Shadowplays

by W. D. Gagliani

  Blackness.

  I felt my body slide and let go, hoping for a quick end.

  *

  Light returned slowly, one eye at a time, and blurred. It was a dim version of light, flickery and lacking commitment.

  I struggled to open my eyes, to see. Someone, anything. There was nothing except that dim light, and blurred images.

  Smack.

  I remembered the wet sound she’d made as she hit the asphalt below the wheel. I looked for the struts, for the wheel. But I wasn’t on it. There was no late August breeze. I was wet in the groin, and cold. Sweat trickled slowly into my right eye, burning like acid. I blinked. I was a fetus, adrift in a sea of sweat and urine and worse.

  Then it all began to dribble into some sort of shape. The girl, her scars, her last slide to oblivion. Had she been dead already? And what about my slide?

  I sat up.

  “You are awake.”

  The voice was right, but the words didn’t mesh. “Bust-a-balloon-see-what-I’ll-do-fer-ya.” That was better, a line more suited to the thin guy in the red shirt. Mr. Monkey, my own personal carny-on-a-stick.

  My eyes cleared enough to prove it was him. We were in his trailer, the card table only a few feet away. The mask was probably still on it, but I couldn’t tell from my angle - I was stretched out on a ratty cot.

  “Who are you?” I wasn’t aware I had spoken until I heard my words echo inside my head. Then I remembered what he’d done to me, to the girl, who knew to how many more. “Who the fuck are you, you bastard?”

  “I am Fate,” he said.

  “Where’s Hope and Charity?” I’m usually not flip, but this time it just gushed out.

  “Faith is where you find it.” His voice was calmer, better modulated than before, as if in the booth he spoke some sort of showy patois that wasn’t reflected in his everyday life. Here, here he was different. “But,” he continued, “Fate is everywhere and forever. You can’t gain or lose Fate. It’s always there. I’m always there.”

  “I see.”

  “Fool!” His roar startled me. “You think you can see because your eyes are open? You think you can speak because your mouth makes sound? You do all these things because of me. Or not. You see, once in a while I take them back. People used to think of me as a colorful wheel, what they called Fortuna or Luck, but I have always liked dart games better, and Luck is subordinate to me.”

  “Your voice,” I whispered. “It’s different.”

  “Fate speaks in all tongues.” He rattled a stream of words in a dozen languages so quickly I could barely catch Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Russian, French, Italian, Gaelic, and a blur of others I couldn’t hope to recognize, but then he ended with: “Bust-a-balloon-see-what-I’ll-do-ya.”

  “Fascinating.” I looked at the door, only feet away. Could I make it before this madman put that fucked-up mask on my face and danced some weirdo dance? Before he reached for his sewing kit?

  Because he couldn’t be telling me the truth, could he?

  I leapt up, my limbs flying fluid toward the door, and then there was only screaming pain in my temples and the mask in his hand. A candle’s flame twisted and hissed in the wake of my movement. Only a fraction of a second had elapsed, yet -

  My legs didn’t exist.

  He passed the vile mask over the flame and I smelled it again, that fluxy smell of burned wood and - and something. There was a bowl in his other hand, too, a metal mixing bowl with a Tupperware cover. Something sloshed inside.

  “Sometimes I offer my gifts to others,” he said. The mask loomed closer, unblurred in my direct gaze and held firmly in one claw-like hand. “I give and I take away. I take and I give away. I am Fate.” He juggled the two a moment more, then carefully set the mask on the table again, where it smoldered.

  I knew then, and the knowledge caught in my throat. The girl was long gone, either a figment of my imagination or some necessary sacrifice to some higher power I could never understand, perhaps granting the authority to give and take away. I glimpsed her all too clearly in my mind’s eye, sitting nest to me on the Ferris wheel.

  Oh, Jessie.

  What had I done?

  I had no sooner asked this of me than I was seeing Jessie’s face floating near mine, one eyelid sewn shut and the other a black hole, the lips below silenced forever and a scream now only audible in my mind. My defenses collapsed, all at once and without exception. Only the mask and the bowl remained to give my world shape. And the carny.

  Oh, yes, he was Fate.

  “In your case,” he said softly, no longer a carny at all, “I give. But you will have to take away and give to me.”

  There was a red vest lying near me on the cot. I knew that tomorrow I would be in the booth with him, helping distract rubes while we took their money. And some of them would come back, and they would become part of us. That was Fate, after all, and who could step in the way of Fate’s desires? I wondered if anyone had ever “run away to join” a circus or carnival, or had they replenished their ranks this way instead, recruiting from the endless succession of marks?

  I had no words for him. My gaze rested on the bowl that lay like an offering in his palms.

  “You know what they say. The eyes are windows to the soul.”

  He pried off the Tupperware cover and dozens of filmy naked eyes glared at me. The two uppermost were familiar, so familiar that I felt a hitch in my throat. A golden spoon appeared in his hand, much as the darts had done, and I saw it waver before me.

  “Eat,” he commanded.

  And I ate.

  Oh, God, how I ate.

  * * *

  CARRIED ON THE WIND

  Published in WICKED KARNIVAL HALLOWEEN HORROR

  Charlie realized that he loved trick or treating when the sunny day was turning to dusk.

  On the cusp of turning to dark, Charlie’s father might have said. Oh, the warm winds that swept in from the mountains made the afternoon one of those glorious ones, and that was something Charlie’s mother might have said (glorious, you know), but there truly was something glorious about the late October warmth turning ever so slowly into the cool October night.

  The leaves rustled, giving Halloween its best sound effect, and crunched underfoot. There was no better sound, and no better smell, than that of the brown leaves making room for the new ones to follow.

  He swept down the sidewalk with his old-fashioned bag, the one Charlie’s mother had made for him apparently all those years ago, and planned his route carefully. It was still early, yes it was, but there was no reason not to plan. A plan always made things more fun. He had already mapped out the first half of his route, but he would leave the second half to chance. Yes, a little blind luck on Halloween sure made trick or treating more fun, and not knowing where he’d end up, that was most fun of all.

  Well, he knew where he’d end up. Just not exactly when.

  He swept down the slightly familiar sidewalk and reveled in the decorated houses, the cobwebby porches and the straw-filled pretend-corpses that straddled railings or rocked gently in breeze-powered rocking chairs. He reveled in the joy and beauty of the imagery, the witches’ hats and the cats with arched backs, and he couldn’t help but revel in the smell of fireplaces beginning to hover over the neighborhood, as people set about warding off the night’s coming chill.

  His name was Charlie and he loved the cusp, the almost warmth and almost cold carried on the wind, the in-between, the spaces between the slots, and he couldn’t wait to fill his bag with the sweet fruits of childhood on a Halloween evening.

  Friendless, he ran down the sidewalk alone but somehow not lonely, knowing that soon he would be joined by ghosts and goblins and Spider-Men and Batmen, and maybe a princess or two. But he was a loner, he knew they said that of him, and he was all right without a group of friends to call his own. He had always been alone and content, and Halloween reminded him only briefly that he ran alone.

  He always celebrated the holiday his way.

&nbs
p; He caught up to a group of ghosts and vampires and tagged along as they hit a few houses on the block, the ones with their porch lights on. He really wanted to visit the houses with the lights off and stare inside their windows, watching their occupants hide from the costumed children. The antisocial ones, those who couldn’t even give out candy, made him angry.

  Oh, yes, very angry. He could feel it burning inside.

  But he kept to the rules, loose though they were, and just ignored the dark houses, even though he sensed their eyes following him and his new friends.

  Soon enough Charlie was farther away from the home he called his than he had ever been, or maybe it just seemed that way. His memories were fluid, slipping away and returning like a fuzzy television picture. He had switched groups somewhere, and now he was tagging along with two zombies, a ghost, a Superman, a lame Gilligan, and three little girls dressed as witches.

  The lead zombie stopped and faced the others, rattling the meager take in his candy bag. “This block is a gyp! Let’s go up the Hill.”

  “Uh, my mom doesn’t want me to leave the neighborhood,” one of the princesses said in a tiny voice.

  “Then don’t!” the ghost bellowed.

  The Hill was the new subdivision three blocks away. Everybody knew rich people lived there. Charlie was just learning about it.

  “We’re going! You go home if you want to.”

  “I don’t wanna go home,” the girl cried.

  “Then let’s go,” the lead zombie said. He looked at the others in his gang and they nodded.

  “Hey, you, new kid.” He pointed at Charlie, who hung in the background. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Trick or treating.”

  The zombie stuck a finger in Charlie’s face. “Don’t be a smart-ass! I don’t know you. Anybody know this kid?”

  The others shook their heads and muttered.

  “I seen him at school, always sittin’ alone,” the lame Gilligan offered.

  “Me too!” The ghost nodded under his sheet.

  “Yeah?” the zombie said. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Charlie.”

  “That’s a pansy name. You gotta give each of us a piece of candy to join the gang.” His green face scrunched up in a smirk. “And it better be the good stuff. None of that candy corn shit!”

  “Yeah, Randy, that’s tellin’im!” said the Superman.

  “Two pieces of candy! It’s gotta be two.” The lead zombie held up two fingers. “Or we get to bash you.”

  “Look, he’s cryin’,” said the other zombie, clearly inferior in costume quality, pointing.

  Charlie was crying. And it surprised him.

  He wiped his face with a sleeve and felt the wetness.

  Damn it, that was no good. Nothing like being a wussy. It had to be the kid’s memories, kicking in. Maybe being alone wasn’t something the kid really liked.

  The warm-cool wind caressed Charlie’s face like a soft hand. The leaves crackled in a swirl near the curb, and a snatch of Theremin-flavored sci-fi horror movie music played from one of the houses nearby, somebody having some fun. Somebody who didn’t want to ruin Halloween for Charlie.

  Almost before he knew what had happened, Charlie’s fist shot out and caught the lead zombie square in the nose. The crunch was loud and blood and snot squirted out over the sidewalk.

  All the fight left the zombie and he ran off, howling. His gang trailed raggedly after him, lost without their head.

  Charlie thought the kid’s costume was much scarier now.

  He sighed.

  This happened every year. He just didn’t learn. He liked being alone, but sometimes it was great to join a gang, even for just a short time. But they always hated being joined. He’d have to start his own gang, someday.

  Charlie shrugged and searched his memory. It was time for Charlie to go home. Halloween ended early some years, and that was all right. He could still gather some treats at home, from his parents.

  He retraced his steps, deliberately avoiding other groups of trick or treaters. The zombie had soured his whole night.

  It was past dusk now, and the wind carried a chill with it that made him tremble just enough. He loved that feeling. Warmth turning to cold. Light turning to dark.

  Love turning to hate.

  He found himself in front of the house. His house.

  Inside, his parents were bickering again. He ignored them as he went past, past the television and its psychedelic variety show. If they were surprised at his quick return, they didn’t show it. No, Charlie didn’t do well with other kids, and maybe that was what they were bickering about.

  Love turning to hate.

  When he came out of the kitchen, he wasn’t carrying his candy bag.

  First he used the butcher knife on dad, stabbing him twice in the chest and then slicing across his throat just to mess things up a bit.

  Mom screamed.

  Oh, how she screamed!

  But it was Halloween, and people up and down the street were watching Halloween specials, so nobody paid attention to a little screaming.

  He stabbed her in the belly, in the chest, and then after she went down, he stopped her thrashing with a foot and stabbed her in the eyes. He enjoyed that part tremendously, especially the last-ditch plea he saw in those green eyes before he brought the blade down again and again. It was messy, but it was what he’d been planning all evening.

  Plans are always more fun.

  It was just a little earlier than he had figured.

  Charlie liked the last impression he’d left. How could our Charlie do this to us? How could he? Our Charlie…

  He chuckled.

  For “Charlie” was his costume, you see. Maybe next year he would trick or treat as someone else. It was part of the fun, wearing a costume and mask, and he was already planning. Although, as he watched mom and dad bleeding all over the carpeting, he had to admit he kind of liked Charlie’s memories. All the bickering his parents did, and how they belittled their loner son. He enjoyed those memories more than he thought he would. They tasted pleasantly bitter.

  But he was bored with the whole kid thing. The zombie bully really bugged him. Maybe it was time to explore other highways. Maybe it was time to let go of trick or treating and seek out more… adult pursuits.

  He stripped off the ragged Charlie skin mask and tossed it on the floor. Time to go, sure enough, but maybe he would keep the name a while longer. Some of the memories, too.

  Charlie.

  It fit him.

  The thing that both was and wasn’t Charlie ambled out the door and into the cool October air. He wished it could be Halloween every day. He sniffed the air, inhaling the scent of woodsmoke and chilled hearts. Looking around, choosing his route, he saw the neighbors’ tilted mailbox. The name was printed in bold letters: Manson. That was a nice name, too.

  Charlie Manson, he thought as he walked past the mailbox and down the October sidewalk. Had a nice ring to it.

  Yes it did.

  Already he was planning.

  Love turning to hate.

  He left, his love of Halloween carried on the wind.

  * * *

  THE SERPENT SAID

  Published in THE DARK SPIRAL: TWISTED TALES OF TERROR

  Yesterday I was afflicted by the curse of the snake, and I fear there ain’t no redemption in sight.

  Let me attempt to recount the events which led up to this very moment, but beware my words - they’ll chill your precious souls.

  Yesterday was the thirteenth day of the month and a Friday both, a devil’s day as you ignorant people would have it. If I truly believed that claptrap, I would have done my best to refuse this … this cursed power I didn’t seek but was granted over any woman I chanced to meet in this Indiana Bible “chastity” belt backwater.

  I need to spit, but now I can’t.

  I should have refused the power, turned my back, packed up and hunted me up a new line, but I didn’t. God help me, I sur
ely didn’t. The curse was strong, and I was weak. Ain’t it always like that?

  Pride is the greatest sin, even I know that, and my pride has never once threatened to diminish and fade away. You see, I was born poor enough to learn at a young age that you don’t turn away what is freely given. It’s how I kept me in this business so long.

  See, Molly’s my up-front girl, been with me for three hard-luck years and never looked past the low cash pay, the grimy little offices, the run-down hotels, or even the late-night escapes. Maybe she’s enjoyin’ the risk. The danger of getting caught. But she never made a move on me, my Molly, and I never did on her. Our arrangement was strictly business, understand?

  So Molly suddenly starts starin’ into my eyes with those large, somewhat watery pupils. It plain surprised me no end. I asked her if she had just learned of some death in the family, then I got sidetracked onto a rant: why wasn’t my new bottle open and stashed behind the makeshift pulpit of my latest low-rent storefront office, like always? She just stared at me and I stared right back.

  Fact is that Molly can turn heads, yes indeed, when she puts some time into the endeavor. She’s a dumb hillbilly in one town, but passes for one of them Vegas chippies out for fun in the next. Brush that chestnut hair, slap on cheap mascara with a heavy hand to make those wide eyes of hers downright huge, and slather bright red onto those lips which already tend to impress with their wanton fleshiness. Her slight overbite does the rest to most men, sure enough.

  Yesterday my Molly decided to go chippy, and when I entered the dim office and spotted her glowing visage, my first thought was to inquire as to the health of her rotten scoundrel of a no-good husband-she sure was dolled up as if ready to attend his funeral, oh happy day. But surprise stole my words right from me.

  Our eyes locked for a few seconds and then she looked down, at the elongated wooden box I carried, and then up again at me. She seemed about to speak, maybe to greet my arrival, but paused in the very act of opening her mouth. She cocked her head to the side, as if listening intently to a voice I couldn’t hear. I noticed the faint line of moisture above her perfectly penciled upper lip, that morsel now quivering in its fiery glory. Suddenly I felt inclined to lick that sweat off her downy upper lip. I confess, I was weakened by the sight, so I leaned back into the door I’d just shut and reached around with a free hand to turn the latch, assuring our privacy. I don’t know what made me do that, you see?