by Paula Guran

  The next thing I knew, the police were telling my parents they were sorry for the inconvenience in that way they have that’s somehow both sincere yet totally detached. It was getting light when I stumbled back to my room and dropped dead.

  A few hours later, my father’s angry voice woke me. Were the cops back? I rolled out of bed and raised the screen.

  It took a few moments before I realized the guy on the front steps was from across the street. He was trying to explain something but my father wasn’t having any, telling the guy to get the hell off our property if he didn’t want to find himself on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

  The guy gave up. But as he started down the steps, he looked up and saw me. I drew back, hoping he wasn’t stupid enough to try talking to me. He wasn’t.

  Or rather, not then. He waited until my father moved out and rang the doorbell right after my mother left for the supermarket. I considered not answering, then decided if he got weird, I could call the cops. Or my father.

  “Yes?” I asked stiffly through the locked screen door. He was a bit younger than my father and not much taller than I was, with a round face, thinning blond hair, and the kind of pale skin that burns even when it’s overcast. The shadows under his puffy brown eyes made him look like he’d been up all night.

  “I knew exactly what I was going to say before I came over here,” he said unhappily. “Now I can’t remember.”

  “Oh.” I had no idea what to do with a helpless adult. “Retrace your steps, maybe it’ll come back to you.” I started to close the door.

  “It’s not that,” he said quickly. “It’s—I don’t know how to begin.”

  So what did he expect me to do? “Maybe you should talk to my parents. Well, my mother.” I started to close the door again.

  “Have you ever seen a ghost?” he asked desperately.

  I still didn’t let him in.

  His name was Ralph Costa and he was why the cops had visited us in the middle of the night. He’d seen a man stabbing a woman in the street and thought it was my parents.

  “Why would you think that?” I asked, thinking maybe I should have shut the door on him after all.

  “She ran up your front steps and tried to open the door,” Ralph Costa said. “I thought she lived here. But he dragged her into the street and . . .”

  “Stabbed her a lot?” I suggested.

  He looked sick. “At first, I couldn’t even move. Then I was on the phone, yelling for the cops to get here now. I woke May and the kids and made them stay in the back of the house so they wouldn’t see. But when the cops came, there was no body, no blood, just . . . nothing. But I know I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. I saw a man kill a woman.”

  I’d heard every variation of the story—whoever told it would say Gideon almost caught Lily in their backyard—but this was new. “Was she screaming?”

  “Of course—she must have been, I heard her—” he cut off, looking puzzled, and I could practically see him replaying it in his mind. “I heard her.” He shook his head. “I tried to apologize to your father but he was pretty irate.”

  “Yeah, the cops tromped around for hours looking for bloody knives and dead bodies. It was pretty bad.” I couldn’t help rubbing it in; it had been pretty bad. Worse, the cops had asked the neighbors if my father ever beat us and now they were all looking at us funny.

  “I really am sorry,” Ralph Costa was saying. “If it makes you feel any better, the cops stayed at our house a lot longer, asking about my mental health. They didn’t mention the O’Dells until just before they left. My wife looked it up later on microfiche at the library. No one ever told us.”

  “You’re still pretty new,” I said. “And it was a long time ago.”

  “Not even ten years,” Ralph said, which reminded me time was different for grown-ups. “Did anyone else ever see—well, what I saw?”

  I considered telling him about Mr. Grafton and decided against it. The house had changed hands twice before the Costas had moved in, which was pretty unusual. But my parents said the first people had moved to be closer to a sick relative and the second ones got a sudden job transfer. No ghosts.

  “I’m a kid,” I said finally. “Nobody ever tells me anything.” It wasn’t a total lie. Mr. Grafton hadn’t told me about seeing the O’Dells. “Hey, I got stuff to do before my mother gets back. Have you talked to the neighbors?”

  He looked unhappy. “Asking people if they’ve ever seen ghosts replaying a gruesome murder is no way to make friends.”

  I almost said I was sorry, then thought, why should I apologize? He was the one seeing things. He thanked me for listening and left, and I went to sort laundry in the basement, where I couldn’t hear the doorbell.

  I didn’t tell my mother about Ralph Costa right away but the longer I put it off, the harder it would be to explain why. And if she heard about it from Ralph first, she’d have a cow: A stranger has to tell me what you’re doing—do you know how that makes me look? Divorce had made her touchy.

  But what could I say? Hey, Mom, that guy who thought Dad murdered you dropped by while you were at the supermarket. Turns out he saw Lily O’Dell’s ghost. But wait, it gets better—did you know Lily ran up our front steps and Gideon dragged her into the street by her hair? I couldn’t even imagine that shitstorm but I was pretty sure it would end up being all my fault.

  God, grown-ups had no idea of the trouble they made for kids just by running their big fat mouths. Damn them, I thought, feeling angry, miserable, and cornered. Damn them all, even the ones who didn’t stab their wives to death in the street. How the hell was a kid supposed to deal?

  Finally, a couple of nights later, fortified by takeout beer-battered fish and chips, I decided I’d just go for it. Only what I heard myself say was, “Mom, did I really sleep through Lily O’Dell getting killed?”

  For a moment, I didn’t think she was going to answer. Then: “Actually, I’m pretty sure you saw the whole thing.”

  I felt my jaw drop. She watched me gape at her for a few moments, then sighed. “If I tell you about that night—and I can only tell you what I saw—promise me you won’t obsess about it.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  “I mean it. And don’t go blabbing to all your friends.”

  Before I could answer, her hand was clamped around my wrist, not tightly enough to be painful but it wasn’t comfortable, either. “Seriously. If I find out you’re trying to impress your friends with this, the consequences will be”—she paused for half a second—“severe.”

  What are you gonna do, kill me? I suppressed the thought, hoping her mom ESP hadn’t picked it up. “I give you my word.”

  Like that, she let go and was back to casual. “You were sleepwalking that night.”

  “You never told me I sleepwalked!” I was flabbergasted.

  “Only a few times, and it never happened again after that night.” She shrugged.

  “Did you take me to the doctor?”

  “Of course we did,” she said, almost snapping. I opened my mouth to say something else and she glared at me. “Gale, do you want to talk about sleepwalking or Lily O’Dell? I’m too tired for both.”

  I was on the verge of telling her I was sorry motherhood was such a burden but caught myself. Her lawyer had phoned earlier. Those calls seldom put her in a good mood.

  “That night?” I said in a small voice.

  “It was a Saturday,” my mother said. “After you and Jean went to bed, your father and I stayed up to watch a movie on cable. You got up three times, first wanting a glass of water, then to ask for a PB&J. The third time, you were sleepwalking.”

  My mother sighed. “We didn’t think you could open the front door. Even if you managed to work the bottom lock, you weren’t tall enough to reach the deadbolt or the chain. But we didn’t know how resourceful you could be even asleep. You got your stepstool from the front closet.”

  Now she chuckled a little. “The chain lock was still a few inches out of reach, tho
ugh, so you used the yardstick. It was in the corner right beside the front door. Moving the chain with it wasn’t easy—I tried it myself later—but you were on a mission to get that door open.

  “You’d have been out on the steps with Lily O’Dell if not for the fact that the screen door lock kept sticking. I oiled it, your dad tried axle grease, and Jean even put mayonnaise on it once but that only made it stink and stick.

  “So when Lily O’Dell came up the front steps and begged you to let her in, there was nothing you could do. Except maybe wake up.”

  My mother’s face turned sad. “When I got to you, Gideon O’Dell was dragging Lily into the street. He might have already stabbed her a few times or maybe he’d just beaten her bloody—” my mother stopped and shuddered. “Just beaten her bloody. Jesus wept.

  “Anyway, there was so much blood on your face and your pajama top, I was afraid Gideon O’Dell had hurt you, too. But it was all Lily’s—she’d pushed in the screen and grabbed at you. I cleaned you up, changed your pajamas, then put you to bed in our room and told you to stay there. Naturally, you didn’t. I found you asleep by the window in your room.’”

  I waited, but she didn’t go on. “Then what?”

  “We let you sleep in. You woke up around noon and as far as we could tell, you didn’t remember a thing.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible.” I was picturing Lily O’Dell on the other side of the screen door, beaten and bloody and begging for help.

  “You were very young,” my mother said for what must have been the millionth time. “The doctor said your mind was protecting you from trauma.”

  “But wasn’t Jean traumatized?”

  My mother smiled a little. “I wouldn’t let her put on her glasses. Your sister was so nearsighted she couldn’t see past the end of the driveway.” She finished the last bit of wine in her glass. “If you’ve got questions, ask now—after this, the subject is closed. Forever.”

  “But I need to think,” I said, wincing inwardly at how whiny I sounded.

  “Think faster, kid.” There was a hard, all but pitiless edge in my mother’s voice I’d rarely heard before. Sometimes she sounded like that with her lawyer, and most of the time with my father. But she was supposed to show she loved me no matter what. Those were the rules, she was my mother.

  Correction: she was my getting-divorced mother, she made her own rules.

  She put her hand on the base of her empty wineglass and I blurted, “Did you take me to another doctor? Like a psychologist or a shrink?”

  “We didn’t need to,” she said. “Dr. Tran said you were perfectly healthy and suggested we consider the kind of deadbolt that needs an indoor key. Or put a bell on your bedroom door.” My mother laughed a little. “We tried that. But not for long—your singing ‘Jingle Bells’ out of season drove us all crazy. You never sleepwalked again anyway.”

  That explained a vague memory of singing Christmas carols in an inflatable kiddie pool in the backyard. “Did you talk to Dr. Tran about my repressed memory?”

  My mother glanced up at the ceiling. “It’s not a repressed memory.”

  “But—”

  “You’ve forgotten plenty else in your life and those aren’t repressed memories,” my mother said. A hard little line appeared between her eyebrows and I knew I was pushing it. “Nobody remembers every detail of their lives.”

  “But something like that?” I said.

  “I told you, your brain was protecting you,” my mother replied. “Probably saved you years of therapy, if not decades. But if you drive yourself crazy because you weren’t traumatized, I’ll go upside your head.”

  “Is that why you and Dad are getting divorced?” I asked. “Because you’re traumatized?”

  I expected her to snap at me but she only shrugged. “I’ll have to ask my shrink.”

  “You have a shrink?”

  “Yeah. I’m getting divorced.” She gave me a sideways look under half-closed eyelids. “Thought you knew.”

  “Mom! Seriously—”

  “That’s private.” She got up and started clearing the table.

  “Wait,” I pleaded, “I have more questions.”

  She leaned against the kitchen counter. “Give it a rest, will you? It was horrible but it’s over. You have no good reason to bring it up.”

  “Actually, someone else brought it up,” I said. “A few of days ago.”

  My mother didn’t march over to Ralph Costa’s house immediately, or even the next morning, which surprised me. I asked her what she was going to do but all she said was, “I’m thinking,” and warned me not to ask again. I thought the suspense was going to kill me, but then something unbelievable happened.

  Gideon O’Dell came back.

  He looked completely different without the long hair, beard, and mustache but I recognized him immediately.

  I was reading a book under the redbud tree in the front yard. My mother had said it would have to go this summer. I was sulking about it when a truck with a crew of tree men from Green & Serene pulled up in front of the house next door and Gideon O’Dell hopped out of the driver’s side. For a second, I thought he actually was a ghost, except he was wearing Green & Serene overalls and cap.

  I froze.

  Everybody had said he’d be in prison for the rest of his life. Had he escaped? If so, wouldn’t he have tried to get as far away from here as possible?

  Sure—unless he was hiding in plain sight to throw everyone off. Only he didn’t act like someone in hiding. He and the rest of the crew went to work trimming the trees in the Coopermans’ front yard like they were all just guys and none of them had killed his wife in the middle of this very street. Because they didn’t know, I thought; if they had, they wouldn’t have given him any tools with sharp edges.

  Eventually, they went into the Coopermans’ backyard and I bolted for the house.

  I didn’t tell my mother. She was an office manager now for a small law firm (a different one than her lawyer’s) and the job had really perked her up. New wardrobe, new hairstyle, even new friends she went out with on the weekends. It made me realize how little I’d seen her smile or heard her laugh in the last few years, even before the divorce. The last thing I wanted to do was spoil everything. Maybe it wouldn’t have but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t think it was good news. At the same time, I was bursting to tell her because maybe someone at her job would know why he was walking around free.

  Telling my father during one of our weekend visits was even more out of the question. I’d never told him about Ralph Costa because I was afraid he’d drive up on the guy’s lawn and take a swing at him. Plus, he wasn’t doing as well as my mother, morale-wise, although I thought that was the condo. It felt more like a long-stay hotel than a real home. I asked my father if he were going to look for something else once the divorce was settled.

  He was actually surprised at the question. “Of course not. I got a good deal on it. This is home for the foreseeable future.” He gave a short laugh that didn’t have much humor in it. “Assuming any part of the future is foreseeable.”

  Oh, Dad, I thought, you have no idea.

  Nobody did, just me. And Gideon O’Dell. Like we were the only two people on the planet.

  Whenever the Green & Serene crews were around, I stayed in, which was a lot, since everybody in the neighborhood used them. Every so often, I’d peek out a window to see what they were doing (what he was doing). But what really happened was, every so often, I didn’t peek out a window. I watched Gideon O’Dell like a hawk and to be honest, it was pretty boring. All he did was work hard.

  Well, so far. Just because he only cut branches now didn’t mean he was reformed.

  And he looked so criminal. The saggy tank tops he wore didn’t cover much; using binoculars, I could see how crappy his tattoos were. On the left side of his chest, there was a wide rectangular patch that looked like several layers of skin had been scraped off.

  He’d had a tattoo removed, I realized; prob
ably something with Lily’s name. His second try at cutting her out of his life like she’d never existed. If so, she’d left a pretty big scar.

  Not just on him, either. I thought of Mr. Grafton and Ralph Costa, and even my parents. And me, of course, with the only scar no one could see.

  Dammit, how the fuck was Gideon O’Dell out of prison?

  Strangely enough, a cop show rerun gave me the answer. A guy who had killed someone in a fit of rage took a plea bargain for manslaughter instead of murder and got ten years instead of life. I almost fell off the sofa.

  “Does that really happen?” I asked my mother as she came in from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn. She looked puzzled so I gave her a quick summary. “But that’s just TV, right? Or just in big cities, right?”

  “Not always,” she said and my heart sank. “One of our lawyers just had a murder case. She got the client a plea bargain, although I can’t remember offhand what it was.”

  “Do people know that?”

  She frowned slightly. “It’s a matter of public record.”

  “That doesn’t mean anyone knows,” I said. “I mean, if it didn’t make the news.”

  “Most things don’t, unless they’re high profile.”

  “Like the O’Dell murder?” I said, before I could think better of it.

  I expected her to give me grief for bringing it up again but she only nodded. “They moved the O’Dell trial to a different venue. His lawyer said it wasn’t possible to get an impartial jury. He was probably right. It was so lurid, the town was glad to be shut of it.”

  “You sure picked up a lot since you got that job,” I said.

  “I’m a quick study.” She pushed the bowl at me. “Don’t make me eat all this myself. Because I can and I will. Unless you save me.”

  It seemed like that was all I ever did.

  * * *

  Two days later, I saw Ralph Costa talking to a couple of Green & Serene guys, including Gideon O’Dell. It was all very ordinary, a man talking to tree service guys about the hackberry tree beside his house. No earth tremors, no thunder and lightning, no frogs falling from the sky, or fire, or blood. No apparitions and no ghosts, either. Ralph Costa obviously had no idea.