Dear God, this woman couldn’t keep a cactus alive, and now she’d had a baby?
“This is Rebecca; I named her after Tank Girl. I guess I named her after my aunt, too, but she killed herself and I heard it’s bad luck to name a baby after suicides.”
“Cute kid,” he said aloud as they sat down, she by the baby and he across from them. “Who’s the lucky father?”
“You. I think. Which is why I had to talk to you,” she stammered.
His? She expected him to think that this child was his? After she’d openly cheated on him? He felt as though his heart should be pounding, but it stuck to its dull, slow funereal beat.
He stared at her, and she flinched and averted her gaze. “You said you were on the Pill,” he said.
“Well, I was…sort of. I guess I missed a couple of days.”
He shook his head. Those that didn’t want, got, and those that wanted had to go without. His sister Nina, an architect with a dull but utterly reliable husband, had been trying for years to get pregnant. They had a beautiful house out in the country, the perfect place to raise kids. They’d recently tried to adopt the child of a teenaged girl in their town. Nina had shown him snapshots of the baby: she’d had skin the rich color of milk chocolate and a cap of black curls framing her sweet little face. But, in the end, the girl’s family insisted she keep the baby. Afraid of having her hopes raised and dashed again, Nina had not tried for another adoption.
“What makes you so sure she’s mine?” he asked. “I seem to recall I wasn’t the only guy you were fucking last year.”
Julie looked as if he’d slapped her, and her lips twitched for a moment before she could get any words out. “Jamar is Black, so she can’t be his. I thought she might be Tony’s, he’s the guy I’m living with now, the one you, um, found me with—”
“Is he the one who gave you that black eye?” Tony was a wiry coke freak who worked as an auto mechanic, though his temper made it hard for him to hold down steady jobs. He had aspirations to be a professional kickboxer, and played guitar in some kind of garage band. Girls found him handsome and charming. Mike had disliked him on sight, hated him bitterly when he found the guy going down on Julie in the back room of a friend’s house during a party.
“Yes.” She started crying again. “Becky doesn’t look anything like Tony, and he knows it. She looks like you,” she added defensively. “If you don’t believe me, we can get a blood test—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He wasn’t sure he even had a blood type any more; a paternity test would only prove he was no longer human. “So let’s say, hypothetically, that she is mine. What now? I wasn’t cut out to be a father before, and I’m certainly not the daddy type now that I’m…dying.”
She gave a start. “Dying? I — I thought you looked kind of…ill, but…it’s not AIDS, is it?”
“Leukemia.”
“Oh.” She was silent for a moment. “I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t be. It’s no great loss.” He rubbed his eyes; dim as it was, the overhead lights still bothered him. At least the sun was finally going down. “So what did you want from me? I don’t see how I can help you. You and Becky should go to the women’s shelter.”
“I know,” she sniffled. “And I want to, but…I got so scared this morning when he started to hit me, I just grabbed Becky and ran. I don’t have my credit cards, clothes, or anything. I had to buy diapers and formula at the drugstore, and I have two dollars left. I can’t go to the shelter without my stuff, but I’m scared to go back to get it alone. So I called you…I figured, you’d maybe…want to help, on account of Becky and all.”
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “I mean, you’re so big, Tony would never mess with you.”
Big. Clearly, he’d missed his true calling as a knight in shining armor. He sighed, wondering how many other ex-boyfriends she’d fruitlessly called for help that day.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll go with you back to Tony’s apartment, we’ll get your stuff and go to the shelter. And then,” he leaned over the table ‘til his face was inches from hers, “you will never, ever call me again, and let me die in peace.”
***
On the subway ride to Tony’s apartment, Julie told Mike that she’d found out where he was from one of her girlfriends, who frequented the Outland on techno nights. Mike normally eschewed makeup and outrageous outfits, but realized now that perhaps he should put on vampire drag, blacken his lips and eyes and tease his hair into a scary mess every day, just to keep from being recognized again.
Becky was fretful during the trip, and worked up to a genuine squalling fit halfway through. Mike offered to hold her, and managed to unobtrusively hypnotize her and put her back to sleep. It was one of the first tricks Olivia had taught him; he never thought he’d use it on a baby.
As Becky slept, he realized he’d never held a baby before. She was so small, and fragile. And awfully cute. He gently traced the curve of her face with his index finger. Would her nose be his, or Julie’s? She had his jawline, he was sure of it. He tried to imagine what she would look like when she grew up. A heartbreaker, he decided. No doubt, she’d drive the boys wild. Then he frowned as he began to think of all the grubby, horny boys who’d be after his little girl.
His frown deepened as he thought of Olivia. He’d been away from the Outland too long, but perhaps she hadn’t noticed his absence yet. She’d be absolutely furious if she found out what he’d been up to.
***
Tony’s place was, unsurprisingly, in an utterly appalling part of the city. The hallways of the apartment building reeked of mold and spoiled food and urine, but at least it was dark.
They got no answer when they rapped on the apartment door. Tony was probably off at one of the neighborhood bars. Julie silently unlocked the door and let them inside.
The apartment smelled even worse than the hallway. The stove top was crusted with burnt macaroni and cheese; papers, dirty clothes and candy wrappers littered the floor and furniture. The TV was on, showing an ad in which a smiling suburban housewife mopped her kitchen so her toddler could crawl on a shiny, germ-free floor.
“Let’s get this done quickly,” he said as he shut the door. “I’d just as soon not have to deal with your boyfriend tonight.”
“Okay.” Julie cleared off a section of the couch and set down the still-sleeping baby.
He watched her slip into the bedroom, presumably to pack some clothes. She’d seemed increasingly afraid of him on the subway ride. Realistically, there wasn’t much he could do to keep from being frightening, but he did feel bad about having to be so harsh with her. Better for her to be frightened than for her to call the club again and attract Olivia’s tender attention.
He heard the elevator door open at the end of the hall. Booted feet began to clomp toward the apartment. Tony, or just a neighbor?
He got his answer as a key scrabbled into the lock and the door swung open. Tony jumped in surprise when he saw Mike, and clumsily pulled a Glock-10 semiautomatic out of the pocket of his motorcycle jacket.
“‘The fuck you doing here?” he demanded, pointing the pistol at Mike’s head. Tony stank of whisky, and Mike thought he detected the acrid tang of crack smoke.
Great. Julie never mentioned the guy carried a piece. Of course, given the neighborhood, nobody but an idiot would go out alone without protection.
“Calm down, Tony, I’m just here to help the lady get her things. Another minute or two, we’ll be gone, out of your hair, you’ll have the whole place to yourself.” He stepped forward, staring into Tony’s bloodshot eyes. He’d never tried mesmerizing a druggie before. Olivia had told him drunks and stoners were trivially easy, but crackheads and speed freaks were liable to spook, snap awake as if from a nightmare and lash out at anything that moved. He couldn’t tell what chemical ruled Tony’s brain. “Just be calm, and put down the gun.”
Tony’s eyes glazed, and the nose of the pistol dipped.
“Ohmygod, To
ny, put that down!” Julie shrieked, running out of the bedroom.
Tony’s eyes snapped wide in disoriented terror, the spell shattered. His finger reflexively jerked on the trigger. Two rounds slammed into Mike’s belly. Mike’s vision clouded in the bright vortex of pain.
Mike stumbled backward against the wall, numbly staring at the purple blood spilling down his shirt and pants. Would he bleed to death? No, the wounds were already starting to heal.
But he’d lost precious blood. His veins burned with a horrible thirst.
Tony was still firing wildly around the apartment, hollering incoherently. Mike shook off his momentary shock and sprang forward, batting the gun out of Tony’s hand. He grabbed Tony by the hair and threw him to the scarred wooden floor.
Tony shrieked and thrashed wildly as Mike’s blunt teeth clamped around his throat. But Mike could not be thrown off. In seconds he’d crushed the man’s trachea, gnawed open his carotid. The blood came out in a bubbling fountain, and Mike drank ‘til he could hold no more.
As he came up for air, he saw himself reflected in Tony’s dead eyes. Cold horror extinguished his predatory fury. Sweet Jesus, what had he just done? Behind him, the baby was screaming. He couldn’t hear Julie; the girl was probably petrified with terror at what she’d just witnessed.
He fairly sprang away from the corpse, and turned, trying to think of something he could say to her —
Julie was on the floor, dark blood spreading beneath her. He knelt beside her and gently lifted her head. A stray bullet had hit her in the temple. She was dead.
The baby abruptly fell silent, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
“Well, you’ve made a mess of things, haven’t you?”
He slowly looked up, his whole body electrified with dread. Olivia was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, a vision in a black lace dress. She’d apparently climbed the fire escape and slipped in through the window. Just to drive home the point that she was far better at this than he, no doubt.
He stood and stepped away from Julie’s body, nervously wiping the blood off his face. “How did you find me so quickly?”
“I made you, Michael. I could hear the beat of your heart halfway around the world.” Smiling sardonically, she glided into the room, delicately lifting her skirts to keep them out of the blood and debris.
“In my day, this would be considered the result of blind stupidity, but we live in more enlightened times, don’t we? Now this sort of thing is called a ‘learning experience.’” She stared at him. “So tell me, Michael, what have you learned tonight?”
“That what you told me was true,” he stammered obediently. “That if they’re not fit to be converts, mortals are playthings or food. Nothing more.”
His stomach churned as he spoke, curdled blood rising in his throat. He didn’t believe a word of it, but he dared not anger her further. Though she’d always cooed over his strength, they both knew she was more than a match for him. She was fiendishly fast, and had a century of experience as a murderess; he’d watched her single-handedly disarm (and then eviscerate) a pair from a rival circle who’d broken into the club basement.
“Don’t feel too bad, Michael, for I also had a learning experience tonight. I should’ve heeded your advice to leave little Onyx alone. No great tragedy, true, but I had not intended for her to die so soon. A mistake is a mistake.”
Becky gave a low, frightened whimper.
“Ah, but the night’s not a total loss,” Olivia said, fixing her gaze on the baby. “I do so love little children. Is she yours?”
He paused. “Yes.”
“Not any more.” She stared at him, her eyes daring him to challenge her.
He could not. She would destroy him, as easily as he’d destroyed Tony. Maybe easier.
But if he let this happen, let her kill a baby who might be his only child, what was the point of his existence? Fun? Pleasure? He’d never asked himself those questions before. He’d known the price of joining Olivia was losing his soul. But to let her kill Becky…that would cost him his heart. Mike bowed his head, wondering how many hundreds of children she’d murdered to satisfy her palate.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the pistol lying on the floor. He remembered the shock of the bullets slamming into his own flesh. Maybe there was still a chance.
“I don’t care,” Mike lied. “Take her.”
She smiled and gave a satisfied nod, then turned to the couch to take Becky.
Mike dived sideways, praying the magazine had not been spent, and scooped up the pistol. Olivia turned on him with alarming speed, shrieking in rage. He pointed the Glock at her midsection and furiously pumped the trigger.
Two firecracker pops, then impotent clicking. But he’d hit her. She stepped backward, staring in mute surprise at the ichor-spilling holes below her breasts.
That hesitation was all he needed. He threw the pistol aside and leaped into her, ramming his left hand into her razored jaws as he dug the fingers of his right into her solar plexus.
He’d thought the impact would knock her down, but she stood fast, snarling and slashing his face with her sharp claws. He had to shut his eyes to keep from being blinded. Dear God, she was strong! He shoved his fist deeper into her mouth, and she savagely worried his hand. His fingers broke with an audible popping.
Ignoring the pain, he managed to hook a leg around and kick her feet out from under her. They fell in a heap beside Julie’s corpse. The momentum of the fall helped him pierce the skin beneath her breastbone with his fingers. She bucked and thrashed, hammering his head and shoulders with bone-cracking blows as he worked his hand deeper and deeper into her slick, cold flesh. She got her claws around his neck, ready to tear out his throat. His fingers closed around her coarse, pulsing cardiac muscle. He yanked it free.
Her heart came out in a great gout of ichor. Olivia’s body convulsed, and then was still. As Mike watched, her dead flesh deliquesced, skin and muscle melting into grayish goo over crumbling black bone. Her heart turned to foul jelly and slipped through his fingers. The stench of rot greased the air.
He stood up, feeling nauseated as the ragged edges of broken bones in his skull and arms scraped against each other. He gingerly explored the lacerations on his face and scalp, thankful he’d been able to kill her before she’d done much more damage. The blood loss made him desperately hungry, but he could endure it until he found a dog or rat. He couldn’t bear to dine on the cooling blood in Julie’s corpse.
Becky was wailing. What was he going to do with her now? The answer came to him instantly: if his sister had been desperate to take some poor stranger’s child, she’d certainly take custody of her only niece.
He wiped the rest of Olivia off on his jeans, then hurried over to the infant.
“Hush,” he said, mesmerizing her with his black eyes. “It’s okay, I’ll take you someplace nice. It’s got trees, and a barn, and when you’re a little older you can have a puppy, I bet.”
Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he poked through Olivia’s sodden dress until he found her car keys. The Lincoln was likely parked no more than a few blocks away; Olivia had always hated walking. He shook the keys free and stood up, breathing deeply.
People were making noise out in the hallway. It was only a matter of time before the police arrived. He’d have to sneak out by way of the fire escape, go up and over the building if a crowd had gathered on the street below.
His sister’s house was an hour away from the city. He wasn’t sure what he’d tell her; the truth would probably work, or most of it. He’d make sure to leave a note granting his sister guardianship. With luck, Becky’s first few months in chaos and single evening in Hell wouldn’t leave lasting scars. She could grow up with parents who would love her, and she would be free to make her own dreams. He hoped that she’d do better than her biological parents, but if she didn’t, well, at least the mistakes would be hers to make.
He washed the gore off his face, hands and arms in the
kitchen, then gathered up Becky. His body itched; his flesh and bones were starting to knit. He had strength, he had freedom. And he might just have eternity.
And wherever he ended up, he would make sure his existence meant something.
Afterword
by Nalo Hopkinson
I first met Lucy Snyder in 1995. We were both students at Clarion East, then housed at Michigan State University. Clarion is a six-week long workshop in writing science fiction, fantasy and horror. I had just had my first short story published in a Toronto magazine. I left Clarion mentally wrung out.
Whereas Lucy, within weeks of leaving Clarion, created the online fiction zine Dark Planet, which she edited for about seven years. She’s been the fiction editor for a science magazine. She’s done science writing herself, not to mention tech support, web design, research, bassoon instruction, and radio news editing. Her resume also mentions snake wrangling. Why am I not surprised? Through it all, she’s worked at her own fiction and non-fiction, found her way back into poetry, and discovered her flair for short humour. (“Installing Linux on a Dead Badger” is in another collection of hers. Do go read it. When you do, don’t have anything in your mouth that a surprised snort could catapult up into your sinuses. You have been warned.)
I remember the Lucy I first met as a pale young woman who had clothing in every shade of black. She would be responsible, several years later, for filling my miniscule one-bedroom apartment with goths when she and a few of her friends were in town for a convention. We were all pretty messy. Getting ready to go out on the town that evening was quite the challenge as we all tried to figure out whose clothing was whose. That was when I realised that I wear a hell of a lot of black, too.
The Lucy I first met was shy. I suspect all nineteen of us Clarionettes were, and far too many of us knew stanzas from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales by heart. In the original old English. Lucy often looked serious; either unhappy or angry, it was difficult to tell which. Until she smiled, and you could see the friendly, sweet person that she really was. When writer Samuel R. Delany heard her responses to an autobiographical writing exercise that he had set us, he beamed and said, “I’m half in love with you myself, just from hearing that description.”
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