The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

“Anyhow, I can’t afford it.”

  She seldom spoke with Joan now. The subject had worn her feelings raw.

  “Damn it, Joan,” she said in 16 P’s hallway, “why did you have to leave?”

  The front bedroom door was ajar in a foot and a half of water. She pushed and heard it butt against something. Slowly she craned her neck around.

  The two oriental corpses floated on their faces, backs arched, arms and legs hanging down into brown water swirled with red. Ethel gagged at the stench. The youths’ long black hair waved like seaweed, their shoulders rocking limply. Catfish and eels nibbled on waving tendrils of human skin and guts.

  Retching, Ethel grabbed one of the boys under his armpit and hauled him over onto his back. The bodies had been gutted, bullets gouged out of their chests, leaving no evidence. Periwinkle snails crawled in bloody sockets where the killers had cut out their victims’ eyes and sliced off their lips. Each youth’s left hand had been amputated. Ethel searched the water until she found one, a bloated white starfish with a Pran gang tattoo on its palm.

  She remembered last night’s gunshots in Hull Bay. You did not deserve this, she thought to the ruined face, letting it slip back into the water. No one deserved this, not even waterkids.

  Of course she knew who did it. Everyone knew who executed waterkids. That was the point. The men on Hog Island wanted you to know. Thcy wanted Hull to themselves. The bodies were reminders. And incentive.

  In the distance she heard the chatter of several approaching engines. More Cambodian waterkids coming. Hastily she wiped vomit from her mouth and rushed out of the house.

  Jumping into the whaler, she untied Queequeg’s painter and turned his key, shoving the throttle down hard as his engine caught. But not quickly enough. Before she could get away, four dark gray whalers surrounded her, Pran gang chop signs airbrushed beautifully onto their fiberglass gunwales.

  “Hey, grandma.” Their leader stood cockily in the stern of his boat while his helmsman grinned. He wore immaculate brown leather pants and a World War II flight jacket, unmarked by spray or moisture. “What’s your hurry? Seen a ghost?”

  Queequeg rocked slightly as the waves from their sudden arrival washed underneath him. “Yes,” Ethel answered.

  “Find anything valuable?”

  “Nothing you’d want.” Unconsciously she touched her breast pocket. “Nothing you can fence.”

  “Really? Let’s see.” His boat drifted up against hers and he leaped across into her stern, landing on sure sea legs. “You keep your stuff here?” he scornfully pointed at the plastic sailboat, mugging for his guffawing friends. He kicked it over with his boot and rummaged around among the floorboards. “Hey, Wayne! Huang! We got any use for taco shells?” He held them aloft.

  “No, man,” they answered gleefully.

  “All right, grandma, guess we’ll have to look elsewhere.” He dropped the box and turned. As she started to relax, he wheeled. “What’s in your pocket?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “In your pocket,” he snapped.

  “A letter and a photograph,” she said steadily.

  “A naked man, maybe?” the Pran leader chortled. “Let’s see it.” She opened her sou’wester and handed the picture to him. Waving it like a small fan, he stepped back into his own boat. “Worthless.” He pointed it at her like a prod. “Pran gang combs first, grandma. Understand? Otherwise the next time I won’t just tip over your toy boat. You understand?” He tossed the photo over his shoulder.

  Ethel watched it flutter down onto the water, and nodded. “I understand.”

  He gestured and they started their engines, moving down P Street toward the empty house.

  Ethel debated with herself. Keeping silent was too risky—they could always find her later. “Check the front bedroom,” she called after them.

  He stopped the engine and swung back. “What?” he asked ominously.

  “Check the front bedroom. Your two missing friends are there.”

  The Cambodian teenager’s broad face whitened. “Dead?”

  She nodded mutely.

  “Those bastards,” he said softly.

  “I’m sorry.” She clasped her hands before her.

  “Sorry?” he shrieked in misery, the hurt child suddenly breaking through his tough façade. “What do you know about sorry?” Their boats leapt away. “What do you know about sorry?”

  As the sounds of their engines receded, Ethel slowly let out her breath. Hands trembling, she engaged Queequeg’s throttle and slowly circled. Sure enough, the snapshot was suspended about three feet below the surface. Ethel lifted her gaffing net and dragged it by the spot, scooping up the picture. The water had curled it and she dried it on her thigh, then returned it to her pocket.

  Glancing back at the boats now moored at 16 P, she quickly cut in the whaler’s engine with a roar, carving a double white plume behind her.

  * * *

  For the rest of the morning Ethel and Queequeg combed the alphabet streets on Hull’s submerged flatlands. Nearly all of these houses had long since been abandoned, and she neither stopped nor slowed. Frequently she twisted to check behind her, but there was no sign of the waterkids.

  By eleven she had finished W, X, and Y, tiny alleyways that butted against Allerton Hill. Trees at its base were gray and leafless, drowned by the rising seawater. Terry Flaherty had lived on W, she remembered. A short chubby boy with big eyes and a giggle that never stopped, he was someplace in Connecticut now, selling mutual funds. Probably forgotten all the eleventh-grade American history she’d taught him.

  As she passed Allerton Point, she looked across the harbor to glass-and-steel Boston. The downtown folks were talking about building walls to hold back the sea that rose as the city sank, but with no money, Hull literally could not afford to save itself. Every storm took more houses, washing out the ground underneath so they fell like sandcastles.

  Ethel’s house at 22 K was on the far leeward side, as safe as you could be on the flatland, but even it had suffered damage and was endangered.

  Town government was disintegrating. People no longer paid property taxes, no longer voted. Nobody ran for selectman, nobody cared. For protection, folks relied on themselves or bought it from Hog Island or the Cambodian waterkids. At night, the long black peterborough boats moved sleekly in the harbor, navigating by infrared. Ethel stayed inside then.

  Most of Hull High School was submerged, the brick portico columns standing like piers in the shallow water. The football field was a mudflat.

  Forty-one years of history students, all gone, all memories.

  When she was young, her students had sniggered that Ethel was a dyke. As she aged, firmly single and unromantic, they had claimed she was a transsexual wrestler. When she reached fifty, they had started saying she was eccentric. At sixty, they had called her crazy.

  The jibes always hurt, though she concealed it. After each year was over, fortunately, all she could remember were the names and faces of those whose lives she had affected.

  Standing at Queequeg’s bow, she left a long scimitar of foam as she circled the buildings. The old school was disappearing, windows shattered, corridors full of stagnant water. She had taken Queequeg inside once before to her old classroom, but was eventually driven out by the reek of decomposing flesh from a cat that had been trapped inside and starved.

  Ethel closed her eyes, hearing once again the clatter of the period bell, the clamor as kids ran through the corridors, talking at the top of their lungs. Mothers whom she taught had sent their daughters to Hull High School. In her last few years, she had even taught a few granddaughters of former students. Made you proud.

  The high school was shut down, dark, and noiseless. Seagulls perched on its roof were her only companions.

  To break her mood, she swung onto the open sea and opened the throttle for the five-mile run to South Boston.

  The water, hard as a rock this morning, pounded into her calves and knees as the Boston whaler’s f
lat bottom washboarded across the harbor. Queequeg kicked up spray over his teak and chrome bow as she slalomed among dayglo styrofoam lobster buoys, tasting the salt spume on her lips.

  Behind and above her, a cawing flock of gulls followed, braiding the air. Queequeg’s wake pushed small fish close to the surface, under the sharp eyes of the waiting gray and white birds. One after another, the gulls swooped like a line of fighter aircraft. Their flapping wings skimming the waves, they dipped their beaks just enough to catch a fish, then soared back into line.

  Hunting and feeding, they escorted her across the harbor until she slowed and docked at the pier.

  * * *

  “Hey, Jerry,” Ethel said when she entered the store. “Got a letter for you.” She unzipped her slicker and pulled it out. “Mail it for me?”

  The storekeeper squinted at the address. “Joan Gordon? Doesn’t she live in that senior citizen community in Arlington?”

  “Old folks home, you mean.”

  “Whatever.” He suppressed a smile. “You could call her.”

  “Got no phone.”

  “No, from here.”

  “Rather write.”

  “Okay. What are you writing about?”

  Ethel shook her head. “None of your beeswax.”

  “All right,” he laughed, “we’ve been friends too long for me to complain. How you doing?”

  “I get by.”

  He leaned on the counter. “I worry about you.”

  “Oh, don’t start.”

  “Sorry.” He turned away and began rearranging cans.

  “I’m okay,” she answered, touched as always.

  “Hull gets worse every day.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “I see the news.”

  “Nonsense,” Ethel replied with bravado, dismissing his fears with a wave of her hand. “Journalists always exaggerate. Besides, one day Boston will be underwater too, same as us.”

  “I know.” Jerry sighed. “I go down to the bathhouse every Sunday for my swim. The sea’s always higher. Maybe we should move away, like Joan did. Chicago or Dallas. Somewhere. Anywhere with no ocean.”

  She laughed. “What would I do in Dallas, Jerry? How would I live?”

  “You could teach school. You’ve taught me more right here in this store than all the history books I ever read.”

  “Thanks, Jerry. But I’m sixty-eight years old. No one would hire me.”

  He was quiet. “Then I’d take care of you,” he said finally, kneading his hands.

  She looked through the window at the pier, where Queequeg bobbed on the waves. “Couldn’t do it, Jerry,” she said. It was hard to find breath. “Too old to move.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He wiped his forehead and cleared his throat. “Got your usual all set.” He put two orange plastic bags on the counter.

  “Did my check come through?” Ethel looked suspicious. “Can’t take your credit.”

  “Of course it did. It always comes through. It’s electronic.”

  She peered inside, shifting cans and boxes. “All right, where is it?”

  He scowled and rubbed his balding head. “Hell, you shouldn’t eat that stuff. Rots your teeth and wrecks your digestion and I don’t know what.”

  “I want my two-pound box of Whitman’s coconut, dammit.”

  “Ethel, you’re carrying too much weight. It’ll strain your heart.”

  “Been eating candy all my life, and it hasn’t hurt me yet. Wish you’d stop trying to dictate my diet.”

  “Okay, okay.” He sighed and threw up his hands, then pulled down the embossed yellow box. “No charge.” He held it out.

  “Can’t accept your charity, Jerry. You know that.”

  “That’s not it.” He was hurt and offended. “It’s my way of saying I’m sorry I tried to keep it away from you.” He gestured with the box. “Please?”

  Ethel took the chocolates. “Thank you, Jerry,” she replied somberly, laying her right hand flat on the cover. “You’ve been a good friend.”

  “Don’t talk like that!” the grocer said in exasperation. “Every time you come in here, you sound like you got one foot in the grave. It’s not wholesome.”

  “Was different this morning.” Ethel sat down, the candy held tightly in her lap. Her voice was faint, distant. “This morning I saw it. Saw my future in the water. Sooner or later, I’m going to pass away. No sense denying that.” She kicked her right foot aimlessly. “Maybe I should have accepted when you proposed.”

  “Still could,” he said, wistful. “But you won’t.”

  “No.” She shook her head just a bit.

  “Stubborn.”

  “Not stubborn.” She was gentle. “Wouldn’t be fair. You can’t live in Hull. You’ve said so before.”

  “Ethel.” Jerry wiped his hands on his apron. “I read the paper. Houses are falling into the ocean or burning down. Dangerous evil kids are running loose.”

  “I can handle the waterkids,” she said defiantly.

  “No, you can’t,” he insisted. “Drugs and crime and I don’t know what. Why won’t you leave?”

  “It’s my home,” Ethel said in a troubled voice. “My family. Friends.” She waved her hands. “My world. What I know.”

  Jerry rubbed his head again. “That world isn’t there any more. The people you knew—they’re all gone. It’s past. Over.”

  “Got no place to go,” she muttered, biting her thumbnail. “Cobbs and Good-wins have lived in Hull since colonial times. That’s something to preserve. Elijah Goodwin was a merchant captain. Sailed to China in 1820. Put flowers on his grave every Sunday noon after church. Rain or shine or Cambodian kids. Put flowers on all the Cobbs and Goodwins on Telegraph Hill. Telegraph’s an island now, but they will still be in that ground when all the flatland has gone under. Somebody has to remember them.”

  “Cripes, don’t be so morbid.” He came around behind her, put his arm around her shoulder and rubbed it.

  “I suppose.” She leaned her head in the crook of his elbow.

  Cars and buses passed in the street outside, sunlight reflecting off their windshields. He patted her shoulder.

  She covered his hand with hers. “Thanks, Jerry. You’re a good man.”

  After a moment, she rose and kissed his cheek, then hefted the bags, one to an arm. “Well, that’s that,” she called with returning jauntiness. “See you next Friday.”

  * * *

  Lost in memories, she let Queequeg take his return trip more slowly. Islands in the harbor were covered with trees and shrubs, reminding her of great submerged whales. When she neared Hog Island, at the entrance to Hull Bay, she kept a respectful distance. The Meagher boys had lived there—Dennis, Douglas, Dana, Donald, and Dapper. Their mother had always shouted for them in the order of their birth. Five rambunctious Boston-Irish hellions in seven years, usually with a black eye or a skinned knee.

  No families lived on Hog now. Castellated gray buildings had grown upward from the old Army fortress underneath. Thieves and smugglers and murderers lived in them, men who drove deep-keeled power yachts without finesse, like machetes through a forest.

  Tough sentries carrying binoculars stood lookout as she passed, scanning the horizon like big-eyed insects, their rifles out of sight. Ethel shivered. Delinquent waterkids she could evade, but the organized evil on Hog was shrewd and ruthless.

  The fish feeding on that poor child’s face, Ethel thought. The people who still lived on Hull. The men on Hog. The Cambodian kids. One way or another, all took their livelihoods from the remains of a town whose time was past. Eventually they would extract Hull’s last dollar, and they would all leave. And, in time, the rising sea would engulf everything.

  K Street was falling into shadow when she returned. Her house needed a coat of paint, but would last long enough without one, she thought wryly. The dark-green first-floor shutters were closed and nailed shut as a precaution, but her light was still burning in 22 K’s bedroom window. Always leave a light on, so everyone knows you’re st
ill on guard.

  A gang symbol was sprayed on her front door.

  Pran chop, she realized with a sick feeling in her gut, remembering the morning’s encounter.

  Her padlock was untouched, though the waterkids could have easily forced it.

  The chop was a message: this is a Pran house.

  Perhaps their form of thanks.

  safely inside, Ethel took off her sou’wester and slicker, shook the wet salt spray off them, and hung them on the pegs. She unloaded her groceries and stacked her day’s combings. Tomorrow she would sell them in the Quincy flea market.

  All but the photo. Ethel took it from her pocket and smiled at Luisa’s young face. She found a spot on the wall barely large enough and tacked it up, stepping back to admire her work.

  As the sun set on the golden bay, she made supper: soup, salad, and cheese sandwiches that she grilled on the woodburning stove she had installed on the second floor. Seagulls wheeled over the marsh flats, snatching clams in their beaks. Rising high over the coastline, the birds dropped their prey to smash open on the wet shoreline rocks. Then the gulls landed and ate the helpless, exposed animal inside the broken shell.

  When she was done, Ethel went onto the upper porch and put down her bowl and plate. The birds converged, jostling for the last scraps, hungry and intense, like schoolchildren in gray and white uniforms.

  Sitting in her rocking chair, her box of Whitman’s coconut firmly on her stomach, Ethel thought about the letter she had mailed that morning.

  Today the ocean took my ground floor. One day it will take my house. It’s going to reclaim South Boston and Dorchester and Back Bay. Folks will go on denying it like I’ve tried to, but it won’t stop until it’s through with all of us.

  Enclosed is my will. Had a Cohasset lawyer write it up so it’s legal. You get everything. You don’t have to comb for it, Joan. It’s yours.

  Except Queequeg. The boat goes to Jerry. He’ll never use it, but he’ll care for it, and it’s no use to you in your tower.

  After I’m gone, burn the place down. With me in it. At high tide so the fire won’t spread. Nobody will bother you. Nobody else lives around here anyway. No one else has lived here for years.