John Keats 02 Paper Moon

by Dennis Liggio

  I scrunched my brow. "But you created the puppet, just like the show. Are you saying the concept was stolen?"

  "I didn't know it was based on anything when I created the concept for the puppet," he said. "I just had this strange idea in my head for years. A weird figure that kept coming up. I drew sketches of him all over my college notebooks, but the image of him still burned in my mind. So I started doing full color pictures. Then Meredith said he looked like he'd be perfect for a kid's television show. We heard that PBS was opening a studio in town, so we put together a pitch. It's crazy - we were just out of college, there was no way PBS should have wanted to pick us up to create a whole show, but it did. I'm not even sure why Meredith and I thought we could even make a real pitch. And yet before we knew it, we were making a show. I would have felt that it was all over my head, but somehow I never thought about that. I just kept designing puppets and writing scripts, as if it was all the most natural thing."

  "Okay, so you got successful real quick, lots of pressure," I said. "I could see that breaking someone."

  "No, that's not even it," said Nick with a shake of his head. "The pressure was... well, pressure, sure. But I could do it. I could manage it. But it was him messing with people's heads. Mine and PBS's. It shouldn't have happened. But he wanted it to happen and it did."

  "I'm still not sure where the danger is," I said. "It seems like you've made out well. Is your idea trying to kill you? Why did you take off?"

  "Did the puppet come to life and attack you?" said Charlie.

  I cocked my head at him.

  "Like in a horror movie, or, like Pinocchio or something," said Charlie with a shrug.

  Nick shook his head. "That's the part I missed. That's the part I had never truly understood. I was drawing him, but I didn't create him. My efforts didn't give him life. He's always been there... waiting. He's more than the puppet, but he needs the puppet, the show, and more. He moves through images. Before me he was... dormant or something. Jennifer opened my eyes to that. But before her, I'm not sure how I knew. One day I just woke up and simply noticed his whispering where I had never even heard it before. I realized he had been doing it all the time. He tells people what to do from the puppet's mouth or the merchandise. He's doing it all the time. We just never notice it. But one day I did." He shuddered.

  "Who's Jennifer?" said Charlie. "You mentioned her before too."

  "Jennifer Daw," said Nick. "She was my neighbor when I was a little kid. Then she went away. I started talking to her when I was trying to find out about him, after I became aware. One day - I'm still not sure how - but somehow I woke up. I heard his whispering, like a devil on my shoulder. But when I woke up, I also remembered something crazy - I was not the one who created him," he said this in a breathy tone, full of a gravity that made it creepy. "When I was a kid, I saw a picture of him at Jennifer's... but that was the day... that was the day..." he swallowed slowly. "I was hit by a car."

  "I remember Meredith mentioning an accident," I said.

  Nick nodded slowly, but he didn't break eye contact with me. "I was in a coma for weeks. When I came out, I had forgotten some things. Locker combinations, what I was learning in classes. And him. I forgot that I had seen him until I started drawing him in college, after I found the really old sketch. And even then, I thought I had made him. It was not until later that I realized I had seen him before the accident. Not until I saw him move, until I saw him whisper."

  Even though I still wasn't believing the whole evil puppet thing yet, I did feel the skin crawl at the back of my neck. A moving and whispering puppet was still creepy, even if it was fiction or a delusion. It was especially uncomfortable since I had seen the Hornswaggle puppet up close. It had loomed over me in the shadowy Creature Room.

  "I saw him myself, but it was Jennifer I learned from... as much as anyone could," he said sadly. "She had stopped him... for a time. She knew how dangerous he was. He moves through images. Anywhere there's a picture or representation of him, he can be there. Look through those eyes, whisper through that mouth. Do you see how he's dangerous?"

  "Definitely creepy," said Charlie. "Bad horror movie. He'd get the teenagers easily."

  "No, don't you get it?" said Nick frantically. "He's having us create a television show!"

  Charlie and I looked at Nick, not getting what he was trying to convey.

  "If this show goes national, his image would be everywhere!" said Nick with an almost manic gravity. "Think about that! He'd be in every home in America, he'd be in every child's head! He'd be unstoppable! He'd be everywhere!"

  "And then what?" I said. "Is he going to eat the children? Take over the world?"

  Nick stared at me for a long moment, then frowned and shook his head. "I don't know!" he said in frustration. "All I know is that's what he wants. And he's not going to let anything stop him."

  Sure, Nick believed in some sort of animated puppet that was going to get in children's heads, but so far I haven't heard anything necessarily bad about that plot. I mean, if I had a kid, I wouldn't want a strange puppet in his or her head, but is that really that much worse than sticking the kid in front of children's Netflix for 6 hours, having their brain melted by brighter than real cartoon colors and endlessly inane songs?

  "But that doesn't sound too bad -" I started.

  "It's bad because I know about him now. I know his plans. And he knows I know," said Nick, nervousness twitching through him again. "And because of that, he thinks that I am in the way."

  "Ah," I said. So this is where the main force of the paranoia was entrenched.

  "Has he tried to hurt you?" said Charlie. I could tell he was straining to conceptualize a puppet as the perp for his usual set of questions.

  "He attacked me," he said nervously. "In the puppet storage room. It was after I went to see Jennifer. I ran, but there are images of him all over the studio. I barely made it out alive."

  "A puppet attacked you?" I said.

  He turned to me and shook his head very slowly, his frantic eyes keeping contact with mine. "Not a puppet," he whispered.

  "Why didn't you just go home?" asked Charlie.

  "I did - at first. But when I went home, someone was at my front door. Someone working for him. I didn't get a good look to see who, but I knew I was in danger."

  "How do you know they were working for Hornswaggle?" I asked.

  "Nobody ever visits me at home, yet there was someone waiting for me and messing with my outdoor lamp," he said.

  I thought back to my visit to his apartment. I remembered seeing a tiny Hornswaggle figure hanging from the lamp. Was this what he was talking about?

  "That's pretty circumstantial," said Charlie.

  "I know, I know, but Hornswaggle had just made an attempt on my life. My creation had tried to kill me! When I went home, I knew, I just knew that whoever was there wanted to hurt me, that they were involved with him. I just did," said Nick. He let out a long breath and his voice returned to something resembling calm. "Lindsey had always said I could use her condo if I just needed to get away. And I had used it on and off, when things were getting to me or if I wanted to pretend to be successful. But since nobody from the studio knew, I came here."

  "To a tent on the roof," I said.

  "I was scared - still am! How did I know her condo was safe? How great was his reach? I thought nobody would look for me up here. And nobody did... until now. I have enough up here. Food, shelter, wifi. And I can use the condo if I need to, though I just use the bathroom, the kitchen, and the power outlets."

  "Have you considered that no one is actually after you?" I suggested.

  "We don't know that for sure," said Charlie, trying to give his friend the benefit of the doubt.

  "I do know that I've been hunting for him and I've seen no evidence that anyone else was looking," I said. "Some bruised egos and bad opinions, but no murderous malice."

  "How did you find me?" said Nick nervously.

  "I got a tip from someone at the
studio," I said.

  Nick's eyes grew wide in a panic. He immediately started trying to pack all his belongings up into a backpack. "Who? Who knew?"

  "Calm down," I said. "They were anonymous." I thought back to the puppet in the dark room. I had a theory on their identity. "If I had to guess, I think it was Susan."

  "Her?" said Nick pausing in his frantic packing. "Why her?"

  "Whoever told me was using Higgilty Piggilty to do it," I said. "They used the puppet to hide their identity. But instead of throwing me off, it just confirmed it for me. I mean, they could have picked any puppet and many of the others are not so bulky. So whoever was telling me either was comfortable with the puppet or wanted to make me think it was Susan. Misinformation is possible, but it's more probable it was just Susan."

  "But you don't actually know," said Nick with a frown. He resumed putting all his belongings into his backpack. "I need to get out of here."

  "Slow down," said Charlie. "You don't need to go anywhere. We don't know that you're in danger."

  "I think I'm in danger," said Nick, not pausing in his efforts.

  "Well, yeah, I know that," said Charlie, "but let us help you. If you don't want to stay here or in Lindsey's condo, then you can sleep on my couch. How about that? Nobody would have a reason to look for you next door, right?"

  "But I'd still be here," said Nick with a frown.

  "But they won't look next door," said Charlie. "Why would they? And if they knock, I'll answer. I'm an officer of the law, remember? They can't pull bullshit on me."

  "I'd be putting you in danger," said Nick.

  "I'll take the risk," said Charlie firmly.

  Nick thought for a long moment, his face tense and drawn.

  "I guess that would work," said Nick.

  "And you wouldn't have to sleep in a tent on the roof in the rain," said Charlie.

  "Yeah," said Nick with a smile.

  At this point, based on everything he told me and the evidence I had gathered searching for him, I didn't think Nick was in danger. The whole evil puppet thing seemed like some paranoid delusion, maybe a nervous breakdown from working on his show too hard. It was a creepy story, but I was convinced that was all it was, just a bad narrative on a chain of events. It was more likely just anxiety. There seemed like there was a power struggle at the studio that had just got worse after Lindsey left, so I could see it being very stressful for him. The puppet thing... I don't know, was it externalization of his stress? A latent issue turned into a delusion? I didn't know. And if I was wrong, well, we were still covered. If there was someone after him for some reason, sleeping on a cop's couch at a condo he had no connection to seemed safe and anonymous enough.

  "If you don't mind, I'm going to call Meredith and tell her you're alive and well," I said, reaching in my pocket for my phone.

  "Wait," said Nick. He didn't say anything more. I think he was torn about telling her, for fear of leaking his location.

  "How about this?" I said. "I won't tell her where you are. I'll just tell her I found you and you're safe, but right now you don't want people to know where you are. And maybe you email her or something anonymous enough that won't reveal your location so the poor girl isn't worrying. I don't think that's too much to ask. She's still your best friend, from what I heard." I had never agreed to drag Nick to Meredith, just find him. If he still didn't want to see her, that was his right. I'd just take a photo to confirm I found him and get paid, even if she wasn't happy about the result.

  "Yeah," said Nick with another smile.

  I smiled. "I'm glad this worked out much better than I feared," I said, pulling out my phone and bringing it to my ear. As I lifted it, something fell from it. The tiny little Hornswaggle keychain Meredith had given me dangled from the bottom of my phone.

  Nick screamed and pointed at me. His face was twisted into terror, any relaxation we had found banished as fear howled through him. His terror was enough that Charlie tensed up, ready to face some foe, his head swinging around to find the danger.

  Confused, I pulled the phone away from my face. It took a moment, then I realized that Nick was pointing to the keychain as he backed himself into a corner, almost moving the tent in his efforts.

  "What, the keychain?" I said. Then I remembered what Nick had been repeating over and over: He moves through images.

  Between us, the camping lantern flickered a few times as the rain coming down on the tent above got louder and more insistent.

  "He's here!" screamed Nick, more afraid than nearly anyone I had ever seen in my life.

  There was a flash of lightning and immediately an extremely loud crack of thunder, enough that I wondered if my ears would ring.

  Then everything went to hell.

  Eleven

  Despite your disbelief, despite your rejection of someone's stories, there are times when the things you've heard just crawl under your skin. Maybe it was how they told it, maybe it was that you had unknowingly suspended your disbelief. Perhaps it was just the primal nature of fear, the fact that something underlying your consciousness just knows when something is wrong, when things have been disturbed beyond what our mammal minds should easily deal with. You are a hair's trigger away from feelings you'd like to avoid, a quickened pulse, tense muscles, a shock, and a scream. When someone else has just screamed, it's hard to ignore panic, as if it were a contagion or an emotion that sticks to you on contact like napalm.

  After the lightning, the thunder, and Nick's scream, there was silence - a lingering silence, the held breath to see what happens next. For this moment, the only sound was the patter of rain on the tent. Nick cringed in the corner, waiting on a shoe he knew would drop. Charlie and I were wide eyed, staring at each other. We both knew something had changed, something in our back brains. It wasn't just Nick's screaming panic, nor was it the lightning, though both contributed to it. We couldn't tell you what it was, what made our skin crawl and our breaths catch, what it was that was causing our hearts to pound and our thoughts race. It was like finding yourself awake in the middle of the night and hearing the creak as the closet door opens for no reason.

  And then we heard footsteps, heavy and obvious despite the sound of the rain.

  I realize now that footsteps are the wrong way to describe them. At the time, I thought they were just heavy footsteps, the thuds of someone heavy, maybe just tall. But now in retrospect, I understand that it was not the sound of human feet. It was the sound of hooves.

  Despite the clear noise, neither Charlie nor I knew what to do, whether to act or to cower like Nick. The noise had not broken our paralysis, if anything, the hooves validated the strange feeling that had crawled up our backs and clenched around our necks. Charlie and I continued to stare at each other, not quite understanding what we were hearing. But our fight or flight systems were engaging; our bodies knew danger. The heavy steps approached us, the seconds it took them to reach us feeling like a minute. It was only when they were upon us that Charlie overcame his paralysis and reached for his gun. It was too late.

  In a quick tear of fabric, the tent was ripped in half. The top of it was torn from the bottom, which stubbornly held to the stakes. It was enough to cause us to tumble as water fell on us. The rain was suddenly loud and cold, the night sky above us pushing down. We found ourselves disoriented, the rain affecting our vision, the suddenness of the violent action confusing us. It was only due to the light from Nick's lantern, which he held with a death grip, that we could see our attacker.

  In that light, I could only barely make out the dark form that towered above us. I'll say that the red eyes stood out most of all. Even as I blinked through the rain and struggled to see, I could see that they were glowing, as if piercing through the darkness. They stared down at us, and there was no other assumption except that they were filled with malice. Without a doubt, the owner of these eyes wanted to harm us. But even more specifically, it wanted Nick. Somehow I knew that this was about Nick, that he was the target; Charlie and I were just
in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, inside me, some stubborn part, some recklessly heroic part that hadn't shown its head since Bellingham, decided in that moment that I wasn't going to let this thing get Nick. I wasn't sure what I could do against it, but step one was standing up. I had to stand to fight.

  Charlie must have had the same impulse because he stood up quicker than me. He placed himself between the dark form and Nick. While I had no idea how to fight, for Charlie, it was obvious. He took aim with his pistol. Just behind him, I simply stood tall, clutching my phone which was still held tightly in my hand.

  What came next was a strange sound, one that confused us both as we stood up against our unknown opponent. A chittering noise, somewhat high pitched and emitted from inhuman lungs almost like the screech of metal needing to be oiled. We didn't know what to think of the sound, but I know now what that sound was: laughter. The thing that stood before us was so unimpressed with us that it was laughing.

  "What do we have here?" it said. Strangely, its voice was reminiscent of the one Rhys did for the Hornswaggle puppet, yet at the same time, it was far from it. Where Rhys's was a warm baritone, a deep sound that still was friendly and pleasant, this voice carried no such feelings. This carried an almost demonic cacophony. The depth of this voice was gravelly, some syllables stretched out into a higher pitched screech.

  "No, no, no!" said Nick behind us, still on the ground and trying to inch backward, his hand still holding the lantern, which caused the light on our opponent flicker, giving strange depths to its body.

  "Oh, yeeeessss!" said the creature, it's voice stretching out the word like the neigh of a horse. Then it struck.

  With a swipe of the creature's long arm, Charlie was thrown across the roof, not even able to fire his pistol a single time. Not even a second later, it swung its arm back the other way, knocking me into the air in the opposite direction. Due to its strength, I was thrown across the top of the building, hitting my hip on the three foot tall elevated cement wall that ringed the roof. I fell down, my chest hitting the ground hard, my face thankfully not taking the brunt of the collision. I still held my phone in a death grip. I gasped for breath as I looked around the roof.