But I’m not done with my song.
“Jesus Christ,” Glont mumbled under his breath. “Alright, but make it quick.”
Glont plopped back down on the sofa, set his beer on the coffee table, and pressed his hands back over his ears while The Membrane bunched itself into a ball again on the floor.
Tom Two resumed playing with even more gusto than before, producing a cacophony of near-suicide-inducing noise. He kept playing and playing and playing—in fact, his little rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” went on for three and a half hours before he finally set his tuba down and took a couple polite bows.
Though sorely tempted, Glont didn’t have the heart to try to sneak away during the performance like The Membrane did one hour into it. Ma Ruth passed out in her rocker just minutes after Tom Two resumed playing. About two hours in, despite Glont protesting that he could hear the tuba just fine, Tom Two insisted on dragging the instrument next to couch and positioning its bell just inches away from his uncle’s face so that he could hear it better.
Glont felt sorry for Tom Two—sorry that he looked like the screaming figure from The Scream, that he was basically trapped in their house, that everyone in the world other than Glont, Ma Ruth, and The Membrane hated him. Also, even if he was eons old, the dude was only two—a physically deformed and temporally defective child neither understood nor accepted by the cruel world in which he lived.
The least Glont could do, he figured as he sat with his hands clamped over his ears and his head practically inside the instrument’s big brass mouth, was sit through this maddening music.
And if Tom Two’s tuba did end up driving him nuthouse-bugshit insane one day, then so be it.
Chapter 7
G lont dropped into the office late in the afternoon the next day, went straightaway to Amanda’s cube to let her know he would be unable to attend Lance’s party with her. When he arrived at the entrance to her cube, the words “Hey, Amanda,” ready on lips, he raised one fist to rap his knuckles on the top of the cube wall, but halted abruptly. There in Amanda’s chair sat Lance Montgomery. Amanda stood behind him, massaging the man’s broad shoulders. She glanced up at Glont, her eyes bulging with a caught-red-handed look before she sighed, her face going sad.
“Oooo, yeah that’s the spot,” Lance said, smiling, his eyes shut. Just as Glont did an about-face, intending to go right back the way he’d come, Lance opened his eyes.
“Glont Lamont!” he barked. “Stop right there. Where do you think you’re going, fuckface?”
“Oh, just back to my cube, is all.”
“But it looks like you stopped here for a reason. Do you want to talk to Amanda?”
“Um, well, yeah. I guess so.”
“Well, don’t mind me, egghead. Go ahead. Talk away.”
Glont dry-gulped before he continued, now with a stutter. “Um-um-Amanda, I’m sorry, but I just wuh-wuh-wanted to tell you that I can’t go wuh-wuh-with you to the party tuh-tuh-tomorrow. I have to take my nuh-nuh-nephews reverse trick-or-treating. Maybe some other night we could—”
“Okay, that’s enough, retard,” Lance said, thrusting out a big open palm to shush him. “Hey, don’t feel too bad about having to cancel. She wasn’t going to go with you to the party anyway. She’ll be coming by herself.” He turned in his chair to run his wolfish gaze up and down Amanda’s body, licking his lips. “See, I just recently became aware of Miss Baker and her, um, assets. Just this morning, in fact. And I promoted her. Starting tomorrow, Amanda will be joining my team of smokin’ hot administrative assistants up on the fifteenth floor. Well, don’t be rude now, Lamont. Congratulate Amanda on her promotion.”
“Congratulations on yuh-yuh-your promotion, um-um-Amanda.”
“Um—um—um—Amanda!” Lance mocked him. “Hahaha!” He rose from the recliner, pointed a large, bratwurst-like finger at Glont. “Hey, rumor has it you think your dick’s bigger than mine.”
“Um, no. I don’t think that, Lance.”
“It’s Mr. Montgomery to you, shithead! Or sir!”
“Suh-suh-sorry, Mr. Montgomery.”
Ignoring Glont’s denial of his accusation, Lance reached into the front pocket of his chinos, pulled out an unopened BigBoy XXL. “Did you know that I can barely fit into one of these fuckers? Hey, if your dick’s so great—ya braggart—then let’s see how you fill one out.” He tossed the condom at Glont like a ninja throwing star. It glanced off his forehead, dropped to the floor. “Let’s settle this right here and now, Lamont. Let’s see who fills out a BigBoy XXL better, huh?”
“Um, no thanks, suh-suh-sir. I’m sure you’d win.”
“You’re goddamn right I would!” Lance said, brows knitted, the veins in his temples bulging with unfounded anger. “Now here’s what I want you to do, moron. I want you to take that condom out of its wrapper, pull the damn thing over your stupid head—pull it all the way down to just above your mouth so you can still breath. Because this, my friend, is the only way you’ll ever fill out a BigBoy XXL. Heh!” Grinning, he turned to Amanda to see if she was as impressed as he was at his clever joke.
She lowered her gaze to the floor, unamused.
“Yes, sir,” Glont said. He did as he was told, though with some difficulty. Eventually, he got the condom to envelope more than half his head, the tight, translucent mask distorting his face and turning up his nose to make him look like a pig.
“Perfect. Now get down on the floor on your belly and army crawl all the way back to your cubicle.”
For just a second, Glont was tempted to tell Lance to go fuck himself, to quit Fun 4-Life right there on the spot. But despite all his rebellious talk and attitude, Glont knew his family depended on his salary to pay their five mortgages, the outrageous utility bills, and the exorbitant inheritance tax on their ancestral home, not to mention the cost of Ma Ruth’s bubonic plague and leprosy medicines, which had been unscrupulously priced ever since Martin “Pharma Bro” Shkreli had acquired their patents the day after he’d gotten out of prison. But on the plus side, Glont realized the combined act of pulling the condom over his head and shame-crawling back to his cube was probably the closest thing to real work he had ever been asked to do at Fun 4-Life.
So, despite his old, deep-seated hatred for Lance Montgomery, his present humiliation, and the sting of disappointment he felt at losing any chance he might have had with Amanda, Glont said, “Yes, sir,” and got down on the floor.
***
The slow pace of his army crawl and the stretched latex’s impairment of his vision caused Glont to make a few wrong turns, so that it took him ten minutes to get back to his cube. When at length he dragged himself up to his cube entrance, a blurry pair of legs ending in an equally blurry pair of floppy shoes stood mere inches from his face. Glont yanked the condom off his head with a snap.
“Dude,” Sam the clown said, gawking down at Glont with a look of concern. “Did you hear the news yet?”
Glont pushed himself off the floor, slowly, as if he wished to stay down there—and he did. “What news?”
“About Fallingwater.”
“No.” Glont hadn’t thought about the place in years.
“The barbed wire fence and all those KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING signs are gone. And the NO SWIMMING and NO KAYAKING signs along the creek—they’re all gone, too. There’s even a couple of canoes stacked on the streambank at that spot where everyone used to get into the creek.”
“So?”
“Well? You know what that means, right?”
Glont thought about it for a beat before he put two and two together.
As a child, Ma Ruth had always taken Glont, Tom Two, and The Membrane out as a group on Halloween (Glont trick-or-treated at the same houses where Tom Two and The Membrane reverse trick-or-treated). That included Fallingwater. Some of his fondest childhood memories were of riding a canoe with his family on Bear Run at the end of Halloween night to see Old Man Cruthers’ Halloween display, get one last handful of candy, and ride down t
he water slide. But then the Fallingwater tragedy occurred, and that was the end of that. Thereafter, Tom Two and The Membrane were no longer obligated to reverse trick-or-treat at Fallingwater because the new owner forbade all visitors.
But if the barbed wire fence and signs had been removed, that meant Tom Two and The Membrane would have to include Fallingwater in their reverse trick-or-treating itinerary once again.
“Shit.” Glont shook his head, not wanting to believe it. “Who told you that?”
“A bunch of people here at work. I think pretty much everyone in town knows about it by now. Bob—you know, the dude who does jigsaw puzzles and smokes opium all day long?—he was the first to mention it to me when I got here this morning. He said he was down there hiking by the stream yesterday and saw for himself. Then Janet—you know, that chick who gets shitfaced every night and sleeps off her hangovers in her cube all day long every day?—she basically told me the same thing. She said she went into the woods last night to get blackout drunk and saw that all the signs were missing. Then after I talked to her, Brandon—you know, the dude who chain-smokes and plays GTA in his dirty SpongeBob boxers all day long, he told me that—”
“Alright, alright, I get it. So the whole town probably knows about this.”
“Yeah. So what are you gonna do?”
“Whaddaya mean, what am I gonna do? I’m gonna take my ‘phews reverse trick-or-treating like I do every year. I guess we’ll just have to hit Fallingwater this time. Hey, if the barbed wire fence and the signs are gone, I imagine others are gonna go out there too, right?” Glont gulped nervously.
“I don’t think so, man. I’m pretty sure anyone who doesn’t have to go out there won’t be going out there. I mean, who the hell would wanna go to that place with the possibility of TERROR MANNEQUIN lurking there? No parent is gonna want to take their kids trick-or-treating there.”
“TERROR MANNEQUIN was probably just some asshole in a costume,” Glont said with uncertainty. “Whoever he was, there’s no reason to believe he’s still out there thirty years later. TERROR MANNEQUIN is just a story told to scare kids.”
“What if it’s not just a story? What if TERROR MANNEQUIN is a real demonic entity that still haunts Fallingwater after all these years, waiting for people to come back so it can bust out its jack-in-the-box on their asses?”
“You’re an idiot. Regardless, I have to take Tom Two and The Membrane out there tomorrow night. If I don’t, the town will lynch them.”
“But you don’t have to go with them. Why not just put them in a canoe by themselves, send them on their way, and hope for the best?”
Glont grabbed Sam by the collar of his clown suit, shook him. “Fuck you, Bozo. You’re talking about my ’phews, dude. You think I’m just gonna send them in there by themselves if it could be dangerous?”
Sam pulled away from Glont’s grasp. “Easy, man. Just lookin’ out for you, is all. I mean, if TERROR MANNEQUIN is still there, there’s no sense in all three of you dying, right?”
“Fuck you,” Glont said as he left Sam and entered his cubicle. A moment after he collapsed into his recliner, his desk phone rang. Reluctantly, he picked it up. “Yellllo, this is Glont.”
“Glont. It’s Lance Montgomery.”
Shit, Glont thought, his head sinking. “Hello, Mr. Montgomery.”
“Hey, I forgot to mention something when I spoke to you earlier. I’m gonna need you to go down to the courthouse tomorrow morning and have your name legally changed from Glont Lamont to My Tiny Little Weak Bitch, m’kay.”
“Whu-whu-what?”
“Are you deaf, shithead?”
“No, sir. It’s just that, um, I kind of like my name. There’s, like, really no reason to change it.”
“What you like or don’t like doesn’t matter, you turd-jugglin’ retard. Go down to the courthouse tomorrow morning and have your name legally changed to My Tiny Little Weak Bitch or you’re fucking fired. Capiche?”
Glont mustered a sudden burst of courage. “Go ahead and fire me, you dumb, steroid-eatin’, meathead, trust fund bro. I hate this job anyway. You wanna fuck with me, Lance? Come at me, bro. I’ll stab you in your fuckin’ face, you blowhard asshole!”
“Oooooo-eeeeee, look at Mr. Brave Man—finally sticking up for himself after all these years! Well, how about that shit? Hey, if you want me to fire you, I’ll fucking fire you. But then what are you gonna do about that big ol’ house you can’t afford to live in, eh? What are you gonna do about that freak family of yours? Are you just gonna pick up and leave town like your deadbeat dad did? And what about those expensive medications your loathsome old, bag-of-bones mother needs? Because I know for a fact that no one else is hiring in town except for maybe Taco Hell, and you and I both know you can’t pay your bills making minimum wage.”
Glont knew Lance was right. He closed his eyes, hung his head in defeat, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m very sorry for my outburst, sir. No, I don’t want to be fired.”
“That’s what I thought, My Tiny Little Weak Bitch. Apology accepted. Now, do what I said and make that trip to the courthouse tomorrow morning, m’kay?”
“Yes, Mr. Montgomery.”
Chapter 8
“D id ya hear ’bout Fallingwater?” Ma Ruth asked the moment Glont entered the front door.
“Yeah, I heard,” Glont said dejectedly. He shut the door behind him, hung his jacket on the coat rack, and turned to face her. Sitting in her rocker, his mother wore a rubber Freddy Krueger mask—an expensive one by the looks of it—and what appeared to be a homemade Freddy Krueger glove constructed from an old work glove and four steak knives.
“Wow, Ma. That’s a pretty great getup. I didn’t know you were dressing up for Halloween this year. That Freddy mask is amazing. In fact, you look more like Freddy Krueger than Freddy Krueger does. Did you order it on Amazon? You better not have spent a lot of money on that.”
“I ain’t spent no money at all, boy. It’s not a mask.”
“Whaddaya mean it’s not a mask.”
“It’s not a mask. I decided to be Freddy fer Halloween this year, and I knew we couldn’t afford a mask. So earlier today, I filled the kitchen sink with water, went out to the garage with some matches, doused my head with gasoline, and set it afire. Then I ran back inside, screamin’ bloody murder, dunked my head into the sink to put out the flames. It hurt a good bit, but it worked real good, huh?” Ma Ruth raised the clawed glove in the air while she imitated Freddy’s diabolical laughter.
“Jesus Christ, Ma! Look what you did to yourself! Are you in pain right now?”
“Nah. As long as I keep smokin’ this clown tear-laced meth I got, I’ll be alright.” She gestured at a glass pipe sitting on the end table beside her, its bulbous end scorched black. “I feel jus’ fine.”
“But you’re disfigured now! Severely and permanently. And all your hair is gone! Is that what you wanted?”
“Sure is. Y’know what a fan o’ Freddy I am.” The woman cackled at the alliteration and near rhyming of her remark, repeating it in crazed singsong: “Fan o’ Freddy I am! Fan o’ Freddy I am! Fan o’ Freddy I am! Fan o’ Freddy I am! Har-har-har-har…”
“Ma, I think we should take you to the hospital. Burns that bad can become infected.”
“Nah, I’ll be okay. If it looks like they’re startin’ to get ’fected, I’ll just pour some salt on ’em. Or some mercury. Maybe put leeches on ’em. I can also cauterize ’em some more with a blowtorch if need be. And if none of that helps, I can always give myself a frontal lobotomy.”
Glont shook his head in bafflement. “If you say so, Ma. Did you tell Tom Two and The Membrane about Fallingwater yet?”
“Nah. I was going to, but they ran upstairs when they saw my new Freddy face.”
Glont crossed the living room to the hall and called up the stairs: “Hey, you two. Come on down here. I need to talk to you. And don’t be scared of Ma Ruth. She’s just dressed up for Halloween.” He went back into the living room, sat o
n the couch.
Tom Two and The Membrane came down a minute later, slogged into the room, both looking glum.
“Come up here, Double T,” Glont said as he patted the sofa cushion next to him. Tom Two did as he was told, climbing up onto the sofa and sitting right up against Glont’s leg. Glont put his arm around him while The Membrane settled by his feet.
“Hey, Tom. Don’t be afraid of your crazy, old Ma Ruth. She just made herself look like Freddy for Halloween, is all. Well, Halloween and all the other days in the year, I guess. Still, nothing to be scared of.”
Tom Two shook his head and signed a response: It’s not her I’m scared of.
“Okay. Well, what are you scared of then?”
Tom Two signed again: TERROR MANNEQUIN!
“TERROR MANNEQUIN? Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about. What do you know about TERROR MANNEQUIN, Tom Two?”
Tom Two indicated he knew the whole story behind TERROR MANNEQUIN. He also knew that he and The Membrane would have to go reverse trick-or-treating at Fallingwater tomorrow. Apparently, The Membrane had snuck out late last night after everyone had gone to bed, as it was wont to do on occasion. The thing went to play at the nearby community park, where it happened upon some teenagers drinking on the playground. While spying on them, it heard them talking about how Tom Two and The Membrane would have to go reverse trick-or-treating at Fallingwater this year or else they would get lynched by the townspeople. The teenagers also said that TERROR MANNEQUIN was there waiting for them.
Glont cast The Membrane a look of a disapproval. “Well, you’re lucky no one caught you last night. Because if they had, they could have killed you. Yes, we have to go to Fallingwater tomorrow night for reverse trick-or-treat. We haven’t had to do that in many years because of the barbed wire fence and the signs telling everyone to keep out, but now the signs and the fence are gone. That much is true.
“But this TERROR MANNEQUIN business? It’s probably just all made up. There’s no proof that TERROR MANNEQUIN is real. There’s definitely no proof TERROR MANNEQUIN is still at Fallingwater, waiting for a fresh batch of victims.”
Terror Mannequin Page 5