The Year's Best Horror Stories 16 Part 3

There had better be some crime tonight.

"h.e.l.lo? 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 exhausting. 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 grat.i.tude 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 ba.n.a.lities 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 G.o.diva sprinting through the night, waking the neighbourhood with her noises of pain, would be an elegant way to herald my reign. But appet.i.te, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 appet.i.te, 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, paralyzed. 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. 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 pa.s.sage, ignoring the smaller veins, to the central den. There, on the earth floor she had scratched and smoothed herself, were the waiting cubs.

The three weanlings greeted her arrival with open-mouthed smiles and stayed on their bellies, waiting for their shares of the meal. But the smallest of the hairless cubs crawled over and reached out for the bird with one pink paw.

The she-wolf dropped the bird and put her own paw on it, gently biting the hairless one on the top of the nose. At that, the cub seemed to shrink back into itself. It whined and, mouth open, rolled over on its back. Its bare pink belly, streaked with dirt, moved rapidly up and down with each breath. It whimpered.

The she-wolf gave a sharp bark of a.s.sent and the hairless cub rolled over on its stomach and sat up.

At the bark, the four other cubs came to her side. They watched, eyes shining with night-sight, as she gobbled down sections of the bird and chewed each piece thoroughly. Then she regurgitated back the soft pieces for each of them. The larger hairless cub gathered up several of the biggest sections and brought one over to its small twin.

Soon the only sound in the den far underground was that of chewing. The she-wolf gnawed on the small bones.

Then the meal was finished, the she-wolf turned around three times before settling. When she lay down the three hairy cubs came to nuzzle at her side, but she pushed them away. They were ready to be weaned and it would not do for them to suck more. She had but a trickle of milk left and knew the cubs needed that slight edge of hunger to help them learn to hunt.

But the other cubs were different. Their sucking had never been as hard or as painful when the milkteeth had given way to the shaper incisors. They had never hurt her or fought their brothers for a place at the teat. Rather they waited until the others slept, moving them off the still-swollen milkbag with gentle pushes. Somehow, through three litters they had never nursed enough.

The she-wolf made room for the two hairless cubs to lie down by her side. The smaller cub nursed, patting the she-wolf with grimed paws. It gave soft bubbly sighs, a sound that had once seemed alien to the she-wolf but was now as familiar as the grunting sounds of the other cubs. She licked diffidently at the strange matting on the cub's head, all tangled and full of burrs. Each time she took the cubs outside, the matting was harder to clean. The she-wolf seemed to remember a time when the two had been completely without hair. But memory was not her way. She stopped licking after a while, lay back, closed her eyes, and slept.

When the little cub finished nursing, the older one moved cautiously next to it, curled around it, and then fell asleep to dream formlessly in a succession of broken images.

"There is a ma.n.u.sh-bagha, sahib," the small brown man said to the soldier sitting behind the desk. The native held his palms together while he spoke, less an att.i.tude of prayer than one of fear. With his hands apart, the soldier would see how they trembled.

"What does he mean?" Turning to his subaltern, the man behind the desk shook his head. "I can't understand these native dialects."

"A man-ghost, sir. It's a belief some of the more primitive forest tribes hold." The younger man smiled, hoping for approval from both the colonel and the native. "A ma.n.u.sh-bagha can be the ghost of some dead native or ..."

"By G.o.d, a revenant!" the colonel exclaimed. "I've always wanted to find one. My aunt was supposed to have one in her dressing room-the ghost of a maid who hanged herself. But she never manifested while I was there."

"... or, in some cases," the younger soldier continued, "it can be dangerous." He paused. "Or so the natives believe."

"Better and better," murmured the colonel.

"They are eaters of flesh," the brown man said suddenly, hands still together, and eyes now wide.

"Eaters of flesh?" asked the colonel.

The native lowered his eyes quickly and said very quietly. "The ma.n.u.sh-bagha eats human beings." After a beat, he added, "Sahib."

"Splendid!" said the colonel. "That caps it. We'll go." He turned to his subaltern. "Geoffrey, lay it on for tomorrow morning. I want beaters, the proper number of rifles, and maps. And get this one," he pointed to the brown-skinned man before him, "to give you precise directions. Precise." He stood. "Not that they know the meaning of the word." With a quick step he left the room, oblivious to his subaltern's snapped salute or the bow of the native or the long glance that followed between them.

The she-wolf listened to the soft breathing of her cubs and quietly moved away from them. She padded past the sleeping forms and wound her way through the tunnels of the white ant mound and out the second entrance to her den. In the darkening forest her gray-brown coat blended into the shadows.

Above in the sal canopy a colony of langurs, tails curled like question marks over their backs, scolded one another, loudly warning of her intrusion. She turned her head to look at them and they moved off together, leaping from branch to branch to branch. The branches swayed with their pa.s.sage, but the trunks of the trees, mottled with gray and green lichens, never moved.

A covey of partridge flew up before her, a noisy exhalation. Two great b.u.t.terflies floated by, just out of reach, their velvety black wings pumping gracefully, making no noise.