Richard Kadrey - Dead Set

“Damn. I always liked that shirt.”

“Me, too.”

Her mother dropped down onto the sofa and picked up the cigarettes. This time she lit one. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and calm. “I know our situation right now is hard, but I can’t get us through it alone. I need some help.”

“I know,” said Zoe. She went to where her mother sat and pulled up her sleeves, showing her unmarked skin. “It’s Dad who’s gone. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

Her mother closed her eyes for a minute. When she opened them again, they were red and wet. “Thank you,” she said. She puffed at the cigarette. “I thought you were hurting yourself again.”

“I’m not. I’m okay,” said Zoe, trying to sound reassuring. She showed her mother the rubber band and snapped it.

“Okay. But listen, you can’t keep ditching classes. The school said you can make up the classes you missed, but you’ll have to do a lot of extra work. Maybe stay late some evenings and weekends. Understand?”

Zoe nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Okay.” Her mother leaned back, rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding the cigarette with the other. Her hair was a mess. Between that, her red eyes, and the lines the harsh living room light etched into her forehead, she looked a hundred years old. Nothing at all like the girl with the purple eye shadow.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

Zoe slipped past her and sat on the sofa. “When I was born, did you quit working so you could stay at home and take care of me?”

Her mother pushed some stray hairs off her forehead. “Your dad and I thought it would be good if you had someone around.”

“I understand that part. But why didn’t you keep designing? Do freelance work, like when I was at school and stuff?”

Her mother frowned, not the furious kind Zoe had grown used to but something more introspective. She leaned back into the sofa cushions. “I used to be really good, you know? Then I stopped when you were little. When I thought about going back to work, it felt like everything had passed me by. There was all this new software I didn’t know and there were these kids who were so damned good at it. I didn’t know how to get back in the game.” She puffed the cigarette, made a face, and crushed it with the others in the saucer. She shook her head. “That’s a lie. I choked. Simple as that. Once I stopped, I was too scared to fight my way back in.”

“But you wanted to?”

“Hell, yeah,” she said. “It’s funny, you asking about this. Before he died, your dad and I were talking about it. He could get me discounts on some digital graphics classes through his company. What made you ask about this now?”

“No reason. I just wondered,” Zoe said. She took a long breath and let it out. “I’m going to my room now, okay?” Her mother nodded.

Zoe got up and started for her bedroom. Halfway there, she turned around and came back. From the chair, her mother looked up at her. When Zoe leaned down, her mother looked unsure and flinched a little. Zoe kissed her on the cheek.

“I promised someone I’d do that.”

“Who?”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

“Set your alarm a little early,” said her mother. “I rented a car. I’m driving you to school in the morning and picking you up after school until you’re caught up on your work.”

Damn. “Yeah, okay. ’Night.”

“ ’Night.”

Zoe was still shaky, but she was also exhausted. She felt like a deflated balloon, limp and shapeless. She tried to push the fight with her mother out of her head, and she lay down without taking her clothes off. It’s just for a minute, she told herself. Just until I catch my breath. She snapped the rubber band twice.

A couple of minutes later, she was fast asleep.

In her dream she was near the tree that held the fort, but this was one of those rare nights where she didn’t materialize in the fort itself. Looking out across the field, she knew why this time was different. The normally empty field tonight was full of carnival rides. Zoe instantly recognized the carousel and Ferris wheel that she and her father had ridden in Iphigene. She called up to Valentine to come down and go on the rides with her. She started toward the spinning carousel, then stopped. A black dog sat on the edge of the platform. A woman-shaped shadow, darker this time, rode one of the carousel horses, a fierce black war-horse in shining armor. Zoe took a step back and her foot came down on something soft. It hissed. A snake.

The field was covered in a black, writhing river of glistening fangs and dead green eyes. Zoe froze, one hand on the ladder that led up to the fort and the other up defensively by her throat. Her mouth remained closed, but somewhere in the back of her brain she was screaming. She knew that all she had to do was step up onto the ladder and climb the few feet and she’d be out of danger, but she couldn’t move. Her eternal, primal fear of snakes paralyzed her, froze her in place. The snakes seethed around her feet, their bodies sighing through the short grass until it sounded to her like a crack in the earth letting out the world’s last wheezing breath before it died.

Something fastened around Zoe’s wrist. She started to scream, but her throat closed up and she couldn’t make a sound. She felt herself being pulled upward. Zoe looked up to see Valentine reaching down from the top of the ladder, trying to haul her up. Seeing him above her snapped her out of her frozen fear and she began to climb. When she got to the top, Valentine pulled her up the last few feet into the fort. She fell back against the railing, out of breath. Valentine was panting, too.

“Thanks,” she wheezed, then coughed drily.

“Breathe,” said Valentine between his own deep breaths. “In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

Zoe nodded, following his instructions. She already felt calmer, and in a couple of minutes the breathing slowed her heartbeat and she was no longer gulping air. When she could talk again, she said, “Where did they all come from?”

Valentine shrugged. “From the mountains, I think. Did you bring the carnival?”

Zoe looked over her shoulder at the bright inviting lights on the rides. “I guess so,” she said. “I was just at a park like that. I must have dreamed the rides here.”

“You went to an amusement park?”

Zoe nodded. “Yeah. Dad was there.”

Valentine looked at her for a moment, like he was carefully considering his words. It wasn’t the reaction Zoe had been expecting. “You saw Father? Where?”

“This crazy town called Iphigene. That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight, but the snakes spooked me.”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re scary, but not poisonous.”

“That doesn’t help much,” said Zoe, embarrassed at how small her voice sounded.

Valentine pulled her to her feet, grabbed a handful of almonds that had fallen from the tree, and dropped them over the sides. The snakes ignored them. He leaned over the railing, hawked up something in his throat, and spit over the edge. There was no reaction from below. The snakes were too busy striking at swarms of fireflies that swirled out of the nearby grove.

“See?” Valentine said. “They’re not too bright.”

Zoe remained unconvinced, but nodded at Valentine.

“Tell me about Iphigene,” he said. He tried to make the request sound spontaneous, but Zoe could hear tension in his voice. “How do you even know about the place?”

“I told you. I was there. It’s where the dead go and wait before they go on to wherever.”

“How did you get there?”

“By bus!” Zoe said, laughing, happy to reveal the craziest part of her trip. But Valentine didn’t smile back. He looked concerned.