by Mike Baron
Was that what it was all about? Looking for a replacement, or a fresh host in which to insert his dead wife’s brain, spirit, zeitgeist? And how had he planned to do that with a brain that had lain in the earth for twenty years?
Yet look at what he’d accomplished.
Maybe he was some kind of Nazi warlock. Maybe he could raise the dead. If so, let him raise Fagan. Let him raise Curtis and Fred and Chainsaw and even Mad Dog. And shame on her for stopping there.
Helmet Head walked up to the bar. He seemed to be limping a little and his right boot left a bloody print on the floor. He stopped at the bar like some bizarre black communications tower. She could hear him breathing with a deep, rhythmic thrum that seemed to emanate from his very center.
Macy forced herself to stare into that black visor as if it were a camera.
“What’ll it be,” she said voice cracking.
Helmet Head raised one hand and pointed at the bottle of Jack behind her.
“Why don’t you speak? I know you can talk. I heard you in the cave. Why did you take me? Do I remind you of your dead wife?”
Slowly Helmet Head used one finger to raise the visor. Macy gasped. His face looked like the Mohave Desert with two ice cold blue pools at the bottom of deep wells.
“Her name was Gretchen,” Von Mulverstedt said in a thin reedy voice. “My name is Helmut Von Mulverstedt.”
“What do you want with me?”
The blasted face regarded her silently. The finger again pointed to the Jack.
She reached for the earthenware jug. “You’re from Germany, aren’t you? You ever hear of moonshine? Corn liquor? That’s something they don’t have in Germany. It’s kind of special. Would you like to try it?”
Helmet Head took the jug from her, uncorked it and held it to his flat pug nose. He set it down and nodded. Macy took one of the cut glass tumblers off the shelf and poured in a couple of fingers.
“Why don’t you take your helmet off? You can’t drink it like that.”
Helmet Head stared at the glass on the countertop. He reached for his helmet, undid the buckle and lifted it off. Macy wished he hadn’t. The right side of his skull was scraped to the skull, a white bone wall. The flesh just tapered off. Part of his right lips and gums were missing exposing vulpine canines.
Helmet Head brought the tumbler to his face and inhaled. He sipped and sipped again. He tossed it back and exhaled a rattle of satisfaction. He indicated that he wanted more.
Macy reached for her own tumbler. “Mind if I join you?”
Von Mulverstedt nodded. Macy poured Von Mulverstedt two more fingers, filled her own glass to the rim and poured it down Von Mulverstedt’s neck. She grabbed a pack of Kongo Klub matches with the silhouette of a nude, lit the whole book and hurled it in Helmet Head’s face. He stared at her dumbly for a second like a betrayed animal. The corn liquor ignited.
Macy took the jug and sloshed it all over Helmet Head who jerked spasmodically, flames erupting from inside his suit accompanied by little reports like circuits blowing. He began a St. Vitus dance, careening into the wall and furniture, trampling the broken stein shards and emitting an eerie high keening sound.
“Die you motherfucker,” Macy said through clenched teeth and bolted out the back, through the storeroom, out into the back lot just as a sheriff’s deputy pulled into the lot red and blue light bar flashing. Macy ran clockwise around the building to greet him.
The cop got out wearing a Smoky hat. He was young—younger than Fagan. She’d never seen him before. “You called about Officer Fagan?”
“He’s in there,” she said pointing to the club. “Helmet Head. He’s burning”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, who’s in the club?”
“The killer! The one I told you about.”
The young cop opened his new Ford Taurus’ rear door. “Would you like to have a seat while I go check out the club? I won’t close the door. You just go on and have a seat.”
The front door of the club exploded outward in flame as Helmet Head barreled out, head down, not looking where he was going, landing on the tarmac and running straight at them. The deputy strong-armed Macy around the corner of the car and pushed her down.
“Get down!” he yelled drawing his service automatic and swinging at the flaming juggernaut. Before he could shoot Helmet Head fell. His feet stopped moving followed by his legs, torso and arms sprawling toward them like a dropped load of cinders. His leather sleeves popped and ballooned releasing puffs of white smoke. The whole long corpse smoked like a Yule log momentarily obscuring the view. The wind whipped the smoke away.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” the young cop muttered crossing himself. His name tag said Ralph Underwood.
Von Mulverstedt was even more elongated in death, as if his ankles and wrists had telescoped. A smallish blackened skull with a few wires extruding lay atop the carbonized spine.
Gun drawn, the young deputy took his first tentative step toward the remains.
The tornado sirens went off.
***
CHAPTER 47
After the Storm
The deputy wheeled with a stricken expression. “Ma’am, does that building have a basement?”
“No. It’s a slab.”
The deputy looked around. “Ma’am, we’re going to have to get in that ditch over there—it appears to be the lowest spot around. I think if we snug up to that drainage wall we’ll be all right.”
Macy looked up. The clouds were back, rearranging themselves like a giant lava lamp. It wasn’t fair. Not after all she’d been through. They were supposed to skip the tornado. The air and wind had changed again, blowing sharp with a hint of cold. Myriad wind devils whipped off the tarmac and dust streamed across the parking lot in a river. The deputy took Marcy by the arm and more or less marched her down into the ravine that also served as a drainage ditch. A four-foot wall of bricks fronted the highway side.
They lay head to head at intersection of bricks and grass—the weather coming from the west—over the bricks. The sky turned bruise purple and for an instant the blowing stopped. In a second it was eerily silent save for the ululation of the tornado sirens going off all over the county. The wind paused. They held their breath. The deputy’s lapel radio squawked. He ignored it. There was a shriek from hell and the sound of an approaching freight train.
All was chaos—howling wind, a whipping froth of moisture as if they were trapped in a clothes washer. Through slit eyes Macy saw a gray fog of meaningless motion. She shut her eyes and buried her face in her arms. White noise filled the sky.
Then it was past, eerily silent, the sirens stopped and the sun shining. Macy stayed where she was but turned and looked at the sky, then at the Kongo Klub.
The Kongo Klub was no more. All that remained was the concrete slab.
The deputy had her arm again. “Ma’am! Are you all right?”
Macy did an inventory. “I think so.”
The deputy stood and looked. He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh in frustration. “Shit.”
His car was gone.
Helmet Head was gone.
Fred’s truck sat at the edge of the cornfield one hundred yards from where it had been parked.
“What the fuck!” Doc boomed unseen from the bed. “I’m packin’ my bags and moving to Seattle.”
Five minutes later they heard the wail of sirens. The sheriff arrived followed by ambulance. The sheriff was a big man in a Stetson with a handlebar mustache. He went up to Deputy Underwood who hovered over Macy like a worried mother hen.
“Where’s Fagan?” Fullerton said.
“He’s out at the farm,” Macy said. “I’ll show you how to get there.”
Fullerton led with Underwood in the shotgun seat and Macy in back followed by the ambulance. They had to pause several times to lift fallen tree limbs out of the way. The farm was no longer hard to find. The tornado and a possible downdraft had flattened the surrounding forest like a crop circle. The charred con
crete base of the barn was all that remained. The house was gone, buried under piles of rubble: trees, rocks, bike parts, the Bobcat and topping it all off like a cherry on a sundae was Deputy Underwood’s cruiser, red and blue lights flashing.
Underwood set out to scale the pile.
“Get down offa there, son!” Fullerton boomed. “We’ll get a crane out here.”
Of the Road Dogs or their tormentor there was no sign. If there were an extensive laboratory and cave system beneath the house, it would take a long time to sort out. Forensics would first have to go through the remains to determine what happened and preserve any evidence.
Macy knew they didn’t believe her.
“Young lady,” Fullerton said, “I think you need to go to the hospital. Vern!” he called to the ambulance driver.
Macy knew there was no use arguing with him. Any attempt to convince them that Helmet Head was real would only make her appear more unstable than she already must.
Then they found the cemetery.
***
About the Author
Mike Baron is the co-creator of the comic books Nexus and Badger. He lives with his wife in Colorado.
Many people helped me with this book. First and foremost is Ian Fischer with whom I plotted. Helmet Head began life as a slasher film. Ian is the director of the by-now award-winning documentary Rude Dude, a documentary about my friend and co-creator of Nexus, Steve Rude. Fred Milverstedt, Tom Kinney and Stephan Hoff all read the manuscript. Fred was particularly helpful. Mean Pete Brandvold (www.peterbrandvold.com) was tireless in his support. Ellen Jo Baron and Tom (Doc) Delaney provided crucial assistance.
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