Scary Out There (29 page)

He turned to see the silver girl peering out at him from the TV screen. She was only pixels now. He touched the screen but couldn't get through to her. This wouldn't do. He longed for her to be injected right into his optic nerves. Why couldn't he? Why would she say no?

“They're not the only ones,” she told him. “As long as there
are still player characters, I won't be safe.”

“And when they're all gone?” Darren asked.

“Then it's just you and me.”

He touched his fingers to the surface of the screen, and she raised her fingers to touch his. He could almost feel her fingertips. Almost. He looked at the headset in his other hand. If he put it on, he knew she would run from him. He'd spend a lifetime searching for her in that world. The only way to get her back was to take on this mission. He dropped the headset to the bloody floor. There was work to do.

The night was chilly, so Darren put on a jacket. He could hear the reports of machine guns, laser fire, and commands being shouted in more than one home on his street. Those noises, he knew, would lead him to where he needed to go. Not just tonight, but tomorrow and all the days beyond. Funny how his knife, still dripping blood, was a far more effective weapon than a laser cannon.

“PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T HURT US!”

“SOMEONE! ANYONE! HELP US!”

Tonight, in Darren's world, he'd be racking up the points.

And in the silver girl's world, the rats would be feasting.

Neal Shusterman
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of over thirty novels for teens, including the Unwind Dystology, the Skinjacker Trilogy
, The Schwa Was Here
, and
Challenger Deep
, winner of the National Book Award. He has collaborated with his son Brendan Shusterman numerous times—including a story appearing in Shaun Hutchinson's
Violent Ends
story collection, as well as a novella in
UnBound,
a collection of tales in the Unwind world. Brendan also created the illustrations for
Challenger Deep
, and is hard at work on his debut novel.

Website:
storyman.com

Twitter:
@NealShusterman

Facebook:
facebook.com/nealshusterman

MARGE SIMON

The House of Night Hospital

Entry

where all is white

specters line the stairs—

those who gasped last their breath

on sweat damp sheets

Surgery

where knives slashed flesh

so many lives unsaved

Corridors

funeral wreaths hang on doors

nurses walk the hallways

knives tucked in belts

Chapel

milky eyed mourners

hands trembling

heads bowed in perpetual prayer

twining rosaries

in bony fingers

Morgue

Boxed cubicles like

office drawers,

cold as hell

can't tell one

from the other

without a

not-so-sexy

toe tag.

Exit

No way out

but down.

Silver Sandals

In October they disappear. . . .

pretty girls in silver sandals

skin tattooed with moon and stars

tattered clothes left by the highway

screams unheard

in the house far from the city

bodies strung across the ceiling

spirits trapped in bottles waiting

offerings for the souls unborn

crimson spatters on the flooring

grimoires line the crooked shelves

pretty girls with no release from

spells unknown

Hitchhiker's Home

Mirrors broken

in a storm of hate

shards glimmer

in a slate dark sky

innocence lost

when she left

laughter silenced

by a drifter's blade

narrow hallways

overseen by the eyes

of obscure relatives

in gilded frames

ghosts wander

upstairs and down

cries only their mothers

hear in nightmares

once she thumbed a ride

hoping for freedom

but they brought

her back home.

Zombie Symptoms

Suzanne didn't notice it coming on,

as indeed none of the infected do,

during the first eight hours.

It's a matter of incubation time,

for the virus to penetrate the system.

There's the headache, then fever,

an unaccustomed glow in the eyes.

She felt a bit flushed,

thought it might be her sinuses,

or perhaps a little cold, until she

realized her rings had fallen off

the bones of her left hand.

After that point, Suzanne forgot

about what she was wearing,

didn't mind the panic in the faces

of those she passed on the streets.

In her eyes, an ephemeral light,

and her stomach screamed for flesh.

Voodoo Queen

Blood colors her hat

of haute couture style,

you'll find her at market

wearing a smile.

She's shopping for charms

and desirable potions

all sorts of the nastiest,

smelliest lotions,

whether once human

but probably not.

She's frequently sought,

for she's one of the best,

so the zombies attest,

with conditions severe,

her wares give their skin

a healthy veneer.

Huffing

you can't jail a guy

for stealing a stack

of little brown sacks

from the jiffy store

he got his mother's can of

oven cleaner from that dark space

under the sink buried

inside that extra dishpan

she never saw him

stick it under his new leather jacket

& take it off down the street to

Joe-Bob's garage where

they pass the can around

but he can't stop huffing

until the shadow spiders came

not for any others just for him

bebopping swaydancing inside his eyes

nobody could reach him after that

& nobody wanted to

he just sits there

forever blown away

he can't remember

& he won't care

so report him for

copping a bunch of brown sacks

why don't you.

Marge Simon
lives in Ocala, Florida, and is married to Bruce Boston. Her works appear in publications such as
Daily Science Fiction
magazine,
Pedestal
, and
Dreams & Nightmares. S
he edits a column, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side,” for the HWA newsletter and serves as chair of the board of trustees. She won the Strange Horizons Readers' Choice Award, the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Dwarf Stars Award, and the Elgin Award for best poetry collection. She has won three Bram Stoker Awards for superior work in poetry, two first-place Rhysling Awards, and the Grand Master Award from the SFPA. In addition to her poetry she has published two prose collections:
Christina's World
and
Like Birds in the Rain
. Her poems appear in
Qualia Nous
,
A Darke Phantastique
, the
Spectral Realms
, and
Chiral Mad 3.

Website:
margesimon.com

Facebook:
facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000459397561

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

K
ayah Fallon stood in the doorway to her bedroom, eyes wide, frozen to the spot, afraid she was watching her mother die. Details whispered at the edges of her peripheral vision—the open dresser drawer, the tumble of half-folded laundry, the smell of vomit—but she could not tear her gaze away from the pain etched upon her mother's face.

“Kai?” her mother rasped, and the word snapped Kayah from her paralysis.

She rushed across the room and knelt beside her mother. Naira Fallon lay with one leg folded underneath her. Halfway to sitting, she clung tightly to the mess of bedclothes tangled at the foot of her daughter's bed, as though she'd been trying to rise but hadn't quite managed it. Some of the fresh laundry had spilled onto her lap, and the rest had tumbled to the floor with the basket.

Naira tried to speak again but managed only a wheeze.

“What happened?” Kayah asked, hating the fear in her own voice. “Come on, lay down.” She took her mother's right arm—the one propped on the bed—and found that her fingers
were fisted in a knot of blanket. “Let go, Mom. Lay down.”

But Naira seemed unable to unclench her fist. She groaned and her breath came in quick, hitching gasps.

“It hurts to breathe,” Naira said.

Kayah looked around the room as if some solution—some miracle balm—might suddenly present itself. It did not. The pitiful painkillers in the meds cabinet would do nothing for whatever the hell this was.

“Where does it hurt?” Kayah asked. Stupid question. Automatic.

“My back. My chest . . . feels like a bear hug that won't . . . let go.”

Again, Kayah tried to get her to lie down. She couldn't think of anything else to do. Naira's skin was clammy with cold sweat, and Kayah's brain started to pull together pieces of a puzzle she hadn't realized needed solving until now. The last couple of afternoons, coming home from her job as a seamstress, Naira had complained about pain in her back and side. She had pulled muscles on the job before, and this had not seemed much different, though a little more painful. The discomfort had made Naira's sleep uneasy, and this morning she'd been short of breath. Kayah had demanded she stay home and rest, even if Naira missing work might mean a day or two when they wouldn't have enough to eat. The disagreement had turned to a squabble, and the last thing Kayah had said to her mother that morning had been curt and unkind. The memory weighed on her.

Now Kayah glared at the spilled laundry as if it were her enemy. Her mother had been restless. Washed both the city soot and the dirt and manure of the farm from her daughter's clothes. Tried to clean Kayah's room and get the laundry folded and put away. And she'd been struck down.

Heart attack
, Kayah thought.
It has to be
.

Which meant there wasn't a damn thing she could do for her mother here in their apartment. Like some trigger had been pulled inside her, Kayah tore from her mother's side and raced from the room. The butchers at the Emergency sometimes did more harm than good; everyone knew that. But right now they were Naira's only hope.

The apartment consisted of five rooms—kitchen, common room, bathroom, and two bedrooms—on the fourth floor of a dingy, half-empty building. Once there had been an elevator, but it had rusted so badly the smell filled the corridors, and it hadn't run since some time before Kayah had been born. Now there were only the stairs, and there was no way that her mother would be able to descend on her own, nor could Kayah carry her. She stood in the common room, a moment of indecision halting her as she glanced at the door and tried to imagine some way to drag her mother down four flights.

Impossible.

Her little sister, Joli, was two floors up, being looked after by Mimi Cheney. The old woman loved taking care of the seven-year-old while Naira and Kayah were at work, and Joli often
stayed with Mimi until dinner was ready. But there would be no dinner tonight.

Kayah darted to the corner of the living room, where cracked windows looked down on the street, long unrepaired. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows, throwing much of the road below into darkness. But she heard a whoop of amusement and then a low bark of derisive laughter, and she went to the west facing window.

In the alley below, half a dozen street kids were gathered around, encouraging the efforts of a seventh boy, who stood atop a small tower of rusty barrels, spray-painting a design that would've been lovely if the words hadn't been obscene. Even with the afternoon shadows Kayah recognized most of the kids. Ever since the Cloaks first appeared, people tended to stick to their own neighborhoods. She might not roam the streets with them, but she knew their names.

She had to bang the frame to get the window to give way, and the warped wood shrieked as she dragged it upward. The late summer afternoon had turned cool and the breeze chilled her, despite the blood rushing to her face and the way her heart hammered in her chest. She stuck her head out the window.

“Quinney!” she shouted.

They all turned to look, four boys and three girls, all of them skids. Street kids. Skid marks. The patch left on the ground when their parents tore out of town. Some of their parents had been taken rather than left, but the effect was
the same. They were all orphans in one way or another.

Tynan, the boy atop the rusty barrels, twisted around to glance up at her, lost his balance, and fell back against the spray-painted wall before crashing down among the toppling barrels.

The rest of them fell about, laughing at Tynan. All except for Quinney, the tall, ghostly pale, ginger boy they all followed. In his tattered denim and a ragged brown canvas jacket that had once been waterproof, he looked every inch the scavenger and future thug. And maybe he was both, but right then Kayah needed him.

“What is it?” he asked, throwing the words at her as a challenge, even as the others kept laughing at Tynan, pointing at the paint smears on his clothes and arms.

“I need you up here, right now!” Kayah called.

The whoops were predictable. One boy patted Quinney on the back, and a dark skinned girl started to swear, obviously staking her claim on her boyfriend.

“Shut up and listen!” Kayah shouted. “I've gotta get my mom to the Emergency. I think she's having a heart attack, but I can't get her down the stairs by myself.”