A stab of pain like a hot poker some evil imp had just thrust into his ear shot through the Horror Writer’s head at the mention of the dog’s name. “You bastard. Naming that dog after my wife. I hate your fucking guts.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, Stefan. We owned Tina before you ever moved here. The way you never listen, I swear you think you’re the only human on the planet.”
The Horror Writer whirled on his opponents and stalked off. The charms he had hung on the fence—weather-stained pages torn at random from his many books—would keep them from following.
The only human— How accurate such a statement sounded now.…
All the way back to the house, the Horror Writer could hear the subliminal thump-thump of his cat’s disembodied spectral heart.
Back in the driveway, something protruding from beneath his car caught his eye.
It was the cat’s tail.
He should have guessed. The car had been acting funny lately, almost as if it had a mind of its own. Possession wasn’t limited to living beings—
An engine backfired!
The Horror Writer slowly began to retreat from his car. Mustn’t let it pin him against the wall—
The mailman’s Jeep puffed up the drive. It came to a stop, its engine backfiring once more as the postman turned the key.
“Sorry to bother you, Mister Prinze, but it’s a special delivery letter. Need your signature.”
With relief, the Horror Writer took the letter without looking at it and signed.
From beneath his car his cat emerged, coming up to the postman and rubbing on the official’s ankles.
“Nice kitty,” said the postman, bending to pet the cat.
It was then that the Horror Writer noticed.
The postman’s back, visible where shirt and trousers gapped, was inhumanly hairy!
Werewolf!
The Horror Writer looked at the letter in his hand.
It was from his wife’s lawyer!
Tricked!
“You goddamn son of a bitch!”
The mailman straightened up. “What’s the matter, Mister Prinze?”
“Look at those fucking nostrils of yours!”
“You’ve been working too hard, Mister Prinze. You need a day off.”
“I don’t take any fucking time off! I’m always ready for trash like you!”
“Everybody needs some time off, Mister Prinze.”
“Get the fuck off my land! I’ll see you in hell, you Satan-spawn!”
When the mailman had gone, the Horror Writer considered the traitorous cat.
Perhaps he would stake it out for the owls.
* * *
There was no other way out.
He would have to physically confront his wife, the spider at the center of the web.
Then maybe this splitting pain behind his eyes—he could envision the doll of him she had fashioned, then repeatedly pierced—would stop.
That evil bitch! Never since Morgan Le Fay had there been a woman as wicked as her!
But it wasn’t really her fault, the Horror Writer reminded himself. She literally wasn’t the same woman he had married. No, an uncaring universe had stolen that woman away and put in her place a cruel imitation.
He wanted to wear his lucky shirt to the showdown, the old flannel shirt with the Led Zep emblem sewn on, in which he had composed his first novel, back when he had been a harried schoolteacher, writing nights and early mornings, living in a trailer—
That halcyon period before his wife had died and been replaced by the sadistic succubus.
But the lucky shirt was in a closet in the bedroom, and he couldn’t go in there.
So on the day he had chosen—the Farmer’s Almanac had revealed it to be a new moon, when the succubus’s power would be at low ebb—he began the fateful journey without that particular shield.
At first he had been planning to take his car. But then the memory of the day it had crushed the cat flooded back on him, and he knew he couldn’t trust it. So he had phoned for a taxi. Cleverly—oh so cleverly—he had arranged without giving his name for it to meet him at the Dairy Mart down the road. No one would suspect it was him calling!
He trudged down the deserted country road, away from his mansion. In his guts he felt he wouldn’t be returning. Just as well. The place held nothing for him anymore.
At the Dairy Mart, the taxi was waiting.
“Oh, hi, Mister Prinze. I figured it’d be you. No one else out this way ever uses us. How was your walk?”
The Horror Writer stopped in shock. The driver’s teeth, long and pointed—! A vampire. All the citizens of the innocent town had been turned into vampires!
Luckily, the Horror Writer was prepared.
The garlic, the mirror, the cross, the silver—
You had to get up pretty fucking early to catch his balls in a nutcracker!
He got into the taxi.
“Take me to my wife’s apartment. The Salem Arms. And don’t try any funny stuff.”
The driver smiled obscenely. Was that blood—? “You’ve lived here as long as me, Mister Prinze. I think you’d know if I was taking the long way ‘round.”
In the town, the Horror Writer marveled at the simulation of life being carried out by the vampires. Anyone less perceptive than him would be completely taken in. The last real human in a world of fiends! What a fate.
There was no sense in running out on the fare and giving the driver an excuse to call the vampire police. He wasn’t sure how many of these damned souls he could fend off simultaneously. So he tossed some bills in the cab driver’s face.
“Let’s put an end to this farce, shall we?” said the Horror Writer debonairly.
“Fuck you too, Jack,” the vampire swore. “You and your fucking millions can go hang.”
The Horror Writer paid no attention to the insults, and the driver roared off. His mind was concentrated now on one thing.
His wife.
Stealthily, he took the stairs up the three flights of the Salem Arms. No way was he going to be trapped in the elevator!
At his wife’s door, he paused.
There was the sound of running water from inside. Excellent! It would cover his entrance.
He tested the doorknob.
Unlocked! His spell had worked!
Inside, the bathroom door was half ajar. Steam poured out as if from the gates of hell.
He crept to the door.
Then banged it open!
The corpse of the woman lay in the tub. It was bloated and reeked, despite the heavy odor of bath salts. Plainly she had been dead for days. Some enemy of the succubus stronger than herself.…
The corpse shrieked!
“Jesus Christ! Stefan, you asshole! You scared the shit out of me. What the hell do you want here?”
So, it had been an elaborate ruse, and he had nearly fallen for it. Imagine if he had touched her—! Well, he would not let her gain the upper hand.
“We’ve got to talk,” stalled the Horror Writer.
The succubus began to unconcernedly soap herself with a scrap of rag. What gall!
“There’s nothing more to talk about. You can talk to my lawyer from now on.”
“Lawyer! What’s the lawyer know about our private life?”
“Plenty. I’ve told him all about your fucking insanity. Don’t look so shocked, that’s what it is. Oh, it might have started as eccentricity, but you’re way past that point now. The charms for the insomnia, lighting candles in front of your computer, the washing rituals … I tried to get you to let up on yourself, cut back on the self-induced stress. We didn’t need the extra money. But you wouldn’t, would you? Oh, shit, I suppose it wasn’t your fault. You were fucked up way back there somehow. But you only aggravated it by what you chose to write about. As if the whole world were nothing but some plot against you.”
The demon was spouting filth. His hands ached to close around her throat. He inched closer as the succubus unconcernedly
scrubbed her polluted flesh.
“Not that it matters now anyway. My lawyer’s got plenty. There isn’t a court in the country that wouldn’t give me anything I asked for. To think of all the shit I’ve put up with. Well, no more, buddy! Maybe your fans think it’s cute. But they don’t have to live with you.”
He was within reach now. Another second, and her vile speech would be silenced forever—
“Oh, Stefan, stop with the Boris Karloff stuff already!” said the succubus.
And she lashed out with the wet washcloth across his face!
The water stung like acid! Demon liquid! He couldn’t see! He stumbled back, his defenses crumbling, at her mercy—
A whole minute passed. Amazingly, he was still alive. Fumbling for a towel, he cleaned his face and opened his eyes.
The succubus was dressed and waiting for him in the door.
“If you’re done fooling around now, clear out. I’ve got errands to run, and I don’t want you hanging around.”
The Horror Writer didn’t know why he was being spared, but he took advantage of the demon’s momentary lapse and made his escape.
On the stairs down, he made a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods there were.
But out on the street, surrounded by vampires, with no place to go, an empty sky hanging like a shroud above him, he knew the truth.
Whoever was scripting his life, probably the Big Horror Writer up above, just wanted another chance to twist the knife.
MY TWO BEST FRIENDS
Chris used to be my best friend.
Until I discovered that he was cursed.
We were sitting in the company cafeteria, having a coffee. The place was pretty empty. I was talking about a hike that we had been planning, up to an AMC site in New Hampshire. Chris was unusually silent.
“So how about it?” I said. “We’ve got that long weekend coming Up.”
Chris sighed. “I was afraid that was what you were going to suggest. I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question.”
I was a little hurt. “How come?”
“It’s a full moon that weekend.”
I started to laugh, but the expression on Chris’s face stopped me. “You’re serious. I can’t believe this. All right, I’ll play along. What’s so special about the full moon?”
“I change.”
“Oh, right. Don’t we all. Okay, I’ll bite. Into what? A wolf? That’s the traditional animal, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t a traditional change.”
“Panther?”
“No.”
“Dragon, fish, horse, cow?”
“None of those.”
I was getting a little tired of this nonsense. “What then?”
“A woman.”
I set my coffee cup down gently. “A woman?”
“Yes.”
“A human woman?”
“Is there another kind?”
Now Chris was pissing me off a little with his nonsense. “So you’re telling me that you’re a werewoman. All the years we’ve known each other, and this suddenly comes out?”
“You never wanted to do anything during a full moon before. After all, it only happens thirteen times a year. The odds were against my ever needing to mention it. So I never did.”
“Chris, if you don’t want to go on this trip, just say so. I’ll understand.”
“But I do. It’s just that it can’t be the weekend you picked. It would be—inconvenient.”
I started to get up from the table. “Listen, I’ll talk to you later—”
“You don’t believe me.”
“What sane person would?”
“Let me show you something.”
“Please, not here.”
Ignoring my feeble joke, Chris took out his wallet. From it he removed a photo.
I could see that the woman in the photo was plainly Chris. The facial features were somewhat softened, but I attributed that to some trick of makeup and lighting. The rest of the changes were obviously padding and a wig.
I handed the photo back. “You’re a transvestite. Why didn’t you just say so? It’s kinky, but I could live with it. I wouldn’t even mind if you wanted to use the ladies’ tee when we golfed.”
Now Chris got mad. “I’m not a transvestite. How can a woman dressing as a woman be called a transvestite? It’s not like I do it anytime except when it’s a full moon. If I dressed like a man when I was a woman, then I’d be a transvestite. I mean—”
“Chris, old buddy.”
“Yeah?”
“You need some serious help.”
Needless to say, my relationship with Chris was different after he made his revelation. In fact, it became quite cool. I started sharing lunch with some other guys, not excluding Chris, but always making it a point to be with him only in a crowd. I never went out for drinks with Chris after work anymore. We saw each other at the company bowling league, but didn’t share a ride.
I was kind of sad about the changes, and I guess Chris was too. But there didn’t seem to be any alternative, after Chris had shared his delusion with me.
One night I decided to go to a club. Alone. In the past, Chris and I would have always made the club scene together. It felt weird to be going without him.
I was standing at the crowded, smoky bar, feeling kind of blue. A band was wailing away, but the music didn’t do anything for me. I couldn’t even get interested in drinking.
A woman squeezed in next to me, pressing closer than perfect strangers should.
It was Chris.
He wore a dress that revealed several acres of highly non-artificial breasts.
“I knew you’d be here,” said Chris in her new voice, which reminded me of my sister’s. “Well, do you believe me now? Or do you need to see the rest?”
“I can’t believe this. How many years has this been happening?”
“Since I was thirteen. Wanna dance?”
“I guess so. You’re the best-looking one here.”
After a dance or two, Chris said, “Well, I’ve got to go now. The night is young and I’ve got a lot to do.”
“See you at work—I guess.”
“Oh, you will.”
“Chris?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful, okay?”
Chris laughed. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
After that night, I felt a little better about Chris. At least I knew he wasn’t a liar or a nut. We started doing things together again, not quite as many as before, but enough that I could honestly call him my friend again. His being a werewoman didn’t seem to matter that much, and I made sure never to ask him exactly what he did during “that time of the month.”
Sometimes I’d catch him looking at me funny. Sometimes he’d catch me. But basically, we were pretty comfortable around each other.
It was shortly after this period that I fell in love with Jo.
Jo worked in Legal. I had seen her around before, but never really gotten to talk much with her. Now we had ended up working on a project side by side. We started putting in a lot of overtime together. I found out she was a really great person. Smart, funny, passionate, all the qualities you could want in a woman. One thing led to another, and before you could say “office romance,” we were an item.
I started doing less with Chris again, so I could spend more time with Jo. It wasn’t so sad this time, since Chris knew I was happy, and I wasn’t avoiding him out of disgust or anything crazy like that.
Jo and I did everything together. We went hiking and swimming, to the movies and to clubs. I met her family and she met mine. Things were really serious.
About six months into the affair, I showed up unannounced at Jo’s apartment. I had a little box with me.
When we were sitting on the couch, I said, “Close your eyes,” and she did.
I took the ring out and slid it on her finger.
She opened her eyes and gasped. “It’s beautiful!”
“It was my mother�
��s. A jeweler fashioned it special for her. There’s not another one like it in the world.’”
“But does it mean—”
“Let’s just say for now we’re best friends.”
It was late autumn. I approached Chris one day at the office.
“Charley and Phil just got word that they’ve gotta fly to the West Coast immediately.”
“And?”
“And so they gave me their tickets to the Jets game on Sunday.”
Chris whooped. “Goddamn!” Then his face fell.
“What’s the matter?”
“Lunar disturbance.”
“Oh, the hell with that. Women go to football games, too.”
“I know. But is it wise for us to be seen together? What if we meet someone from the office? What if Jo finds out?”
“Screw that. This is a sold-out game.”
“All right. But Dutch treat.”
“Sure.”
For some reason, I didn’t tell Jo what I was really doing on Sunday. I guess I thought she’d want to come too, and there was no way I could explain Chris’s presence, especially since Jo knew the male Chris from work. But she didn’t make any fuss about our separate plans, and seemed sincerely happy that she and I were mature and stable enough to spend an occasional weekend apart, no questions asked.
The full moon hung in the afternoon sky as Chris and I entered the stadium.
The first two quarters were some of the best football I’ve ever seen. I had to keep cautioning Chris not to stand on her seat. Not only were her high heels dangerous, but looking at her lovely calves at such close range proved rather unnerving.
At halftime I volunteered to go for beers and dogs. “Thanks,” said Chris. “My feet are killing me.”
Standing in line, I thought about how it didn’t really matter what sex a person was. As long as you shared certain interests with them, you could have a good time. Sex didn’t have to come up at all.
The guy ahead of me turned around too fast with his overfull plastic cup of beer and sloshed a little on me.
“Hey, buster, watch it—”
I caught a glimpse of his left hand.
“Jo!”
My fiancée was wearing ripped jeans, a flannel shirt and work boots. She smelled of Brut, but she needed a shave.
Little Doors Page 13
