A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology

by Gregory D. Little

  The plastic wrapping crinkles loudly then pops open. “What do you say, honey?”

  Maybe I could give him a break. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Well, I got promoted.”

  I lick my coated fingers. Chocolate icing has never tasted so good. “Congrats,” I say as I tear off a chunk of cupcake and hold it under the table for Bernie.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m giving some to Bernie. He’s been walking me to school every day.” Dad doesn’t say anything, and I realize he thinks Bernie can’t have it because he’s a dog. Well, I’m not telling him Bernie’s secret, but for the record, unicorns love chocolate. “Don’t worry he—”

  “Don’t worry?” Dad’s voice is just a whisper. “How am I not supposed to worry?”

  O O O

  Jessi’s log 09

  My morning walks have been different since the surgery. Now Dad trails behind me to make sure I get to school. I pretend I don’t notice him, and once Bernie shows me to the school’s steps, I turn back to our house, stick out my hand and give my great big wave, just like I used to. I wink at Bernie because we both know my dad’s only feet away.

  End 09

  O O O

  “How could you listen to my podcasts?” I can hear my recorded voice on speaker behind Dad.

  “I’m worried about you, honey.”

  “I’m blind, Dad.” I run my fingers over the buttons, feel the right one, and shut off the recorder. “Not helpless.”

  O O O

  Jessi’s log 10

  Hi, Dad. Thanks for invading my privacy. If you think you’re going to get anything more from me on here, you’re wrong.

  End 10

  O O O

  “Go away, Dad.” I sling my bag onto my shoulder and follow Bernie off the school steps onto the sidewalk. He swings his horn back to me, like he always does, to make sure I’m with him. “I know you’re there, Dad. I don’t need your help.”

  He thinks he’s so quiet, walking on the grass. He thinks that if he says nothing, I’ll leave him be. I speed up, and Bernie’s little legs match my pace. We’ll show him. Bernie galloping, wind in my face, I lick my lips and reach into my bag for my berry lip balm that I can never seem to find anymore.

  Sharp pain rams into my left thigh, and I stumble back from Bernie’s horn. “Bernie? What—”

  I feel the electric car whir past and then Dad’s solid arms grab me from behind. Dad holds me for a time, and I let him.

  He would have been too late, and we both know it.

  O O O

  “You didn’t see it,” Dad says. “She could have been—”

  Silence. Dad is on the phone with Dr. White.

  “She says Bernie stopped her.” My father’s voice is distant. “No. I … I haven’t shown her.”

  Dad’s footsteps sound heavy against the linoleum kitchen floor.

  “It’s not right to put all this on me. She’s already lost too much. You want me take that from her, too? If she wants to believe—”

  I lean my head against the wall. It’s strange to not have my ponytail band digging into my scalp. Dad’s done his best to keep the ends even, but it’s not the same. I wrap my arm around Bernie, nuzzle my face into his mane, and whisper, “They can have my hair. I’ve got you.”

  Bernie rubs his horn against my leg and I laugh.

  “Hey, that tickles.”

  “Jessi?” Dad says, and I know he’s disappointed that I’ve been listening. He speaks into the phone again. “I’ll talk to her now. I’ll really tell her this time … Yes, I’ll take her to the support group on Monday, and she’ll see you first thing after school on Wednesday.” Dad hangs up, and I scoot over to give him enough room beside Bernie and me. He doesn’t move. “It’s time we get you a seeing-eye dog.”

  I cover Bernie’s ears. “I’ve got Bernie.” Sure he’s nearly twelve and would probably lose the other half of his teeth if he ever had to sink them into someone, but he’d do that for me. And besides, maybe unicorns live longer. “I don’t need some dog. Bernie is—” I feel a jab in the back of my leg, and I push Bernie’s horn away. “Bernie’s all I need.”

  Dad takes my hand. “Come with me.” We walk out the back steps. I squint, expecting to see the red garage, but all I see today is Bernie. “I carved it last week … so you could feel the letters.” Dad guides my hand down to a curved piece of wood sticking out of the ground. “He loved you so much. I think he was worried about you. He stopped eating the day of your surgery. I know you don’t want to believe it …”

  The letters aren’t smooth, and as I run my finger along the grooves, a tear slides down my cheek.

  B. E. R. N. I. E.

  I drop to my knees, and, after a moment, a red horn gently rests against my shoulder.

  About the Author

  Shortly after receiving her BFA and MBA, Joy Dawn Johnson worked as a project manager for more than ten years, including a stint in Baghdad, Iraq, as a government contractor. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and was the 2015 recipient of the Superstars Writing scholarship funded by the One Horn to Rule Them All anthology. This is her first publication. Visit Joy at www.joydawnjohnson.com.

  Scrapyard Paradise

  Brandon M. Lindsay

  It had been eighty-six days since Angelica had last seen signs of recent human habitation.

  Holding the burst rifle’s stock tight against her shoulder, she glanced down both paths of the T-intersection. Once satisfied she was alone, she crouched down to inspect the footprints in the mud.

  They couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Had the footprints been any older, rain coming through the hole in the roof—though that was a generous term, considering it was made of rebar and rusted sheets of aluminum siding—would have washed them away. The overcast sky was visible through the hole, and it gave her enough light to inspect the patch of mud for other footprints. There was only the one set.

  They were small. Only a child could have made them.

  Angelica stood. It was impossible that a child could survive here alone. Likely, adults were here, and the child was merely running errands, picking through the scrapyard for supplies. Damn irresponsible to let a child do that alone, unless the adults were crippled or injured.

  And if there were adults here, they would likely fight to protect their supplies. Since Angelica was alone, her chances of surviving such a fight were nearly nil.

  She crept back toward the entrance of the junkyard pile, wary of the various twisted cables, ripped sheets of metal, and other unidentifiable objects comprising and protruding from the walls.

  Garbage had been stacked up throughout the scrapyard, forming a maze of narrow pathways between walls of refuse. Through a combination of the elements and neglect, many of the walls had collapsed, creating dead ends. There were good places to hide here in the scrapyard, sure, but there were just as many good places to get cornered. Angelica liked escape plans; this place made her nervous.

  The pathway she was following, though, was different from the others. A makeshift roof of mounded trash had been built over it, creating a hallway of sorts, the walls of which had been reinforced in parts with bed frames. Some of the trash up top had shifted, though, created gaps in the roof and letting in daylight. It had the look of a permanent settlement. She had seen the mound while searching the scrapyard for a working vehicle.

  From inside, however, the mound seemed far more dangerous than she had thought. Everything seemed to be fastened together by bits of wire and desperate hope. She didn’t even want to think about how sturdy the roof was, as if doing so would be enough bring it all down on her head.

  No way a child was living here alone. No way.

  But a child was here. If nothing else, it meant food. And water.

  Angelica returned to the entrance. Her levcart was stashed a few meters away, covered by a heat cloak as well as bits of trash to obscure it from casual observation, though i
t wasn’t enough to withstand scrutiny. Staying in the shadow of the hallway, she glanced at the levcart, tallying the supplies on it in her mind. She had done it a dozen times today already, but it was good to have the numbers fresh in her mind before she made any decisions.

  Two days. Two days until her food ran out. Four until her water did. And only if she stretched her rations more than she already had.

  It was a week’s hard march across the Wastes to get to the next real city, and there was no guarantee she’d find anything there that wasn’t here. She’d stopped here hoping she might find something she could use without having to deal with people—at least living ones. The dead ones were easy to deal with. Just cover your nose and step over them.

  She sighed. Better to die with a bullet in the brain than by starvation and dehydration. Better to die by human hands than by stumbling into a render and becoming its food.

  As she turned to go back into the hallway, she wiped a strand of hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled grimly. At least she had lots of ammo.

  O O O

  Once past the T-intersection, the hallway got dark enough that Angelica needed to flip down her goggles. The cell they used was almost drained, but she figured it would last longer than she would if she let herself get surprised and shot up. She adjusted her grip on the rifle; her hands were slick with sweat.

  A dim artificial light came into view as she followed a bend in the hallway, casting light on a pair of shining eyes peering out of the wall. Angelica almost opened fire until she realized it was merely the button eyes of a teddy bear jammed in a crack. She took a calming breath and flipped up her goggles, but she didn’t lower her weapon as she made her way forward.

  The hallway led to a cramped round room with no other exits. An electric lamp hung from the center of the ceiling. The light flickered, its power supply nearly depleted. Old toys and stuffed animals were stacked in neat piles around the edges of the room. Along the back wall was a rusted green cot, and on the cot sat a girl in a tattered dress, eyeing Angelica expectantly and swinging her short legs.

  Angelica didn’t aim the rifle at the girl exactly, but she didn’t lower it either. She glanced around the tiny room. “Are you alone?”

  The girl paused in thought for a moment, then nodded.

  “No adults?”

  “Nope.”

  Angelica watched her for any signs of a lie in her expression, then lowered her weapon. “How long have you been here?”

  The girl shrugged, still swinging her legs. “A while, I guess.”

  “And you’ve been alone all this time?”

  The girl lowered her large brown eyes and shook her head. “No,” she said. “Hector got lost.”

  “Hector?”

  She nodded. “He said he would keep me safe from the monsters. He said as long as he was with me, I wouldn’t get hungry or sick.” Tears welled in her eyes. “But I can’t find him.”

  It had been so long since Angelica had seen tears she didn’t know what to do once she saw them. Tears meant hope, and hope was something that had long been bred out of the human race. Ever since the renders had shown up, nearly forty years ago.

  No one knew where they had come from. Some said the stars; others said from a rent in the earth. She’d even heard that they stepped straight out of nightmares or were a plague sent by some higher power. Angelica didn’t know what to think. All she knew was that if the indicator light on her wristband flashed blue, she had to get the hell out of there or die in a render’s mandibles.

  The girl didn’t know how lucky she was. If a render had gotten this Hector but spared her …

  Angelica set down the rifle next to the toys and sat on the cot. The girl wasted no time falling into Angelica’s awkward embrace, crying loudly. Angelica brushed the girl’s fine hair with her fingertips.

  Minutes later, the girl quieted. Angelica thought she had fallen asleep until she sniffled and spoke. “My name’s Wisteria. What’s yours?”

  “Angelica.”

  “I’m going to call you Angie.”

  Angelica stiffened. A nickname? The idea of one both warmed and frightened her. “Okay. That’s fine, I guess.”

  Wisteria looked up at her, eyes pleading. “Can you find Hector for me?”

  Angelica’s fingers paused, but only briefly. She hadn’t seen any bodies lying around, but a render wouldn’t leave much behind anyway. And what if she did find something? Did she really want to show the shredded remains of a corpse to this little girl?

  But it had been eighty-six days since Angelica had last seen signs of human habitation. And many, many years since someone else had needed her.

  “Sure,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “What does he look like?”

  Wisteria leaned back and held her hands about a foot apart. “He’s about this big, and red all over.”

  Angelica’s eyes widened in shock. “What?” Had Wisteria already seen what the renders had done to him?

  “And he has a horn like this.” The girl placed her fist at her forehead, one finger sticking out. “And he had a tail a long time ago, but now—”

  “A tail? Just what is Hector?”

  Wisteria stared at Angelica as if she were the child. “He’s a unicorn, of course.”

  O O O

  Wind groaned over the opening in the ceiling as short sprays of rain arced into the hallway in intermittent bursts. Angelica made her way back the way she’d come, stepping over the patch of mud where she had first seen the footprints. Looking for a child’s toy wasn’t a complete waste of time, she told herself. Since she would be looking through the trash heap for anything she could use anyway, she might as well do what she could to help her new friend feel better. Much to her own surprise, Angelica felt no resentment at the task. If nothing else, it helped her forget her own problems, if only for a moment.

  The moment didn’t last long. As she turned at the T-intersection, her stomach grumbled loudly. She took a sip of the stale water in her canteen. She’d given Wisteria the piece of biscuit she had been saving. The girl said she had no food, that she hadn’t needed any until Hector got lost. A nice fiction, Angelica admitted, one that had likely helped the girl deal with the horrors she had seen. Angelica knew there was no shortage of those since the renders had come.

  The water helped, but only a little. She would have to collect some rainwater at some point, though it looked like there’d be time enough for that when she was on the road.

  There weren’t many places to look for Hector, and most were too small for her to fit. Only when she dislodged a precariously situated car hood did she find a recess, filled almost to the rim with muck. Hector the unicorn lay in it, out of reach. His red-glazed ceramic body was broken into several pieces. There was no way she could fix him, even if she could reach him. She almost wept to think how Wisteria would react, knowing that the one thing she counted on couldn’t help her anymore.

  She sat back on her haunches. Why was she even worrying about it? No matter what Angelica did, the girl would be dead in a few days. There was no food here, and even if she decided to take Wisteria with her, they would die on the way to the next city—either from starvation or the renders.

  So why was she trying to think of a solution? Why did she insist on making this girl happy? Why did any of this matter? She didn’t know. But when the solution finally came to her, she felt the beginnings of a smile form on her face as she went to work.

  O O O

  “Here. I know it’s not Hector, but it’s the best I could do.”

  Wisteria looked down at the gift in her hands. It was a piece of junk—well, actually, several pieces of junk—fastened together into an approximation of a unicorn. It was mostly bits of metal since much of the softer materials suitable for a child’s toy had long ago rotted away. Angelica had been able to salvage some coarse cloth to make the mane and tail, however. In that way, this one was even better than the original.

  It was much smaller than Hector h
ad been, its corkscrew horn barely extending beyond the edge of the girl’s cupped hands. Wisteria studied it for a while, brow furrowed. “I’m still hungry,” she said quietly. Then she looked up. “Hector was red.” The way she said this suggested the two facts were related, though if they were, Angelica couldn’t see the connection. Children’s logic was impenetrable.

  No matter. “Here,” Angelica said. The smile came easily this time. “I’ll fix him up.” She took the unicorn out into the hallway, rolled up her sleeve, and cut a strip of fabric from the hem of her undershirt with the bowie knife sheathed at her hip. Then she rested the edge of the blade against her bare arm and took several deep breaths. She briefly thought about the risk of infection, but then chuckled. If she lived long enough for that to matter, she was far luckier than she had any right to be.

  Gritting her teeth, she drew the blade across her skin.

  Once she finished painting the unicorn red, Angelica bound her wound tightly with the strip of cloth, rolled down her sleeve, and blew on the unicorn until it was dry enough. Already it was darkening, but it still looked somewhat red. She dabbed at her eyes with a clean spot on her sleeve and mastered the throbbing in her arm until her breath didn’t quaver so much.

  Holding the unicorn in her hands as if presenting a gift to a princess, she returned to the room where Wisteria waited.

  Wisteria didn’t ask where she had gotten red paint or why Angelica’s arm was bandaged, but she stared at the unicorn for a long moment. “Yes,” the girl whispered. “This will do.”

  She accepted it gingerly, and Angelica swore she saw something, a flash of light maybe, sweep over the girl. It was gone before Angelica could process it. It could’ve been the guttering of the lamp, but it felt like something in the air had changed the moment the girl accepted the gift Angelica had made.

  “Are you going to name it?”

  “Yes. Her name is Angie.” Wisteria’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m not hungry anymore. But I am sleepy.”

  She crawled onto the cot, clutching her new unicorn tightly to her chest in spite of all its sharp edges.

  Angelica turned down the lamp until it was almost off and pulled the tattered bath towel up to Wisteria’s chin to tuck her in.