400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  Vampire dreams. Huddled like a bat in the loft, he watched the actors. He hid by the speaker where the night-bird cried, and sometimes joined its voice with his own. Even Newt looked worried then, and he had wished aloud for ghostly visitations.

  Cory also came into her own, and nothing strange or out of place could touch her. She led Neal around by the hand; leaned against him during critique sessions; and one afternoon, while Ricardo watched, she kissed him backstage. The kiss lasted too long and Ricardo gasped for air. Neal’s hands on her hips, clutching and tense, pulled her forward; while her hands rested smooth and relaxed upon his shoulders, and drew gentle curves, and never needed to tug because he fell toward her of his own will. Ricardo, too, almost fell. Later he lay on his back, panting, dreaming of the plunge he had nearly taken.

  Opening night came as if without warning, but Ricardo had been ready for a long time.

  “Banquo!” he called through the stage door. “Banquo, psst!”

  Newt spied him and came over, looking wary at first, then startled. He wore pointed ears, Mr. Spock style.

  “You!” he said. “You’re not supposed to—”

  “Come outside a minute,” Ricardo said.

  They stood in the lunch quadrangle. It was dark except for a moth-battered floodlight above the stage door.

  “Are you going to see the show?” Newt asked. “It shaped up pretty well, except for those dumb songs.”

  “I want a favor,” Ricardo said. “No one but you will know, all right?”

  “What kind of favor?”

  Ricardo held up a paper sack. “I’ve got a space suit in here, kilt and visor with Banquo’s emblem on ’em. I want to play your ghost tonight.”

  “What? You can’t—”

  Ricardo lunged and caught Newt by the throat. He held him against the wall.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Deacon, but I will. Just let me play Banquo’s ghost. We’ll switch places, it’s a short scene. No one’ll know it’s me except for you.”

  “Why?” Newt asked. “It’s crazy.”

  “That’s right. And if Neal asks, it was you playing the ghost, not me.”

  Newt took a deep breath. “Let go.”

  “Not till you agree.”

  Newt shrugged. “I don’t care if you’re the ghost. Be my guest. It’s still pretty weird.”

  “Yeah. Go on, get ready. I’ll be hiding backstage.” Newt went back inside. Ricardo went to a restroom and changed into the space suit. He fit a cap over his curls and pulled down the visor, thus resembling a dozen others in the cast. A tube of Vampire Blood, left over from Halloween, went into a tunic pocket.

  When he returned to the auditorium, the play began with an orchestral flourish that seemed to catch up and echo the coughs of the audience. The Blackstone Intermediate School Band forged on to the end of the overture, then continued a few bars past that and sputtered into silence.

  He peered through the backstage curtains and saw the set of Macbeth’s spaceship, the Silex, much resembling the deck of the Enterprise from Star Trek. On the viewscreen—a framework with blue gauze stretched across it—three hags from Cory’s campaign appeared cackling prophecies.

  Neal Macbeth set his jaw and told the hags to get out of the way, he needed to see to make a landing. He was taking his shipful of space pirates to fight for the planet Mars.

  “Aye, the red planet,” said one witch. “That swollen, infected orb of death and decay. Beware you do not stab the crawling sands, for your own ichor may flow below the surface.”

  “Ichor in crawling sands?” said Macbeth. “What is this?”

  Newt Banquo, Macbeth’s second in command, leapt at the screen brandishing his ray-gun. The witches vanished amid shrieks and groans from the sound system.

  The irrepressible space pirates broke into song:

  “Oh we’re on our way to Mars,

  We’ve come from far-off stars,

  Though the place we’re really

  Fondest of is Earth.

  Oh it’s been an endless trip

  But the captain of our ship

  Knows pretty much just what

  A light-year’s worth.

  So Hip-Hip Hooray, Macbeth!

  Hip-Hip Hooray, Macbeth!”

  The audience started laughing, tentatively at first. Ricardo shivered, feeling their hilarity grow.

  As if on cue, the spaceship’s flimsy viewscreen trembled and would have toppled except for Newt, who caught and held it till the stagehands had anchored it from behind.

  Coolly, Newt turned to his pale captain and said, “They don’t make these screens like they used to.”

  The audience never had a chance to breathe.

  Ricardo backed into the sets, unable to watch. The laughter went on, but he only half heard it. How could something with so much of himself in it appear so absurd? What had become of his life’s blood, his offering of labor?

  “Please,” he prayed to the catwalks. “Please don’t let them laugh.”

  Not all of the original spirit was lost. The laughter died out gradually, though never completely, and the lengthening silences seemed full of increasing horror. Much of the action, unseen to him, must have struck the crowd as gruesome. Murder and betrayal, the beast of hell-gate, the cry of the obscene bird: all cast a spell of red darkness that was nearly but never quite broken each time a DuBose song came up. Relief and dismay were blended in the laughter.

  Ricardo smiled. There was still hope. He affixed Vulcan points to his ears and painted his nose with gooey Vampire Blood. When Newt came looking for him, he stepped out from behind a set-piece.

  “You enter over there,” Newt whispered, taking his hiding place. “You look really gross.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Break a leg.”

  Ricardo pulled down his visor and peeked through a curtain at the scene. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were entertaining officers around an octagonal table. As he waited for his cue, he looked into the audience and immediately spied Mrs. Sherman in the front row, beyond the band, her jewelry glittering in the footlights. He hoped she wouldn’t recognize him.

  “Let’s drink this toast in Venusian slug-ichor!” said Macbeth.

  The officers raised their goblets.

  Someone strode down the front row, a huge man with silvery hair and a dark red furious face. It was Mr. Magnusson, come to summon Mrs. Sherman from her seat. All around them, parents watched, while politely pretending to see nothing.

  Ricardo heard his cue. He took a deep breath and strode onstage, aware of the two adults leaving together. Mr. Dean looked after them in horror, his conductor’s wand drooping. The music swooned.

  Neal spotted Ricardo in his costume, and his eyes widened with melodrama. “By the cosmos!” he cried.

  “What is it, my Lord?” said Lady Macbeth, her eyes passing through Ricardo as he shambled forward. He heard the expectant breathing of the audience at his side, now invisible in the red glare of footlights. The whole set, everything around him, appeared to be drenched in blood. His insane hieroglyphs crawled over the walls, red-on-red, luminous.

  “But-but-but,” said Neal. “You-you-you . . .”

  Ricardo walked offstage, turned on his heel, and waited to re-enter. His visor was steamed with the sweat of stage fright. He tried to find his breath

  “My lord?” said Cory Fordyce. “What is it? Have you seen some nightmare with your eyes wide open?”

  “Didn’t you see him?” Neal asked.

  “See who?”

  “Nothing, it must be nothing. I am tired, my dear. However, I’ll let nothing stop our celebrations. I propose a toast to—”

  Backstage, Ricardo heard a growing commotion. Mr. Magnusson, pulling Mrs. Sherman after him, came through a stage door.

  “No, Jack,” Mrs. Sherman whispered. “You can’t just stop the show. If you were going to come late, you shouldn’t have come at all. You’re drunk, Jack.”

  “Ichor,” said Mr. Magnusson, almost spitting. “Icho
r! That’s practically blood! It was the first word I heard. I’ll pull down the curtain myself if I have to.”

  Morris Fluornoy bumped into Ricardo. He was running from the adults.

  “What’s going on?” Ricardo asked.

  “We’re in trouble!” Morris said, and blinked in puzzlement. He stooped to look under the visor. “Hey . . . Ricardo?”

  “My cue,” Ricardo said.

  He slipped back onto the stage and stood at Neal’s side. His pointed ears and Banquo's emblems were enough to tell the audience who he was, but now it was time to show Neal alone. He stepped before his former friend and slipped the visor up an inch or so, until Neal could see his grin while the audience saw only the back of his head. Another inch of raised visor exposed the tip of his bloodied nose. Finally Ricardo stared full into Neal’s face. He rolled up his eyes until the whites were showing, and with his hand smeared Vampire Blood all over his face.

  Neal turned ghastly green.

  “Hello, my friend,” Ricardo whispered.

  Cory looked over and yelled, “You!”

  The visor dropped. Ricardo turned and ran till he was tangled in the wings. Where was the backstage door? He saw Lady Macbeth scowling after him and Neal still gaping. He ripped off the ears and wiped the red goo on his sleeve.

  “Newt?” he whispered. “Trade off.”

  “All right,” said a deep voice that echoed through the backstage. Mr. Magnusson came storming around the backdrop, intent on the light cage.

  “Jack,” said Mrs. Sherman, just behind him, still trying to whisper. “Jack, they’ll murder you.”

  “If not them, their parents,” he said.

  Actors rushed from the stage and the next scene began in chaos.

  Neal and Cory charged Ricardo.

  Mr. Magnusson opened the door to the light cage.

  Ricardo turned toward the backstage door but Neal veered to cut him off. The next thing he saw was the ladder.

  He was climbing.

  Cory cried, “I’ll get him!”

  The ladder shuddered as if it were trying to throw him. Looking down past his feet, he saw Lady Macbeth climbing up. Below her, Mr. Magnusson swore at the array of light switches, asked “Which is which?” of the terrified operator, then snarled and stalked out of the cage.

  Ricardo reached the top and looked out over the stage. The catwalk was the narrowest of tracks across the deepest of pits. At the bottom, three witches chanted around their cauldron while their red and black queen Hecate—played by Sheri DuBose—rose with her arms outspread to take in all the stage. She met his eyes and screamed.

  The band faltered, stopped. Mr. Dean climbed onto the stage and met Mr. Magnusson and Mrs. Sherman at the witches’ cauldron; there they stood looking out at the audience. The proper witches backed away. Sheri still stood looking up at Ricardo. He realized he had better move. A door opened onto the roof at the other side of the catwalk.

  Mr. Magnusson began, “We apologize—”

  Cory’s feet banged on the ladder. Ricardo scuttled over the abyss. Below, Hecate screamed again, pointing now.

  “Don’t do it!” she cried.

  Murmurs from the audience, yells from the darkened regions of the stage. The Committee looked up at him.

  Halfway out, he heard Cory speak after him:

  “Ricardo, don’t be stupid. You can’t get out that way. Come on back and face the music.”

  Her voice was soft.

  He took a tentative step.

  “Please,” she said. The word was like nothing he had ever heard.

  He turned to face her, and crouched with both hands holding the plank. She stood at the end of the catwalk, her red robes flowing into space. She was barefoot tonight, raven-haired, seeming much older and crueler than ever, despite her gentle word.

  “Don’t come out,” he said.

  She took a step.

  Glancing down, he saw all of them, Neal and Newt and the faculty, all of them looking up at him with rubies for eyes.

  “What is it you want, Ricardo?” she asked. He looked up. “Attention?”

  Her face seemed to crack into pieces, everything he recognized in it crumbling away. She was smiling, reaching out to him, yet she was sad. He knew that look: pity. It drove him back.

  She took a step. The catwalk shuddered like a diving board.

  “Don’t,” he said, and turned to run.

  One foot missed the plank.

  He fell, bleating.

  Cory screamed. Newt was already running through the darkness below, pushing the hell-beast like a cradle to catch him. Ricardo’s clawing hands triggered the net full of foam boulders and he plunged amid a shower of soft Martian rocks.

  As he fell, he dreamed with regret of all the scenes that would not be seen tonight because the show was spoiled. There would be no Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, sniffing the ozone left on her fingers by the firing of ray-guns. There would be no attack by Birnham Waste, where soldiers disguised as sand dunes advanced on Macbeth. Macbeth’s disconcerted cry of “Ichor!” would not be heard, for he would never casually thrust a spear-point in that same sand. Ricardo saw all the things that should have been and would have been, if not for his fall.

  Falling took longer than it should have.

  Above him he saw no catwalk receding, no backdrops rushing past, no dwindling floodlights. There was instead a sky of crimson so dark, so deep that it was almost black; wherein, high up, like the smiling white eyes of a slick red beast, were two tiny horned moons. It was his dream, Mars as he had come to see it, and now it had him.

  With much ripping of foam and splintering of wood and creaking of chicken wire, he landed. The belly of the hell-beast split wide, dropping him on the floor. A few boulders tumbled through after him.

  A little figure scurried to him, a small boy swathed in red, with wide shiny eyes beneath a strange cowl.

  “I’m here,” said Newt. “Ricardo, can you answer?”

  The mound of foam on which he lay collapsed, spilling him out from under the hell-beast. Ricardo’s eyes blurred over for a moment, then his vision began to brighten.

  “Newt!” he said.

  “I’m here.”

  “I can see Mars. I really see it. I—I’m going . . .”

  “Wow, Ricardo! Great! How is it?”

  “Just like I im—”

  He shrieked, his eyes fixed on the Martian firmament that no one else could see. He wailed as the moontips burst the membrane of sky and the red heavens poured down around him. Up he rose through the dark flood, like a bubble in a bottle of burgundy, and it seemed he would never reach the surface, never breathe again. For the air of Mars was thin, thin and cold, cold as death.

  * * *

  “Mars Will Have Blood” copyright 1989 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in Scare Care, edited by Graham Masterton.

  UNEASY STREET

  “Ah, good, here come the cops to arrest some more mutants,” said Raleigh’s boss, Pete. “Can’t have them just lounging around, living off the fat of the land, snacking on the core of our civilization.”

  Raleigh finished counting verdigrised pennies into the grimy hand of a man who wore a heavy overcoat and woolen muffler despite the August heat, then he handed over the brown bag full of Copenhagen slicks. His eyes followed the man out into the heat-warped glare of the street. In the flickering intervals between speeding cars, he could see that the tiny park across the street was full of cops.

  “Mutants?” Raleigh said, glancing into the fish-eye mirror at the men who browsed between racks of cello-wrapped magazines and sex toys. “You mean, like, genetic drift?”

  “I'm talking sci-fi horror movies, kid. I mean bug-eyed monsters with green skin and the faces of dogs. Nothing remotely human.”

  Raleigh looked back at the park. “They’re just bums, Pete. Street people.”

  “I must disagree,” Pete said, taking a moment to readjust his John Lennon spectacles, which looked as misplaced as a lorgnette on his oft-broken no
se. “Neither hapless hustler nor decrepit wino, Raleigh. These are the genuine item. Homo mutatis. I’ve been studying them for years, from this inconspicuous vantage. And what’s more, I'd wager the police will find their ragged pockets stuffed full of Easy.”

  “Easy? That new drug, you mean?”

  Pete stood up excitedly, peering past Raleigh and wagging his finger in the direction of the cash register. Raleigh turned to face yet another overdressed customer bearing yet another glossy, overpriced skinzine. As he searched for the dollar value among kroner, pounds, and lire, Pete went on about mutant pharmaceuticals.

  “It’s everywhere these days, Raleigh. It’s as common as the mutants themselves. Don’t know where they get it, but they’re all pushers, selling it to each other. They call it ‘Easy,’ I gather, because it’s so easy to fix. A snort, a swallow—no needles need apply. And because once you take enough of it, life seems easy. Easy as pie. Maybe it caused the mutants; I don’t know. You can blame them on solar flares, or pesticides, or the national debt. From my experience, poverty can warp the mind; why shouldn’t it have subtler genetic effects?”

  “Thank you, sir,” Raleigh told his customer. “You might want to keep on this side of the street for a few blocks.”

  “Won’t matter,” Pete proclaimed. “The police have their hands full at the moment. Hey, Raleigh, take a look at this one. I’ll watch the register.”

  Raleigh switched places with Pete in the cramped space behind the counter, and by stepping on the hidden cashbox, he managed to get a clear view of the melee.

  “All I see is a bunch of cops,” he said.

  “Brown coat, brown hair—it looks like a victim of cosmetic malpractice. And it hops like a frog.”

  “Jesus, Pete,” he said. “That’s a person, not an ‘it.’”

  “And I say you’re wrong, kid. That comes to $9.95.”

  “You have no compassion, Pete.”

  Raleigh watched the woman stumble against the metal steps of the paddy van. With both hands cuffed behind her back, and the cops pushing her ahead of them, she stumbled forward like a sack of potatoes. A plastic bag full of gray powder fell from the folds of her coat; one cop snatched it up with a shout. Raleigh had a glimpse of her face: wide, loose lips; basset-hound eyes showing more red than white; skin a cigarettish brown-green in color. As the cops shoved her into the van, he realized why the woman had “hopped,” as Pete put it. One leg of her slacks flapped loose.