Masques

by J N Williamson

  The night before they had driven down to the beach, to the camping area; and on their way, perhaps a mile from their destination, they had seen a meteor shower, or something of that nature. Bright lights in the heavens, glowing momentarily, seeming to burn red blisters across the ebony sky.

  Then it was dark again, no meteoric light, just the natural glow of the heavens—the stars, the dime-size moon.

  They drove on and found an area of beach on which to camp, a stretch dominated by pale sands and big waves, and the great big rock.

  Toni and Murray watched the children eat their marshmallows and play their games, jumping and falling over the great big rock, rolling in the cool sand. About midnight, when the kids were crashed out, they walked along the beach like fresh-found lovers, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, listening to the sea, watching the sky, speaking words of tenderness.

  “I love you so much,” Murray told Toni, and she repeated the words and added, “and our family too.”

  They walked in silence now, the feelings between them words enough. Sometimes Murray worried that they did not talk as all the marriage manuals suggested, that so much of what he had to say on the world and his work fell on the ears of others, and that she had so little to truly say to him. Then he would think: What the hell? I know how I feel. Different messages, unseen, unheard, pass between us all the time, and they communicate in a fashion words cannot.

  He said some catch phrase, some pet thing between them, and Toni laughed and pulled him down on the sand. Out there beneath that shiny-dime moon, they stripped and loved on the beach like young sweethearts, experiencing their first night together after long expectation.

  It was nearly two a.m. when they returned to the camper, checked the children and found them sleeping comfortably as kittens full of milk.

  They went back outside for awhile, sat on the rock and smoked and said hardly a word. Perhaps a coo or a purr passed between them, but little more.

  Finally they climbed inside the camper, zipped themselves into their sleeping bag and nuzzled together on the camper floor.

  Outside the wind picked up, the sea waved in and out, and a slight rain began to fall.

  Not long after Murray awoke and looked at his wife in the crook of his arm. She lay there with her face a grimace, her mouth opening and closing like a guppie, making an “uhhh, uhh,” sound.

  A nightmare perhaps. He stroked the hair from her face, ran his fingers lightly down her cheek and touched the hollow of her throat and thought: What a nice place to carve out some fine, white meat . . .

  What in hell is wrong with me? Murray snapped inwardly, and he rolled away from her, out of the bag. He dressed, went outside and sat on the rock. With shaking hands on his knees, buttocks resting on the warmth of the stone, he brooded. Finally he dismissed the possibility that such a thought had actually crossed his mind, smoked a cigarette and went back to bed.

  He did not know that an hour later Toni awoke and bent over him and looked at his face as if it were something to squash. But finally she shook it off and slept.

  The children tossed and turned. Little Roy squeezed his hands open, closed, open, closed. His eyelids fluttered rapidly.

  Robyn dreamed of striking matches.

  Morning came and Murray found that all he could say was, “I had the oddest dream.”

  Toni looked at him, said, “Me too,” and that was all.

  Placing lawn chairs on the beach, they put their feet on the rock and watched the kids splash and play in the waves; watched as Roy mocked the sound of the JAWS music and made fins with his hands and chased Robyn through the water as she scuttled backwards and screamed with false fear.

  Finally they called the children from the water, ate a light lunch, and, leaving the kids to their own devices, went in for a swim.

  The ocean stroked them like a mink-gloved hand. Tossed them, caught them, massaged them gently. They washed together, laughing, kissing—

  —Then tore their lips from one another as up on the beach they heard a scream.

  Roy had his fingers gripped about Robyn’s throat, had her bent back over the rock and was putting a knee in her chest. There seemed no play about it. Robyn was turning blue.

  Toni and Murray waded for shore, and the ocean no longer felt kind. It grappled with them, held them, tripped them with wet, foamy fingers. It seemed an eternity before they reached shore, yelling at Roy.

  Roy didn’t stop. Robyn flopped like a dying fish.

  Murray grabbed the boy by the hair and pulled him back, and for a moment, as the child turned, he looked at his father with odd eyes that did not seem his, but looked instead as cold and firm as the great big rock.

  Murray slapped him, slapped him so hard Roy spun and went down, stayed there on hands and knees, panting.

  Murray went to Robyn, who was already in Toni’s arms, and on the child’s throat were blue-black bands like thin, ugly snakes.

  “Baby, baby, are you okay?” Toni said over and over. Murray wheeled, strode back to the boy, and Toni was now yelling at him, crying, “Murray, Murray, easy now. They were just playing and it got out of hand.”

  Roy was on his feet, and Murray, gritting his teeth, so angry he could not believe it, slapped the child down.

  “MURRAY,” Toni yelled, and she let go of the sobbing Robyn and went to stay his arm, for he was already raising it for another strike. “That’s no way to teach him not to hit, not to fight.”

  Murray turned to her, almost snarling, but then his face relaxed and he lowered his hand. Turning to the boy, feeling very criminal, Murray reached down to lift Roy by the shoulder. But Roy pulled away, darted for the camper.

  “Roy,” he yelled, and started after him. Toni grabbed his arm.

  “Let him be,” she said. “He got carried away and he knows it. Let him mope it over. He’ll be all right.” Then softly: “I’ve never known you to get that mad.”

  “I’ve never been so mad before,” he said honestly.

  They walked back to Robyn, who was smiling now. They all sat on the rock, and about fifteen minutes later Robyn got up to see about Roy. “I’m going to tell him it’s okay,” she said. “He didn’t mean it.” She went inside the camper.

  “She’s sweet,” Toni said.

  “Yeah,” Murray said, looking at the back of Toni’s neck as she watched Robyn move away. He was thinking that he was supposed to cook lunch today, make hamburgers, slice onions; big onions cut thin with a freshly sharpened knife. He decided to go get it.

  “I’ll start lunch,” he said flatly, and stalked away.

  As he went, Toni noticed how soft the back of his skull looked, so much like an over-ripe melon.

  She followed him inside the camper.

  Next morning, after the authorities had carried off the bodies, taken the four of them out of the bloodstained, fire-gutted camper, one detective said to another:

  “Why does it happen? Why would someone kill a nice family like this? And in such horrible ways . . . set fire to it afterwards?”

  The other detective sat on the huge rock and looked at his partner, said tonelessly, “Kicks maybe.”

  That night, when the moon was high and bright, gleaming down like a big spotlight, the big rock, satiated, slowly spread its flippers out, scuttled across the sand, into the waves, and began to swim toward the open sea. The fish that swam near it began to fight.

  The First day of Spring

  David Knoles

  It’s interesting, if no longer news, that writers come from more varied and unexpected—sometimes contrary—vocational backgrounds than most people. Ben Jonson, celebrated producer of the masque, could boast that he’d cast an actor named Will Shakespeare in his own plays. Contributors to the present book are or have been racing drivers; teachers; master mechanics; cartoonists; lawyers; detectives; medical doctors; farmers; ad men; salesmen; singers and actors (one who cut records and starred in Kiss Me, Kate; another who trained for grand opera); decorated servicemen; reviewers; parapsycho
logy investigators; and taxi hacks. At least two are experts in martial arts.

  David Knoles, a Los Angelino born January 14, 1949, is cut from this versatile stripe. A new fiction writer, he’s edited a Manhattan Beach newspaper and spent four years in the U. S. Air Force (1968-1972). An admirer of anything created by filmmaker Roger Corman, Stephen King, or Ray Bradbury, and currently managing editor of an automotive trade magazine, Knoles is one of those creative aspirants who, with encouragement, can produce much more fiction and see his career flourish.

  He writes all-out, revulsive horror—the kind non-fantasy devotees mean, when forced to confess that they “like a little gore now and then”—knowingly. This is the kind of yarn on which we all cut our supernatural eyeteeth—those that throb even when we believe they were pulled. “The First Day of Spring” makes one yearn for winter, when such creatures are safely skulking, or slithering, beneath the snow at our feet—creatures we only think have gone away forever . . .

  Years ago, at winter’s end . . .

  It had been a particularly long, miserable winter for the eleven-year-old boy. In particular, a lingering ear infection of unknown cause had left him gaunt, and pale. Dad, who loved living in Arizona, had even suggested that “my little trooper has been swapped for a make-believe lad.”

  Until he’d seen his father’s eyes twinkling, that had bothered Barry. Dad, and Doctor Roberts who made the ear infection go away, knew everything worth knowing.

  On March twentieth, the sun came out again and the recovering child stood in the front yard of the family’s suburban home, clad in a baseball uniform. He wore a mitt, crackly with disuse, on his left hand and knew, now, that nothing truly terrible could happen so long as Dad was near.

  Pretending to pitch a fantasy no-hitter, Barry saw Dad from the corner of his eye, hurrying back and forth from the house. Into the trunk of the car parked in the driveway went all the exciting things the eleven-year-old had been expressly forbidden to touch: hunting knives, sleeping bags, a slender rifle sheathed in a pebbled leather case, and a cooler chest filled with beer. When Dad came out a last time, Barry was aware of an unfamiliar sound. Mickey Mantle would have to wait, bat frozen to his shoulder as the ace fastballer stepped off the mound.

  Father was whistling. He never did that, the boy thought; not when he went off to the office in the city, not even to the restaurant with the family Friday nights.

  “Where you goin’, Dad?” He watched the man open the car door.

  “Huntin’, trooper!” The whistled tune broke off but the smile widened. “Special day for it, real special day.”

  “Yeah? How come?”

  Dad spread his arms wide. “It’s the first day of spring! Winter’s done.” He leaned against the car door, impatiently paternal yet seeming pleased to be asked. “Everything turns green. Hibernation ends.”

  “But what’s that mean, Dad?”

  “Hibernation? It’s when all kinds of life starts going again; all kinds. It’s . . . when the wild, hungry things come out.” He grinned and slid behind the wheel of his big car. “Someday, maybe, I’ll take you along. Nothing’s finer!”

  By the time the car was distant, the boy was ready to return to his fantasy batter. “It’s the first day of spring, Mick!” he announced aloud. Then he blew his spinning fastball past the mighty slugger and jumped excitedly into the air. “Wild!” he cried.

  But he was staring down the street, and toward the ravenous hills.

  Two years ago

  From atop the highest rock in the desolate mesa, Barry Locke imagined himself soaring higher—propelled by elation, a sense of coming into rightful power, and the uncounted beers he’d had for breakfast with Dad and his father’s cronies. A hot, dry wind dusted his bronzed face and made his ear ache slightly, but that didn’t matter.

  Today he’d turned twenty-one.

  “Hey, Barry!” A voice, from somewhere below. “Hotshot, you wanna come down here before you break your neck?”

  He looked down at Herman Locke, his father, now an older version of himself. Dad’s boots were hidden in purple sage; he was so at home, hunting, he might take root. “No way I’d ruin a special occasion like this, Dad,” Barry called.

  “Okay, okay.” Strong hands were cupped to amplify his voice. “Stay there, then. But Pete, Harvey and me, we’re gonna give what-for to some rabbit and coyotes. We can’t wait for the likes of a silly young guy!”

  Barry saw his father brush dust from his jeans and turn to depart. Hunting with Dad was an incredible gift; it meant he was becoming one of the boys and Barry didn’t want to miss a minute of it. Sharing his only real passions was Herm Locke’s way of telling the world his son was a man, now. Barry scampered down the face of the rock, doing his best to be athletic like the trooper his father enjoyed calling him.

  Just to the left, he noted, lay a small creek. Sliding twenty feet into the soft sand at the base of the boulder, Barry jogged to the creek and scooped handfuls of impossibly cool water into his mouth. When he’d wiped his damp mouth with the back of his hand, Barry thought he caught sight of patterned color beneath the rock as he hurried after the older man. He knew Herm Locke meant what he said about waiting and so ignored the diamond design, even the unblinking eyes which watched his progress. All kinds of life springs up, Dad had said about spring, and the boy liked the way his father stoutly accepted the fact.

  He was as unaware of the thing continuing to watch him as he’d been unaware that it had been beside the narrow stream from which he had drunk. And unaware of what the thing had aborted in its terror at seeing him, and left in the water.

  March nineteenth—this year

  He perched lithely on the naughahyde examining table, hands folded. He’d put off going to the doctor until two days ago and felt worse about being summoned for a second exam. When Doctor Roberts eventually entered, the whish of the opening door matched Barry’s sigh.

  “So.” The middleaged physician stood before Barry. “The big day is about here.”

  He smiled into the clear, brown eyes he’d seen often since he was eight. Lance Roberts was the one his folks had turned to when he’d had the severe problem with his ear. Now, Roberts remained so youthful he was like a man half his age, made-up for a college play. “We tie the knot tomorrow, Doc. Do I get a big, purple lollipop from your file cabinet?”

  Roberts grinned, glanced into his folder; cleared his throat. “How long have you been losing weight? Fifty pounds! You turned into an exercise nut?”

  “I eat like a horse.” Barry touched the shirt billowing from his waist. “Why?” He wasn’t about to tell the physician everything.

  “Any abdominal pains?”

  Barry fidgeted. “Sometimes my belly rumbles if I even think of food.”

  “Bad pains?” Roberts pressed.

  “This last year at school has been rugged.” On occasion, the stomach pains made him think his churning insides were actually growing. “Pain, plus sleeping badly.”

  Thoughtfully, Roberts rubbed his chin. “So far, all we know is that your weight loss is abnormal. Stress, your plans to marry, can account for it. But I’d feel better with further testing. I can—”

  Barry tried to muffle his agonized groan. He’d felt as if everything below the waist was turning end for end. He hadn’t wanted to do this—his wedding was tomorrow—but the abrupt convulsions were all but unbearable that time.

  Worse, Barry thought as he locked his arms around his middle, was the impression he’d had of a sound—a chittering noise—from the pit of his stomach.

  “Let me see!” The doctor was on his feet, resting the flat of his hand against the patient’s midsection. “This happens all the time, right?” he asked softly. Then he pressed down, firmly, finding organs that were more than normally firm even when relaxed. He strove to feel past them.

  Palm in place, Roberts glanced up at the youth but said nothing. He didn’t wish to be a wet blanket but he’d detected . . . something . . . in the stomach cavity, som
ething resistive, and hard, which should not have been there.

  Then he eased back against a low cabinet. From somewhere he produced a smile. “Don’t begin anticipating cancer. For your peace of mind, we’ll simply go ahead with the testing. I think I can get you into the hospital on Monday.”

  “No. I mean, I can’tr Barry adjusted his belt, frowned. “Plans are all in place for the wedding and our honeymoon in Hawaii. Couldn’t you give me the name of a doctor in the islands, Doc? If nothing goes wrong, I can go in for tests a week from Monday.”

  Roberts’ face was a grimace of professional disapproval. “If it is serious, well, the sooner the better.” Then he saw Barry’s young face and slapped his shoulder, affably, with his folder. “Very well; weddings are weddings.” Frowning, he shook his head. “I’ll set things up for a week from Monday.”

  Barry beamed his relief. “Thanks, Doc!”

  “But one thing. I’d like to take some X-rays before you leave today. It’ll delay you for only a short while and I can study them prior to your return.” He fumbled a gown from his fullsized cabinet, handed it to Barry. “Slip into this and I’ll fetch my nurse.”

  And stay away from luaus, Roberts thought, leaving the room. Your belly already feels like you swallowed a roasting pig.

  Early the next day—March twentieth

  While the pale, pink glow which sometimes gave detail to it had gone away long ago, the food opening still attracted the thing. Snug against warm, moist walls, it stared, anticipating.

  The thing had no conception of itself; its appearance, its proportions, or the involuntary surges through its muscular system. It had no knowledge that its size was so great that it would soon be wedged against the walls which, since birth, had been its home.

  Knowing only hunger, the thing had been moving steadily toward the membrane-covered opening for days, inching through a bloodied forest of twists and turns. It was precisely smart enough to have become weary of waiting for more and, wriggling and flexing another fractional inch of advancement, it headed for the opening.