The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2010

by Elizabeth Bear

  Boxes belonging to the Rowe family. To the Rowe kid.

  Oh, please. The Rowes had been gone for almost thirty years. Anything in the basement would belong to the Sullivans, a lovely old couple now living in Florida.

  On the way to the basement, Tanya passed the kitchen. She stopped. She looked at the drawer where Nathan kept the knife, then walked over and opened it. Just taking a look, seeing if she remembered her sister giving it to them, not making sure it was still there. It was. And it still didn’t look familiar.

  She started to leave, then went back, took out the knife, wrapped it in a dishtowel, and stuck it under the sink. And, yes, she felt like an idiot. But she felt relief even more.

  She slipped down to the basement, praying she wouldn’t find Nathan sitting on the floor, staring into nothing, nodding to voices she couldn’t hear. Again, she felt foolish for thinking it, and again she felt relief when she heard him digging through boxes, and more relief yet when she walked in and he looked up, grinning sheepishly like a kid caught sneaking into his Christmas presents.

  “Caught me,” he said. “Was it the music? I thought I had it low enough.”

  She followed his gaze and a chill ran through her. Across the room was a record player, an album spinning on the turntable, more stacked on the floor.

  “Found it down here with the albums. Been a while since you’ve seen one of those, I bet.”

  “Was it . . . his? The Rowe boy?”

  Nathan frowned, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “Could be, I guess. I didn’t think of that.”

  He walked over and shut the player off. Tanya picked up an album. Initials had been scrawled in black marker in the corner. t.r. What was the Rowe boy’s name? She didn’t know and couldn’t bring herself to ask Nathan, would rather believe he didn’t know, either.

  She glanced at him. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. I think I napped this afternoon, while you were out. Couldn’t get to sleep.”

  “And otherwise . . . ?”

  He looked at her, trying to figure out what she meant, but what could she say? Have you had the feeling of being not yourself lately? Hearing voices telling you to murder your family?

  She had to laugh at that. Yes, it was a ragged laugh, a little unsure of itself; but a laugh nonetheless. No more horror movies for her, however much her sister pleaded.

  “Are you okay?” Nathan asked.

  She nodded. “Just tired.”

  “I don’t doubt it, the way you’ve been going. Come on. Let’s get up to bed.” He grinned. “See if I can’t help us both get to sleep.”

  The next day, she was in the office, adding her first bookings to the ledger when she saw the folder pushed off to the side, the one Nathan had compiled on the Rowe murders. She’d set it down that day and never picked it up again. She could tell herself she’d simply forgotten, but she was never that careless. She hadn’t read it because her newly traitorous imagination didn’t need any more grist for its mill.

  But now she thought of that album cover in the basement. Those initials. If it didn’t belong to the Rowe boy, then this was an easy way to confirm that and set her mind at ease.

  The first report was right there on top, the names listed, the family first, then the housekeeper, Madelyn Levy, and finally, the supposed killer, seventeen-year-old Timothy Rowe.

  Tanya sucked in a deep breath, then chastised herself. What did that prove? She’d known he listened to that kind of music, and that’s all Nathan had been doing—listening to it, not sharpening a knife, laughing maniacally.

  Was it so surprising that the Rowes’ things were still down there? Who else would claim them? The Sullivans had been over fifty when they moved in—maybe they’d never ventured down into the basement. There had certainly been enough room to store things upstairs.

  And speaking of the Sullivans, they’d lived in this house for twenty-five years. If it was haunted, would they have stayed so long?

  If it was haunted? Was she really considering the possibility? She squeezed her eyes shut. She was not that kind of person. She would not become that kind of person. She was rational and logical, and until she saw something that couldn’t be explained by simple common sense, she was sending her imagination to the corner for a time-out.

  The image made her smile a little, enough to settle back and read the article, determined now to prove her fancies wrong. She found her proof in the next paragraph, where it said that Timothy Rowe shot his father. Shot. No big, scary butcher—

  Her gaze stuttered on the rest of the line. She went back to the beginning, rereading. Timothy Rowe had apparently started his rampage by shooting his father, then continued on to brutally murder the rest of his family with a ten-inch kitchen carving knife.

  And what did that prove? Did she think Nathan had dug up the murder weapon with those old LPs? Of course not. A few lines down, it said that both the gun and knife had been recovered.

  What if Nathan bought a matching one? Compelled to reenact—

  She pressed her fists against her eyes. Nathan possessed by a killer teen, plotting to kill her? Was she losing her mind? It was Nathan—the same good-natured, carefree guy she’d lived with for ten years. Other than a few bouts of confusion, he was his usual self, and those bouts were cause for a doctor’s appointment, not paranoia.

  She skimmed through the rest of the articles. Nothing new there, just the tale retold again and again, until—the suspect dead—the story died a natural death, relegated to being a skeleton in the town’s closet.

  The last page was a memorial published on the first anniversary of the killings, with all the photos of the victims. Tanya glanced at the family photo and was about to close the folder when her gaze lit on the picture of the housekeeper: Madelyn Levy.

  When Nathan came in a few minutes later, she was still staring at the picture.

  “Hey, hon. What’s wrong?”

  “I—” She pointed at the housekeeper’s photo. “I’ve seen this woman. She—she was outside, when we were looking at the house. She was picking raspberries.”

  The corners of Nathan’s mouth twitched, as if he was expecting—hoping—that she was making a bad joke. When her gaze met his, the smile vanished and he took the folder from her hands, then sat on the edge of the desk.

  “I think we should consider selling,” he said.

  “Wh-what? No. I—”

  “This place is getting to you. Maybe—I don’t know. Maybe there is something. Those workers certainly thought so. Some people could be more susceptible—”

  She jerked up straight. “I am not susceptible—”

  “You lost a job you loved. You left your home, your family, gave up everything to start over, and now it’s not going the way you dreamed. You’re under a lot of stress and it’s only going to get worse when we open.”

  He took her hands and tugged her up, his arms going around her. “The guy who owns the Beamsville bed-and-breakfast has been asking about this place. He’d been eyeing it before, but with all the work it needed, it was too much for him. Now he’s seen what we’ve done and, well, he’s interested. Very interested. You wouldn’t be giving up; you’d be renovating an old place and flipping it for a profit. Nothing wrong with that.”

  She stood. “No. I’m being silly, and I’m not giving in. We have two weeks until opening, and there’s a lot of work to be done.”

  She turned back to her paperwork. He sighed and left the room.

  It got worse after that, as if in refusing to leave, she’d issued a challenge to whatever lived there. She’d now stopped laughing when she caught herself referring to the spirits as if they were real. They were. She’d come to accept that. Seeing the housekeeper’s picture had exploded the last obstacle. She’d wanted a haunted house and she’d gotten it.

  For the last two nights, she’d woken to find herself alone in bed. Both times, Nathan had been downstairs listening to that damned music. The first time, he’d been digging through the boxes, wide awake, blamin
g insomnia. But last night . . .

  Last night, she’d gone down to find him talking to someone. She’d tried to listen, but he was doing more listening than talking himself, and she caught only a few um-hmms and okays before he’d apparently woken up, startled and confused. They’d made an appointment to see the doctor after that. An appointment that was still a week away, which didn’t do Tanya any good now, sitting awake in bed alone on the third night, listening to the strains of distant music.

  She forced herself to lie back down. Just ignore it. Call the doctor in the morning, tell him Nathan would take any cancellation.

  But lying down didn’t mean falling asleep. As she lay there, staring at the ceiling, she made a decision. Nathan was right. There was no shame in flipping the house for a profit. Tell their friends and family they’d decided small-town life wasn’t for them. Smile coyly when asked how much they’d made on the deal.

  No shame in that. None at all. No one ever needed to know what had driven her from this house.

  She closed her eyes and was actually on the verge of drifting off when she heard Nathan’s footsteps climbing the basement stairs. Coming to bed? She hoped so, but she could still hear the boom and wail of the music. Nathan’s steps creaked across the first level. A door opened. Then the squeak of a cupboard door. A kitchen cupboard door.

  Grabbing something to eat before going back downstairs.

  Only he didn’t go downstairs. His footsteps headed upstairs.

  He’s coming up to bed—just forgot to turn off the music.

  All very logical, but logical explanations didn’t work for Tanya anymore. She got out of bed and went into the dark hall. She reached for the light switch, but stopped. She didn’t dare announce herself like that.

  Clinging to the shadows, she crept along the wall until she could make out the top of Nathan’s blond head as he slowly climbed the stairs. Her gaze dropped, waiting for his hands to come into view.

  A flash of silver winked in the pale glow of a nightlight. Her breath caught. She forced herself to stay still just a moment longer, to be sure, and then she saw it, the knife gripped in his hand, the angry set of his expression, the emptiness in his eyes, and she turned and fled.

  A room. Any room. Just get into one, lock the door, and climb over the balcony.

  The first one she tried was locked. She wrenched on the doorknob, certain she was wrong.

  “Mom?” Nathan said, his voice gruff, unrecognizable. “Are you up here, Mom?”

  Tanya turned. She looked down the row of doors. All closed. Only theirs was open, at the end. She ran for it as Nathan’s footsteps thumped behind her.

  She dashed into the room, slammed the door, and locked it. As she raced for the balcony, she heard the knob turn behind her. Then the creak of the door opening. But that couldn’t be. She’d locked—

  Tanya glanced over her shoulder and saw Nathan, his face twisted with rage.

  “Hello, Mom. I have something for you.”

  Tanya grabbed the balcony door. It was already cracked open, since Nathan always insisted on fresh air. She ran out onto the balcony and looked down to the concrete patio twenty feet below. No way she could jump that, not without breaking both legs, and then she’d be trapped. Maybe if she could hang from it, then drop—

  Nathan stepped onto the balcony. Tanya backed up. She called his name, begged him to snap out of it, but he just kept coming, kept smiling, knife raised. She backed up, leaning against the railing.

  “Nathan. Plea—”

  There was a tremendous crack, and the railing gave way. She felt herself falling, dropping backward so fast that she didn’t have time to twist, to scream, and then—

  Nothing.

  Nathan escorted the innkeeper from Beamsville to the door.

  “You folks did an incredible job,” the man said. “But I really do hate to take advantage of a tragedy . . . ”

  Nathan managed a wan smile. “You’d be doing me a favor. The sooner I can get away, the happier I’ll be. Every time I drive in, I see that balcony, and I—” His voice hitched. “I keep asking myself why she went out there. I know she loved the view; she must have woken up and seen the moon and wanted a better look.” He shook his head. “I meant to fix that balcony. We did the others, but she said ours could wait, and now . . . ”

  The man laid a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Let me talk to my real estate agent and I’ll get an offer drawn up, see if I can’t take this place off your hands.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nathan closed the door and took a deep breath. He was making good use of those community-theater skills, but he really hoped he didn’t have to keep this up much longer.

  He headed into the office, giving it yet another once-over, making sure he’d gotten rid of all the evidence. He’d already checked, twice, but he couldn’t be too careful.

  There wasn’t much to hide. The old woman had been an actor friend of one of his theater buddies, and even if she came forward, what of it? Tanya had wanted a haunted house and he’d hired her to indulge his wife’s fancy.

  Adding the woman’s photo to the article had been simple Photoshop work, the files—paper and electronic—long gone now. The workmen really had been scared off by the haunting, which he’d orchestrated. The only person who knew about his “bouts” was Tanya. And he’d been very careful with the balcony, loosening the nails just enough that her weight would rip them from the rotting wood.

  Killing Tanya hadn’t been his original intention. But when she’d refused to leave, he’d been almost relieved. As if he didn’t mind having to fall back on the more permanent solution, get the insurance money as well as the inheritance, go back home, hook up with Denise again—if she’d still have him—and open the kind of business he wanted. There’d been no chance of that while Tanya was alive. Her money. Her rules. Always.

  He opened the basement door, stepped down, and almost went flying, his foot sending a hammer clunking down a few stairs. He retrieved it, wondering how it got there, then shoved it into his back pocket and—

  The ring of the phone stopped his descent. He headed back up to answer it.

  “Restrictions?” Nathan bellowed into the phone. “What do you mean restrictions? How long—?”

  He paused.

  “A year? I have to live here a year?”

  Pause.

  “Look, can’t there be an exception under the circumstances? My wife died in this house. I need to get out of here.”

  Tanya stepped up behind Nathan and watched the hair on his neck rise. He rubbed it down and absently looked over his shoulder, then returned to his conversation. She stepped back, caught a glimpse of the hammer in his pocket, and sighed. So much for that idea. But she had plenty more, and it didn’t sound like Nathan was leaving anytime soon.

  She slid up behind him, arms going around his waist, smiling as he jumped and looked around. Her house might not have been haunted when she’d bought it. But it was now.

  About the Author

  Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers’ dismay. All efforts to make her produce “normal” stories failed. Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She’s the author of the New York Times-best-selling Women of the Otherworld paranormal suspense series and Darkest Powers young adult urban fantasy trilogy, as well as the Nadia Stafford crime series. Armstrong lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, three kids, and far too many pets.

  Story Notes

  When we moved to a house built in 1918, my daughter really wanted it to be haunted. She thought it would be so cool. I’ve lived here more than twenty years now, and we’ve still never seen a ghost.

  One of two tales selected from a fiftieth anniversary Twilight Zone tribute anthology, Kelly Armstrong�
��s story provided not only the twists one might expect from such a theme, but delved into our modern fascination with “real” ghosts and hauntings: We watch “paranormal investigations” on TV and haunted locales attract tourism. We have a notion that supernatural intrusion raises a few goosebumps but ultimately spooks are fun.

  When things get a little too scary for Tanya, the cause is all-too-human. For Nathan, though . . .

  HEADSTONE IN YOUR POCKET

  PAUL TREMBLAY

  The sun is high but it feels low, its heat close and heavy enough to push heads down and slump shoulders. Border Patrol Agent Joe Marquez runs his hand along the tractor-trailer and chips of white paint break off and crumble to dust under his fingertips like dried leaves from a dead houseplant. There are rustling noises inside the truck, trapped spirits, humanity in a tin can. He wonders if they’ll emerge in any better shape than the trailer’s paint job.

  Two agents pin the driver against the truck’s chrome grille. He yells, claiming the hot chrome burns his skin. The agents don’t care, don’t say anything, and handcuff him. The smuggler is priority one. The cargo can wait.

  Joe jogs the length of the trailer and yells ahead, “Let’s go, get those doors open, now!”

  Local commuters and smugglers and immigrants know the Tubac checkpoint’s schedule. The checkpoint is thirty miles south of Tucson and thirty miles north of Nogales and the Mexico-U.S. border. It was supposed to be closed at this mid-afternoon hour, but the Border Patrol office in Tucson, which prominently features a photo of John Wayne (circa The Alamo) on its wall, received an anonymous tip, a tip that turned out to be true.

  One agent turns the rusted handle and throws open the trailer’s doors while another agent aims his automatic rifle. Heat, sweat, and a low, desperate collected conversation rush out of the trailer and into the surrounding desert. There is no air conditioning and the temperature inside is over one hundred and ten degrees. Flashlights penetrate the darkness and reveal a mass of bodies, scores of men picking up their heads but hiding their eyes, holding out empty hands.