Scary Out There Read online

  A pulse of water answered her, close to her legs. (Or was she wearing the tail? Was it right beside her fins? Suddenly, she wasn’t sure.) A hand grabbed her foot and pulled her through the water. It tugged her like a fish on a line; it reeled her close with silver-spider hands.

  She forgot. Ed made her forget.

  She forgot all the training and the tubes, and she cried out a burp of surprise. And then there was no more air. Ed’s hands—both hands, then—clamped around her foot. Her ankle. Her leg. Up around her knee, and reaching higher.

  Give it back. His lips didn’t move. He didn’t speak, but she heard him anyway.

  Tammy flailed, almost dropping the towel but catching it at the last second with two fingers. It sank slow, unraveling from its balled-up twist in slow motion. Unraveling but not untying, not undoing completely. Not letting the treasured tiara fall free.

  Tammy reached, elbows thrusting in every direction for the nearest hose. There were always hoses, hidden here and there. Always hoses for breathing, for refreshing, for shaking off the sparkles that crept up behind her eyes when it’d been too long since she’d had a breath; and the fizz was coming up now, and so were the silver-spider hands, curling like an octopus up her thigh.

  Another splash, and something hit hard against her head.

  (It was Frank. That part was an accident.)

  When he joined them, he turned the water pink, a little bit, in a curly cloud there by his side. He took Ed by the hair, right by that billowing head that looked for all the world like a poisoned anemone. He yanked Ed hard, snapping his neck back, and up.

  The octopus, silver-spider hand seized, and struck, and let go.

  It went, sucked into a flurry of frothy spring water and violent rich foam, a curtain and a tower of bubbles.

  And the static.

  There was a dazzling flash, and there was Frank—turning the water all pink but not giving up. Frank, with his sun-brown arms and legs as strong as chains, the big ones that hold ships to docks—the big ones that hold anchors on ocean liners . . . and Frank was holding on, but the thing called Ed was spinning—trying to cast him off like the alligators people wrestled for tourists.

  And Tammy was spinning too.

  There wasn’t any air, and there weren’t any hoses. Did Frank pull them all up when the day was out and over? Did he put them all away? Of course, when no one needed them. Of course, when the mermaid aquarium was empty, in the auditorium with eighteen seats, lined up like soldiers in a row, lined up like lines on a page, in a story, in a fairy tale where something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Of course there wasn’t any air.

  Tammy let go of the towel. It dropped away with its strange little prize, a glimmering cheap hairpiece with gems made of sea glass.

  She didn’t know how she knew about the sea glass, but she would’ve bet her life on it. Maybe she was betting her life on it. No, that couldn’t be right.

  She wasn’t even sinking anymore—but rising, slow and unafraid. Her back breached the surface; she could feel the late day sun warm against the wet shirt there, and warm against her skin. She wasn’t a real mermaid. This wasn’t a real aquarium, but that tiara was real, and its sea glass gemstones were magic of a glorious kind. And Ed was real, and he was magic of a terrible kind. The two went together, somehow.

  She felt . . .

  She heard . . .

  She saw . . .

  Below her the crumpled towel stopped atop a rock. It teetered, toppled against another boulder, into a plant. Onto a compressor, and down again, another step or two to the spring bottom, where it came to rest in the soft, white silt. It came unfolded, unwound, and from beneath one waving corner of terry cloth, there sparkled something bright and cheap and priceless.

  A deadly lure, glittering with enchanted glass.

  Cherie Priest is the author of twenty novels and novellas, most recently The Family Plot, I Am Princess X, Chapelwood, and the Philip K. Dick Award nominee Maplecroft; but she is perhaps best known for the steampunk pulp adventures of the Clockwork Century, beginning with Boneshaker. Her works have been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction, and have won the Locus Award (among others)—and over the years they’ve been translated into nine languages in eleven countries. Cherie lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with her husband and a small menagerie of exceedingly photogenic pets.

  Website: cheriepriest.com

  Twitter: @cmpriest

  Facebook: facebook.com/cmpriest

  * * *

  As Good as Your Word

  ELLEN HOPKINS

  * * *

  Fine Day

  Early spring, the ground velvet

  brown just beyond April thaw.

  Robins comb the earth, hungrily

  plucking foolhardy worms,

  as overhead cottonwoods shake

  crowns of near-fluorescent green.

  From a safe distance, I watch

  a motorcade in serpentine form

  slither along creviced asphalt,

  through wrought iron gates.

  None of the passengers know

  I’m here. None know me at all.

  But I know the boy who rides

  in the place of honor inside

  the long black Cadillac

  hearse. We were more than

  friends. We took a vow

  and this is his promise, kept.

  Yes, it’s a fine, fine day

  for Cameron Voss’s burial.

  More Cars

  Than I expected to see pull one by

  one to the side of the road. Cameron

  is—I mean was—a strange boy.

  (No stranger than I, of course.)

  I’m surprised so many people

  have turned out to say goodbye.

  Far fewer, I have little doubt,

  would do the same for me.

  I’m sitting on a hillside grave,

  shaded by an elderly oak, cool

  grass licking my skin. This is

  the oldest part of the cemetery,

  and I’m pretty sure whoever I’m

  sitting on doesn’t mind. Laura

  Simpson is her name. She died in

  1802. Her spirit must be long gone.

  A breeze rises warm, lifts

  my hair, puffs a kiss on my neck,

  and I remember Cam’s words:

  The flesh disintegrates to reveal the spirit,

  initiate its journey. The spirit may

  wander or stay bound to those it loves.

  Who did Laura Simpson love? Are

  they here? Is she? And where is Cam?

  The Flesh Part of Cam

  Is, I assume, in the shiny, copper

  casket levitating over the freshly

  dug hole in the ground. I know

  there are straps holding it there,

  but from here it seems suspended

  in mid-air, a product of magic.

  Cam’s family gathers to witness

  the lowering. I’ve never met them,

  but I’ve seen their photos on his

  Instagram. His mother sobs

  loudly. Why? Why? His father

  slides an arm around her shoulder.

  I could tell them why. But they

  wouldn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t

  understand why their son chose

  to put an end to his life. He was

  only seventeen. Just like me.

  Suddenly the breeze turns chill.

  It whispers through the greening

  leaves, Seventeen. Seventeen.

  Goosebumps rise up like ghosts

  from their graves. It’s time to go.

  I take a deep breath. “Goodbye Cam.

  “Sleep well. I’ll see you one day.”

  I Start Across

  A long stretch of lawn, beaded

  with headstones. My VW waits

  on the far side, staring at me

  with mournful eyes. Cam told
<
br />   me once that before he died

  he wanted to take a cross country

  ride in a car just like mine. “Why

  were you in such a hurry to go, then?”

  I whisper the words into the sky.

  They are answered there by the hideous

  cry of a crow. Chloe! It screams

  and I start to run. How can this evil

  tongued bird know my name?

  Winter’s littered branches snatch

  at my feet as I stumble toward

  the harbor of the street. Chloe!

  I look over my shoulder, and see

  the black feathered dagger perched

  on a wire, staring curiously. It

  never wanted me at all. “Stop it!”

  I command myself out loud and slow

  my pace to a measured walk. Why

  am I so spooked, anyway?

  Maybe coming to pay my respects

  wasn’t the best idea. But I wanted

  to say goodbye to Cam, since, despite

  many long conversations, we never

  managed an in-the-flesh hello.

  Safe in My Bug

  My hand trembles as I turn

  the key. How absurd. Ghosts

  only go a-haunting at night,

  and if I imagine contempt

  in the eyes of a bird, it is only

  the manifestation of my own guilt.

  The car knows the way home,

  lets me think about how Cam

  and I met that day, in a chat room

  named “Contemplating Death.”

  I had recently lost my best friend

  to leukemia, and as her short life

  neared its end, I kept promising

  to go visit. But watching her waste

  away creeped me out and she died

  before I ran out of excuses. It wasn’t

  my own death I was considering

  that afternoon. It was Erica’s, and

  for some reason, it didn’t occur to me

  that dreams of suicide had drawn

  most everyone into that cyber crypt.

  Hi. I’m Barry and I want to kill

  myself. Sounded like SA—Suicides

  Anonymous. Whatever. Anything

  was more entertaining than thinking

  about what a poor excuse for a friend

  I was. I didn’t care one bit about Barry,

  though. “Hello. I’m Chloe and I want

  to know what happens after the light

  sputters out.” Nobody had an answer.

  I Lurked for a While

  Strangely fascinated by the (all

  things considered) rather trivial

  reasons people gave for wanting

  to exterminate themselves.

  My boyfriend walked out on me.

  I flunked out of chemistry.

  I had sex with my brother.

  My sister is really my mother.

  I sat at the keyboard, fingers

  itching to write, “What the hell

  is wrong with you? These things

  aren’t worth dying for.”

  And then, like he could read

  my fingers’ minds or something,

  up pops Cam’s instant message:

  What would you die for, Chloe?

  That Was the Beginning

  Of our beautiful, but totally odd,

  relationship.

  Odd, because, though we lived

  on opposite far edges of the same

  city, we never hooked up for real.

  Introverts to the point of pain,

  we kept waiting for the right time.

  Time ran out.

  Odd, because though we never

  hooked up in real time, we fell as far

  in love as two people who’ve never

  met in the flesh can. Most people

  probably believe actual skin-to-skin

  contact is a requisite for romance,

  but it wasn’t Cam’s touch I tumbled for.

  It was his incredible quirky brain.

  Odd, because falling in love led

  us to make a suicide pact. Before

  I met Cam, I’d never seriously

  considered snuffing the flicker

  of my lousy life, which proved

  so much richer with him in it.

  Despite his need for control.

  Odd, because that promise to die

  in tandem is what made us beautiful.

  We were Romeo and Juliet, except

  without the duels, balcony

  confessions, kissing and sex.

  Zero sex, although we did talk about it.

  We talked about what we liked.

  (I made everything up. All the sex

  I’ve ever had was in my imagination.)

  We teased each other with fictional

  scenarios of what we’d do to each

  other when we finally met.

  On this side of death, anyway.

  We Also Talked

  Often late, often long, about

  the other side of corporeal death.

  I asked if he was certain about

  an afterlife. He didn’t hesitate.

  How could you doubt it? The body

  is a vessel, and inside it, the essence

  of existence. Some call it the soul,

  and it can’t be extinguished.

  I’d only recently considered it,

  had no clear sense of a hereafter.

  “But what comes next? Heaven?

  Hell? Something else completely?”

  He paused, and I could almost

  hear him shrug. We can’t be

  certain ’til it happens, and that’s

  half the fun of it, you know?

  Uncertainty never sounds like fun

  to me. I was more confused than

  ever. I asked if he thought people

  had sex after they died. He answered

  with a question, Why would

  the spirit rely on the physical

  for pleasure? I figured it was

  rhetorical. But then he continued,

  Without the constraints of flesh,

  energy is free to do what it will.

  Imagine the rush when separate

  energies collide. Totally orgasmic!

  I Thought He Was Enlightened

  So when we started talking

  about being together forever,

  sans flesh, I wasn’t scared

  at all. I was intrigued.

  Anyway, what did I really

  have to lose? Not like this life

  was taking me anywhere special.

  Not like this life had brought

  me anything but massive clouds

  of sorrow, from my father’s death

  when I was twelve to my best

  friend’s, not so long ago.

  Cam took charge of planning how

  we would do it. He wanted to go

  out in style—via bullet or rope,

  so people would remember.

  I preferred something a little less

  dramatic, not to mention painful.

  Pills for me. There are plenty in

  the medicine cabinets—Mom’s,

  and mine. The one thing Cam

  was adamant about was going at

  the same time, so the exact same

  door in the continuum would open

  for both of us simultaneously.

  I believed him in a way. But,

  personally, I was discussing

  abstractions. Anyway, my M.O.

  has always been more talk

  than action. Did I swear I’d do

  the deed at the precise moment

  he did? Yes. When he asked,

  Do you give me your solemn word?

  I vowed that I would swallow

  those pills right before he stepped

  off the desk in his room,
noose

  around his neck jerking tight.

  I swore I would, but when Cam

  jumped feet first into the forever

  night, I had only taken two

  Valium with a tumbler of Wild

  Turkey. I got buzzed. Cam died.

  It Is Late Afternoon

  By the time I get home, shadows

  deepening toward evening. Silence

  swallows the house, and I’m grateful

  for my mother’s usual Saturday

  afternoon bowling. I go into

  my room, drop the blinds, hang

  a sign on the outside of my door:

  Taking a nap. DND.

  She knows the code: Do Not

  Disturb. She’s seen it hundreds

  of times, and unless I’m already

  waist-high in manure,

  she respects my right to be weird

  in private. In semi-darkness,

  I flop down on my bed, close

  my eyes, consciously relax

  every muscle, begin to drift

  toward a gentle rose-colored glow.

  Closer. Closer. The light grows

  brighter. Darker. Red. Blood

  scarlet. I jump back into awareness.

  I’m in my room, and it’s black

  in here, except for . . . a red light.

  Flashing. Flashing. Flashing on

  my computer screen. No, not just a light.

  Words. Hard to read from here.

  I get up, cross the floor. Five words.

  Flashing, red: What would you die for?

  My Entire Body

  Goes rigid, morgue cold.

  “Turn it off!” screams my brain,

  and I lean toward the computer,

  but suddenly I don’t want to

  touch it. Mustn’t touch.

  Mustn’t look. I turn away,

  flip on the lamp. Soft copper

  light scatters the darkness.

  Chloe! I jump at the sound,

  but the voice that falls heavy

  in the hallway belongs to

  my mother. Dinner’s ready.

  Dinner? Yeah, I’m starving.

  But I answer, “Be right there.”

  Some masochistic sliver

  of my psyche makes me

  turn back toward my desk.

  The monitor no longer blinks.

  A single word remains,

  a steady crimson glow:

  die.

  Every Molecule

  Of air is sucked

  from the room. Run.

  Run or follow through.

  Follow through and die.

  Run. Try. Can’t. Stuck.