Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

That night, I watched my parents eating, smiling, content. My father opened a bottle of wine, which is what parents drink instead of milk. I watched Mother closely, looking for signs. I’d been trained what to look for, although I knew it was unnecessary, because Mother always knew first, knew way before Father and I knew. We almost depended on her, in a way, to tell us. To let us know when it was time to go into the basement, into the room.

If she didn’t tell us, it’s possible we might not know in time. That’s how fast it happens. One second, a loving mother. The next, death.

“Mom,” I said, picking up a green bean with my fingers and biting off the tip. Mother turned to study me, cocked her head.

“You have a fork,” she said.

I took another bite. She always said that about the fork.

“Do you think…” I said, flushed with the embarrassment of the young and ignorant. “Will I be like you one day?”

I knew there were others like Mother. Hundreds. I also knew you could become like her if she attacked you. Spread into you. Mostly people died when attacked, but some lived, and then they turned too. Like vampires or zombies, but real.

Mother’s eyes went to Father, who looked at me like I’d said something sad. Their eyes met a moment while he gathered his thoughts.

“The truth is, Son, we don’t know,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin before setting it neatly down on his empty plate. “Not yet.”

I finished the green bean, took a drink from the heavy milk glass they always gave me. “When?” I asked.

“Soon,” he said, looking more troubled. “When you’re… when you’ve become a man.”

“I’m almost thirteen now!” I cried out excitedly, knocking a knife off the table with my elbow. It clattered to the floor.

“It’s more than just age that makes a grown-up.”

I was confused. “What, you mean when I’m a dad?”

Father laughed, and Mother smiled, but it was a sad smile, the one she used before she went into the room. The one she used when she told me everything would be all right.

“No, not that kind of man. When you are through puberty. There will be… signs,” he said, then hurriedly added, “but it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

I smiled, set down my milk and burped. “Because we can build another one. Just for me,” I said. “Right? We’re good at it now. I can have my own room.”

Father looked at his plate, set his fork down on the table.

Mother said nothing.

Later, we were watching television when Mother announced she was going to turn, and soon. She said it felt strong this time. Hours, maybe.

Father looked at her, nodded. He turned off the program, a documentary on the migration of birds.

I was sad, even more sad than usual. I sulked but knew it wouldn’t make a difference. I didn’t want Mother to get locked up, so I delivered my best, haughtiest frown, and walked out of the living room. Mother called after me, but I kept walking into my bedroom and shut the door behind me.

After a little while I grew bored of sulking, and anxious about Mother. I ventured back out, expecting my parents to already be downstairs. But they were there, waiting.

“You okay?” Father said.

I nodded, sniffed, wiped at my mouth. I turned to Mother. I didn’t want to help that night. I wanted to be a normal boy, with a normal mother. I didn’t want to see her turn. That night, I figured, I could pretend.

“Will you tuck me in?”

She set down her magazine, stood up and came toward me. I was too big for her to pick up, but she hugged me hard. I felt her hot breath on my neck.

It smelled foul.

I snuggled underneath the covers while Mother stood over me, stroking my forehead. The light in the ceiling gave her a halo and left her face in shadow. Her bob of hair made her head seem bigger than it was, expanding the black shape of her head upward and outward, tiny wings at the tips.

“Will you sing me to sleep?”

She nodded, reached out and switched off the light. I felt her weight on the bed. I wondered how much time she had.

“What shall I sing?” she asked, her voice a husky whisper. “How about Jesus Loves Me?”

I shook my head, then realized she probably couldn’t see me. Her eyes sparkled in the dark. She coughed.

“Sing the hush one.”

She placed a hand on my arm, squeezed it. She sighed, then sang softly, almost in a whisper.

I closed my eyes, let Mother’s voice float into my mind, fill my body with her love, her words. I let myself drift.

She stopped suddenly.

I opened my eyes. I was almost asleep, annoyed she’d stopped at my favorite part. “A looking glass,” I prodded. “Like Alice.”

Her hand tightened on my arm. She was a dark shape on my bed.

“Mom.”

The dark shape did not move, did not speak. Her hand squeezed me harder.

“Mom.”

Hours later, Father came upstairs, poked his head into my room.

“You awake?” he said.

“Sorta,” I replied. I hadn’t been, but he’d woken me. Like he needed to talk, to not be alone.

“I just, well, I wanted to tell you everything is just fine, Son. Nothing to worry about.” He laughed, but strangely. Like pretending. “It’s all pretty routine now, eh?”

I nodded, hoping it was true, and closed my eyes.

“Well, goodnight then. I love you.”

I listened to Father leave. After a moment, I heard the sound of the basement door open, heard his footsteps going down the stairs.

As the sound of his steps grew fainter, then vanished, exhaustion took hold. I fell back asleep; a strange half-sleep, half-dream state. I dreamed of the cells inside my blood, forming and re-forming, clustering like galaxies, making me a universe.

I woke in the middle of the night, shaking and upset. I’d had a nightmare. I couldn’t remember. The house was deathly quiet.

Father would still be in the basement, watching Mother.

My bedroom was pitch dark. There was no moonlight, no light from other houses, no light from the street. It was a small, quiet neighborhood, and late at night, like this, it was as if the whole street just turned off.

Click .

I was thirsty, and I had to go.

I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and walked into the hallway. The lights were all off, so I stood there a moment, in the dark, the floor cold beneath my feet, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Then I went to the living room, past my parents’ bedroom, which I noticed, without surprise, was empty. Then to the kitchen.

I got a glass, stuck it under the sink, let the water get cold. I filled the glass and drank down the whole thing. I never took a breath.

The door to the basement was open a little. Light came through the slit.

This was unusual.

Father always locked the door to the basement when Mother was in the room. Not to keep me out, but as a “precautionary measure.” Protocol.

I stood there, holding the glass, looking at the bar of light. I listened but heard nothing. Nothing at all.

I decided to go downstairs.

At the bottom I saw Father standing over the monitors, looking tense. He turned quickly, saw me there. His eyes were wide, his face strained.