Read Online The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror by Paula Guran - Free Book Online
Authors: Paula Guran
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one, but he’s always looked after us. Can’t argue with that.
So we shut up, do what’s expected or find a way out. I’m never quite sure if Mum intended things to go the way they did. The drugs numbed her, but she could function, and Barry turned a blind eye. I guess I always thought it would go on like that forever until I got the call to say Barry had found her one night, stiff and cold under the pergola, propped against the BBQ with the little silver happy stick still in her arm. So, the big recall for me. Goodbye, uni; goodbye, honors degree; goodbye, normal life.
But I digress.
Barry and his state.
He thought himself safe; thought himself well-protected. He’d built up his empire and believed himself king of the vampires. Didn’t occur to him that his bodyguard—not me, I’m just a kind of housekeeper—might not be content with the status quo. That Jerzy might want a change of pace, of lifestyle, of regime. That Jerzy might take the great big Japanese sword Barry liked to keep hanging on the wall of his study and use it to separate Barry’s head from the rest of his body before the other bodyguards had a chance to tear Jerzy up like a hunk of shredded pork. Then, untethered, they all bolted out of the big house with its Greek columns and stamped concrete driveway, its seldom-used-in-daytime swimming pool, blackout blinds, and luxuriously appointed cellar, leaving the wrought iron gates open and me to wander in from the kitchen to find all the excitement had passed.
What should I see but Barry’s head still intact? His body nothing but a pile of cinders and ash, but the head was all in one piece. And talking. Well, less talking than screaming and yelling obscenities. That’s when I went to find the cooler, as much ice as I could, and Barry’s car keys.
And here we are, heading towards the arse-end of nowhere because Barry says so. Because he says there’s a place he can find help, a place where life begins again.
The road is more dirt than black stuff now and it’s starting to rise, just a little. Around each bend, the incline gets steeper and the car protests more loudly. Soon, I should imagine, it will make its wishes known with the mechanical equivalent of a big fuck you.
“So, tell me how this is going to go again, Boss.”
Dawn is starting to gray the sky and Barry’s gotten lethargic as you might expect. He’s quietened down and I should probably put the lid back on his box—the last of the ice I’d dumped in the esky turned to warmish water hours ago, but I don’t guess he’ll drown. Looks like he’s immortal, if not invulnerable.
“It’ll all be sweet, Terry. I’ll be good as new,” his voice is low and sleepy.
“Fine and dandy, Barry, but what are the details? What about me?”
“What about you? This isn’t about you, you dopey bitch.” More awake now.
“Never said it was, Barry, but: point of order. We’re walking into this place. What’s out there? More of your brethren? You’re not really in a position to protect me, are you? I’m a canapé on legs. So, what’s out there ?”
“Nah, Terry,” he says but he doesn’t sound very sure. “It’ll be okay, nothing there, no one. Nothing to worry about.”
And for the first time in my life I don’t believe Barry. I don’t trust him to look after me and it gives me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Of course, that could be hunger—that last apple was three hours ago and I’m down to a packet of muesli bars and a tube of Pringles. “Sure, Barry. Sure.”
No one, my arse. I know enough about bumps in the night and deserted dead hearts to know nothing’s ever really empty. If Barry knows about this place, so does someone else. You’re not king of the vampires here, Bazza, you’re just a talking head. I pull over to the shoulder of the road, reach back and put the lid on Barry and his polystyrene swimming pool. I get out of the car and look around, stretching my long body as my back protests and my
So we shut up, do what’s expected or find a way out. I’m never quite sure if Mum intended things to go the way they did. The drugs numbed her, but she could function, and Barry turned a blind eye. I guess I always thought it would go on like that forever until I got the call to say Barry had found her one night, stiff and cold under the pergola, propped against the BBQ with the little silver happy stick still in her arm. So, the big recall for me. Goodbye, uni; goodbye, honors degree; goodbye, normal life.
But I digress.
Barry and his state.
He thought himself safe; thought himself well-protected. He’d built up his empire and believed himself king of the vampires. Didn’t occur to him that his bodyguard—not me, I’m just a kind of housekeeper—might not be content with the status quo. That Jerzy might want a change of pace, of lifestyle, of regime. That Jerzy might take the great big Japanese sword Barry liked to keep hanging on the wall of his study and use it to separate Barry’s head from the rest of his body before the other bodyguards had a chance to tear Jerzy up like a hunk of shredded pork. Then, untethered, they all bolted out of the big house with its Greek columns and stamped concrete driveway, its seldom-used-in-daytime swimming pool, blackout blinds, and luxuriously appointed cellar, leaving the wrought iron gates open and me to wander in from the kitchen to find all the excitement had passed.
What should I see but Barry’s head still intact? His body nothing but a pile of cinders and ash, but the head was all in one piece. And talking. Well, less talking than screaming and yelling obscenities. That’s when I went to find the cooler, as much ice as I could, and Barry’s car keys.
And here we are, heading towards the arse-end of nowhere because Barry says so. Because he says there’s a place he can find help, a place where life begins again.
The road is more dirt than black stuff now and it’s starting to rise, just a little. Around each bend, the incline gets steeper and the car protests more loudly. Soon, I should imagine, it will make its wishes known with the mechanical equivalent of a big fuck you.
“So, tell me how this is going to go again, Boss.”
Dawn is starting to gray the sky and Barry’s gotten lethargic as you might expect. He’s quietened down and I should probably put the lid back on his box—the last of the ice I’d dumped in the esky turned to warmish water hours ago, but I don’t guess he’ll drown. Looks like he’s immortal, if not invulnerable.
“It’ll all be sweet, Terry. I’ll be good as new,” his voice is low and sleepy.
“Fine and dandy, Barry, but what are the details? What about me?”
“What about you? This isn’t about you, you dopey bitch.” More awake now.
“Never said it was, Barry, but: point of order. We’re walking into this place. What’s out there? More of your brethren? You’re not really in a position to protect me, are you? I’m a canapé on legs. So, what’s out there ?”
“Nah, Terry,” he says but he doesn’t sound very sure. “It’ll be okay, nothing there, no one. Nothing to worry about.”
And for the first time in my life I don’t believe Barry. I don’t trust him to look after me and it gives me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Of course, that could be hunger—that last apple was three hours ago and I’m down to a packet of muesli bars and a tube of Pringles. “Sure, Barry. Sure.”
No one, my arse. I know enough about bumps in the night and deserted dead hearts to know nothing’s ever really empty. If Barry knows about this place, so does someone else. You’re not king of the vampires here, Bazza, you’re just a talking head. I pull over to the shoulder of the road, reach back and put the lid on Barry and his polystyrene swimming pool. I get out of the car and look around, stretching my long body as my back protests and my
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