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

And then I realize something else. If the unicorn they “caught” was Venom, it means the one terrorizing these woods is still out there. Which means that all my friends, all these people in the park—they’re in terrible danger.

Even more because they are here with me.

I turn and sprint away as my friends start calling my name. I run into the parking lot, breathing hard and wondering how I can get the city to close the parks down again. I hear feet pounding behind me, then feel a hand on my arm.

“Wen!” It’s Yves, and Summer and Aidan are right behind him. They each stop a few feet away, giving me space, but not enough. I back up again.

“Get away,” I tell Yves. “Don’t come near me.” I breathe the air, tasting it for any trace of unicorn. We’re safe, so far.

“It’s okay, Wen,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” asks Aidan.

“It’s the unicorn,” Summer explains. “Those kids it killed—they were her cousins.”

I rip my arm out of Yves’s grip and glare at him so hard he stumbles backward. “ You told her?”

“Wen,” says Aidan, coming forward. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Man, I’m such a moron. I—”

“That’s not it. That unicorn, in the video. That’s the one from the fair. They have the wrong one. The one that killed Rebec—it’s still out there.” I’m crying now, words choking me, breath stinging my throat.

“What do you mean?” Yves says.

Oh, no. This burning, this clarity, this smell of rot and forest fire. I know it. It’s coming.

“Get away!” I scream at him. “Get away from me right now!”

And then I start to run.

They say on the news that no one died in the attack. Yves calls from the hospital, reporting that the unicorn knocked Aidan down and broke his arm, then ran right by them.

Of course. It was trying to get to me.

I huddle under an old afghan on the couch while Mom makes me hot chocolate and smoothes my hair. I can hear the helicopters overhead, watch as their searchlights scour the woods behind our house. The parks and forests have been closed again, and the whole town is on lockdown. I wonder if the unicorn is waiting out there for me, or if it has enough sense to go back into hiding.

“You did the right thing,” Mom says. “Running away from a populated area. It was stupid to reopen the parks, to think there was only one of them out there….”

I sip my hot chocolate and don’t correct her. After all, it’s true that there was more than one unicorn in our town. And even if they do kill this one, there’s still Flower, tucked away safe and sound in the garage.

Sometime late that night they report that the unicorn has been eliminated, but that the wilderness shutdown remains in full effect, for public safety. Yeah, right. They couldn’t have gotten hunters over here from Italy so fast. My parents, now seated on either side of me, praise God for his protection and mercy, but I just sob into their hugs and reassurances and promises that they can keep me safe. My parents are so much older and wiser than I am. How can they be so wrong about this? How can any of us be safe when I’m raising the instrument of our destruction in our own garage? How can we guard ourselves against unicorns when I’m spending half my nights feeding one from a bottle?

I excuse myself, claiming I need some alone time. This is, miraculously, not a lie. Then I head to the garage.

In my father’s toolbox is a small hand axe. I’m doing this for the right reasons. The wrangler was correct all along. Maybe she was in the same situation I’m in. Tricked into caring for a unicorn that became increasingly dangerous, that created little monsters of its own. Maybe she was right to try to drown Venom’s offspring, to let Venom die—or even kill the unicorn herself at last. Maybe the wrangler possessed the grace that I could not muster on my own.

I approach Flower’s box. I can tell he’s happy I’ve come, but something’s wrong. There’s a hole chewed in the side of the box. The box is empty.

“Flower?” I say, spinning. He’s still in the garage, hiding. He thinks this is a game. Flower’s joy is palpable. He’s so proud of himself. Clever beast, escaping. Freedom. Showing off for me when I come home. Each emotion is clearer than the last, and I realize that every moment I spend with the unicorn is giving it more access to my mind, to my soul.

I tighten my grip on the handle of the axe. I must cast it out. “Come here, Flower.”

The unicorn usually obeys my every command, but he’s hesitant now. Perhaps he’s even smarter than I thought. Perhaps since I can read his thoughts, he can read mine and knows I mean him harm. I try to project my usual tenderness.

“Flower,” I coax, following my senses through the garage, behind the saw table, under the disused weight bench, over to the old camping equipment. There are holes in the bag where we keep our cooking supplies, and utensils are strewn all over the floor. “Come here, baby.”

I hear rustling from the darkness. Flower is unsure of my motives, confused by my tone.

“Flower,” I try again, my voice wavering over more sobs. How do soldiers do it? How do the real unicorn hunters? The trained ones? “Don’t you get it? I have to! I have to…”

The unicorn steps out of the shadows, his blue eyes trained on me. His mouth is open, panting slightly, so that he almost looks like he’s smiling. I can see brand-new white teeth breaking through the gums. Teeth that helped him chew through the cardboard. Teeth he might use on my parents, or my friends.

I have to , I cry to the unicorn inside my head. Flower’s matchstick legs wobble a few steps closer, and he watches me, eyes full of trust. This is the creature I’ve held and fed every night and every morning.

The flower in the center of his forehead is red now, glistening, enflamed and engorged like a massive, starburst-shaped boil. The horn is coming. The horn, and the poison, and all of the danger that marks this monster’s—this demon’s—entire species. I can’t let him survive. I can’t.

This is the animal I caressed until he fell asleep, who I crooned to while he cried, who I dreamed of every night, who I’ve run through the yard by moonlight, who I rushed home to day after day. I watched him be born; I held him in my arms, still wet from his mother; and I crushed him to my chest so he wouldn’t freeze. I’ve hidden him and protected him and given up everything to keep him safe.

Flower bends his forelegs and lowers his head to the floor. He bows before me, just like his mother, and stretches out his neck as if for sacrifice. I could do it now; it would be so easy.

I drop the axe and fall to my knees.

Under cover of twilight I take Flower out to the woods. The deadly woods. The forbidden woods. With an old rubber-coated bicycle chain for a collar and a leash made from steel cable that Dad uses to tie his boat to his truck, I secure the unicorn to a tree, then create a makeshift shelter in the brush right next to it. From a few feet away you can hardly tell there’s anything unnatural there. And at least he’s out of our yard. No one will go into the woods—not after this new attack.

Flower is quiet while I work, and still, as if he knows how close he came to death. He trots obediently into the shelter and settles down on a pile of leaves. I leave the unicorn a package of ground turkey for dinner. Now that his teeth are in, I don’t even need to bother with the blender anymore, but I figure that the food should still be soft. Baby food, for a predator.

The woods are still now. No helicopters, no searchlights. No sounds of birds or insects, either, as if they also recognize the presence of my monster. Beyond Flower, I can sense no unicorn. I stretch out my awareness to its limit, searching for the other one I know must still be alive, and I find nothing. It feels incredible, but then I recoil from the magic.