Read Online The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror by Paula Guran - Free Book Online Page A

worn-too-long cargos and tee stick to my skin. I can smell my own sweat and the determined stink of the cigarettes that ran out not far out of Sydney. I stare into the bush. It’s changing as we head up the mountains, getting greener, darker, denser, wetter. More like a rainforest. Not sure what I expect to see . . . nothing there, no movement, not even the twitch of a leaf in the breeze. I feel weird though; I feel watched. Imagination, I tell myself. Bullshit, I tell myself.
    I slide back into the driver’s seat and turn the key in the ignition.
    The only answer I get is the exhausted metallic grinding of a thing that’s gone as far as it can go. I lean forward and rest my head against the steering wheel, smelling the stale-sour scent of hands gripped too long about the leather cover. My spidey senses tell me this road trip will not end well.
    I’ve got Barry’s box in one hand and in the other is the long Japanese sword that parted him from his body. It seemed like a good idea to bring it along—just made sure Barry didn’t see it, sore point and all that. The water bottle hanging at my waist is making sad little wishy-washy sounds. Not much more than a mouthful left and I’m thirsty. The need for nicotine is dancing under my skin.
    The air is cool and damp, the clouds are sitting on the road and it’s hard to see too much in front of me. The condensation is plastering the fringe to my forehead. It’s mid-afternoon and I don’t know where I’m going, I’m just following the road. Can’t open the box to ask Barry; he’s been in deep sleep for hours now. I just keep walking, although my boots have rubbed blisters onto my soles and the outer edges of my little toes.
    Up ahead I can hear a sound, sweet and clear. Running water.
    I pick up my pace and stumble off the road, down a slight slope to find a clearing, a little creek running through it. There’s a fire pit that looks like it hasn’t been used in a long, long time. I refill the water bottle, drink deeply, then peel off my boots and socks and plunge my feet in. It’s icy and hurts only for a little while before the numbing cold makes everything seem okay. I lean back, raise my face to where the sun should be and imagine it on my skin. Problem with being in service with a night crawler is that you don’t tend to see too much daylight. Oh, you have to run errands and some of those are unavoidably day-oriented. But mostly, you become as nocturnal as your master. Feels like shift-work. Do it long enough you either get used to it or go nuts. Or a bit of both.
    Behind me there’s a sound; behind me, where I dropped Barry’s box (the katana I kept close). There’s that distinct polystyrene noise and I turn to see the biggest freaking possum I’ve ever seen in my life. It looks like a large dog, a Labrador maybe, on its hind legs and it’s got the lid off the cooler and one paw buried deep inside. It pulls Barry’s head out by the messy black hair.
    There it dangles at the end of possum claws, eyes closed, lips slack and a little open, the neck so cleanly severed you could almost admire it as a nice tidy job. I stand slowly. The possum sniffs at Barry’s nose, licks it, then opens its mouth and sinks sharp white teeth into the substance of Barry’s pert little snoz.
    I take a good few fast steps and bring the katana sweeping upward and the possum paw drops to the ground, which leaves Barry hanging briefly by his nose in the grip of the teeth of a very unhappy marsupial. Possum spits out its meal and gives me a look that makes me think twice about getting any closer. Then I remember that I’ve got the sword and about four feet in height on the thing. But it’s fast and the remaining claws sharp; my cargos and the leg underneath get a nasty gash before I manage to take the stinking thing’s head off.
    I have a rest, bent over, hands on knees, breathing hard while I watch blood dribble out of my injured flesh. There’s a yell and I fear a possum