Paper Tigers (26 page)

And then the roar swallowed them whole.

Flames raced up the walls and across the floor, eating the bookcases, the photo albums, everything in its path. She stretched out her arms and moved through the blaze, a woman-shaped column of flame. No heat. No pain.

No fear.

The colors faded. The roar muted. She spared one last glance behind her. A lifeless husk, bloodied and torn, lay on the floor. The tiger was dead. Well and truly dead. For good, this time.

Of the women, there was no sign.

The clock chimed again, for the twelfth and last time, a small hand slipped into hers, and the darkness pulled her down and down and down.

PART X

THE FINAL PAGE

CHAPTER 24

The woman stands on the sidewalk outside the ruin of her daughter's home. Some of the neighbors have placed flowers on the marble steps, which, though singed nearly black, are still intact. Scorch marks darken the brick front, and open spaces live where glass windows used to be. The back of the house, near the kitchen, is much worse, with gaping holes in the brick. Yet the houses on either side are in pristine, perfect condition. A mystery or a miracle, depending on who is asked.

She looks for explanation in the charred remains, knowing she won't find one. She bows her head, sobs quietly, and as she turns to go, she can almost see, through the haze of tears, her daughter standing just inside the front window.

Almost.

Elena finds the album leaning against several bags blocking the back door of the shop. She mutters under her breath, grabs the album, and pushes the bags out of the way. She knows the bags will contain mostly trash. People who bring things worthy of resale do so during the day.

The album is scarred and battered, but she carries it inside anyway. If it has old pictures inside it, someone will buy it. People collect strange things.

She brushes a bit of dust off the cover. Inside, the first page holds
an inscription written in indigo ink. She chuckles under breath. A silly bit of nonsense about staying away from tigers because they bite. Foolish. Everyone knows tigers are dangerous.

A faint smell of smoke clings to the page, but no matter. She'll put it in the front window anyway. She turns past the inscription to find a blurry photo of a young woman standing hand in hand with a small child in front of a burned-out shell of a house. A scruffy teddy bear dangles at the child's side. Oddly enough, despite the ruin behind them, both the woman and the girl are smiling.

And the rest of the pages are blank.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Richard Thomas and Dark House Press for believing in this book, and to Alban Fischer and George Cotronis for their fantastic art.

Thank you to Linda Epstein for helping me when the story was ugly and full of holes.

Thank you to my friends for your support, especially my Wolfpack. Lena, Mike, Katrin, Joe, Justin, Anya, and Scott, I love you all.

Thank you to the writers who inspire me every day—Livia Llewellyn, Helen Marshall, Laird Barron, and John Langan.

Thank you to E. Catherine Tobler and Kristi DeMeester for always being willing to beta read.

Thank you to my family for their love and support.

And to the readers: without you, the words mean nothing at all.

DAMIEN ANGELICA WALTERS' work has appeared or is forthcoming in various anthologies and magazines, including
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015
,
Year's Best Weird Fiction: Volume One
,
Cassilda's Song
,
The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction
,
Nightmare Magazine
,
Black Static
, and
Apex Magazine
. She was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award for “The Floating Girls: A Documentary,” originally published in Jamais Vu. Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of short fiction, was released in 2015 from Apex Publications. Find her on Twitter
@DamienAWalters
or on the web at
http://damienangelicawalters.com
.

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