The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection
- Автор: Датлоу Эллен, Виндлинг Терри
- Год: 1992
- Язык: английский
- Год: St.Martin’s Press
- Жанр: Ужасы
Электронная книга - «The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection». Краткое содержание книги:
“Bad day, big brother?”
Too tired to sit, propping himself jackknife against the counter. “They’re all bad, Francey.”
“Mmmm, forgetful. My name’s Randle now.”
“Doesn’t matter what your name is, you’re still a bitch.”
Soft as dust, from the living room: “De Quincy. Longville.” Tenderly, “Bewel-come. ”
Mitch’s sigh. “Numbnuts in there still at it?”
“All day.”
Another sigh, he bent to prowl the squat refrigerator, let the door fall shut. Half-angry again, “There’s nothing in here to eat, Fran—Randle.”
“So what?”
“So what’d you eat?”
More than a laugh, bubbling under. “I don’t think you really want to know.” Deliberately exposing half a breast, palm lolling beneath like a sideshow, like a street-corner card trick. Presto. “Big brother.”
His third sigh, lips closed in decision. “I don’t need this,” passing close to the wall, warding the barest brush against her, her legs in the chair as deliberate, a sluttish spraddle but all of it understood: an old, unfunny family joke; like calling names; nicknames.
The door slamming, out as in, and in the settling silence of departure: “Is he gone?”
Stiff back, Randle rubbing too hard the itchy tickle of sweat. Pushing at the table to move the chair away. “You heard the car yourself, Alex. You know he’s gone.”
Pause, then plaintive, “Come sit with me.” Sweet; but there are nicknames and nicknames, jokes and jokes; a million ways to say I love you. Through the raddled arch into the living room, Randle’s back tighter still, into the smell, and Alex’s voice, bright.
“Let’s talk,” he said.
Mitch, so much later, pausing at the screenless front door, and on the porch Randle’s cigarette, drawing lines in the dark like a child with a sparkler.
“Took your time,” she said.
Defensively, “It’s not that late.”
“I know what time it is.”
He sat down, not beside her but close enough to speak softly and be heard. “You got another cigarette?”
She took the pack from somewhere, flipped it listless to his lap. “Keep ’em. They’re yours anyway.”
He lit the cigarette with gold foil matches, JUDY’S DROP-IN. An impulse, shaming, to do as he used to, light a match and hold it to her fingertips to see how long it took to blister. No wonder she hated him. “Do you hate me?”
“Not as much as I hate him.” He could feel her motion, half a head-shake. “Do you know what he did?”
“The cities.”
“Besides the cities.” He did not see her fingers, startled twitch as he felt the pack of cigarettes leave the balance of his thigh. “He was down by the grocery store, the dumpster. Playing. It took me almost an hour just to talk him home.” A black sigh. “He’s getting worse.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It keeps being true, Mitch, whether you want to think so or not. Something really bad’s going to happen if we don’t get him—”
“Get him what?" Sour. No bitter. “A doctor? A shrink? How about a one-way ticket back to Shitsburg so he—”
“Fine, that's fine. But when the cops come knocking I’ll let you answer the door,” and her quick feet bare on the step, into the house. Tense unconscious rise of his shoulders: Don’t slam the door. Don’t wake him up.
Mitch slept, weak brittle doze in the kitchen, head pillowed on the Yellow Pages. Movement, the practiced calm of desire. Stealth, until denouement, a waking startle to Alex’s soft growls and tweaks of laughter, his giggle and spit. All over the floor. All over the floor and his hands, oh God Alex your hands—
Showing them off the way a child would, elbows turned, palms up. Showing them in the jittery bug-light of the kitchen in the last half hour before morning, Mitch bent almost at the waist, then sinking back, nausea subsiding but unbanished before the immensity, the drip and stutter, there was some on his mouth too. His chin, Mitch had to look away from what was stuck there.
“Go on,” he said. “Go get your sister.”
And waited there, eyes closed, hands spread like a medium on the Yellow Pages. While Alex woke his sister. While Randle used the washcloth. Again.
Oxbow lakes. Flat country. Randle sleeping in the back seat, curled and curiously hot, her skin ablush with sweat in the sweet cool air. Big creamy Buick with all the windows open. Mitch was driving, slim black sunglasses like a cop in a movie, while Alex sat playing beside him. Old wrapping paper today, folding in his fingers, disappearing between his palms. Always paper. Newsprint ink under his nails. Glossy foilwrap from some party, caught between the laces of his sneakers. Or tied there. Randle might have done that, it was her style. Grim droll jokery. Despite himself he looked behind, into the back seat, into the stare of her open eyes, so asphalt blank that for one second fear rose like a giant waiting to be born and he thought, Oh no, oh not her too.
Beside him Alex made a playful sound.
Randle’s gaze snapped true into her real smile; bared her teeth in burlesque before she rolled over, pleased.
“Fucking bitch,” with dry relief. With feeling.
Alex said, “I’m hungry. ”
Mitch saw he had begun to eat the paper. “We’ll find a drive-through somewhere,” he said, and for a moment dreamed of flinging the wheel sideways, of fast and greasy death. Let someone else clean up for a change.
There was a McDonald's coming up, garish beside the blacktop; he got into the right lane just a little too fast. “Randle,” coldly, “put your shirt on.”
Chasing the end of the drive-through line, lunchtime and busy and suddenly Alex was out of the car, leaned smiling through the window to say, “I want to eat inside.” And gone, trotting across the parking lot, birthday paper forgotten on the seat beside.
“Oh God,” Mitch craning, tracking his progress, “go after him, Randle,” and Randle’s snarl, the bright slap of her sandals as she ran. Parking, he considered driving off. Alone. Leaving them there. Don’t you ever leave them, swear me.
You have to swear me, Michie. Had she ever really said that? Squeezed out a promise like a dry log of shit? I hope there is a hell, he thought, turning off the car, I hope it’s big and hot and eternal and that she’s in it.
They were almost to the counter, holding hands. When Randle saw him enter, she looked away; he saw her fingers squeeze Alex’s, twice and slow. What was it like for her? Middleman. Alex was staring at the wall menu as if he could read. “I’ll get a booth,” Mitch said.
A table, instead; there were no empty booths. One by one Alex crumbled the chocolate-chip cookies, licked his fingers to dab up the crumbs. Mitch drank coffee.
“That’s making me sick,” he said to Randle.
Her quick sideways look at Alex. “What?” through half a mouthful, a tiny glob of tartar sauce rich beside her lower lip.
“That smell,” nodding at her sandwich. “Fish.”
Mouth abruptly stretched, chewed fish and half-smeared sauce, he really was going to be sick. Goddamned bitch. Nudging him under the table with one bare foot. Laughing into her Coke.
“Do you always have to make it worse?”
Through another mouthful, “It can’t get any worse.” To Alex, “Eat your cookies.”
Mitch drank more coffee; it tasted bitter, boiled. Randle stared over his head as she ate: watching the patrons? staring at the wall? Alex coughed on cookie crumbs, soft dry cough. Gagged a little. Coughed harder.