The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2014 Edition Read online

  THE YEAR’S BEST

  DARK FANTASY AND HORROR

  2014 EDITION

  PAULA GURAN

  For You, the Reader—

  Thank you.

  Copyright © 2014 by Paula Guran.

  Cover art by Fer Gregory/Shutterstock.

  Cover design by Stephen H. Segal & Sherin Nicole.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-437-9 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-431-7 (trade paperback)

  PRIME BOOKS

  www.prime-books.com

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

  For more information, contact Prime Books at [email protected].

  “In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle.”

  —Ursula K. Le Guin

  Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

  Contents

  Introduction by Paula Guran

  Wheatfield with Crows by Steve Rasnic Tem

  Blue Amber by David J. Schow

  The Legend of Troop 13 by Kit Reed

  The Good Husband by Nathan Ballingrud

  The Soul in the Bell Jar by KJ Kabza

  The Creature Recants by Dale Bailey

  Termination Dust by Laird Barron

  Postcards from Abroad by Peter Atkins

  Phosphorus by Veronica Schanoes

  A Lunar Labyrinth by Neil Gaiman

  The Prayer of Ninety Cats by Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson

  The Plague by Ken Liu

  The Gruesome Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning by Joe R. Lansdale

  Let My Smile Be Your Umbrella by Brian Hodge

  Air, Water, and the Grove by Kaaron Warren

  A Little of the Night by Tanith Lee

  A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson

  Pride: A Collector’s Tale by Glen Hirshberg

  Our Lady of Ruins by Sarah Singleton

  The Marginals by Steve Duffy

  Dark Gardens by Greg Kurzawa

  Rag and Bone by Priya Sharma

  The Slipway Gray by Helen Marshall

  To Die for Moonlight by Sarah Monette

  Cuckoo by Angela Slatter

  Fishwife by Carrie Vaughn

  The Dream Detective by Lisa Tuttle

  Event Horizon by Sunny Moraine

  Moonstruck by Karin Tidbeck

  The Ghost Makers by Elizabeth Bear

  Iseul’s Lexicon by Yoon Ha Lee

  Acknowledgements

  About the Editor

  INTRODUCTION

  Paula Guran

  This is the fifth time I’ve had the honor of assembling a volume for this series. Each year I write an introduction that contains about the same information explaining the intent of the Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. I am sure it is tedious to those of you who have read a few of them, but—because we are dealing with an anthology that takes a different approach to dark fiction than others of its kind—I always feel some information needs to be more-or-less restated each time.

  I do have a few new things to say this time though, so let’s start there. Then you “veterans” can skip the rest . . . or read on and see if I slipped anything new in. (I did.)

  First, I read more fiction this year than ever before. A great deal of it was quite good and made decisions even more difficult. This doesn’t mean I’m seeing all that I should, but I am seeing more. Perhaps I’ve gotten a little better at seeking it out, but I also suspect it is because more folks now know this series exists and clue me in.

  There’s also a chance there’s simply there is more dark fiction being published—often rather obscurely or in publications that don’t consider what they publish as horror or dark fantasy. This year’s selections were taken from many diverse sources—check them out in the “Acknowledgements” section—and there are many more I read and could have chosen stories from. In fact, one outstanding British periodical this year—Black Static—had such a stellar year for fiction, I feel I should single it out for special mention. Although a story from its sister publication, Interzone, made the final content, Black Static wound up not only being under-represented here, but not represented at all. These things happen—but in this case it probably shouldn’t have.

  As for not seeing as much fiction as I should—there are many ways to publish these days and I begin to wonder if new online magazines, small speciality presses, and crowd-funded anthology editors realize that I (and others) need to be made aware of what is being published. This is particularly true of non-genre sources.

  So, spread the word. The most recent call for submissions can be found on my website: paulaguran.com. The URL is lengthy, so use this abbreviated URL: http://tinyurl.com/kkuxc97—or just go to paulaguran.com and search for “submissions”—you’ll find it right away.

  Also, I edited two anthologies myself this year containing outstanding original stories. I think a couple of them have been honored elsewhere, but I chose not to select any stories for this anthology from either Halloween: Magic, Mystery, & the Macabre or Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales. It would have been almost like trying to pick one’s favorite child to settle on one or two of them to include here. Not all the stories are dark, but I do hope you seek them out, read them, and gain your own appreciation for the talented authors who contributed to both.

  And now for some of the usual stuff. And, yes, I’m self-plagiarizing portions of this. Forgive me—I have my reasons, most of which have to do with deadlines and a rather nasty virus—but I still feel I need to touch on a few points, even if I must recycle a bit this time around.

  The scope, intent, and theme of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series is unique. There are two other established year’s “best” horror series and several year’s “best” science and fantasy series. This year, there’s a new entry in the field featuring the best of the “weird.” Our content can, naturally, overlap at times. But no other series considers dark fantasy and horror.

  Of course the words dark fantasy and horror are highly debatable and constantly changing literary terms. There’s no single definition. “Dark fantasy” isn’t universally defined—the definition depends on the context in which the phrase is used or who is elucidating it. It has, from time to time, even been considered as nothing more than a marketing term for various types of fiction.

  A dark fantasy story might be only a bit unsettling or perhaps somewhat eerie. It might be revelatory or baffling. It can be simply a small glimpse of life seen “through a glass, darkly.” Or, in highly inclusive literary terms, it might be any number of things—as long as the darkness is there: weird fiction (new or old) or supernatural fiction or magical realism or surrealism or the fantastique or the ever-ambiguous horror fiction.

  As for defining horror . . . The easiest definition is that horror is “scary” or inspires fright. But that’s a little too simplistic.

  Since horror is something we feel—it’s an emotion, an affect—what each of us experiences, responds or reacts to differs.

  What you feel may not be what I feel. Maybe you can’t stand the thought of, oh . . . spiders. Understandably, one doesn’t want to encounter one of the poisonous type
s, but I think of spiders, for the most part, as helpful arachnids that eat harmful insects. You, however, might shiver at the very thought of eight spindly legs creeping down your wall.

  Once upon a time I felt the term “horror” could be broadened, accepted by the public, and generally regarded as a fiction [to quote Douglas E. Winter who wrote in Revelations (1997)] that was “evolving, ever-changing—because it is about our relentless need to confront the unknown, the unknowable, and the emotion we experience while in its thrall.”

  For me, horror is about finding, even seeking, that which we do not know. When we encounter the unknowable we react with emotion. And the unknowable, the unthinkable need not be supernatural. We constantly confront it in real life

  One reason Winter was reminding us of his definition of horror in the introduction to his anthology was because the word “horror” had already been devalued. His opinion was (and is) as good as anyone’s about what horror literature is, but the word itself had previously been slapped on a generic marketing category that had, by then, pretty much disappeared from major trade publishing. Even then—seventeen years ago—the word had become a pejorative.

  The appellation has now been hijacked even more completely. I feel the word “horror” is associated in the public hive mind—an amorphous organism far more frequently influenced by the seductive images, motion, sounds, and effects that appear on a screen of any size than by written words (even when they are on a screen)—with entertainments that depend on shock for any value they may (or may not) possess rather than eliciting the more subtle emotion of fear.

  And while fine and highly diverse horror literature—some of the best ever created—continues to be written in forms short and long, the masses for the most part have identified “horror” as either a certain kind of cinema or a generic type of fiction (of which they have certain expectations or ignore entirely because it delivers only a specific formula for which they evidently do not care.)

  The term has been expropriated, and I doubt we’ll ever be able to convince the world it means what we alleged horror mavens might want it to mean.

  For this anthology series, I might have used only “dark fantasy” in the title, but I wanted to include stories with nothing supernatural in them at all. I mean, fantasy of any type must have a supernatural element . . .

  Doesn’t it?

  Maybe not.

  Fantasy, I think, takes us out of our usual mundane world of consensual reality and gives us a glimpse or a larger revelation of the possibilities of the “impossible.” Far from being mere escapism or dealing only with “good” versus “evil,” it confronts us with new ways to view complexities we may never have considered.

  Fantasy is sometimes, but far from always, rooted in myth and legend. (But then myths were once believed to be part of accepted reality. If one believes in the supernatural or the magical, is it still fantasy?) It also creates new mythologies for modern culture. This can affect us profoundly, even become a part of who and what we are.

  And, as with horror, the word “fantasy” alone—no matter its “shade”—conjures various notions in the mass mind, not to mention differing opinions among those who read it, study it, write about it, and seem to love to argue about it.

  See why I’m not offering definitions?

  Elements of “the dark” and horror and the fantastic are increasingly found in modern stories that do not conform to established tropes. What was once mainstream or “literary” fiction frequently treads paths that once were reserved for “genre.”

  Even other genres stride into the dark without hesitation. Stories of mystery and detection mixed with the supernatural may also be amusing and adventurous or have upbeat endings, but that doesn’t mean such stories have not also taken the reader into stygian abysses along the why.

  Crime fiction may have no supernatural element, but it is frequently extremely effective horror.

  Horror is also interwoven—essentially—into many science fiction themes. Bleak fictional futures abound these days. Ultimately, the reader may come away with a hopeful attitude, but not until after having to confront some very scary scenarios and face some very basic fears.

  Darkness seeps naturally into weird and surreal fiction too. The strange may be mixed with whimsy, but the fanciful does not negate the shadows.

  So, if I don’t offer definitions, I do offer a selection of outstanding stories—all published within the calendar year 2013—that seemed to fit my personal concept of outstanding fiction that more or less fits the ideas I’ve touched on.

  As in the years before, the stories selected often take twists and turns into the unexpected. There are monsters, yes, but they aren’t always monstrous. And, of course, we are often the monsters ourselves (or we know them). Sometimes we find ourselves doing the darkest of deeds for the best reasons. The darkly humorous can be both delightful and deadly.

  There are tales to remind us that discovering disquietude, disintegration, and loss are evocative for most of us. Human relationships can be more terrifying than anything supernatural, or so strong they call the unnatural into being.

  These stories take us back to the past, be it historical, altered, or completely imagined; into a few futures; keep us in the present; and sometimes take us outside of time altogether. They guide us into utterly different worlds than our own; keep us perhaps a little too close to home; journey into the strange terrains of the soul and the mind; sidestep into settings not unfamiliar, but never quite comfortable either.

  Most of all, they take us into many shades and variations of the dark.

  Paula Guran

  11 April 2014

  Long angular shadows carved into the wheat lifted out of their places,

  turning over then flapping, rising into the turbulent air where they

  became knife rips in the fabric of the sky . . .

  WHEATFIELD WITH CROWS

  Steve Rasnic Tem

  Sometimes when he sketched out what he remembered of that place, new revelations appeared in the shading, or displayed between the layering of a series of lines, or implied in a shape suggested in some darker spot in the drawing. The back of her head, or some bit of her face, dead or merely sleeping he could never quite tell. He was no Van Gogh, but Dan’s art still told him things about how he felt and what he saw, and he’d always sensed that if he could just find her eyes among those lines or perhaps even in an accidental smear, he might better understand what happened to her.

  In this eastern part of the state the air was still, clear and empty. An overabundance of sky spilled out in all directions with nothing to stop it, the wheat fields stirring impatiently below. Driving up from Denver, seeing these fields again, Dan thought the wheat nothing special. He made himself think of bread, and the golden energy that fed thousands of years of human evolution, but the actual presence of the grain was drab, if overwhelming. When he’d been here as a child, he’d thought these merely fields of weeds, but so tall—they had been pretty much all he could see, wild and uncontrolled. But when he was a child everything was like that—so limitless, so hard to understand.

  In the decade and a half since his sister’s disappearance, Dan had been back to this tiny no-place by the highway only once, when at fifteen he’d stolen a car to get here. He’d never done anything like that before, and he wasn’t sure the trip had accomplished much. He’d just felt the need to be here, to try to understand why he no longer had a sister. And although the wheat had moved, and shuddered, and acted as if it might lift off the ground to reveal its secrets, it did not, and Dan had returned home.

  Certainly this trip—driving the hour from Denver (legally this time), with his mother in the passenger seat staring catatonically out the window—was unlikely to change anything in their lives. She’d barely said two words since he picked her up at her apartment. He had to give her some credit, though—she had a job now, and no terrible boyfriends in her life as far as he knew. But it was hard to be generous.

  Roggen,
Colorado, near Interstate 76 and Colorado Road 73, lay at the heart of the state’s grain crop. ‘Main Street’ was a dirt road that ran alongside a railroad track. A few empty store fronts leaned attentively but appeared to have nothing to say. The same abandoned house he remembered puffed out its gray-streaked cheeks as it continued its slow-motion collapse. The derelict Prairie Lodge Motel sat near the middle of the town, its doors wide open, various pieces of worn, overstuffed furniture dragged out for absent observers to sit on and watch.

  Every few months when Dan did an Internet search, it came up as a “ghost town.” He wondered how the people who still lived here—and there were a few of them, tucked away on distant farms or hiding in houses behind closed blinds—felt about that.

  “There, there’s where it happened,” his mother whispered, tapping the glass gently as if hesitant to disturb him. “There’s where my baby disappeared.”

  Dan pulled the car over slowly at this ragged edge of town, easing carefully off the dirt road as he watched for ditches, holes, anything that might trap them here longer than necessary. They’d started much later than he’d planned. First his mother had been unsure what to wear, trying on various outfits, worrying over what might be too casual, what might be “too much.” Dan wanted to say it wasn’t as if they were going to Caroline’s funeral, but did not. His mother had put on too much makeup, but when she’d asked how she looked he was reluctant to tell her. The encroaching grief of the day only made her face look worse.

  Then she’d decided to make sandwiches in case they got hungry, in case there was no place to stop, and of course out here there wouldn’t be. Dan had struggled for patience, knowing that if they started to argue it would never end. It had been mid-afternoon by the time they left Denver, meaning this visit would have to be a short one, but it just couldn’t be helped.

  As soon as he stopped the car his mother was out and pacing in front of the rows of wheat that lapped the edge of the road. He got out quickly, not wanting her to get too far ahead of him. The clouds were lower, heavier, leaking darkness toward the ground in long narrow plumes. He could see the wind coming from a distance, the fields farther off beginning to move like water rolling on the ocean, all so restless, aimless, and, by the time the disturbance arrived at the field where they stood, the wind brought the sound with it, a constant and persistent crackle and fuzz, shifting randomly in volume and tone.