The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 5 by Paula Guran

Author:Paula Guran [Guran, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781645061021
Publisher: Pyr
Published: 2024-10-14T21:00:00+00:00

IF SOMEONE YOU LOVE HAS BECOME A VURDALAK

SAM J. MILLER

My brother on my front porch wailing my name, soaking wet and without a jacket in the cold spring rain, with nowhere else in the world to go, wondering why I won’t let him in.

My brother crashing at our mom’s house, preying on her weakness the way he always did; me calling her every day and waiting for when she’ll let it slip that the TV is missing or a credit card is gone.

My brother phoning at four a.m., begging for fifty bucks but forget ting the username of his latest account on PayPal or Zelle or Venmo or Cash App, the previous one having been shut down like all the others for fraudulent activity.

I think of Planck now and it’s shit like this that comes to mind. Which is so profoundly fucking sad it makes me even madder at him.

We’re twins. Our first fifteen years were a bubble of shared bliss and ill-advised adventures, secret language and all, us against the world, but now his name pops up on my phone or an old friend asks how he’s doing and I don’t think about jumping fences to steal apples from a neigh bor’s orchard, or dressing identically to engage in uncanny performance pranks in public. I think of my brother’s hollow sunken eyes across the Thanksgiving dinner table—six Thanksgivings ago, the last one he was invited to. I think of my brother debasing himself in a sleazy non-studio porno film clip a so-called friend sent me.

Planck and Faraday, named by our mom after two scientific con stants, meant to be “universal and unchanging” for each other . . . but the only constant in Planck’s adult life has been addiction.

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