City Fishing by Steve Rasnic Tem

Author:Steve Rasnic Tem [Steve Rasnic Tem]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Dark Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Weird Fiction, Occult & Supernatural, Short Stories, Collections & Anthologies
ISBN: 9780967515717
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 2552382
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2000-06-30T23:00:00+00:00

The next morning Annie found the first comb under her pillow. She had had bad dreams all night, of sick smiles and dirty poor people and of teeth, mostly teeth. Biting and ripping, or sometimes just pressing up against her soft skin and resting there, as if in anticipation.

When she woke up she’d still felt the teeth, working their way into her skull like the worst kind of headache. Then she’d lifted her thin pillow and discovered the comb. Long, curved metal. Not silver, she didn’t think, but something like it. The teeth long and tapered, spaced just the right amount apart, it seemed, so that they wouldn’t snag the hair, but pass through softly, like a breeze through the woods.

Tentatively she pressed the beautiful comb into her hair. It was as if all her nerves untangled and flowed as softly as her hair. She could hear a soft buzzing in her ears. Her skull went soft as moss. She hated to take the comb out of her hair. Her hair clung to the comb, making it hard to take away. She could feel her skull pull toward the comb.

Annie took the comb, holding it like a baby to her chest, into the kitchen where her mother was drinking coffee. “Oh, Momma. Thank you,” Annie said.

Her mother looked up at her out of ugly, red-rimmed eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Annie was suddenly confused. “The comb. You put it there, didn’t you?”

Her mother pursed her lips, put her coffee down. “Let me see that thing.”

Anxiously, Annie handed her mother the comb, already thinking about what she would do if her mother refused to hand it back. Her mother dropped the comb onto the kitchen table. It made a musical sound, like a triangle or a very small cymbal. “You steal this at that store yesterday?”

“Momma! That was a furniture store! Besides, I don’t steal. I found it under my pillow this morning; I thought you had given it to me for a present.” Annie felt on the verge of tears.

Her mother grunted and stood up, took her coffee and started back to her own bedroom. Much to Annie’s relief, the beautiful metal comb was still on the kitchen table. “Well, I don’t care if you stole it or not,” her mother said as she was going out the door.

When Annie walked back to her bedroom, moving her beautiful new comb through her hair rhythmically, in time with her steps, she thought she saw two silver wings resting on the edge of her bed. When she got a closer look, however, she could see that they were two small, metal combs, only a couple of inches long.

Something unseen whispered through her hair. Insects buzzed at her ears. The comb moved rapidly through her hair, dragging her hand.

Annie thought she could see bits and pieces of her reflection in the air around her. Slivers of face, crescents of shoulder. Long flowing strands of hair, floating through the air like rays of silver dust.

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