Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology by Jeff Vandermeer & Hugh Howey

Author:Jeff Vandermeer & Hugh Howey
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780996626224
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Published: 2015-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

***

As for the ending, there are many. Perhaps the next day, the next month, a new face stared up from the pits, the arms of the body reaching out but frozen, the eyes blank. Perhaps the meerkats never honored their agreement. Or . . .

***

That summer, as the stars watched overhead, an angel descended to the desert floor. And, when it departed, Lucretia arose from the dead and danced like a will-o’-the-wisp over the shifting sands. She danced fitfully, anger and sadness throbbing in her new heart.

That winter, Flesh Dog and Gerard limped back to the crèche. He did not speak now. Always, he looked toward the south, toward the great sea and the city with no name, as though expecting strangers. Always, as he sat by the fire and sucked his food with toothless gums, Gerard-Flesh Dog looked at Lucretia, the Lucretia who saw only that Flesh Dog had returned a mute, and smiled his permanent smile. Beneath the folds of tissue, Gerard’s smoky-green eyes stared, silently begging for rescue. But Lucretia never dared pull back the folds to see for herself, perhaps afraid of what she might find there. Sometimes she would dream of the city, of what had happened there, but the vision would desert her upon waking, the only mark the tears she had wept while asleep.

After a year, the men of the crèche held a funeral for Gerard. After two years, Lucretia married a wealthy water dower and, though she treated Flesh Dog tenderly, he was never more than an animal to her.

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