The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Even the woman stopped her struggles and rested with only an occasional provocative wriggle in the newcomer’s arms. Given a chance to digest his appearance, October saw that he was costumed as a motorcycle gang member—black denim trousers, black boots with metal studs, black leather vest, black and red bandanna tied sweatband fashion around his head, black goggles pushed up on top of the sweatband. That was where the impression of a hurtling black mass had come from. The man himself looked almost pure Caucasian, in color maybe even Nordic. His neck-length hair was platinum blond, his eyes pale green. His arms were bare, showing off the last of a light summer tan and a dozen tattoos. The tan was probably real; the tattoos could be fake, just part of the costume.

  “That’s better,” he went on, nodding. “Now get this straight: Jason James does not hurt people on command without asking why.”

  “Why?” Rodney repeated. “Because she’s a damned maddening bitch who won’t answer questions, and she just hurt me.”

  “Then hurt her back for yourself. She hasn’t hurt me, and I haven’t heard her refuse to answer questions.” Lowering her until her feet could again touch the floor, Jason James opened his arms and let her slide out of them.

  Looking appraisingly in Rodney’s direction, she slithered around to stand just behind Jason’s shoulder, resting one fingertip over the skull tattoo on his biceps.

  For a moment, the room listened to Rodney hyperventilate. Then Skipper, who had never moved from the lounge chair, suddenly clapped twice and said, “Okay, guys, confess! Dookie Smith and the rest of the gang put you up to this, didn’t they?”

  Jason said slowly, “The ... rest ... of ... what…gang?”

  “Oh, for pete’s sake!” October exclaimed. “Skipper—you think we’re all hired performers acting out some kind of skit for your benefit?”

  “Well, I guess you might not be in on it yourself, Octie—mind if I call you Octie? Not with a cheap costume like that.”

  “The rest of what gang?” Jason repeated.

  Rodney coughed—the kind of cough that imitates a gavel striking. “If you value your worthless hides, you’ll let me ask the questions.”

  “Yaaay!” Skipper cheered in a speaking voice. “Yep, good ol’ Roddy sounds like a park employee all right.”

  “Wait just one minute!” said Jason. “Let’s get this straight. You think I’m working for the damn park, twerp?”

  “Doggone good costume, anyway,” Skipper replied cheerfully. “Looks like real leather.”

  “It’s a cruddy costume. I’d never have let them force it on me, if they hadn’t knocked a hundred percent off the rental.”

  “Hey, pretty good, big boy,” the woman told him, nuzzling his ear, as if adding some further comment for him alone.

  “Okay,” he went on. “As long as I’m stuck in the goddamn thing for the rest of the evening, I’m going to get some of that fun they promised me.”

  He and the woman started a slow, sensual dance. October thought they were doing it completely without music, until he became aware of the woman humming a strange, adagio version of “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay,” accenting each “Boom” by grinding herself up against her partner. It looked like foreplay standing up. Feeling hot, red, and bothered, October deliberately turned back to the others, and found them turning back to him. Skipper’s expression was impossible to read beneath the rubber mask, but Rodney looked as red and bothered as October felt.

  “A hundred percent off!” the inquisitor exploded softly. “Me, they charged full price for this rag, and him, they give one free!”

  “I don’t believe you, you know,” Skipper drawled. “I think it’s me and the dimestore dracula against the three of you, whether you’re working for Dookie and the gang, or Hellmouth Park, or maybe Dookie worked out a deal with the park.”

  “You could be right about her.” Rodney’s gaze wandered back to the dancing couple. “Him, too, maybe.”

  “That’s quite a costume you’ve got on yourself, Skipper,” October pointed out. “How do I know you aren’t another employee—the four of you, all putting on an act for my benefit?”

  Rodney redirected his inquisitorial stare at October. “What makes you think you’d be worth four entertainers’ salaries, plus the cost of refreshments?”

  “Nothing. I can’t even think of any friends or enemies I may have who’d be rich enough and interested enough to set me up on a scale like this.” Could those possibly be real French truffles steaming in one of the hot bowls shaped like a skull with fiery eyes? “I just know I wasn’t hired to help act out a skit for anybody’s benefit—sorry, Skipper. That’s all I meant.”

  “Hey, no skin off my nose,” Skipper assured him. “I still say there’s at least one park employee here, making sure things stay lively for us. My guess is it’s either her or Rodney, maybe both of them, but the rest of us could be legit. How about handing me some of those little chocolate shrunken heads, Octie? And maybe a glass of bubbly?”

  “So you fancy she and I might be on the same side?” Rodney barked a laugh at Skipper. “I almost wish I was working for Hellmouth Park. I hear it pays good money.”

  “Chocolate,” said October, having located the crystal tray of edible shrunken heads. “So that’s what these things are.” He’d seen a lot of game figurines molded worse. If not for the hokey round sugar eyes and cotton candy hair, the heads might have looked too realistic for comfort. A couple of them were white chocolate with blue pupils in the fake eyes and sugar explorers’ hats preposterously sized as if shrunken along with them. After a moment, October found a pair of plastic tongs near the platter and used them to transfer three heads—one each of dark, milk, and white chocolate—to a small paper plate.

  “Two of us stand here in costumes from the park’s own rental shop,” Rodney pursued the problem. “Two of you—three, counting that jerk in the hundred-percent-off rental costume—are wearing gifts. About the tramp who won’t answer questions, we still don’t know.”

  “I thought the rules were, you had to actually show up at the park already in costume in order to have a chance at a private-party ticket,” October remarked, handing Skipper the plate of chocolate heads so as to have both hands free for pouring the champagne.

  “I’ll ask the questions, if you please,” Rodney said stiffly. “And I came in costume. As much of a costume as I thought this place was worth. One of my old artist’s smocks, and stage blood smeared over one ear. The demon who slipped me my red ticket said it was amusing, but not quite formal enough for the actual party.” He sniffed. “I’m surprised they considered your costume ‘formal enough,’ Bradley.”

  “I am, too. Every sixth or seventh costume up there in the public areas is a vampire, and at least half of them look like custom-tailored jobs with real velvet capes and dentally fitted fangs.”

  Skipper tittered. “Did you see that Vampirella who had little bleeding-heart blossoms etched on hers? Talk about cosmetic dentistry!”

  “Better than the ‘realistic’ types of bloodsuckers, anyway. Did you see the one with the tongue split open and that thing like a hollow tube coming out? What a mask!” October added, reaching for a spoonful of what he hoped were French truffles. “Enough to kill your appetite.”

  “No, I missed that one,” said Skipper. “Couldn’t have been much worse than this thing they stuffed me into, anyway. Could that one even eat without lifting the mask?”

  “Don’t think so. Unless there was a slit I didn’t notice.” Watching the strange double-vision effect of Skipper’s true mouth comfortably chewing chocolate while framed inside the bloody scream of the rubber mask, October tasted his sample and decided it was probably not truffles. Mushrooms, yes, with a pleasing, wild flavor, nicely scrambled with butter and onions; but surely no kitchen would season real truffles with so much pepper and salt.

  Rodney coughed again. “All right! Bradley, do you work for a livi
ng?”

  “Hey, Rod,” said Skipper, “don’t you remember, he talked about his boss.”

  “He also talked about red and black caviar! Rather knowingly, as I recall. How many working stiffs know the fish eggs come in red, too?”

  “Food’s just a hobby,” October explained. “Mostly more like window-shopping than anything else, but sometimes I manage to swing a ticket to a Gourmets International dinner. Games are my workline. I clerk in the Games Corner out at Cherry Acres. Wish I knew what truffles really taste like.”

  “Like these things, don’t they?” Skipper held up the milk chocolate shrunken head.

  Rodney coughed. October nodded to him, but answered Skipper first, as if they were customers lining up. “No, you’re thinking of chocolate truffles. I’m thinking about the original underground mushrooms, the ones they use pigs to sniff out.”

  “Yugh!” Skipper exclaimed in lazy distaste. “You mean they go on and eat them after the pigs put their noses all over ’em?”

  Rodney cleared his throat. “AND charge the equivalent of an original Van Gogh price for them, I understand. How often have you eaten them, Mr. Gamestore Clerk?”

  “Never.” October sighed. It would have been expecting too much to find truffles down here, except maybe the chocolate kind. The champagne and caviar had misled him, made him overlook all the paper and plastic on the table, forget all the frayed spots and signs of age throughout the old park.

  But Hellmouth Park was only a couple of years older than October himself, only put up about forty-two or forty-three years ago. And he didn’t feel all that ancient yet. Why should forty-something seem so much older for a theme park than a person?

  “What do we have here?” Rodney was saying. “A university sophomore. A store clerk. That Hell’s Angel is probably either a shop teacher or a pure bluecollar pretending to be a cheap intellectual, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the woman’s nothing but a cheap hooker. They must’ve brought me to the wrong room!”

  “I doubt that,” said a new voice—a deep, rich feminine.

  The three at the table turned to look at the new arrival, who stood just far enough inside the doorway to create the optical illusion that she was too tall for it. She wore a crimson leotard—not skintight, but sleek, almost unisex—covered with curlicues of velvet black. A full, floorlength black satin cape, lined in orange-red taffeta, fell back behind her shoulders from the wide, high collar that set off her incredible creamed-coffee face and sleek black hair, from which the tips of a pair of bone-white horns barely protruded. In one hand she held a slender, graceful pitchfork of some ivory-colored substance wound around with thin gold chains.

  “This park claims never to make mistakes,” she went on. “Otherwise, I might be the one to question its party-mix recipe.”

  The door shut behind her. October had been ready to accept her as a high-ranking park employee, but her words and the closing of the door by someone out of sight—presumably the demon who had guided her here—tagged her as another red-ticket guest. She looked familiar, too, like somebody he would have recognized at once in the right context ... piercing black eyes, high cheekbones, magnificent forehead, perfect nose, full lips—

  “Cassandra Pascal!” Skipper breathed in wonder.

  “Cassandra Pascal?” October’s mind added, Of course! even while his mouth motored on, “No, it can’t be?”

  “Why can’t it?” The Pascal inquired, swirling her cape as she descended the single stair. “We molders and shapers need to get our fingers into the common social clay from time to time.” She looked beyond the table and frowned. Following her gaze, October saw that Jason James and the first woman had ignored Pascal’s entrance, involved as they were with each other. Part of him envied Jason.

  The great gymnast-turned-screen-star-turned-author-and-columnist struck the bottom of her pitchfork sharply against the floor. The mock flagstones being vinyl, the jangling of the pitchfork’s decorative chains sounded louder than the actual blow. The dancers looked up at her.

  “Isn’t that why you come to such places as Hellmouth Park?” La Pascal went on. “In hopes of direct contact with your molders and shapers?”

  Jason grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get in line, ma’am. I’m already engaged in some pretty direct shaping and molding.”

  “Don’t you know who it is?” Skipper asked, showing a little more animation than up to now, though still without budging from the lounge chair.

  The first woman stared at Pascal, opened her eyes almost comically, and kowtowed, intoning, “Your Satanic Majesty! Pray excuse your humble servant as she gets on about your business.”

  With that, the dancers took off again in their cozy twosome, looking as if they might pop into the disrobing stage any minute.

  The Pascal smiled wryly. “No wonder the world slips deeper and deeper into its own mire. Wisdom always waits on the hormones.”

  Rodney grunted. “Screenstar or not—”

  “I prefer to be remembered as philosopher. Screenwork is as flat as its medium.”

  “Whatever. If you can get this group to pay attention to anything, more power to you. The collapse of the universe might hold them five seconds, if everything started folding in on itself right here in this room, but I don’t guarantee it.”

  October hazarded the remark, “Isn’t that the whole point of parties? To forget about being serious for a while?”

  Pascal looked him up and down and eventually replied, “A little plump for playing the vampire, aren’t you?”

  “Uh ... Actually, only about two and a half kilograms over the chart for my age and height, and my doctor says that’s as good as normal.” Of course, Doc Tibbetsen himself had a build like Santa Claus. Still, when gourmet food was your hobby, a mere two or three kilos overweight was nothing to be ashamed about. October achieved it by nibbling and tasting, almost never gorging or even eating until quite comfortably full.

  “The crucifixion of my life,” Pascal remarked, completely without passion, “is that everyone perpetually insists on misunderstanding even my simplest observations. I did not call you overweight. I merely observed that you lack the gaunt, cadaverous aspect essential to a convincing vampire. As, say, a werewolf, you might do very nicely.”

  “Well, I’m a well-fed vampire. Lots of village maidens and people.” Growing less and less enchanted with The Pascal, October suddenly noticed a shrunken head in his hand. When he had picked it up, he wasn’t sure—sometime after finishing his mushroom sample and discarding the used paper plate—but the sweet was already leaving dark chocolate smears on his fingers. Good: it melted. One sign of quality chocolate. Deliberately, he popped the whole thing into his mouth.

  “Cassandra Pascal!” Skipper was repeating, obviously not yet disenchanted in the least. “Could I have your autograph? Just to prove I really met you in person.”

  “If you provide the pen,” she responded coolly. “I never carry one.”

  “No?” said Rodney. “Funny. I thought you writers were like us artists. I’ve always got a pencil and sketchpad on me.”

  “How quaint! In that case, you can supply our needs.”

  Rodney looked miffed, but hitched up the inquisitor costume and dug into the hip pocket of the brown pants he wore beneath. October thought, I should have said, Why would a werewolf be any better fed than a vampire?

  Was it too late to say it? Probably would be by the time he swallowed his chocolate. He wished he hadn’t broken his own rule by stuffing the whole thing into his mouth at once. It tasted like a truffle—the chocolate kind—only the cotton candy hair spoiled it a little. It would have been much tastier nibbled.

  “Look at them!” Pascal was saying, with a haughty stare at the dancers. “‘My’ work, indeed!”

  October looked, and almost choked, swallowing half his mouthful. They were as close to pornography as anything he had ever wit
nessed outside of photos and stag films. Down, Duncan! he ordered himself, looking away again. Not in front of The Pascal, dammit! And, for all he knew, Skipper. Or any of the others, for that matter. Rodney would grab it for inquisitorial ammo, Jason would probably play Mine’s Better Than Yours, and he guessed that the tease in skintights would have a laugh at all their expense.

  Pascal went on, “Did any of you happen to notice the picketer with the sign reading, ‘This is not our Satan?”

  “Oh, yes!” October swallowed the rest of his mouthful. What felt like an unmasticated hard-sugar eye scratched a little going down. “I traded greetings with her.” He added to himself, She didn’t seem to see me as too fat for a vampire, and I guess a Satanist should know.

  As if reading his thoughts, Pascal observed, “Oh, I see that you’ve dispensed with the stereotypically inaccurate fangs. Did you slip them off to eat, or was your costume even supposed to be a Dracula in the first place? Or has someone actually taken my words to heart?”

  “No, I just took them out because they felt funny and tasted worse. Anyway, didn’t some famous actor play it without fangs?”

  “Several,” Pascal replied. “None of them, in my critical estimation, very well. But no worse, I suppose, than the ones who played it with fangs. If it takes you too long to produce your pad and pencil, my artist friend, how much good can you really draw from lugging them about with you?”

  “I’ve only got one clean sheet left,” Rodney grumbled back at her, adding in a more hopeful voice to Skipper, “Maybe you’d like my thumbnail sketch of her, besides her autograph.”

  After a short pause, Skipper replied, “Gee! If you had a couple of clean sheets…but as it is, better not. It’d make things confusing. Look like she’d drawn it, too. Thanks, anyway.”

  “Okay, here, take one of my old doodles, then.” Scowling, Rodney jotted his name on one of the used sheets, tore it out of the pad, and thrust it down at Skipper while holding the pad and pencil out in his other hand to Pascal.