The Safety of Unknown Cities

""The Safety of Unknown Cities" is very much a supernatural horror novel. Indeed it's sexual, it's graphically written, but it's also . . . an affecting and powerful novel about heartbreak and the untimely destruction of childhood."--Edward Bryant, "Locus."

From the Publisher

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel from the Horror Writers Association! Exclusive Introduction for The Overlook Connection Press edition by Lucy Taylor Original Cover illustration by renowned artist Neal McPheeters

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Safety of Unknown Cities Prologue At dinner that night she had stolen a spoon. She had sinned. Had taken something that belonged to the Keepers. The Keepers were always watching, peeking, sneaking looks at her and at the others who were confined here. Behind their sleek, syrupy smiles lay lies and cruelty. That was the least of it. Inside their eyes, she'd realized recently, was concealed a second, vestigial pair of orbs, tiny and dark like beebee shot, like the round, rotating eyes at the end of an insect's antennae stalks. These were the eyes that really saw, that watched her fretting in her sleep, pursued by abominable dreams, that saw her squat on the commode to defecate, that fixed avid attention when her hand went underneath the dressing gown and probed and pinched herself to painful orgasm. How had they missed her taking of the spoon, these omnipotent white-clad Keepers? Unless they wanted her to have it. Unless they knew something ! she did not. What she had really wanted was a knife, but that would have been impossible. They weren't even allowed knives at the dinner table, but cut their meat-their meatloaf tasteless as ground cardboard, their hamburger patties topped with the little square slices of cheap American cheese-with the sides of their forks. Like school children or barbarians. (Which amounted to the same thing, didn't it, she thought, grateful that her years of incarceration had not robbed her entirely of wit.) Seconds before she'd swiped it, the spoon had been inside her mouth, depositing a gelid lump of vanilla pudding on her tongue. Then it had slipped between her fingers and fallen to the floor and she, quite unaware of the miracle being offered her, had bent to retrieve it. And almost set it back upon the plate, until she realized what might be hers and what might be achieved if only she could keep these six inches of curved metal for herself. She was wearing a long-sleeved cardig! an that night and, as always, her watch, although it had stopped ticking over a year ago. No one seemed to care about time here anyway-the stark white walls were gleamingly devoid of calendars and clocks, of anything that might have pulled her from this purgatorial limbo into the stream of linear time with its schedules, its reassuring forward motion. No, that was something else denied them here-the sensation of time's normal flow, of the passing years and seasons of their lives. There was just one season here-and that was Hell. She'd slid the spoon up her sleeve, securing the end beneath the wristband of her watch, and pulling the loose-fitting sweater sleeve down to cover her wrist. And finished eating the pudding with her fork, as though such a thing were normal. As if anything were normal here. Thank you Jesus. The Keepers with their second sets of eyes hadn't even noticed that one minute she was spooning up the pudding, the next minute jabbing at it with! a fork. How was this possible? Unless they wanted her to have the spoon? Had, in fact, arranged for her to get it? Unless they were secretly in league with her? She didn't care. It was the Keepers, she felt sure, who sent the dreams that had been plaguing her for months now. Dreams of such unimaginable vileness, such stomach-turning carnality in a place beyond all salvation, a place she couldn't name or identify, that if she weren't already mad from all the years spent here, she would be soon enough. The visions of perversion and debauchery haunted her sleep and intruded on her waking. She could close her eyes, but this didn't stop the images. She knew that must be because the pictures were inside her eyes, projected there by the sadistic Keepers. Except she had them now. She had the spoon. Oh, thank you Jesus. Thank you. The spoon. That night, behind the locked door of her room, she crouched beside the bed and tried to say her prayers-impossible! Demon i! mages capered inside her eyes, a landscape of perversion unfurled in its unholy splendor. She reached to touch herself and touched, instead, (thank God) the object of her deliverance. Thank you, Jesus. The Keepers must be watching, enjoying this, delighting in her torment. She didn't care. She'd show them. She raised the spoon in both hands and snicked the cold tip underneath the lower lid of one eye. And thought about another lifetime, one of privilege and comfort, when often as not, breakfast was begun with coring out the sections of a grapefruit. Coring out the meaty pulp from its neat triangle, popping the dripping fruit into her mouth to suck the tangy juice. (Oh God, oh God, oh God, ohGodohgodohgodohgod...) Blood filled her head. Adrenalin lanced through her like electric shock. Something warm and oyster-like slimed wetly against her cheek. Now the other one, the other... Again, the sickening struggle with her stubborn flesh. Then it was ! done. She collapsed in pooling blood and holy darkness. "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you!" She screamed it aloud, at the top of her lungs, not caring now who heard. "Thank you, Jesus!" Until the visions started up again in the black of her gutted eye sockets. Then all she did was scream.

About the Author

Lucy Taylor is the award-winning author of several novels and short story collections including: Spree, Close To The Bone, The Flesh Artist, Dancing With Demons and Unnatural Acts

Reviews

News