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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

"New Wave" by Gary Fry

Appears in Shadows and Tall Trees (editor Michael Kelly).

Here's a chilling tale by Gary Fry.  Lee is haunted by the loss of his wife, who was carried off by a current while learning how to swim.  Even though she predicted such a death, she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.  Lee worries that his son, Jacob, may be going through similar travails.  The boy's seeing things.  He seems to have interpreted the scarecrow in the wheat field as a boneless woman, coming for him.  Lee has already moved once.  He hopes this time it will work.

It's not clear why Lee did what he did when teaching his wife to swim, but why do we do some of the foolish things we do?  I bounced off the opening a time or two, but the tale gave me literal chills by its end.  That's the name of the genre, right?  Success.

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