by Holly Black
As if to prove the point, on our run this evening Flayer decides to snatch bats out of thin air for an evening snack. I hear him crunch their little bones, listen to them squeak their last, and shut my eyes to the sight of him tearing through their leathery wings. An animal that eats bats must be a creature of darkness, right?
We return to the shelter and I get Flayer settled down for the night, encouraging him to lie quietly and remain here, and above all, not to destroy the final length of chain. Thankfully, even when he has escaped his bonds, the unicorn hasn’t wandered too far on his own yet. With the woods being off-limits, I can only hope that whatever slim precautions I can take will be enough to protect him from people, and enough to protect people from him. I’ve read stuff online about how baby fawns will wait in the brush for their mother to forage, but Flayer’s obviously not going to be a baby much longer. He’ll graduate from bats to people. Then what will I do?
I think about this on my much slower walk back to my yard and as I edge around the moonlight on my lawn, sticking to shadows in case my parents are randomly looking out the window.
They aren’t. But someone else is. As I am rounding the back porch, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Yves is standing at his bedroom window, and he’s staring down at me.
I successfully avoid him the entire next day at school, and volunteer to accompany Mom on a shopping trip on Saturday, so I miss both of his phone calls and the time he drops by the house for a chat. My parents raised me to return calls, but I find that disobeying them concerning the unicorn is indeed a slippery slope, and I avoid calling him all evening. He’s waiting for me on the porch after church on Sunday, though, and since my parents are there, I can hardly run past him and into the house—or worse, up to the woods.
“Hey there, Wen,” he says. “Long time, no see.”
If I were any good at lying, I’d have explained to my folks that I was mad at Yves. If I were any good at lying, I’d tell Yves he was imagining things in his bedroom that night.
But I’m not, and Yves knows it. And as soon as the screen door closes after my parents, the smile fades from his face.
“What’s going on with you?” The spring sun suddenly feels more like the glow of an interrogation lamp. I can feel my church skirt sticking to the back of my knees.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that. You’re hiding from everyone in school, and you’re sneaking into the woods.”
I look away. Old Mrs. Schaffer is shuffling down the street, pausing at telephone poles and mailboxes and peering into open garage doors.
At church today I prayed that God would show me a way out of this mess. I can’t let Flayer go, but I can’t keep him either. I can’t tell my parents what I’ve been up to. I can’t figure out what to do. I know now why the lady at the carnival was so upset. Like me, she was trapped.
And Venom ended up dead. My throat closes up if I try to picture a future like that for my unicorn.
“Do you have a death wish?” Yves’s voice cuts through my reverie.
“What?” I turn back to him.
“Are you out there looking for—for unicorns? You think you can kill them or something, because of what those people said to you?”
I laugh. “Trust me, Yves. If there’s one thing I’m positive I can’t do, it’s kill a unicorn.” Spoil it rotten with hamburger meat? Teach it to come when called? Treat it like a jogging partner? Sure. But kill one? Forget it.
Yves’s collar is open, and there’s a dab of moisture in the hollow at his throat. I wonder how long he’s been waiting out here for me. And if it’s this hot for him, Flayer must really be sweltering in his shelter—if the unicorn is even there, and not out on a rampage.
I shut my eyes for a moment. If I don’t stop dwelling on Flayer, Yves will be able to read the truth on my face. If I don’t stop staring at him, things will get even weirder.
“Wen, I saw you.” He takes two steps, and suddenly he’s on top of me, speaking in a voice that’s so low I almost need my unicorn senses to hear him. He puts his hand over mine on the porch railing, and it practically sears my skin. “Tell me. You know you can tell me anything.”
“Hello, children.” Mrs. Schaffer’s standing on the walk. “You haven’t seen my Biscuit around anywhere, have you?”
“No, ma’am,” Yves mumbles. Beside him, I stiffen. He glances at our joined hands, and when I try to pull away, he clamps down. He knows me so well.
“I haven’t seen the poor thing since Friday morning.”
I can’t swallow. I certainly can’t speak. Yves squeezes my hand in his, and it’s not hard enough to bring tears, but somehow they’re welling up in my eyes.
“I’m just so worried about him,” Mrs. Schaffer goes on.
I hate that mangy old cat. It pees on our newspaper. It rips up our flower beds. It tears down the wind catchers Mom hangs on our porch.
And it’s totally toast.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Schaffer,” I choke out. “I—”
“—hope you find him soon,” Yves finishes, and tugs my hand. “We have to go.”
I stumble, blind with tears, into the backyard. I’ve hated Biscuit for years, but that doesn’t make him food. Random, nameless rabbits and raccoons are one thing. But Biscuit? Mrs. Schaffer loved him like I love Flayer. What have I done?
Yves pulls me into the shade behind the kitchen door and makes me look at him. We used to make mud pies back here. We used to make dandelion crowns and willow swords.
“It’s a unicorn, isn’t it?” he asks. “A unicorn ate Biscuit.”
I nod, miserably.
“Oh, no. Wen, I’m so sorry.” He pulls me into a hug. “I know it was just a stupid cat, but it must remind you of—”
“No.” I shove the word out as I push him away. “You don’t understand. It’s my fault.”
“Stop saying that,” he cries. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You have to stop blaming yourself for this. Stop punishing yourself. Stop going into the woods and endangering yourself. I don’t care if you think you’re irresistible to unicorns or whatever stupid stuff those people told you.”
“Invincible,” I say with a sniff. “And irresistible, I guess.”
“Listen to me,” he says, and tilts his head close to mine. “Look at me.”
I do. I see a hundred Sunday afternoons and a thousand after-school playdates and one very black night last fall. Yves’s eyes are dark and clear. “Rebecca and John weren’t your fault, and Biscuit isn’t either.”
“It is. This one is.” I take a deep breath, but I don’t look away. “Yves.”
“Wen.” It’s a whisper.
“I have to show you something. You’re the only one who’ll understand.”
He doesn’t hesitate, not even for a moment. I’m the girl who beats him at Skee-Ball; he’s the first boy I ever kissed. Yves takes my hand, and I lead him into the forbidden woods.
I can feel the unicorn, sleeping through the afternoon heat. We’ll just have to keep our distance, like with Venom at the sideshow. Flayer is chained, so Yves will be safe.
As we reach the shelter, Flayer rouses and bounds out, tail wagging, silver hair shining in the sunlight, horn still streaked with the blood of his latest kill. The beast pauses as he sees Yves, then bares his teeth in a growl.
And in the slowness and clarity that comes with my powers, I can see my fatal mistake. It took Flayer four days to chew through this chain the last time, and that was Thursday night. It’s Sunday afternoon. I’ve cut it too close. The chain dangles at the unicorn’s throat, mangled beyond hope of repair.
I hold fast to Yves’s hand as the monster lunges.
“No!”
My sharp tone stops the unicorn short. Yves gasps.
“Sit.”
Flayer parks his behind on the earth and looks at me in frustration.
“Wen?” Yves’s voice trembles.
“Down,” I order. The unicorn grumbles, and lowers himself to the
ground, tilting his deadly horn up and away. I grab the broken end of the chain, hold on tight, and turn back to my friend. “This is Flayer.”
Yves looks as though he might faint.
“Remember that night at the carnival?” I crouch next the unicorn and rub his stomach. “The unicorn there—Venom—she was pregnant.”
“Pregnant,” Yves repeats flatly.
“And I went back a few days later and found her giving birth. And … I can’t explain it, but it was like she asked me to take care of the baby. So I took it.”
Flayer lifts his hind leg in the air and bleats. I intensify my massage.
“I’ve been caring for him ever since.” The unicorn’s mouth opens, and his bloodstained tongue lolls between fanged jaws. “And, aside from Biscuit—well, and I guess some squirrels and stuff—”
I babble on. I don’t know for how long. It feels so good, to confess all this to Yves. I tell him about the goat’s milk, and the laundry basket. I tell him about the hamburger and the bicycle chains. I tell him about the moonlight runs through the forest. I tell him about the time with the axe, and the way Flayer can call to me from half a mile away.
Yves listens to everything, and then he says, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I nod, staring down at my pet. “Yeah. Broke the law. Endangered our entire neighborhood. Lied to everyone.”
He shakes his head. “Wen, you trained a killer unicorn. No one can do that. No one can catch one, no one can kill one, no one can tame one! But you did!”
“I—”
“Even the one at the carnival was covered in chains. They’re wild, vicious, but this one …” Yves gestures to Flayer, who wags his tail like Yves is about to throw him a ham hock. “He listens to you! He stays where you want him to. It’s a miracle.”
I stare down at the unicorn. A miracle.
I’ve been praying to God to deliver me from my unwelcome powers, the curse of my dangerous and unholy magic. I’ve been praying for Him to direct my hand, to give me strength to destroy the demon unicorn He placed in my path. And all this time, I thought He’d refused because of my own sins—my defiance of the law, my disobedience toward my parents. I thought I’d failed Him.
But what if … God wanted me to care for this unicorn? What if He sent it to me to discover a way to prevent what happened to my cousins from ever occurring again?
What if my powers aren’t a curse at all? What if they’re … a gift?
“We have to tell the world,” Yves finishes.
I snuggle the unicorn close to my chest. “No way. If I come out of the woods with Flayer by my side, he’ll be taken from me, experimented on, destroyed. What chance does this little guy have against helicopters and searchlights? Against napalm?”
Yves says, “There has to be something. Maybe your parents—”
“My parents think unicorns are demons and my powers are witchcraft.”
It’ll never work. Too many lives have been destroyed by unicorns. Even Yves looks uncertain as I continue to cuddle the killer unicorn in my lap.
If only they could feel what it’s like to run through the woods by Flayer’s side. If only they knew how much Flayer loves me, and I him. I never feel so free, so right as I do when I’m alone in the forest with the unicorn. If only God would reveal His plan to them as well.
“Okay,” says Yves. “What about those people in Italy? The unicorn hunters? They understand your powers, right?”
Yeah, but even they wanted to use my powers to help them kill unicorns. Maybe I could show them how to use our gifts for this instead, but first I’d have to persuade them to spare my unicorn. I scratch the base of Flayer’s horn, where the tiny flower marking is barely visible. Protecting Flayer is what matters most. The world can wait.
“Stay,” I say to the unicorn as I join Yves again. “What if I left?”
“You mean, like, run away?” Yves looks stricken. “Wen, you can’t—”
“Flayer and me, we’re safe in the forest. And I can keep an eye on him, make sure he eats only wild animals. And me … I used to be a really good camper.”
“But what about school? What about food? What about the other unicorns?” Yves shakes his head. “No, there’s got to be another way.”
“A way where I can save Flayer?” I ask. “What way is that? Everyone in the world wants him dead but me!”
“We could—” Yves casts about desperately for an alternative. “We could ask Summer. She’s involved in the Sierra Club, she knows people at the World Wildlife Fund …”
Right. Her.
“Yves.” I bite my lip, but it’s too late and the words pour out. “I know you and Summer—”
He kisses me then. Full on, noses smashing. Our arms go around each other, and Flayer bleats in surprise, but I don’t care. Last fall may have been a mistake, but this isn’t. I just wish I had figured it out before. Before Summer. Before Flayer. Before I feared I’d never see him again.
We’re still kissing when Mom and Dad come up over the hill. I feel Flayer’s alarm, hear him start to growl, and I pull away from Yves. My parents’ faces are dark with fury, dim with shock. Their daughter, their little Wen. Lying. Woods. Magic. Kissing.
I move to stand beside my killer unicorn.
“Inoculata”
Justine: I’m probably disqualified from expressing my opinion of this story on account of knowing Mr. Westerfeld rather well. 1 So let me confine myself to just the facts: This story is about love, lust, evolution, and zombies.
The job of every generation is to discover the flaws of the one that came before it. That’s part of growing up, figuring out all the ways your parents and their friends are broken. So pity the first people to reach puberty after a zombie apocalypse, who would have some truly heavy lifting in this department. How do you fry up the sacred cows of a previous generation who are all traumatized survivors?
You become whatever they fear the most. Now that’s evolution.
Holly: Wait, you mean they become unicorns?
Justine: Holly, you’re delusional. So. Very. Delusional.
1 Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld are married. To each other.
Inoculata
By Scott Westerfeld
1.
“Flat tire drill!” Dr. Bill shouts through the busted front window.
Sammy’s next to me in the driver’s seat, pretending to drive. He makes a noise, “Rrrrrrr … kupuch!” and spins the wheel, bouncing around the front seat spraying spittle and explosion sounds. He winds up with his head in my lap, his eyes rolled back and tongue sticking out.
“Um, dork?” I say. “This is a flat tire. Not a car wreck.”
His answer: “I call shotgun!”
“Fine.” I shove him off me. “Then I’m doing the jump and roll.”
He scrambles into the backseat of the rusted-out Ford, pulling the shotgun from the floorboard. I unstick my sweaty T-shirt from the seat back, check my empty pistol one more time, then open the door.
“Call out the steps, Allison!” yells Dr. Bill. Back in the before, he was a medic in the U.S. Marine Corps. He thinks that lots of shouting equals lots of learning.
So I shout, “Step one: three-sixty check!”
Sammy and I make a show of looking in all directions. Kalyn and Jun are waiting in the insect-buzzing trees with their arms folded, which means we aren’t supposed to see them. Kalyn winks at me as I pretend she isn’t there.
“Step two: jump and roll!” I throw myself hard—farther than arm’s length—and roll sideways in the soft dirt with my pistol pointed back beneath the car.
For a moment I imagine cold eyes staring at me, something waiting in the darkness, hungry for an unwary ankle to grab. A tingle awakens on my skin, and my eyes start twitching. I can almost remember how it felt outside the wire. It’s like this in my running dreams, the whole world shiny like metal.
But there’s nothing underneath the car. Just dirt and fern leaves. The nearest zee is two hundre
d yards away on the other side of the main gate.
“Clear!” I shout, and Sammy bounces out, whirling around the old Ford, waltzing with the shotgun, also unloaded.
“Dial it back, Sammy,” Dr. Bill says, and Sammy mostly does. He’s still bouncing from foot to foot, as dialed back as he ever gets with a shotgun in his hands, even the crappy, rusted Remington we use for drills.
I stand up. “Step three: post a guard.”
“That’s me, Ally!” Sammy says, like I’ve forgotten. He climbs up onto the car roof, the tired metal sagging under his weight. He turns in place, maintaining our three-sixty, but I can tell he’s cheating, keeping a close eye on Kalyn and Jun.
“Step four,” I say, slapping a mosquito on my arm. “Change the tire.”
Also known as “the pretending part.” The Ford barely made it through the gates four years ago, and it squats like a dead thing in the middle of the clearing, all four tires reduced to rubber puddles.
I can barely remember when the Ford still ran and we were still outside the wire and going places. These days the paint is peeling, the windows are broken, the upholstery is fried to crackling by the Mississippi sun.
As I holster my pistol, the world gets less shiny. It’s pathetic that the only car I’ve sat in for the last four years is this hunk of rust, except for a couple of driving lessons in the Benz with Alma. Back in the before I’d have a driver’s license by now, but inside the wire there’s nowhere to drive, and outside, the roads are falling to pieces.
But still we drill.
“Which tire is flat again?”
“Right rear,” Dr. Bill says with great assurance. Behold the power of running the drill.
The Ford’s trunk doesn’t really open anymore, so the jack’s just sitting on the ground. I kneel and set it under the rear bumper.
