Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths: And Other Tales of Dark Fantasy

by Connolly, Harry

  There it was. The scent.

  He was so excited he nearly cried out. Gina wasn’t with him so there was no one to tell. He rushed down the stairs to the nearest exit.

  The street was more crowded now. He oriented himself to the direction that the wind was blowing and there was the scent of that tiny shoe, and the cut of meat he’d prepared. He followed the trail for ten harrowing blocks, but everyone around him, even the things that were clearly not human, seemed jumpy and nervous. Finally, he came to a city park—which looked like it had been constructed on the site of a meteor strike—and down inside it was a vast flea market.

  The scent led down there, and Owen couldn’t quit now. There was a long set of concrete stairs to his left, but the crowds making their way up or down were crammed together and moving so slowly they were practically standing still. Owen stepped over the edge of the crater and slid down the loose dirt toward the outer circle of stalls.

  It was like jumping into a lake of stench. Below the rim of the crater, the breezes couldn’t stir the scents, and they lingered, mixed and concentrated. Owen could smell the joys and miseries attached to old lipstick nubs, VHS copies of kung fu videos, cracked coffee thermoses, spent bullet casings, rusted camp stoves, and ten thousand other objects. He reeled as his momentum carried him deeper into it, and it was so powerful he nearly shut his eyes and collapsed.

  Not here. Even he knew better than to close his eyes in a place like this. Owen opened his jacket, drew the knife partway, then pressed it to his nose. He could smell that same smell again, and as he slid the knife back under his jacket he found the trail again.

  It was the shoe. The same shoe. He found it in a stall near the center, in a jumble of discarded junk. “Where did you get this?”

  The stall’s proprietor was barely more than skin stretched over bone. It smiled widely, revealing 50 or 60 long yellow teeth, and said: “Oh no, sir. We don’t do provenance here. No coin, either. Barter only.”

  Useless. Owen picked up the shoe and took a deep whiff. He could smell the sweat of climbing, plastic building blocks, and the dust of a baseball field. It wasn’t like sight, but he would recognize that boy again as easily as if he’d studied a photo of him. He put the shoe back.

  “THIEF!” the proprietor screamed. “You stole from me!”

  Owen stepped back in panic. “No, I—” He bumped into a figure behind him and fell into the mud. It was one of the wind-up cops. It clamped a hand on his wrist, its frozen smile chilling.

  “Officer, he stole memories from my merchandise—”

  Owen drew his chef’s knife. The cop might have had a key in its back, but it felt like flesh. Maybe a quick slash—

  “What’s this?” the proprietor said, snatching Owen’s knife out of his hand as though he was a child. The proprietor held the knife up to its ear, then examined the edge. Something made it very happy, because it smiled and said: “What have you been slicing with this, hmm?”

  It pulled open its shirt, revealing a set of scales where its heart and lungs should have been. It placed the blade on one side and the shoe on the other. The blade was heavier.

  “This will do for a trade,” it said, “And more. Would you like to choose another item?”

  “No,” Owen said, standing. That knife was a gift from his father—almost a sign of approval—but the cop had his arm and he wouldn’t risk his life for it. “I want the provenance.”

  The proprietor bowed. “I traded for it from a woman with a mop for a leg and vinegar eyes. That is all I can tell you.” The side of the scale with the shoe seemed to grow heavier until they were almost balanced. The cop released him.

  Owen took the shoe and ran like hell. The crater was too steep to climb out, so he had to suffer the interminable delay of the stairs. Someone stole the shoe from his pocket in the press of bodies, and he was too frightened to make a fuss. Back on the street, it seemed that everything had changed, but he was able to follow his own scent trail of helpless shame and terror back to the theater.

  Gina still hadn’t returned. Or she had returned and, finding him gone, had left again. He sat helpless and miserable for nearly an hour until she slipped in through a side door. “It’s time,” Gina called.

  * * *

  He joined her. “Is it far?”

  “No,” Gina said, “But listen. You follow me from a distance, at least fifteen feet. I will lead you past the door and I will glance up at it. You’ll know the door and I’ll keep walking. Capishe?” She cracked the door open a few inches, peered through, and gasped. She held still so Owen did, too. There was a sound of crinkling paper outside, but he didn’t know what it meant.

  Eventually, it faded. “My parents owned a cheesesteak place,” she said, almost as though testing the effect her voice would have. “That’s probably way beneath you.”

  “I love cheesesteaks,” Owen answered. The memory of that shoe came back to him so powerfully that he flinched. “I eat everything.”

  The crinkling paper sound didn’t come back. Gina slipped into the alley. Owen followed her at a slower pace, letting her get some distance. Eventually, they were back on the street, weaving between newspaper sellers, old women pushing shopping carts fully of gray sludge, and other stranger sights.

  It was two blocks before Gina turned her head and looked up at a building. When he reached it, Owen glanced up, too. It was the right door—painted green, with two dragons baring their teeth at each other.

  He turned around and looked at the building across the street. There it was. That was the place he’d been brought to cook that damn meal, and there was the window he’d looked through when he’d seen the dragon door. He crossed toward it and rang the doorbell.

  The door was opened by a young man with a missing ear and the fear-stink of penned cattle. His left leg was missing below the hip, and he had a mop in its place. A wave of antiseptic billowed through the doorway. The young man barely looked at him. “You’re expected.” He led Owen into the building.

  They went down a long hall into a sitting room. Every surface, even the chairs and desk, were tiled like an operating room. Two women worked in the far corner of the room. Both of their right legs had been sawed off and replaced with mops, and their left hands had been replaced with stained kitchen rags. Owen had a sudden sickening feeling he knew how they’d lost those limbs.

  The door at the far end of the room opened and a not-hallucination strolled in. It was tall and lanky with a misshapen head and goggly eyes. It was dressed in a dark, sober waistcoat and tie, but it moved like a boy on Christmas morning. “Mr. Keller!” it exclaimed. “How pleased I am! We didn’t speak on the occasion of your previous visit, but let me assure you that my guests and I were delighted by the meal you prepared!”

  It smiled; its teeth were metal-bright, rounded and serrated like the tips of steak knives. To his own disgust, Owen heard himself say: “Thank you.”

  “There wasn’t a problem with the payment, I hope?”

  “I’m not here about the payment,” Owen said. He wanted to bolt for the door. What had he been thinking? What had he imagined he would do when he got here? Bad enough he had prepared that meal, but coming here now was madness.

  The thing stepped very close to him, as if sensing his instinct to flee. “My name is Mr. Savor. Please! Sit!’

  Mr. Savor raised its hands as if it was about to push him into a ceramic chair, but Owen dropped into it on his own. In place of fingers, Mr. Savor had forks, tiny knives, and delicate silver spoons.

  “So, Mr. Keller, I’m sure you get this sort of thing all the time and I hope you don’t mind, but I consider myself something of a gourmand.” Mr. Savor leaned against the desk, looming over Owen. “Not that I would compare my humble self to you! Your reputation is flawless! But in my own way I try to keep current and eat only the finest. I’m sure you understand.”

  Sweat ran down Owen’s face. He couldn’t look away from those teeth. He was going to die here, sliced and ground up in those stainless
steel jaws. He was utterly certain of it. “What matters is that you enjoy what you eat.”

  “Oh, quite!” Mr. Savor leaned close, his voice low and conspiratorial. “But I must ask you, as an expert: What is going to be the next big thing?”

  “T- t- turines.”

  Mr. Savor was disappointed. “I thought turines were two years ago.”

  “Everything is two years ago.” Owen’s voice trembled, but he knew his lines. He’d given this little speech at many a party. “Everything is being done somewhere by someone. Savory chocolate sauce? Pork chops and oysters? Sri Lankan curry? Someone is doing that right now, and you, being somewhat plugged in, have heard about it. But you want to know what’s going to break out to the people who aren’t plugged in, and I’m saying turines.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because,” Owen said, trying to take control of his fear, “I’ve already shot three fucking episodes on them for the fall.”

  Mr. Savor laughed with delight, but Owen didn’t find anything reassuring in the sound.

  “I came here because I have to know—”

  The door behind him swung open. “My friends!” Mr. Savor said as it stood.

  Three horrors entered the room. The first was tiny, hunch-backed and gray like an old woman. It wore huge tinted drug store sunglasses that looked like safety goggles. Its face and canary yellow smock was spattered with food, splashes of blood, and old sweat stains. As it shuffled in, a long hairy tongue slid from its mouth and licked a greenish smear from its chin.

  The second was huge, bald and pink, and so fat that it had to be carried on the shoulders four men. Each of its fingers ended in an iron skewer and its dainty feet were a foot off the ground. It smiled at Mr. Savor as though it was delightfully surprised to run into it.

  The third looked like a middle-aged woman with rumpled clothes and frazzled hair. Its eyes were wide and staring, and as soon as it saw Owen, its mouth fell open and lips curled back, revealing teeth like sharpened, slow-turning gears.

  The worst one of all came last. It was Gina.

  “Owen Keller, celebrity chef and restauranteur,” Mr. Savor said, “Let me introduce my guests: Miss Indulgence, Mr. Appetite, and Miss Bite. We were the lucky four to enjoy the meal you prepared.”

  “And now you’re back with us again,” Miss Bite said, gaze focused and hungry.

  The smell of them was overwhelming. Owen wished he could shut it off, but he didn’t have the nerve to pinch his nose in front of them.

  But Gina… He was already so damn tired, and discovering she had sold him out nearly broke him. A glance at the door Mr. Savor had entered showed that the two mop women were cleaning in front of it. Would they block him if he tried to run? He wanted to collapse from despair.

  “Mr. Keller, what’s going to be the next big thing?” Mr. Appetite asked.

  Mr. Savor interjected: “That was my very first question! His answer was quite illuminating.”

  “You can discuss it over dinner,” Gina said, stepping forward. “My payment.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Savor answered. It went around the desk, slid open a tiled drawer, and took out a sheet of parchment. “Your letter of introduction.”

  Gina opened it and glanced at the contents. Satisfied, she nodded at Mr. Savor.

  Miss Indulgence stared from behind its dark glasses. “Time for another feast, I think.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Appetite said. “You’ve outdone yourself this time, Mr. Savor.”

  “Wait,” Owen said, mind racing. “You haven’t told me what I came here to find out.” The four creatures stared at him, waiting. “The night I cooked for you, I… I know it was a child that I served. A boy.”

  “Yes?” Mr. Savor prompted.

  Was this question worth dying for? Not that he had a choice anymore. “Who was he? Where did he come from? I— I want to meet his parents.”

  One of the mop women looked up at him sharply. At the same time, Mr. Savor said: “Why, he was my son, of course!” Owen found that he couldn’t look away from the cleaning woman; the expression on her face was empty, intense, and completely horrifying. Her eyes were the same color as extravecchio balsamic. “You don’t think I’d eat just anything do you? I like to have some idea where my food comes from.”

  “Besides,” Mr. Appetite said. “We can’t keep eating each other.” It tugged its housecoat open to reveal a clumsily-stitched slash in its left breast. Something that looked like brown gravy seeped out.

  “This isn’t just meat to us,” Miss Bite said. “It’s experience and memory, too. When we ate that boy, we experienced the thrill of climbing a tree, of running through tall grass, of cowering below the covers as mysterious shapes moved in the closet.”

  “All carefully nurtured by me!” Mr. Savor said.

  “And quite wonderfully, too,” Mr. Appetite said.

  Miss Indulgence frowned. “I thought the running was a bit gamey.”

  “Oh dear,” Mr. Appetite said. “I fear for your palate, dear lady.”

  “But you will be a special treat, Mr. Keller,” Miss Bite said. It hadn’t looked away from him, like a snake hypnotizing a mouse. “When we eat you, we’ll experience every fine meal you’ve ever had: duck confit, foie gras, everything.”

  “Me?” Owen said. “You don’t want me. I’ve never been careful about what I eat. Grubby diner eggs and lunch truck chili and supermarket hot dogs with relish from the public condiment dispenser…” He looked around at the carefully scrubbed and gleaming tiles around him. “Those are the experiences you’d get from me.”

  The four not-hallucinations seemed confused and discomfited. For a moment, Owen thought they might let him go.

  “I guess,” Mr. Savor said, “if the great Owen Keller is catholic in his tastes, we should be, too.”

  One of the men supporting Mr. Appetite grabbed Owen’s wrist in a powerful grip. Owen shrieked, the stink of his own fear flooding his nostrils.

  “This isn’t what we agreed,” Gina said.

  Mr. Savor bowed and Owen was released. Gina came forward and aimed the gun at him.

  “I’m disappointed, Mr. Savor,” Miss Bite said. “We’re not going to have Terror of Being Sliced Apart.”

  “We always have Terror of Being Sliced Apart,” Miss Indulgence said.

  “Because it’s so goooooood.”

  “You’ll have to settle for Despair Before Being Shot To Death,” Gina said. That seemed to mollify them, and Gina held up a water bottle. “Take a big swig and hold it in your mouth. For insurance.” Owen only stared at her. “No? Look, the last noob as clueless as you was tortured to death in District 13. It took him months to die. I’m going to save you that pain. I’m very good with this gun; I can do it so you won’t feel a thing.” She put the gun to Owen’s lips and he opened his mouth. “See? I’m doing you a favor, and this deal is going to help my mother.”

  Crazy. The whole world had gone crazy, and so had he. Owen felt a vicious hunger pang, and he had an absurd urge to request a last meal, and just as he felt like bursting out in laughter, he bit down on the gun.

  His teeth sheared through the barrel like a ripe apple.

  Gina, shocked, jumped back. Owen had only taken the end of the barrel, but it slid down his throat like pudding. She aimed the gun again and he lunged for it, still hungry. The bullet she fired went into his mouth—it should have blasted out the back of his head, but instead it vanished into him. He bit down on her gun again and she barely managed to yank her hand away to save her own fingers.

  She stumbled back, weaponless, her eyes wide and as full of madness as his own. “Don’t make me call the surgeons,” she whispered. “Don’t make me.”

  Owen chewed on the gun and felt it slide into his belly. “Get out of here.”

  He turned. Miss Bite leaned forward like a predator about to spring. As it leapt Owen did, too. His mouth gaped impossibly wide, taking one of its arms between his jaws. It tried to pull away at the last moment, but he bit down, s
evering its arm between the elbow and shoulder. Miss Bite screamed and, twisting wildly, fell onto its stomach.

  Owen lunged at the back of its head, opening his mouth as wide as he could. His teeth gouged through the tile floor, bursting the ceramic and rotted wood beneath as he bit away the upper half of of the creature’s body.

  The hole in the floor was large enough to jump through, but Owen couldn’t run away, not when he was starving. He gulped down the rest of Miss Bite, taking in more broken tile and shattered furniture, but none of it satisfied him. Everything he swallowed turned into more hunger.

  The other three horrors were scrambling for the exit. Owen opened his mouth as wide as a door, then even wider; he felt his hunger catch them, dragging them into his gaping jaws.

  His lips were stretched so tight he thought they would tear like threadbare fabric, and his eyes felt as though they would burst like squashed grapes. But his nostrils were wide, and he could smell the utter terror and helplessness of the three horrors, and the bursting caulk of the shattered tiles, and the splintered wooden beams, and dusty bricks.

  The creatures fell into him and were destroyed, but he couldn’t stop. The walls collapsed, the floors were flung up and the roof thrown down as nearby matter tore itself into dust and flowed into his throat.

  His mouth widened further and the pull became stronger. The wind and air fell into him, and fire, and fear, and a thousand thousand pieces of trash from out on the street, with all their small, useless memories. He felt people plummet into him, but it wasn’t just their flesh he consumed; it was also their love, their regret, their hope, their desperate, pathetic need for kindness. The whole awful city broke into pieces and was sucked down into his guts like a house of cards blown by a tornado. And with it he devoured all connection, all sense, all wildness.

  Still his hunger grew. He ate distance, time, then nothingness itself.

  His hunger burned, but there was nothing left for him to take in but self, and slowly, he dwindled.