Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year – Volume One

"I didn't think the city bothered collecting garbage from the east side."

"We do it once a year. Looks good on the annual report."

"Figures."

"So there I was, collecting garbage, dragging it back to the truck. I like to go out ahead. The other golems stick together but I… well, I guess I'm a loner. So, I get to this big old brownstone. It's a dive, but there's still a garbage can out front. Funny-even trash throws out the trash." Byron paused. With one massive hand he smoothed his cheeks where the tears had melted them. The golem equivalent of drying his eyes. "So I pick up the can. Only I'm clumsy and the lid comes off. That's when I see what's inside."

"The girl? In pieces?"

"The girl in pieces, right. And the axe lying on top. All at once I'm scared. I dunno what to do. I pick up the axe-dunno why. Then the garbage truck is there, and there's the other golems. They ask me what's wrong. That's when I realise I've been standing there a couple of minutes, just frozen."

"What happened next?"

"Four-Oh-Seven-One-he's shift supervisor-he looks at the axe. Then he looks in the garbage can. He says, "What did you do to her, you freak?" Then they all back off and Two-Two-Eight-Six says, "I'm calling the cops!" and that's when I ran."

"Why run if you didn't do anything?"

"I dunno. I panicked. Anyway, I just ran."

"Why didn't you drop the garbage can? Or the axe, for that matter?"

"It's evidence, ain't it? I need it to prove my innocence."

I looked out at the cops. They'd finished piling the sandbags; now they were hunkered down, waiting. I looked at Byron the golem sitting forlorn in the wreckage of my couch. Whichever way you sliced it, this was a doozy of a mess. Best thing I could do was open the door and let the cops do their thing.

I poured myself another coffee.

I forced myself to look at the girl's torn-up remains.

"This tenement on the east side," I said. "Where was it exactly?"

" Crucifix Lane. Does this mean you believe me? You're gonna help?"

"Don't get excited. I'm just curious. I think you and me should take a little stroll."

"But how are we gonna get out? We'll never get past the cops."

"The front door isn't the only door."

Byron looked at the four blank walls. He scratched his crotch. There was a lot of clay down there.

"You got a back door?"

Everyone knows there's eleven dimensions. Most places you go, you only see three or four. Maybe five if it's late and the bar's still open. But there's some places where the dimensions… well, they get kind of crowded up together.

Think of a ball of yarn. However neat it looks, you start unravelling it, sooner or later you'll get a knot. Yarn gets snarled up-it's in its nature. Same with dimensions.

Take this city. It was built right on top of one mother of a cosmic knot. Mostly it looks like a city, but underneath it's got way too many dimensions for its own good. That's why it works the way it does. It's why the cops are all zombies and all the big crime lords are Titans. It's why time runs slower uptown than downtown and the mayor is a gangster-turned-goddess called Pallas Athene. It's why the skies are full of thunderbirds and the sewers have minds of their own. It's why nothing makes sense but everything hangs together. This city's like a knot all right, a knot in the middle of a great spider's web. Only the web's not made of silk, it's made of cosmic string. And whenever the string vibrates it sends all these echoes down into the web, into the knot, into this city. That's what this city is: it's all the sounds of the cosmos, all rolled into one.

Leastways, that's what it says on the tourist leaflet. Me, I just call it home.

The thing is, you also get knots within knots. Something to do with fractals-don't ask me, ask Mandelbrot. Which means that some places in this city get more tangled up than others. This block, for instance. Specifically, this office. This office is just full of dimensions.

And where you get lots of dimensions, you get lots of doors.

Behind the bookcase there's a trapdoor. I pulled it open and shoved Byron down the cellar steps.

"You got a secret passage?" said the golem. He sounded like a small child with a large voice.

"Eighty-nine of them," I replied, "at the last count."

"It's dark. I don't like the dark."

"Stay there while I get my coat."

I went back up the stairs, grabbed my coat from the hook. I glanced outside and saw two unmarked automobiles scuttle up behind the barricade. Unlike the regular wheeled cop cars, these were the walking variety.

The first auto was a plain brown rust-bucket with stiff steel legs and a lamp hanging off. A wide-shouldered zombie climbed out of it holding a bull-roarer. A negotiator. So, as far as the cops were concerned, this was a siege.

The second was a Cadillac. It wasn't plain and it wasn't brown. It kissed the far kerb on expensive millipede feet. It was sleek as a whale and at least as big. A car for a giant. The screens were mirrored but the driver's window was open a crack. Through the crack, a pair of huge pink eyes stared right at me.

The zombie negotiator lifted the bull-roarer to what was left of his lips.

"SEND OUT THE MACERATOR! WE KNOW HE'S IN THERE! JUST CO-OPERATE AND YOU'LL BE FREE TO GO!"

Free to go. Right. Like I'd believe someone who has to hold his guts in with gaffer tape.

All the same: the Macerator. It explained why the cops were so keen to collar the golem.

This city's seen its share of serial killers: Josey Doe, Doctor Eviscerate, the Scalpish Brothers. But they all had short careers. Serial killers get caught pretty quick here: zombies might suck at deduction (their brains are mostly soup) but they're hot on homicide forensics. Show a zombie a corpse, the first thing he does is sniff it. Next, he gives you the name and address of the killer.

But they couldn't catch the Macerator.

The first Macerator killing showed up behind the railhead last year. A male of debatable race was found spread over roughly three square miles of open ground. Since then, the Macerator's struck twenty more times. Each time the victim resembles casserole. And, no matter how much they sniff, the cops are in the dark.

I thought again about turning Byron in. Maybe the golem's story was candyfloss-maybe he was the Macerator. But golems only kill if they're programmed to. Which raised the question: Who wrote Byron's code?

I shook my head. Detective or not, I'm not much better at deduction than your average zombie cop.

Difference is, I play a mean hunch.

I turned my coat inside-out three times until it was made of rubber and used it to scoop the remains of the girl back in the garbage can. I've done messier work, but nothing so pitiful. The worst part was picking up that peeled face. Her dead eyes looked like eggs. And it felt like they were watching me.

Soon there was nothing left but a crimson stain on the carpet. It's got a lot of stains, that carpet, and each one's got a story to tell.

I turned my blood-splattered coat inside-out five times until it was clean, then once more so it was back to moleskin. Then I hauled the garbage can down the cellar steps and took Byron's hand.

"It's still dark," he said. "What's that you dragged down here?"

"Never mind," I said. "Hold tight, big fella."

I squeezed the clay of Byron's hand until it squished between my fingers. Then I teased open a local spatial anomaly, rolled the golem into a ball the size of a tangerine and dropped him in my pocket. I made an origami scarf of the garbage can and threw it round my neck. Then I picked myself up, folded myself in half, and posted myself through the gap between the furnace and the coal chute.