Totentanz

by Al Sarrantonio

  I'm here. . . .

  Reggie was lifting the last two books from his "Toss-in" box, where he threw them after he'd finished reading them and where they waited for him to re-file, when a cold hand slipped around his neck and tightened slightly before letting go. He gave a yell and jumped up, but there was no hand and no one there for it to be attached to.

  The feeling that he was back in the tunnel returned, and Reggie looked up to see in the corner of the room, up near the ceiling, a pair of huge eyes staring at him. They gazed unblinking until they faded, like the Cheshire Cat, into the sharp corners of the ceiling and nothing was there. I'm here, I'll be here, he heard, and then the feeling of dissociation disappeared as if it had never been, and he was alone.

  A real shadow caught his eye at the window, moving from right to left against the pull-down shade over the air conditioner. Reggie stood dead still and watched the shadow cross back from left to right. He dropped the two comics he had in his hand and walked to the window.

  For some reason, he was not afraid. The other presence was entirely gone; whatever was behind the shade was something else—but the other thing, the eyes that had been with him, had left a feeling be-hind, a strength, that stayed with him now.

  He lifted the shade on the window—

  And screamed.

  There was a face pressed up against the glass. At first he thought it was his own face, distorted and beaten and old. Now he saw, as the face pulled back from the window, that it looked only a little bit like him. It looked more like his father had, only much older; and for a moment of hope and fear, he thought it might be his father, returned after ten years to live with them again. But the face was much too old—lined with deep black crevices and with pain sunk into the eyes so deep that the eyeballs were scarcely visible. But they could be seen, and when Reggie saw how brightly and desperately they burned within their deep, hurting wells, he cried out again.

  It was the face of a dead man, like something from his horror comics.

  The old man had stumbled back away from the window. He seemed as terrified of Reggie as Reggie was of him. The old man stared at him, his sunken, haunted eyes lit wildly. Reggie eased open the window over the air conditioner and as he did so, his pressing arm hit the -On" button. The air conditioner roared into life. The man outside moved back-ward and started to stumble away. Reggie threw the window all the way up.

  "You!" the old man croaked at him in a half voice.

  "Wait!" Reggie shouted.

  The old man gave a shrill, tinny scream. He held his hands in anguish to his head. "Flames!" he shouted. "The dream!" And then he suddenly turned as if pulled by an invisible magnet. He lurched away from the house, onto the sidewalk and across the street. A car, honking its horn loudly, narrowly missed him, but the old man paid no heed, pushing off the hood and running on. His legs would not carry him as fast as he wanted to go and he fell, rising and stumbling on.

  Reggie ran from his room, making it out onto the front lawn in time to see the old man disappear around the corner of the house across the street. His cries faded. Reggie considered following him, but he saw that the old man had made a direct line for the amusement park.

  I'm with you. . . .

  Once more a coldness enveloped Reggie. He looked up, expecting to see two huge, fading eyes glaring at him. But as quickly as the sensation came, it was gone. He was left staring at the brooding, girder-like visage of the amusement park. It looked reptilian. Another feeling gripped him—one of dread and foreboding; and a deeper kind of cold, with fingers that wanted to hold and squeeze him till he choked, enveloped him. Once again he saw before him a vision of Montvale in flames, the fire of Breughel's "The Triumph of Death," a red landscape, and from the midst of the inferno a sticklike hand, covered in a black sleeve, held out to him. At the end of those fingers was the cold touch, the hurting one that sought to reach inside, and then the arm extended back to a body and a face, the face whispering, soothing him and pursing its lips, opening its mouth wide, telling him something, something secret for him alone as the flames and the cold mingled:

  "K—"

  He shook the vision off, ran into the house and shut the door behind him. The house was cold. He went back into his room, but the chill was just as great there. The light was too harsh. He stared down at the pile of comics he had left; now they looked like just a pile of newsprint, unimportant. They seemed trivial, a little boy's escape reading—like all the things in Pup's garage seemed trivial too.

  So it’s real. Something is really happening.

  Reggie felt his heart harden a little. He had suddenly grown older. All the things in his room, the horror books and models and masks hanging on the corners of the bedposts, were just toys. He hadn't imagined any of what had happened; it was all real. The only important thing in the room, the one thing that had any meaning at all, was the poster over his bed, the painting of Breughel's landscape of death; and as he looked at it once more, the red fire began to dance, and that hand, that long white hand, reached out toward him. . . .

  EIGHT

  Pup Malamut was furious. He had always known his parents were idiots, but now there was no doubt left. Ever since the age of three, and probably even before, since he couldn't really remember beyond that, he had been able to get whatever he wanted out of them. Just by making a certain face, or a certain noise—or, later on, just by making everyone around him so miserable that it was easier to serve than to punish him.

  And with the money his parents had, they could serve him a lot. He had more things than anybody he knew: two bicycles, a snowmobile for the winter and a pair of water skis for the summer. Most of these things he never used. It was the acquisition itself that gave him pleasure. He liked getting things out of people, and the only people he couldn't get things out of were those he made friends with. Like Jack and Reggie—they were the only two guys at school who hadn't given in to his bull about needing money for lunch, the only two who hadn't listened to his threats that his father could make life in Montvale miserable for their parents if they didn't do as he said. They'd both told him to buzz off. At first he had tried to get to them in other ways, even using physical force since he was bigger than either of them. But nothing worked. Eventually he came to them as an equal. Neither of them was particularly tough, but the very fact that they hadn't knuckled under to any of his tricks made him respect them and seek out their friendship. And that had come easily enough; all they had demanded was that he not "act like a jerk," as Jack had once said. After a while he had found that he was part of the Three Musketeers and that he didn't have to act like such a jerk around the other kids either.

  But that hadn't stopped him from acting that way around his parents. He despised them, in a way. They were rich and weak. His father was president of the largest bank in town, his mother a social butterfly who headed the various committees that ladies of her sort were always creating or chairing. The funny part about it all, to his mind, was that they had never tried to blame him for their misfortune in child-rearing; they had always blamed themselves for producing a son neither good-looking nor conversant in the social graces they supposed their social standing required. Pup was big and awkward, with an unathletic body and a non-intellectual mind. The way his parents continually flogged themselves around him, and their sad looks and half-veiled allusions to "weak genes," only made him hate them more. At an early age he had learned of their imagined failure in him, and he had quickly discovered how to make them pay for it. They paid in money and in continual mental anguish; and Pup found that by merely pointing or throwing a fit, he could have whatever he wanted. For them, it was easier to give in than to try to understand. For Pup, that was just fine.

  But now he was furious because they had said they didn't know if he could be the first one in the new amusement park when it opened.

  "You mean,” Pup had shouted at his spotlessly dressed father, "that you don't control the damn thing?"

  "No,” came the reply.

  "W
ell. I want to be first in there anyway,” Pup had said. And then he had stalked to his room, slammed the door and begun to brood.

  When Pup brooded, he did nasty things. Once, when he was four years old, his parents had told him that he had to get rid of a frog he had captured from Mailer's Pond and was keeping in a jar by his bed. They said it was dirty, that it would die in the house and that he would have to get rid of it because they knew he wouldn't take care of it. Pup went into a rage. Before he went to bed, he screwed the lid of the jar on tight, plugging up the air holes he had put in it, and in the morning he had flushed the dead frog down the toilet. When he got home from school that day, he screamed and pounded on the floor, accusing his mother of destroying the frog while he was away. "You killed it. How could you!” he wailed, and his mother had stood by helpless, unable to understand what had happened to the frog and unable to calm down her son. In the end they had bought him a dog.

  And a curious thing happened with that dog. Pup found himself becoming attached to it. And now, nearly ten years later, his dog Sprinkles (so named because the night his father had brought the puppy home he had, with his typical lack of grace outside of business, held the dog so clumsily that it fell from his arms and into a bag of groceries, spilling a canister of chocolate sprinkles all over the floor; when his mother began to scream, Pup had only laughed, watching the puppy lick up the tiny candies. He had made sure the dog got all the sprinkles he wanted, and later, when the dog was sick in his room, he had cleaned up the mess himself and not let anyone else know about it) was the only creature outside of his friends Jack and Reggie whom he tolerated.

  "Sprinkles," he called, and the dog climbed ponderously up onto the bed and laid its head in his lap. There had been a time when the dog could have leaped onto the bed, but that was past. He was getting old, and when he ran, he sometimes panted. When he had gotten sick the year before, his mother had timidly hinted that maybe it was best not to let the vet do the small operation on him that was needed—that maybe another dog, a new one, would be better. After a few days of Pup's spite, she had begun to think differently and the dog had been delivered home, patched but alive. There hadn't been any talk about another dog after that.

  The problem now, though, was what to do about the new amusement park. Pup wanted badly to be the first through the gates when it opened; wanted to parade himself and his two friends through all the exhibits and rides, maybe even get a private showing of all the equipment from the manager. But if his father was unable to arrange this, other plans had to be devised. Pup burned with desire for the place; he had been watching it through his telescope all day.

  "Stay, Sprinkles," he said, moving to the window and swiveling the scope back toward the amusement park. He had wheedled the instrument out of his parents after seeing the stars one night through Jack's, and he had used it for nothing but spying on other people and watching downtown from his upper window. Through it, he had once seen Lavinia Crawford undress. He had missed nothing, and ever since then, he had had the scope pointed in the direction of her house four blocks away.

  It was getting late in the day, but there was still plenty of light to see by. He slipped in a higher-magnification eyepiece and focused on the top of the Ferris wheel, jutting like a big eye over the row houses between himself and the park. The top seat of the Ferris wheel looked as though it was swaying back and forth. . . .

  He gasped at what he saw and for a moment pulled his eye away from the scope. He regained his composure and looked through the instrument again. For a second he saw nothing but the swaying side of the red-enameled seat, a silver stripe running around its upper edge, and then—yes, again he saw something. A bare arm above the edge, then a long, slender, naked back, and then the hint of a breast and then Lavinia Crawford turned full-face toward him. She seemed to look straight at him as she stood up in the car completely naked, her mouth open and thrown back, panting, her breasts high and rounded just as they were that day he had seen her undress. Both her hands were down between her legs, the fingers playing in and out. . . .

  And then, all at once, she was gone. She slipped, snakelike, down into the open car, and Pup could not find her anymore. He realized he was breathing fast, and he quickly swiveled the telescope away from the Ferris wheel and to Lavinia's house. The bedroom window was open, as it normally was, but there was no one there. Pup angled the scope back to the top of the Ferris wheel. But now he saw only the red seat swaying gently back and forth, back and forth. . . .

  He kept the scope trained on the seat for five full minutes but there was nothing else to see. Only that unnatural swinging of the car. He could have sworn it was Lavinia Crawford and a chill ran up his back as he remembered how she had seemed to look straight at him. Of course she couldn't have been, but that was the way it had looked.

  Systematically he swept the instrument over all the rest of the amusement park that he could see and found nothing of interest. It looked more like an attraction closed for the winter than something getting ready to open soon.

  One last time Pup swung the barrel of the scope up to the top of the Ferris wheel. His heart skipped a beat. There, once more, was Lavinia Crawford, looking into his eyepiece, a languid smile on her face. Pup knew she was looking at him: there was nothing else for her to be looking at. And then once again she was gone, sliding down into the car. One long, nude leg appeared, slim foot flexing, and then this too disappeared.

  "Come on, Sprinkles." Pup said, pushing the telescope out of his way and picking up his golf jacket. The old dog looked at him uncomprehendingly, but when he spied Pup turning up his collar, he bounded from the bed and gave a weak yelp. "Not so loud." Pup cautioned, and they made their way quietly down the stairs to the kitchen.

  He could hear the television going full blast in the living room: by now his mother would be half-asleep in front of it, watching Live at Five. He stopped at the kitchen counter to pull a few Oreos from the open box. He put one in his mouth as he moved to the back door. Sprinkles walked happily beside him, half-climbing up his leg until Pup bent down and shoved a cookie in his mouth.

  It was chillier than he had thought it would be outside, and he tightened the jacket zipper under his neck. He broke into a trot. Squinting, he could just see the top of the Ferris wheel over the rooftops.

  "Coming, Lavinia," he said, smiling to himself.

  He still couldn't believe she had been beckoning for him. But why not? He'd once had the impression she knew he was watching her through her bedroom window when he'd heard her remark to one of her checkout-counter girlfriends in the supermarket that someone was "always trying to cop a look at me." When she'd said it, she'd turned full-face on him with that same half-pouting look she'd had when he saw her through the telescope, and he had fumbled on the checkout line with the National Enquirer until she looked away.

  So why not? Who the hell knew how hard up she was? There was talk that she was loose; the paperboy, Billy Squiers, had told Pup that once she had tried to lure him into the house, when he went to collect the weekly fee, saying, "You have a minute? I think there's something wrong with my television." She had been wearing only a robe, and not much of that, Squiers had said. When Pup had asked him why he hadn't gone in, Billy had blustered something about having a lot of homework to do and then shut up. That was why Pup got so pissed at Jack and Reggie—they just got embarrassed like Billy Squiers whenever he tried to talk about girls. Well, this time they didn't know what they were missing.

  Without realizing it, he had quickened his step to the point that Sprinkles was half a block behind. "Come on, boy," Pup called, waiting patiently while the dog caught up. He bent down, giving him the last Oreo, and Sprinkles waved his tail happily. Pup tried to slow his gait to accommodate the old dog.

  As they reached the long black fence of the park. Sprinkles trotted beside him. Suddenly Pup hesitated.

  "Well, now what?" he said out loud. He felt the same hesitation he had felt before in front of this fence. He almost wished Jack an
d Reggie were with him. Although there was no way he could share his knowledge about Lavinia with them, he valued their coolness in situations like this. He could always ditch them after they got inside, but at least they would help him get in if he told them how important it was.

  He pulled his collar even tighter around his neck and saw that Sprinkles was reacting to the same feeling that was washing over him. Fear. Maybe it wasn't a good idea after all to go snooping around in here, at least not now. Maybe Lavinia Crawford wasn't worth it. Then again, maybe she was.

  Ignoring Sprinkles' low growl, he hoisted himself halfway up the iron fence and immediately dropped back down. He saw a place where someone had made marks on the fence a little farther down the line. There were good footholds there, and it suddenly occurred to him with a rush of anticipation that maybe that was how Lavinia had gotten in.

  In a moment he was up and over. Sprinkles was whining on the other side, and Pup thought of leaving him there, saying something like, “Good boy, I'll be right back," but the sad look on the dog's face made him change his mind. And the chill in the air made him want to have the dog with him. After some searching, he found a spot where the bottom of the iron grating was not quite flush with the earth, and by widening and deepening the depression at the bottom, he was able to pull Sprinkles underneath. The dog resisted. Pup cursed him as, half in and half out, the dog decided to use his hind end to scrabble back out. "Goddammit, come on!" Pup shouted and then, with a heave, the dog was inside. After a furtive look at the outside world, it brushed up against him.