All Too Surreal

by Tim Waggoner

  “It’s flattering, of course, but premature, I think. After all, I’m only forty-three.” He examined the screens for a moment, then nodded. “This one looks good.” He started for the next room without waiting to see if Connie followed.

  No one else was in the museum tonight, except a security guard or two somewhere. Brad had asked the museum’s directors to allow him to check the exhibits by himself, after hours, and of course they had acquiesced. After all, he was Brad Sutphin, wasn’t he? The Brad Sutphin, internationally acclaimed avant-garde video and computer artist. No one said no to him.

  In this room, the floor was covered by a sheet of Plexiglas. Beneath it were rows of monitors which displayed computer-generated images of baby animals being crushed by hobnailed boots. A busy signal, occasionally punctuated with “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again” echoed through the air.

  Brad frowned as he gazed downward. “The colors don’t look quite right. I hope those cheap bastards that run this place didn’t chintz on the monitors. I told them my pieces need top-of-the-line equipment — not that the sub-morons who’ll tromp through here would ever notice the difference. Make a note, Connie.”

  “Brad, I think we should —”

  He whirled on her, eyes blazing, voice tight. “I said take a goddamned note.”

  Connie lowered the palm computer to her side. “And what if I don’t? Will you hit me … again?”

  Brad glared at her. “You think I’m afraid of you? Afraid of the big, bad goddess?”

  Connie didn’t retreat before Brad’s anger. She stood calmly, coolly. “No.”

  “What will you do to me, Samantha? Wiggle your nose and make me — gasp — bite my nails?”

  “You can’t stand it, can you? Can’t stand the thought that all your fame, that your very talent, was given to you by me. It’s eating you up, gnawing away at your heart and soul.”

  “Bullshit. Truth is, I never really believed in your so-called powers. Yes, you helped me get where I am today, no argument there. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be a total feeb. But that was then, and this is now, baby. You want to stick with me, that’s fine. If you don’t, that’s fine too. There are hundreds of women who’d kill for a chance to be with a guy like me.”

  “You should know. You’ve sampled enough of them, haven’t you?”

  Brad became suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean you’ve been screwing around for a while now with every fringe art groupie who flings her pierced and tattooed little body at you.”

  Brad fell silent, and the two of them listened to the nagging drone of the busy signal, the blandly helpful tones of the obsequious operator. If you’d like to make a call …

  “Look, we’ve been together for a while, and I’m grateful for everything that you’ve done for me. Like I said, I don’t buy any of that supernatural crap, but you pulled me out of my shell, gave me confidence, helped make me who I am today, and I’ll always love you for that.”

  “But?”

  “But it’s time to move on. For both of us.” He forced a smile. “Nothing lasts forever, right?”

  Connie slowly smiled. It was a smile without warmth, without any semblance of human emotion, the sort of smile that might cross a serpent’s lips. “Too true.” Her eyes began to glow with a soft green light. Brad told himself it was just a reflection from the monitors, but deep down he knew better.

  “My people always face a dilemma when it comes to putting the finishing touches on a project. How best to end it? Some prefer to let their subjects expire peacefully of old age, while others — like Jackie O, Yoko, and Colonel Parker — follow the ‘better to burn out than fade away’ school.” She glided forward, placed hands that were no longer quite human on his shoulders, gazed up at him with eyes that had become tiny video screens. “Myself, I favor a somewhat more aesthetic approach.”

  Brad tried to tear himself away, but her grip was like iron, and the illumination from her eyes was drawing him closer … closer … Brad Sutphin — the Brad Sutphin — screamed.

  “Hush, sweetie. It’ll all be over in a minute.”

  And it was.

  “… an interesting piece …”

  “… weird …”

  “… man’s a genius …”

  “… heard he missed the opening reception. Guess he thinks he’s too good to …”

  “… called again?’

  “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”

  “Not very original …”

  Beneath the Plexiglas covering, displayed on dozens of top-of-the-line monitors, Brad Sutphin’s face looked up at the museum-goers as they filed through the exhibit. His forehead was dotted with sweat, his eyes haunted, feverish. He was speaking, but the only audio in the room was the insistent drone of a busy signal followed by an operator’s admonition to hang up if you wanted to make a call. Still, it wasn’t all that hard to read Brad’s lips, and many people did. He was saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over and over and …

  Joyless Forms

  A decaying town filled with buildings of crumbling stone and brick, rusted metal, chipped and flaking paint. Cars up on blocks in the yards, dented mailboxes, wild tangles of weeds for lawns. The air hot, heavy, sour and raw. Breathing — if there were anyone here to breathe — would be like swallowing sawdust and glass shards.

  On the edge of town like some gigantic tumescent mass lies the Factory.

  A clump of buildings that looks as if it came into being through a process of slow, torturous accretion rather than planned construction. The exact shapes are difficult to determine for light draws away from the stone as if reluctant to touch it. Still, a few details can be ascertained. That the angles are askew is clear; that edges which should be sharp are instead rounded is plainly visible. Doorways are bricked over, window glass is broken or scorched and bubbled. Rusted barbed wire covers the walls and window ledges, clinging to the brick like thorny ivy.

  The grounds surrounding the Factory are clear of any vegetation. Though whether the hard surface is soil or concrete is uncertain. If soil, it is earth from which the life has been leeched — perhaps stolen by the Factory itself in order to power its dark, enigmatic machines. Or maybe the life simply bled away, lost due to absolute and utter indifference. If concrete, then it is an uneven, sallow brand, its bumps and ridges resembling discolored brain tissue.

  The barren grounds are ringed by black, spindly objects that jut upward like splintered, jagged fragments of obsidian bone. Trees, perhaps. But they seem too deliberately off-kilter, too consciously arranged to have grown naturally. But what else they might be but trees — and what ultimate purpose they might serve — is unknowable. So, for now, trees they are.

  The Factory has been quiescent for some time. Days, weeks, perhaps even months. There are no clocks within its walls, no calendars. But look! A tendril of greasy gray smoke curls upward from a chimney shaped like rigid intestine. Once more there is work to be done.

  Inside, deep within the Factory’s twisting, shadow-choked bowels, workers who have lain dormant for far too long stir from their lethargy and begin gathering material. They move quickly, the dry husks of their insectine feet making whssk-whssk-whssk sounds as they scurry across saurian-hided floor. With skilled and practiced eyes, they search the corridors for only the best ingredients, harvesting bits of stale despair and impotent fury from shadow-drenched corners, prying scattered shreds of mean-spirited thoughts, shameful indulgences and debased desires off the ceiling.

  To the vats, then, where these treasures are tossed into a thick primal soup. Batrachian creatures swim languidly within the vats, round and round, stirring, stirring. Finally, when the mixture is ready, faceless figures shuffle forth from the darkness, rusty buckets and mold-crusted ladles in their mannequin hands. When their receptacles are full of the viscous flesh-colored substance, the featureless ones file into the Shaping Room.

  Here, deft serpent-fingered hands which may or m
ay not be attached to arms — the light is especially poor in here and it is difficult to see — wait with barely restrained anticipation for the liquid to cool sufficiently. When it has, they begin working it, kneading, shaping … Tiny arms and legs take form, smooth, soft, innocent. Round heads with a dusting of hair, small moist eyes, pink toothless gums.

  The Faceless return then, and bear the nearly finished products into the Christening Room. Here, rotten-toothed mouths whisper into tiny shell ears, speaking in a guttural, inhuman tongue of the various dark destinies awaiting these newborns. The babes listen attentively, brows slightly furrowed, mouths sucking rhythmically. Despite their weak necks, occasionally they seem to nod.

  Outside the Factory now. Long, reptilian trucks back up to the loading dock, their drivers — eyes too wide apart, ears set too low — sit silently, staring off into the distance without blinking while their trailers are filled.

  Time to go.

  The trucks pull out silently, save for a rough leathery sound of what aren’t quite tires sliding across asphalt. The drivers have no delivery manifests, but then none are needed. They know where they are going.

  When the last truck has gone, the Factory falls into hibernation once more. How long it shall slumber this time is uncertain, but sooner or later, it shall stir anew — when shadows grow thin and the world needs to be reminded of its truest nature.

  I Scream, You Scream

  Ronald slowed until he came to a stop, then he put his Tercel in park to extinguish the red wash of brake lights. His headlights were off, and he’d even turned down his dashboard lights in case their scant illumination might give him away. It was well after midnight, he was following someone, and he didn’t want to be seen — not until he was ready.

  Down the street, idling in front of a brick Cape Cod, sat the ice cream truck. Despite the late hour, sterile electronic tones drifted from the truck’s rooftop speaker in an endless loop, “Turkey in the Straw,” but without any of the tune’s usual jauntiness. It sounded like the sort of music Nazis might play as they marched victims off to the showers. Ronald waited for lights to go on in the houses on the street, for people to come to their windows, peer between curtains and wonder what the hell an ice cream truck was doing out trolling for customers this late. But no lights came on, no curtains parted. It was as if no one heard the music — no one but him, that is.

  But no, someone was opening the door of the Cape Cod, stepping onto the porch, walking down the front steps. There was a nearly full moon out tonight and the sky was clear, but even so, Ronald had a difficult time making out the man’s features. Ronald hesitated for a second, two, then put his Tercel into drive and gently touched his foot to the gas pedal. He needed to get closer, needed to see.

  As his car eased forward, he watched an obese man in an undershirt and boxer shorts finish maneuvering his bulk down the porch steps and begin plodding along the front walk toward the ice cream truck. The man walked up to the side window, presumably to order. Ronald wished he could see the “Neat Treats” driver, but the angle was wrong. The Tercel crept to within a dozen yards of the truck, and Ronald knew he couldn’t risk getting any closer. Hell, he was too close as it was. He braked, saw red in his rearview mirror, and threw the car into park, removing his foot from the pedal at the same moment. He hoped the ice cream truck driver and his customer had been too engaged in their transaction — of whatever sort — to notice.

  Now that he was closer, Ronald could make out the fat man’s features fairly well. His black hair (at least, it looked black in the moonlight) lay flat against his skull, as if it were painted on. He had flabby jowls, like a basset hound’s, and they quivered as he spoke with whoever was inside the truck. Ronald rolled his window all the way down, hoping to pick up something of their conversation, but it was impossible with “Turkey in the Straw” blaring from the speaker.

  (And why wasn’t anyone looking outside to see who and what was making all that noise? Everyone on this street couldn’t be asleep, and even if they were, the incessant cheerless drone of that awful music should’ve awakened someone by now.)

  The fat man stopped talking, paused, then reached toward the truck’s window. Ronald lost sight of his hands for a moment, and when they came into view again, they held a woman’s head.

  “No,” he whispered to himself. It was a doll’s head, a mannequin’s … The fat man grabbed a fistful of white hair (though it would be blonde in daylight, Ronald guessed) and held the head at arm’s length as if to inspect it. He turned it one way, another, then nodded, evidently satisfied. The head’s features were incredibly lifelike — eyes, nose, lips, ears, cheeks — none possessed the stiff, unreal aspect of rubber or plastic. They looked soft, malleable, as only flesh can. But that didn’t bother Ronald as much as the ragged stump where the woman’s neck had once been, or the black substance that dribbled onto the sidewalk. He knew if he were to turn on his headlights, the black would become red.

  The fat man brought the head toward his face, slowly, as if he were savoring the moment, then closed his eyes as he touched the dead lips to his. He reached up with his free hand, gripped the back of the head, and held it in place as he thrust his tongue into its mouth.

  Ronald felt lightheaded, nauseated. Good idea, he thought, his mental voice tinged with an edge of hysteria. Have to keep her steady, don’t want her bobbing around while you play tonsil hockey.

  Crimson spilled through his windshield, and Ronald nearly screamed, until he realized it was only the brake lights of the Neat Treats truck (and didn’t a severed head give a whole new meaning to that company name?) flaring to life. The vehicle slid away from the curb and continued down the street. The fat man finished with the head — For now, Ronald thought, and felt bile splash against the back of his throat — and started toward his house, the head dangling at his side, her face toward Ronald. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the grisly thing gave him a saucy wink as the fat man set his foot on the first step and began ascending toward the porch.

  Ronald didn’t plan to stick around for the fat man to get inside. Not only because he couldn’t bear to stay here a moment longer after the nightmarish scene he’d witnessed, but because he was more determined than ever not to lose track of the ice cream truck. He put the car in drive, pressed down on the gas, and made sure to keep his eyes facing forward as he passed the fat man’s house. He had the impression of the man turning, watching him go, but he didn’t look in case he might see something worse.

  The ice cream truck came to the end of the street and stopped. The right signal blinked on, and the truck turned. Ronald followed, keeping a discreet distance, all the while trying not to think the thought that kept running through his head.

  What did that sick fuck do to my daughter?

  “Whoever it was, they were probably drunk.” Bridgett leaned over, lifted a couple pancakes with a spatula and deposited them on his plate. She smelled like body wash and shampoo, with just a hint of diaper cream. Eau de wife and mother.

  Ronald began slathering the near-tasteless vegetable-oil based gunk that substituted for butter in his household (no trans fatty-acids! proclaimed the container). “When you’re drunk, you tool around in your own car, you don’t hop into an ice cream truck and cruise the town.”

  From the kitchen, Bridgett called, “You do if you’re drunk enough!”

  Sometime after midnight the night before, Ronald had been upstairs in his home office working on the computer, trying to decide whether to place a trade, when he’d heard, of all things, the hurdy-gurdy sound of an ice cream truck coming down the street. It was mid June, definitely ice cream season, but this had hardly been the hour for it. He’d gone downstairs, hurried to the front window just in time to see the truck go by. A wash of headlights on the street. Pale whitish-blue, more like halogen lights. The beams seemed to sweep back and forth, almost as if they were spotlights playing across homes and yards, searching for something. A white, blocky vehicle rolled past, a speaker on top, NEAT TREATS em
blazoned on the side in black letters. The music — happy and light on the surface, but underneath cold and sterile — was taped, of course, and electronically produced, but nevertheless, he’d found himself trying to visualize what sort of instrument might create such a sound. Steel drums, maybe, the kind used in calypso music, but the metal would be surgical steel, the kind that speculums and bone saws were made of.

  “Daddy, what’s ‘drunk’?”

  The question brought Ronald out of his memory, and he looked across the dining table at his six-year-old daughter. Marie looked back at him with wide, innocent eyes, patiently awaiting an answer. He then glanced at Katie, sitting in a highchair next to her sister. The one-year-old was busy holding her sipper cup upside down and shaking droplets of milk onto cut-up pieces of pancake.

  “Never mind, sweetheart. This probably isn’t the best breakfast conversation anyway.”

  Marie frowned. She didn’t like to be put off. “Why did the ice cream truck come around at night anyway?”

  Robert poured non-fat syrup onto his pancake, cut off a piece with his fork and tasted it. Awful. “Maybe for those people who want a midnight ice cream snack.”

  Marie licked her lips. “Mmmm, I’d like that! How come you didn’t go out and get some, Daddy?”

  Bridgett came back into the dining room, carrying the last of the pancakes on a serving dish. She set them down in the middle of the table, then took her place next to Katie. “Because it was too late for ice cream, honey.” She turned to Ronald, gave him a wink. “It would’ve given him a belly ache.”

  He smiled. “Actually, I didn’t go out because whoever it was wasn’t really selling any ice cream, not at night. It was probably someone just playing a joke.”

  “That’s a dumb joke,” Marie said.

  “I agree, sweetie.” Bridgett turned to her husband. “I didn’t hear anything, but then you know how soundly I sleep. We’ll have to ask the neighbors if they heard it. And the weekly paper comes out tomorrow; maybe they’ll have something about it in the police blotter: ‘Rogue Ice Cream Truck Annoys Dozens!’”