“Look at these prices!” Isaac exclaims, pointing to the cellphone.
“Mumph...mumph,” Moonpie replies, nodding his head enthusiastically, his mouth full of spaghetti. The two men sit in a corner booth of an all-night diner a few blocks from the Mask Museum. Moonpie twirls another large ball of the pasta onto his fork and prepares to stuff his mouth again.
“That broad is sitting on a fortune, and she doesn’t have a clue. Instead, she spends her time collecting a few bucks in donations from stupid tourists that stumble upon her place.”
Moonpie picks up his glass of water and drains half of it before replying. “Well, maybe we should tell her so she could, I don’t know, maybe sell off a few of the masks she’s not crazy about.”
Isaac stares at his companion like he’s never heard such a stupid comment, though, in truth, he’s grown accustomed to such statements from Moonpie. “No, you idiot, we’re not going to tell her squat. The less she knows about what she has the better our chances. No, we have a grand opportunity here before us, and I, for one, plan to take full advantage of it.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, simple, really. We’re going to relieve her from the burden of having to open her stupid museum ever again.”
Moonpie wipes the spaghetti sauce from his mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, the perpetual look of confusion growing more intense. “Really? How are we going to do that?”
“By stealing the damn masks, of course. We can sell them on the black market. In no time, we’ll be rolling in the dough.”
“Ahhh, I don’t know, Isaac,” Moonpie says, frowning. “I kinda like the ol’ broad. She reminds me of my mom, rest her soul.”
“Of course she does. Every old woman we’ve ever met reminds you of your mom. Why should this one be any different?”
“I don’t know, why should she?” Moonpie squints his face in deep thought as he tries to puzzle out the answer.
“I was being sarcastic, you doofus.”
“You were? About what?”
“Never mind,” Isaac replies angrily. “Shut up for a few minutes while I plan this heist out.”
Moonpie nods and goes back to devouring the plate of spaghetti.
The following evening, a black van pulls up and parks across the street from the Mask Museum. As Isaac turns off the engine and douses the lights, Moonpie, sitting on the passenger side, finishes off his third moon pie, wiping away the crumbs with his sleeve.
“Do we have to do this, Isaac? She’s a nice lady and she really likes those masks she and her husband collected. Why don’t we just go to a movie or something?”
“Aren’t any movies showing in this podunk town, especially not at two in the morning,” Isaac replies. “Besides, this is our big chance to make some real money, not the penny ante stuff we’ve been doing just to scrape by.”
“But I like that stuff,” Moonpie whines, then changes tactics. “I’ll just stay here. You don’t need me for anything.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. We’re a team,” Isaac counters. “Besides, together we can haul twice as much stuff and then get the hell out of Dodge.”
“But we’re in Foster Flat,” Moonpie replies.
“I know where we are. It’s just an expression. Oh, never mind. Come on. Grab a couple of those burlap bags while you’re at it.”
Isaac opens his door and climbs out, then waits until Moonpie finally follows suit. “Now, no more talking once we start. If you have to say anything at all, just whisper. I checked around and confirmed that the old lady still lives in the back rooms.”
Moonpie nods as he makes a motion as though zipping his lips shut. The two men stroll across the street and up the few steps to the entrance of the museum where Isaac quickly smashes the single bulb. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small flashlight and turns it on, directing the light to the window of the door.
“Break it,” he orders Moonpie, who hesitates before reluctantly nodding. As he approaches the door, he takes his left hand and wraps it up in the sleeve of his sweatshirt before slamming it through the window. The crashing of the glass echoes through the night and the two men hold their breath, listening for any sound of movement from inside the house. When none is heard, Isaac reaches through the window and unlocks the door.
“Piece of cake,” he mutters. He pushes the door open and walks inside as Moonpie pulls a flashlight out of his pocket, turns it on and flashes it into Isaac’s eyes.
“What did you say, boss?” he asks in his normal voice, then, realizing how loud it sounds, repeats the closed zipper motion.
Isaac knocks the beam of light away. “Shut up, you fool,” he hisses. He shines his own light along the walls filled with masks. They're even more macabre in the shadows of the night than before.
“Ohh, this doesn’t feel good,” Moonpie says. At least this time he remembers to whisper. Isaac glances at him, noticing that his partner’s face has grown paler than usual.
“Don’t worry about it,” he tries to assure Moonpie. “They’re just carved pieces of wood. Nothing to worry about. Give me one of those bags, then start filling the other one with the masks, starting over there.” He points to the other end of the room. “I’ll start at this end.”
The two men proceed with their work, but as Isaac begins to pull a mask off the wall, he begins to feel queasy. As his hand touches the mask, it seems like the eyes have suddenly flitted to stare at him. The next moment, he sees a flash of images before him, each one a different brutal murder. He drops the mask, which clatters to the floor.
“What’s up, boss?” Moonpie whispers from the other end of the room. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Isaac replies, momentarily flustered. “It just slipped out of my hand.” He reaches for another mask that looks like a cross between a man and some unholy beast of prey. This time, he sees flashes of a little old lady brutally torturing dogs and cats throughout her neighborhood—a neighborhood that looks suspiciously like the one surrounding the museum. Once again, he drops the mask to the floor, but horrible images continue to fill Isaac’s mind even though he’s no longer touching any of the masks. Scenes from the gas chambers of Auschwitz mingle with images of a field of mass graves filled with hundreds of malnourished bodies. Then the images disappear and he’s back in the room staring at the mask as it rocks back and forth on the floor. As he reaches down for it, he notices a dozen or more tarantula-size spiders clinging to his arm. He hates spiders of any size. He swats at them with his other hand.
What the fuck is going on here? he wonders, but even as he’s having the thought, he feels himself running mindlessly away from the threat...until he slams into the far wall only a few feet from Moonpie, who’s continuing to place masks into his sack. It’s the last image Isaac sees before passing out.
As Isaac slowly awakens, he feels the top of his head threatening to lift off from the rest of his body. Shit, I must have really tied one on last night, he thinks. He starts to roll over before realizing he’s not lying in bed. In fact, he’s not lying at all, but is instead seated in a straight back chair. From the stiffness in his back and neck, he surmises he must have been in the chair for quite some time. So, how come he didn’t fall out of it sometime while he slept? In the next instant, he has his answer as he tries to reach up to scratch his nose but can’t. He tries with the other hand, with the same result. Finally, he opens his eyes, but then quickly shuts them again. Too bright! Way too bright. But even in that brief moment, his surroundings are imprinted on his mind, and memories of the previous night rush forth.
He’s still in the Mask Museum and something is wrong—very wrong. Had that been the little old lady he’d seen across the room? And what was Moonpie doing sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out in front of him, his body held up by the wall against which he leaned? Slowly, he flutters his eyes open again, keeping his head down to minimize the amount of light that assaults them. Even so, the pounding in his head increases and he winces with pain. Ho
ld it together, he tells himself. He’s been in worse situations than this, although at the moment, he can’t recall any quite this bad.
Finally, after several failed attempts, he manages to keep his eyes open and looks around. Everything is pretty much as it was during that first quick glance. The old woman is still standing across the room. She reaches into one of the sacks, pulls out a mask and returns it to the wall, then reaches into the sack for the next one. She’s humming a little tune Isaac doesn’t recognize. It’s like it’s just another day at the museum and a new shipment of masks has arrived, but Isaac knows better. It’s got to be the next day, given the amount of sunlight streaming in from the window. He glances down at his body to confirm that, indeed, he’s been tied securely to the chair, but how was that possible? Surely that old woman couldn’t have lifted him into the chair. Focus, boy, he tells himself. How you got in this chair is the least of your worries. How are you going to get out? Now, that’s a much more important matter at the moment. But that’s why I have a partner, he argues back at himself. Dumb as a kite but still useful in matters like this. I’ll just get Moonpie to untie me.
He stares at Moonpie where he’s lying propped up against the wall not far from where the old lady continues her work. He motions with his head for Moonpie to come to him, but is only rewarded with another wave of pain, this time moving down his neck to his shoulders and beyond. The look on Moonpie’s face is more vacuous than usual and the smile plastered on his lips could only be described as shit-eating. Okay, maybe his partner isn’t going to be all that helpful. Let’s just try a more direct approach.
“Hello there,” Isaac says, but the words come out as a guttural whisper, so he tries again. “Excuse me, ma’am, there appears to have been a terrible misunderstanding here. Could you please come over here and untie me?”
The woman finishes placing one of the masks on the wall before slowly turning in his direction. “Name isn’t ma’am. It’s Daisy or, in your case, Mrs. Davis, and ain’t no misunderstanding. You and your friend tried to steal my masks, and now you’ve got to pay just like any other evil person who’s been caught.” As she talks, she reaches down, grabs the sack and begins to drag it over to him. “Let’s just see if we can’t find you a proper fit.” She plunks the sack down next to the chair and pulls out one of the masks, holds it up towards his face, then shakes her head. “Nope, not that one.” She places it down beside the sack and picks another one from the bag, repeating the motion. The mask is pure white and reminds Isaac of a human skull. “Now, that’s closer, but...not quite right.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Isaac blurts out, as he struggles to free himself from the ropes around him. But whoever tied him to the chair knew what they were doing. If anything, the ropes only tighten more.
“Why, I’m finding you the right mask,” Daisy replies, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. She might as well have been trying on different coats to see which one fit best. “After all, you’re going to spend the rest of your existence in it. You want it to be a good fit, don’t you?”
“You’re crazy as a loon,” Isaac spits out. “Let me go, you hear? Moonpie, you idiot, get up from there and help me,” he shouts, realizing that any hope of holding it together is long gone.
“Oh, he’s not really available right now,” Daisy replies as she puts down the mask and reaches into the sack for a third one. “My husband...well, he needed to borrow your friend’s body for a bit. Don’t worry, though, he’ll give it back when this nasty work is done.”
“Your husband? But you said he wasn’t around anymore.”
“Yeah, well, he isn’t, not really. You see, he died a few years back, but we had an agreement. Whichever one went first, the other one was to make sure the spirit of the dearly departed would be preserved in a mask. We even picked out the masks we’d want.” She points to a large mask resembling an African chieftain that leans against the far wall not far from Moonpie. “That’s my husband’s over there. Once we’re done with you, he’ll return to it.”
“What do you mean, ‘done with me’?”
“Well, your body, of course,” Daisy replies. “Can’t have any evidence left around, you know. But don’t worry, we have a nice spot picked out right next to Mrs. Curry. Now, there was a nasty lady. Worst neighbor ever. Everyone hated her and for good reason. She was a serial pet killer, but she got her due, just like you will.”
Isaac remembers the flashes of horrific scenes from the night before, and it all starts to make sense in a weird, surrealistic way. “You killed your own neighbor, didn’t you?”
“Sure did, and proud of it,” Daisy replies. “That’s been my husband and my mission for going on thirty years. We started collecting masks simply because we liked them, but then we discovered that the myths about them weren’t myths at all. We realized we could do our part to collect more than masks. We’ve collected some of the evilest folks God ever put on this planet. And, in just a little bit, you’ll get to see them. You’ll fit right in with our little band of troublemakers. There’s Josef Mengele and Vladimir Katriuk, both nasty Nazi murderers. Then there’s Stoneman. That’s not his real name, but that’s what the police called him. The report was that he’d murdered thirteen people in India, but he really murdered quite a few more. The police never found him, but we did. But don’t worry. We’ve quite a few women in our little family as well. There’s Griselda Blanco. You may have read about her, though she was often referred to as the Black Widow or the Cocaine Godmother. She was a Colombian drug lord, but I think she and Stoneman may have something going right now. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Curry is unattached though.”
“Moonpie!” Isaac shouts. “Get your ass up here and help me!”
Daisy reaches over with the mask she holds in her hand and raps him on the head with it. “Settle down. I told you my husband is using him at the moment. Wasn’t all that hard. His simple mind was easy to circumvent. While he was at it, Reginald—that’s my husband—checked out your friend’s memories. It’s all there. Years of you and him getting over on people, taking advantage of them, breaking the law whenever and wherever it served you. Oh, you’re not of the same caliber as some of our elite criminals, but you’ll do. Of course, maybe your worst offense was how you corrupted that poor boy over there. He really has a good heart, even if he is a bit simple, but once again, you used him for your own selfish purposes. That’s why I think it’s particularly befitting that we use him to help us end your reign of evil.”
She holds up a fourth mask and gazes at it, then at Isaac. “Yep, this is the one. No doubt about it. Now, you just hold still a moment and we’ll just...place...this...”, but as she approaches Isaac with the mask, he begins to kick and scream, forcing Daisy to step back, shaking her head. “I was afraid you’d be one of those, but no problem.” She turns around in Moonpie’s direction. “Reginald, my dear, if you will assist me.”
Moonpie nods and with the same moronic smile on his face, slowly stands up and lumbers over to her. “Just hold his head as steady as you can. It’ll only take a minute or so for the spirit transference to take place. Then, you can haul the body down to the cellar while I tidy up here.”
Moonpie nods, but then hesitates, a frown replacing the smile for just a few seconds. His body shakes as though in the throes of a struggle. For a moment, the old Moonpie takes over. “Sorry, Boss,” he slurs, but then Reginald takes back control. “Oops, sorry about that, dear. He slipped out of my grasp for just a second.” Moonpie proceeds to grasp Isaac’s head firmly in his large mitts and holds it still as Daisy puts on the mask that resembles a human skull, but with horns on its head and a forked tongue sticking out of its mouth.
“Perfect,” Daisy replies a minute or two later, removing the mask from the motionless body. She glances at her wristwatch. “Go ahead and take the body down to the cellar. Once you’re through with Moonpie, clear his memory and set him out on the back porch. I’ll come out with your mask.”
“Can’t I
keep his body for just a little longer?” Reginald asks. “I’ve missed having the mobility.”
“No,” Daisy answers. “He’s a good boy who’s already spent too much of his life under another’s thumb. It’s time he got on with living without such bad influences. Besides, who’ll keep the rest of our troublemakers in line if you aren’t there to supervise?”
Moonpie nods. He picks up Isaac, who’s still tied to the chair and carries him away. Daisy resumes her task of putting the rest of the masks on the wall, including the one with Isaac’s spirit, humming quietly as she does so.
FORTUNE COOKIE FUTURES
Master Lin Shu stared at his most loyal customer, Alfred Peterman. Not only had the man placed large orders for his family every Friday night for over five years, he’d also referred dozens of other customers to Lin Shu’s Chinese Pagoda Restaurant as well.
“Listen, Lin Shu, I know I have no business asking such a favor of you, but, well, I’m desperate. If I don’t find Wilbur a summer job immediately, I’ll be sleeping outside with Rufus, my dog. Wilbur is my wife’s favorite nephew. There have been some troubles at home, so she’s agreed to take him, but it’s only for the summer. After that, he’ll be back home and out of my hair. Please, help me out, will you?”
Alfred grabbed a handful of business cards from the counter separating the two men. Alfred towered over Lin Shu by close to a foot, and Lin Shu figured the man weighed a good seventy-five more pounds. Not that he was all that worried that Alfred would take to violence. He had the reputation of being a quiet, peaceful man, but you never knew these days. The papers were filled with people going “postal” with a lot less provocation.
“I really don’t need more help, Mr. Peterman...” Lin Shu started. As he spoke, he watched the man’s face begin to collapse into a heavy look of disappointment. “But maybe I can find something for him. It’ll have to be in the back, though, at least at first. Washing dishes, something like that.”
Fantastic Fables of Foster Flat Volume Two Page 5
