Richard Kadrey: Dead Set

Without waiting for Valentine to turn around, she said, “I met a man who can let me see Dad.” He kept scanning the mountain. “He says Dad is a lost soul.”

“There’s definitely someone on our mountain,” Valentine said. “But I can’t get a good look through all this fog.” The mist was heavier than Zoe remembered. It shrouded the mountain, roiling and swirling from the summit to the ground. It had even begun to send out white, ghostly fingers onto the green grass plain.

“Did you hear what I said?” Zoe asked. “I’m going back tomorrow to see him.”

Valentine took the telescope from his eye and looked at her. “How do you know you can trust this guy?”

“I guess I don’t.” Zoe shrugged. “But it’s not like he copped a feel or asked for money, and he could have. I have to go back and see if he was telling the truth.”

“If he didn’t ask you for money, what did he ask for?”

“Nothing,” Zoe lied, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. She didn’t want to have to explain about the lock of hair. She knew it was a little weird, but she couldn’t take the chance on being talked out of going back to the store.

Valentine turned back to the telescope. “Mother is worried about you.”

“You think so?”

He nodded, inching out the lens to change the telescope’s focus. “She’s afraid you’re going to hurt yourself again.”

Zoe tugged down her sleeves and snapped the rubber band, suddenly self-conscious. “You know I don’t do that anymore.”

“But you have razors hidden in your room.” Valentine closed the old telescope and turned to her. “You took Father’s shaving kit when you and Mother were packing up the old house.”

“I’m not going to use them, I swear.” Zoe sat, arms around herself, her knees drawn up to her chest. Valentine limped over and sat down next to her.

“Throw them away. Please.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I need them. I’m not going to use them, but it helps to know they’re there.”

Valentine turned over his skinny, dirt-grimed arms, holding them up so Zoe could see. “When you hurt yourself you hurt me, too,” he said. Seeing the long overlapping scars that extended from her dream brother’s wrists almost to his elbows took Zoe’s breath away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

“Because you needed to stop for you, not for me. And you did and that makes me happy,” said Valentine. “But I’m asking you, for my sake this time, not to start again.”

She nodded, her arms and legs still tucked against her. Wrapped tight like a little ball of pain, Zoe leaned against Valentine. “I won’t. I promise,” she said. “I’ll throw the others away.”

“Thanks.”

“But not Dad’s razor. It was his and I’m keeping it.”

“Okay,” said Valentine. He didn’t sound happy about it but he didn’t argue with her.

“I’m going back to the store tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get to see Dad.”

Valentine opened the telescope and handed it to Zoe. “I’m going to keep watching the mountain.”

He sounded more serious than Zoe had ever heard him sound before.

Later, Zoe had another dream.

She was lost in a strange city and rain was coming down in blinding sheets, coming down so hard it was as if she’d been swallowed by an invisible monster. Through the beast’s clear hide she caught distorted glimpses of buildings and streets, but she couldn’t tell where she was. People rushed past her, bundled against the cold and the storm. She had a feeling that it had been raining for a long time. Maybe forever. The crowd swept her up and carried her along.

“Hello?” she said. “Can someone help me? I don’t know where I am.”

People kept moving, faster and faster until they were sprinting around her. Hands shoved her out of way. Shoulders bumped into her, almost knocking her down. No one spoke or looked at her. Everyone just kept moving in a kind of desperate rush.

“Dad!” Zoe yelled. “Dad! Are you here?”

A noise came from behind. Deep and menacing. She didn’t just hear it. She felt the growl in the pit of her stomach. It was the dogs. That’s why everyone was running. There was a pack of the black beasts behind them. A faint shadow in the shape of a woman with something like a crown on her head had them on a leash. Then she released them.

The mob rounded a corner onto a long street unmarked except for a bus stop. The dogs were close on their heels. There was nowhere else to run. But running was becoming impossible. Zoe felt pavement turning soft under her feet. It rolled and squirmed like cement-colored taffy until deep cracks formed. The fissures split, pulling back like lips to reveal rows of gigantic, needle-sharp teeth. The great mouth moved down the street and, one by one, swallowed everyone in the crowd ahead of her. Each person disappeared without a sound. Zoe turned around hoping to find somewhere else to run. The dog pack waited at the end of the block for anyone foolish enough to try to double back.

Zoe broke from the group and started across the street. The mouth swam toward her, gaping wide, showing its black gullet. As she ran, she heard her mother calling, but when she tried to answer she slipped and the needle teeth rose like a wave from the pavement and swallowed her.

“Zoe!” yelled her mother, shaking her. She came awake with a start, her mother standing over her. “Your alarm’s been going off for fifteen minutes. You’ll be late for school.”

Zoe blinked, her eyes crusty from deep sleep. She rubbed her face, trying to force the image of the pavement’s teeth from her brain. Her mother balanced on one leg in her doorway, pulling on her high heels.

“I might to be late tonight,” she said. “I have a couple of interviews, then I’m meeting with the lawyers. There’s a frozen pizza in the fridge if you get hungry.”

“ ’Kay,” said Zoe sleepily.

“You all right?”

Zoe nodded. “Yeah. Just weird dreams.”

“I’m sorry I’m gone so much right now,” said her mother. “It’ll be better soon.”

“It’s okay,” Zoe said. “I understand.” Soon. Like everything else.

She smiled, knowing it would reassure her mother just enough to leave her alone.

“Wish me luck. I have an interview with the art director of a cool new tech and art magazine.”

“That sounds great. Good luck,” called Zoe as her mother blew her a kiss and disappeared. A moment later she heard the front door close. She waited for a moment longer, listening. When she was sure she was alone, Zoe got her hairbrush from the dresser. As she pulled hair from between the teeth she wondered what Emmett wanted with it. But how could she-or anyone-know what someone would be like if all they did was stack souls in boxes and hook themselves up to a machine so they could live other people’s lives? It’s like something an alien would do, thought Zoe. Maybe that’s how the Martians are going to invade the earth. Through record stores no one ever goes into.

School was a kind of fever dream. Emmett had told her to come back at the same time, which meant she had to go to all of her morning classes and stay for lunch. If someone was trying to invent a new kind of torture, she thought, this was it.

Zoe didn’t hear a word anyone, teacher or student, said that day, including Mr. Danvers. All that existed in the world was the record store and getting to it at the right time. It felt like she was in a kind of excited trance, trying to will the hands on the classroom clocks to move faster.

While she was putting her book in her locker after Mr. Danvers’s class, she saw Absynthe.

“How are you?” Absynthe asked.