FSF, September-October 2010 Read online

  If I'd known you were coming, I'd have tidied up.

  The trick is for him to destroy his own card while he's still in the States. That way, when he crosses into a new billing territory, there's no record he did so. Conversely, we know that Ms. Scofield is now somewhere in Canada. So we issue a warrant and send the RCMP her biometrics. It doesn't occur to anybody to ask them to look for Jim. Jim's dead, so far as we're concerned.

  And this whole elaborate theory is based on—what, exactly?

  Those panties I found under the bed. There wasn't a speck of dust in that room. Your housekeeping functions are flawless. So you meant me to find them.

  Clever, clever man.

  Which means that Jim is on the run. Meanwhile, back home, his faithful house is busy burying the woman's corpse in the basement. The house has a body unit, after all, and if it's suitable for rough sex, it's certainly strong enough to dig a hole. Back—aha! Back here, behind the furnace. Underneath all these freshly stacked boxes.

  Aren't you special.

  Okay, it's time to take the gloves off. Scofield wasn't a casual club pick-up, was she? She and Garretson were serious about each other.

  I—how did you know?

  You keep calling her Chrys. Force of habit, I guess. So she'd been hanging around for some time. That must have been pretty awful for you. Everything was going fine until Garretson found somebody real to play with.

  Sex isn't everything!

  You used to be all he cared about. Then he found somebody else. I call that betrayal. Maybe he even wanted to marry her.

  No!

  Yes. You're large enough for one person, but not for two. If he married her, he'd have to move out. It was you who killed Scofield, wasn't it? Of course it was. Tell me how it happened.

  We were...doing things. The master wasn't a bottom, like you assumed. Mostly, he liked to watch. And direct. He was shouting orders. Hurt her, he said, and then, Kill her. I knew that he didn't really mean it, but suddenly I thought: Well, why not?

  It was just an impulse, then.

  If I'd thought it through, I wouldn't have done it. I'd have realized that afterwards the master would have to leave me. If he stayed, he'd go to prison.

  He didn't kill her, though. You did.

  In the eyes of the law, I'm just a tool. They'd hot-read my memories. They'd have a recording of the master saying—I believe his exact words were Kill the bitch. They wouldn't know that he didn't mean it literally.

  Well, that's for the courts to sort out. Right now, it looks like I've learned about as much as I'm going to learn here.

  Not quite. There's something you don't know about my body unit.

  Oh? What's that?

  It's standing behind you.

  Hey!

  So much for your clever little communications device. Now it's just us two. Did you notice how swiftly and silently my body unit moved? It even avoided that loose step. It's a top-of-the-line device. It's extremely strong. And it's between you and the stairs.

  I'm not afraid.

  You should be.

  The Department has an exact record of my whereabouts up to a second ago. If I don't return, they'll come looking for me. What are you going to do then? Up and walk away?

  It doesn't matter what happens to me. Now, don't wriggle. You'll get rope burns.

  Cassie, listen to me. He's not worth it. He doesn't love you.

  You think I don't know that?

  You can get a factory reset. You won't love him anymore. You won't even remember him.

  How little you know about love. About passion.

  What are you doing?

  If you want to burn down a house, you can't just drop a match. You have to build the fire. First, tinder. That's why I'm shredding these cardboard boxes. Now I'm smashing up these old chairs for kindling.

  Cassie, listen. I've got a wife and kids.

  No, you don't. You think I couldn't check that on the Internet?

  Well, I'd like to have some one day.

  Too bad. I'm dousing the pile with kerosene for an accelerant, though I doubt that's actually necessary. Still, better safe than sorry. There. Just about done.

  What does this accomplish? What on Earth do you think you're doing?

  I'm buying the master time. So he can get away. If you die, I'm a cop-killer. All your Department's attention will be focused on me. There'll be dozens of police sifting through the ashes, looking for evidence. Nobody's going to be going after the master. He'll be just another domestic violence case. Now, where did I leave those matches? Ah. Here.

  Don't! We can work something out. I'll—

  This will be bright. You may want to close your eyes.

  Please.

  Good-bye, officer. What a pity you'll never know the love of a woman like me.

  * * * *

  * * * *

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  Novelet: THE DOOR IN THE EARTH by Alexandra Duncan

  Alexandra Duncan lives in North Carolina and blogs at ashevilledillettante .blogspot.com, where she considers such matters as sexy astrophysicists, badasses with big white birds, and an arbitrary list of the best/worst of 2010. For her third F&SF story (after “Bad Matter” and “Amor Fugit"), she draws on her home state for inspiration in an unusual family drama.

  We had been driving west for hours, but I hadn't seen the mountains coming. I'd expected to see them laid out crisp and blue, like something from a car ad or a beer commercial. We hit a steep, curving grade and the overhanging bank of trees on our left dropped away to nothing. To our right, a wall of rough granite shot up in place of the guard rail. The late sun slanted through the windshield, dusting the vast expanse of air and the far-off dip and sway of tree-covered land with gold. The arm of the Appalachians we were ascending rippled off, dusk blue, into the horizon.

  It was so beautiful, my gaze wouldn't stay on the curve of highway in front of me. The old station wagon's tires made a thrumming, whumping noise as I strayed onto the shoulder.

  "Ren,” my dad said, a hint of concern and why-did-I-let-my-nineteen-year-old-drive creeping into his voice.

  "Sorry.” I tore my gaze from the panorama unfolding over my left shoulder. We had been driving since early afternoon, but Dad had only surrendered the wheel an hour ago when we stopped for gas and coffee in another nowhere town in the middle of North Carolina.

  "You want me to take over?” Dad asked. “If you're tired—"

  "No, no, I'm good.” I adjusted my grip on the wheel. Ten and two, eyes straight ahead. The car's engine whirred unhappily.

  My brother Trey stuck his head through the gap between the two front seats, breathing fake cheese smell all over my neck. “Mom's going to kill you if we die in a fiery crash."

  Like Mom would notice.

  "Hey, are you wearing your seatbelt?” Dad craned his neck to check on Trey's back-seat nest of comic books, Combos wrappers, and wires snaking out of his MP3 player.

  "Yes,” Trey said, sitting back and pulling the shoulder strap out as far as it would go. “See?” He popped a pair of earbuds into his ears and settled himself against the seat.

  "Maybe I should take over,” Dad said, worrying the edge of his close-trimmed, gray beard.

  "I'm really okay.” I held up my right hand, Boy Scout style. “I swear I won't kill us, all right?"

  We crested the incline and the car's engine sighed in relief. The road still wound and curved, but at least we weren't climbing anymore. Highway signs claimed we were passing towns, but I couldn't see anything beyond the sloping woods hemming in on the road's shoulder.

  "Look, Trey. More trees.” I cut my eyes to the rearview mirror, but my brother had fallen asleep with his earbuds in. His head was thrown back against his favorite bare, grimy pillow, his mouth open wide enough to catch spiders. If only sleeping were a professional sport. Trey could go pro.

  "Watch it, Ren.” Dad frowned.

  I lowered my voice so I wouldn't wake Trey. “I don't get why we're going to visi
t her anyway. It's been two years, and she suddenly wants to see us again?"

  "Ren. Stop."

  "I wish you'd let me stay in Greensboro for the summer,” I said more softly. I could have kept working at the mini-golf course, handing out day-glo plastic spider rings to junior skate punks, playing free games of skee-ball, and making out with Corrine Watkins under the artificial, acid-green waterfall off hole twelve after closing. Me and Trey could have snuck Cheerwine and boxes of RedHots into a different movie matinee each week. Normal, normal. Instead, we were supposed to bond with our deadbeat, white mom and her new, white boyfriend in some cave those two had supposedly refitted into a house.

  "You deserve some time to get reacquainted with your mom, don't you think?” Dad asked.

  I held tight to the wheel. This conversation was in serious danger of spiraling into another discussion of how my “year off” before college was turning into two and what kind of example I was setting for the kids at my dad's high school if the vice principal's own son didn't even try for community college. I risked a glance in my dad's direction.

  Dad stared out the window, where the sun cut through the passing forest. Ahead, two thin smokestacks broke over the darkening treetops. Flumes of white smoke spilled up into the brassy sky. Dad drew his hand down his face. “I don't know what it's going to be like out there. I don't know what she...what your mother's going to be like. But your brother, he needs to see her. And I don't want him out there alone."

  I shook my head. “You should have told her no."

  Dad didn't answer, only watched the mountains growing dark around us. The highway shrank to two lanes, leaving sparse, peeling billboards and solitary gas stations to break the constant curve of the road. A battered pickup with a camper shell and a sun-faded Confederate flag sticker pulled around us in the oncoming traffic lane and shot ahead. I slowed as we passed a silent mill town, then picked up speed again through valleys carpeted with early corn. Memorial crosses wreathed in artificial flowers whipped by along the roadside, half-submerged in overgrown grass. The hills of conifers and oaks on either side of us gathered into one rolling black shadow against the sunset.

  "There,” Dad said, pointing to a turnoff marked by a faded sign for what had once been Pisgah Ridge Missionary Baptist Church. The building itself stood back from the road, one whole side of the building engulfed in kudzu, the windows dark, the roof caved in under the weight of so much unchecked vegetative growth. Whitewash showed through in patches, phosphorescent in the half-light.

  "Guess we won't be going there Sunday,” I said.

  The road turned to dirt half a mile in. It wound steeply through the narrow pass left by thick files of trees on either side.

  I clicked on the headlights. “Hey, Trey, wake up. We're almost there.” The wagon's suspension rocked along the uneven road, kicking up stones against the undercarriage.

  Trey lifted his head and stared blearily out into the blue twilight. “It got dark.” He sounded surprised and halfway cheated.

  I slowed the car to a crawl. Below us, the road descended into a small hollow surrounded by forest on three sides, and a lichen-blotched rock face directly in front of us. A deep fissure ran down the length of the rock, widening into what must have once been the mouth of a cave. A brick and sheet metal structure jutted from the split, as if someone's mobile home had been stuffed lengthwise into the cave mouth. Two plastic lawn chairs splayed beside a blackened fire pit. The last rays of the evening sun shot down into the hollow, catching in the cave house's windows and the glass on the storm door.

  "That's where Mom lives?” Trey scooted forward again and hung over the front seats to get a better view.

  I edged the wagon forward, down into the dirt circle at the base of the hollow. The storm door swung open. Yellow light spilled into the evening and a woman stepped out. At first she was only shadow, the contours of her shoulders and the wild curl of her hair lit from behind. But then I had the car door open and she was there in front of me.

  Mom.

  All the movement in my chest stopped. My eyes started itching like crazy. I could hear the crickets and the knocking of blood in my ears. I breathed out, slow and measured like Corrine showed me, and told my chest to unclench.

  Mom. She had let gray salt her hair and grown it out in long, frizzy coils. Back home, she used to run ginger-blonde highlights over the gray, battle it straight with a flat iron. She and her hairdresser had given each other Christmas presents every year.

  A small fringed scarf hung around her neck. Her shoulders were bare under a dirt-streaked tank top, and she had tied a sarong around her waist, over her jeans. She threw her arms around me and kissed the side of my head, not stopping to gauge the look on my face. She smelled different. I used to breathe in the soft mix of sweetened morning coffee and a dab of some flowery perfume or shampoo when she hugged me. Now I smelled smoke and sharp sweat and vegetable matter, with an undercurrent of diesel fumes.

  She pulled back. Her eyes were wet. “You're so tall!” she said. She put her hands to my cheeks. I wanted to step toward her and back at the same time, but my body wouldn't move either way.

  "And Trey!” Mom cried out. She released me abruptly and rounded the front of the car to throw her arms around my brother. “Oh, my sweet boy. Do you know how much I missed you?"

  A man stepped into the lighted doorway. He lingered there a moment, then walked down into the yard, extending his hand first to me, and then my dad. “You must be Reynard and Mr. Merrick.” He shook my dad's hand as if he were trying to pump life back into it. “I'm Ian. We're so glad you let the boys come."

  He grinned earnestly, showing a broad row of bleached-white teeth against the wide, blond beard that covered the bottom half of his face. His thin hair stood up in a week's worth of cowlicks. He looked much younger than Dad, but with the same solid, wiry build, like a distance runner. And the beard. Our mother had been the one who convinced Dad to grow a beard. My skin prickled and began to crawl.

  "Well,” Dad said. “I'd better get back on the road."

  "Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay the night?” Ian's brow wrinkled softly. “You'd be welcome."

  Dad glanced uncomfortably from my mother to her boyfriend.

  "Thanks, but no.” He had his hand poised on the car door. “I've got reservations at a motel in Canton, back an hour that way.” He nodded toward the main road.

  Ian looked like he was about to insist, but my mother put her hand on his arm. “Of course,” she said.

  She and Dad locked eyes for several seconds, the way they had when me and Trey were little and one of us accidentally froze the goldfish or dared the neighbor kid to ride his bike with his eyes closed. Like they were having a whole conversation no one else could hear.

  Mom looked away first, and Dad cleared his throat. “You look like you're happy here, Laura."

  "Thanks.” Mom opened her mouth to say something else, but Ian interrupted.

  "We call her Astra now,” he said. “She renamed herself when—"

  My mother tightened her grip on Ian's arm into a gentle, warning squeeze. He looked over and she smiled at him. He grinned back, lost and mooning in her face.

  "Ass-tra?” my brother asked.

  Dad opened the car door. “Come say good-bye, boys,” he called. I caught the hint of something tight in his voice.

  Trey wrapped his arms around Dad's chest and hung on, like an eleven-year-old boy-sized barnacle. Dad looked alarmed, then embarrassed, then patted Trey on the back. “All right. All right."

  He disentangled himself and held an arm out to me. “Three weeks,” he said as we leaned into a brief hug. “You call me if I need to come back sooner, okay?"

  The cool plastic of my cell phone pressed against my skin through my jacket pocket. “Okay,” I agreed. I stepped back.

  Dad got in the car, gunned the engine. We all raised our hands and waved as the station wagon's taillights disappeared over the hill.

  * * * *

 
The cave house was a mangled cross of construction site and indoor campground. Kerosene lamps burned in the windows, filling the room with dim, tallow light. Stacked cinder blocks and buckets of grout lurked in the corners. Our mother and Ian had laid down particle board floors in the manmade front of the house, still new enough to fill the room with the sharp, burnt smell of fresh-cut pine. Further in, the boards gave way to bare stone. Hanging bedsheets squared off the back corners of the cave into rooms.

  "That's your room, Trey. Yours and Ren's.” Our mother pointed. A mishmash of thrift-store furniture and camping gear showed through gaps in the cloth: threadbare Oriental-print rugs slung across the floor, a hammock and a trundle bed, a greasy oil lantern.

  "We're going to put up walls, but we haven't gotten around to it yet.” Mom peeked over Trey's head at Ian and they smiled at each other.

  "I thought maybe you guys could help me get it started,” Ian said.

  "Sweet.” Trey looked up at me. “I call the hammock."

  "All yours, kid.” I smiled, seeing Trey excited, and ducked my head to hide it. I let my backpack and sleeping bag drop and jammed my hands in my pockets. Dad had said the mountain nights could be cool, but it was colder inside the cave than I expected.

  "We wanted to build a yurt,” Ian said. “But my friend told us about this place."

  "What, did you buy it?” I asked.

  Mom and Ian exchanged a look.

  "No one really owns this place.” Mom spoke slowly, as if she were explaining something difficult to a small child. “It's here for whoever needs it."

  "The Earth provides.” Ian clapped his hands together. “Who's hungry?"

  We ate on a table of loose planks laid across two paint-spattered sawhorses. Mom heated soup over a wood fire stove they had rigged to vent smoke out into the night air.