Fantastic Tales of Terror
Page 34
Frank’s voice revived her faculties, “But that would make one. How is there a herd?”
Annie dared to watch the contemplative expression on Sitting Bull’s face change to disgust. “It was not the only time. News got back. Many were angered, but some used it to survive the rest of the winter. They sought murder for flesh. The power it gave them was a prize.”
“They chose it?” Annie kicked the ground. Unable to control herself, she waved her hands as she talked, “My father, my second father, my life has been set by these creatures, and they chose it? I need my gun!”
“Wait. I have too many wounds from battle.” Sitting Bull pushed himself up from the ground. He rubbed his back and straightened himself. “I had hoped for one of my people to do this. But maybe if you can, it will bond you to the land and you’ll be able to rid the white man of his crimes.” He ducked back into the small teepee and returned with a thick pair of hide shoes.
Frank nudged her.
Sitting Bull smiled at Annie. “These will grant your feet more speed.”
Annie took them, marveling at the smooth edges with ripples of texture along the sides. “Thank you.”
Her mind filled with more thoughts than she could decipher. She turned to her husband and found her focus. “You knew about the sumac and never told me?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t have a mind to worry over it.”
She bit her lip and lowered her eyelids with frustration.
“Ah, the difference between man and wo-man.” Sitting Bull pointed at them and laughed.
The absurdity struck Annie. She giggled with him and Frank, but a deeper calling rumbled. Her desire to hunt overcame her.
“We best be tracking, if we’re gonna get this herd.” She looked to Frank with wide eyes.
“Best be,” he said. “But we need to wait ‘til nightfall.”
***
The forest hummed with the moans of death and bloodlust. Annie strode ahead of Frank, her hands still itching from the fresh sumac oil. But my bullets are ready. Powder too.
Frank held so close to her, she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. His foot pressed on her heel and she stopped.
“What is it?” he whispered, bumping into her. The end of his stick poked her through the wool of her dress.
She reached back and shooed him off. “Cain’t hunt if you knock me down.”
She squinted around. The trees swayed with the night breeze, moving shadows like a theatre show. Her throat went dry. The shifting winds held the pungent smell of death. Then the whining began.
“Pitiful.” Frank growled.
Annie pursed her lips. The monsters would try and prey on their sympathies—draw them out with cries and shots, before lunging with the dastardly tones of decay and degradation. She wanted none of it.
“Blast em all!” she shouted.
Frank gripped her arm. “Annie?” “I thought I missed the hunt, but this is absurd.” She unbuttoned her overcoat and tossed it on the ground.
“That ain’t necessary.” Frank tapped his stick at the fabric heaped on the leaves.
“I’m ready now. They can’t resist good meat, so I’ll give it to em.” She ripped her dress laces open and pulled her arms free
“Now what in lan’ sakes you doing?” He eyed her figure.
She stepped out of her dress and stripped off her undergarments, leaving her pantaloons where they fell. “Drawing them out with my scent, of course.”
“Of course.” He rubbed his hands together and sighed. “Baiting them won’t keep pneumonia away.”
“I’ve survived worse.” She glared at him.
He tugged at his belt. “Best be joining you, then.” He had his pants half pulled down when Annie dropped in a low crouch, digging the butt of her rifle in the ground. “They’re coming.”
She shivered in the night air, but tilted her ear forward and cupped her hand to it.
“There.” Frank stepped out of his pants and leaned down. He placed his arms around her and she welcomed the warmth of his bare skin.
Something glowed in the shadows before them. Great hungry eyes glowed behind the tree roots nearby, lit under the gaze of a herd of monstrous cannibals in a dusty patch of moonlight. Their contorted and sunken features twitched.
Annie only had one breath before the tallest of them sped toward her. Its lanky arms flailed as it charged, jumping from tree to tree, shadow to shadow. Annie gripped her gun to her naked body, no longer feeling the cold.
Frank hollered and ran out to meet the giant beast. He held the stick up like a spear and Annie screamed, “Not yet. You’ll drive the rest away.”
Frank threw the stick aside and stood, arms out.
The smaller Wendigo snarled, gurgling as they licked their lips and moved in. Annie lost sight of the leader. She could feel its eyes up in the trees. But where?
She fired at the first to get close to her husband. It fell and the others scattered. They threw sticks at her, crying out in unnatural guttural moans.
“You need your damn gun.” She nodded off the way they had come.
“This is your show.” He chuckled. “I came to speculate.”
“You mean spectate.” She attempted a laugh, but lost all humor, desperately searching the shadows. “And you’s a liar.” She nodded back to the stick he tossed.
“Come on.” She raced behind a tree and sniffed. The stench nearly knocked her over. It seemed to coat her skin. A searing pain tore into her shoulder and she was shoved to the ground. She struggled to roll over. The weight was too much. She kicked back to no avail. Closing her eyes, she held her breath and knocked her head back against the beast’s mouth.
It whimpered and Annie rolled over and fired. She stared at the blood trickling down its fangs as it went limp. Rubbing the back of her head, she clenched her teeth and got up quick. “Frank!”
She aimed for the Wendigo stalking him, but it slipped into the shadow of a nearby tree. Frank jogged over to where the first had charged. “I need the sumac stick.”
She followed. “No time.”
Annie kicked their clothes and panted. Her ears rang with a low rumble that sounded from above. She shot into the trees. A Wendigo fell, dead.
Her triumph melted into disappointment when she found it was the smallest one. Barely four feet, she imagined it as a child.
Biting her lip, she weaved through the trees, trusting Frank to keep up.
“Annie!” he gasped. The giant Wendigo had seized her in its crushing claws.
She squirmed under the jolt of pain that surged down her shoulder. The creature drooled on her breasts and pressed its icy fur against her naked thighs. The cold seemed to consume her. Her teeth chattered and she shook.
This is it, she only had time for one thought.
She gnashed her teeth and tore into the cannibal’s face. The rotting meat made her vomit in her mouth, but she continued to bite, mixing bile and coagulated blood, until Frank worked his arm through and jammed the sumac stick between them.
The Wendigo stumbled back, relaxing its grip. Annie shoved the sumac stick down its throat. It dropped her and she felt about for her rifle, spitting out the horrid taste again and again.
Her fingers knocked against the familiar muzzle, and she drew it up enough to blow a hole through the creature’s head.
She dropped her gun and tore through the leaves, digging up handfuls of dirt and rubbing them on her tongue to rid herself of the awful taste.
Frank patted her back and handed her her dress. Before she could get it over her head, two more Wendigo grumbled in sync, mixing their deadly tones with a nefarious harmony.
Frank dove for her rifle and got off three shots. Both remaining monsters fell.
“Three shots?” Annie stepped back into her dress and raised an eyebrow.
“We cain’t all hit every time.” He staggered forward and she caught him.
“You’re hurt.”
“So are you.” He motioned to her shoulder.
He winked at her. “It’ll be one hell of a tale to tell.”
They collected themselves and went to their tent for a bit of rest before going to Sitting Bull the next day. He offered them a balm to help heal their wounds and vowed to look after Annie always.
A newfound love for him and his tribe consumed her and she promised to be watchful of him, as a daughter cares for a father.
After fighting for so long, Annie finally found contentment as a performer. Frank talked Wild Bill into taking the show to Europe so they could see new things and leave the past behind. But as always, desperate men turn to monsters, and Annie and Frank often found themselves on the hunt.
ROTOSCOPING TOODIES
MORT CASTLE
Snow White waits in darkness, if you can call it “waiting” if there is no expectation. Snow White is a Toody. Not being human, Toodies do not have anything tantamount to the full range of human emotion, though some Toodies can mimic certain aspects of human feelings without experiencing any degree of effect. Likewise, most Toodies also lack such human physical characteristics as pores, bladders, spleens, warts, etc.
Toodies never become ill, as we understand illness, though some, like the Dwarf Sneezy, might present a condition similar to chronic rhinitis, which has neither cause nor cure (the Dwarf Sneezy does little else but sneeze in explosively comic fashion). Other Toodies exhibit severe stuttering, OCD conditions, such as seeking and collecting dots, or addictions to such foods as spinach or carrots. Toodies do not die. If they are forgotten or totally ignored, they simply cease to exist, either fading away relatively slowly or departing with a quiet “pop.”
The Toody Snow White does not long for anyone, nor care for anyone, nor miss anyone, nor hope for anyone.
But can we explain why, on some days, her face seems—might it be, wistful—and voice soft and trembly and musical, she sings, “Someday my prince will come?”
***
Rotoscoping: a frame by frame technique that animators use to produce realistic action. In the rotoscope process, live action film images are projected onto a glass panel and traced over and colored by pen and brush. The original equipment employed in the process was dubbed a “rotoscope,” invented and employed by the Polish-American animator Max Fleischer. At one time, many animators and critics held rotoscoping in low regard, seeing it as a lazy way to cut corners and requiring only the most rudimentary art skills.
Animation: History and Future
by James Oliver Firkins, published November, 2030 by Vintage, Hachette, Random, Triangle Productions
***
My Christmas Eve, 1966
Walt Disney died and was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California last week.
A day before he passed, he called me to his bedside in Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center. He asked his brother Roy, the only other visitor at the time, to step out for a moment.
He said in a bubbly dying whisper, “Bish, you are my friend.”
I said I was.
He said, “We share secrets.”
We did.
“There is a promise you must make me.”
He said it as a question: “Will you take care of her now?”
I made the promise.
Walt was my friend. He was a genius and a son of a bitch, and I got a maximum dose of one and sometimes the other, but had you been there when Walt was pitching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, acting out each scene, playing it broad full gesture, expressions and moves as smooth as anything Chaplin ever put on film, you would have known the power of the man. He became Snow White and the Wicked Queen and all seven of the dwarfs.
Walt Disney was a shaman, a wizard, and when he stepped into a room, the air charged with ozone, and you swore lightning jumped from his fingers and if he said, “Let us climb Mt. Sinai and kick God in the ass!” you would have cheered and followed him in your mountain climbing ass-kicking boots.
Along with the veterans, Art Babbitt, Hardie Gramatky, Johnny Cannon, and Bill Cottrell, I was present at that mesmerizing performance. I was still the new guy, Bish (Bishop) Leffords, 26 years old, but already a lead animator and not a backgrounder or in-betweener.
(It is significant who was not there: Ub Iwerks. With Iwerks we might not have been forced into the great deception. But Walt had offended his former partner and master animator by taking credit for everything from sound cartoons to the sinuous whip of Mickey Mouse’s tail, and Iwerks said, “Fuck you and the fucking mouse, too,” and opened his own New York studio in 1930.)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be the first feature length animated film—and the greatest. Cartoon short subjects? A frivolous novelty, produced with the artistry of a failing student in a high school mechanical drawing class, with cacophonous soundtracks comprised of xylophones, Jew’s harps, musical (!?!) saws, and whoopee cushions.
We would transform the medium.
We would transcend the medium.
We believed.
We were determined.
We were destined.
We would create—drum roll—
ART!
Ours was a holy mission.
It would cost an unbelievable $250,000 but we would get it. That is, Roy Disney, the company’s money man, would get it (the initial estimate was off. Snow White came in at just under a million and a half). It was only money. What did we care about money?
WE WERE ARTISTS!
Development of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs began in 1934.
I had been hired late in the previous year.
***
Flashback: My Welcome to Disney Studios
I was told, “We think he will hire you, but Walt makes all the final decisions.”
I was shown into his office.
Smoke.
Walt Disney smoked all the time.
The pencils in the utilitarian holder on the desk all stood sharp points up. There was a pristine blotter. There was a framed 8 x 10 of a woman. She looked like a librarian who could tell you the Dewey Decimal number for any category of book you might desire. There was nothing of The Mouse.
Behind the desk sat Walt Disney, smoking.
He said, “You’re Bish?”
I commanded myself to smile. I knew that is what you do when you are meeting someone you wish to please.
I said, “Yes. Ha, ha. Bish, short for Bishop. Ha, ha.”
Walt Disney gestured to the chair alongside his desk.
“I’ve seen your samples. I’ve seen your pitch reel. You’re good, Bish.”
I said what I was supposed to say. “Thank you, Mr. Disney. Ha, ha.” I did not say more. You can have problems if you say too much. You can have problems if you try too hard.
He said, “Call me Walt.”
I said, “Okay. I can. Okay . . . Walt.”
He smoked and raised an eyebrow.
He said, “You’re not comfortable calling me ‘Walt,’ but I do insist on it. I am ‘Walt’ to everyone who works here. I want to hire you, Bish. You are a very talented animator.”
He held out his hand.
It took a while for me to take it and pump it up and down a short ways, one-two-three, ha, ha, ha. Back then, it was not easy for me to touch or be touched.
Walt did not say anything for a little while, then he said, “You’re not comfortable with people, are you, Bish?”
“Ha, ha,” I said. “No, sir, I am not. Walt.”
“You are not comfortable in this world, are you, Bish?”
“I do not know what you mean . . . ”
“You are not comfortable because everything is all fucked up in this world and everyone is all fucked up, can’t help it, all fucked up, that’s just the fucking way it is. Fucked up. That’s why you want to create something beautiful and pure and just how it should be instead of all of it being all fucked up.”
“Ha, ha,” I said.
>
Then he told me about himself. Later, I came to understand he wanted me to know him so I could be a friend.
This is what he said:
“So the other day, it was so nice and I finished lunch early and I thought I’d take a little walk and as soon as I was out the door, I stepped into a big pile of dogshit. With the sky so blue and a gentle breeze and the sun shining so bright, I step in FUCKING DOGSHIT!
“That is fucked up, Bish.
“So I’m at Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store. I want to buy some pocket squares for the guys I play polo with. I’m going to the elevator and there’s this nicely dressed lady with this cute little boy, maybe seven, maybe just six, and she’s slapping him in the back of the head, steady like a metronome and hard: Whap, Whap, Whap! Kid is crying. Screaming. Whap, whap, whap!
“So I softly and calmly tell her, ‘Ma’am, you must be upset, I know, but you don’t have to do that to the child.’
“And she yells right in my face and there’s spittle flying, ‘Tomorrow they cut off my husband’s leg! They started with his toe when it went black. Then they cut off his foot. And tomorrow they do his leg! How can you work on the railroad without a leg? You have to have legs to work on the railroad!’
“Bish,” Walt puffed smoke and whispered, “I have decided to tell you something personal. I believe you will understand.
“Lillian, that’s my wife, wants another child. So last night, we did sex. It’s never been easy. But last night, well, it never seemed more disgusting. The noises she makes. You make your own sounds just so you won’t have to listen to hers. There’s that damp skin wriggling under your skin. There are . . . smells . . . It’s, oh, God! It’s horrible, as horrible as horrible can be.”
He slapped his palm down hard on the desktop. “None of it! IT SHOULD NOT BE THAT WAY!”
I remember I nodded.
Walt said, “I knew you would understand me, Bish. And I understand. I understand you, Bish.”
Years later, I would learn about autism and conclude the term had once applied to me, but being with others who made hippopotamuses in tutus dance ballet and sailor suited ducks sputter like a tongue-tied King Lear and elephants fly by flapping their fucking ears, working in such a gloriously frantic freak show for such a long time, I learned to fake the protocols of necessary social interaction.