By the time the first snow came in late November, the guns became mostly just part of our wardrobes, and kids turned their attention back to their cell phones and iPods. The one shot fired before Christmas vacation was when Mrs. Cloder dropped her gun in the bathroom stall and blew off the side of the toilet bowl. Water flooded out into the hallway. Other than that, the only time you noticed that people were packing was when they’d use their sidearm for comedy purposes. Like Bryce, during English, when the teacher was reading Pilgrim’s Progress to us, took out his gun and stuck the end in his mouth as if he was so bored he was going to blow his own brains out. At least once a week, outside the cafeteria, on the days it was too cold to leave the school, there were quick draw contests. Two kids would face off, there’d be a panel of judges, and Vice Principal Warren would set his cell phone to beep once. When they heard the beep the pair drew and whoever was faster won a coupon for a free 32 ounce soda at Babb’s, the local convenience store.
One thing I did notice in that first half of the year. Usually when a person drew their gun, even as a gag, each had their own signature saying. When it came to these lines it seemed that the ban on cursing could be ignored without any problem. Even the teachers got into it. Mr. Gosh was partial to, “Eat hot lead, you little mother fuckers.” The school nurse, Ms. James, used, “See you in Hell, asshole.” Vice Principal Warren, who always kept his language in check, would draw, and while the gun was coming level with your head, say, “You’re already dead.” As for the kids, they all used lines they’d seen in recent movies. Cody St. John used, “Suck on this, bitches.” McKenzie, who by Christmas was known as Half-toe Batkin, concocted the line, “Put up your feet.” I tried to think of something to say, but it all seemed too corny, and it took me too long to get the gun out of my lunch box to really outdraw anyone else.
Senior year rolled fast, and by winter break, I was wondering what I’d do after I graduated. Constance told me she was going to college to learn philosophy. “Do they still teach that stuff?” I asked. She smiled, “Not so much anymore.” We were sitting in my living room, my parents were away at my aunt’s. The TV was on, the lights were out, and we were holding hands. We liked to just sit quietly and talk. “So I guess you’ll be moving away, after the summer,” I said. She nodded. “I thought I’d try to get a job at Wal-Mart,” I said. “I heard they have benefits now.”
“That’s all you’re gonna do with your life?” asked Constance.
“For now,” I said.
“Well, then when I go away, you should come with me.” She put her arm behind my head and drew me gently to her. We held each other for a long time while the snow came down outside.
A few days after Christmas, I sat with my parents watching the evening news. Senator Meets was on, talking about what he hoped to accomplish in the coming year. He was telling how happy he’d been to work for minimum wage when he was eleven.
“This guy’s got it down,” said my father.
I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, but I said, “Constance says he’s a loser.”
“Loser?” my father said. “Are you kidding? Who’s this Constance, I don’t want you hanging out with any socialists. Don’t tell me she’s one of those kids who refuses to carry a gun. Meets passed the gun laws, mandatory church on Sunday for all citizens, killed abortion, and got us to stand up to the Mexicans… He’s definitely gonna be the next president.”
“She’s probably the best shot in the class,” I said, realizing I’d already said too much.
My father was suspicious, and he stirred in his easy chair, leaning forward.
“I met her,” said my mother. “She’s a nice girl.”
I gave things a few seconds to settle down and then announced I was going to take the dog for a walk. As I passed my mother, unnoticed by my dad, she grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze.
Back at school in January, there was a lot to do. I went to the senior class meetings, but didn’t say anything. They decided for our “Act of Humanity” (required of every senior class), we would have a blood drive. For the senior trip, we decided to keep it cheap as pretty much everyone’s parents were broke. A day trip to Bash Lake. “Sounds stale,” said Bryce, “but if we bring enough alcohol and weed it’ll be OK.” Mrs. Cloder, our faculty advisor, aimed at him, said, “Arrivederci, Baby,” and gave him two Saturday detentions. The event that overshadowed all the others, though, was the upcoming prom. My mother helped me make my dress. She was awesome on the sewing machine. It was turquoise satin, short sleeve, mid-length. I told my parents I had no date, but was just going solo. Constance and I had made plans. We knew from all the weeks of mandatory Sunday mass, the pastor actually spitting he was so worked up over what he called “unnatural love,” that we couldn’t go as a couple. She cared more than I did. I just tried to forget about it.
When the good weather of spring hit, people got giddy and tense. There were accidents. In homeroom one bright morning, Darcy dropped her bag on her desk, and the derringer inside went off and took out Ralph Babb’s right eye. He lived, but when he came back to school his head was kind of caved in and he had a bad fake eye that looked like a kid drew it. It only stared straight ahead. Another was when Mr. Hallibet got angry because everybody’d gotten into the habit of challenging his current events lectures after seeing Constance in action. He yelled for us all to shut up and accidentally squeezed off a round. Luckily for us the gun was pointed at the ceiling. Mr. Gosh, though, who was sitting in the room a floor above, directly over Hallibet, had to have buckshot taken out of his ass. When he returned to school from a week off, he sweated more than ever.
Mixed in with the usual spring fever, there was all kinds of drama over who was going to the prom with whom. Fist fights, girl fights, plenty of drawn guns but not for comedy. I noticed that the King of Vermont was getting wackier the more people refused to notice him. When I left my sixth period class to use the bathroom, I saw him out on the soccer field from the upstairs hallway window. He turned the stun gun on himself, and shot the two darts with wires into his own chest. It knocked him down fast, and he was twitching on the ground. I went and took a piss. When I passed the window again, he was gone. He’d started bringing alcohol to school, and at lunch, where again we were back by the woods hanging out, he’d drink a Red Bull and a half pint of Vodka.
Right around that time, I met Constance at the town library one night. I had nothing to do, but she had to write a paper. When I arrived, she’d put the paper away and was reading. I asked her what the book was. She told me, “Plato.”
“Good story?” I asked.
She explained it wasn’t a novel, but a book about ideas. “You see,” she said, “there’s a cave and this guy gets chained up inside so that he can’t turn around or move, but can only stare at the back wall. There’s a fire in the cave behind him and it casts his shadow on the wall he faces. That play of light and shadow is the sum total of his reality.”
I nodded and listened as long as I could. Constance was so wrapped up in explaining, she looked beautiful, but I didn’t want to listen anymore. I checked over my shoulder to see if anyone was around. When I saw we were alone, I quickly leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. She smiled and said, “Let’s get out of here.”
On a warm day in mid-May, we had the blood drive. I got there early and gave blood. The nurses, who were really nice, told me to sit for a while and they gave me orange juice and cookies. I thought about becoming a nurse for maybe like five whole minutes. Other kids showed up and gave blood, and I stuck around to help sign them up. Cody came and watched but wouldn’t give. “Fuck the dying,” I heard him say. “Nobody gets my blood but me.” After that a few other boys decided not to give either. Whatever. Then at lunch, the King of Vermont was drinking his Red Bulls and Vodka, and I think because he’d given blood, he was really blasted. He went around threatening to stun people in their private parts.
After lunch, in Mrs. Cloder’s class, where we sat at long tables in a rectangle th
at formed in front of her desk, Wisner took the seat straight across from her. I was two seats down from him toward the windows. Class started and the first thing Mrs. Cloder said, before she even got out of her seat, was to the King. “Get that foolish jar off the table.” We all looked over. Wisner stared, the mist swirled inside the glass. He pushed his seat back and stood up, cradling the jar in one arm, and drawing his stun gun. “Sit down, Scotty,” she said, and leveled her short-barrel at him. I could see her finger tightening on the trigger. A few seconds passed and then one by one, all the kids drew their weapons, but nobody was sure whether to aim at Mrs. Cloder or the King, so about half did one and half the other. I never even opened my lunch box, afraid to make a sudden move.
“Put down your gun and back slowly away from the table,” said Mrs. Cloder.
“When you meet the Devil, give him my regards,” said Wisner, but as he pulled the trigger, Mrs. Cloder fired. The breaching slug blew a hole in the King of Vermont’s chest, slamming him against the back wall in a cloud of blood. The jar shattered, and glass flew. McKenzie, who was sitting next to Wisner, screamed as the shards dug into her face. I don’t know if she shot or if the gun just went off, but her bullet hit Mrs. Cloder in the shoulder and spun her out of her chair onto the ground. She groaned and rolled back and forth. Meanwhile, Wisner’s stun gun darts, had gone wild, struck Chucky Durr in the forehead, one over each eye, and in his electrified shaking, his gun went off and put a round right into Melanie Storte’s Adam’s apple. Blood poured out as she dropped her own gun and brought her hands to her gurgling neck. Melanie was Cody St. John’s “current ho,” as he called her, and he didn’t think twice but fanned the hammer of his pistol, putting three shots into Chucky, who fell over on the floor like a bag of potatoes. Chucky’s cousin, Meleeba, shot Cody in the side of the head and he went down, screaming, as smoke poured from the hole above his left ear. One of Cody’s crew shot Meleeba, and then I couldn’t keep track anymore. Bullets whizzed by my head, blood was spurting everywhere. Kids were falling like pins at the bowling alley. Mrs. Cloder clawed her way back into her seat, lifted the gun and aimed it. Whoever was left fired on her and then she fired, another shot-gun blast, like an explosion. When the ringing in my ears went away, the room was perfectly quiet but for the drip of blood, and the ticking of the wall clock. Smoke hung in the air, and I thought of the King of Vermont’s escaped souls. During the entire thing, I’d not moved a single finger.
The cops were there before I could get myself out of the chair. They wrapped a blanket around me and led me down to the principal’s office. I was in a daze for a while but could feel them moving around me and could hear them talking. Then my mother was there, and the cop was handing me a cup of orange juice. They asked if they could talk to me, and my mother left it up to me. I told them everything, exactly how it went down. I started with the blood drive. They tested me for gun powder to see if there was any on my hands. I told them my gun was back in the classroom in my lunchbox under the table, and it hadn’t been fired since the summer, the last time I went to the range with my dad. It was all over the news. I was all over the news. A full one-third of Bascombe High’s senior class was killed in the shootout. The only one in Mrs. Cloder’s class besides me to survive was McKenzie, and the flying glass made her No Face Batkin.
Senator Meets showed up at the school three days later and got his picture taken handing me an award. I never really knew what it was for. Constance whispered, “They give you a fucking award if you live through it,” and laughed. In Meets’s speech to the assembled community, he blamed the blood drive for the incident. He proclaimed Mrs. Cloder a hero, and ended by reminding everyone, “If these kids were working, they’d have no time for this.”
The class trip was called off out of respect for the dead. Two weeks later, I went to the prom. It was to be held in the gymnasium. My dad drove me. When we pulled into the parking lot, it was empty.
“You must be early,” he said, and handed me the corsage I’d asked him to get—a white orchid.
“Thanks,” I said, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. As I opened the door to get out, he put his hand on my elbow. I turned and he was holding the gun.
“You’ll need this,” he said.
I shook my head, and told him, “It’s OK.” He was momentarily taken aback. Then he tried to smile. I shut the door, and he drove away.
Constance was already there. In fact, she was the only one there. The gym was done up with glittery stars on the ceiling, a painted moon and clouds. There were streamers. Our voices echoed as we exchanged corsages, which had been our plan. The white orchid looked good against her black plunging neckline. She’d gotten me a corsage made of red roses, and they really stood out against the turquoise. In her purse, instead of the Beretta, she had a half pint of Captain Morgan. We sat on one of the bleachers and passed the bottle, talking about the incidents of the past two weeks.
“I guess no one’s coming,” she said. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the outside door creaked open and in walked Bryce carrying a case in one hand and dressed in a jacket and tie. We got up and went to see him. Constance passed him the Captain Morgan. He took a swig.
“I was afraid of this,” he said.
“No one’s coming?” I said.
“I guess some of the parents were scared there’d be another shootout. Probably the teachers too. Mrs. Cloder’s family insisted on an open casket. A third of them are dead, let’s not forget, and the rest, after hearing Meets talk, are working the late shift at Wal-Mart for minimum wage.”
“Jeez,” said Constance.
“Just us,” said Bryce. He went up on the stage, set his case down, and got behind the podium at the back. “Watch this,” he said, and a second later the lights went out. We laughed. A dozen blue searchlights appeared, their beams moving randomly around the gym, washing over us and then rushing away to some dark corner. A small white spotlight came on above the mic that stood at the front of the stage. Bryce stepped up into the glow. He opened the case at his feet and took out a saxophone.
“I was looking forward to playing tonight,” he said. We walked up to the edge of the stage, and I handed him the bottle. He took a swig, the sax now on a leather strap around his neck. Putting the bottle down at his feet,” he said, “Would you ladies care to dance?”
“Play us something,” we told him.
He thought for a second and said, “Strangers in the Night?”
He played, we danced, and the blue lights in the dark were the sum total of our reality.
MANTIS WIVES
KIJ JOHNSON
Kij Johnson [www.kijjohnson.com] is the author of three novels, many short stories, and several essays. She has won the Hugo, the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and the Theodore A. Sturgeon Memorial Award for her short fiction. Her novella “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” won the Hugo and Nebula awards, while “Spar” and “Ponies” won the Nebula Award and “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” won the World Fantasy Award. Her short fiction has been collected in Tales for the Long Rains and At the Mouth of the River of Bees.
Her novels include World Fantasy Award nominee Fudoki and The Fox Woman.
“As for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror.” —John Wyndham
Eventually, the mantis women discovered that killing their husbands was not inseparable from the getting of young. Before this, a wife devoured her lover piece by piece during the act of coition: the head (and its shining eyes going dim as she ate); the long green prothorax; the forelegs crisp as straws; the bitter wings. She left for last the metathorax and its pumping legs, the abdomen, and finally the phallus. Mantis women needed nutrients for their pregnancies; their lovers offered this as well as their seed.
It was believed that mantis men would resist their deaths if permitted to choose the manner of their mating; but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so
their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?
The Bitter Edge: A wife may cut through her husband’s exoskeletal plates, each layer a different pattern, so that to look at a man is to see shining, hard brocade. At the deepest level are visible pieces of his core, the hint of internal parts bleeding out. He may suggest shapes.
The Eccentric Curve of His Thoughts: A wife may drill the tiniest hole into her lover’s head and insert a fine hair. She presses carefully, striving for specific results: a seizure, a novel pheromone burst, a dance that ends in self-castration. If she replaces the hair with a wasp’s narrow syringing stinger, she may blow air bubbles into his head and then he will react unpredictably. There is otherwise little he may do that will surprise her, or himself.
What is the art of the men, that they remain to die at the hands of their wives? What is the art of the wives, that they kill?
The Strength of Weight: Removing his wings, she leads him into the paths of ants.
Unready Jewels: A mantis wife may walk with her husband across the trunks of pines, until they come to a trail of sap and ascend to an insect-clustered wound. Staying to the side, she presses him down until his legs stick fast. He may grow restless as the sap sheathes his body and wings. His eyes may not dim for some time. Smaller insects may cluster upon his honeyed body like ornaments.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven Page 51
