Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

The unicorn is alternating pitiful little bleats with full-on growls, and I edge closer, trying to peek between the trailer and the canvas flaps and see what’s going on. The canvas lean-to is secured to the top of the trailer with ropes and staked into the bare ground like a picnic cover on a camper. Is the woman beating the poor thing? Or maybe punishing it for eating a fellow carnie?

“Don’t you dare—” the woman puffs, out of breath. “Not until I come back, do you hear?”

The unicorn moans again, and I hear a screen door smack against the aluminum siding. I drop to my stomach and peek through the gap between the ground and the canvas tent flap. The unicorn is staring at me. It’s shifting from foot to foot, lowing, and as it struggles to turn, I can see that there’s something weird sticking out of its butt. It looks like two sticks or something, but then I peer closer and realize they are legs. Two tiny legs ending in cloven hooves.

The unicorn’s not fat. She’s in labor.

She struggles to lie down on the hay coating the ground, pulling against her chains so she can lick her backside. I hear the screen door open again, and my view is blocked by the women’s feet and the dirty hem of her skirt.

“I said wait,” the woman snaps at the monster, who merely growls in response. “I don’t have it ready yet.” She sets down a large bucket, and cold water sloshes over the top and splashes me.

That’s weird. I’ve heard of people boiling hot water before births—though I’m not sure why—but a bucket of cold water?

The unicorn pauses in her labor pains and lays her head against the ground. One big blue eye bores right into mine.

“You better pray this one is stillborn, Venom,” the woman says, and her foot taps the earth near my face. “I hate doing this.”

The unicorn stares at me, her bloodshot eye wide with terror. And with a shudder that goes from the top of my head into the tip of my toes, I get it.

The unicorn bleats and moans and licks and pushes, and slowly I can see the baby’s head pushing out to meet those spindly legs. The head is mottled white and red, and its eyes bulge out from either side of its oblong cranium. Between the baby’s eyes is nothing—no horn. Maybe it grows in later, like antlers on a deer. Some sort of glossy membrane encases the baby’s body, and it’s turning translucent in the air, or maybe because it’s being stretched. I can’t tell.

I’m scared someone will come round the corner and catch me peeping underneath the tent. I’m terrified the wrangler will lean down and see me. I can’t believe I’m watching the birth of a unicorn. How many people alive have ever seen anything so extraordinary?

The unicorn wrangler is clearly one of them, as I can hear her hissing with impatience, and her foot hasn’t stopped its restive tapping. The unicorn turns to lick at the baby, and the membrane splits wide. For the first time I see the baby unicorn move. It blinks and wiggles and slides even farther out of its mother.

The wrangler hurries over to the unicorn, grabs the baby by its slimy two front legs, and yanks it the rest of the way out. Venom screams in pain, and then the ground is covered with some sort of foul-smelling liquid.

“Jesus, Venom!” cries the woman, dangling the baby just out of my sight range. “You reek.” She takes a single step back toward the bucket, and the unicorn pauses in its anguish to lock gazes with me.

My hand shoots out beneath the flap and tips the bucket over.

Cold water floods the hay inside the tent and spills outside to soak the front of my shirt and pants. I bite back a gasp, but I needn’t bother, since the wrangler is screaming bloody murder. She drops the baby unicorn, who tumbles into the wet hay in a heap. Then the woman snatches up the bucket and vanishes into the trailer.

The baby shifts feebly on the ground, bits of membrane and hay sticking to its wet hide as it tries to slither back toward its mother’s warmth. But there’s something wrong with Venom. She keeps trying to raise herself and move toward her child, but can’t. She looks at me again, pain and pleading shooting at me like an arrow.

“No,” I say. “I can’t.”

From inside the trailer I hear water running. She’s refilling the bucket. She’s going to come out here any minute, and then she’s going to drown that baby. That poor, innocent little unicorn baby who never killed anyone’s cousins. Who never did anything but get dropped moments after it was born. How can it be evil?

Venom pulls herself over to the foal, licks the rest of the membrane away, and rubs it all over with her snout. The baby’s crying high-pitched, pitiful little bleats and trying to crawl under its mother’s fur. The unicorn glares at me and growls.

I say that word the wrangler used, stuff the doll into my backpack, and pull myself beneath the tent flaps, smearing mud, wet hay, and much nastier stuff all over my clothes. As soon as I’m inside, Venom nudges the baby at me with her nose.

“I can’t,” I repeat, but then why am I here?

The pitch of water hitting bucket grows higher. Soon the bucket will be filled. Venom bleats again and, with much effort, shoves herself to her feet to face me.

I stumble backward as Venom bends her knees and bows, touching her long corkscrew horn to the ground. She looks up at me from her supine position, and her desperate supplication hits me with the force of a blow.

The sound of running water dies.

I snatch up the baby and run, not looking back when I hear the screen door slam, not stopping when the wrangler screams, not noticing until I’m miles away how fast I’m going. Or how I don’t even feel out of breath.

When I finally do arrive home, it’s black out. I sneak around the side of the house into the garage and unwrap the foal from my gym uniform, which is now every bit as streaked with afterbirth and mud as my clothes. I don’t know how I’m going to explain the mess to my mother.

I don’t know how I’m going to explain the unicorn, either.

The baby unicorn hasn’t shivered since I wrapped it up in my clothes, and its skin is dry and crusty now. I’m pretty sure its mother would have licked it clean, but I’m not about to do that. Still, I know I need to keep the baby warm. And find it something to eat.

Our garage is too stuffed with junk to fit the car anymore, but that makes it a perfect hiding place for the foal. I shove aside boxes of picture albums and Christmas ornaments and pull down a ratty old quilt we sometimes use for picnics. If I can make a nest of the blanket, maybe I can put it behind the storage freezer. The heat from the motor will probably be enough to keep the baby warm overnight. I look back to where I left the unicorn on the pile of my dirty gym clothes. The foal is pushing itself up on wobbly feet and taking a few tentative steps.

Uh-oh.

Near the door there’s an old plastic laundry basket filled with gardening tools that I dump out onto the concrete. I arrange the blanket inside, hoping the tall sides of the basket will be enough to keep the unicorn from getting out. And the sides and lid have enough holes in them that I won’t worry about the baby suffocating. I wedge the basket in the space I’ve made behind the freezer and put the unicorn inside. As an afterthought I pull out the unicorn doll I won on the midway and put it in there with the baby.

It’s bleating again, but you can’t hear it above the sound of the freezer. Bet it’s hungry. I wonder what I can feed it, since unicorn milk isn’t an option. I grab my book bag and head inside, making a beeline for the stairs.

“Wen!” my mother calls from the kitchen, but I don’t stop. “Wendy Elizabeth, you get down here!”

I grimace at the use of my full name. “Can’t,” I call from the top of the darkened stairwell. “My, um…”