Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

Nothing shiny round here, Bets knows, but what’s underground.

Singing low, she keeps digging until she hits some.

Soon as Bets strikes metal, she tosses the shovel and starts using her hands instead. She’s not worried about damaging the truck—the thing was a piece of shit long before it was buried—only, she wants to reach the cab without having the whole damn thing cave in. Between each scoop, she packs the dirt walls around and above her, suddenly grateful for the ground-freeze keeping the mound’s earthen lid stiffly in place. The sloping tunnel is now twice her width and half again as tall. Cursing Mamma’s stubbornness—it’d be so much easier if the pickup had been parked inside a cavern, the way Winston’s jalopy and Nanna Tee’s Buick were—Bets crouch-claws down to the bottom. Does her best terrier impression. Sprays soil up and out the hole behind her.

Luckily, her aim isn’t too far off target. A window’s topmost edge is poking up from the ground in front of her: not the windshield she’d expected, but the driver’s side door. Scraping her fingers raw, she cleans the glass bit by bit, wiping away grime and the fog of her breath, until the pane is mostly clear. A ragged circle of light filters in over Bets’ shoulder, reflecting grey on the panel’s upper right corner. In blue shadows inside the truck’s cab, a slight figure is buckled behind the wheel, dressed in her Thorsday best. Lace-gloved hands folded in her lap. Permed head bowed as though praying. Refusing to look up.

“Open up, Mamma,” Bets says, knuckles rapping on the glass. “Don’t make me break in.”

Mamma’s gaze flicks to the door, then back to her knees. Slowly, she bunches the lengths of her black skirt up onto her thighs, twisting the fabric around a glint of silver. Patting it in place, she straightens her shoulders. Rearranges her tarnished necklace, nestling the cross between ruffles on her blouse. Tilts the rearview mirror and fusses a minute with her hair. Acts like she’s alone. As ever.

“Come on,” Bets snipes, knocking harder. “ Mamma .”

The ghost rolls her eyes, unrolls the window. Soon as it’s cracked an inch, a dank gust of air whooshes out, reeking of smoke and tar and hospital-grade antiseptic. All the stinks of life that led her into death, clinging for eternity. It wasn’t dramatic, Mamma’s end. It was efficient. Expected. Not trusting anyone else to get the details right, she’d made all the arrangements herself. Hedging bets, she’d asked Reverend to send her off, ashes to ashes and all that jazz , then invited the Lady’s diner sect to drive her into the ground.

That’s my girl , Daddy had said proudly, before Mamma went and stole his smile for good. Keeping it for herself.

“Got my license,” Bets says, talking fast so Mamma won’t interrupt. “And a spot on the bookmobile’s roster. From next week, I’ll be driving the Napanee—Athabaska route. It’s not much, but…”

Bets stops, swallows. Keeping her gaze down—if the gods are watching, they’re watching, whether she’s under wide skies or close earth—she wriggles onto one elbow, reaches back with her free hand. Paper crackles as she drags the map from her pocket, then smooths it between filthy palms. Scrawled on a scrap torn from an old sketchbook, the road-lines are messes of crayon, the landmarks smudges of multicolored chalk, the street names and compass arrows scribbled in illegible marker. No matter which way it’s held, the thing’s damn near impossible to read. A kindergarten kid could’ve done better, no doubt about that.

Good thing you’re set on broadening your horizons, girl , Daddy’d said when Bets showed it to him yesterday . Most Wheelers know these roads inside out, but this … He’d shaken his head, turning the map this way and that. If you ain’t inherited my sense of direction, well, you’d better ask yer Mamma for the next best thing. Reckon she’ll give it to you easier’n she will me.

But Bets knows Mamma never gave anything so easily as she did criticism, followed by her own— the only —opinion. Death won’t have changed her mother that much.

She’s counting on it.

Steeling her resolve, Bets holds out the drawing, keeping her hand flat and low, close enough for Mamma to lick. It really is the worst piece of art she’s ever crafted, as appalling in the gloom as it is in full bright, but Bets yammers like she has so many times before when showing off what she’s made. Too quick, too eager for approval.

“The bookmobile stops in the city twice a month to restock,” she says, pointing. “ Here and here and there . Don’t know exactly where else I’m headed, but probably we’ll follow the river,” she wags her finger at a splotch and a purple squiggle, “then motor alongside the canyon a whiles.” Brown penciled nonsense cuts across the page, so ugly Bets can hardly bear looking at it. “Reckon this map’s going to lead me on some grand adventures, don’t you?”

Chin lifted, Mamma rolls her eyes at the thing.

Don’t hold back now, Bets thinks, suppressing a grin when Mamma uncrosses her arms, snatches and crumples the page.

How will you ever get by , the ghost’s blue sneer seems to say. Magnanimous, Mamma fumbles at her skirt, freeing Daddy’s silver-toothed map from the wool’s dark folds. With a huff, she tosses it up into the dirt tunnel. Don’t let me stop you .

“Oh,” Bets says, smiling at last, running a thumb over the mouth-piece’s worn ridges. A new song tickling her lips. A coal of certainty burning hot in her belly. “I won’t.”

“Have you brought her?” Sir Henry eyed the heavy burlap sack that Kane held in his right hand and impatiently tapped the steel tip of his ebony gentleman’s cane against the polished marble tiles of his summer house floor. It was dusk—the time he always preferred to meet with Kane—and the sun was setting over his vast estate and over the crashing, ever-encroaching sea. But neither the beauty of the sunset nor the sound of the waves against the ragged cliffs were what made his pulse quicken. His heart was set upon much more sublime treasures.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” Kane half-bowed as he removed his cap, exposing thick, unkempt black hair threaded with gray. Sir Henry grimaced with distaste. He despised Kane’s overt show of obsequiousness. It was a sham, and they both knew it. Yet it was as much a part of their twenty-year business interactions as the fat velvet purses which Sir Henry regularly handed over and which Kane inevitably stashed into his seemingly bottomless pockets. Sir Henry pointed at Kane’s boots with the spiked tip of his cane. Graveyard mud still clung to his soles and heels in heavy clumps. In fact, he’d left a trail of dirt across the polished floor.

“Come now, man. You could have at least wiped your feet. Especially in the presence of a lady.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Kane walked dutifully to the doormat and wiped his shoes. There was something comical in his earnestness as he scuffed his soles back and forth, back and forth across the coarse fibers. “She was ever so hard to dig up,” he said. “Buried in clay, she was. And ever so deep. No coffin, neither. Had to dig the clay out of her eyes.”

With characteristic impatience, Sir Henry motioned for Kane to hand over the sack. But Kane tutted. “She cleaned up ever so well,” he said. “But I had to do the work myself. Bought special detergent and all.”

“You’ll be remunerated, as you always are.” Sir Henry held out his hand again, but Kane still did not budge. Instead, he stared at Sir Henry placidly.