The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

until he passed out.

I held a hammer in my hand with every intention of caving in Ike Train's skull, then disposing of his body out in the desert somewhere, but I couldn't do it. He was a person. I'd expected a monster, and yes, Ike was a monster too, but I couldn't see past his humanity. In my more natural state, without a body, I would have found executing Ike Train as simple as flicking an ant off a tablecloth. But for now I was wearing a human form, and Ike was one of my tribe, albeit a crazy, dangerous one. I couldn't smash his head in, not if I wanted to keep functioning in this body. Such an act would tear me apart. I put the hammer down.

Still, Ike had to die, and disappear, if I wanted to save this neighbourhood from imploding. They could never know this monster had been in their midst — such a revelation would poison the wellspring of camaraderie and human kindness I'd found here. I had to do something fast, though. He was a big man, and he would wake up soon, and I couldn't bear talking to him again.

Sometimes, back in the old days, I'd watched people drown, disappearing beneath churning waves. Losing those people hurt me — diminished me — but it felt more natural, somehow, with the elements taking their lives, instead of a human hand.

I'm not stupid. I know killing is killing, even if some natural phenomenon is the murder weapon. If you cast someone into a churning sea, and they die, you've murdered them, even if it's the water that ends their lives. But maybe you can sleep a little easier, since the blood isn't on your hands. Maybe.

Ike Train was a man who prepared for things. There were several gas cans in the garage, by his emergency generator. They sloshed full when I picked them up.

Fortunately, Ike didn't wake, even when I piled pillows around the perimeter of the living room and doused them with fuel. The smoke would kill him before the fire touched him. A mercy, and more than he'd offered his victims. But I'm not about vengeance. I'm about finding bad homes and making them good again.

When I felt tears on my face, I tried to believe they were just stinging from the gas fumes.

House fires aren't exactly good for neighbourhood morale, but they tend to make a community pull together. Everybody came out and watched Ike Train's house burn. The fire trucks got there pretty quickly, but not quickly enough. The roof collapsed while they were still hooking their hoses up, but Ike was surely gone by then.

Nobody paid any attention to me, not even Sadie, though she stood only a few yards away. Everyone was watching the flames. I needed to get cleaned up, and shower off the mud from Ike's backyard. Maybe I'd visit Sadie later, and see about making myself into boyfriend material. This could be a nice place now.

'Vocabulary word,' said Oswald, walking over from his house down the block and joining the spectators. ' 'Conflagration': a large fire. Also a conflict or war.'

'Shut the fuck up, Oswald,' someone said wearily. 'We think Ike Train died in there.'

'Another,' Oswald said softly. ' 'Cothurnus'. A tragedy. Also the costume worn by an actor in a tragic play.'

Then he looked at me, for a little too long, like he had something to say, but some people just have eyes like that, intense and too direct. I slipped away from the neighbourhood crowd, though being among them was all I wanted. I knew the ugly burned-out lot in the middle of their street would be better than the ugliness that Ike Train had caused. I'd used fire to cauterize something much worse. But I still felt guilty. A shower would help, a little. You have to start getting clean somewhere.

I was on my way to visit Sadie the next Saturday, for our weekend of sex or tourism, when Oswald hailed me from his front yard, where he was brutalizing a patch of unkempt grass with a weed whacker. 'Mr Reva!' he said, turning off his buzzing yard tool.

'It's just Reva,' I called back.

'I wonder if I might have a word with you,' he said.

'What, vocabulary words?' I called back, trying to sound cheerful, because even a miserable little guy like this probably had some good in him somewhere. But I really just wanted to see Sadie.

'Very droll,' he replied. 'Please? Just a moment? I have something inside that might interest you.'

Was this a come on? Was Oswald so cranky because he was closeted and gay? I'd seen that sort of thing before. I wasn't interested in him, but maybe, if he was from around here, I could talk with his deep down self, and help him relax, and be a better neighbour. 'Sure,' I said, and went up the steps, following him to his front door. He opened the door and gestured for me to enter. I did, and it was dark inside — very dark — so I paused just inside the door. 'Maybe we should turn the lights on — ' I began, and then he shoved me, hard, and I stumbled forward into empty air, falling hard on what felt like a mound of rubble and broken glass. 'Fuck!' I shouted, and turned over, my eyes starting to adjust. There was no bouse inside his house — it was scooped out and hollow, just a few beams to support the roof and walls, otherwise an open pit of dirt and rocks.

I realized, then, that I'd seriously misinterpreted the situation on this street.

Oswald leapt down from the little scrap of flat floor just inside the door, landing in a crouch on the dirt before me. He moved more like a spider than a man, which made sense; he wasn't a spider, but he wasn't a man, either. I started to rise up, and he threw a rock at my head, hard enough that I don't remember the impact at all, just the coming of the darkness.

'Vocabulary word,' Oswald said later, tying up my wrists with lengths of wire. I was naked, and the rocks in his house were cutting into my skin. ''Chthonic'. Dwelling under the earth. Gods of the underworld. Me.'

'Oswald,' I said, alarmed at the slur in my voice. How hard had that rock hit my head? Way too hard, judging by the pounding in my skull. 'We can work something out.'

'Another: 'Autarch'. Absolute ruler. Tyrant. Me, here, in this place.' He wired my legs together.

'You don't have to do this.' I tried to twist, to kick, but he was agile, and I wasn't, and he didn't even stop talking while he dodged my flailing.

'Another: 'Autochthonous'. Originating where it is found. Native. From around here. Me, me, me.' He kicked me in the chest on the last word, and darker black dots swam into my vision against the darkness inside his housepit, and I gasped for breath.

'This is my place,' Oswald said, 'and Ike Train was my man. He made the proper sacrifices to me, kept me fed, kept me happy. And you spoiled that, stranger, outside agitator, you ruined it, and now I have to cultivate another man. But you'll die. Not a sacrifice to me. Just somebody who got in the way.' He gnashed his teeth, and they clacked together like gemstones. 'You didn't have to burn Ike. He wouldn't have killed that little bitch Sadie you like so much. She has too many friends. We only kill the ones no one will miss. Well, usually. Someone might miss you, but I don't care.'

Oswald was the reason Ike Train's deep down self had been so strange. I couldn't make a deal with Ike, because he'd already made a bargain with a creature like me. Well, sort of like me. Oswald and I had the same means, but different methods and motivations. That explained why nobody had ever discovered Ike Train's murders — Oswald had used his powers to protect him, and he probably did other things, too, like keeping the neighbourhood safe from danger, but the price he demanded was just too high.

As far as Oswald knew, I was just a guy, somebody who came to town and discovered his lackey's secret. He didn't know what he was dealing with. Fortunately.

Oswald stood up, letting his human shape drop, revealing the shambling earthen thing underneath, the creature of the dark and deep who'd lived here, on this spot, for centuries. Oswald was a local spirit, tied to this place, but he was an ugly one, who chose to live off pain instead of prosperity. He reached out to me with arms of darkness, endless limbs that stank of minerals and stale air. 'Vocabulary word,' he hissed, in a voice that could never be mistaken for human. 'Decapitate'. To cut off a head. Another: 'Decedent'. One who has died. 'You.'

Then he killed me.

While I was dying, I remembered the problem with having a body. The problem is pain.

I wasn't able to return for a few days. My new body was Korean, older, shorter, dressed in a plaid shirt and khaki pants. I'd needed to pick up some supplies, and they were tricky to get, since I didn't have money, and had to rely on the kindness of locals. I traded a lucky gambling streak for the truck, and the miraculous regeneration of