Such a clever story — and it zips along swiftly, written in the kind of style that seems effortless. Carl, a macho, not very likeable, cop, has started to see eyes where car headlights ought to be. At first he thinks they must be some kind of decorative fad, but no, those are real eyeballs, and he’s got used to them as a sign of suspect vehicles. Jemisin takes her time revealing, subtly, that Carl is Black, undermining any easy assumptions about her story as an allegory on race. By telling it from Carl’s own point of view she also puts the reader in an uncomfortable position, half-identifying with a character whose actions and attitudes are for the most part repellent.

Collected in Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adam, Picador 2023