Just Over the Horizon (The Complete Short Fiction of Greg Bear Book 1)

by Greg Bear

  Night Metro shared only a few stops with Day Metro. Most stations were dark, their platforms populated by slow smudges of shadow—people who wouldn’t show even in bright light. Oliver tried not to look, but every so often he couldn’t help it. As the train slowed for his station, he raised the collar of his green windbreaker and rubbed his nose. Reggie and Denver wouldn’t have made it this far. They put too high a value on their skins.

  The train idled after Oliver disembarked. He walked past the lead car on his way to the stairs. The operator stood in his little cabin of fluorescent cold, the eyes in the bull’s head sunk deep in shadow. Oliver felt rather than saw the starlike glints in the cavernous sockets. The operator’s left hand tugged at the handles of the silver shears.

  Oliver stopped to return the hidden stare. “What do you care, man?” he said. “Get on with it! We all got stuff to do.”

  The bull’s nose pointed a mere twitch away, and the hand left the shears to grip the control switch. The train doors closed. The silver side panels and windows and lights picked up speed and the train squealed around a curve into darkness.

  Oliver sighed and climbed the two flights of stairs to Sunside Station. Summer night lay heavy and warm on the lush trees and grass of a broad park. Oliver stood at the head of the Metro entrance and listened to the crickets and katydids and cicadas sing songs unheard in Sleepside, where trees and grass were sparse. All around the park rose dark-windowed walls of high marble and brick and gray stone hotels and fancy apartment buildings with gable roofs.

  Oliver looked around for directions, a map, anything. Out here, above the Night Metro, it was possible ordinary people would be out strolling and he could ask them for directions if he dared. He walked toward the street and thought of Momma getting this far and of her being afraid. He loved Momma very much. Some­times she seemed to be the only decent thing in his life, though as he grew older, young women distracted him, and he experienced more and more secret fixations.

  “Oliver Jones?”

  A long white limousine waited by the curb. A young, slender woman in violet chauffeur’s livery, with a jaunty black and silver cap sitting atop exuberant hair, cocked her head, smiled at him, and beckoned with a white-gloved finger. “Are you Oliver Jones, come to rescue your momma?”

  He walked slowly toward the limousine. It was bigger and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen, with long ribbed chrome pipes snaking out from under the hood and through the fenders, stand-alone golden head­lights, and a white tonneau roof made of real leather. “My name’s Oliver,” he affirmed.

  “Then you’re my man. Please get in.” She winked and held the door open. When the door closed, the woman’s arm—all he could see of her through the smoky window glass—vanished. The driver’s door did not open. She did not get in. The limousine drove off by itself.

  Oliver fell back into the lush suede and velvet interior. An electronic wet bar gleamed silver and gold and black above a cool white-lit panel on which sat a single crystal glass filled with ice cubes. A spigot rotated and waited for instruc­tions. When none came, it gushed fragrant gin over the ice.

  Oliver did not touch the glass.

  Below the wet bar, the television set turned itself on. Passion and delight sang from small, precise speakers.

  “No,” he said. “No!”

  The television winked off.

  He edged closer to the smoky glass window and saw dim street­lights and headlights blur past. A huge black building trimmed with gold ornaments loomed on the corner. All but three of its many windows, outlined in red, were dark.

  The limousine descended into a dark under­ground garage. Lights throwing huge golden cat’s eyes, tires squealing on shiny concrete, it snaked around a slalom of walls and pillars and came to a smooth, quick stop.

  The door opened.

  Oliver stepped out.

  The same chauffeur grinned and doffed her cap. No sense asking questions now, he’d never stop.

  “Thanks,” Oliver said.

  “My pleasure,” she replied.

  The car had parked beside a big, thick wooden door set into an arch of hewn stone blocks. Fossil bones and teeth were clearly visible in the matrix of each block. Glistening ferns in dark, kidney-shaped pools flanked a wooden bridge leading to the door.

  Oliver heard the car burble away and turned, but did not see whether the chauffeur drove this time or not. He walked across the wooden planks and tried the door’s black iron handle. The door swung open at the first brush of his fingers. Beyond, a narrow, red-carpeted staircase with maple rails carved into rose canes—buds, flowers, thorns and all—ascended to an upper floor. The place smelled of cloves and mint and, somehow, of what Oliver imagined dogs or horses must smell like—a musty old rug sitting on a floor grate. (He had never owned a dog and never seen a horse without a policeman on it, and never so close he could smell it.) Nobody had been through here in a long time, he thought. But everybody knew about Miss Belle Parkhurst and her place. And the chauffeur had been young. He wrinkled his nose; he did not like any of this.

  The dark wood door at the top of the stairs swung open silently. Nobody stood there waiting. Oliver tried to speak, but his throat itched and closed. He coughed into his fist and shrugged his shoulders. Then, eyes damp and hot with anger and fear, he croaked, “I’m Oliver Jones. I’m here to get my momma!”

  The door remained unattended. He looked back into the parking garage, dark and quiet as a cave; nothing for him there. Then he ascended quickly to get it over with and passed into the ill-reputed house of Miss Belle Parkhurst.

  The city extends to the far horizon, divided into quarters by roads or canals or train tracks, above or underground; and sometimes you know those divisions and know better than to cross them, and sometimes you don’t. The city is broader than any man’s life, and it’s worth more than your life not to understand why you are where you are.

  The city encourages ignorance because it must eat.

  The four quarters of the city are Snowside, Cokeside (where few sane people go), Sleepside, and Sunside. Sunside is bright and rich and dangerous because that is where the swell folks live. Swell folks don’t like intruders. Not even the police go into Sunside without an escort. Toward the center of the city is uptown, and in the middle of uptown is where all four quarters meet at the Pillar of the Unknown Mayor. Outward is the downtown and scattered islands of suburbs, and no one knows where the city ends.

  The Joneses live in downtown Sleepside. The light there even at noon is not bright, but neither is it burning harsh as in Cokeside, where it can fry your skull. Sleepside is tolerable. There are good people in Sleepside and Snowside, and though confused, the general run is not vicious. Oliver grew up there and carries it in his bones and meat. No doubt the Night Metro operator smelled his origins and knew here was a young human crossing a border to go where he did not belong. No doubt Oliver was still alive because Miss Belle Parkhurst had protected him.

  That meant Miss Parkhurst had protected Momma, and perhaps lured her, as well.

  The hallway beyond the stairs was lighted by rows of candles held in gold eagle claws. He passed slowly between the claws and the candles, unable to summon enough spit to whistle, let alone talk. At the end of the hall, through another open door, he stepped into a broad, wood-paneled room decorated with lush green ferns in brass spittoons. The Persian rug in the center of the room revealed a stylized garden in cream and black and red. Five black velvet-upholstered­ couches curved around the far end, unoccupied, ex­pectant, like a line of languorous women amongst the ferns. Along the walls, chairs covered by white sheets asserted their heavy silhouettes.

  Oliver stood, jaw open, not used to such luxury. He needed a long moment to take it all in. Miss Belle Parkhurst was obviously a very rich woman, and not your ordinary whore. From what he had seen so far, she had power as well as money—power over cars and doors, and maybe o
ver men and women.

  Maybe over Momma.

  “Momma?”

  A tall, tenuous, white-haired man in a cream-colored suit walked across the room, paying Oliver scant attention. Oliver watched him sit on a sheet-covered chair. He did not disturb the sheets, but sat through them, as if they were not there. Leaning his head back reflectively, he lifted a cigarette holder without a cigarette and blew out clear air, or perhaps nothing at all, and then smiled at something just to Oliver’s right.

  Oliver turned to look.

  They were alone.

  When he looked back, the man in the cream-colored suit was gone.

  Oliver’s arms tingled. He was in for more than he had bargained for, and he had bargained for a lot.

  “This way,” said a deep female voice, operatic, digni­fied, easy and friendly at once. He could not see her, but he squinted at the doorway, and a small, imposing woman entered between two fluted green onyx columns. He did not know at first that she was addressing him; there might be other gentlemen, or girls, equally as tenuous as the man in the cream-colored suit. But this slight woman, with upheld hands, dressed in gold and peach silk that clung to her all smooth and quiet, was watching only him with her large, dark eyes. She smiled richly and warmly, but Oliver thought there was a hidden flaw in that smile, in her assurance. She was ill at ease from the instant their eyes met, though she might have been at ease before then, thinking of meeting him.

  She had had all things planned until that moment.

  If he unnerved her slightly, this woman positively terrified him. She was beautiful and smooth-skinned, and he could smell the sweet roses and camellias and magnolia blossoms surround­ing her like a crowd of familiar friends.

  “This way,” she repeated, gesturing through the doors.

  “I’m looking for my momma. I’m supposed to meet Miss Belle Parkhurst.”

  “That’s me. I’m Belle Parkhurst. You’re Oliver Jones … aren’t you?”

  He nodded, face solemn, eyes wide. Under her steady, languorous gaze, he nodded again and swallowed.

  “I sent your momma on her way home. She’ll be fine.”

  He looked back at the hallway, biting his lip. “She’ll have to take the Night Metro,” he said.

  “I sent her back in my car. Nothing will happen to her.”

  There was a long, silent moment. He realized he was twisting and wringing his hands before his crotch and he stopped this, embarrassed.

  “Your momma’s fine. Don’t worry about her.”

  “All right,” he said, drawing up his shoulders. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And more.”

  His nostrils flared and he jerked his eyes hard right, torso and then hips and legs twisting that way as he broke into a scrambling rabbit-run for the hallway. The golden eagle claws on each side dropped their candles as he passed and reached out to hook him with their talons. The vast house around him seemed suddenly alert, and he knew even before one claw grabbed his collar that he did not have a chance.

  He dangled helpless at the very end of the hall.

  In the far door appeared Miss Parkhurst, her fingers dripping beads of fire onto the wooden floor. The floor smoked and sizzled. “I’ve let your momma go,” she said, voice deeper than a grave, face terrible, smoothly beautiful, and very old, very experienced. “That was my agreement. You leave, and you break that agreement, and that means I take your sister, or I take back your momma.”

  She cocked an elegant, painted eyebrow at him and leaned her head to one side. He nodded as best he could with his chin jammed against the teeth of his jacket’s zipper.

  “Good. There’s food waiting. I’d enjoy your company.”

  The dining room was no larger than his bedroom at home, very small, that is, occupied by two chairs and an intimate round table covered in white linen. A gold eagle claw candelabrum cast a warm light over the table top. Miss Parkhurst preceded Oliver, her long dress rustling softly at her heels. Other things rustled in the room as well; the floor might have been ankle-deep in windblown leaves, but it was spotless, a rich round red and cream rug centered beneath the table; and beneath that, smooth old oak floor­ing.

  Oliver looked up from sneaker-clad feet.

  Miss Parkhurst waited expectantly a step back from her chair. “Your momma teach you no manners?” she asked softly.

  He approached the table reluctantly. There were empty gold plates and tableware on the linen that had not been there before. Napkins dropped from thin fog and folded themselves into swans on the plates.

  Oliver stopped.

  “Don’t you mind that,” Miss Parkhurst said. “I live alone in this big old place. Good help is hard to find.”

  Oliver stepped behind the chair and lifted it by its maple headpiece, pulling it out for her. She sat and he helped her move closer to the table. Not once did he touch her; his skin crawled at the thought.

  “The food here is very fine,” Miss Parkhurst said as he sat across from her.

  “I’m not hungry,” Oliver said.

  She smiled warmly. It was a powerful thing, her smile. “I won’t bite,” she said. “Except supper. That I’ll bite.”

  The napkin on his plate lifted and spread and placed itself across his lap, and before him, on a fine china plate, leaf by fluttering leaf, appeared a salad. Oliver smelled wonderful spices and sweet vinegar. He was very hungry and he enjoyed salads, seeing fresh greens so seldom in Sleepside.

  “That’s it,” Miss Parkhurst said soothingly, smiling as he ate. She lifted her fork in turn and speared a fold of butter lettuce, bringing it to her red lips.

  The rest of the dinner proceeded in like fashion, but with no further conversation. She watched him frankly, appraising, and he avoided her eyes.

  They finished eating.

  “Come with me, sweetie,” Miss Parkhurst said.

  Down a long corridor, past tall windows set in an east wall, dawn glowing gray and pink around their faint shadows on the velvet-flocked flowers of the west wall, Miss Parkhurst led Oliver to his room. “It’s the quietest place in the mansion,” she said.

  “You’re keeping me here,” he said.

  “That I am,” she said. “I hope you won’t mind.”

  “You’re never going to let me go?”

  “Please allow me to indulge myself, just this once. I’m not just alone. I’m lonely. Here, you can have anything you want … almost …”

  The door at the corridor’s far end opened, as always, by itself. Within, logs burned brightly in a small fireplace, casting a warm and flickering light over a wide bed. The bed’s covers turned themselves down. Exquisite murals of forests and fields adorned the walls; the ceiling was a rich, deep blue flecked with gold and silver stars. Books filled a case in one corner, and in another corner stood the most beautiful ebony grand piano he had ever seen. Miss Parkhurst did not approach the door too closely. There were no candles; within this room, all lamps were electric.

  “This is your room. I won’t come in,” she said. “And after tonight, you don’t ever come out after dark. We’ll talk and see each other during the day, but never at night. The door isn’t locked. I’ll have to trust you.”

  “I can go anytime I want?”

  She smiled. Even though she meant her smile to be nothing more than enigmatic, it shook him. She was deadly beautiful, the kind of woman his brothers dreamed about. Her smile said she might eat him alive, all of him that counted.

  Oliver could imagine his momma’s reaction to Miss Belle Parkhurst.

  He entered the room and watched her face, trembling as he pushed the door shut. There were a dozen things he wanted to say; angry, frustrated, pleading things. He leaned against the door, swallowing them all back, keeping his hand from going to the gold and crystal knob.

  Beyond the door, he heard skirts rustle as she
retired back along the corridor. After a moment, he pushed off from the door and walked with an exaggerated swagger to the bookcase. Miss Parkhurst would never have taken Oliver’s sister Yolanda; that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted young boy flesh, he thought. She wanted to burn him down to his sneakers, smiling like that.

  The books on the shelves were books he had heard about but had never found in the Sleepside library, books he wanted to read, that the librarians said only people from Sunside and the suburbs cared to read. His fingers lingered on the tops of their spines, tugging gently.

  His eyes drooped, despite his curiosity and fear and slowly receding anger. He decided to sleep instead. If she was going to pester him during the day, he didn’t have much time. She’d be a late riser, he thought; a night person.

  Then he realized: whatever she did at night, she had not done this night. This night had been set aside for him.

  He shivered again, thinking of the food and the napkins and the eagle claws. Was this room haunted, too? Would things keep watch over him?

  Oliver sat on the edge of the bed, his mind clouded with thoughts of living sheets feeling up his bare skin. He lay back, still clothed, tired—almost dead out. Somehow, his eyes closed. He slept.

  The dreams that came were sweet and she did not walk in them. She had spoken true. This really was his time.

  At eleven in the morning, by the gold and crystal clock on the bookcase, Oliver kicked his legs out, rubbed his face into the pillows, and startled up, back arched. A covered tray waited on a polished brass cart beside the bed. His nose twitched. He smelled bacon and eggs and coffee. A vase of roses on one corner of the cart added to the delicious scents in the room. Against the vase leaned a folded piece of fine ivory paper. Oliver sat up and read the note, again written in golden ink in a delicate hand.

  I’m waiting for you in the gymnasium. Meet me after you’ve eaten. Got something to give to you.