The Year's Best SF 08 # 1990

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  The town of Lewisburg was south of Astoria, north of Cannon Beach, population nine hundred eighty-four. And at two in the morning they were all sleeping, the town blacked out by rain. There were the flickering night-lights at the drugstore, and the lights from the newspaper building, and two traffic lights, although no other traffic moved. Rain pelted the windshield and made a river through Main Street, cascaded down the side streets on the left, came pouring off the mountain on the right. Eddie made the turn onto Third and hit the brakes hard when a figure darted across the street.

  “Jesus!” he grunted as the car skidded, then caught and righted itself. “Who was that?”

  Truman was peering out into the darkness, nodding. The figure had vanished down the alley behind Sal’s Restaurant. “Bet it was the Boland girl, the young one. Not Norma. Following her sister’s footsteps.”

  His tone was not condemnatory, even though everyone knew exactly where those footsteps would lead the kid.

  “She sure earned whatever she got tonight,” Eddie said with a grunt and pulled up into the driveway of Truman’s house. “See you around.”

  “Yep. Probably will. Thanks for the lift.” He gathered himself together and made a dash for his porch.

  But he would be soaked anyway, Eddie knew. All it took was a second out in this driving rain. That poor, stupid kid, he thought again as he backed out of the drive, retraced his trail for a block or two, and headed toward his own little house. On impulse he turned back and went down Second Street to see if the kid was still scurrying around; at least he could offer her a lift home. He knew where the Bolands lived, the two sisters, their mother, all in the trade now, apparently. But God, he thought, the little one couldn’t be more than twelve.

  The numbered streets were parallel to the coastline; the cross streets had become wind tunnels that rocked his car every time he came to one. Second Street was empty, black. He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t wanted to get involved anyway, in any manner, and now he could go on home, listen to music for an hour or two, have a drink or two, a sandwich, and get some sleep. If the wind ever let up. He slept very poorly when the wind blew this hard. What he most likely would do was finish the book he was reading, possibly start another one. The wind was good for another four or five hours. Thinking this way, he made another turn or two and then saw the kid again, this time sprawled on the side of the road.

  If he had not already seen her once, if he had not been thinking about her, about her sister and mother, if he had been driving faster than five miles an hour, probably he would have missed her. She lay just off the road, facedown. As soon as he stopped and got out of the car, the rain hit his face, streamed from his glasses, blinding him almost. He got his hands on the child and hauled her to the car, yanked open the back door and deposited her inside. Only then he got a glimpse of her face. Not the Boland girl. No one he had ever seen before. And as light as a shadow. He hurried around to the driver’s side and got in, but he could no longer see her now from the front seat. Just the lumpish black raincoat that gleamed with water and covered her entirely. He wiped his face, cleaned his glasses, and twisted in the seat; he couldn’t reach her, and she did not respond to his voice.

  He cursed bitterly and considered his next move. She could be dead, or dying. Through the rain-streaked windshield the town appeared uninhabited. It didn’t even have a police station, a clinic, or a hospital. The nearest doctor was ten or twelve miles away, and in this weather.… Finally he started the engine and headed for home. He would call the state police from there, he decided. Let them come and collect her. He drove up Hammer Hill to his house and parked in the driveway at the walk that led to the front door. He would open the door first, he had decided, then come back and get the kid; either way he would get soaked, but there was little he could do about that. He moved fairly fast for a large man, but his fastest was not good enough to keep the rain off his face again. If it would come straight down, the way God meant rain to fall, he thought, fumbling with the key in the lock, he would be able to see something. He got the door open, flicked on the light switch, and went back to the car to collect the girl. She was as limp as before and seemed to weigh nothing at all. The slicker she wore was hard to grasp, and he did not want her head to loll about for her to brain herself on the porch rail or the door frame, but she was not easy to carry, and he grunted although her weight was insignificant. Finally he got her inside, and kicked the door shut, and made his way to the bedroom, where he dumped her on the bed.

  Then he took off his hat that had been useless, and his glasses that had blinded him with running water, and the raincoat that was leaving a trail of water with every step. He backed off the Navaho rug and out to the kitchen to put the wet coat on a chair, let it drip on the linoleum. He grabbed a handful of paper toweling and wiped his glasses, then returned to the bedroom.

  He reached down to remove the kid’s raincoat and jerked his hand away again. “Jesus Christ!” he whispered and backed away from her. He heard himself saying it again, and then again, and stopped. He had backed up to the wall, was pressed hard against it. Even from there he could see her clearly. Her face was smooth, without eyebrows, without eyelashes, her nose too small, her lips too narrow, hardly lips at all. What he had thought was a coat was part of her. It started on her head, where hair should have been, went down the sides of her head where ears should have been, down her narrow shoulders, the backs of her arms that seemed too long and thin, almost boneless.

  She was on her side, one long leg stretched out, the other doubled up under her. Where there should have been genitalia, there was too much skin, folds of skin.

  Eddie felt his stomach spasm; a shudder passed over him. Before, he had wanted to shake her, wake her up, ask questions; now he thought that if she opened her eyes, he might pass out. And he was shivering with cold. Moving very cautiously, making no noise, he edged his way around the room to the door, then out, back to the kitchen where he pulled a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet and poured half a glass that he drank as fast as he could. He stared at his hand. It was shaking.

  Very quietly he took off his sodden shoes and placed them at the back door, next to his waterproof boots that he invariably forgot to wear. As soundlessly as possible he crept to the bedroom door and looked at her again. She had moved, was now drawn up in a huddle as if she was as cold as he was. He took a deep breath and began to inch around the wall of the room toward the closet, where he pulled out his slippers with one foot and eased them on, and then tugged on a blanket on a shelf. He had to let his breath out; it sounded explosive to his ears. The girl shuddered and made herself into a tighter ball. He moved toward her slowly, ready to turn and run, and finally was close enough to lay the blanket over her. She was shivering hard. He backed away from her again and this time went to the living room, leaving the door open so that he could see her, just in case. He turned up the thermostat, retrieved his glass from the kitchen, and went to the door again and again to peer inside. He should call the state police, he knew, and made no motion toward the phone. A doctor? He nearly laughed. He wished he had a camera. If they took her away, and they would, there would be nothing to show, nothing to prove she had existed. He thought of her picture on the front page of the North Coast News and snorted. The National Enquirer? This time he muttered a curse. But she was news. She certainly was news.

  Mary Beth, he decided. He had to call someone with a camera, someone who could write a decent story. He dialed Mary Beth, got her answering machine, and hung up, dialed it again. At the fifth call her voice came on. “Who the hell is this, and do you know that it’s three in the fucking morning?”

  “Eddie Delacort. Mary Beth, get up, get over here, my place, and bring your camera.”

  “Fat Eddie? What the hell—”

  “Right now, and bring plenty of film.” He hung up.

  A few seconds later his phone rang; he took it off the hook and laid it down on the table. While he waited for Mary Beth, he surveyed the room. The house w
as small, with two bedrooms, one that he used for an office, on the far side of the living room. In the living room there were two easy chairs covered with fine, dark green leather, no couch, a couple of tables, and many bookshelves, all filled. A long cabinet held his sound equipment, a stereo, hundreds of albums. Everything was neat, arranged for a large man to move about easily, nothing extraneous anywhere. Underfoot was another Navaho rug. He knew the back door was securely locked; the bedroom windows were closed, screens in place. Through the living room was the only way the kid on his bed could get out, and he knew she would not get past him if she woke up and tried to make a run. He nodded, then moved his two easy chairs so that they faced the bedroom; he pulled an end table between them, got another glass, and brought the bottle of bourbon. He sat down to wait for Mary Beth, brooding over the girl in his bed. From time to time the blanket shook hard; a slight movement that was nearly constant suggested that she had not yet warmed up. His other blanket was under her, and he had no intention of touching her again in order to get to it.

  Mary Beth arrived as furious as he had expected. She was his age, about forty, graying, with suspicious blue eyes and no makeup. He had never seen her with lipstick on, or jewelry of any kind except for a watch, or in a skirt or dress. That night she was in jeans and a sweatshirt and a bright red hooded raincoat that brought the rainstorm inside as she entered, cursing him. He noted with satisfaction that she had her camera gear. She cursed him expertly as she yanked off her raincoat and was still calling him names when he finally put his hand over her mouth and took her by the shoulder, propelled her toward the bedroom door.

  “Shut up and look,” he muttered. She was stronger than he had realized and now twisted out of his grasp and swung a fist at him. Then she faced the bedroom. She looked, then turned back to him red-faced and sputtering. “You … you got me out … a floozy in your bed.… So you really do know what that thing you’ve got is used for! And you want pictures! Jesus God!”

  “Shut up!”

  This time she did. She peered at his face for a second, turned and looked again, took a step forward, then another. He knew her reaction was to his expression, not the lump on the bed. Nothing of that girl was visible, just the unquiet blanket and a bit of darkness that was not hair but should have been. He stayed at Mary Beth’s side, and his caution was communicated to her; she was as quiet now as he was.

  At the bed he reached out and gently pulled back the blanket. One of her hands clutched it spasmodically. The hand had four apparently boneless fingers, long and tapered, very pale. Mary Beth exhaled too long, and neither of them moved for what seemed minutes. Finally she reached out and touched the darkness at the girl’s shoulder, touched her arm, then her face. Abruptly she pulled back her hand. The girl on the bed was shivering harder than ever, in a tighter ball that hid the many folds of skin at her groin.

  “It’s cold,” Mary Beth whispered.

  “Yeah.” He put the blanket back over the girl.

  Mary Beth went to the other side of the bed, squeezed between it and the wall and carefully pulled the bedspread and blanket free, and put them over the girl also. Eddie took Mary Beth’s arm, and they backed out of the bedroom. She sank into one of the chairs he had arranged and automatically held out her hand for the drink he was pouring.

  “My God,” Mary Beth said softly after taking a large swallow, “what is it? Where did it come from?”

  He told her as much as he knew, and they regarded the sleeping figure. He thought the shivering had subsided, but maybe she was just too weak to move so many covers.

  “You keep saying it’s a she,” Mary Beth said. “You know that thing isn’t human, don’t you?”

  Reluctantly he described the rest of the girl, and this time Mary Beth finished her drink. She glanced at her camera bag but made no motion toward it yet. “It’s our story,” she said. “We can’t let them have it until we’re ready. Okay?”

  “Yeah. There’s a lot to consider before we do anything.”

  Silently they considered. He refilled their glasses, and they sat watching the sleeping creature on his bed. When the lump flattened out a bit, Mary Beth went in and lifted the covers and examined her, but she did not touch her again. She returned to her chair very pale and sipped bourbon. Outside the wind moaned, but the howling had subsided, and the rain was no longer a driving presence against the front of the house, the side that faced the sea.

  From time to time one or the other made a brief suggestion.

  “Not radio,” Eddie said.

  “Right,” Mary Beth said. She was a stringer for NPR.

  “Not newsprint,” she said later.

  Eddie was a stringer for AP. He nodded.

  “It could be dangerous when it wakes up,” she said.

  “I know. Six rows of alligator teeth, or poison fangs, or mind rays.”

  She giggled. “Maybe right now there’s a hidden camera taking in all this. Remember that old TV show?”

  “Maybe they sent her to test us, our reaction to them.”

  Mary Beth sat up straight. “My God, more of them?”

  “No species can have only one member,” he said very seriously. “A counterproductive trait.” He realized that he was quite drunk. “Coffee,” he said and pulled himself out of the chair, made his way unsteadily to the kitchen.

  When he had the coffee ready, and tuna sandwiches, and sliced onions and tomatoes, he found Mary Beth leaning against the bedroom door, contemplating the girl.

  “Maybe it’s dying,” she said in a low voice. “We can’t just let it die, Eddie.”

  “We won’t,” he said. “Let’s eat something. It’s almost daylight.”

  She followed him to the kitchen and looked around it. “I’ve never been in your house before. You realize that? All the years I’ve known you, I’ve never been invited here before.”

  “Five years,” he said.

  “That’s what I mean. All those years. It’s a nice house. It looks like your house should look, you know?”

  He glanced around the kitchen. Just a kitchen—stove, refrigerator, table, counters. There were books on the counter and piled on the table. He pushed the pile to one side and put down plates. Mary Beth lifted one and turned it over. Russet-colored, gracefully shaped pottery from North Carolina, signed by Sara. She nodded, as if in confirmation. “You picked out every single item individually, didn’t you?”

  “Sure. I have to live with the stuff.”

  “What are you doing here, Eddie? Why here?”

  “The end of the world, you mean? I like it.”

  “Well, I want the hell out. You’ve been out and chose to be here. I choose to be out. That thing on your bed will get me out.”

  From the University of Indiana to a small paper in Evanston, on to Philadelphia, New York. He felt he had been out plenty, and now he simply wanted a place where people lived in individual houses and chose the pottery they drank their coffee from. Six years ago he had left New York, on vacation, he had said, and he had come to the end of the world and stayed.

  “Why haven’t you gone already?” he asked Mary Beth.

  She smiled her crooked smile. “I was married, you know that? To a fisherman. That’s what girls on the coast do, marry fishermen or lumbermen or policemen. Me, Miss Original No-Talent herself. Married, playing house forever. He’s out there somewhere. Went out one day and never came home again. So I got a job with the paper, this and that. Only one thing could be worse than staying here at the end of the world, and that’s being in the world broke. Not my style.”

  She finished her sandwich and coffee and now seemed too restless to sit still. She went to the window over the sink and gazed out. The light was gray. “You don’t belong here any more than I do. What happened? Some woman tell you to get lost? Couldn’t get the job you wanted? Some young slim punk worm in in front of you? You’re dodging just like me.”

  All the above, he thought silently, and said, “Look, I’ve been thinking. I can’t go to the offic
e without raising suspicion, in case anyone’s looking for her, I mean. I haven’t been in the office before one or two in the afternoon for more than five years. But you can. See if anything’s come over the wires, if there’s a search on, if there was a wreck of any sort. You know. If the FBI’s nosing around, or the military. Anything at all.” Mary Beth rejoined him at the table and poured more coffee, her restlessness gone, an intent look on her face. Her business face, he thought.

  “Okay. First some pictures, though. And we’ll have to have a story about my car. It’s been out front all night,” she added crisply. “So, if anyone brings it up, I’ll have to say I keep you company now and then. Okay?”

  He nodded and thought without bitterness that that would give them a laugh at Connally’s Tavern. That reminded him of Truman Cox. “They’ll get around to him eventually, and he might remember seeing her. Of course, he assumed it was the Boland girl. But they’ll know we saw someone.”

  Mary Beth shrugged. “So you saw the Boland girl and got to thinking about her and her trade and gave me a call. No problem.”

  He looked at her curiously. “You really don’t care if they start that scuttlebutt around town about you and me?”

  “Eddie,” she said almost too sweetly, “I’d admit to fucking a pig if it would get me the hell out of here. I’ll go on home for a shower, and by then maybe it’ll be time to get on my horse and go to the office. But first some pictures.”

  At the bedroom door he asked in a hushed voice, “Can you get them without using the flash? That might send her into shock or something.”

  She gave him a dark look. “Will you for Christ’s sake stop calling it a her!” She scowled at the figure on the bed. “Let’s bring in a lamp, at least. You know I have to uncover it.”

  He knew. He brought in a floor lamp, turned on the bedside light, and watched Mary Beth go to work. She was a good photographer, and in this instance she had an immobile subject; she could use time exposures. She took a roll of film and started a second one, then drew back. The girl on the bed was shivering hard again, drawing up her legs, curling into a tight ball.