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

normal. “Not that we really need blankets in this weather,” she says. “I would kill for a functioning Holiday Inn.”
    “Hah,” the one by the cash register says. A bark. Amused.
    Nate is carefully still. He is searching, eyes going from man to man. Franny looks as if she is about to cry.
    It is only a matter of time. They will be on her. Should she play up to the man at the cash register? If she tries to flirt, will it release the rising tension in the room, allow them to spring on all of them? Will they kill Nate? What will they do to Franny? Or she can use her sex as currency. Go willingly. She does not feel as if they care if she goes willingly or not. They know there is nothing to stop them.
    “There’s no beer here, is there,” she says. She can hear her voice failing.
    “Nope,” says the man sitting at the cash register.
    “What’s your name?” she asks.
    It’s the wrong thing to say. He slides off the counter. Most of the men are smiling now.
    Nate says, “Stav?”
    One of the guys on the floor looks up. His eyes narrow.
    Nate says, “Hey, Stav.”
    “Hi,” the guy says cautiously.
    “You remember me,” Nate says. “Nick. From the Blue Moon Inn.”
    Nothing. Stav’s face is blank. But another guy, the one in the hoodie, says, “Speedy Nick!”
    Stav grins. “Speedy Nick! Fuck! Your hair’s not blond anymore!”
    Nate says, “Yeah, well, you know, upkeep is tough on the road.” He jerks a thumb at Jane. “This is my sister, Janey. My niece, Franny. I’m taking ’em up to Toronto. There’s supposed to be a place up there.”
    “I heard about that,” the guy in the hoodie says. “Some kind of camp.”
    “Ben, right?” Nate says.
    “Yeah,” the guy says.
    The guy who was sitting on the counter is standing now, cigarette still smoldering. He wants it, doesn’t want everybody to get all friendly. But the moment is shifting away from him.
    “We found some distilled water,” Stav says. “Tastes like shit but you can have it if you want.”
    Jane doesn’t ask him why he told her his name was Nate. For all she knows, “Nate” is his name and “Nick” is the lie.
    They walk each day. Each night she goes to his bedroll. She owes him. Part of her wonders is maybe he’s gay? Maybe he has to lie there and fantasize she’s a guy or something. She doesn’t know.
    They are passing by water. They have some, so there is no reason to stop. There’s an egret standing in the water, white as anything she has seen since this started, immaculately clean. Oblivious to their passing. Oblivious to the passing of everything. This is all good for the egrets. Jane hasn’t had a drink since they started for Canada. She can’t think of a time since she was sixteen or so that she went so long without one. She wants to get dressed up and go out someplace and have a good time and not think about anything, because the bad thing about not having a drink is that she thinks all the time and, fuck, there’s nothing in her life right now she really wants to think about. Especially not Canada, which she is deeply but silently certain is only a rumor. Not the country, she doesn’t think it doesn’t exist, but the camp. It is a mirage. A shimmer on the horizon. Something to go toward but which isn’t really there.
    Or maybe they’re the rumors. The three of them. Rumors of things gone wrong.
    At a rest stop in the middle of nowhere they come across an encampment. A huge number of people, camped under tarps, pieces of plastic, and tatters, and astonishingly, a convoy of military trucks and jeeps including a couple of fuel trucks and a couple of water trucks. Kids stop and watch as they walk in and then go back to chasing each other around picnic tables. The two groups are clearly separate. The military men have control of all the asphalt and one end of the picnic area. They stand around or lounge at picnic tables. They look so equipped, from hats to combat boots. They look so clean. So much like the world