Baby Teeth: A Tor.com Original

By Daniel Polansky

In Daniel Polansky's next Tor.com Original short story "Baby Teeth," a forlorn teenager's monotonous life is interrupted when a stranger draws him into the hunt for a vampiric serial killer.

He will learn that while monsters are much more real than he thought, there is no such thing as heroes.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Nov 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250832542

Daniel Polansky

DANIEL POLANSKY was born in 1984 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of the Low Town series, the Hugo nominated The Builders, and A City Dreaming. He currently resides on a hill in eastern Los Angeles.

Book preview

1

I first saw him at Penny Anderson’s funeral, standing in the back of the chapel with his hat on. No one else seemed to notice him, they were too busy looking at the box Penny Anderson was in, or at Penny Anderson’s aunt who bawled so loudly that it was hard to hear Reverend Gary’s sermon, or at Penny Anderson’s mother and father who made no sounds at all. Penny Anderson would go into the ground the next day, and all of Loganville had turned out for the service; there were no seats left for the stranger.

Terrible thing, said Ms. Perkins after, as we filed past the body.

Even in life… said Ms. Farrow.

She’s with God now, said Ms. Perkins.

So beautiful, said Ms. Farrow.

Though I could only comment with confidence on the last. Penny Anderson looked just the same as she had at homecoming, might even have been wearing the same dress (the Andersons were not wealthy people). She was paler, but that had always been part of her charm. Some of the others said goodbye to her, but I did not.

When it was over the stranger was nowhere to be seen.

---

The Volvo was in the shop again and so we’d caught a ride to the funeral parlor with the Smiths, but they were going out to dinner on the way back and though my mom waited they did not invite us along. We took the bus and didn’t get home until after dark. My mother microwaved two meals and we sat down in front of the TV to eat.

I’m sorry, Graham, said my mom.

Thanks.

I know the two of you were special friends, said my mom.

Once upon a time when the neighborhood kids had existed as a sexless preadolescent mass, Penny Anderson and I had played tag and gone rambling and in winters sledded together down the big hill at the end of the development, but everyone used to do that and anyway it had stopped long ago. The last conversation I could remember having with Penny Anderson had been the previous spring, when she had seen me reading the Dungeon Master’s Guide during free period and called me a loser in front of Sally Lorne and Tim