FAMILY FUN ZONE
BAD LANGUAGE
NO VIOLENCE
LOITERING
He moved on.
Ahead was the old carousel, closed for the night, and opposite it a large unfinished building: FUTURE HOME OF THE MUSEUM OF MARINE MAMMALS. Farther along, at the tip of the pier, only a bait and tackle shop, and beyond that darkness.
Behind him, the waterfront restaurants and shops and street signs pointing the way into a strange town.
I could go back, he thought. But what’s left?
What have I done?
I identified with my role, ignoring everything else; that was my mistake. If you do that sort of thing, you become that sort of animal. I was too lost in the game to realize. And now it has come due at last, an empty sum with nothing to draw on. The good eroded by the bad, as if it never existed.
Only this moment.
That was why they gave us memory. Without it everything else falls away, the legacy of the past is trashed and we are left stranded.
The logic is perfect. The future created by the present, the present by the past . . .
But there is one part they don’t tell you.
It works retroactively—in both directions.
Now a rumbling sounded directly beneath him, as if the earth were about to open.
It was the tide rolling in, clacking the stones, pounding the boulders and resounding through each fractional inch of the shoreline.
He held the rail.
Out there, he knew, was the rock where something lived, something old, a species out of touch with the mainland and all but forgotten. Were they trapped? Unless someone came to show the way, they would remain there, cut off, until they were finally dragged to shore and installed as curiosities in the marine museum to die.
He wanted to go out there, to be there with them. But the sea was dark, and even the jetty was lost to him now.
A sudden breeze stirred.
He thought he heard a cry drifting in on the waves.
He listened intently, until the cry was no longer distinguishable from any other sound in the night.
Then he shivered as the breeze strafed the pier, swept the boards and returned to the open sea.
The white form of a pelican rose above the breakers and began to circle slowly, its pale wings extended as if anticipating an embrace. As the circle widened to include the pier, it came to rest atop the carousel enclosure.
His eyes followed the line of the roof down to the boardwalk.
Incredibly, the mime was still there. So taken with his role, perhaps, that he was not aware of the hour, unwilling or unable to leave.
You may as well go home now, he thought. It’s over.
He walked past, turned and came back, studying the face that was frozen behind a mask of greasepaint.
The mime stared straight ahead, at a spot on the horizon where the sun had gone down.
“Hi.”
The mime did not move a muscle.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Remember? This afternoon. You called me—something. A name. What was it?”
He moved in, closing the distance between them until their faces were inches apart.
“What did you call me?” he said. “I can’t remember.”
The mime refused to answer.
“Please. I need to know.”
They stood there facing each other. Time passed, each second slipping into the next and lost forever. He waited, but there was no response.
J. L. COMEAU
Taking Care of Michael
JUDITH LYNN COMEAU’s story “Firebird”, a fast-paced blend of police procedural and witchcraft, was one of the best received stories we included in Best New Horror 2. She returns in this volume with a much shorter, but no less impressive, contribution.
A full-time writer since 1987, whose interests include aviculture, ancient music, 18th and 19th century English novels, textile arts, anthropology, archaeology, psychology and “all things dark and horrible”, her fiction can be found in such anthologies as The Women Who Walk Through Fire, Women of the West, The Year’s Best Horror Stories: XIX, Borderlands 2 and Hottest Blood.
She recently completed her first novel, entitled Haunted Landscapes.
MICHAEL’S EAR FALLS INTO THE BATHWATER with a loud plunk and I have to remember not to scrub so hard when I wash him. Momma would’ve had a fit before she got so quiet, but Michael doesn’t seem to mind. I blow a sweaty strand of hair away from my forehead and fish around the bottom of the tub with one hand for the lost part. I need my other hand to hold on to Michael. Wouldn’t want him to fall under the water, too! I find his ear soon enough and stick it back onto the hole in the side of his head where it came from, but it keeps sliding off back into the water. Finally, I give up and lift Michael into his roller chair where I wipe him dry real good with a big fluffy towel nice and hot from the clothes dryer.
Just think what Momma would say about that ear! She thinks I never do anything right. Michael, he was always the smart one. He made good grades in school and always had lots of friends. Popular, you know? And Michael was always good to me, too, sticking up for me when the other kids laughed at me or called me ugly names and ran away. One time, the kids left me out in the woods holding an empty pillowcase. They said they were going to fan out and drive some kind of animals called “snipes” toward me so I could catch them in the pillowcase. I was real happy that the kids let me play with them and I waited and waited, but the snipes never came and neither did the kids. I found out later that they all laughed and went home. I don’t see what was so funny, do you?
Anyway, Michael came into the woods the next day and found me still holding the pillowcase and waiting. He never said a word about the way I’d peed and messed my pants. That’s Michael for you. A real prince of a young man, like Momma always used to say.
One day Momma came in my room crying and told me Michael crashed his little red car and was hurt real bad: broke his neck, she said. When they brought him home from the hospital, Michael was in a chair with wheels and couldn’t move his arms or legs or talk or anything. He could move his mouth a little, and his eyes, that’s all. So Momma took care of Michael, feeding him and bathing him and shaving him and everything. It’s too bad about Michael, Momma said all the time. We’ve got to take care of your brother now.
But then a couple of weeks ago, Momma never got up from the couch after watching Jeopardy. She’s still there in the front room, sitting on the sofa in front of the television set. She watches the television all day and all night, even when there’s nothing on but fuzz and static. Momma never blinks, even though her eyeballs got all dried and crusty. I guess she just got tired from taking care of Michael all the time.
I don’t mind taking care of Michael while Momma rests. He’s my brother and I’d do anything for him. He’s always been good to me and now it’s my turn to be good to him.
I’m going to shave Michael’s face now. Momma always said she hated whiskers on a man, even before we took Daddy out to the big green park with trees and rocks and buried him in a long box in the ground. I like the sound Daddy’s straight razor makes on the leather strop hooked to the bathroom wall. Whop, whop, whop, it goes. It doesn’t take long until the blade’s sharp enough to split a long black hair I pull out of my own head.
I turn to Michael with a smile, but Michael doesn’t smile back because I accidentally slipped and cut off his lips the last time I shaved his face. But I can tell by the way his eyes roll around that he’s ready for Daddy’s big, sharp razor. This time I’ll try not to slice off anything by mistake.
Like Momma always says, “Practice makes perfect.” And I’m getting better all the time.
THOMAS TESSIER
The Dreams of Dr Ladybank
THOMAS TESSIER was born in Connecticut, where he currently lives. Educated at University College, Dublin, he spent several years in London working as a freelance journalist and publisher.
Tessier is the author of thr
ee volumes of poetry and a trio of plays that were professionally staged, and his novels include The Fates, The Nightwalker, Shockwaves, Phantom, Finishing Touches, Secret Strangers and The White Gods. His short fiction has been collected in The Lady Crossing and Other Tales of Panic.
The novella which follows proves that Tessier’s view of people and the world is becoming, if possible, even bleaker.
A Divine Image
Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror, the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress
The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal’d
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.
—William Blake
PROLOGUE
“It’s an amusing thought, Ian, but . . .”
“Impossible.”
“Well, yes.”
“Science fiction.”
“And weak on the science,” Jack said.
“But doesn’t the idea itself excite you?”
“Not really. I mean, what’s the point? Everyone knows it’s a dead end. Besides, even if it were possible, and I’m not for a moment admitting that it is, but if it were, you’d probably wind up with a raving psychotic on your hands, and that’s not my idea of fun. Psychotics are very boring people.”
“Psychosis is by no means inevitable.”
“This is a splendid malt, by the way.”
“Help yourself to more.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“The point you’re refusing to acknowledge is the simple fact of communication, establishing once and for all that it really is possible. My God, Jack, that’s a huge leap and you know it. You can’t deny it.”
“And you can’t prove it.”
“Perhaps I can.”
“Well, I’d love to see it.”
“What would you say if I told you I’ve found a suitable mind for the experiment?”
“I’d say she’s probably young, impressionable, quite pretty, very malleable, and a great piece of ass.”
“Jack.”
“But I’m afraid that your getting her in bed and fucking her brains out will not be widely accepted as scientific proof.”
“All right, I give up.”
“Ah, don’t stop now, Ian. I’m enjoying this. I haven’t had such a good mix of booze and bullshit since college, when we used to sit up late at night, trying to figure out what the hell an ethic was, and how to get around it. We called those sessions the Utica Club, because that’s all we could afford to drink.”
“But I’m serious.”
“Okay, you’re serious, and you’ve got this, uh . . .”
“Subject.”
“Right, subject.”
“Two of them, actually,” Ian said with a hint of smugness in his tight smile. “Two young men.”
“Men, huh? You must be serious.”
“Yes, and the fact that there are two of them should provide proof enough to justify continuing the research, don’t you think? One might be a fluke, but two different people, who are strangers to each other, who respond and meet and interact by design—you would take that seriously, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure, but come on, Ian. You can’t do that with people. If you could, somebody would have discovered it by now. It’s not as if we’re completely ignorant of how the brain works. What it can and can’t do—and I’ll tell you one thing, it can’t do that.”
“The human brain does generate extremely low frequency radio waves, ELF signals. That’s a well-known fact.”
“Yes, but you can’t do anything with them.”
“If you say so.”
“Not like you’re talking about.”
“We’ll see.”
“So, are these guys patients of yours?”
“No, they’re just a couple of losers I met.”
“And they agreed to go along with whatever it is you plan to try out on them, this experiment?”
“They don’t know anything about it.”
“What?”
“That would ruin everything, Jack. If they knew, they would expect, and expectation would contaminate their minds. Of course I haven’t told them anything.”
“Uh, have you ever heard of ethics, Ian?”
“Which one did you have in mind?”
“Oh, the one about not experimenting on people without their knowledge and consent. Seems to me there might even be some kind of a law about that.”
“Tsk, tsk.”
“What exactly is it you intend to do?”
“Nothing. That’s the beauty of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll just be thinking, Jack. That’s all. Thinking of them and perhaps even for them.”
“Ah, that’s all right. Thinking isn’t against the law, not yet anyway. But how will you know if it works?”
“I’m not sure, but I imagine it will become apparent one way or another.”
“Well, if it does work, let me handle the legal side of it. Maybe we can sell it to Sony, ha-ha.”
“That’s a thought.”
“I can see it now. Everybody will go around wearing a smart little beanie on their head, with an antenna sticking up. They’d sell like Walkmans—or should it be Walkmen?”
By the time Jack finally left, after sopping up a good deal more single malt scotch, Doctor Ian Ladybank was almost sorry he had mentioned his little secret. But he had to tell someone, and Jack was the closest thing to a friend he had. You can’t stumble across something like that and then not want to shout about it.
Nor was it really a little secret; it was serious, major, an awesome challenge. He was sure it had in fact been discovered by others, in the past, although they might not have understood what it was the way he did. It was a skill, it had limits, and it was suitable only for personal purposes.
Amazing, how it had happened. Doctor Ladybank had given the matter a lot of thought over the years. The brain was his hobby, as well as his vocation. He read everything that came out and he even made a special study of radio science. His obsession wasn’t his alone—there were other people active in the field. He was aware, for instance, of the theory that some UFO sightings may be triggered by localized disturbances in the earth’s magnetic field that interfered with the wave cycles in the observer’s brain. It was a matter of some significance to Doctor Ladybank—although few others seemed to consider it important—that the earth, the planet itself, was constantly broad-casting its own ELF waves, and that they were remarkably similar to those generated by the human brain. He devised his own mental exercises, instructing his mind to do what it had never done before.
All of this led nowhere until a young woman named Shelly had come to see him, not long ago. She thought she was stigmatic and she had the wounds to prove it. Her case was not as interesting as it had seemed at first glance but she was an attractive little creature. In his waiting room, as he was showing her out, Doctor Ladybank suddenly found himself wishing, or willing, that Shelly would reach up and touch her breast. A silly but typical erotic fancy, borne no doubt of mid-afternoon tedium. The girl did not respond, but her boyfriend, who had accompanied her to the office and was standing nearby, absently rubbed his Megadeath T-shirt at the spot where it covered his left nipple. The young man’s blank expression indicated complete ignorance.
Stunned, Doctor Ladybank at first could not bring himself to believe what had apparently just taken place. It was too easy to be true. But yes, he had felt a tiny mental spasm at the instant the thought—wish, command, whatever—formed within his mind. Doctor Ladybank was flushed with a sense of accomplishment, happy as a boy who suddenly flicks his wrist in precisely the right way and at last manages to skip a rock across water.
He stood by the window in his office a few minutes later and watched Shelly and her boyfriend walk away down the street. When they were almost out of sight, Doctor Ladybank
had a parting idea for them—and sure enough, the boyfriend’s hand swung around to pat Shelly’s ass. That evening Doctor Ladybank thought about the boyfriend again. You need to talk to me. Urgently. Less than a minute later, the telephone rang. He was Alvin Doolittle, but he preferred the nickname Snake.
The other one was sent to Doctor Ladybank, like many of his cases, by the juvenile court. Tony Delgado was only sixteen, but he had his own apartment, a trick pad near the river in the south end of the city. It was a decrepit neighborhood, full of rotting old tenements and abandoned factories, a tidal basin of foundered lives, but it provided all the tolerance and anonymity needed for Tony to practice his trade.
Doctor Ladybank quickly sized the boy up as innately Machian in affect. What Tony possessed was not quite a mind, but more of a constantly shifting panorama of received images and sensations. He learned little but survived, thanks to an underlying canniness that for nearly three years had helped him dodge both the law and the retribution of the streets. A minor stupidity had led him to juvenile court, which promply fobbed him off on Doctor Ladybank, who within a quarter of an hour had the youth uttering numbers in German while tugging at his earlobes.
It was a discovery that should be important. It should give Doctor Ladybank power, fame, wealth—all the usual prizes. The only trouble was, he didn’t know how to take the next step. What to do with this fantastic skill. How could he present it in such a way that would satisfy the scientific community? He could make videotapes of sessions with Snake and Tony, inducing all kinds of bizarre and unlikely behavior, but that would prove nothing. Not the least of Doctor Ladybank’s problems was the painful fact that this skill of his simply didn’t work with most people. He tried it with everyone he met now, but the original poor fools were the only two in the plus column. In spite of the odds against it, he was dogged by a fear that both of them really were flukes. Maybe it was just a freak of nature, devoid of any principle or broader application. But even if that were so, there was still a measure of personal satisfaction in what he was doing.
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