Masques IV

by J N Williamson

  Caralynn said, “I can’t tell my daddy about what I see because he says it’s only pretend and I’m too old to pretend that way. I used to tell Momma, before she died. She said I had imagination and sometimes, when there was nothing worth seeing in the whole world, all you had was your imagination. When Momma was so sick, dying, I guess, it seems like it rained every day. I used to sit with her, and we’d look out the window; and every day, Bradford, every day I could see a rainbow. It had twelve colors, that rainbow, colors like you don’t ever see in a plain old rainbow. I used to tell Momma how the sun made the colors change from second to second. Momma said that was our rainbow. That was the rainbow over the graveyard the day we buried her. It wasn’t even raining, but I looked up and there it was, and where it bent and disappeared on the other side of the world, I saw Momma, and she was waving to me.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know anything about that or rainbows.”

  “Bradford,” Caralynn said, “there’s something I want to show you. Something beautiful. Can I?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  I’m not a bit sorry about saying that, and I haven’t been since the words slid off my lips. But in all these years gone by, I sure have asked myself why I didn’t tell Caralynn to just go on and get lost. Maybe the reason is, I was small and dirty, my whole life was small and dirty, but packed inside me was this big hate—and hate is such an ugly thing—so I guess I was tired of all that ugly and there was something inside me, too, that was ready to be shown something . . . beautiful.

  Oh, not that I believed Caralynn had a thing to show me. To tell the truth, I thought she was off some—and we’re talking more than a little. But I did go with her, all the way past the edge of town, through Neidmeyer’s Meadow, and then along the railroad tracks until we came to the curve; and there, by this rusted steel building that I guess the railroad must have once had a use for but didn’t anymore, there was the old junkyard.

  It wasn’t the kind of business junkyard where you go to sell your falling apart car. It was an acre or so where everybody dumped the trash that wouldn’t burn and was too big for the garbage men to haul off. It was all useless, twisted garbage, a three-legged wringer washer with the wires sticking out the bottom, and a refrigerator with the basket coil on top, and an old trunk without a lid like maybe a sailor once had, and a steam radiator, and a bathtub, and hundreds of pipes, and a couple of shells of cars, and thousands of tin cans. Everywhere you looked were hills and mountains of steel and glass and plastic, all kinds of trash that came from you didn’t know what stuff. Flies swarmed in bunches like black cyclones, and over it all, hanging so stink-heavy you could see it, was the terrible smell.

  And that was what Caralynn Pitts had to show me.

  Not more than a spit away, a rat peeked from under a torn square of pink linoleum, its nasty whiskers quivering. I chucked a stone at it. I told Caralynn Pitts maybe she thought she was funny but I didn’t think she was funny—and I started to run off.

  I didn’t get a step before she had my elbow. “Bradford—can’t you see it?”

  “It’s the junkyard. That’s all.”

  “It’s the sea, Bradford, it’s the beautiful junkyard sea. You have to look at it the right way. You have to want to see it to see how beautiful it is. Please look, Bradford.”

  Then Caralynn Pitts started talking to me in this whispery voice that seemed to crawl from my ear right into my brain. “Look at the water. Can’t you see how blue and green it is? See the waves . . .”

  . . . the water goes on forever and sends the waves to us from beyond nowhere, the waves gentle as night breeze, the rippling tiny hills rolling in to wash against the diamond dotted golden sands where we stand . . .

  “. . . and a sea gull . . .”

  . . . its wings are white fire cutting through layered-blue sky; its eyes magic black . . .

  “. . . and way out there . . .

  . . . there, at the horizon line where water and sky are one . . .

  “. . . a whale . . .”

  . . . whales, placid giants, their strange squeaking pips and rumbles unearthly and eternal . . .

  “Bradford,” Caralynn said. “Can you see it, the beautiful junkyard sea?”

  “No,” I said, and that was the truth. But in the moment before I said it, I think I almost saw it. It was like someone had painted a picture of the junkyard on an old bedsheet and the wind catching that sheet as it hung on a line was making everything ripple and change before my eyes.

  It was because I almost saw it—and because, I know now, there was a fierce want in me to see it—I came back to the junkyard day after day with Caralynn Pitts.

  And on a Wednesday, in the afternoon—a week after school let out—it happened.

  I saw the beautiful junkyard sea.

  The forever waters, sun light slanting, cutting through foam and fathom upon fathom, then diminishing, vanishing into the ever night depths. The sea gulls, winged arrows cutting random arcs over the rippling waves. A dolphin bursts from the sea, bejeweled droplets and glory; another dolphin, another and another; an explosion of dolphins . . . explosions of joy . . .

  Far off a beckoning atoll, a palm-treed island. Far off a coral reef living land. Far off the promise of magic, the assurance that a lie is only a dream and that dreams are true.

  Good thing you do not have to learn or practice love, that it just happens.

  In the fine sea spray

  in the clean mist of air and salt water

  in the best moment of my life

  I kissed Caralynn Pitts on the lips.

  I told her I loved her.

  And I loved the beautiful junkyard sea.

  Every day that summer, Caralynn and I visited the beautiful junkyard sea. It was always there for us.

  Then late in August, she told me she was moving. Her daddy was joining the staff of a hospital in Seattle. She told me she cried when her daddy told her about it.

  I said I would always love her. She said she would always love me.

  “But what about the beautiful junkyard sea?” I asked her.

  “It will always be ours,” she said. “It will always be here for us.”

  She promised to write to give me her address once they were settled in Seattle. We would keep on loving each other and, when we grew up, we’d get married and be together forever.

  The next week, she moved. Months and then years went by and there was no letter.

  But I had the beautiful junkyard sea.

  And this is the truth: I never stopped loving Caralynn Pitts or believing she would return.

  She did.

  I was 22 years old. When I was 12, my daddy got drunk and drove the car into a tree and killed himself. My momma did not cry when he was buried. She said she had already used up all the tears my daddy was entitled to.

  What with my father’s miner’s benefits and insurance, and no money going out on whiskey, Momma and I got by. I scraped through high school, pretty bad grades, but I learned in shop class that I did have a way with engines. Pop the hood and hand me a wrench, chances were good to better yet that I could fix any problem there was, and so I was working at Mueller’s Texaco.

  On a sunny day in late April, Caralynn Pitts drove her white LTD up to the regular pump and asked me to fill it up, check the oil, battery, and transmission fluid.

  Stooped over, I just kind of stood there by the open car window, jaw hanging like a moron. There was a question in Caralynn Pitt’s big eyes for a second—and then she knew.

  “It is Bradford, right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’ve changed so much.”

  “I guess you have too,” I said. That was probably the right thing to say but to tell the truth, she hadn’t done that much changing. It was like she was still the kid she had been, only bigger.

  “Growing up’s a strange thing,” Caralynn said.

  “You came back, Caralynn,” I said.

  She gave me another funny
look, then she laughed. “I guess I have. I work out of Chicago—I’m in advertising—and I was on my way to St. Louis and, well, I needed gas, so I didn’t even think about it . . . just pulled off 1-57 and here I am.”

  “You came back for the beautiful junkyard sea,” I said.

  “Huh?” Caralynn Pitts said. “Huh?” is something most women just can’t say right and it bothered me to hear her say it.

  She laughed again. “Oh, I get it. I remember. ‘The beautiful junkyard sea,’ that was some game we had. I guess both of us had pretty wild imaginations.”

  “It was no game, Caralynn,” I said. “It isn’t.”

  “Well, I don’t know . . .” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, looked through the windshield. “Could you fill it up, please? And do you have a restroom?”

  I told her, “Inside.” I filled the tank. Everything checked out under the hood. When she came back a minute or two later, I said, “Maybe we could talk just a little, Caralynn? It’s been a long time and all and we used to be good friends. We used to be special friends.” She took a quick look at her wristwatch. Then in her eyes I saw something like what used to be there so many years ago. “We were, weren’t we?” she said. “Maybe a quick cup of coffee or something. Is there someplace we could go?”

  “Sure,” I said, “I know the place. Just let me tell Mueller I’ll be gone awhile.”

  I drove her LTD. She told me she had gone to college, Washington State, majored in business. She told me she and a guy—I forget his name—were getting serious about one another, thinking about getting engaged. She told me she hoped to be moving up in advertising, to become an account executive in another year or so.

  When we got out past the town limits, she said. “Bradford, where are you taking us?”

  “You know,” I said.

  “Bradford . . . I don’t know what’s going on. What are you doing? You’re acting, well, you’re acting strange.” I heard it in her voice. She was frightened. She didn’t have to be frightened, is what I thought then. She’d understand as soon as she saw it.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” I told her, and I drove to the junkyard.

  She didn’t want to get out of the car. She was scared. She said, “Bradford, don’t . . . don’t hurt me.”

  “I could never hurt you, Caralynn,” I said.

  I took her arm. I could feel how stiff she was holding herself, like her spine was steel.

  “Here it is,” I said. “Here we are.”

  We stood on the sun-washed shore of the beautiful junkyard sea. She jerked like she wanted to pull away from me but I held her arm even tighter. “I don’t know what you want, Bradford. What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to do?”

  “What do you see, Caralynn?” I asked.

  “I . . . I don’t see . . . anything, Bradford.”

  “Don’t say that, Caralynn. I love you.” What I was thinking then was, Don’t make me hate you. Please, please don’t . . .

  “Bradford, I . . . I can’t see what isn’t there. This is a junkyard. That’s all it is. It’s ugly. And it stinks. It’s a junkyard! Please . . .”

  They never found Caralynn Pitts. I left her car there, walked back to town. The police did have questions, of course, since I was the last person to see her, but like I said, I know how to lie, and so I made up a few little lies and one or two big ones and that took care of the police.

  All these years, I haven’t gone back to the beautiful junkyard sea. Maybe I never will.

  But I cannot forget, won’t ever forget, and I think I don’t want to forget how Caralynn looked

  when the waters turned black and churning and the lightning shattered the sky and the sea gulls shrieked and the fins of sharks circled and circled and the first tentacle whipped out of the foam and hooked her leg, and another shot out, circled her waist, and then one more, across her face, choking off her screams, as she was dragged toward that thing rising in the angry water; that great, gray-green, puffy bag that was its head yellow eyes shining hungrily; the corn-colored curved beak clattering, as it dragged her deeper; deeper, and then she disappeared and there was blood on the water and that was all until, at last

  the sun shone

  and all was quiet in

  the beautiful junkyard sea

  Sources of the Nile

  Rick Hautala

  “I have a pretty good idea for a short-short,” said the author of the novel that had just made the Horror Writers of America Preliminary Ballot, “if you want to hear it.”

  I did, and I found it—just listening to this super-pleasant Maine writer relate the details over the phone—pretty strong, nearly repulsive stuff. I was interested! There was also a new twist on one of our stalwart pet legends, and when Rick Hautala’s final product arrived, it was everything I hoped it would be.

  The novel I mentioned above is Dead Voices, which followed Moondeath, Moonbog, Nightstone, Moonwalker; and Little Brothers and preceded his ’91 spellbinder, Cold Whispers (presumably available now).

  But what this good-looking family man hoped I’d mention was his short fiction scheduled to appear in Night Visions 9 (with that of Tom Tessier and James Kisner), “Untcigahunk,” and this sinewy yarn, “The Sources of the Nile.” That river is navigable the year round, from Aswan. We hope you don’t drown crossing Rick’s first short-short story.

  “Why are you tormenting me like this?” Marianne Wilcox said. I looked at her, cringing beside me in the soft darkness of my car, her blue eyes illuminated by the faint glow of a distant streetlight. I couldn’t have denied the overpowering swell of emotion I felt for her at that moment. I wanted to take her right then—that instant! I knew that, but I couldn’t—not yet . . . no, not quite yet . . .

  “Look, I don’t like having to be the one to break it to you this way,” I replied. “Honest! I mean—Christ, I just met you for the first time . . . when? Last week, at the Hendersons’ party. You hardly even know me, and I’d understand if you didn’t trust me; but you would have learned the truth sooner or later.”

  “Maybe I . . . maybe I didn’t want to learn the truth. Not really,” she said. Her chest hitched; her eyes glistened as tears formed, threatening to spill. “Maybe I just wanted a . . . wanted a . . . Oh, Christ! I don’t know what I wanted!”

  She beat her small fists on the padded dashboard once, then heaved a deep sigh. Blinking her eyes rapidly, she turned away and looked out the side window. We were parked at the far end of the parking lot at the Holiday Inn in Portland, back where it was dark so we wouldn’t be noticed. Minutes ago, we had watched Ronald Wilcox, her husband, walk into the motel arm in arm with another woman. This wasn’t the first time—nor was it the first “other” woman.

  “Look, I’m just telling you this because—well, I’ve known your husband for quite some time—through mutual friends, you know. And frankly, I like you,” I said, struggling hard to keep my voice as soft and sympathetic as possible. Women fall apart when you talk to them like that. “Something like this hurts me too, you know? But after meeting you, I felt a—I don’t know, an obligation, I guess, to let you know that your husband was having an affair.” I nodded toward the motel entrance. “Now you’ve seen that for yourself. As painful as it might be, you asked me to bring you here. I . . . I didn’t want to do this to you.”

  “I know that,” she said, glancing back at me for a moment. My heart started beating faster when I saw the tears filling her eyes. They would spill any second now. A cold, tight tingling filled my belly and I can’t deny that my erection hardened as I shifted closer to her and placed one hand gently on her shoulder.

  “I don’t like seeing you upset like this,” I said. “I’m not enjoying this, but you have to remember that I’m not the one who has hurt you. It’s him.” I jerked my thumb toward the motel. After a moment of silence, I leaned forward and withdrew a manila envelope from underneath the car seat. “If you’d like, I could show you these photographs I—”

  “No!�
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  Her lower lip trembled as she looked at me. Her eyes were two luminous, watery globes. Just seeing the wash of tears building up there twisted my heart. I tried to push aside, to resist the powerful urge to take her in my arms and caress her, but I couldn’t deny that there was an element of spite in what I was doing. I wanted her to see everything. I wanted her to imagine it all; and if she couldn’t imagine it, I was ready to show it to her—every instance, every second of her husband’s infidelity. I wanted—I needed—to push her until she broke because after she broke—ahh, sweetness!—after she broke, she would be mine!

  “No, I don’t . . . don’t need to see your—your photographs.” Her voice was tight, constricted. “I don’t want them!”

  “Of course not,” I whispered, tossing the envelope onto the dashboard and inching closer to her. “I understand.”

  My heart throbbed in my throat when I saw a single, crystal tear spill from the corner of her eye and run down her cheek. It slid in a slow, sinuous, glimmering line that paused a moment on the edge of her chin and then, pushed by the gathering flood of more tears, ran down her neck and inside her coat collar. Gone . . . lost . . .!

  “Please—don’t cry,” I whispered, knowing it was a lie. I brought my face close to hers, feeling the heat of my breath rebound from her smooth, white skin. My gaze was fastened on the flow of tears as they coursed from her eyes, streaking in silvery lines down both sides of her face. Her shoulders hunched inward as if she wanted to disappear inside herself.

  “But I-I—”

  She couldn’t say anything more as she stared at me, her glazed eyes wide—two lustrous, blue orbs swimming in the pristine, salty wash of tears. My hand trembled as I traced the tracks of her tears from her chin to her cheek. Heated rushes of emotion filled me when I raised my moist finger up to the light and studied the teardrop suspended from the tip. It shimmered like a diamond in the darkness. Slowly, savoring every delicious instant, I brought it to my lips. The taste was sweet, salty. The instant I swallowed it, I knew I loved her as deeply as I have ever loved any woman.