The Curiosities Read online

  You know what I said? “Whatever.” I was trying to finish my degree, and you get a lot of homework done when you can’t go outside without stepping in a pile of whale or something.

  Anyway, there was a lot of rain. You get the point.

  And on September 14th, when the rain stopped and the sun finally showed its gawd-forsaken head, everybody was going “boo-yah” and “thank heavens” and “finally” and, maybe, just maybe, some of them who are probably feeling like dumbasses now said, “I hope it never rains again!”

  Cause the universe doesn’t get sarcasm.

  You know what I said, though? I said, “Whoopdidoo, I’m buying me some bottled water.” Mostly because my father told me not to, because he said, “What’s a twenty-two-year-old pile of crap who lives at home under the pretense of finishing his degree going to do with two trillion gallons of bottled water?”

  Be rich, is what he’s going to do.

  Yeah, the filtration and the storage cost money, but sure as your granny’s good in bed, the water didn’t. And those “boo-yah” “thank heavens” “finally” types weren’t interested in water in September, or October, or November, or December, or for most of the spring. But by the time my father kicked me out of the house and I switched majors again and I got my Time magazine feature as world’s most eligible genius or whatever, they wanted it. Oh yeah, they were dying for it.

  So I was rich. I mean, I wasn’t the only one who read the writing on the wall that said the planet was due for a royal screwing, but it didn’t matter. I got rich enough.

  [3]But whatever. I didn’t really mean to talk about me and my money. I was just trying to explain the whole rain thing. It didn’t affect life as much as you’d think, having lots of water and then not having any water for years. Mostly, it was just, like, a few million people dying of strange diseases that hadn’t been around for centuries, and every species of corn going extinct except for this weird albino variety that looks like it’s been growing under a rock, and it’s really hot all the time, and you can just forget horseback riding as a sport, because there isn’t much in the way of horses.

  But there are still reality shows, only I guess they’re a little weirder than beforehand, because the stakes are a little higher and you get a lot of whackos both as contestants and producers. They were filming one right outside my m-flat that was particularly messed up. The producers were standing around looking like zombies on crack while the host and camera guys watched these people trying to squeeze their bodies through an impossibly tiny hole to get a key on the other side.

  By nature of their makeup, the humidity-recycling membrane and all, m-flats don’t have great insulation, so I could hear the host as clearly as if I were standing next to him. So I knew that these contestants—who looked kinda like four hundred miles of bad road, if we’re being honest—were all trying to get this key because it was a key to a brand new m-flat, which was a pretty ace prize. Basically it cut down on your water usage by two-thirds because of the way it recycled the water in your breath and the air and crap, and so it is basically the difference between spending your yearly salary on water or on the other nice things of life, like shoes. Or, you know, food.

  I went down there to check it out. It was gross but fascinating. Mostly I wanted to see how [4]idiotic people would be for an m-flat. The answer, if you’re wondering, is pretty idiotic. One guy dislocated his shoulder on purpose to try to fit through this hole. So he was sweating like a sumo wrestler, screaming like a baby, and even with all that lube and noise, he wasn’t getting through that hole.

  Another girl almost got through, but she just couldn’t get her hips through. Not like she was big—great thing about the apocalypse is that it really cuts back on that obesity pandemic—but she just couldn’t do it. She clawed at her hips and I almost went back inside, but she gave up.

  Then the third girl came up, and when she saw me standing there, watching, she shot me this real crappy look. And you know what? I shot her a real crappy one back, because if she had a problem with me watching, just wait ’til this show aired on national television.

  She stood there and looked at the hole, which, I’ll give her credit, none of the others had. Then, without a second’s hesitation, she took off all her clothing. She was gleaming with sweat, thin as a rail, with about one thousand more ribs than anyone else I’d ever seen. Yeah. Pretty much only wearing her black hair, up top and down below.

  And she just slid through the hole and got the key. She came back out and stood in her birthday suit, clutching it with a screw-you-all sort of expression. The cameras kept swinging to her and away, as if they couldn’t decide if they shouldn’t be showing this or this was the best catch ever.

  The producers conferred amongst themselves. The host told the girl that it was against the contract. The naked part.

  And they took the key.

  They took the key.

  For a moment I didn’t really think they would do it, but then I saw the producers wrestling it out of her hands and thrusting her clothing towards her. The host ran his mouth about some new challenge for the key instead, since this one was void. Something about killing as many dogs by hand in ten minutes—what, didn’t I mention this? [5]Oh yeah, dogs and horses, they were the big carriers of that retrovirus that showed up during the first part of the drought. The horses just died, but the dogs passed it on to humans before they did, and dog-killing became this big thing. First any dog that looked like it had the signs, the scabs, you know, and then just any dog that looked like a dog.

  You know, before I moved out, I had a dog. He was a great dog.

  I’ll never forgive my dad. Ever.

  Oh freaking hell, the producers weren’t kidding. They had a pen of dogs. Like, a hundred dogs. All kinds. With collars and without. People’s pets. Oh, that was messed up. There weren’t really going to—

  The contestants were staring at the dogs. The big guy with the dislocated shoulder was clenching his fists and unclenching them, testing the strength of his bad arm. The girl with the big hips was tracing a finger over a ligament in her neck, looking thoughtful.

  And the girl who’d gotten the key already was just staring at one of the dogs in the pen, a golden retriever, who was looking back at her and wagging his tail. She’d covered up her ribs with her clothing again, but I could see she was shaking as she watched the dog.

  Wagging his freaking tail.

  I smacked aside one of the cameras and stepped between the contestants and the dogs. I walked right up to the girl. She looked at me with that same screw-you look, only now I knew why it was on there. Because c’mon, look at what they’d done to her just since I’d been watching. I took out my wallet, got out the blank check I always kept in there, and I wrote it for $57,000, which is $1,000 more than a basic m-flat costs. I handed her the check, and I just walked away.

  I heard the producers say, “That was Dominic du Bois. Dominic du Bois! He invented the m-fl—he is a billi—what did he give you?”

  At that, I turned around to look. The freaks were fighting with her about it. They told her she couldn’t quit because of her contract, and they told her she couldn’t keep it, because she got it while on the show, and then when that didn’t work, because I was staring at them, the producer came over to me.

  “The dogs are all gonna get killed anyway,” he told me.

  Just to be mean. Because people are like that, a lot, now, I didn’t say that before either, but they are. They’re kind of awful, actually, a lot of them.

  “You’re a piece of crap,” I told him. “You’re a piece of crap that other pieces of crap crap on.”

  He sneered at me, ugly bastard only his mom would like, if she even did, because he knew he’d gotten to me because I’d said anything at all.

  The girl with the check stood behind him, looking at me, and she was still staring at me in an unfriendly way. Probably because she thought I was trying to buy her or something as messed up as the reality show people had been doing to
everybody.

  I went back inside the m-flat. I needed to study. Not for the degree. Screw the degree. I was going to make it rain.

  DUMB SUPPER

  by Tessa Gratton

  It occurred to me to discover if I could write a story without any dialogue. Instead of talking, there was a lot of food. —Tessa

  The point is to be silent. The dead can’t speak, so in their honor, neither do the living.

  I rarely talk the other three hundred and sixty-four days, so for me Halloween is not such a challenge. Nor do I invite any other living persons. I haven’t reached the point where I have to converse with myself to stay sane. Or I’ve never been sane, and so have never needed spoken words to ground me in the moment.

  All day I’ve had chili simmering on the stove, with cinnamon, honey, paprika, red pepper, and clove. The apples are cut in half so you can see their seed-stars, pumpkin muffins are iced with thin cream cheese, and I pull rosemary bread out of the oven just at sunset. There’s cornbread, too, and dried plums. Two bottles of red wine are breathing next to the jack-o’-lantern waiting unlit in the center of my dining table.

  My dishes are black, and the tablecloth, too. But I only have silverware. I like the contrast where they rest on the black napkins, especially when the candles are lit.

  I brush my hair and put on slight touches of eye shadow and lipstick. My skirt flares just below my knees, and I have on decent stockings and solid shoes. The shirt is silk and buttons up to my neck. I have on small pearl earrings and a charm bracelet made of small golden headstones.

  This year it is storming, and I part my curtains to see a family running between two houses, clearplastic ponchos distorting the costumes on the three little ones. Porch lights shimmer through the rain, their welcome glows ruined and sad. Most children will be eating bowls of candy meant for other trick-or-treaters but relegated to consolation prizes against disappointment and tantrums.

  And I know that a mere storm will not keep the real tricksters away, the dead and their never-living brethren.

  So I walk through the dark halls and rooms of my house and light candles in every corner. Black for warding off evil, orange for the holiday, and white to invite peace.

  When all the air wavers with flickering flame, I go to the kitchen and bring out the chili pot. I ladle some into every place setting, and I break bread to dole out. I place a selection of dried fruits and apples beside chunks of cornbread, and last I pour the wine. Then I sit at the foot of the table, across from the blackdraped chair at the head. I fold my hands, bow my chin, and pray.

  Silently, of course.

  Restless ghosts, I welcome you to this table. It is filled with the year’s bounty, with my bounty, and I would share it with you that you not go forgotten or hungry.

  Nothing happens, but I am not alarmed. The dead arrive when they will. I sip my wine, a heavy merlot with the hint of chocolate and smoke. And I wait. Excitement and dread mingle on the rim of my glass.

  Outside, the wind rattles branches against my roof like a welcome knock. The first spirit arrives, and I feel it with a chill. It is a boy in an Irish cap and knickers, swinging his feet and watching me. I smile.

  Next to him appears an old woman with glinting gold at her ears. Both ghosts are flimsy and white, and I can see the upholstery through their flesh.

  More come. I smile welcome at each arrival, recognizing my regulars and being careful not to stare at those unfamiliar. The young woman in the empirewaist summer dress I’ve been seeing since I was seven takes the seat to my left, and my affection for her makes me raise my wineglass in salute.

  I have done research, of course, on my local spirits to discover their identities, but only in one case has a ghost ever matched in death his final picture from life. I believe it is not the last moments that mark a ghost, but their happiest. I see no slit throats or gunshot wounds, no bloodshot eyes or yellowing lips. I see instead how they project themselves. For the little boy, it is not necessarily that he died when he was five—perhaps he was twelve or twenty or fifty-seven—but his moment of strongest self-awareness and identity was at such a young age.

  But it is only my theory. There is no exact science to this, and I had no master or old crone to learn from.

  Soon all the seats are filled but for the head. We do not eat until everyone arrives. I stare at the empty chair and wonder if this will be the year he does not come.

  Travis Andrew McCarthy. I know his name because he showed it to me, one Halloween when I was thirteen. He wrote it in smoke at my girlfriend Ginny’s house, when I hid in the bathroom from her bullying older brother who said my costume made me look fat and trashy. Travis’s touch froze away my tears, and when he smiled I felt my sore heart soothed. I felt the flush of shame melt away. I said his name, and he mouthed mine back at me. I could not hear it, but I knew what he said. Every day between that Halloween and the next I thought of his slicked-back hair, the unshaved jaw and dashing jacket. He appeared perhaps nineteen or twenty, and I loved him as hard as thirteen-year-olds must.

  I am older than him now, older than he seems, by several years. But every October thirty-first, I set my table to welcome the dead and wait for him especially.

  They used to terrify me, the ghosts no one else sees. They like to slink into your peripheral vision and mouth words at you, words you have no way to hear. It is awful to stare and stare and not know what they are saying—it is a greeting? A warning? A dire threat? But Travis never frightened me.

  At my dining table, candles flicker, casting shadows through the spirits. They move their lips, chatting to each other. But all is silent around me, except for the clang of my clock striking nine and the wind in the trees.

  I sigh, and Travis forms himself beside me, brushing his cold fingers down my neck. I watch as he walks down the length of the table to sit opposite me. He nods and smiles, and I smile back. The table is complete.

  I lift my spoon and dip it into the cooling chili. Taking a bite, I see all the ghosts mimic the same. With invisible cutlery they carve bread, stir soup, and pick the plumpest fruit. None of the food moves, of course, not even a drop of wine, but for my own. But if you let your eyes relax and did not worry about details, it might be a family, eager to join in supper together.

  Travis leans his elbows on the table and says something to me. I demur and sip my wine. He grins and raises a ghostly glass that seems to lift out of the real one. We flirt across the table, him smiling and using his eyebrows, me bashfully fluttering my lashes, biting my lip, hiding behind the food. The wine fills my head and I am alive. I imagine color in Travis’s face, warmth in his lips. I imagine the feel of his hair, thick and rough under my hands. Superior to any living man’s. He is attentive and laughing, and he loves me.

  Slowly, slowly, my plate clears. I pour a second glass of wine. Soon ghosts are patting my arm and mouthing their thank-yous, rising up out of their seats and vanishing up into the ceiling or zipping through the walls. My summer-dress girl takes the hand of the little boy in the Irish cap, and several of the older spirits twirl off together. I am left alone with Travis.

  He stands, hands flat on the table, and smiles at me. It is a smile that says, well done again, my darling, a fine feast you set.

  Travis and I, we do not need to talk.

  I rise as he comes around the table. I close my eyes, and his hands press cold against my cheeks. It is like the temperature dropping suddenly, or the snap of frigid wind when he kisses me. Ten seconds of frozen bliss. My heart stops and I keep my hands at my sides, knowing that if I reach for him all I will find is cold, empty air.

  Then he is gone. I look at the dumb supper, spread out in all its black, candlelit abundance. Except for my crumb-covered plate and empty bowl, every setting is filled still with food and drink, colorful and welcoming.

  I sigh and sit back down. Dark rain pummels the windows. I drink more wine.

  And next year, I decide, I will add sweet-potato [1]casserole.

  NEIGHBORS />
  by Brenna Yovanoff

  Sometimes the hardest story to tell is the one that everyone has already heard. I feel like readers have been trained, especially with short stories, to look for the trick, the switch on a switch, the twist ending. So if that’s what you are indeed going to give them, you must be very, very careful. This short story impressed me as both a reader and a writer because this twist is one that my generation is very prepared for. But still, Brenna sells it, and in the end I’m not sure it’s the surprise that matters. It’s one of those stories I dissected, trying to learn the secrets of its strange body. —Maggie

  This story surprised me, even though I went into it knowing all the parts. As I was writing I felt like I already understood the basic layout and the reveal. [1]What I didn’t expect was the camaraderie between the girls and the fact that ghost stories, by their very nature, are sad ones. —Brenna

  It takes forever for the house next door to sell. Poor For-Sale Sign, rickety and crooked, like it’s been leaning there all summer, all year, all my life.

  The real estate agent blames the lack of interest—no, the entire state of the housing market—on our yard. She leaves a note taped to our front door, saying that no decent family would move in next to a disaster like ours, that the lawn is an eyesore. And it kind of is. I want to tell my dad to get off his ass, crawl out of the bottle and pull-start that mower, but at the same time I don’t want to tell him anything. It’s easier, just walking past the mess like it doesn’t even exist.