The Shining Girls

by Lauren Beukes

stutter in its brain. That’s what the Room feels like: stuttering.

The cassette tape leaps out at him, urgent, demanding.

The cops do not realize that there is a baseball card missing—of a famous African-American player.

shouldn’t have let you smoke. You’re not used to it.” “Listen to me,” Kirby shouts. “He gave this to me. The fucker who tried to kill me.” “I don’t know what you’re saying!” Rachel shrieks back, confused and upset. “How old was I in that photo?” “Seven? Eight?” Kirby checks the date on the card: 1976. She was nine. But younger when he gave it to her. “Your math is terrible, Mom.” She can’t believe she hasn’t thought about it in all these years. She turns the horse over. There are stamps under each of its hooves in all-caps. MADE IN. HONG KONG. PAT PENDING. HASBRO 1982.

Kirby laughs in relief and unclenches her fist for the first time since she left the house. She’s holding a black-and-silver lighter. A Ronson De-Light Princess with an art deco design. “Replica?” She shakes her head. “Not from the evidence room.” She shakes her head again. “It’s the same one. I don’t know how to explain it.” “And you haven’t shown this to the cops.”

It’s not so much a possession as an infection. The House was always his. Always him.

Seriously. Losing access to the Internet, which the UN has determined is a basic human right and is pretty fundamental to the way we live now, because an entertainment company is pissy that you pirated