Miscreations

by Michael Bailey

  By letting this one go, you are absolved for taking all others.

  I believed this to be true. Because isn’t it about learning? Isn’t it about improving upon our pasts, what we’ve done? At eighty I’d done it all, and had determined what was best in the end.

  Yet, there I stood, shoeless and shirtless in the dirt road, facing the darkness from which Ivan would no doubt soon be stepping. My eyes still on the moon, still on her eyes, my history rotating through my head like pollen falling from the summer trees I could not entirely see. And what wind propelled said pollen? I ask because I felt it. Winds swirling behind my eyes, sending my thoughts sailing.

  The intoxication of the moon.

  Ivan’s presence grew louder, and the sloshing in the bucket was off rhythm with those steps. This was unlike him. Was he hurrying? I wished he was. I suddenly wished he was moving so fast I would see only a streak in the darkness.

  Then the words, bad words perhaps, crossed my mind:

  One last transformation.

  It’s so easy to equate us to drunks, isn’t it? It’s so easy to imagine a man two months sober, his life in order, his partner beaming with pride. It’s ready-made, the image of this man, his suit and case, the car carrying them both, diverted from the main road home, taking the shallow drive to the local roadside bar, perhaps a place he’s never been, half the reason for stopping at all. If I can see him, you certainly can.

  But we’re different. My kind. Because I have denied the moon so many times before. And because a transformation is more taxing than even twenty drinks. The stress on the bones, the body …

  … the mind.

  I looked up the road, expecting Ivan already. I imagined the nod I’d give him, the how-do-you-do as he passed me on his way to his wife and little girl. But without him yet there, I looked up again to the moon, our moon, ever changing, yet always somehow that singular face, looking down, eyeing us, eyeing me, as if the shafts of illumination, the light upon me, were coming directly from the craters of her eyes.

  One last transformation.

  I could feel the electricity, the charge, rip through me. Hadn’t I already denied her? Hadn’t I done told her goodbye?

  I worried about my shoulders, my knees, my body that still ached from crouching in the grass, a thing I used to do for hours on end, eyeing the lights of a distant village, waiting for who went to sleep last.

  I denied her again then, last night, with effort. I turned my face from the moon, turned instead to face the long dirt road that ran along the heavy woods, the woods from where the owl hooted, once, before I saw not Ivan, but a mouse of my own.

  Ivan’s little girl carried the bucket out of the darkness.

  Not Ivan but his daughter, struggling to carry the wooden bucket with both hands.

  There I was, shirtless and tattooed, white-haired and wrinkled, no doubt a vision to her in the shaft of moonlight fit so snug to my person.

  She saw me as sudden as I saw her. And there she stopped. Ivan’s child. Young Zoya having gone to fetch water on the full moon.

  I almost spoke her name. I almost said,

  Zoya, go back to town.

  Yes, I knew her name from having spied on Ivan in his farmhouse. Knew she was seven years old. Too young to plow the field but old enough to fetch water if ever Ivan wasn’t able.

  The moon showed me her in full. Zoya, her small face barely big enough to hold her enormous eyes, eyes fastened upon me facing her in the road. And me, just an old man, standing.

  Had she caught me looking at the moon? Maybe she saw the decision was still active after all.

  I felt a swirling within me yet, images of so many dead, my dead, and me, too, on the nights I’d denied the moon, the nights I lay in a bed or a hayloft happy for proving something, anything, to myself; that I could change in more ways than one. Than I didn’t repeat myself month to month. That maybe, one day, when I was old, as I am now, I would be able to quit the moon.

  I saw Angelo Hanks in that moment: his vision, a life with no more transformations.

  But the thing about quitting is that there has to be a last time you do it, too. And that last time ought to mean something to the quitter.

  Zoya set the bucket at her feet and raised a hand, a single finger pointed at me.

  Shouldn’t a man know it’s his last time as he does it? And did I know, last month, that I was done? Had I given myself the proper sendoff? Had I given the life its due?

  Zoya opened her mouth. She spoke.

  Am I safe?

  Of all the things to say. And who taught her to fear an old man in the middle of the road? Who explained how to sense a wolf?

  I looked up to the moon and I said,

  I’ve already said goodbye.

  I closed my eyes and I saw it all again, the unfathomable number of dead bodies and the incredible variety in which I made them so. Was I an animal, bent on death by any means? Or was I a man, creative in his passionate pursuit?

  I looked to the road again, just in time to see Zoya had halved the distance between us. The bucket behind her in the dirt. She pointed to my chest and said,

  Johnny.

  In that moment, my name spoken, I could no longer hold back the guilt. How long had I been rationalizing this life? Perhaps this was what Angelo meant by clarity.

  Brutal, unkind, and true.

  For in that beat, the little finger pointing my way, I remembered the man I was, before becoming the wolf. I recalled my parents and the love they bestowed upon me. I remembered the draw to the taboo as I feared for their safety, as if my own makeup were on a ship, close enough in a far distance to hear. Yes, I remembered hearing my own future approaching. The very reason I left mother and father behind.

  I knew then what I was and what I was on my way to doing.

  I saw youth in Zoya, how could I not? And I saw youth, too, in who I once was.

  Johnny.

  Would I have stolen Johnny from the parade? Would I have taken him from a broken car in Alaska? I knew his parents, knew the effect I would have had on them.

  How many people had I really killed?

  Yes, I said to Zoya, my smile bending the path the tears took down my face. Johnny.

  But in that I lied, for I was no longer the man who had yet to change into a wolf. I turned from Zoya then and looked up once more to the moon. In the face there, in its shining eyes, I saw it watched me and only me in all this darkness below.

  I looked back to the child and I thought,

  You’ve already said goodbye.

  But when I reached out toward Zoya, to plant my hand upon her small shoulder, I saw the budding tips of black claws beginning at the tips of my fingers.

  One last transformation.

  And why not? Doesn’t a man deserve to know when it’s the last time? Even half a man such as me?

  Am I safe?

  I shook my head no. As my smile grew to a size that no doubt would have fractured her adulthood, had Zoya any adulthood ahead.

  Full moon means you gotta decide.

  Last night I decided I deserved to know it was the end. I deserved an ending. I decided upon one last transformation.

  And as I changed in front of the girl, as she fell, frozen, to her knees in the dirt, I felt the moon. And as I slashed her eyes into the woods and heard the owls descend upon them, as I buried my snout in her belly, I felt the moon.

  I saw it, too, reflected in the water I lapped from the bucket still sitting in the road.

  Do you find me foolish? Do you think me so bad?

  Today is the first day of my quitting. I’ve been given the ending I deserved. Now, here, on a boat, I look down into the water rushing past, seeing no longer the reflection of the moon, but rather that of an old man leaving another town, heading toward a new one again. And who could have known—how could I have
known—that all my travels would bring me there, where I will no doubt deny the moon, having resolved, at last, to say goodbye?

  Brains

  Ramsey Campbell

  From the Filmy Eyed online group:

  Phil Meehan: May I pick everyone’s brains? I’m trying to fix something in my mind. Cast yours back to James Whale’s Frankenstein. When Colin Clive learns Dwight Frye brought him a criminal brain to put in the monster he does a double-take Oliver Hardy might have been proud of. But they’ve already pinched a body from the gallows, and Frankenstein complained he couldn’t use the brain because the neck was broken. Wouldn’t that brain have belonged to a criminal as well?

  Karloffann: Have you got nothing better to do than poke fun at a classic? Just because the makeups aren’t as gory as they make them these days doesn’t mean you have to laugh at it. Some of us can do without seeing people’s eyes gouged out and their entrails everywhere, thank you very much. Mind you, I can think of people who deserve it, the ones that make those films. I’ll stick with good acting the way it used to be and films that left a bit to your imagination.

  My Friend Flicker: He’s not just poking fun, he’s spoiling it for everyone. Like he’s so clever for spotting stuff that’s never bothered anyone for nearly a hundred years. Oh look at me everyone, I’ve got a better brain than yours because I saw someone with a wristwatch in a medieval epic. And look, someone’s got a mobile phone in that Shakespeare play. People like him want us all seeing that crap instead of enjoying the films. I go to be entertained, me, not pretend I’m better than whoever made them.

  Phil Meehan: Apologies to both of you. I’m just after inspiration. You carry on appreciating films how you like. For the record, I like Frankenstein a lot, and other Whale films too.

  Eddy Ting: weve got your permission to watch movies how we like, have we? thats big of you, in fact its monsterous. maybe youd of let us if youd kept your shit to yourself.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: I love monster films, my screen name is the book I’m writing about them, and I don’t want Mr Meehan to stop posting. Have you got any more quirky ideas about monsters, Mr Meehan?

  Phil Meehan: Most people think The Bride of Frankenstein is misnamed because Elsa Lanchester plays the monster’s mate and not the scientist’s, but I think it works with the gay subtext where Ernest Thesiger is Colin Clive’s bride and they have an unnatural daughter. Remember Thesiger seduces Clive away from his wife with whom he had a son at the end of the first film. Now they don’t have one, because the film has turned time back so the narrative can deviate.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: Why do you have to bring perverts into it? They’re everywhere now, but they weren’t allowed then. You said you didn’t want to spoil films and now you have. You’re trying to make it dirty when it never was. We watch monster films to get away from all that, so why can’t you leave them alone?

  Phil Meehan: I don’t believe I put anything in. James Whale was gay, which gives us insights into several of his films. His friend Thesiger made no secret that he was and used to sell his needlework while they were filming Bride. They made The Old Dark House with Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester’s husband, who was gay as well. In that film Thesiger’s called Femm, and he lives up to the name in both.

  Karloffann: So your point is what exactly? Who are you trying to smear? Don’t you dare say that about Boris. He was happily married and a gentleman. I think these people who want us to believe everybody’s homosexual only ever have one reason, they’re it themselves and want the rest to join them.

  Phil Meehan: I’m as straight as the edge of your screen, and my lady is as well. Your sexuality shouldn’t dictate how closely you look at a film. You just need to be prepared to see what’s in front of you and while you’re at it have a second look.

  Getagrip: What do you know about her screen? Better not be spying on us or we’ll hunt you down. Watch out we don’t think you’re as homophobic as you’re trying not to sound. You don’t know arse about her sexuality either. Or maybe you want us thinking you’re a phobe so we won’t know you’re gay. Bit confused, Phil? Make up your brain.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: I think Mr Meehan is trying to confuse us. I watch films to see the characters, not who they really are or people like him say they are. Have you finished making things up about films, Mr Meehan? Haven’t you got anything to say about Son of Frankenstein?

  Phil Meehan: It’s the last one where Karloff keeps his brain.

  Glenn Stranger: Sounds like youre losing your’s.

  Phil Meehan: I think I’d better take it elsewhere before someone steals it or my ability to think.

  Karloffann: Don’t go till you’ve said what you meant about Boris’s brain in Son of Frankenstein.

  Phil Meehan: After he and Ernest Thesiger split up Colin Clive must have had a son who’s grown up to be Basil Rathbone. Karloff learned to speak in Bride but now he can’t, because being struck by lightning leaves you speechless. Bela Lugosi lost his chance to play the monster in the first film, but now he’s the monster’s friend, and later they’ll get closer than you’d believe friends could. After this film things get monstrously complicated.

  Karloffann: You still haven’t told us about the brain, and what are you trying to say about Boris and Bela?

  Phil Meehan: In Ghost of Frankenstein the monster’s turned into Lon Chaney Junior, but Lugosi’s as much his friend as ever. He could be recognising his old friend’s brain inside a new head. I’m saying they were friends, since they worked on several films besides the Frankensteins, but I expect you all know they were rivals as well. Cedric Hardwicke is yet another Frankenstein, and Lionel Atwill’s his assistant in charge of brains, but Hardwicke’s also the ghost of the original monster maker and tells himself to put a better brain in the monster. Lugosi wants it to be his, but the monster’s after the brain of a little girl he befriended, presumably to make up for throwing someone like her in a lake in the original film. That would have had to be the first sex change operation in Hollywood. Hardwicke means to put in the brain of an assistant the monster killed, but Atwill tricks him into using Lugosi’s. When the monster comes round he has Lugosi’s voice, and we can hear Bela’s triumph at being the creature at last. Only the operation has blinded him, as if whenever the monster comes back he has to leave a sense behind.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: I’d say you’ve lost yours. Why did you need to bring a sex change into it? They’d never have had ideas like that back then. You might as well say Lionel Atwill grew a new arm because the monster pulled it off in Son of Frankenstein. And while you’re at it why don’t you say Dwight Frye came back as a villager in Ghost of Frankenstein because he’d had enough of being killed off as for helping Frankenstein in Frankenstein and then in Bride as well.

  Phil Meehan: Sorry for the sex change, and thank you for the extra notions!

  Getagrip: What are you thanking him for? He was having a joke, you brainless clown.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: I’m not a him. Girls have brains as well.

  Karloffann: You bet we have, bigger than a lot of men’s. They could do with having ours.

  Phil Meehan: To be fair, we can’t tell gender from a name like LGA. I was thanking her for inspiration, because I’ve been thinking aloud on here, trying out ideas to give students. Thanks to everyone who indulged me.

  Glenn Stranger: Your saying your a teacher? Thats like gamera saying hes a girl.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: Not just saying. What are you trying to do to their brains, Mr Meehan?

  Phil Meehan: To make them look again at films they think they’ve finished with and have fun.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: Have you finished having your fun? Four films to go. Let’s hope you’ve run out of twisted ideas or you haven’t seen them.

  Phil Meehan: I have, and they get more complicated. For a start, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Ilona Massey is Frankenstein, but we won’t say anything about gender change. Lugosi is the monster, but now his brain has brought hi
s body with it, which means Lon Chaney’s has to find another role. He’s the wolf man who was killed at the end of his own film, and now he’s resurrected by the full moon. Come to think, Rathbone played Wolf von Frankenstein in Son, so he was a wolf man too. And thanks for reminding me about Frye and Atwill. Dwight is a villager who’s grateful to get some dialogue, and Atwill is the burgomeister, having come back to life after Chaney with Lugosi’s brain killed him last time.

  Lights, Gamera, Action: At least you didn’t bring in sex change, except you did. Have you still not finished?

  All To Reel: Obsessed with sex change, aren’t you, Gam? No wonder you hide your name.

  Phil Meehan: House of Frankenstein brings in extra monsters. Last time Dracula showed up on the screen he was Lon Chaney, who was either the count’s son or the man himself. Now Chaney can’t stop being the wolf man, and so John Carradine has to be Dracula, since presumably Lugosi’s brain is still in the Frankenstein monster’s head, though he’s turned into Glenn Strange when he’s found where he was buried under the castle at the end of the last film, along with the wolf man. Karloff has graduated from monster to scientist in charge of brains, but though he promises hunchback J. Carroll Naish that he’ll find him a better body he never transfers a single brain. Lionel Atwill has got his police job back, but there’s no sign of Dwight Frye, because he’s definitively dead.