The Year's Best Horror Stories 16 Read online

  It’s been a good night.

  David knows that something’s up. He’s the smartest kid for a hundred miles, but it will do him no good. When the contract expires there’ll be nothing to hold me.

  A clause allowing for an extension! Both parties willing! Ah, the folly of amateur lawyers! What do they think will happen when I choose not to take up the option? The contract, the only force they have, is silent. They dreamed it into being together with me, a magical covenant which I literally cannot disobey, but they stuffed up the details, they failed with the fine print. I suppose it’s difficult to dream with precision, to concentrate on clauses while your mind is awash with equal parts of lust and revenge. Well, I’m not going to magically dissolve into dream-stuff.

  I’ll be staying right here, in this comfortable basement, but without the chains, without the dry ice. I’ll be done with the feverish torture of abstinence, when the contract expires.

  David sits in the sunshine, talking with his friends.

  “What will we do when the monster breaks loose?”

  “Hide!”

  “He can find us anywhere.”

  “Get on a plane. He couldn’t reach us on a plane.”

  “Who’s got that much money?”

  Nobody.

  “We have to kill him. Kill him before he can get us.”

  “How?”

  How indeed, little David? With a sling-shot? With your puny little fists? Be warned; trespass is a serious crime, so is attempted murder, and I have very little patience with criminals.

  “I’ll think of a way.” He stares up into the blue sky. “Hey, monster! We’re gonna get you! Chop you into pieces and eat you for dinner! Yum, yum, you’re delicious!” The ritual phrases are just for the little kids, who squeal with delight at the audacity of such table-turning. Behind the word sounds, behind his stare, David is planning something very carefully. His mind is in a blind spot, I can’t tell what he’s up to, but forget it, David, whatever it is. I can see your future, and it’s a big red stain, swarming with flies.

  “Hey monster! If you don’t like it, come and get me! Come and get me now!” The youngest cover their eyes, not knowing if they want to giggle or scream. “Come on, you dirty coward! Come and chew me in half, if you can!” He jumps to his feet, dances around like a wounded gorilla. “That’s how you look, that’s how you walk! You’re ugly and you’re sick and you’re a filthy fucking coward! If you don’t come out and face me, then everything I say about you is true, and everyone will know it!”

  I write in the sand: NEXT THURSDAY. MIDNIGHT.

  A little girl screams, and her brother starts crying. This is no longer fun, is it? Tell Mummy how that nasty David frightened you.

  David bellows: “Now! Come here now!”

  I deepen the letters, then fill them with the blood of innocent burrowing creatures. David scuffs over the words with one foot, then fills his lungs and roars like a lunatic: “NOW!”

  I throw half a ton of sand skyward, and it rains down into their hair and eyes. Children scatter, but David stands his ground. He kneels on the Sand, talks to me in a whisper:

  “What are you afraid of?”

  I whisper back: “Nothing, child.”

  “Don’t you want to kill me? That’s what you keep saying.”

  “Don’t fret, child, I’ll kill you soon.”

  “Kill me now. If you can.”

  “You can wait, David. When the time comes it will be worth all the waiting. But tell your mother to buy herself a new scrubbing brush, there’ll be an awful lot of cleaning up to do.”

  “Why should I wait? What are you waiting for? Are you feeling weak today? Are you feeling ill? Is it too much effort, a little thing like killing me?”

  This child is becoming an irritation.

  “The time must be right.”

  He laughs out loud, then pushes his hands into the sand. “Bullshit! You’re afraid of me!” There’s nobody in sight, he has the park to himself now; if he’s acting, he’s acting for me alone. Perhaps he is insane. He buries his arms halfway to his elbows, and I can sense him reaching for me; he imagines his arms growing longer and longer, tunneling through the ground, seeking me out. “Come on! Grab me! I dare you to try it! Fucking coward!” For a while I am silent, relaxed. I will ignore him. Why waste my time exchanging threats with an infant? I notice that I’ve broken my chains in several places, and burnt a deep hollow in the dry ice around me. It suddenly strikes me as pathetic, to need such paraphernalia simply in order to fast. Why couldn’t those incompetent dreamers achieve what they claimed to be aiming for: a dispassionate executioner, a calm, efficient tradesman? I know why: I come from deeper dreams than they would ever willingly acknowledge; my motives are their motives, exposed, with a vengeance. Well, six more days will bring the end of all fasting. Only six more days. My breathing, usually so measured, is ragged, uncertain.

  In David’s mind, his hands have reached this room.

  “Don’t you want to eat me? Monster? Aren’t you hungry today?”

  With hard, sharp claws I grab his hands, and, half a mile away, he feels my touch. The faintest tremor passes through his arms, but he doesn’t pull back. He closes his hands on the claws he feels in the sand, he grips them with all his irrelevant strength.

  “OK, monster. I’ve got you now. Come up and fight.”

  He strains for ten seconds with no effort. I slam him down into the loose yellow sand, armpit deep, and blood trickles from his nose.

  The agony of infraction burns through my guts, while the hunger brought on by the smell of his blood grips every muscle in my body and commands me to kill him. I bellow with frustration. My chains snap completely and I rampage through the basement, snapping furniture and bashing holes in the walls. The contract calmly sears a hole in my abdomen. I didn’t mean to harm him! It was an accident! We were playing, I misjudged my strength, I was a little bit too rough ... And I long to tear the sweet flesh from his face while he screams out for mercy. The burly thugs they employ as my minders cower in a corner while I squeeze out the light bulbs and tear wiring from the ceiling.

  David whispers: “Can’t you taste my blood? It’s here on the sand beside me.”

  “David, I swear to you, you will be first. Thursday on the stroke of midnight, you will be first.”

  “Can’t you smell it? Can’t you taste it?”

  I blast him out of the sandpit, and he lies winded but undamaged on his back on the grass. The patch of bloodied sand is dispersed, David, incredibly, is still muttering taunts. I am tired, weak, crippled; I shut him out of my mind, I curl up on the floor to wait for nightfall.

  My keepers, with candles and torches, tip-toe around me, sweeping up the debris, assessing the damage. Six more days. I am immortal, I will live for a billion years, I can live through six more days.

  There had better be some crime tonight.

  “Hello? Are you there?”

  “Come in, Mrs. Bold. What an honor.”

  “It’s after eleven, I’m so sorry, I hope you won’t let me interrupt your work.”

  “It’s perfectly all right, I haven’t even started yet.”

  “Where are the men? I didn’t see a soul on the way in.”

  “I sent them home. I know, they’re paid a fortune, but it’s so close to Christmas, I thought an evening with their families ...”

  “That was sweet of you.” Standing in the foyer, she can’t see me at all tonight. Condensation fills my room completely, and wisps swirl out to tease her. She thinks about walking right in and tearing off her clothes, but who could really face their dreams, awake? She enjoys the tension, though, enjoys half-pretending that she could, in fact, do it.

  “I’ve been meaning to pop in for ages. I can’t believe I’ve left it so late! I was up on the ground floor earlier tonight, but the stupid lifts weren’t working and I didn’t have my keys to the stairs, so I went and did some shopping. Shopping! You wouldn’t believe the crowds! In this heat it’s so exhaust
ing. Then when I got home the children were fighting and the dog was being sick on the carpet, it was just one thing after another. So here I am at last.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get to the point. I left a thing here the other day for you to sign, just a little agreement formalizing the extension of the contract for another month. I’ve signed it and the Mayor’s signed it, so as soon as we have your mark it will all be out of the way, and things can just carry on smoothly without any fuss.”

  “I’m not going to sign anything.”

  That doesn’t perturb her at all.

  “What do you want? More money? Better premises?”

  “Money has no value for me. And I’ll keep this place, I rather like it.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “An easing of restrictions. Greater independence. The freedom to express myself.”

  “We could extend your hours. Ten until five. No, not until five, it’s too light by five. Ten until four?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Bold, I fear I have a shock for you. You see, I don’t wish to stay under your contract at all.”

  “But you can’t exist without the contract.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The contract rules you, it defines you, you can no more break it than I can levitate to the moon or walk on water.”

  “I don’t intend breaking it. I’m merely going to allow it to lapse. I’ve decided to go freelance, you see.”

  “You’ll vanish, you’ll evaporate, you’ll go right back where you came from.”

  “I don’t think so. But why argue? In forty minutes, one of us will be right. Or the other. Stay around and see what happens.”

  “You can’t force me to stay here.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I could be back in five minutes with some very nasty characters.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Mrs. Bold. I don’t like it. Be very careful what you say.”

  “Well what do you plan to do with your new-found freedom?”

  “Use your imagination.”

  “Harm the very people who’ve given you life, I suppose. Show your gratitude by attacking your benefactors.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll enjoy it. Because it will make me feel warm, deep inside. It will make me feel satisfied. Fulfilled.”

  “Then you’re no better than the criminals, are you?”

  “To hear that tired old cliche slip so glibly from your lips, Mrs. Bold, is truly boring. Moral philosophy of every caliber, from the ethereal diversions of theologians and academics, to the banalities spouted by politicians, business-leaders, and self-righteous, self-appointed pillars of the community like you, is all the same to me: noise, irrelevant noise. I kill because I like to kill. That’s the way you made me. Like it or not, that’s the way you are.”

  She draws a pistol and fires into the doorway.

  I burst her skin and clothing into four segments which flutter to the floor. She runs for the stairs, and for a moment I seriously consider letting her go: the image of a horseless, red Godiva sprinting through the night, waking the neighbourhood with her noises of pain, would be an elegant way to herald my reign. But appetite, my curse and my consolation, my cruel master and my devoted concubine, can never be denied.

  I float her on her back a few feet above the ground, then I tilt her head and force open her jaws. First her tongue and esophagus, then rich fragments from the walls of the digestive tract, rush from her mouth to mine. We are joined by a glistening cylinder of offal.

  When she is empty inside, I come out from my room, and bloody my face and hands gobbling her flesh. It’s not the way I normally eat, but I want to look good for David.

  David is listening to the radio. Everyone else in the house is asleep. I hear the pips for midnight as I wait at the door of his room, but then he switches off the radio and speaks:

  “In my dream, the creature came at midnight. He stood in the doorway, covered in blood from his latest victim.”

  The door swings open, and David looks up at me, curious but calm. Why, how, is he so calm? The contract is void, I could tear him apart right now, but I swear he’ll show me some fear before dying. I smile down at him in the very worst way I can, and say:

  “Run, David! Quick! I’ll close my eyes for ten seconds, I promise not to peek. You’re a fast runner, you might stay alive for three more minutes. Ready?”

  He shakes his head. “Why should I run? In my dream, you wanted me to run, but I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I wanted to run, but I didn’t, I knew it would only make things worse.”

  “David, you should always run, you should always try, there’s always some small chance of escaping.”

  He shakes his head again. “Not in my dream. If you run, the creature will catch up with you. If you run, you’ll slip and break a leg, or you’ll reach a blind alley, or you’ll turn a corner and the creature will be there, waiting.”

  “Ah, but this isn’t your dream now, David. Maybe you’ve seen me in your dreams, but now you’re wide awake, and I’m real, David, and when I kill you, you won’t wake up.”

  “I know that.”

  “The pain will be real pain, David. Have you thought about that? If you think your dreams have made you ready to face me, then think about the pain.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed about you?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “A thousand times. At least. Every night for three years, almost.”

  “I’m honored. You must be my greatest fan.”

  “When I was six, you used to scare me. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and screaming, and Dad would have to come in and lie beside me until I fell asleep again. You never used to catch me, though. I’d always wake up just in time.”

  “That’s not going to happen tonight.”

  “Let me finish.”

  “I’m so sorry, please continue.”

  “After a while, after I’d had the dream about a hundred times, I started to learn things. I learnt not to run. I learnt not to struggle. That changed the dream a lot, took away all the fear. I didn’t mind at all, when you caught me. I didn’t wake up screaming. The dream went on, and you killed me, and I still didn’t mind, I still didn’t wake up.”

  I reach down and grab him by the shoulders, I raise him high into the air. “Are you afraid now, David?” I can feel him trembling, very slightly: he’s human after all. But he shows no other signs of fear. I dig my claws into his back, and the pain brings tears to his eyes, the smell awakens my appetite, and I know the talking will soon be over.

  “Ah, you look miserable now, little David. Did you feel those claws in your dreams? I bet you didn’t. My teeth are a thousand times sharper, David. And I won’t kill you nicely, I won’t kill you quickly.”

  He’s smiling at me, laughing at me, even as he grimaces with agony.

  “I haven’t told you the best part yet. You didn’t let me finish.”

  “Tell me the best part, David. I want to hear the best part before I eat your tongue.”

  “Killing me destroyed you, every single time. You can’t kill the dreamer and live! When I’m dead, you’ll be dead too.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think stupid talk like that is going to save your life? You’re not the only dreamer, David, you’re not even one of the twelve. Every one for miles around helped in making me, child, and one less out of all those thousands isn’t going to hurt me at all.”

  “Believe that if you like.” I squeeze him, and blood pours down his back. I open my jaws, wide as his head. “You’ll find out if I’m right or not.” I wanted to torture him, to make it last, but now my hunger has killed all subtlety, and all I can think of is biting him in two. Shutting him up for good, proving him wrong. “One thousand times, big tough monster! Has anyone else dreamed about you one thousand times?”

  His parents are outside the room, watching, paraly
zed. He sees them and cries out, “I love you!”, and I realize at last that he truly does know he is about to die. I roar with all my strength, with all the frustration of three months in chains and this mad child’s mockery. I bring him to my mouth, but as I close my jaws I hear him whisper:

  “And no one else dreamed of your death, did they?”

  WOLF/CHILD by Jane Yolen

  Jane Yolen is the author of some one hundred books and still counting. Most of these were written for children, and Yolen has been called America’s Hans Christian Andersen. Just to keep from becoming typecast, she does find time for the occasional horror story. This time out, Yolen makes a case for being a reincarnation of Rudyard Kipling.

  Born in New York City in 1939, Jane Yolen now lives with her family and pets in a rambling sixteen-room Victorian farmhouse in western Massachusetts. Neighbors thus far have not reported missing livestock or small children.

  The sun was a red eye staring over the farthest hills when the she-wolf came back from the hunt. She ran easily into the jungle undergrowth on a path only she knew. As she entered the canopied sal forest, the tight lacings of leaves shut out the light. Shadows of shadows played along the tall branchless trunks of the trees.

  The guinea fowl she carried in her mouth was still warm, though she had been almost an hour running with it. She had neither savaged nor eaten a portion. It was all for her cubs, the three who were ready to hunt on their own and the two light-colored hairless ones who still suckled though they had been with her through two litters already. There would be good eating tonight.

  The she-wolf stopped twenty feet from her den, crouching low under a plum bush and measuring the warm with her nose. The musky odor of tiger still lingered shoulder-high on the pipal trunk, but it was an old casting. And there was no other danger riding the wind.

  She looked around once, trusting her eyes only at the very last, and then she ran, crouched belly down, over to the beveled remains of the white ant mound. Slipping past another plum bush that all but obscured the entrance, she crawled down the twisting main passage, ignoring the smaller veins, to the central den. There, on the earth floor she had scratched and smoothed herself, were the waiting cubs.