The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

happiness. Isn’t that what’s important?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Russell. You’ve seen that picture they sent us… that little girl doesn’t look like she’s so bad off.” Mitzi harrumphed lightly. “She looks like a little tart, if you ask me!”

Russell chuckled. “Well, you certainly have changed your tune lately!”

“No, I haven’t! It’s just that being a foster parent isn’t what I thought it would be…”

“Are you sure that you’re not just getting tired of it, that the novelty is wearing off? Remember how you were at first about backgammon? The aerobic dancing? And when’s the last time you went out jogging?”

“Russell, this is different…”

“Okay, honey. We can drop out of the program any time you want. We didn’t sign any contract, you know.”

Mitzi sighed and looked up at the ceiling as though considering the suggestion. “Well, if you really don’t think she needs our help…”

“Wait a minute, this is your idea, remember!” Russell smiled, as it was always Mitzi’s way—to twist things around so that it always seemed like Russell was the one who would bear responsibility for all decisions.

“Well, I know, but I wouldn’t want to do anything behind your back. Besides, I was thinking that we could use some new drapes in the living room. The sun is starting to fade those gold ones, and we could use that fifteen dollars each month to pay for them…”

And so, having planted the seed, not another month went by before Mitzi announced to Russell that it was okay to drop out of the Spare the Child program, having already picked up a sample fabric book, trying to decide which new color would look best in her chrome-and-glass living room. Russell wrote a letter to the Spare the Child offices in New York City, politely explaining that financial pressure had forced them to withdraw from the program. He expressed the hope and good wishes that Tnen-Ku would continue to receive assistance from a new foster parent, and thanked them for the opportunity to be of some help, at least for a brief time.

Before the new drapes were delivered, he received a letter from the Trobriand Islands:

Dear Second-Papa Russell,

The mission-peoples say that you will send no more U.S.A. dollars for me. I am very sad by this. That means I must live at Mission again, and I do not like that. Goka-Pon say a father cannot give up his child. Do you know it is forbidden? Please do not stop U.S.A. dollars. For you and me.

Tnen-Ku

“Now isn’t that strange,” said Russell, reading the young girl’s letter over a Saturday breakfast. “Forbidden, she says… I wonder what that means? And what about this ‘for you and me’?”

“Don’t pay any attention to it dear. She’s probably trying to make you feel guilty. You know what they say about people who get used to charity—they lose all incentive to do things for themselves, and all they learn is how to become professional beggars. By us stopping that money, we’re probably doing the best thing in the world for her. Maybe she’ll grow up now, and be somebody.” Mitzi poked at the bacon which sizzled in the pan, turned over the more crispy pieces.

Russell tossed away the letter and did not think about it for several weeks, until he received a plea from the Spare the Child Program to reconsider canceling his donation. It was similar to the form letters one gets from magazines when you have obviously intended not to renew a subscription. He was going to throw it out but decided that a final, short note to the offices would stop any further correspondence. He wrote telling them that he did not intend to contribute to the foster-parent plan ever again and wished that they would stop badgering him. That ended it, or so he thought.

Two months later, he received a hand-written note from the Trobriand Islands group:

Dear Second-Papa Russell,

Mission-peoples say no more U.S.A. dollars from you. This very bad. Goka-Pon say you must be punished.

Tnen-Ku

Understandably, Russell was outraged and fired off another letter to the Spare the Child Program, enclosing a xerox of what he termed an “ungrateful, arrogant, and threatening” letter. He informed the agency that if he received any more correspondence from Tnen-Ku, he would initiate legal actions against the agency.

A secretary from the Spare the Child offices wrote a perfunctory apology which promised that Russell Southers would not be troubled again, and this seemed to appease both him and Mitzi, until three weeks later, when the cat died.

Actually, their cat, Mugsy, did not die; it had been killed—strangled and then nailed to Russell’s garage door above a jerkily scrawled inscription which could have been in blood: Tnen- Ku. It was as though the young girl had sent them more correspondence, although of a different nature.

At first, Mitzi was horrified and Russell infuriated. They called the police, who did not seem terribly interested; the Spare the Child agency, which denied any culpability; and Russell’s lawyer, who said that perhaps a flimsy case could be made against the agency but suggested that one of Russell’s friends was most likely playing a very bad joke on him.

Russell was shocked to see the high levels of indifference and lack of true concern for what was happening to him but felt helpless to do much more than complain himself. He thought of writing a long threatening letter to Tnen-Ku, but something held him back. After all, it was impossible that the child had anything to do with Mugsy’s demise—the island of Kona-Pei was thousands of miles from New Jersey. But what the hell was going on?

Second-Papa? Second-Papa…?

Russell was awakened from a deep sleep by the voice. In the first moments of wakefulness; he found himself thinking that her voice sounded very much like he would have imagined it to sound.

Whose voice!? Bolting straight up, Russell stared down to the foot of the bed and felt his breath rush out of him. His flesh drew up and pimpled and he felt immediately chilled. There was a figure, a young girl, bathed in a shimmering aura of spectral light, facing him. Her hair was long and dark, and her eyes seemed like empty holes in her face. Her thin, bronzed arms were reaching out to him…

“It can’t be…” whispered Russell, his voice hoarse and full of uncontrollable fear, a fear he had never known.

Second-Papa, said Tnen-Ku. I would have been happy. I would have been grateful to you forever. I would have come to you… like this… for make you happy… not sad.

Russell blinked, looked over at Mitzi, who was still sleeping. For an instant, he wondered why she had not heard the child; then he realized that he was only hearing the words in his mind.

“Why?” he whispered. “What do you mean? Why are you doing this?”

I would have given you this…

Russell stared at the young girl, watching her hands move slowly to her waist, to the simple knot which held the wraparound skirt about her body. With a deliberate slowness, Tnen-Ku worked at the knot.

No! thought Russell, as a conflicting rush of feelings jolted him. He wanted to look away from the vision, but something held him. The shining figure had taken on a strangely erotic, yet fearsome aspect, and he was transfixed.

As the knot loosened, Russell found himself entranced by the deep tan of her flesh, and as the cloth began to slowly fall away, he became fascinated by the suggestion of flaring hips, the roundness of her soon-to-be-a- woman’s belly. He felt himself becoming sexually aroused as he had never in his life, and a fire seemed to be raging in his groin. Tnen-Ku held the fabric of the skirt by a small corner so that it hung limply in front of her, flanked by her naked hips and thighs.