Tails of Wonder and Imagination - By Ellen Datlow Page 0,271

abandoned his native Minnesota for a life in the Mile High City. While teaching and parenting have been his passion for the last twenty years, he hopes to find time to return to writing—a fire that was lighted in him many years ago, and whose flame has never died. His only other story was published in Bringing Down the Moon: 15 Tales of Fantasy and Terror in 1985.

Asked about the inspiration for "Tiger in the Snow," he relates: "When I was a kid I had this tremendous fear of lions. I'm not sure where this fear came from, but lions stalked me in my dreams. When I would walk home late at night from a friend's house, I just knew that a lion was out there, following me home, lying in wait. I was reminded of this fear years later when, as an adult with a child of my own, I was walking home from the milk store, in the dark. It was snowing and for some reason I thought of the old lion fear. The story was shaping up nicely by the time I reached home. Why I changed from a lion to a tiger is still something of a mystery; but I think it may have been the beauty of the contrast created by the image of a tiger's orange and black against the stark purity of a world turned white with fresh snow. Or perhaps I still couldn't confront the lion fear, and using a tiger was safer."

Justin sensed the tiger as soon as he reached the street. He didn't see it, or hear it. He simply . . . sensed it.

Leaving the warm safety of the Baxter's porch light behind him, he started down the sidewalk that fronted State Street feeling the night swallow him in a single hungry gulp. He stopped when he reached the edge of the Baxter's proper line and looked back wistfully toward their front door.

Too bad the evening had to end. It had been just about the finest evening he could remember. Not that Steve and he hadn't had some fine old times together, the way best friends will; but this particular evening had been, well, magical. They had played The Shot Brothers down in Steve's basement while Mr. and Mrs. Baxter watched TV upstairs. When the game had been going well and everything was clicking, Justin could almost believe that Steve and he really were brothers. And that feeling had never been stronger than it had been this evening.

When Mrs. Baxter had finally called down that it was time to go, it had struck Justin as vaguely strange that she would be packing him off on a night like this, seeing how he and Steve slept over at one another's homes just about every weekend. But this evening was different. Despite the snow, home called to him in sweet siren whispers.

Mrs. Baxter had bundled him up in his parka, boots, and mittens, and then, much to his surprise, she had kissed his cheek. Steve had seen him to the door, said a quick goodbye, then hurried away to the den. Funny thing, Steve's eyes had seemed moist.

Then Justin had stepped out into the night, and Mrs. Baxter had closed the door behind him, leaving him alone with the dark and the cold and . . . the tiger.

At the edge of the Baxter's property, Justin glanced around for a glimpse of the beast; but the street appeared deserted save for the houses and parked cars under a downy blanket of fresh snow. It was drifting down lazily now, indifferent after the heavy fall of that afternoon. Justin could see the skittering flakes trapped within the cones of light cast by the street lamps, but otherwise the black air seemed coldly empty. The line of lamps at every corner of State Street gave the appearance of a tunnel of light that tapered down to nothingness; and beyond that tunnel, the dark pressed eagerly in.

For a moment, Justin felt the urge to scurry back to the Baxter's door and beg for sanctuary, but he knew he should be getting home. Besides, he wasn't some chicken who ran from the dark. He was one of the Shot Brothers. Rough and ready. Fearless. Hadn't he proven that to stupid Dale Corkland just the other day? "You scared?" old zit-faced Corkland had asked him. And Justin had shown him.

At the corner, Justin looked both ways, although he knew there wouldn't be many cars out on