He forced a deep breath; he was probably over-dramatizing. End of the year was notoriously crazy and he was simply overworked. Hell, a weekend by the pool with a few dry martinis, and he’d feel like a new man.
Actually, I feel better already, he thought.
Suddenly, two teenage boys in a gray Impala cut him off. Jonathan instinctively jerked the wheel to the right and nearly lost control of his Taurus but was able to straighten out. The pimple-faced driver laughed at him and pressed his middle finger to the window.
Jonathan’s fingers coiled around the steering wheel like tiny, hungry pythons as he slammed onto the accelerator. He raced up alongside the Impala, honking his horn viciously. As the boy glanced over, Jonathan was surprised to see the boy react in fright and swerve away.
It only heightened Jonathan’s bloodlust; he veered toward the Impala even more aggressively. The pizza-faced driver panicked –weaving into the far lane.
But there was no far lane.
Jonathan caught a glimpse of the boys’ faces frozen in silent screams as their car sailed off the road to be engulfed by the blackness below. The canyon was so deep that Jonathan didn’t hear the impact.
He glanced up at the rearview mirror as he drove away, searching for any witnesses. He was relieved to see that the only visible headlights were tiny pinpricks at least a mile in the distance. Whoever they were, they were too far off to have seen anything, much less identify his car.
He exited the road at the next turnoff and took a dizzying maze of side streets to get home. As he drove through a desolate warehouse district, he caught a glimpse of his frightful reflection in the rear view mirror and nearly lost control of his car. The Taurus spun wildly as he careened over a hill. He slammed on the brakes, flung open the door and tumbled out onto the oil-stained asphalt.
Oh, God . . . Oh, Jesus . . . Oh, God, he thought, scrambling to his feet. His features had been horrifying, as if they were stretched over some monstrous thing beneath his skin. Is that what the boy had seen – why he’d looked so terrified?
He walked aimlessly along some long-forgotten railroad tracks as the realization of what he’d done – the enormity of it all – began to sink in. He might have killed two young kids.
Wait, he thought. Temporary insanity. Yes – that would be his plea if he got caught. It made perfect sense. He’d already been through a nervous breakdown the previous year. Dr. Hatchman was a character witness; perhaps he could confirm that Jonathan had a pattern of psychosis. Would it be a far stretch to say that he’d never fully recovered? He played out every scenario he could think of.
He wandered silent streets until he’d formed what he thought was a reasonably convincing narrative. When he finally returned to his car, it took him an additional twenty minutes to find the courage to climb inside.
He avoided looking into the rearview mirror as he drove home.
* * *
Jonathan watched the evening news and scoured the morning paper for several days. He discovered the brief news item while eating breakfast. It was a missing person’s story, with requisite quotes from worried family members and a reward offered for any information. As it turned out, fourteen-year-old Andy Creeter and seventeen-year-old Rusty Creeter – pizza-face himself – were brothers. The police considered it a runaway case due to the boys’ past histories and juvenile records.
A conspiratorial grin crossed Jonathan’s lips. There were no bodies, suspicions of foul play, motives to uncover, or any living witnesses. If there were such a thing as a perfect crime, this came pretty damned close.
He studied the news story for so long that his corn flakes fused into a single membrane floating aimlessly in his bowl. For a moment, he worried that Margaret might have noticed his preoccupation with the story, but she was far too busy renovating the kitchen.
While she savagely attacked some drywall with a chisel and hammer, he made his move toward the sink and dumped his bowl of mush into the disposal. He was about to leave for work when he heard Margaret mumble “Have a good day,” with a distinct lack of interest.
He started to offer his automated response, “You, too,” but was cut off by her vicious hammering. It seemed as if the only thing that interested Margaret these days was tearing things apart.
Within a few days, he’d put the whole dreary Creeter affair behind him. A voice inside his head offered constant reassurance; told him that everything would be just fine.
The voice wasn’t his.
* * *
At work, others began to notice changes in Jonathan.
The Tuesday morning executive meeting began as a typical corporate affair, with Don Henry, the company CEO, pontificating about quarterly milestones and meeting stockholders’ expectations. Don’s formidable business acumen was second only to his quick-tempered nature. He had a reputation for verbally assaulting anyone who questioned his authority.
Jonathan sat in a cold sweat, fighting an overwhelming urge to leap across the table and rip the son of a bitch’s tongue from his mouth. Adding to his discomfort was a strange and extraordinarily painful throbbing sensation in his lower back.
Eventually, Don called him out. “Is there a problem, Bailey?”
Jonathan dug his fingernails into his wrist to keep from laughing at the silver-haired man. When Don asked him again, Jonathan burst into such a howl of laughter that spittle flew from his mouth.
The veins pulsed in Don’s neck. “What the hell’s so funny?”
“You,” Jonathan heard himself say. “If you think anyone in this room gives a rat’s ass about meeting stockholders’ expectations, then you’re an even bigger corporate stooge than I thought.”
Silence choked the room. All eyes bounced between Jonathan and Don Henry. No one knew how to react. No one dared make a sound. After an unbearably long moment, Don collected his charts. “See me in my office in five minutes,” he said and left the room.
Jonathan snapped up his papers and started after Don, feeling the entire room staring into his back. As he reached the door, he turned to Peter McIntyre, a particularly sycophantic Director of Marketing, and snarled at him.
Peter turned white.
Jonathan could still hear nervous laughter from the conference room as he reached Don Henry’s palatial corner office. He didn’t bother to knock.
Don stood before a large bay window, staring out at a spectacular panorama of the city. His voice was solemn. “Have a seat.”
Jonathan plopped into one of the designer guest chairs and winced from an electric jolt to his tailbone. Don circled like a pin-striped predator sizing up its prey. “You’ve seen the African masks on the wall behind my desk?”
Jonathan grunted; everyone in the office knew of Don’s collection of crude wooden masks and his oft-told tales of traveling through the Dark Continent. Each mask represented a different human expression: joy, sadness, lust, anger…the entire spectrum.
Don gave Jonathan a furtive glance as he stepped behind his massive oak desk. “Ancient tribesmen believed that by wearing one, you could draw power from the expression it represented.” He removed an angry mask from the wall, appeared to silently address it, and then peered at Jonathan through the eye slits.
“You have a mask, Bailey. And it’s cracking. I can see it happening . . . hell, everyone can see it. Things have never been quite right since your . . . ‘episode’ last year.”
Jonathan thought: Oh, but it’s your mask that’s cracking, Don. I can see the fearful little creature behind the puffed-up façade.
He leaned forward, matching Don’s steely gaze; he was still surprised by his own audacity. “What’s your point?”
“My point,” Don said with a nervous tic in his eye, “is that I don’t want you anywhere near me or this office when you finally crack apart.”
Jonathan rose to face Don. “You talk a lot about me and my mask, old boy, but what about yours?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a frightened little man,” Jonathan heard him
self say, “hiding behind your self-important position like a child hides behind his mother’s knees.” He took several steps forward, moving around the desk toward Don.
Don took an involuntary step back.
Jonathan grinned, but there was no warmth there. “You know that beneath this pretense of boss and subordinate, we’re no different than wild beasts back in the jungle.”
Don’s face was turning ashen. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Jonathan took another step forward, tightening his fists. “The truth scares you, doesn’t it, Don?
Suddenly, Don’s knees buckled and he stumbled back into his custom-made leather chair, gasping for breath. Jonathan loomed over him, well aware of Don’s history of heart trouble, including two heart attacks and triple bypass surgery. He leaned in and bared his teeth for effect. “Because once you lose your perceived advantage, you know I’ll eat you alive.”
“Get out!” Don wheezed, clutching at his left arm. “You’re fired!” His face was covered with sweat, twitching wildly. He tried to reach for his phone, but Jonathan stood in his way.
“You were right, Don. My mask has cracked. Wanna see behind it?”
Don looked into Jonathan’s eyes and gaped in horror.
When Jonathan stepped out of Don’s office a few moments later, he smoothed the sweaty, tousled hair back from his brow and adjusted his tie. He sauntered toward Don’s assistant’s desk, where Meg, a stony-faced woman glanced up.
“You might want to check on your boss,” Jonathan said casually. “He’s not looking so hot.” And then he strolled off toward his office.
He took his time packing his personal belongings into a box. There were several professional keepsakes, a withered office plant, and a framed photo of him and Margaret with obligatory smiles. He carried the box into the hallway just outside his office and dumped everything into a nearby recycling bin.
He continued toward the building’s main entrance and noticed a crowd of coworkers. The double doors at the end of the corridor were open, and the light of an ambulance beyond it pulsed like an artery, bathing the lobby with the color of blood.
As Jonathan reached the crowded room, coworkers began to whisper like schoolchildren. Jonathan glanced outside as two paramedics carried a stretcher with Don Henry on it toward the ambulance. He locked eyes with Don, who was alive, but seemed unable to speak. Don’s face was frozen into a mask of terror, the result of what appeared to be a massive stroke.
Meg stood near Jonathan, her eyes dark with worry. “What the hell happened in there?”
Jonathan didn’t answer. He just watched Don being loaded into the ambulance and tried his best not to grin.
As he drove to his physician’s office a few hours later, Jonathan tried to convince himself that he was still in complete control. But the truth was that he’d been unable to suppress his wild ravings in Don’s office. It was as if he were watching from outside himself, helpless against his baser instincts.
A sharp jolt in his lower back made him speed even faster.
* * *
“Very unusual . . .” Dr. Stanton mumbled as he studied Jonathan’s X-rays.
Jonathan shuffled across the antiseptic room, rubbing his back. His eyes followed Dr. Stanton’s finger as he pointed at a bizarre growth toward the bottom of Jonathan’s spinal column.
He was almost afraid to ask, “What is it? A tumor?”
Stanton leaned in for a closer look at the X-ray. “Too early to say. If it wasn’t so ridiculous, I’d swear your coccyx is growing.”
“What’s the hell’s a coccyx?”
“Your tailbone,” Stanton said, clearly as puzzled as Jonathan.
An hour later, Jonathan limped out of the doctor’s office. Stanton gave him a prescription for some heavy-duty painkillers and told him to make an appointment with a specialist.
* * *
Every facet of Jonathan’s life was spiraling out of control: his career, his marriage, his mind – and now his own body. Desperate for pain relief, he raced to the nearest pharmacy to fill his prescription.
It was early evening when he reached the quiet streets and perfectly groomed lawns of his neighborhood. The medication had kicked in rather nicely, turning his sharp pains into dull aches.
As Jonathan drove through the streets of the planned community, past the familiar imported trees, man-made ponds, and uniformly designed homes, he felt strange, like an outsider in his own life. What had once felt comfortable and safe now seemed oppressive; a prison of cookie-cutter suburban conformity.
He felt a renewed pain in his coccyx area, and recalled something he’d learned as a boy in science class. The tailbone – according to some evolutionists – was a leftover from man’s early origins. He imagined himself growing a tail and regressing into some form of primordial beast. Turning into . . . Oh shut up, you idiot.
He reached his home, a nondescript box in an endless row of tract housing. As he pulled into the driveway, he caught sight of Margaret walking past a tall casement window facing the street. She was going to bed and wore a short plaid nightshirt; her long, sinewy legs looked remarkably sexy. Jonathan imagined them wrapped around his waist as he thrust into her like a frenzied animal. Despite the medication, he felt a rise in his pants. It was a pleasant surprise.
By the time he reached the master bedroom, Margaret was feigning sleep. It was a familiar routine: he’d climb into bed and lightly kiss her cheek, her neck, and gradually move down to her shoulder. On rare occasions, she would stir, which was the green light for sex. Otherwise, she’d lie as stiff as rigor mortis.
As Jonathan reached her shoulder, it was obvious that this was going to be another Night of the Living Dead. He was disappointed, but not surprised. They hadn’t had sex in nearly a year. After undressing, he lay down next to her and stared at the white, spackled ceiling. His thoughts drifted to Don Henry’s words.
Your mask is cracking . . .
Is it? Jonathan wondered. And if it was, what was underneath? He suspected it was something terrible.
He mused about the people in his life, Margaret foremost in his mind. They’d been married for over a decade, and yet he often wondered if he knew her at all. He tried to remember what had attracted them to each other in the first place, but the memory remained elusive.
He thought of his neighbors and former coworkers as they prepared for work each morning: dressed in their power ties and corporate-branded uniforms. They were, of course, expected to act accordingly; a perpetual 9-to-5 masquerade ball – costumes and masks required. He also wondered about the people he passed on the streets, in the stores, and throughout the goings-on of his daily life. What lurked beneath their cool exteriors?
He recalled a recent news story about a beloved cardinal in New York who’d sodomized two generations of young boys, and the respected female pediatrician in Maine who was caught torturing infants under her care.
What lies beneath their masks? Or mine?
Rusty Creeter had seen it, and so had Don Henry. And Christ, look what happened to them.
He could feel something dark, twisted, and irresistible growing inside him. It smashed its fists against an invisible wall in his mind. A wave of fear washed over Jonathan, unlike anything he’d ever known.
Something wanted out.
He gripped the sheets defensively, eyes wide, feeling his control slipping away—
Margaret stirred with a soft moan. Jonathan held his breath, praying she wouldn’t touch him. He knew he couldn’t hold back whatever raged inside. But she rubbed an inviting hand across his leg and whispered, “It’s time. I’ve been waiting.”
Jonathan couldn’t imagine what had prompted this, but then realized that it wasn’t him that had aroused her. It was something else. As if possessed, he reached over and tore off her shirt, fully exposing her. She groaned with pleasure as he grabbed and clawed at her soft flesh. She responded in kind, biting his shoulder hard enough to draw blood. She pounded at his chest and let him fill her
with his desperate need. They had sex like wild beasts, biting, scratching, and tearing at each other. It was as if a storm had filled the room, whisking away the years of quiet desperation and long-suffered deceptions. In a perverse way, they seemed to be relating for the first time.
Their frenzied session went on and on, until Jonathan’s adrenaline waned. The moment he regained control of his urges, he forced himself off of Margaret and tumbled to the floor in a bruised and bloody heap.
Margaret remained naked and sprawled out on the bed as Jonathan struggled to his feet. She smiled at him in a way he’d never seen before. There was a secret anticipation in her eyes. She seemed to know something – see something – he dared not imagine. Her unblinking eyes followed him as he limped into the bathroom and fell back against the closed door.
Glancing at the bathroom mirror, he gasped out loud. What he saw in the reflection was far worse than the blood and contusions.
His eyes…Its eyes. Whatever it was studied his pale reflection in the mirror with a mixture of revulsion and hatred. It glared at him from behind his own eyes.
And suddenly he understood.
The weight of this realization made his knees weaken. He grasped the bathroom sink to steady himself.
There had never been an It trying to take control of his life.
He was It.
He stared at his mask in the bathroom mirror as the fingers of his right hand grew talon-like. It began to tear jagged holes into his face. The severed flesh of his right cheek fell into the sink with a crimson plop.
I’ve been waiting. Margaret’s whisper still echoed in his mind.
Yes, he thought. She was waiting for me to realize what she already knew.
The last of Jonathan Bailey watched as his scalp was separated from his skull and his eyes were ripped from their sockets. The metamorphosis was torturous but blessedly quick; Jonathan’s bodily remains littered the floor like the sodden scraps of a slaughterhouse. Wet, jagged shards of skin from his legs and arms hung from the sink like laundry washed in blood.
Of Devils & Deviants: An Anthology of Erotic Horror Page 6
