Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls: Tales of Horror and the Bizarre

by Mark McLaughlin

“Outside!” Jessica repeated with dread.

  “Mrs. Randolph,” Chad said, “what is going through your mind right now, knowing that little Mindy is somewhere out in the cold, alone and helpless?”

  “It’s not that cold,” Emily Randolph said. “I mean, it’s no big deal. Why are you even here? Geez, this must really be a slow news day! You’re stirring up a big panic over nothing.”

  “Have you printed up posters of the missing puppy?” Chad asked earnestly, his face a study in polite concern. “How much are you willing to offer as a reward?”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Give me a break! It’s not even cold enough to freeze an ice cube out here. Mindy will be okay.”

  “Maybe so,” Chad said. “But what if it suddenly gets even colder? In blustery conditions, every second counts!”

  The housewife shrugged. “I suppose I could run some posters off on my laser printer, and put them around the neighborhood first thing in the morning. It’s a black-and-white printer, though. The posters don’t have to be color, do they?”

  Chad raised an eyebrow. “A color printout would be much more helpful in ensuring positive identification of the missing family member.”

  “Wha—? It’s not like one of my kids is lost. It’s just a puppy.” The woman sighed. “Well, my boy Skip has a scanner on his computer. I suppose I could scan in a color picture, take it down to Kinko’s on a disk and—”

  Suddenly a boy’s voice rang out off-camera. “Hey, Mom! I found Mindy! She was in the garage.”

  “And there you have it!” Chad said. “Crisis averted here on Lincoln Street. A beloved puppy has been reunited with her human family!”

  Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. “That was a close call.”

  Chad nodded. “Maybe a little too close. Back to you, Brett and Jessica!”

  “Thanks, Chad.” Brett smiled for the camera. “We’ll be right back. When we return—more on Cold Snap! Sugarville in Peril!”

  It was time for a commercial break.

  A potbellied man shoveled snow from the sidewalk in front of his house. He waved to his wife, watching him from the living room window. Suddenly he clutched his chest and collapsed.

  “Don’t let this happen to you!” boomed a deep male voice. “Clearing the walk can be a breeze with a Winter-Pro Sno-Blower, on sale now at Munsen Hardware.”

  The image of Munsen Hardware filled the screen. By the door stood the owner, Harold Munsen, who said, with a cheery nasal twang, “Serving Sugarville for twenty-seven years! We’re at the intersection of Lombard Street and Culpepper Avenue, with plenty of free parking. And as always, free balloons for the kids!”

  The screen returned to the sidewalk, where the wife was proudly pushing a Winter-Pro Sno-Blower as the paramedics took away her dead husband.

  In the next commercial, a thin, pale man in a black suit blew his icy breath over an old woman’s hands as she tried to unlock her ice-encrusted front door on a winter’s day. The man’s face glittered like a fresh snowball. The woman winced with pain.

  “When winter’s numbing gusts make your arthritis flare up, take action!” purred a throaty but still very feminine voice. “Soooothe the pain with deep penetrating Campho-Supreme.”

  The old woman pulled an orange tube out of her purse and rubbed some pink cream onto her hands.

  Three chorus girls in orange sequined gowns then danced into view. The old woman finally opened the door of the house and the three dancers led the pale man inside. Suddenly the girls and the man, minus their eveningwear, are seen soaking in a large hot tub. Behind them, the old woman happily opened pickle jars and broke walnuts with a nutcracker, delighted by her newfound manual dexterity.

  The pale man sighed with pleasure as he slowly melted into the tub. Apparently his flesh and bones were made of packed snow.

  “Campho-Supreme!” purred the voice. “Available at all HealthPal Drugstores!”

  With a blare of dramatic music, the news returned.

  “We’ve just learned,” Brett said, “that the temperature has dropped another two degrees.”

  On the monitor, the logo popped up again—COLD SNAP! SUGARVILLE IN PERIL.

  A crew member moussed Jessica’s hair a bit higher during the commercial. “Let’s look in on Channel 7 Action News meteorologist Jason Kincaid,” the anchorwoman said. “Jason, are these temperatures just going to keep dropping and dropping until Sugarville reaches absolute zero?”

  “Ummm…” Jason sported red hair, a golden moustache and a black goatee. The weather set was actually located less than forty feet to the right of the news desk. “That sort of thing very rarely happens, Jessica. In fact, it never happens.”

  He then turned to the huge map of the metro area and outlying communities behind him. Sugarville was represented by red outlines around various districts of the city. Jason glanced at an off-camera monitor to check the wall behind him, since from his perspective, it was only a flat blue-screen surface.

  Turbulent white and gray swirls appeared to be closing in on the city. Within one of the larger swirls, a bizarre, multi-limbed figure writhed fitfully. “We have an—unusual—atmospheric condition on our hands tonight, Jessica.”

  “Is this the start of a new Ice Age?” she suggested.

  “Ordinarily,” Jason said, “I would tell you…no. That’s really unlikely. But—” He gestured toward the writhing figure. “With this squirmy, spidery thing here, which seems to be some kind of living creature—I’m not sure what to tell you.”

  “So Jason,” Brett said, “this spidery-looking thingamajig we’re looking at… That’s not normal?”

  The weatherman cocked his head to one side. “Earth to Brett! No, it is not normal. Calling it unusual would even be a gigantic understatement. This is way beyond weird. This is like some kind of alien freakshow from space-Hell. It’s horrible. Frightening. And it’s happening to us.”

  “Did you say ‘alien’?” Jessica said, her eyes bright with the promise of a sensational story.

  Brett nodded. “He did indeed say ‘alien’. And I think the question on everybody’s mind right now is: What does this alien being want, and why is it trying to freeze Sugarville?”

  Suddenly a new logo appeared on the monitor—a picture of the multi-limbed shape, surrounded by the blood-red, dripping words ALIEN MENACE! SUGARVILLE IN TERROR.

  Brett’s forehead furrowed with concern. “Jason, do you think there’s any connection between this alien and the Martians in the classic science-fiction movie, War of the Worlds?”

  On the weather map, the writhing figure began to grow and swirl, swirl and grow, until it was three times bigger than before. Jason saw this on the off-camera monitor. Alarmed, he studied yet another monitor to check the latest weather readings. “Oh my God!” he shouted. “The temperature has just dropped thirty degrees! I can’t believe you people. Some kind of freaky space-spider is freezing Sugarville and you’re all just as flaky as ever, acting like this is some kind of movie, logos and all! Well, I quit! I’m leaving before this stupid town turns into one big idiot iceberg!”

  So saying, he snatched off his chip-on microphone, threw it to the floor and ran out of the studio.

  Jessica and Brett gazed at the weather map, enthralled by the unearthly image that stirred there. The grotesque silhouette had at least a dozen twitching, multi-jointed legs, as well as numerous clusters of groping tentacles.

  “We have another report from Chad Yamata and the Channel 7 Action News Van,” Brett said at last. “Chad, what’s happening on the streets of Sugarville?”

  On the monitor, Chad had his coat wrapped tightly around him. The wind had whipped his moussed hair into a frenzied bird’s-nest. Behind him, the sky had the same color scheme as a three-day-old bruise—mostly deep purple, but lightly tinted with pus-yellow and a nauseating shade of green.<
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  “This cold snap has really taken a sudden turn for the worse,” Chad said. “It’s as cold as a deep-freeze out here. The wind has gone wild—and then there’s that thing up there…” He pointed up, and the camera-man diligently aimed above their heads.

  And there it was.

  The creature from the weather screen.

  Except here it wasn’t a mere silhouette.

  Here it was a loathsome abnormality with flesh like ice-blue alligator hide. Crystalline fibers grew in bristly tufts all over its body. Muscular tentacles sprouted from the joints of its flexing legs. The monster stared down at Sugarville with six clusters of blood-red eyes, like enormous cocktail rings loaded with rubies as big as watermelons.

  But the creature’s most horrific feature by far was its mouth. Its gnashing, vertical maw was loaded with saber-like teeth, with two prominent tusks in the center of each sideways jaw. The mouth was surrounded by longer groupings of the crystalline bristles, and judging from the direction in which they moved in the wind, it looked like the creature was sucking in air rapidly as it descended upon the city.

  On the roof of the Sugarville Bank Building, a man in a trench coat took pictures of the monster. Suddenly he was caught up in the wind that rushed into that insatiable mouth. He was carried aloft, and the grinding sabers slashed him into thin red ribbons in mere seconds.

  “Good night, Sugarville,” Chad said. “We’re getting the hell out of here! Terry, let’s roll!”

  “You bet your ass,” a gruff voice said as the camera was clicked off.

  Brett gnawed his lower lip lightly, fretfully. A minute passed. Then at last he turned toward the studio camera. “And so an unspeakable alien menace threatens Sugarville.” He then moved to face Jessica—

  But Jessica wasn’t there.

  He reached over to her chair and picked up a piece of paper. “Jessica left a note. It says, ‘Brett, I’m going to get my kid and then we’re heading south. You and the crew had better take off, too. Save yourself. Love, Jess.’”

  Brett stood up and looked out past the cameras.

  “Well,” he said, resuming his seat, “I see the crew has already left. Looks like it’s just me, this camera and whoever happens to be watching. Wow.”

  He stared straight ahead, thinking.

  “My wife left me two years ago,” he said. “We never had any kids. I don’t have any pets. All my relatives hate me—personal matter, no need to get into that. So I guess I’ll…stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

  “Besides, this TV station is probably a pretty safe place to be. It’s on the outskirts of town, so maybe that spider-thing won’t notice it.

  “It looked like that creature was sucking in air… Maybe it’s somehow sucking in all the heat. But then, I’m no scientist, so what do I know? The thing seemed to be made of some kind of icy stuff, so that could also be part of the whole temperature deal.

  “If there’s anybody watching, I just want you to know I’ve had a lot of fun being your news guy. When I was little, my family always called me stupid—my wife used to call me ‘the talking head’ and I know she didn’t mean that in any kind of nice way. But being a news guy, that has always made me feel smart. Really, I had mostly good grades in high school and college. I’m not an idiot.”

  He pulled a small earphone out of his left ear. “I mean, sure, I have this little whatchamacallit so they can tell me what to say if there’s a problem. I guess Ashley must’ve left, too. That’s the copywriter at the other end of this thing. She was the one who came up with that War of the Worlds line. That was pretty stupid. I mean, that movie was all made-up stuff, right? That Ashley! She could have at least said goodbye.”

  He threw the earphone across the studio. Then he simply sat and listened.

  Outside the building, the wind—and perhaps something else—roared like thunder. Then the ground began to shake.

  “Listen to that!” Brett cried. “That big space-monster must be coming this way! It’s so fucking huge—maybe it’s already destroyed Sugarville. Something that big, it wouldn’t take long!

  “You know what? I’m just going to stay right here. If it gets me—it gets me. As simple as that. I’m no technical wizard, but the power is still on, so this place must have some kind of back-up generator. And Camera One’s little red light is still on! I bet somewhere in the building, this broadcast is being recorded. Maybe my death can be a big contribution to the news world, and science, and humanity in general. Folks can watch that thing eat me close-up, and then maybe in the process, they’ll learn something really important about the monster…something that will help Earth to defeat it.”

  A tear rolled down his cheek. “I really do care what happens to people. I’m not just a talking head. And by the way, my name’s not Brett Bellamy. It’s Harry Peters. Yeah, go ahead, make fun of my name. I don’t care. Make fun of some poor guy who’s probably going to be dead in about two minutes.”

  At that moment, an enormous ice-blue cylinder—a single leg of the creature—burst through the wall and then jerked quickly upward, flinging off the entire roof.

  Harry Peters looked up in utter horror at a mouth filled with hundreds of enormous teeth, streaked with bright blood and dark gore. The larger tusks gnashed hungrily.

  Harry turned with a crazed smile toward the camera.

  “Are you watching? Are you? Watch, you fuckers! Watch this! Watch! Watch!”

  The nightmare mouth began to descend.

  Then the creature stepped inside the building to steady itself.

  An enormous, razor-clawed foot landed right on Camera One, smashing it to bits.

  I AM NOT PAINSETTIA PLONT

  Painsettia Plont eats

  teddy bears and dollies,

  rubber ducks and robots,

  rocking horse surprise!

  —from “Painsettia’s Theme,”

  Santa’s Elves Meet Painsettia Plont

  Arla stepped up to the cosmetics counter and examined the lipsticks. Spring Strawberry? Caribbean Coral? Jungle Pink? Anything would be better than—

  “Sorry, Miss Plont, but we’re all out of green,” said the clerk, a plump, fortyish woman with frosted hair and a toothy smile. “I bought your show on video for my youngest, Debbie. She just loves it. She goes around the house singing that song, ‘Painsettia Plont eats teddy bears and dollies…’” She thought for a moment. “‘Rubber ducky pies’? Is that how it goes?”

  “Well, no,” Arla sighed. “I’ll take the Spring Strawberry. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Certainly, Ms. Plont.” The clerk began to ring up the sale. “Or can I call you Painsettia?”

  “My real name is Arla. Arla Merrick.”

  On her way out of the department store, Arla noticed a sales display for the video of her old Christmas special, Santa’s Elves Meet Painsettia Plont. The cover of the box depicted her in full Painsettia array: green lipstick, white face powder, red fright-wig, sequined ornament earrings, white fur robe and silver curly-toed boots. The special, first aired in 1977, was broadcast each year during the holiday season. It had been released on video a few weeks ago, in time for Christmas shopping.

  Above the display, the video played on a monitor. On the screen, Painsettia Plont was menacing her kindhearted younger sister, Mrs. Claus, in the Secret Christmas Cave.

  “Ashamed of me?” hissed Painsettia, raising a bright red eyebrow. “You silly, mindless fool! I am very much a part of your life, and you cannot silence me! Now I have you, my sweet—and soon, you shall know the terror and the chill of my wintery vengeance!”

  Arla crossed the mall corridor to a toy store. She needed to buy gifts for a niece and two nephews. She saw a few Painsettia dolls on a shelf next to some plush elves.

  A red-haired girl in a quilted jacket pointed at Arla. �
�Look, Mommy! It’s the mean toy-eater lady!”

  The girl’s mother looked up. “Oh my God!” She hurried to Arla’s side. “You’re Poin—Painsettia, yeah, Painsettia Plont! The kids watch your show every year. I love the scene where the elves roll you into that big snowball—”

  Arla cleared her throat. “That was a part I played fifteen years ago. My real name is Arla.”

  The girl moved closer, but remained half-hidden by an enormous stuffed panda. “You’re not gonna eat all these toys, are you?” she said. Her mother laughed.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Arla said. “I have shopping to do.”

  As she browsed the shop, children gaped and pointed. She used to be proud of her patrician good looks: high brow, full lips, noble curved nose. Now she hated her face—or more to the point, she hated having to share it with Painsettia Plont.

  “Wanna eat this?” shouted a stout blond boy, holding out a baby doll.

  “Leave her alone,” another boy whispered, “or she’ll eat all the toys.” The chubby boy looked from Arla to the doll to the shelves and shelves of toys. Then he started to cry.

  An elderly woman poked her in the ribs with a bony finger. “Just look what you did. You’ve got a lot of nerve, scaring kids in a toy store.”

  A thin housewife with horn-rimmed glasses stared at Arla. “The next time your show is on, I’m going to cheer when you go down the bottomless pit in that snowball.” She looked the actress from head to toe. “Bitch.”

  “I’m just trying to buy some gifts,” Arla said.

  A girl in an oversized pink sweatshirt hurried up to her and kicked her in the shin. Arla cried out as she fell into a display of toy fire engines. The pain brought tears to her eyes.

  “She’s gonna eat all the fire engines!” screamed the girl in the sweatshirt. “She’s gonna eat everything!”

  Arla pulled herself out of the pile. “I’m an actress, for Christ’s sake!” she moaned. She wiped the tears from her eyes and her hands came away streaked with mascara. She glared at the elderly woman. “Because of idiots like you, I can hardly even get a job in dinner theatre! Directors won’t take me seriously because people think I’m that damned Christmas witch! Painsettia Plont is a character from a TV program. I am not Painsettia Plont!”