Tales from the Crossroad, Volume 1

by Tom Piccirilli

  Max crouched, stared down, considered the bits of rubble and refuse littering the floor. He felt as if he had been gutted and nothing remained of him except for a dry husk drifting on a breeze.

  "Our bond is much deeper than love or hate, Tonton." Alioune walked to him, put her hand on his shoulder. "We belong to one another. There is only us. You felt what we are like, what we do. How can anything else be important? How can anything else matter?"

  Her pubic hair brushed against his cheek. The smell of her filled his lungs. Her hand warmed his shoulder. He searched for some reaction in himself, a glimmer of feeling, but found none. He knew then that only when they were joined together in their singular act of love would he taste sensation again. Their sensation. As the conductor of their passion, he had no feeling left for himself. The twins could ignite his capacity to feel, but they would also consume it, allowing him to feel only after they had used his body and nerves and mind to fulfill themselves.

  They were his Beast and his prey. And he, like the more fragile lovers they had taken on over the years, was the hunting ground on which they played.

  "Sex, love, death, they are all the same, Tonton," Kueur said. "Pain, pleasure, what is the difference? Words. Little labels people put on the things they find to distract themselves from what is important." She sat up against the wall and spread her legs, opening her sex to him. "We are what is important, Tonton. The rest, they are the feast we consume."

  Kueur's honey laughter rolled over Max as he looked away from her and met Alioune's razor-pit gaze. He broke off quickly and, sinking to his knees, hugged Alioune around her hips. Kueur came to them and embraced them both, and the pulse of their life beat in his ears.

  In that moment, he was surprised to discover he had surrendered so much, surprised he had possessed so much to give. And he wondered at the hunger he would never feel again, the hunger for the love of Kueur and Alioune that had driven the Beast that was Max to its destruction.

  ALSO FROM GERARD HOUARNER & CROSSROAD PRESS

  Novel:

  The Beast That Was Max

  Steve Rasnic Tem

  BIO:

  Steve Rasnic Tem is a past winner of the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild Awards. His next novel is DEADFALL HOTEL, available as a limited edition hardcover from Centipede Press in Fall of 2011, followed by a paperback and eBook edition from Solaris Books in May of 2012. In August of 2012, New Pulp Press will be publishing his first hard core crime story collection, UGLY BEHAVIOR, in paperback and eBook formats.

  THE UNMASKING

  By Steve Rasnic Tem

  (original appearance in Phantoms, Marty Greenberg ed., 1989)

  "I've had that poster a very long time, Chelsea," Andrew said to the young woman in bed. Lon Chaney as the Phantom, right after the moment of unmasking, when he'd stepped away from the appalled Christine Daae. The Phantom's face had been the perfect revelation—Andrew was more convinced of that now than ever. The eyes were the only thing alive in that skull face. "See the resemblance?" He grinned as widely as he could, showing his perfectly cared-for teeth.

  "Don't be ridiculous, Andrew," she said in a sleepy voice. "You look nothing like that."

  Andrew held his huge smile a few seconds, then closed it up, shut it down. She didn't understand now, but she would.

  The poster had yellowed over the years. With every one of his many moves, more damage had been done. The countless tears mended carefully with scotch tape, then later transparent tape when that went on the market. Now, at last, in the home of his dead parents, perhaps his precious poster could remain on the wall.

  "Can I get you anything?" he asked.

  "A new mother, a new father, and a father for this baby." She laughed mirthlessly.

  Andrew didn't return the laughter. "You know I would if I could," he said.

  "I know, Andrew."

  "You know I'd do anything."

  "I know, Andrew. Now let me sleep." She rolled over to the wall. Andrew stepped softly to the kitchen, thinking to have some food ready for her when she woke up.

  She'd been with him a week. He'd taken every precaution; there seemed little chance anyone would trace her there. He'd had the house to himself since his mother died; most of the neighbors were new, and none had ever paid much attention to him. When Chelsea wanted air, he insisted she use the back balcony with its solid sidewalls and the surrounding high trees.

  They might hear her singing, he mused. Small chance. His was a silent bird. He'd even suggested that a good song now and then might make her feel better. She'd stared at him as if he were mad.

  Perhaps she did think he was crazy. Surely she must. He knew he had enough quirks. He knew there could be few people more obsessive than he. But she needed him, so she didn't call him crazy. To his face. What she didn't know was that he wouldn't have taken offense.

  He scratched at the scab on his cheek. It was beginning to itch. He thought there might be a scar there, eventually. If he permitted it to heal. The scab was crescent-shaped, to match a fingernail, and the tissue seemed slightly warped where the fingernail had gone in. A definite possibility of a scar. He pictured himself with a scar and felt his smile come on, as if his teeth were visibly growing and spreading his lips apart as the crowns expanded.

  He was careful making the omelet. He threw out the first attempt because it stuck to the pan. The second because the color wasn't quite right. After all, he was making this omelet for Chelsea. It would be passing her beautiful lips, dropping down her pale throat to exquisite belly and then to all her secret places, providing nourishment for both her and her unborn child. This could not be an ordinary omelet.

  He heard a soft padding behind him and turned.

  Christine Daae stood silhouetted in the kitchen doorway, her hair glowing under the dim, flashing fluorescents. And then it was Chelsea, rubbing at her eyes, her expanded belly pushing her nightgown out, stretching the cloth to a sheerness that mapped every mole, crevice, and contour.

  "Smells good," she said. Andrew reached up and lightly rubbed the scab on his face, imagining the skin ripping open. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

  "Not at all. It didn't even hurt while it was happening."

  Chelsea made a shuddering motion. "Ugh! I hate blood."

  "Warm blood makes us human," he said. "That's what we want out of a kiss, a close embrace. That's all. We want another human's warmth."

  She smiled and walked toward the kitchen table. "You're a poet, Andrew."

  "Oh. Far more than that."

  She stopped and turned to him with a puzzled expression. But she did not ask.

  Her parents didn't want anything to do with her. They'd called her a "tramp," she said. Andrew thought that was a curiously old-fashioned term. Like "dishonor." You have dishonored our family name. He imagined her parents were very much like his own. I can no longer cover up for your little infatuations. I can no longer protect you from the police. Why can't you stop bothering these young women? They could not accept her for who she was. They could not appreciate her free ways. Well, he could.

  "Coffee?" He held the pot up close to his face, where he could feel the heat through his tender skin. He imagined all his features, his personality, the small lies of appearance melting away.

  "No, I've had enough. Makes me pee too much."

  Andrew turned away, a small disgust playing with his lips.

  "Andrew, I'd like to go out today."

  He gripped the pot so firmly it tipped. Tiny splashes steamed off the stove top. He slowly returned the pot to the counter. "Why? You have everything you need here. What I don't have now, I can get for you."

  "I just need to get out. Staying cooped up like this in the same place all the time ... a person's bound to go crazy."

  He turned and faced her. He could feel his teeth making him smile again. "I stay here all the time," he said. "I almost never go out. Are you saying that I'm ..."

  "Of course not!" Andrew watched as she took a
deep breath. A perfect breath, judging from the way the thin material over her breasts rose and fell without wrinkling. She was composing herself. Andrew had noticed how good she was at composing herself. "I'm just not as strong as you, I guess," she said. "I need to get out, see other people."

  "No, you're not strong, Chelsea. You're going to have a baby soon. That means you need your rest."

  "But I need to get out!"

  Andrew could feel his smile stretching, pulling the skin around his scab so that it began to itch again. "See, you're upsetting yourself. And that's not good for you or your unborn child. I'll just run out and get you some ice cream. Strawberry, your favorite flavor. And nuts ... I'll get nuts. And cherries and whip cream and butterscotch. I know how much you like sundaes. Remember? I first met you at the ice cream parlor. I was working behind the counter?"

  "I remember, Andrew," she said quietly.

  "I'll just run down there and fix you a strawberry sundae and bring it right back up."

  "You quit that job, remember?"

  He began looking for his coat. He finally tried the inside of the broom closet door and there it was. He turned and looked at her while slipping the coat on. It required three attempts to get his right arm into the sleeve. "I remember," he said. "I had to take care of you, didn't I? Not that I minded. I didn't need that job anyway. I'll get the ingredients at the grocery store and make the sundae here, on the kitchen table. You'll love it."

  "Andrew ..." He almost ran to the door. "Andrew, please." He jerked it open and slammed it after him. "Andrew, I need to get out!" she screamed from the other side of the door. He locked the door, pocketing the key.

  He went down the staircase into the old entranceway. It was the only way to the apartment upstairs; there was no outside entrance. After all those years of failed relationships, after he'd been forced out of so many apartments because of complaints he was "bothering" the young women there, making them "uncomfortable," he'd had nowhere to go but his parents' house. And since moving back he'd always lived in the apartment upstairs. It had always been sufficiently large for him, and even with both parents dead he could see no reason to expand his living space into the rest of the house. All the furniture in the ground floor was kept covered with sheets and plastic, and years of dust. The telephone sat by the front door—he'd used it as a doorstop while carrying some of Chelsea's things in. It hadn't been connected in years. He'd also flipped off the circuit breakers that controlled this part of the house, and shut off the heating vents, so that these rooms were always cold and dark. He liked to think of them as a protective barrier of cold and dark between the outside world and his living quarters upstairs. This was his no-man's-land, his dark lands. He'd informed the post office no one lived here anymore. No one would guess someone still lived here.

  He felt strange in the fresh air, the bright sunshine. Chelsea had come to him on a rainy, dreary day, virtually without warning, although he'd known she'd been having trouble at home for some time. She talked about it every day at the Ice Cream Shop.

  "They're going to kick me out, I just know it," she said, jabbing the plastic spoon forcefully into her sundae.

  Andrew leaned over supported by his broom. Leaned over her, gauging the smoothness of her cheeks, noting the contrast between her oh-so-black hair and the paleness of her skin, observing where the paleness grew pinker, where warm blood—excited by nerves—welled closer to the surface. He glanced at the door to the back room, saw Mr. Carter's face there, watching. Andrew had been warned repeatedly about young female customers. Not to stare at them, lean over them, to stop bothering them. "Why in the world would they do that?" he finally asked.

  Chelsea looked down and gently patted her stomach. "I'm preggie, and the daddy is long gone. My folks'll have a fit."

  Andrew had blushed slightly at her casual reference to pregnancy. So far, it had been the only flaw he'd found in Chelsea: her vulgarity, her too-easy familiarity. But he had been sure he could teach her how to overcome that. "I have a large house. If the worst should happen, you could stay with me."

  Chelsea had looked at him with a smirk. "You hitting on me, Andrew?"

  Andrew had felt his face burn, even though he knew this was her way of kidding, her way of maintaining control. He could train her to overcome that, as well. Still, the feeling of heat in his face would not go away. He imagined it highlighting all his imperfections. "I'm offering as a friend. You know that. And really, it's a very large house."

  Chelsea's smile had faded a little, her skin paling. Vanilla ice cream, he thought. "Thanks, Andrew. I'll keep that in mind."

  He had seen the calculation in the way she said that, the evidence of planning in her features. Like so many young women before her, wondering what they could get out of loyal Andrew. And Andrew didn't mind. Thank you, Andrew. You're a true friend. I don't know what I would have done without you, Andrew. Now, he stared into the Ice Cream Shop window. His replacement was working behind the counter. The shiny glass mirrored Andrew's features, yet hid the secret imperfections. It always amazed him how mirrors could lie. He continued his trip to the grocer's. Then Chelsea's brother pulled up in his car.

  "Hey, Andrew! I'd like to talk to you a minute!"

  Andrew kept walking as if he hadn't heard anything. He made his face as stiff as possible, thinking as he had since high school that if he just made his face into a mask that no one would notice him. And for a very long time it had worked. People rarely, if ever, noticed him.

  But not this time. "Come on, Andrew! You know where she is, don't you?"

  He turned and stared at the crew cut protruding from the open driver's-side window. "I don't know who you're talking about."

  "Chelsea! Come on, I'm on her side. Mom and Dad are ready to take her back in. They know they overreacted and they want to help her out."

  "Well, I'm certainly glad they've come to their senses. But honestly, I have no idea where she is."

  The crew cut looked confused a minute. "I thought she would have told you," he said. "Could you call me if you hear from her?"

  "Of course. I'd be more than happy to."

  The crew cut did something with his hands, then handed a slip of paper out the window. "Here's my number."

  Andrew waved him away. "I already have it."

  Again, the crew cut looked confused. After a minute he waved back and drove away.

  On the next block two young girls were getting on to a bus. They were perfect, unspoiled, their skin scrubbed clean, their hair lustrous and natural. One of them turned and looked at Andrew, then nudged her friend. They both laughed.

  Anger flared, consuming Andrew, burning his face before he could stop it. He reached up and tore the scab off his face. "You simply haven't looked closely enough!" he shouted at them. He poked his finger into the fresh wound and began tugging on the skin to widen it. It felt blood-warm. It didn't hurt at all. "You have to look beneath the mask! Maybe you'll understand that some day! Maybe I'll even be your teacher!" The warmth ran down his finger onto his hand. He brought another finger up with its untrimmed nail and started working on the other cheek.

  The girls screamed and leapt onto the bus. The other passengers stared out their windows at Andrew. When the bus driver stepped down Andrew ran away.

  When he was a teenager Andrew's mother used to tell him that there was someone for everyone. And he'd believed that. Later, he'd believed that there were probably hundreds of possible matches for every one of us. You just had to find people attracted to your particular mask, or perhaps you could alter your mask if it didn't seem suitable to enough people. After all, no one knew what you really were inside. No one could truly see beyond the mask. This was both a curse and a blessing.

  He looked down. Blood was spotting his shirt. He ran behind a store and dipped his face and hands into a rain-filled metal barrel, then splashed some of the water on his clothing.

  He made his way down the alley until he reached a parked car. He leaned over and peered into the rear view mi
rror. The mirror had a wide-angle lens mounted on it, which distorted his face, made his wide smile even wider, and exaggerated the extent of his wounds. He blinked several times, fascinated as his lids raised and lowered over burning, blazing eyes. There was a world within those eyes, if people only bothered to look. His skin was ghastly pale in the alley's dim light. The blood running from his cheeks stood out like thick theatrical makeup. His nose had receded into shadow, so as to appear virtually nonexistent.

  Behind him, flashing red and yellow lights traveled the street that intersected the alley. Andrew ran down to the corner, his left foot dragging a bit. He must have hurt it in his flight.

  A patrol car had stopped across the street. An officer was talking to the two young girls from the bus.

  He had always hated the police. What were you doing with that girl? They all thought they knew what he was about. What were you thinking about doing with that girl? They were always stopping him, questioning him, watching him, waiting to catch him. Why don't you stop bothering them? We'll have to run you in if you don't stop bothering them.

  Andrew turned and ran back down the alley. He had leapt and caught the lower bar of a fire escape when he heard a car turning into the alley behind him. He made his way to the roof of the building, and then he heard the shouting below.

  Andrew ran across the line of roofs, leaping the manageable gaps with wild, animal abandon, tearing at his cheeks, tearing at his hair, feeling the blood grow thicker on his face, warm layers of it supplanting the layers that had gone cold. Now and then he heard more shouting, but he was far too swift for them, far too clever. The wind caressed his scars. He felt like singing, full of this new-found freedom.

  He would have liked being like other people. Always, that had been his goal. He would have liked having a wife, children, a home where friends and neighbors might visit. But his appearance put him apart from other human beings. Not the appearance that everyone saw—that was merely the mask. It was the appearance that lay beneath the mask that would have terrified, that would have left everyone he met shaken and appalled.