Darker Masques

by J N Williamson

  “Ma’am. I was hitchin’ a ride and this guy’s car broke down and I been walkin’, quite a way. I was wonderin’ if you folks would mind if I rested in your yard for a while?” He could easily pull the door open and knock her out. Go in and chainsnap the man. Come back and get the boy. He was about to make a move, but she said,

  “You just sit down and rest yourself. Make yourself to home.” And she started asking him where the car had broken down and did he want a lift back to the car and did he want to call somebody, and he kind of got taken off his stride and so he went and sat on the steps.

  “You from around here?” the boy asked. The beast only shook his head.

  Inside the house he heard the man say something and she said . . . “broke down back over . . .” (something he couldn’t make out) and the door opened behind him and the man said,

  “You need a ride?”

  “Well, I don’t mind if it’s no bother,” Bunkowski said pleasantly, thinking he’d go ahead and make the move now.

  “It’s no trouble. You can ride into town with us. If you don’t mind sittin’ back there with the boy.” The man said it without any undue emphasis.

  “I’d be real grateful.”

  “No problem,” the man said, stepping around the huge bulk that filled his back steps.

  The last place where he’d come upon a family, he’d killed everybody in the house. Three people. Man and wife and a son—just like this. The kid, as if reading his mind, moved over out of the way, back into a far corner of the truck bed.

  “Get over here, Punk,” the boy said to the dog, who wagged and obeyed. “Don’t worry,” he sneered. “He don’t bite.”

  “What’s his name? Punk?” Chaingang sat on the cold steel. Shifted his weight slightly so as not to break the tailgate off, and the truck rocked like a safe had been dropped into it.

  “Little Punk.” The kid scratched the dog. “We found him starvin’ over on the dump. Somebody dropped the fucker. He didn’t look like nothin’ but a punk.” The dog licked the kid’s face once and he pushed it away. “Fuckin’ Punk.”

  “Looks like a good dog,” the huge man said.

  “He’s awright.”

  “You ready?” the man said to nobody in general, and he and the wife got into the truck and they drove off down the rode, Chaingang Bunkowski bouncing along in the back of the truck.

  When the beast had been a child, a dog had been his only companion and friend. He loved animals. Watching the boy with the dog had calmed him down, but he wasn’t sure what he would do yet. He might take them all down anyway.

  When the pickup reached the crossroads of Double-J and the levee road, Chaingang banged on the window and asked the man to stop. He got out, walked around by the driver. There were no other vehicles in sight.

  “Doncha wanna go on to town?” the man asked him. Bunkowski fingered the heavy yard of the tractor-strength safety chain in his jacket pocket. Three feet of killer snake were coiled in the special canvas pocket. He thought how easy it would be to take them, now.

  “I guess not. This’ll do.” He nodded thanks to the driver, who shrugged and started off. Chaingang stood there and watched the luckiest man in the world drive away with his family.

  Joey Froehlich

  THE BONELESS DOLL

  “I write from ‘feel,’ ” says this instinctive poet and fiction writer from Kentucky. He has done it for sixteen years, and “I don’t really try to write like anyone else,” he explains. Editor of the highly original Violent Legends and of, in the works, Live Mysteries, Joey thinks there’s “no other who writes like me. Thank God!”

  Recently, Froehlich’s chilling “Year of the Green-Eyed Toads” appeared in the splatterpunk mag Midnight Graffiti in close proximity with a Stephen King tale. He closes his letters “Best be crawling” because some of his work does that to one’s skin.

  THE BONELESS DOLL

  Joey Froehlich

  The boneless doll

  Is small

  And she carries

  It, yea—

  Wherever she goes,

  Just a little girl

  Happy with this

  Doll without bones

  (Cloth)

  Not flesh all bunched

  Up and writhing

  When it falls

  On the twigs

  Of another bruised

  Existence lost.

  CONCERNS OF

  THE MIND AND SPIRIT

  IT’S difficult to describe adequately the third subset of stories (and a poem). That does not mean the grouping is false, or arbitrary. Although a few of these tales could comfortably be installed under other headings, they belong, together, here.

  Horror fantasy is partly an attempt to detect and appraise the cusps or interfaces of human life, and see past the masks we’re shown at that instant when they slip . . . and weird masques arc played out. Most writers and readers of horror are people who willingly confront the moods of man for which there’s no name—partly because the moods are impermanent and elusive, partly because they’re darkly covert, even mad. Under these masks are the real monsters, whose concealed countenances never smile, only smirk with derision, detestation, or baleful desire.

  “Psychological horror” is another term for this type of fiction, but a less effective one than that which I’ve chosen. This is fiction of concern for the directions some of us are taking as people, often unaware of the heartbreak we inflict upon one another or ourselves. Such actions arc worse than killing; in this fiction, killing becomes symptom or metaphor. Such terror penetrates to the soul.

  This work isn’t “better” than that in other categories. It may have the drawback of being too somber for some tastes, or too locked-in to contemporary concerns. But “Concerns of the Mind and Spirit” is definitely not inferior to other types of horror. Far from it. Far indeed.

  Diane Taylor

  THE SKULL

  THIS story addresses one of the tragically scarring problems exposed during the 1980s and does so in a fashion that is disturbing, honest, relentlessly credible. The fact that Diane Taylor is offering her first “adult” fiction—though she enjoys other careers as a children’s author, teacher, and wife of David Taylor (elsewhere present in this book)—makes her triumph even more remarkable.

  Born January 9, 1952, in “the Mississippi delta town of Helena, Arkansas,” Diane wrote her first tale as a child in a tractor shed with rain “hammering on the tin” and the “smell of damp hay.” It was scary; “I loved it,” she says.

  A cookie-devouring compulsive creator, Taylor often works at 4 a.m.—with “an eraserlcss pencil”—and was driven to write this riveting story by a chance encounter with a man who stopped her to ask for a match. Unexpectedly, he “pulled up his T-shirt to show me scars from Viet Nam,” and his “transparent blue eyes” showed wounds that “were deep and ugly.” Enveloped by a storm, she felt dizzied by cheap aftershave, perceived “other scars, much deeper and much uglier.” Escaped, she felt the way she had as a girl curled inside a tin shed and found the courage to imagine, and write, “The Skull.”

  THE SKULL

  Diane Taylor

  I NEVER REALLY LIVED WITH HIM. They got divorced when I was three. But Momma always sent me to visit in the summer. Whenever I asked questions, she would say it was all too complex for a child to understand. At the time I didn’t think fourteen was a “child.”

  I begged Momma not to send me again that summer, to let me go to camp instead or work at McDonald’s. When she asked why, I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know why then. So she got my suitcase out of the attic and tossed my tickets on top. “Your plane leaves tomorrow morning,” she said. “Nine o’clock.”

  She had always been a good mother, but not a happy one. I knew she wasn’t sending me away to get rid of me. She simply wanted me to spend time with my father. She still loved him. And she wanted me to love him, too.

  She never would come right out and say it. She wouldn’t talk about him at all. Bu
t I could tell by the way she dusted his picture—not real fast with one big swish like I did but slowly around the edges of the frame, carefully under the crack of the metal casing, and finally the glass, stroking his face softly with her rag.

  All she said when she dropped me at the airport that morning was “Have yourself a good time,” and “Kiss your daddy for me.” I hugged her good-bye, hoping I’d get a window seat.

  That afternoon as the plane taxied up to the airport, I saw him standing outside the terminal. He wasn’t real tall, just medium, but he looked strong and solid—as if he had grown up out of the concrete. He still had that habit of pushing his hair back with his hand, even though it was too short to be in his face.

  I was one of the first ones off. He smiled and waved when he saw me coming down the steps of the plane. I ran over to him and we hugged. Right then, I couldn’t imagine why I didn’t want to come.

  “Sorry you had to wait so long, Dad. We had to change planes in Denver. Something about the hydraulic system.”

  He didn’t say anything, just held my head in his hands. I could feel those hot, enormous hands covering my whole head—palms over my ears, fingers touching the back of my skull, and thumbs outlining my eyebrows. I remembered an Oral Roberts TV show, the preacher yelling, “Heal, heal!” Then Dad kissed me.

  He stepped away, pushed his hair back and said, “I almost didn’t recognize you, Ronnie. You’re getting prettier each time you come.”

  “And you’re looking more and more like Bruce Springsteen,” I said, jerking the bandanna from his hip pocket and tying it around my neck. “Great jacket. I know some kids at school who’d die for a leather jacket like that.”

  “It’s just my old flight jacket. One of the few things that came out of Nam in one piece. Haven’t worn it in years.” His hand started up toward his head, but I caught it. We held hands all the way to the Jeep.

  It was an hour’s drive from the airport to Dad’s cabin in the mountains, but the time flew. We sang songs to a Golden Oldies radio station: “I can’t get no-o/sat-is-FAC-shun-un.” We laughed at the end of every song.

  “How do you know all these words?” he asked. “You’re too young for this stuff.”

  “Momma has the records. But she never sings along, like you do. How do you know all the words?”

  “It’s what kept me alive over there. I’ll never forget the words.” After a few more songs and a news report, we were home. Before going in, we stood for a minute on the porch of his cabin and listened to the night sounds from the woods all around us. He put his arm around me and I could smell him now in the wilderness air—the leather jacket, gasoline from the Jeep, soap.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Starved! I could eat a horse.”

  “Would you settle for a cheese sandwich and pickles?”

  “Sounds great.”

  His cabin only had a bathroom and then one big room where everything just kind of blended together. Dad set my suitcase and sleeping bag down in my corner. He slept on the couch, angled toward the TV The dining room was a wooden block in another corner, and the kitchen area was next to it.

  There were a fireplace and a huge bookshelf, an awesome stereo—all being stared at by dozens of pairs of lifeless eyes. I hardly noticed the animal heads anymore. They’d become a natural part of things. Only the soldier’s skull still bothered me, hanging above the fireplace, a place of honor. That big room always felt hot and cold to me at the same time. It reminded me of chemistry lab—I loved it, yet I was afraid I was going to blow myself up.

  We ate our sandwiches off paper plates, then stretched out on the floor in front of the fire, talking about school, boys and dating, his latest job. I’d lost count of those.

  “Why don’t you ever go out, Dad? You’re so good-looking.”

  “Not interested, Ronnie. I like things the way they are.”

  He glanced over at me, eyes heavy from the fire. Then I realized I was getting sleepy, too. I looked up at the animals and had to shut my eyes when I got to the skull.

  I remembered the first summer he’d put it up. I couldn’t have been more than four or five. The room was dark; we were curled up together on the couch in front of the fire. Dad was reading me a story called “The Nightingale.” I stared up and saw the skull, glowing in the firelight.

  At first I was too scared to say anything, even though I didn’t even know what a skull was. Dad asked me what was wrong. I pointed to it and whispered, “What’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s okay. That won’t hurt you. It’s just a trophy, like the others.” He held up the book we had been reading. “Do you think the nightingale will save the Emperor’s life?”

  “No,” I said, staring at the skull. “I think the Emperor was very mean to the nightingale. He should die.” I looked at Dad and asked, “Did somebody die?”

  “That story isn’t for little girls,” he said.

  I begged and begged him to tell me, so he did. I guess he figured I wouldn’t remember it at that age. Maybe he just needed to tell it to someone; anyone.

  His voice was soft when he started but distant, not as if he were reading a fairy tale at all. “It happened in Vietnam,” he began. “That’s where Daddy went to fight. Me and my co-pilot Frank were flying our helicopter into the jungle to bring out some wounded. It was a hot LZ. We took some heavy fire in the tail rotor and went down, hard. Me and Frank made it out somehow, but everybody had scattered and we were on our own. We were trying to get back to the base when we came to this rice paddy we had to cross. No sooner than we stepped out of the bush, a sniper opened fire on us.”

  Dad’s face perspired with the heat of the jungle as he told the story, and I saw the reflection of the fire in his eyes. His hand pulled his hair back, again and again.

  “At first I didn’t hear anything. Frank’s head just suddenly blew apart. I felt it splatter on me. That’s when I heard the little ‘pop, pop, pop.’ I caught a round in the shoulder and was knocked down. It’s funny but I remember thinking, I’m shot. But it’s not so bad. It only stings. I looked over at what was left of Frank’s head, not really feeling anything at first, not really believing what I was seeing. Then something snapped inside me. I went kind of crazy, I guess.

  “I got up and ran at the sniper, all the way across that field—firing my pistol, screaming, not really caring if I shot him or he shot me. I only knew something had to die. When I got to the other side, I found him lying in the grass. I’d shot him in the throat. But I couldn’t stop, I didn’t want to stop.”

  Dad was suddenly silent as he stared up at the skull. He was breathing hard.

  “I stabbed him over and over with my knife. Then I cut off his head.” There was no emotion in Dad’s voice. “His for Frank’s, to even the score. To make it right.” He looked away. “I still had it with me when I walked out of that jungle a week later. I kept it. Some guys over there carried around a necklace of ears. I had a head. And as long as I had it, I knew no one could touch me.”

  He looked down at me, back in this world. “Now I’ve put it up there with the rest of the animals; that’s all. It’s just a memory, and memories can’t hurt you—can they, pumpkin?” He smiled and brushed back my hair. “You don’t understand, do you?”

  I never did get to hear the end of “The Nightingale” that night, but I’ve always remembered his story. Since then there’s been so much that I haven’t understood. Like how I could love him and fear him at the same time, my own father, this man who was lying on the floor next to my sleeping bag, his eyes bright with fire.

  Dad brushed my forehead—just as he’d done that night he’d told the story of the skull. “Are you sleepy, Ronnie?” he asked.

  I smiled, shook my head. I saw by the way he said it that he loved me so much. He ran his hand through his hair as he looked down at me, stared into my eyes.

  I turned away, shut my eyes tight. Then my mind was sending paragraphs in single sentences. Don’t do this. I don’t want to. I love you. Go a
way.

  And then, as always, it was happening. But not to me. Never, to me. It was always someone else. My eyes were shut and I was far away, waiting for it to be over.

  When I went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, I remember thinking how the steam from the shower was like tears running down the walls. A cabin with crying walls. I closed my eyes and pushed my hair back under the hot, hot water. I pushed my thoughts back, too.

  “All you need is love!” The stereo jerked me out of sleep.

  I could see Dad in the kitchen beating some eggs with a fork in rhythm to the song. The smell of burned toast was making its way over to my corner of the room.

  “Hey, Dad. Smells great! What’s for breakfast?”

  By now smoke was seeping out of the oven and I knew the bread had to be black. I jumped up and ran in to open the oven door. Smoke poured out. When he turned around, Dad seemed more shocked to see me than the smoke.

  “Morning, Dad.” I turned on the Vent-a-Hood. The fan motor sounded as loud as a helicopter. He just stood there looking at me, gripping the fork in his fist. Sweat was rolling off his forehead, and smoke was everywhere. He looked like someone who’d just woken up from a nightmare.

  I took the charred bread out of the oven. “Don’t you know you cook out all the nutrients when you do this?”

  He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, looked away and tried to grin. Then he pulled a can of biscuits out of the fridge. “Here,” he said, tossing the can to me. “Let’s see if you’re a better cook than your old man.” He went back to his eggs.

  I peeled off the wrapper and tapped the seam of the can lightly against the counter. Once, twice. That can reminded me of him that morning—ready to explode.

  During breakfast we didn’t look at each other or talk hardly at all, just listened to the music. Then he went for a walk while I cleaned things up and watched TV. By lunchtime Dad was back and pretty much himself again. He asked me if I was ready for some decent food. I didn’t want to seem too excited. I thought it might hurt his feelings about his cooking.