by Alan Spencer
The first read:
GIDEON: THE GUIDE TO GRAND ILLUSION
APPEARS AT THE LUXOR HOTEL FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY
NIGHT SHOWS ONLY
GIDEON BREATHES FIRE!!!
GIDEON WALKS THROUGH WALLS!!!
GIDEON HOLDS HIS BREATH FOR TEN MINUTES LOCKED IN A WATER TANK!!!
GIDEON SENDS KNIVES THOUGH HIS BODY!!!
GIDEON DEFIES GRAVITY AND CLIMBS INVISIBLE ROPE!!!
AND MANY MORE DEATH-DEFYING FEATS!!!
Uncle James looked like a cartoon caricature in a black Valentino suit, top hat and red tie. He clutched a knife in each hand with a self-satisfied smile, his eyes darkened with mascara and pancake make-up. A caption read in flame lettering: MAY BE TOO GRAPHIC FOR CHILDREN UNACCOMPANIED BY ADULTS OR THOSE INDIVUDUALS WITH HEART CONDITIONS, PREGNANT, OR ELDERLY. His signature was next to his photo in gold marker in large cursive writing.
Where else was magic lucrative besides Las Vegas or Atlantic City? The man toured the United States and even parts of Europe, he remembered. His fame lasted twelve years, and now he was infamous for murder. There was no court hearing for a dead man. The strange episode was swept under the carpet and left a cold case. It surprised him to receive an open-armed invitation from Mary-Sue and Jimmy Jennings, knowing how hard the deaths hit the small town. They knew what his uncle was accused of, and the two neighbors had lived it down. It saddened him to realize the neighbors were more acquainted with his uncle than he was.
He scanned other posters, more of the same hype with new captions boasting more death-defying stunts: SEE GIDEON SMASHED BY A STEAMROLLER, GIDEON MAKES A BENGAL TIGER DISAPPEAR, GIDEON DERAILS A MOVING TRAIN, GIDEON READS MINDS AND FORTUNES, GIDEON ESCAPES A FLAMING BOX, GIDEON MAKES AN AUDIENCE MEMBER VANISH, and GIDEON TURNS WATER INTO WINE. The pictorials grew more outlandish; some depicted James with a chiseled abdomen at a muscle-bound one hundred and eighty pounds, and others gave him a Dracula resemblance with gelled back hair and pale skin. It showed him bending steel rods and breathing fire. It was hard to believe this was the same man who was at family picnics, hard on his luck and surviving on dwindling savings.
The intake of scotch urged him to run upstairs to the bathroom to ease his bladder. While pissing, he admired the Jacuzzi. After washing his hands, he observed his face in the mirror. His reddish-brown beard and head of curly hair had grown out to scraggly proportions. He wondered if Mary-Sue was serious about giving him a tour. He didn’t look his best today. Something about her allured him. The size of her breasts, he easily admitted, but there was something else he couldn’t place. A good first impression, he supposed.
He splashed cold water onto his face, remembering the problem downstairs. I’m a dead man. Professor Maxwell’s going to have my ass on a platter.
His cell phone was tucked in his backpack. He decided to call Professor Maxwell before it was too late. It was already four-thirty. He would’ve had enough time to watch a film if he hadn’t tripped over the cord.
He postponed making the call to give the other rooms a more thorough inspection. Of the three rooms upstairs, two of them were empty bedrooms. The closed shutters turned the boxes into dark recesses. As he walked into each of the bedrooms, something reeked of cabbage. Perhaps moldy wood.
The last room was a glorified closet. Metal racks lined the walls, empty of clothing. The place was abandoned through and through. He’d have to find roommates to fill the place; he didn’t have enough stuff to fill ten percent of it.
He doubted he’d keep the house.
Andy walked out of the closet and toward the staircase when something rattled and dust rained down upon him from the ceiling. Clump-clump-crack! He dodged the folding steps to the attic that he knew would be coming from above. He tripped, landing face-down. The jolt of the impact rattled him, but he wasn’t bleeding or hurt. He managed to get back to his feet and stared at the attic steps that had come undone.
“The Amityville house,” he griped, rubbing his sore elbows. “Don’t worry, ghosts, you don’t have to work that hard to get me out of this house. Give me two weeks, and you can kiss my ass goodbye.”
The attic light was on. “That’s weird. Ned must’ve left it on.”
He climbed the dusty steps, curious at what could be inside. Each movement, the sensation of bugs crawling down his back and legs made him itch. The floating dust and mites in the air clung to his sweaty body. Insulation poked up from the floorboards. It was ten degrees hotter up there than below. Most of the corners were dark, and the longer he strained his eyes the more he saw that the space was empty except for a metal case wide as a briefcase, but taller. He decided to take it down with him. The initials J. L. R. were scrawled on a piece of duct tape in magic marker lettering.
James Lee Ryerson.
He lugged the metal box downstairs. It had three metal clips, and he unbuckled them. Andy studied what was stored inside the black foam padded lining. It was an Orion projector, but it was silver-lined, the model an earlier version than the one he’d broken. It was single-reel and played sixteen millimeter film.
All right, let’s watch a movie!
Chapter Two
1
Andy shut the blinds and closed the sliding wood partition that separated the room from the kitchen. Without the lights on, it was theater-dark in the living room. Earlier, the metallic case of fifty plus reels posed a challenge; which one to watch first? He had sorted through a few stacks: Humanoid Rat Eats Indiana, The Clothesline Killer, Jorg: The Hungry Butcher, Veteran’s Hospice Massacre, and stopped at the one entitled Attack of the Sludge. The reel case had a tagline marked in type font: THE SLUDGE EATS YOU FROM THE INSIDE OUT!
“This should be interesting. It sounds horrible already.” He groaned. “It’s a paycheck. Keep telling yourself that.”
It was a foot in the door to other jobs, he supposed. Anything to get him recognized in the film industry, he decided, whether it was from co-writing commentary with a notable film critic and moviemaker/professor or not.
“The DVD market opened a new venue for forgotten movies to be resurrected,” Professor Maxwell had explained to him upon issuing him the job. “A lot of them are public domain now, like these. My father’s a collector and came upon these movies and bought them for a hundred bucks. Isn’t that insane? I’ve had offers to sell them to marketing companies. They’re offering good cash, and the main company, Schlock-Shock-Cinema, wanted me to write the commentary. I’m giving you the job, Andy, because you’re my best student. Prove yourself and commit to projects for the sake of work. If you want to become a filmmaker, then here’s where you pay your dues.”
He started up the projector and decided he’d replace the broken one with his uncle’s. Maybe the university would notice, maybe not—but for now, he didn’t care. The sounds of the shutter clicked and the fan hummed within the projector box. Andy propped a notebook and pen on one leg, the bottle of scotch on the other. He waited for the first reel of the film to cut in from grainy splotches, and speckling and surface damage to form a picture.
Eerie music from a pipe organ throbbed and occasionally crackled from the poor sound quality. The opening scene focused on a space-craft—Ed Wood quality like two dinner plates glued together—hovering over a miniature set meant to be woods. The shot panned down to a man fishing with his feet dipped into the lake.
Beew! Beew! Beew!
“Gamma rays!” the man shouted, falling over into the water when a pink beam struck his skull.
“How the hell would he know they were gamma rays?” Andy burst out laughing. He was tipsy. He had to be careful not to drink too much. He still had the dinner date with the Jennings’ later tonight. “What a stooge.”
The lake’s waves smoothed out, and then the scene changed to a backwoods cabin. The shot panned to an old man sitting on a porch with his hound dog. The old man sat on a rocking chair and threw back a swill of whiskey. The dog barked at a shadow materializing from the woods.
“What is it, Tob
y?”
The form collapsed into the front yard, his identity still unknown. The lantern hanging on a pole poorly illuminated the scene, creating a creepy atmosphere. The stranger whimpered at the man, and the hound skirted off into the woods, yelping in fright. “Toby—what the ’ell is wrong with you? Hey mister, are you okay? If you’re hurt, there’s a hospital up the road a ways.”
The old man closed in, and he recognized the interloper. “Charlie, is that you? Did you drink too much again? My god, what’s wrong with you?”
“Shoot me, Ray—just shoot me!”
“You’re not thinking, buddy. Did someone hit you with their car? Speak up, man.”
“IT HURTS,” Charlie shrieked, curling up into himself. “IT’S CRAWLING UNDER MY SKIN. IT’S SUCKING THE BLOOD FROM MY VEINS, AND IT’S WORKING ITSELF INTO MY BR-AAAAAIN!”
Ray hurried over to Charlie, concerned for his friend. He bent to turn the man over when the body whipped around and seized him first. Charlie’s face was turned inside and out, his face a smear of fake-blood and cheap prosthetics. His organs slithered out from his midsection, looking like entrails from a slaughterhouse. Ray hollered, and a jet of blue slime leaped from Charlie’s imploded chest and leeched onto his face. It crawled down his throat, and soon the slime worked itself down into the old man’s stomach. Ray gurgled and belched until a torrent of blood spilled from his face, and the old man keeled over.
Andy enjoyed a liberal dose of scotch. “This looks like a rip-off of The Blob.”
The last reel of the film ended, and it was almost eight o’clock. Andy gathered up his keys and piled into his Fiesta. As his car turned onto the road, he failed to notice the other set of headlights that blinked on from the other end of the street and pulled into his front yard.
2
“Mary-Sue better smooch him good,” Jimmy Jennings grumbled as he parked his truck under a clearing of trees near the woods. Nobody could see the vehicle from the road, and he was confident Andy Ryerson hadn’t seen him either. “I can’t afford to miss out on a payday because of that stupid girl.”
He inserted a wad of tobacco into his mouth. Between the seats, a can of Bud Lite was half-finished. He swigged the rest of the cheap beer and gained new courage. This was the first time he’d trespassed on someone’s property. He carried a .28 Smith and Wesson revolver in his side pocket in case the boy returned home unannounced. Mary-Sue understood the importance of gaining access to an item of James Ryerson’s. He could sell it for a quick buck through one of his grandsons, who were familiar with the Internet. James’s magical items could be pricy keepsakes for a demented cult following of the late magician. He could retire, sell the dairy farm, and move somewhere nice with or without Mary-Sue.
Mary-Sue can get pregnant and drop off the face of the Earth for all I care.
He slammed the car door shut and walked toward the house. The evening cast its cool black veil over the miles of woods. The Ryerson house was a blackened shadow. It would be easier to sneak in that way, he thought, with the cover of night at his back.
He spat tobacco juice into the gardenias and crept to the front door. The door wasn’t closed, but the screen door was.
Andy cares more about protecting his house from skeeters than burglars.
The would-be burglar opened the screen door and crossed into deeper shadows. He turned on a Maglight flashlight and combed the front area. It was bare except for a wooden cuckoo clock and a stack of picture frames against the wall. He flipped them over and discovered James in his magician’s get-up escaping from coffins wrapped in chains and being shot out of cannon or lying on a bed of spikes with concrete boulders stacked on his stomach. GIDEON VANISHES AT A BLINK OF AN EYE! a poster boasted in bright red lettering. He noticed the magician’s signature at the bottom.
“Pay dirt. What else is in this dingy place? Papa needs to retire.”
He snuck into the living room and noticed the film projector next to a leather chair. Reels of film were stacked in a bin alongside a bottle of scotch.
“College boys. What a life.”
The room was empty otherwise, and Jimmy redirected his search. He checked upstairs and located more of the same: empty rooms without any personal belongings. Ned might’ve thrown them out. “That bastard better not have cheated me.”
Or did the man burn everything? Shit, I’m wasting my time here.
The autographed posters were worth money, but he didn’t go through all this trouble to search the house for a few autographs. The top two floors were empty, but the basement was still to be checked. Before he put his hand to the door, he heard a moan from outside.
Anguish.
He breathed hard, panicking. An icy finger crawled up his spine and burst up his brainstem. A new cry ripped through the air. His body now stiff, Jimmy waited in place, afraid to move. He finally decided the person needed help, and he couldn’t hide any longer.
He heard steps outside, though faintly, of feet dragging against gravel. Jimmy didn’t speak up, but instead, he crept to the door and peeked outside. The shadow of a man limped and clutched both his hands over his midsection. The person lost his footing and landed in the front yard belly-down.
Through the screen door, Jimmy asked, “Are you okay?”
No answer, except for mumbles and nonsense.
Jimmy wasn’t sure who it was or what had happened to him, but the man wasn’t in good shape. He stepped out of the house to see the man up close, but he froze when the man shouted, “Shoot me, Ray—just shoot me!”
What the hell is the man blathering about? Who’s Ray?
The next piercing shout made him jump back in shock. “IT HURTS! IT’S CRAWLING UNDER MY SKIN. IT’S SUCKING THE BLOOD FROM MY VEINS, AND IT’S WORKING ITSELF INTO MY BR-AAAAIN!”
“Goddamn, you’re acting all crazy.” He raced to the human heap near the water fountain. “You need an ambulance. You must’ve gotten yourself into some serious trouble. Why do you want me to shoot you?”
Jimmy knelt down and placed his hand to the man’s shoulder, and that’s when the stranger spun around and faced him.
“WHAT THE HELL!”
He gasped at the flesh that dripped down the stranger’s face. The jaw shifted to unleash a scream when the tongue flopped out of his lipless mouth. Blue steaming slime oozed out from the man’s teeth in thick globules. The same slime slithered through the pores of the man’s flesh, spitting out blood and muscle tissue onto the ground in liquid wads. A web of the glistening substance leeched onto Jimmy’s neck, branching out with a wet smacking noise. It burned and sizzled the instant it touched skin.
Jimmy rolled backward and flailed against the attack, howling in terror and cursing the unknown assailant. Jimmy ground his nails into the blue sludge in a feeble attempt, but when he jerked back to peel the mess from his face, the force detached his own skin from both his cheeks. He shrieked at the sensation of wind slipping through the openings of his face.
The blue sludge went sloop-gloop-sloop-gloop through his facial wounds and choked off his airways. Snuffed, he tore at grass and kicked at the air to cough up the obstruction, but the struggle was useless. After agonizing minutes of useless effort, he ceased to fight for his life altogether.
Jimmy’s dead body was sprawled out next to the fountain. The stranger’s corpse that brought him out of the house had dissolved into the earth, leaving behind a frothy white substance mixed with blood. Soon after, Jimmy’s face imploded with a muddy plop. His skin was turned inside out and dissolved into many bubbling crimson puddles. The bones and internal organs melted as well, and soon there was nothing left of the two bodies, everything disintegrated and sinking into the earth.
The blue sludge winded its course down through the woods and continued for miles until it reached Silver Lake.
Karen Marshall enjoyed the evening jogs at Silver Lake along the edge of the woods. She had halfway completed a mile-lap around the entire lake. Her pink windbreaker housed her keys, mace and a bottle of water. She li
ved in a house eight miles from here, but Anderson Mills was a better place to run than the city of Lawrence, where the city life bred panhandlers, bums, rapists and most of all, obnoxious college kids.
She was thirty-five and fifty pounds overweight, and Dr. Richard Nelson had warned her if she didn’t lose weight, she could spark her family’s history of heart disease and diabetes—both she’d avoided despite her craving for ice cream sundaes, potato chips, and a good movie rental.
Sex would be a good substitute for this running bullshit.
She struggled up the short hill and gasped for breath once she reached the top. Sweat dripped down her face and her outfit clung to her skin. Karen charged across the next straightaway, forcing herself to keep going, and took yet another break at the boating dock. She doused herself with the bottle of water and rinsed her mouth out.
You keep running four times a week, surely Gary Hinkle would check me out in the breakroom. He’ll ogle me instead of the snacks in the vending machines.
Is he the real reason why I’m doing this?
I’m pathetic.
Karen re-tied her pink Reeboks and started at a slower pace up the next hill. Another half mile and she’d reach her Monte Carlo parked in the picnic and camping area.
Ahead of her, a shape skittered from the road, and it squealed. Piercing the darkness with her stare, she caught the shape and noticed the way its legs flailed in the air spastically, and then the way it suddenly went still. Karen slowed down and inspected the object up close. It was an opossum, but half its body was gone, a trail of red behind it sinking into the cracks of the road. The oval face and rat-like snout pulsated as fluid was suctioned from its throat, and when the noises increased with a vacuum’s intensity, its eyes were sucked back into its sockets.
Karen’s impulses told her to sprint away, retreat and don’t turn back, but she wondered what could cause an opossum to bleed like that—and for its eyes to disappear into its head! The body curled into itself, and its bones cracked under an unknown pressure and snapped into many pieces. Pink mist sprayed the air, and then the opossum was rendered down to liquid that glistened on the grass and road. The blue substance showed up when the opossum’s skull dissolved. It was neon blue, bubbling and puckering like a boiling egg sunny-side up.