Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3

by Cheryl Mullenax

  Inside the apartment, she found Andrea bopping near the stereo, drink in hand, wearing tiny gray shorts and an old Metallica t-shirt that was too big for her, a comfy relic of a long-gone boyfriend. She was devastatingly sexy. From the doorway, Vicki watched her dance for a moment that seemed to last forever.

  “Vick!” Andrea cried, turning to face the entrance as Stevie Nicks sang. “Vick, Vick-ay! How was your day, slut?”

  Vicki groaned, playing her established part in their domestic act. She dropped her bag near the couch and kicked off her white sneakers.

  “Yeah.” Andrea made a pouty duck face, nodded sharply and turned back to the stereo. “Fuck work. Slip out of them scrubs. There’s margaritas in the kitchen and pizza on the way. Fingers crossed we get the blond delivery guy with the neck tattoo.”

  “You seem to be feeling better.” Vicki headed to the kitchen, dragging her eyes away from Andrea’s legs and reaching for a glass.

  “I’m fucking great,” Andrea said, sauntering in behind her for a refill. “Come on, shed the work clothes and get with the party. You’re off tomorrow and I know you got nothing planned.”

  It didn’t matter if she did or didn’t have plans. Vicki knew she could never disappoint Andrea. She never would. She poured herself a glass of the frozen booze concoction, topped off Andrea’s and headed off down the hall toward her bedroom.

  Alone, Vicki stripped down and tossed her clothes into the hamper by the closet. She saw herself in the mirror above her dresser. She eyed herself dispassionately with a professional, clinical gaze, then opened the bottom left drawer and took out a mismatched pair of fluffy socks. One was bedecked in dolphins, the other a pattern of cherries. She rubbed them between her fingers and ran them up and down her bare legs. Goosebumps broke out over her entire body. They were Andrea’s socks. She had taken them from the laundry, one at a time, over the course of the winter. Slob that she was, Andrea hadn’t even noticed. Vicki held them both to her face, inhaled deeply.

  She set the socks on the bed and, from the same drawer, took out some red lace boy shorts, also pilfered from the laundry. She ran them likewise over her legs, then caressed her stomach, gliding them up to her breasts, tickling herself. She held them close to her face and licked them daintily.

  From the living room, Andrea called, “Pizza’s here.” There was a lot of giggling; she must have gotten the blond guy after all. Stevie Nicks played on.

  Vicki pulled the underwear away from her mouth. “Coming.”

  She stepped into her roommate’s panties, grabbed some sweats off the back of the door and dressed. Steve Nicks now sang “Talk To Me.”

  Andrea caterwauled along with Stevie. With her blond hair, and having retrieved a black wide-brimmed hat and scarf from her room a few drinks ago, she looked the part more and more. An obsession with the gypsy rocker was one of the things that Vicki loved about Andrea. It was an unapologetically corny thing they shared. Vicki sipped from her glass. It was only water now and had been for a while. She let Andrea drag her off the couch, gave in and danced along. She couldn’t let Andrea down, even if she wanted to. And she never did.

  Vicki felt, as she always did when she heard this song, like Stevie was talking for her, like the lyrics were written for her. She watched Andrea sway and stumble near the record player, sloshing more margarita than she was drinking, with a smoldering American Spirit stuck between her flawless lips and her hat tilted way back. Buzzed enough to be brave, Vicki came up close behind Andrea and danced a little slower.

  Andrea suddenly fell away from Vicki’s grasp and caught herself against the entertainment center, the record skipping and scratching over Stevie’s haunting voice.

  “You okay?”

  “Sorry,” Andrea slurred. She shuffled over to the couch on unstable legs. Vicki followed and kept her hands on Andrea’s toned obliques, helping to guide her.

  “It’s OK.”

  “Just need a rest.” Andrea sank into the couch, her limp arm hanging over the edge, smoldering filter inches above the carpet. She was instantly asleep.

  ___

  Andrea could be happy. She just needed some help. She needed freeing from her cycle of disappointment.

  Vicki thought about this while sitting at her computer an hour or so after Andrea passed out. She was angry, frustrated and disappointed. She was also excited.

  She scrolled through the photos in a desktop folder labeled “Research.” Some she’d taken herself at the hospital, others she’d been sent in trade. Most came from a man who claimed to be a paramedic in Nevada, including the ones in front of her now. Her favorites.

  The blackened, twisted form of a woman in a number of lewd poses bared itself for her. A life-sized sex doll the man said he’d found in the remains of an adult shop that burned down. He liked to send Vicki pictures of the things he did to her. The poses he put her in, the clothes he made her wear. She sent him back suggestions.

  The aberration is the attraction.

  That’s what he’d written. She’d never put it into words before, the slippery thing that coiled deep inside her, but it was true. Pouty lips blistered just right. A coquettish smile stretched and smeared into a novel, unreproducible expression. The world’s full of pretty girls. But real carnage? That’s rare. Before the fire, this doll had been like any other. Just one more on the shelf. Ignored. Not special. Licked by flame, assaulted by the inferno, though, she was divine. Special. She was saved.

  She and Andrea could both be happy. They deserved to be happy. It had almost worked for her mother. It would have worked, if she hadn’t been so alone. Vicki was older now. She finally understood. She would be there for Andrea, and she would make sure it worked. She would comfort and care for Andrea. She would sate her. She wouldn’t leave like Dad had. Like Gregory.

  Vicki crushed sleeping pills into a glass of water and managed to wake Andrea long enough to gulp it down. “You’ll feel better tomorrow if you drink this now,” she said.

  “Thanks, slut,” Andrea mumbled. Then she was out again, slumped on the couch and sleeping more soundly than ever.

  Vicki gathered her tools, then waited.

  An hour passed. The harsh blinking digits on the microwave clock told her it was almost three in the morning. She splashed the face of her comatose love, her very own sad Sleeping Beauty, with the last of the tequila and tucked the soaked scarf securely around Andrea’s face. Vicki lit a cigarette from Andrea’s nearby pack and pressed it to the sodden silk.

  Watch her pretty skin. See it change from pink to crimson, then darken still further. See it crack and rupture. Fatty bubbles begin to appear. Small dots. Then they grow. They swell and bloom like the bulbs of a fleshy flower, a bloody bouquet.

  Vicki gazed down with wide, unblinking eyes as it happened, a great secret show, just for her. She knew that Andrea’s once smooth skin would melt and pool, and reassemble itself. A beautiful new flesh would eventually burst free, split through the old. She would be changed, permanently this time, and for the better.

  Andrea woke, a guttural scream swallowed by the fire. She pawed at the molten cloth sticking to her face. She tried to roll off the couch, but Vicki was there. She wore thick rubber gloves pulled up to her elbows and grabbed hold of Andrea’s flailing wrists and held them tight in her determined, sober grip. She pounced on Andrea’s stomach, pinning her to the couch, and held her hands far away from her burning face.

  Vicki watched, tears running over her smiling face as she listened to the wails, as Andrea’s lips pulled back so far the budding blisters tore open. Her skin ripped and curled, peeling back like worn paint, and she bucked wildly between Vicki’s legs like a live wire.

  Finally, Vicki let go and leapt onto the floor. She grabbed the fire extinguisher—the one she would tell the police she ran to get from the kitchen—and let loose the cool white foam.

  Later, from the chair beside her love’s hospital bed, Vicki stared longingly at the bandaged figure lying silently before her. She stroked Andrea’
s arm above one of her gauze mittens. The doctors were confident they could save her hands. They had not been so badly burned as her face. Her eyes too, they thought, would probably be all right. Though the scarring would be severe.

  Thank God, they’d said, that Andrea had the good fortune to have another nurse for a roommate—a burn specialist, no less—who was on hand when she passed out drunk with her lit cigarette. She must have spilled tequila on herself after Vicki went to bed. It happens. It happens every day. This could have been worse, they all agreed. She could have died.

  Vicki nodded, but of course she had known that wouldn’t happen. She would never allow her friend to die. Andrea would probably not remember Vicki’s part in her accident. She had been very drunk, and mixing alcohol with sleeping pills … the trauma of seeing her new face would be devastating to her memory too.

  Vicki moved a hand under the bleach-smelling covers and ran her fingers up Andrea’s bare leg. Yes, she knew that Andrea would need to feel encouraged and supported. She would need to feel loved. Her fingertips moved up over Andrea’s knee to her thigh. Unlike with her mother, Vicki knew what to do now. She knew how to help. Her hand moved under Andrea’s paper gown and found its way between her legs. Beneath the bandages, Andrea moaned. It was an ambiguous sound, painful arousal.

  “I know,” Vicki whispered. “First it will only hurt. But it will get better. Soon, you won’t even remember why you were so afraid.”

  Vicki worked her fingers. Andrea stirred and moaned louder. She squirmed and tried to pull away. Vicki grabbed her arm, dug her nails in hard and shushed her.

  “I’m right here,” she said. “I’ll never leave you alone.”

  It was true. That was another way that Andrea would not be like Catherine. She couldn’t kill herself even if she wanted to. Vicki would see to that. She would be around all the time and she would give Andrea what all those men, what even her own brother, could never give Catherine: affection without end. Idolatry.

  She leaned close, put her lips to the thick gauze covering what was left of Andrea’s ear and sang softly. Stevie Nicks, of course. Their music. She playfully licked the fabric cocoon covering her love’s mouth, exploring her own damaged doll. Vicki felt herself get wet inside Andrea’s stolen, red panties.

  “I’ll help you change,” Vicki whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”

  <<====>>

  AUTHOR’S STORY NOTE

  “Burnt” was the first story I ever published. I always wrote short fiction as a hobby, but I’d been looking to get some of my work out there for about a year by then, based on the advice and encouragement of some trusted friends. Alas, I was hip-deep in form rejections. Then, I came across the call for submission for DOA III, and, having enjoyed the first two volumes, thought I’d try to work up something appropriate. My only goal was a personalized rejection. But, the editors were very kind and encouraging and wrote back with a few suggestions. I took another stab at it with their thoughts in mind, and the result is the story as you know it now—that is, much improved.

  The genesis of the plot itself was this: I’d been on a reading kick, seeking out the novels that inspired some of my favorite movies. I’d finally gotten to J.G. Ballard’s Crash, and his mingling of grotesque and alluring imagery really impressed me. Simultaneously, the news here was full of coverage about a local firefighter who had been horribly burned while working at a California wildfire site. The details of his arduous recovery cemented what I’d always thought: Being badly burned is the worst physical thing that could ever happen to me. So, I decided to pull a Ballard and see if I could imagine the worst experience I could think of in a fetishized light. The response has been extremely gratifying.

  THE BETTER PART OF DROWNING

  OCTAVIA CADE

  From The Dark Magazine

  Editors: Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Sean Wallace

  Prime Books

  Alix was never sure what kept the groaning rickety-spider of a dock up, unless it was the mussels that swarmed over the piles, turning them to hazards that could slice a swimmer open. The divers were allover scars from waves and mussels, always being pushed into shell sharp as knives and leaving their blood to scent the water.

  “You kids be careful you don’t draw the crabs!” If she heard that once a day she heard it fifty times, and each time she had to smile over the slicing pain and wave up, because coins weren’t thrown to kids who wailed. Wailing made her choke if she tried to dive anyway, and there were always kids enough to squabble over coins so tears did nothing but anchor her to surface and starvation and blind her to the sudden scuttle of predation.

  Don’t draw the crabs, they always said, and smiled as they said it, because it was entertaining to see kids dive in crab beds, and entertaining to see the bloodshed when they were slow enough for catching. Alix didn’t blame them for that. She’d never been able to look away either, no matter how much bile rose in her throat, the metal taste of panic.

  Crabmeat, crabmeat. It was their own little circle of carnivorism, the smallest crabs providing one and the smaller kids the other. Not that the biggest of the scuttlers couldn’t take a man full-grown, but usually the bigger you got the more sense you had, and the more the habit of watching claws kept them away from bone.

  Alix had long since learned not to feel resentment for the crab-call—“Don’t draw the crabs” was always sung out in the whistle-tones of scuttlers—but it was the call for sharks that made her shudder most, because she didn’t understand it and the fin-man knew it and sang anyway. “Don’t draw the sharks,” he sang in crab-tones, but his business was sharks and if Alix didn’t draw them then he’d starve.

  “I’ve never seen no sharks,” she called up, sulky in the water because his call never came with coins, or small pieces for trading. “Crabs must have ate ‘em all, mister.”

  “Course there’s sharks here,” he said, hanging over and his mouth empty of teeth, the words rounded off like shoreline glass. “Don’t you see them hanging?”

  There were dried fins hung from the last dock shop but one, the Street of Endings, stretched out over ocean, but they could have come from anything. “Where do you think I get them from, if not from you kids?” said the fin-man. It struck her that if sharks swam after all, then she was basically being used as bait, and for more than crabs.

  “Course we’re not,” said Toby, at fourteen the oldest of the divers and impatient with ignorance. “There’s no such thing as sharks. Not anymore. You want to know what those fins really are?” he said, leaning close. “They’re us. If he catches you he skins you and folds you into fins.”

  “You’re making that up,” said Alix. “He’s got teeth hanging there too, strings of them. Kids’ teeth don’t look like that.” She’d spat her milk teeth into the sea as they came out, until another of the divers told her she could sell them for grinding and teas, traded the knowledge for a day chiselling mussels from the nearest dock support. After that she’d examined each tooth carefully before selling it to the apothecary for salve to harden her fingers against shellfish and a charm to keep the crabs away. It wasn’t as good a protection as the small tattoo that Toby had between his shoulder blades, the crab-sign that blurred their sight enough for slowness, but it was all her milk teeth could support.

  Toby scoffed at her. “Teeth last forever,” he said. “They’re a thousand years old, those old teeth, like as not. I bet he got them handed down to him, from his da.”

  Alix chewed her lip, considering. “He is pretty old,” she admitted, in doubtful tones. It was difficult to think of the fin-man having a parent. Parents died when you were a babe, mostly, or just beginning to toddle. The fin-man would have come diving with the rest of them then. “Maybe there were sharks when he was a kid.”

  If he ever was a kid. It seemed unfathomable that a person who spent so little time in salt could be so wrinkled.

  “If you’re not careful he’ll come and eat you up,” said Toby, trying to sneak an arm around. He was always trying
to do that now, was a lot more patient with her than he’d been only a year since, and it wasn’t as if any part of her was rounding out for pinching yet.

  “Bugger off,” she said, slipping out from under and swift-kicking. “Go try your scary lies on some other girl.” But she said it smiling, because he kissed her sometimes and sometimes she kissed him, when the weather made poor sport of diving and she wanted to taste something other than starvation.

  ___

  She didn’t believe him. Not in broad daylight with the sun on the water making it look less murky from surface-side at least. Then Toby washed up with his back flayed off, his eyes and lips eaten away by little fish, and all Alix could do was drag him up out of the water-scum of surf and leave him.

  “That’s not all you can do,” said Perette, grim. “The ‘pothecary takes more than teeth.” They didn’t have a knife between them so she traded a kidney and half of a spleen for the use of one and got to butchering.

  Under the knife he looked very young. Then he stopped looking like much of anything, and when Perette was done she loaded up Alix with the organs they had left to them, the usable ones, and left the rest for crabs.

  “I’ll never eat crabs again,” said Alix, but when the offal was traded away Perette bought them steaming bowls of chowder and there were little red legs in it from baby crabs too young for sugar and singing.

  “Get that down you,” she said, and it was kinder than it could have been. “Look, those ones died last week, like as not. The meat’s on the edge of turning. They didn’t have time to munch on him.”

  “S’pose.” She still felt weird about eating it. But that was more from politeness than scruples. Not that the hungry little eyes watching from beneath the edge of dock bothered her. If you shared what you got you starved. They’d be better working than eating and there was always opportunity for coins once word got round that a diver had died. People liked to play at ghouls then, it gave them a thrill to come throw coins into the murk and watch kids bleed and drown for them, get snipped apart by claws thick as thighs.