The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

by Stephen Jones

  Annie suckled.

  The wind blew fiercer and the cats on the walls appeared to move. I felt a rumbling in the ground beneath me and saw that the water level had risen above the tops of my shoes. I could feel the air pressure drop around me and smelled ozone in the air. Clouds thickened in the sky, but the light of the moon continued to shine down on us for the moment. Vibiana screeched once more at the sky, then laid Annie back down in the water. She swung a leg around and straddled Annie. She bent over and kissed Annie fiercely on the mouth.

  Somewhere there was a lightning strike. A few seconds later came the giant’s belly-rumble of thunder. I felt a fat raindrop strike the middle of my bald spot.

  Vibiana raised up her head to again study the clouds and a wave of panic washed across her face. She froze like that until the moon returned through another break in the quickly forming storm. When the moonlight returned, she acted.

  She raised up her right hand and closed her eyes.

  Vibiana plunged her fingers between her breasts and right on through the skin until her arm was buried wrist deep inside her chest. She screamed, as if in childbirth, her face contorted in jagged curves of pain, as she rooted around inside herself. She howled and screeched and shrieked into the night until her fingers found the treasure they sought and her hand emerged with a pumping red blob. Quicker than I could follow, and as the moon again vanished, she took her heart and thrust it inside the hole in Annie’s chest. Annie’s eyes shot open and she bolted upright, kept from a pain-driven levitation into the sky only by Vibiana’s considerable weight. She plunged her own right hand inside Vibiana’s chest and they drew themselves together.

  The pair of them made the sound of Hell’s rusty gates opening for 01’ Nick himself. I clasped my hands over my ears and had to look away as the moon disappeared entirely behind the clouds.

  Then the deluge hit.

  The earth shook beneath me and I thought it must be an earthquake. I opened my eyes and saw the Cat People quivering. Then I realized what it was: the drainage covers were opening before the force of water being expelled. The bobbing covers flew open, smashing the faces of the cats against the concrete wall above and torrents of water came flooding through.

  “Annie!” I screamed.

  I took a step toward the pair of lovers still clutching each other on the river bed. The roar of the water geysering out of the pipes drowned even their awful screams. I saw Vibiana turn her head towards the vanished cats – the foamy water was the Cheshire rivercat’s grin – then they were both knocked over and dragged under by the force of the tide. It hit me, too, and I went ass over crown as the water took out my legs. I went sprawling along the gravely river bed on my back, felt the rocks and stones tear through my clothes and open up my skin as the raw force of the unleashed and suddenly extant river carried me away. I tried to gain some purchase in the loose river bottom, but merely felt the nails get ripped off my fingers for the effort. I tried to turn myself over in the stream, thinking I could swim with the tide and avoid smashing my skull, but the water pouring out of the circle of drains formed spiralling cross-currents and I couldn’t get my balance. An extra strong vomit of water from the mouth of one of the cats sent me hurtling straight toward a concrete channel along the edge of the culvert. I prepared myself for the inevitable cantaloupe squelch of skull on stone – had time to think: what a headline this is going to make on page 64 of Variety – when something grabbed my leg and spun me around and out of harm’s way.

  It was Guy. He had my trouser leg between his teeth and was dog-paddling for the high ground like the unholy offspring of Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin.

  “Good boy!” I yelled.

  Out of the worst of the spilling torrent, Guy reached over and grabbed me around the chest. Together we were able to kick our way to the rim of the culvert and a concrete walkway above the still-rising water.

  “Thanks,” I managed, catching my breath. “You’re a hell of a swimmer.”

  “I did two seasons of Baywatch,” he explained.

  “It must have been raining all night up north for them to dump this much water,” I said. I scoured the swirling river for some sign of Annie and Vibiana. Without the moon it was hard to make much out in the foam. “Can you see them?” I asked.

  Guy started running – on two legs – down the walkway. The water was lapping over the edge now, and he slipped once but managed not to fall in. He was sniffing at the air.

  “There!” he said and pointed.

  I saw two intertwined forms rolling downstream past us. They were still locked in embrace and I couldn’t tell if they were all right. Of course, given what I had witnessed before the flood broke, I didn’t know what that might mean in the best of circumstances.

  “If we lose them around the bend, we’ll never catch up,” I said. But I couldn’t see how to reach them.

  “There,” Guy said.

  A dozen yards down the walkway, someone had dumped a stack of old mattresses. We ran over to them. Serta Perfect Sleepers. God bless Joey Heatherton, wherever she is today.

  “Will they float?” I said.

  “He who dares, wins” Guy said.

  I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Hounds’ code,” he told me.

  We jumped on a mattress and pushed out into the river. I thought we were going to capsize on the first wave, but Guy rolled to one side and I went to the other and we managed to keep our balance. We each dangled an arm and a leg over the side and after a little to-ing and fro-ing found we could roughly steer the mattress in the direction we wanted to go. The ride was rough and our vessel was taking on water fast, but it somehow stayed afloat. The worst thing, actually, were the stains on the top. I didn’t like to think too much about the big brown ones. Guy sniffed at them and yelped.

  Annie and Vibiana were still visible not too far in front of us, though it hadn’t appeared that either had so much as lifted her head to breathe. I feared the worst and paddled harder. The pair of them were being pushed by a sudden surge in the current toward the hard wall of the river. Guy pointed but I saw it at the same time. Just beyond where they were bound to hit was a set of those zig-zag stairs leading up to ground level. If we could manage to ride the current just right we could swing around, head them off and jump the river and onto the steps.

  We fought the water for all we were worth.

  Guy yowled and I screamed when we saw the entwined lovers bounce hard off the culvert’s concrete barrier. I could see Annie’s face, but her eyes were closed and I couldn’t detect any sign of life. Still, the contact slowed them up and gave us the chance we needed to come around past them. A steel banister ran the length of the zig-zag stairs and as I steered and kicked us close, Guy reached out and grabbed hold of it. He must have been stronger than he looked, because the force of the current whipped us around and slammed the mattress into the stairs, but Guy held on tight. With him holding onto the pole and the mattress, and me dangling off the other end, I managed to scissor Annie and Vibiana between my legs as the water tried to sweep them past. I almost lost my grip on the mattress, but dug my fingers through the cover and grabbed hold of the springs. The rusty metal inside cut into my palms, but I was not about to let go. Guy pulled the edge of the mattress up onto a wide step and then reached out for me. He pulled me up and I dragged Annie and Vibiana along with my legs. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold them another second, they were close enough for Guy to stretch out and take hold of Annie. Between us we got them up onto a step as a fresh burst of current tore the mattress away. It submerged as it quickly disappeared downstream.

  We pulled the two women apart, but the water was still rising and we had to hurry to drag them higher up the stairs. We reached a platform more than halfway up the wall which seemed safe enough. I turned Annie onto her back and bent down to put my ear to her chest.

  It was only then that I realized she had a chest again. The wet hole where her heart had gone missing was healed over without so much as a scar. I looked
over at Vibiana and saw that her massive chest was similarly restored and whole. I shook my head.

  They both opened their eyes.

  They turned toward each other and embraced.

  “Woof-woof,” Guy said. I nodded my agreement.

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  Annie wore my wet shirt. Vib was bare tits to the world. The moon had sunk and the sun was rising and things would be dry soon enough. The two of them sat along the concrete barrier marking the edge of the Los Angeles River. They talked, holding each other’s faces in their hands. I have no idea what they said; didn’t want or need to know.

  What did anyone else’s opinion about two lovers matter, anyway?

  Guy was standing beside me, shivering. He was on his legs now and pulling uncomfortably at his ears. I think he was facing a bit of an identity crisis.

  “So, uh, got a good agent these days, Marty?” he asked.

  “I love my agent,” I told him. It was even true. “I’ll give you her number.”

  “Thanks,” he barked.

  I think we both felt a little self-conscious watching Annie and Vibiana, but neither of us could look away. Not even when they pressed their mouths together in a passionate and enduring kiss.

  “They’re fucking crazy, man,” Guy said.

  I looked at him standing there, naked, with his surgically modified ears and snout, a fake tail (wagging) grafted over his ass, and plugs of doggy fur transplanted all over his body. He was shaking his head in wonderment, befuddlement, even a touch of glee.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I reached into my pocket and found the cigar I’d swiped from Toypurina. Magically – courtesy of the Tongva shamaness, I reckon – it was bone dry and I was able to light it with my Zippo. I took a puff and found it tasted like heaven.

  “But ain’t that just love?” I added.

  KELLY LINK

  Stone Animals

  KELLY LINK LIVES in Northampton, Massachusetts with her husband, Gavin J. Grant. They publish the twice-yearly magazine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and, with Ellen Datlow, they now co-edit The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series.

  Link is the author of the collections Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners, and her fiction has won a Nebula Award, a World Fantasy Award and the James Tiptree, Jr Award.

  Short stories have recently appeared in McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Conjunctions, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens: First Annual Collection and Best American Short Stories. She is not working on a novel.

  “I’ve always been fascinated by paint strips and by how people name things like children, and colours,” admits Link. “Where the rabbits come from, I don’t know, but Jeffrey Ford has pointed out to me that they are associated with pregnant women and with insanity.

  “When I was writing this story, I couldn’t figure out if the ending was terrifying or profoundly silly, but hopefully it’s both of those things.”

  HENRY ASKED A QUESTION. He was joking.

  “As a matter of fact,” the real estate agent snapped, “it is.”

  It was not a question she had expected to be asked. She gave Henry a goofy, appeasing smile and yanked at the hem of the skirt of her pink linen suit, which seemed as if it might, at any moment, go rolling up her knees like a window shade. She was younger than Henry, and sold houses that she couldn’t afford to buy.

  “It’s reflected in the asking price, of course,” she said. “Like you said.”

  Henry stared at her. She blushed.

  “I’ve never seen anything,” she said. “But there are stories. Not stories that I know. I just know there are stories. If you believe that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t,” Henry said. When he looked over to see if Catherine had heard, she had her head up the tiled fireplace, as if she were trying it on, to see whether it fit. Catherine was six months pregnant. Nothing fit her except for Henry’s baseball caps, his sweatpants, his T-shirts. But she liked the fireplace.

  Carleton was running up and down the staircase, slapping his heels down hard, keeping his head down and his hands folded around the banister. Carleton was serious about how he played. Tilly sat on the landing, reading a book, legs poking out through the railings. Whenever Carleton ran past, he thumped her on the head, but Tilly never said a word. Carleton would be sorry later, and never even know why.

  Catherine took her head out of the fireplace. “Guys,” she said. “Carleton, Tilly. Slow down a minute and tell me what you think. Think King Spanky will be okay out here?”

  “King Spanky is a cat, Mom,” Tilly said. “Maybe we should get a dog, you know, to help protect us.” She could tell by looking at her mother that they were going to move. She didn’t know how she felt about this, except she had plans for the yard. A yard like that needed a dog.

  “I don’t like big dogs,” said Carleton, six years old and small for his age. “I don’t like this staircase. It’s too big.”

  “Carleton,” Henry said. “Come here. I need a hug.”

  Carleton came down the stairs. He lay down on his stomach on the floor and rolled, noisily, floppily, slowly, over to where Henry stood with the real estate agent. He curled like a dead snake around Henry’s ankles. “I don’t like those dogs outside,” he said.

  “I know it looks like we’re out in the middle of nothing, but if you go down through the backyard, cut through that stand of trees, there’s this little path. It takes you straight down to the train station. Ten minute bike ride,” the agent said. Nobody ever remembered her name, which was why she had to wear too-tight skirts. She was, as it happened, writing a romance novel, and she spent a lot of time making up pseudonyms, just in case she ever finished it. Ophelia Pink. Matilde Hightower. LaLa Treeble. Or maybe she’d write Gothics. Ghost stories. But not about people like these. “Another ten minutes on that path and you’re in town.”

  “What dogs, Carleton?” Henry said.

  “I think they’re lions, Carleton,” said Catherine. “You mean the stone ones beside the door? Just like the lions at the library. You love those lions, Carleton. Patience and Fortitude?”

  “I’ve always thought they were rabbits,” the real estate agent said. “You know, because of the ears. They have big ears.” She flopped her hands and then tugged at her skirt which would not stay down. “I think they’re pretty valuable. The guy who built the house had a gallery in New York. He knew a lot of sculptors.”

  Henry was struck by that. He didn’t think he knew a single sculptor.

  “I don’t like the rabbits,” Carleton said. “I don’t like the staircase. I don’t like this room. It’s too big. I don’t like her.”

  “Carleton,” Henry said. He smiled at the real estate agent.

  “I don’t like the house,” Carleton said, clinging to Henry’s ankles. “I don’t like houses. I don’t want to live in a house.”

  “Then we’ll build you a tepee out on the lawn,” Catherine said. She sat on the stairs beside Tilly, who shifted her weight, almost imperceptibly, towards Catherine. Catherine sat as still as possible. Tilly was in Fourth Grade and difficult in a way that girls weren’t supposed to be. Mostly she refused to be cuddled or babied. But she sat there, leaning on Catherine’s arm, emanating saintly fragrances: peacefulness, placidness, goodness. I want this house, Catherine said, moving her lips like a silent movie heroine, to Henry, so that neither Carleton nor the agent, who had bent over to inspect a piece of dust on the floor, could see. “You can live in your tepee, and we’ll invite you to come over for lunch. You like lunch, don’t you? Peanut butter sandwiches?”

  “I don’t,” Carleton said and sobbed once.

  But they bought the house anyway. The real estate agent got her commission. Tilly rubbed the waxy, stone ears of the rabbits on the way out, pretending that they already belonged to her. They were as tall as she was, but that wouldn’t always be true. Carleton had a peanut butter sandwich.

  The rabbits sat on eith
er side of the front door. Two stone animals sitting on cracked, mossy haunches. They were shapeless, lumpish, patient in a way that seemed not worn down, but perhaps never really finished in the first place. There was something about them that reminded Henry of Stonehenge. Catherine thought of topiary shapes; The Velveteen Rabbit; soldiers who stand guard in front of palaces and never even twitch their noses. Maybe they could be donated to a museum. Or broken up with jackhammers. They didn’t suit the house at all.

  “So what’s the house like?” said Henry’s boss. She was carefully stretching rubber bands around her rubber band ball. By now the rubber band ball was so big, she had to get special extra-large rubber bands from the art department. She claimed it helped her think. She had tried knitting for a while, but it turned out that knitting was too utilitarian, too feminine. Making an enormous ball out of rubber bands struck the right note. It was something a man might do.

  It took up half of her desk. Under the fluorescent office lights it had a peeled red liveliness. You almost expected it to shoot forwards and out the door. The larger it got, the more it looked like some kind of eyeless, hairless, legless animal. Maybe a dog. A Carleton-sized dog, Henry thought, although not a Carleton-sized rubber band ball.

  Catherine joked sometimes about using Carleton as a measure of unit.

  “Big,” Henry said. “Haunted.”

  “Really?” his boss said. “So’s this rubber band.” She aimed a rubber band at Henry and shot him in the elbow. This was meant to suggest that she and Henry were good friends, and just goofing around, the way good friends did. But what it really meant was that she was angry at him. “Don’t leave me,” she said.

  “I’m only two hours away.” Henry put up his hand to ward off rubber bands. “Quit it. We talk on the phone, we use e-mail. I come back to town when you need me in the office.”