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

by Paula Guran

  No . . .

  Rayven turned back, too focused on making a fist to register the tingling on her scalp and the rush of air over her. If this meant getting expelled, she’d gladly accept it.

  A thick wall of bees, wasps, hornets, and even hummingbirds hung between her and Mrs. McGee. Their buzzing overwhelmed everything, but Rayven did pick up a weak “Oh my God!” underneath it all. The cluster of creatures hovered for a moment, a riot of swirling color, the beat of many wings flapping noisily in the small room. Rayven was too transfixed to feel any satisfaction at the fright pasted all over the principal’s face. The mass of insects and birds—wider than the big desk—rose almost to the ceiling before driving down toward the principal. Mrs. McGee had two options: remain there and be assailed by hundreds of stingers and sharp beaks or flee her own office.

  She chose the latter.

  The last Rayven saw of the principal was her pumping legs heading away, a huge knot of insects and birds trailing behind.

  Queen Mary was cursed.

  At least, the principal’s position was, according to the latest school lore. For the remainder of the school year, Vice Principal Lozado acted as interim principal, an unwillingness to accept the top job forcing the school system to begin searching for a replacement.

  Soon after, Rayven woke to find several flowers pressed into her pillow. When she reached up, she dislodged a few more and they drifted down onto her bedspread.

  Oh no, she thought. Just when she’d more or less accepted that she wasn’t going to have hair like everyone else. If not for the cloud of insects and birds that had driven McGee out of the school, where would Rayven be right now? Of course, her old principal had caused all of this to begin with, but Rayven couldn’t help the conflicting emotions churning inside her now that the flowers were dying off.

  It continued over the next couple of weeks. Each morning, more flowers rested on her pillow, fewer growing from her scalp. Her hair filled in the spaces the flowers left and by the beginning of May, her slightly longer Afro showed no hint of the garden.

  Sadness mingled with relief, both tussling for the top position. She wondered what would happen next year, with the new principal. Would that person allow locs?

  Rayven decided she’d begin cultivating them over the summer. Without the distraction of the flowers, as long as she did her work and stayed out of trouble, surely they’d leave her alone for her final year.

  In the fall, on the first day of her senior year, Rayven sat in the auditorium for a special session. Budding locs sprouted from her head, a green-and-white headband holding them off her face. Absently, she twisted one as the new principal, a Mr. Abbott, introduced himself. Like most other adults Rayven had interacted with at the school, he sat firmly in the camp of The Others, no matter how affable he tried to make himself. She didn’t care about his vision, mission, or goals. This was her last year and her sole priority was marching across the graduation stage next summer.

  And seeing her locs grow back.

  Three days later: “Miss Simmons, can you send Rayven James down to the principal’s office?”

  The office was the same, although Mr. Abbott’s demeanor differed from his predecessor’s. He smiled a lot, for one thing, although the mirth didn’t exactly reach his green eyes. He attempted some little jokes and posed a few introductory questions, until time for small talk ended and he finally presented the reason for the summons.

  “As you know, Miss James, we have a strict dress code policy here . . .”

  * * *

  Rayven stared out the window of Sonia’s three-year-old BMW, a recent birthday gift from her parents. She’d told Sonia about the meeting with Mr. Abbott on the drive to her home.

  “Well, you can comb them out, right? Since they’re still so new?” Sonia asked, hesitancy dragging out her questions.

  “I guess.” Rayven sighed, running a hand over her head. Sure, it wasn’t a four-year commitment, but it was still her hair. One welcome day in her future, no stupid rules and restrictions would dictate how she wore it.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Rayven said as she exited the car. “See you tomorrow.”

  Before she shut the door behind her, Sonia’s voice pushed out: “Wait, you have something on your shirt.”

  Rayven looked down and, seeing nothing, turned her head to her left shoulder.

  A spot of pink.

  DEL SANDEEN is a writer based in Northeast Florida. From 2009 to 2017, she was the Black Hair Expert at About.com. She writes adult magical realism and speculative fiction, as well as young adult books on race issues. She’s the author of the Grateful American Book Prize–nominated Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Joined by Fate. Currently, she’s working on a novel she hopes Octavia Butler would have loved. Her favorite TV shows include oldies like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, mainly because Lt. Uhura’s makeup game was always so tight.

  THE BLUR IN THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE

  SARAH PINSKER

  It was a nice enough cabin, if Zanna ignored the dead wasps. Their bodies were in the bedroom, all over the quilt and the floor, so she’d sleep in the living room until they ascertained whether there was a live wasp problem as well as a dead one. If she ignored the wasps, it was lovely.

  She’d have to ignore the tiny dead mouse in the ominously large trap in the kitchen, too. If they swept mouse and trap into one of the black trash bags she found under the sink, and ignored the bulk package of rat traps, and ignored the bulk rat poison, and celebrated the wasp spray, everything was good.

  The bucket in the main room’s corner held a few inches of brackish water. The discolored spot above it was shaped like a long-tailed comet, and probably wouldn’t present a problem unless it rained. An astringent lemon-scented cleaner just about covered the delicate undertones of mildew that permeated the walls.

  “This place sucks,” said Shar.

  Shar, her childhood friend, her assistant of who knew how many years, who had always been impervious to magical thinking. Shar, who was right.

  “Um, you booked it,” Zanna pointed out.

  “These aren’t usually the things they list under ‘amenities.’ You said to find someplace cheap and remote, with no Wi-Fi.”

  True enough. Cheap, because Zanna was between royalty checks. Remote, because she couldn’t have any distractions if she was going to finish this book on deadline. No Wi-Fi, ditto. All she needed was power, since her laptop battery no longer held a charge.

  She smiled. “It’s perfect. I’ll push that little table under the window. The view is what counts, anyway.”

  Shar returned her smile. “Whew. Okay. You get settled, and I’ll see what I can do about the wildlife.”

  That worked. Zanna went out to the car for her bag. It didn’t roll well in the dirt, and she let it bang on the three steps to the porch, rather than bothering to lift it. She paused to appreciate the view: below her, the mountainside spread in a dappled blanket of red and gold. There were other houses along the road—they’d stopped at the owner’s on the way past to get the keys—but none were visible from here. Perfect.

  She parked her bag inside the door. No point in moving it further until she knew which room she’d be sleeping in. The couch was more of a daybed, so she’d be fine with that option. The small writing table—she already thought of it as a writing table—looked solid, old. She felt the years in it. The chair looked a little hard for her taste, but she’d brought a cushion and a lumbar support for that contingency. This wasn’t her first rodeo or her first cabin, and these weren’t her first wasps or her first mice. If she’d wanted something less rustic, she would have said so, and Shar would have booked Posh Retreat rather than Wasp Hotel. This was what she needed: no distractions, no comforts, just a desk and a chair and a window.

  Out and back again for the milkcrate of research books. Shar had found a broom to sweep away the dead wasps; she’d already disappeared the mouse. Zanna didn’t know what she’d done to deserve an assistant who disposed of dea
d things for her.

  The fridge smelled okay, a small blessing. There was nothing in it but an open box of baking soda.

  “Make me a list and I’ll go shopping for you while you write this afternoon.” Shar stood in the doorway, tying off a trash bag.

  “Is there a microwave?”

  “I saw one somewhere. Hang on.”

  Zanna stood aside and let Shar rummage in the cabinets. She pulled out a drip coffee maker from a drawer, and a pack of filters. “Hmm . . .”

  Shar left the kitchen and returned a minute later with a small microwave. “It was in the broom closet.”

  They both had to stand sideways for Shar to put the microwave on the counter. She smelled like cumin, never Zanna’s favorite scent. Zanna rummaged in the drawers until she found a torn envelope. She wrote a list on the back, all the easy meals she could make without taking too much time away from her writing. Microwave dinners, mac ’n’ cheese, salad kits, eggs, cereal.

  “Back in a few hours,” Shar said.

  They could have stopped at the grocery store on the way in, but Zanna knew this was Shar’s way of giving her a head start on her work.

  There was nothing for her to do here but write. Okay, or hike, or read, but those were reward activities. More importantly, there was no cell service, no internet, no television. The rental car spit gravel as it backed onto the road. She was alone.

  She turned the milkcrate of books on its side on the table, so the spines faced outward. Birds of West Virginia, Trees of West Virginia, West Virginia Wildlife, Railroad Towns, Coal Country. She’d done all her research at home in New York, all her character-building, all her outlining, but when Shar suggested that she actually come here to do the drafting, it had felt perfect, like something she should have thought of her herself. She plugged her computer in and sat down to write.

  Shar returned with four grocery bags just as Zanna started to get hungry. “You didn’t put coffee or tea on the list, but I figured they were both givens.”

  “Bless you,” said Zanna, standing to stretch and help with the bags. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for them both to be in there, but if Zanna didn’t unpack, she wouldn’t know what had been purchased or where to find it. Shar still smelled like cumin, overwhelming in the tight quarters. Inspiration to put everything away quickly.

  “How’s it going?” Shar knew her well enough to never ask in terms of word count. Instead, a generic “how’s it going” that Zanna could answer specifically if she’d written or vaguely if she’d gotten stuck.

  “Got through the first chapter,” Zanna said. No need to hide behind euphemisms today. Chapter one was always easiest anyway. Reintroduce Jean Diener, reluctant detective. Find an excuse to get her to where she needed to be.

  “Nice! Do you want me to make you some dinner before I leave you alone?”

  “Nah. I’m going to have a snack now and write a little more. I’ll probably just graze tonight.” Zanna held up a pre-mixed chef salad in a plastic clamshell. “You can go check in to wherever you’re staying. Where are you staying?”

  “Motel at the foot of the mountain. It’s dirt cheap this late in the fall, and this isn’t exactly a tourist town.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here? You can have the bedroom, I’ll take the couch.”

  “Like you were going to sleep in a bedroom full of wasps. Nah, I’m good. I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “Fine, then. How can I reach you? I don’t have a single bar of reception up here.”

  “I’ll check on you first thing in the morning. Or I can check if there’s a landline phone hidden here somewhere?”

  “Nah. It’ll be okay. Maybe not first thing, though? If I get on a roll tonight I’m sleeping late tomorrow.”

  “Check. How’s ten?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Anything else I can do for you? Or should I get out so you and Jean can get reacquainted?”

  Zanna grinned in appreciation.

  The cabin had a good writing feel. She actually made it halfway through chapter two before stopping to eat the salad. After that, she put her sheets on the couch and pulled a moth-eaten blanket from the bedroom closet, and curled up to read Railroad Towns. It was full of useful information, but the combination of long drive and writing had exhausted her, and she fell asleep before ten. She woke once for no reason at all, and then again to a scuttling sound that probably meant the dead mouse had friends.

  She woke at six a.m. without an alarm. The electric baseboard heater under the window had kept the couch warm enough, but she could tell that outside her blanket, the mountain morning held a chill. She’d make coffee and breakfast, then get working. She flicked on the lamp.

  Her throat felt scratchy, her chest sore like she’d been coughing, and the floorboards shot cold through her socks as she padded into the kitchen. Shar had left the coffee and filters next to the coffee machine, so she didn’t have to search for anything before she’d had coffee.

  She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve Shar. She hadn’t even known she’d needed an assistant until her childhood friend had suggested it, and now she couldn’t imagine life without her. It wasn’t that she was unable to do the stuff Shar did, other than driving, just that having someone else shop and correspond and plan travel freed her to concentrate on her books. Shar had always been there for her, but formalizing the relationship had actually helped it.

  She’d written forty-something novels now and they’d all been dreams to write, almost literally. Research was still a present-brain puzzle, outlining a necessary torture, but the books themselves had gotten so much easier over the years. A quiet cabin, a desk in front of a window, no distractions.

  She plugged in the coffee maker. While it gurgled, she dumped an instant oatmeal packet into a bowl from the cabinet, added some water, and stuck it in the microwave. When she hit start, there was a pop, and the power went out. The fridge still hummed, but the cabin had otherwise gone dark and quiet. Was the whole place wired on one circuit except the fridge? That meant no power for her computer, either, and no power for the baseboard heater.

  Why did this kind of thing always happen before coffee? She checked all the closets and cabinets for a breaker box, but couldn’t find one, which meant it was outside. Two shoes and a jacket later, she stood behind the cabin, swearing to herself. Crawlspace. She didn’t quite remember what had freaked her out in a crawlspace when she was a kid, but she still hated them. Anything might be in there.

  A baseball bat stood propped against the wall beside the tiny door. It had “Snake Stick” written on it in blue Sharpie. Whoever had labeled it had also drawn a crude cartoon demonstrating its utility. Swing them away, don’t kill them. No bloodstains on the bat.

  She could wait for Shar, but she’d lose hours, and her head was already complaining about the lack of caffeine. Better to do it herself.

  The half-sized door creaked when she squeezed the latch and swung it open. She waved the Snake Stick in front of her to clear cobwebs and wake any snakes snoozing inside. When nothing moved, she dug in her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. It was useless for calls out here, but the flashlight still came in handy. She swept it around the space, which looked mostly empty. No use delaying.

  She crouched and stepped in. The ceiling was a little higher than she expected, the floor a little lower; she could stand if she stooped. Something crunched like paper under her foot, and she swung the light down to find a snakeskin, at least three feet long. She shuddered.

  The electrical box was beside the door, but it turned out to use fuses, not breakers. Another pan of the space showed a pile of two-byfours, but nothing else useful. Mystery writer brain declared it a good enough place to hide bodies, but a little obvious. You’d want to dig up the dirt floor and bury them, or the odor would rise through the floorboards. Pile the lumber back over the spot you’d disturbed.

  Back to the cabin, wishing she’d worn a hat, dusting cobwebs from her hair. She went through
all the drawers and closets, this time looking for a fuse. A hammer and a box of nails, more rat traps, mouse poison cubes, wasp spray, garbage bags, dish soap, sponges. No fuses. Also no matches or candles, which would also have been useful. In the top kitchen drawer, a yellowed paper brochure for “RusticMountainCabins.biz,” complete with grainy picture and phone number. Not that the phone number did any good here.

  How far had the owner’s house been? Maybe a mile or two. She could hike down and knock on his door. It would still be early, but not unreasonable, given the inconvenience of no power. There should have been a warning not to use multiple appliances at once. Or maybe that explained the microwave stashed in the broom closet. Shit.

  She stuffed her hair under a hat, wrote a note explaining where she’d gone in case Shar arrived before Zanna got back, put her computer in her backpack since she didn’t trust the flimsy lock on the door, and headed down the mountain. Down was steep, made trickier by the loose gravel, which skittered out from under her feet. She fell once, windmilling all her limbs to prevent the inevitable, twisting to keep from landing on her computer or her tailbone. She wound up on her left hip and elbow. The elbow got the worst of it, skinned and begraveled.

  After that, she took it even slower, picking pebbles from her arm as she went. If she walked with small steps, the slope from one foot to the other was negligible. If she put her full weight on each foot, penguin-style, she exerted sideways motion instead of downward. Jean Diener would appreciate it; the character was a retired physics professor, living in an RV which she parked in any given town just long enough to help solve whatever murder transpired, through physics and common sense.

  When Zanna reached the first driveway, she realized she didn’t know the house number. What had she noticed about the house, waiting for Shar to collect the keys? She closed her eyes. The owner’s house was larger than her cabin, larger than this one. A steep driveway featuring a rock Shar had been afraid to drive over with a rental car. Navy blue SUV with West Virginia plates and one of those WV stickers that looked like the Wonder Woman logo. A windchime with wooden—what did you call them? Wooden knocker things. She’d have to look up the word.