by Laird Barron
Meanwhile (Inside 119):
Molly Vile broke off her kiss. “Whoa, weird.”
“That you want to parlay roller-skating into a profession?” Threnody Rudnick said. “Sounds golden.”
“Thanks. I heard something…”
“Make with the smooching already.” Lost in euphoria, Threnody Rudnick didn’t open her eyes. She’d nearly forgotten they were simply warming up for the main event, if lover boy Butch (and the promised eight-ball) could be troubled to make an appearance.
“Swear to gods somebody whispered my name.” Molly crossed her arms defensively. “I think one of those perv hockey guys is spying on us.”
“Which one?”
“Take your pick. Could be the whole team.”
“We should charge a buck a peek.”
Molly sighed. She went to the window and stood for a few moments. “Ugh, can’t see a damned thing. The light’s not on. Bulb burned out, or I don’t know.”
“Squash your tits on the glass and wait a few seconds for a reaction.”
“Threnody, be serious.”
“Deadly serious.” Threnody undid her bra and gave it a twirl while jiggling her boobs directly at the window and the theoretical peeping jackasses. “Hey, chickie, I double dog dare ya! Off with your top!”
Molly’s scandalized expression dissolved and she laughed. A moment later both girls faced the window and shook their assets with the gusto, if not the finesse, of seasoned burlesque dancers. The lamp on the dresser dimmed and brightened as its bulb filled with blood and emitted purple light. Led Zeppelin vanished into softly buzzing static. Patterns of purple light spun on the ceiling.
“Satan’s watching,” Molly said. Her bra dangled in her left hand. She turned from the window and tilted her head back to study the weird lightshow.
Threnody’s sense of pleasurable sloth dissolved. Her thighs cramped the way they occasionally did after a marathon skating session. The radio static hummed and drilled into her brain, pulsing in synchronicity with the lamp. Instinctively, and with tremendous effort, she extended her leaden arm and slapped the radio power button to OFF.
“Satan’s watching. Satan’s watching!” Molly raised her voice to counter the abrupt stillness. She laughed with great gulping inhalations. She clasped her hands and raised them and danced in place. The front door flew open and slammed closed. The window shattered inward. A severed head rebounded from the far wall and rolled under the table. Threnody’s fuzzed brain required several moments to process this development, to evaluate the array of implications. A second severed head struck a fake Vermeer still life and left a bloody splotch.
“That’s fucking it!” Naked except for panties and go-go boots, she grabbed the edge of the mattress and flipped it against the window. Fighting wasn’t her gig (thus she hadn’t made the roller derby squad despite above average skating chops; the fact practically killed her inside), and she didn’t know what to do next. She locked the door and shoved a chair under the knob like she’d seen it done in the movies. Now, to find a weapon…
Molly fell to her knees and screamed a singsong prayer. “O Horned God, haunter of the Black Forest of Night, forgive our weakness! Ravish me, Devil! Devour my unworthy soul! Bear my disemboweled corpse aloft to the Nemesis Star—”
“Shut up!” Threnody yanked her friend’s hair and as the girl recoiled, claws bared like a pissed cat.
Molly curled into a ball, mewling Latin. Had she secretly taken wannabe goth lessons from Jackie Brock? The door swung wide and the chair shattered. Butch Tooms lurched across the threshold. He wore a white paper suit similar to the work clothes of a janitor or hazardous materials laborer. Blood spackled his shiny white arms. His dead white welder’s mitts glittered with embedded glass shards and roofing nails and hanks of hair.
“Why are you doing this?” Threnody tried not to whine. Terror inflated her body and lifted her to tiptoes. She’d suspected Butch had a screw or two loose — although nothing this dramatic. Her more cynical angels whispered, Told ya so!
Butch Tooms showed his teeth. “Teenagers experimenting with sex, drugs, and devil music. A cursed theme park and a toxic waste site. The summoning ritual is complete.”
“Satan? We’ve summoned the Dark Lord!” Molly Vile gazed up at him with rapt adoration.
“No, sweet thing. You summoned me.” He slapped her face off, lazily as a grizzly taking a swipe at immobilized prey. Bits splattered the lamp and stuck to the wall. A coarse, jagged pipe note warbled from outside. His eyes rolled and his nose streamed blood. “Oh, the strident caller beckons. Come with me, girl.”
Threnody snatched the lamp and slung it by the cord at Butch Tooms’ head. Porcelain and glass exploded. She dove past her nemesis and through the open door—
Somewhere, Sometime VI (Probably Alaska, probably the 21st Century):
From the Mind of Julie Brock Vellum:
I came home from a West Coast appearance a few nights ago, and as I sat on a bench in the terminal, the late August light moved like a glacial sheet across the stained carpet and the pants legs of businessmen and stockings of businesswomen and caught in momentary flares in the buckles and clasps and bits of jewelry. Their hair spray shone like glints from helmets. A Boeing 747 rolled into its dock and cut off the sunrays. Dinosaurs died beneath a meteor’s shadow; oceans scummed over with ice and farther out, a rime of salt. Elsewhere, a star exploded and cooked a solar system where, fortunately, no organism more complex than a microbe existed. We’re next one day.
I went back to the moleskin notebook, dutifully recording the names of the several new enemies I’d made at the conference. My boyfriend hates that I do this. He says, Julie, you’re borrowing trouble. I’m like, Rent to own!
He’s a new boyfriend. Seven months and ticking. I haven’t bothered to memorize his name. He’s Brian the fourth (fifth?). Brian the first was killed three years ago. I hid in a wicker laundry hamper while a shadowy figure disemboweled him with a carving knife. Man, it seemed to go on forever. The killer took his sweet time, pulling out the intestines and making a neat pile. He did it slow to keep Brian awake, I guess. Stuffed some of the guts into his mouth to muffle the screams. Most of it has gotten fuzzy in my mind. I vomited once and orgasmed twice. So, I totally won.
My shrink says you have to do what it takes to survive. He says a lot of people look down on survivors. He says I could be a rich wife. I always smile slyly and think it’s better to be a rich girl with a secret life. My head hurts all the time.
Mom…Jackie…kicked the bucket last month. Aneurism. Figures…
(after a significant time lapse)
…it has been nice to stay here at my buddy Roland’s ranch in Montana for a few weeks. Up late working on the project. Roland and his family went into town this afternoon, so it's me, the house, and the animals. Huge thunderstorm rolled through a few hours ago. Now the moon is a blur through those torpedo clouds you see in horror flicks, and the wind is roaring. The property takes on a completely different character when the family is absent. There's that sense of the wilderness waiting to reclaim its territory, that those goodbyes and slamming car doors, then the long silence after, is the first sign. The Only light is the kitchen light. The other You stands out there in the dark, watching me do dishes. She slurps from a badly-patched wineglass and works on the problem of getting in…
Mom and I didn’t always get along when she was alive. It’s better now.
5. Anchorage, Alaska. Autumn 1979 (Tomahawk Park Survivors Party):
The Tooms family home sat atop a hill with views of everywhere. Three stories plus the unfinished basement — the Bear Den; Pluto’s Ballroom. Lucius wondered if anybody else found the basement creepy — dripping pipes, chest-high cinderblock walls and exposed soil, and cracks that reminded her of animal burrows. The other kids seemed oblivious to the Edgar Allan Poe décor as they boozed and danced with pagan abandon.
Butch Tooms had the run of the place for several days (his parents, two younger brothers
, and sister flew the coop for somewhere sandy and tropical) and what with the gang scattering to the four winds, it seemed apropos to throw a wild farewell party. The Tomahawk Park Survivors Party and Raffle, according to Butch Tooms. Every guest received an engraved invitation (a cheapo flyer) and a ticket for the drawing. Timbi Showalter asked what the prizes were. Butch Tooms said, sanity, prosperity, a good fuck, and a clean death. Timbi Showalter laughed because her host laughed.
This hoedown had it all: catered munchies; liquor galore; kegs of beer (cheap and imported, depending on one’s preference); plenty of Maryjane; a pair of college guys to man the turntables; and a big fat glitter ball hoisted to a place of resplendent honor in the basement ceiling.
A quarter past nine and Jimmy Flank had already gotten sloppy drunk on boilermakers. Lucius watched him perform the “lean” on Cassidy Sloan, who rolled her eyes and smiled with thin-lipped patience as the kid explained how he planned to ditch Alaska and become a private eye. Jimmy didn’t confine his drinking to parties; he got going around breakfast time and never throttled back. Esteban worried this portended a sign of misery to come; tonight and for all the nights of Jimmy’s life.
Jimmy said, “I stopped being afraid of bigger guys ‘cause they ain’t tougher. Nicked my throat shaving with Dad’s straight razor and the blood oozed and for a split second, it wasn’t my face in the mirror, it was a Roman centurion getting his throat cut. I was a bad, bad man in a past life. Fuckers had to sneak up to take me out. Nah, what scares me are these dreams I have of getting buried alive.”
Lucius winked at Sloan and cast around for Esteban without luck. It alarmed her to realize that she’d become more than a little possessive of the boy. She frowned and twisted her rings until they abraded flesh. This weak sister bullshit wouldn’t do. The room, the music, the drunk and stoned teens grinding against one another on a patch of dizzily illuminated floor made her queasy. An odd, butterfly sensation in her stomach had come and gone all day. Keyboard notes and synthesizers combined for a strident melody that excited the dancers. The light dimmed to infrared and their faces slackened and tightened and altered. The light brightened and all was vapid and normal. Her stomach settled.
She headed upstairs contemplating a nice quiet smoke break on the front porch. Such is the inevitably of certain patterns in the narrative of the universe that she poked around the main floor instead. Compared to the sweaty, bass-thumping confines of the cellar, the central living areas stretched cool and dim and tomblike.
“You should’ve stayed home tonight...” Mr. Hyjak stood in the light of an accent lamp, his arms crossed. Unshaven, pale, and fox-sharp in the eyes, as if he’d recently returned from a tour of the wilds. “We might lose control. Butch has plans for your sweet ass. Be interesting to see who prevails — Speck or Speck’s toy.”
Lucius strode past him, insolence disguising her surprise and discomfort. She didn’t speak; his words neither invited nor required an answer. She wore her leather jacket over a blouse and skirt and fancy hiking shoes. Sensible clothes for partying or fighting. The switchblade lay heavy in her jacket pocket. She’d punched her share of foes; smacked one or two around with a club, and given others a sound kicking. Could she actually stab someone? Mr. Hyjak’s dull, covetous expression convinced her, yes, definitely, if her safety depended on it.
Mr. Hyjak said, “Speck says there’s two kinds of human female — prey and predator. There’s but one kind of man. Smoke that, Lochinvar.”
Smiling J bolted out of a doorway at the end of the hall. He moaned a litany that she couldn’t quite understand. He grimaced at her and fled up the stairs. A metallic pinging emanated from the room he’d vacated. Lucius recalled a nightmare that went similar to this. Was she in a dream? The sensations of helplessness and inevitability suggested a waking dream, and yet the sights and sounds, the copper fear on her tongue, made a case for awful, violent reality. She went to the doorway and beheld a tableau in the Tooms kitchen.
Butch Tooms leaned over the center island, shirtless and clad in a stocking mask, black linen pants, and combat boots. The stocking squashed his features. She shouldn’t have recognized him, except it occurred to her she’d seen him with the mask once before under similar circumstances.
He plunged his fists into a pair of mixing bowls. Crunch, crunch, crunch! The bowls were full of broken glass and sharp bits of metal. A man in a black ball cap and sunglasses rubbed Butch Tooms’s shoulders the way a corner man prepares his boxer in the minutes before a fight.
The man in the shades said, “Hi, Lucius Lochinvar. Have you heard the golden tone?”
“You!” she said. A dim nightmare memory bobbed to the surface — Butch Tooms in his stocking mask pursued her through a maze of silent waterslides while Hyjak, Smiling J, and the man in glasses, Mr. Speck, watched through binoculars from atop a building, and laughed. “I got away…How did I get away?” She’d backhanded Butch Tooms with her fancy new watch and chipped the faceplate. He’d accepted the blow the way a telephone pole might be expected to absorb a punch.
“We permitted you to escape. Your future and the future of your progeny represent a matrix of fascinating variables.” He whistled softly and the sound sent a chill into her heart. “The signal can be modulated to achieve a variety of effects. Homicidal mania, punctuated equilibrium, and cellular mutation. I am interested to discover how it interacts with human embryos. Half the female subjects present are impregnated. You people are fecund as rabbits. My two-year experiment is expanding into a multigenerational project…”
Butch Tooms raised his arms. Glass, razorblades, and nails studded the gray, wasted flesh and embedded in tendon and bone. “I’m ready. I’m…” He gobbled and gargled as Mr. Speck gently shucked the stocking. Instead of his features relaxing, the opposite occurred. Butch Tooms’ mouth wrapped around his cheeks. His eyes elongated and thinned back toward his ears.
Lucius split. She sprinted to the front entrance and flung open the door and nearly took a fateful plunge into a purple-black void shot through with the occasional dying star. “Are you shitting me?”
“The maze is closed until we determine the outcome of this phase.” Mr. Speck’s voice traveled to her from the length of the abruptly lightless hallway. “Tell us, have you noted any sensory enhancements today? Acute sight or hearing? Increased strength?”
Butch Tooms shambled forth. He’d seized Mr. Hyjak’s neck and now dragged the man’s body as he came at her, free hand extended and shiny and sharp. She acted on impulse — she took two steps away from the portal and the sucking void and latched onto a granite slab coffee table that rather nicely pulled the room together. She flung it like a discus and the slab decapitated Butch Tooms and shattered against a wall somewhere in the darkness. Butch Tooms keeled over and lay on his side, pumping blood. His limbs twitched.
“I’m gonna go with heightened strength,” Lucius said.
“It won’t be enough,” Mr. Speck said right beside her. He easily caught her right hook and sent her flying across the room with a dismissive flick. “Crawl, girl. Hey, I said crawl!”
She scrambled to her feet and limped for her life.
Meanwhile (The Donald Pleasence Effect):
“There’s the Donald Pleasence Effect to consider,” Abraham Vile said, wiping a stray tear from the tip of his nose. Melancholy consumed him since his sister Molly disappeared at Tomahawk Park. He’d cornered Esteban (who’d gone in quest of an unoccupied toilet) on the second floor of the Tooms manse and dove into an analysis of his latest film of the century, John Carpenter’s Halloween. Esteban tried not to panic. He was half in the bag and armed with a semi-full can of Rainier. He sighed and slumped at the foot of Mr. and Mrs. Tooms’ king-sized bed and waited for it to end.
Abraham wiped beer foam from his lips. “Gonna do my dissertation on the relationship between Loomis, Laurie Strode, and Michael Myers. I mean, it’s a low-budget flick and you can’t trust the editing. Still, Carpenter’s no fool. The Shape isn’t a little boy psycho
grown into a hulking adult psycho. No, sir. The Shape is a receptacle of evil. Evil wears Michael like a suit, it manipulates him. Sure, violent injury can temporarily slow The Shape — he, or it, is limited by mortal frailty. Yet, three quarters of the film and Myers mows through sanitarium employees, German Shepherds, teens great and small, and then boom! Jaime Lee Curtis eludes him at every turn and Loomis takes him down with a .38 revolver. Before Myers gets blasted through the window, it’s clear he’s afraid of the doctor. The doctor is Yang to the babysitter’s Ying; masculine maturity and female fertility conjoined. The Shape can’t handle it and bails. Takes the bullets and hoofs it when nobody’s looking.”
“Yeah,” Esteban said in a feeble attempt to participate. “I didn’t understand how Loomis and his popgun were a threat to Myers. He’s a killing-machine.”
“The Loomis figure represents the priesthood, the Judeo-Christian alliance against Satan. That gun isn’t a gun, it’s a crucifix. Satan wilts when the power of Christ compels him.”
“Wow, dude. Going to be a bitchin’ thesis.”
“I know!”
Smiling J entered the master bedroom. His face was blotched and puffy. He groaned and turned on his heel and ran away.
“Jeez, that guy,” Abraham said with solemn pity. “Not a film lover, either.”
Something crashed downstairs hard enough to shake the bed.
“I better go see who’s wrecking the joint.” Esteban rejoiced at the opportunity to gracefully make his exit. He descended to the main hall and discovered a chunk of stone tabletop wedged in the wall and the overhead lights sparking and fizzing. In his confusion, he tripped over some jackass sleeping in the middle of the floor and went sprawling. His head rebounded from the tiles and as consciousness ebbed, he could’ve sworn he was lying in a pool of blood, that blood was oozing into his mouth…
