Several children backed away from Arla. Many of them were crying.
Arla shouldered her way past the thin housewife and rushed out of the store. Out in the mall, she realized that she had dropped the small sack containing her lipstick. The hell with it. There was no way she was going to return to that damned toy store.
She found a restroom and cleaned the mascara from her face. She then left the mall, searched out her car in the packed parking lot, and drove until she found a restaurant. She parked and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were red and she looked pale. She decided to visit a tanning salon soon. A pale complexion only emphasized her resemblance to bone-white Painsettia.
The walls of the restaurant were lined with bookshelves and mirrors. The hostess showed her to a table in the no-smoking section.
“You look familiar,” the hostess said. “Oh, you look like my old landlady, Mrs. Prescott. Any relation?”
Arla shook her head tiredly.
“My roommate and I used to call her the Snow Queen,” the hostess continued, handing her a menu. “She looked like that weirdo lady on that Christmas show. You know—what’s her name?”
Arla stared at her reflection in a mirror near her table. “Painsettia Plont. Painsettia Plont. Tell the waitress to bring me a Manhattan.”
Soon the drink arrived, and Arla downed it in three swallows. For dinner she ordered the Surf & Turf Special. She felt that she needed to pamper herself after the day’s ordeal.
A slim, black-haired woman waved to her from a booth at the far side of the room. She looked vaguely familiar. The woman left her seat and approached Arla.
“Well if it isn’t Painsettia Plont!” the woman said. “I’m Maggie Carlson.”
With the name, Arla now recognized the face. Maggie Carlson was the host of DayBreak, a local morning program.
“I never miss your Christmas show,” Maggie said, taking a seat across from Arla. “Do you live in town or are you just visiting?”
“I’ve lived here in Detroit for about ten years. And I watch DayBreak. I’m a morning person.” Arla wondered if her breath smelled too boozy. Then she decided that she really didn’t care.
“I bet my viewers would just love to see what Painsettia Plont is up to these days,” Maggie said.
“She’s up to her knees in monkey-doo.” Arla found the statement wonderfully liberating. “It’s hell trying to find work when everyone still thinks of me as Painsettia. My last job was as an extra in some penny-ante production of Oklahoma. Before that, I played a burn victim on a cop show. They covered my face with bandages.”
Maggie tapped a scarlet fingernail against Arla’s glass. “Let me buy you another. Your real name is…?”
“Arla Merrick. And thank you for asking. Most people don’t.”
Maggie pulled a small notebook from her purse. “Can I have your phone number, Arla? I’d like you to be on my show next week. Who’d have thought a cherished Christmas special could have a downside?” She winked. “I don’t mind tipping the occasional sacred cow.”
* * * *
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Arla wrapped gifts for her niece, nephews, and sister Mavis. She had bought them all gloves and scarves. She was determined never again to set foot in a toy store.
Her guest spot on Maggie’s show the day before had gone quite well. Arla felt good, even optimistic. Perhaps a sympathetic director had seen the show. God, but she longed to play a real role. Lady MacBeth. Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Even old Mrs. Paroo from The Music Man would be better than nothing.
Mavis had said that she and the kids would be stopping by around noon. Arla glanced at her digital wristwatch. 7:42 AM. She still had plenty of time to finish a few chores around the house. She wondered if it had snowed the night before. Perhaps she needed to shovel the walk. She looked to the window, but of course, the drapes were drawn to help keep out the cold.
She crossed to the front door and opened it a crack. A little more. Then all the way.
Her neighborhood was—gone. Before her stretched an endless expanse of snowy hillocks and ice boulders. A blast of sub-zero wind blew snow into her eyes and momentarily stole her breath away.
She slammed the door shut and leaned against it. Something was wrong, incredibly wrong. It was as though her house had been picked up and dropped in an Arctic wasteland. Had some sort of freak blizzard covered everything in the neighborhood except her house? The lights were on; blizzard or not, she still had electricity.
She looked for the remote control but as usual, couldn’t find it. She clicked on the power button of the television. Perhaps she could find a news show that would tell her something.
When the screen lit up, the first thing Arla saw was the face of Painsettia Plont. She was looking at a close-up of the video box for Santa’s Elves Meet Painsettia Plont.
A sandy-haired man with a dark moustache appeared on the screen—Chip Carlyle, co-host of a national morning show, Breakfast with Chip & Sandra.
“Painsettia Plont has never been a happy camper,” he said, “and it seems that the same can be said for actress Arla Merrick. Yesterday on Detroit’s DayBreak, she claimed that the role has ruined her career.”
His blond co-host, Sandra Dupree, rolled her eyes. “It’s funny. I never really thought of Painsettia Plont as just an actress in a costume. She was like Scrooge, or a Christmas version of the Wicked Witch of the West—half legend, half real. At least, she was to me. I do feel sorry for Arla Merrick, but it’s a pity she had to spoil the illusion. Know what I mean, Chip?”
“Sure do, Sandra,” Chip said. “I’ll never be able to watch that show again without thinking of old Arla sitting by the phone, year in and year out, waiting for Hollywood to call.”
The show cut to a clip. Painsettia Plont was standing on a moonlit mountaintop. Her white fur robe billowed and flapped in the wind. In the distance, lightning streaked across a steel-grey sky.
What was this? Arla didn’t remember this scene. Painsettia was smiling her crooked smile straight into the camera. Yes, Arla was sure of it; there were no such shots in the special.
“Ashamed of me?” The voice of Painsettia Plont roared thunderously. “You silly, mindless fool! I am very much a part of your life, and you cannot silence me!” The voice grew louder, and Arla clapped her hands over her ears. “Now I have you, my sweet—and soon, you shall know the terror and the chill of my wintery vengeance!”
Painsettia sneered and began to laugh. The volume continued to rise, until the cups and plates in Arla’s living room cabinet rattled on their shelves. Arla tried to turn down the volume, but the knob was colder than ice—so cold that it turned the flesh of her fingertips dark grey. The knob would not move; she tried the power button, but it too was frozen.
The roar of Painsettia’s laugh rose so high that it shattered the glass in the windows. Icy gusts of wind tore the drapes from the walls and blew snow into the room. Arla felt twin bursts of pain in her head. She realized with horror that her eardrums had ruptured.
Arla stumbled away from the television, down the hall to her bedroom. She would lock herself in and wrap herself in quilts to keep out the cold—
The bedroom was a complete shambles. The windows had shattered here too, and snow covered her bed and nightstand. Arla cried out as the wrinkled face of a little man peered in through a broken window.
The little man leaped into the room. He wore a green suit and a red wool cap. Santa’s elves wore the same sort of outfit in the Christmas special.
More elves slipped into the room—Arla lost count after eight. Several of the elves grabbed her and proceeded to manhandle her through the broken window.
“What are you doing?” Arla shouted. “Let go! Let go of me!” She tried to shake free of them, but they were too strong. They dragged her through
the windswept wasteland, over jagged shards of ice that tore at her clothes and flesh.
Eventually the elves stopped and scooped up handfuls of snow. They grinned wickedly as they packed the snow against her body.
Arla gasped with shock when she saw that they were situated on a edge of a huge chasm. She now knew that the elves were reenacting the finale of the Christmas special, in which they packed Painsettia Plont in the center of an enormous snowball and dropped her down into a bottomless pit.
“I’m not her! I’m not!” she cried. “For Christ’s sake! Stop it! You’re killing me!”
The elves packed the snow tighter, tighter, adding more and more. She tried to catch the gaze of even one of the elves. If only they would look at her—really look, and see that she was not their true enemy. But they were all so intent upon building the giant snowball. In a moment, only her head extended from the icy sphere. “You’ve got to stop,” she pleaded. “I am not Painsettia Plont!”
The elves pushed at the snowball. At first it wouldn’t budge, so they pushed harder. In a moment it rolled forward, teetered on the edge of the pit, and fell.
Arla screamed as she hurled into the chasm. Long after exhaustion forced her into numb silence, she continued to fall, down and down into an endless nightmare abyss of utter cold.
HUNGRY FOR FACES
It was horrible, watching Mr. Linfield move through his life like a maggot through shit. Michael saw him at least twice a week—in the streets, outside the supermarket, even at the mall. Young boys shouted at Mr. Linfield; sometimes they threw rocks or pop bottles at him. Everyone else walked past him, ignoring his outstretched hand.
That was what hurt the most: seeing Mr. Linfield beg. But then, what else could he do? He was a streetperson. A statistic with a ravaged face.
Something was wrong with the old guy’s mind. Whenever Michael handed him a few bucks, Mr. Linfield would nod and mumble incoherently. It was horrible, and it had to end.
* * * *
The potbellied mechanic pointed to a gray, two-story house. On the upper floor, a single window gave forth a faint blue glow. “He lives there. See that light? Now gimme my fifty bucks.”
As Michael handed him the money, he took a good look at the older man’s face: red nose, shiny cheeks, eyes all but buried in flesh. A too-ripe face. The mechanic counted the bills twice, then shoved them in a pocket and ran down the road.
The weedy yard around the house was littered with broken bottles and old boards, so Michael had to watch his step. At the door, he debated whether or not to knock. He turned the knob; it wasn’t even locked. He walked into the house.
The windows were incredibly filthy. Even though it was mid-afternoon, the entry hall was as dark as night. He fumbled a hand along the wall until he felt the plate of the light switch. But only the plate—the switch had been broken off.
Eventually his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. He located a stairway a few feet to his left and began to ascend. What was that sound—that high-pitched hum? He thought for a moment. Telephone wires in the wind? That hardly seemed possible. It was a windy day, but he hadn’t heard the hum outside the house.
On the top floor, he found an empty hallway awash with blue light from an open doorway. The humming sound issued from the room beyond. A floorboard popped as he moved toward the door.
“Who’s there? I have a gun.” A voice from the room—young, male, tremulous.
“Don’t shoot. I need to talk to you.” He paused for a moment, thinking how best to explain his reasons for this intrusion. “Someone we both know said you could help me.”
There was a creak of bedsprings. “Fine. Cover your face and come in.”
Michael dug a handkerchief from his pocket. “My whole face?”
“Do the best you can. You don’t have to cover your eyes. I’m not a Gorgon.”
Michael tied the handkerchief robber-style across his lower face. He wasn’t quite sure what a Gorgon was. One of those batwinged things on old churches? No, those were gargoyles. He walked up to the door and looked inside.
The blue light came from a tinted bulb in a shadeless lamp. Thin copper wires were strung across the room at various levels; every piece of furniture seemed to be caught up in the tangle. The breeze from a fan on high-power made the wires hum. On a brass bed in the center of the room reclined a pale man, bundled in quilts and pillows. His long black hair was thick and coarse, like a horse’s mane. He wore a tattered bathrobe over a gray sweatsuit. Michael decided the pale man was probably twenty-five, just a few years younger than himself.
Michael brushed a hand over the lump in his pants pocket. He had a roll of bills totalling three-hundred dollars, in case the pale man had a price. “I met somebody in a bar—a mechanic. He’d told me you made his wife go away.” It dawned on Michael that the mechanic might have violated a trust. “You can’t really blame him for talking. He’d had a lot to drink and…well, I bought him a few drinks, too. He seemed pretty miserable.”
The pale man shrugged. “No worry. I appreciate references, if discretion is observed. I’m sure Mr. Curtis has selected well. My name is Card.”
“I’m Michael. I guess you don’t really want to know who I am, though, since you told me to cover my face.” He twanged at one of the copper wires. “What’s with the spiderweb?”
“Be careful, will you?” Card nodded as Michael stilled the vibrating wire with a fingertip. “Yes, it is like a spiderweb, isn’t it? Except there’s no pattern. Still, do you see the appeal? Everything connected to everything. Beautiful, like a work of art.”
“Can I get through?”
A brief, worried look crossed Card’s face. “I suppose so.” The pale man watched intently as Michael threaded his way across the room. “Careful there, a wire is snagged on your coat. And your handkerchief is coming loose. Don’t let it fall off. If you should ever show me your face, I would want it to be a conscious choice.”
At last Michael reached the brass bed. He turned away for a moment to pull the handkerchief tighter and retie it. Then he climbed over the pillows and sat cross-legged next to Card.
“I don’t really have a gun,” the pale man said. “I don’t need one.” He shifted on his pillows. “So tell me. How did you know that Mr. Curtis wasn’t lying to you?”
“I remembered reading about his wife’s disappearance in the papers. They found a pile of dust in her bed. Real weird.” Michael studied Card for a moment. The pale man had fine wrinkles around his eyes. Perhaps he wasn’t so young. “This thing you do. With people. What are you?”
Card looked up. “A man in a room.” The look in his eyes was intense. Almost feral. “You are having problems with someone. Someone who should go away. A lover, perhaps? Isn’t it odd about lovers? So beautiful when you meet them, so horrid when the love grows cold?”
* * * *
The next morning, Michael didn’t go to church. After examining the newspaper, he threw it in the trash. What did he expect—a front page headline? HOMELESS MAN DISAPPEARS: DUST HEAP FOUND IN ALLEY. Of course not. He knew that no one would be too concerned about Mr. Linfield’s disappearance. If anything, a few of the shopkeepers downtown would be glad of it.
He flopped down on his sofa, turned on the television and flipped through the channels. Sermons, news shows—at last a cartoon popped up. The show, a teenage space opera, was poorly drawn and woodenly animated.
If only Doc Feisty’s Cartoon Cavalcade was still on the air—a great show with great old cartoons. Each week, fat Doc Feisty would have a different child as his co-host. At the beginning of each show, the lucky boy or girl would pop out of a giant rabbit hole and Doc Feisty would playfully grab the child by the neck. Michael’s mother had sent in his name, but he never got to be on the show.
Too bad the real-life Mrs. Doc Feisty had to spoil everything. She’d killed herself by dr
inking something awful. Drain-opener or oven-cleaner. Something incredibly caustic. Something that made for an incredibly colorful death.
After that, Doc Feisty was no longer funny.
Michael had been nine when the show was cancelled. It wasn’t until he was seventeen that a friend of his pointed to a confused old man on the streets and informed him that this was old Doc Feisty: real name, Corliss Linfield. His friend went on to tell him that Doc had spent the last few years in an institution.
Mr. Linfield had changed. The fat Doc Feisty belly had swelled into a bag of sickness. The wavy Doc Feisty hair had become a matted rat’s nest. The bright, expressive Doc Feisty eyes had dwindled into twin pits of despair.
The cartoon’s credits rolled, and Michael sighed. Maybe the next one would be better.
Card had asked for a picture. Of course, Michael didn’t have one. The pale man then pulled a sketchpad from under the bed and told him to give a description. In twenty minutes, Card produced a realistic drawing of Mr. Linfield’s face.
“Is this man so beyond hope?” Card had asked. “Are you doing this for him or for yourself? Not that it matters to me.”
The question had momentarily weakened Michael’s resolve. Was his request a mission of pity—or scorn? Maybe both: he often felt obligated to give alms to the homeless; and yet, the sick temptation to kick at them, to laughingly pile them with trash, was also there.
His was a mission of liberation. Time would erase any doubts on the matter.
He had not questioned Card too closely; he hadn’t even asked what void would house the vanished Mr. Linfield. He only knew that the old man’s torment on earth would soon be over. Or possibly, was already over; the pale man had not specified when the disappearance would take place.
Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls: Tales of Horror and the Bizarre Page 5