Nightmares & Geezenstacks

by Fredric Brown

  He started in, then changed his mind and, grinning happily, went on to the areaway between that building and the next. He took the Skintex mask from his pocket and slipped it over his face; be a good gag to see what the barber would do if he sat down in the chair for a shave with that mask on. He was grinning so broadly he had trouble getting the mask on smoothly, until he straightened out his face.

  He walked into the barber shop, hung his hat on the rack and sat down in the chair. His voice only a bit muffled by the flexible mask, he said, “Shave, please.”

  As the barber, who had taken his stand by the side of the chair, bent closer in incredulous amazement, the big man in the green suit couldn’t hold in his laughter any longer. The mask slipped as his laughter boomed out. He took it off and held it out for examination. “Purty lifelike, ain’t it?” he asked when he could quit laughing.

  “Sure is,” said the little barber admiringly. “Say, who makes those?”

  “My company. Ace Novelty.”

  “I’m with a group that puts on amateur theatricals,” the barber said. “Say, we could use some of those—for comic roles mainly, if they come in comic faces. Do they?”

  “They do. We’re manufacturers and wholesalers, of course. But you’ll be able to get them at Brachman & Minton’s, here in town. I call on ’em tomorrow, and I’ll load them up. How’s about that shave, meanwhile. Got a date with an angel.”

  “Sure,” said the little man. “Brachman & Minton. We buy most of our make-up and costumes there already. That’s fine.” He rinsed a towel under the hot-water faucet, wrung it out. He put it over the big man’s face and made lather in his shaving cup.

  Under the hot towel the man in the green suit was humming—“Got a Date with an Angel.” The barber took off the towel and applied the lather with deft strokes.

  “Yep,” said the big man, “got a date with an angel and I’m too damn’ early. Gimme the works—massage, anything you got. Wish I could look as handsome with my real face as with that there mask—that’s our Fancy Dan model, by the way. Y’oughta see some of the others. Well, you will if you go to Brachman & Minton’s about a week from now. Take about that long before they get the merchandise after I take their order tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the barber. “You said the works? Massage and facial?” He stropped the razor, started its neat clean strokes.

  “Why not? Got time. And tonight’s my night with baby. Some number, pal. Pageboy blonde, built like you-know-what. Runs a rooming house not far from—Say, I got an idea. Good gag.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll fool ’er. I’ll wear that Fancy Dan mask when I knock on the door and I’ll make her think somebody really good-looking is calling on her. Maybe it’ll be a letdown when she sees my homely mug when I take it off, but the gag’ll be good. And I’ll bet she won’t be too disappointed when she sees it’s good old Jim. Yep. I’ll do that.”

  The big man chuckled in anticipation. “What time’s it?” he asked. He was getting a little sleepy. The shave was over, and the kneading motion of the massage was soporific.

  “Ten of eight.”

  “Good. Lots of time. Just so I get there well before nine. That’s when—Say, did that mask really fool you when I walked in with it?”

  “Sure did,” the barber told him. “Until I bent over you after you sat down.”

  “Good. Then it’ll fool Marie Rhymer when I go up to the door. Say, what’s the name of your amatcher theatrical outfit? I’ll tell Brachman you’ll want some of the Skintex numbers.”

  “Just the Grove Avenue Social Center group. My name’s Dane. Brachman knows me. Sure, tell him we’ll take some.”

  Hot towels, cool creams, kneading fingers. The man in green dozed.

  “Okay, mister,” the barber said. “You’re all set. Be a dollar sixty-five.” He chuckled. “I even put your mask on so you’re all set. Good luck.”

  The big man sat up and glanced in the mirror. “Swell,” he said. He stood up and took two singles out of his wallet. “That’s even now. G’night.”

  He put on his hat and went out. It was getting dark now and a glance at his wrist watch showed him it was almost eight-thirty, perfect timing.

  He started humming again, back this time to “Tonight’s My Night with Baby.”

  He wanted to whistle, but he couldn’t do that with the false face on. He stopped in front of the house and looked around before he went up the steps to the door. He chuckled a little as he took the VACANCY sign off the nail beside the door and held it as he pressed the button and heard the bell sound.

  Only seconds passed before he heard her footsteps clicking to the door. It opened, and he bowed slightly, his voice muffled by the mask so she wouldn’t recognize it, he said, “You haff—a rrrooom, blease?”

  She was beautiful, all right, as beautiful as he remembered her from the last time he’d been in town a month before. She said hesitantly, “Why, yes, but I’m afraid I can’t show it to you tonight. I’m expecting a friend and I’m late getting ready.”

  He made a jerky little bow. He said, “Vee, moddomm, I vill rrreturrrn.”

  And then, jerking his chin forward to loosen the mask and pinching it loose at the forehead so it would come loose with his hat, he lifted hat and mask.

  He grinned and started to say—well, it didn’t matter what he’d started to say, because Marie Rhymer screamed and then dropped into a crumpled heap of purple silk and cream-colored flesh and blond hair just inside the door.

  Stunned, the big man dropped the sign he’d been holding and bent over her. He said, “Marie, honey, what—” and quickly stepped inside and closed the door. He bent down and—remembering her “tricky ticker”—put his hand over where her heart should be beating. Should be, but wasn’t.

  He got out of there quickly. With a wife and kid of his own back in Minneapolis, he couldn’t be—Well, he got out.

  Still stunned, he walked quickly out.

  He came to the barber shop, and it was dark. He stopped in front of the door. The dark glass of the door, with a street light shining against it from across the way, was both transparent and a mirror. In it, he saw three things.

  He saw, in the mirror part of the door, the face of horror that was his own face. Bright green, with careful expert shadowing that made it the face of a walking corpse, a ghoul with sunken eyes and cheeks and blue lips. The bright-green face mirrored above the green suit and the snazzy red tie—the face that the make-up-expert barber must have put on him while he’d dozed—

  And the note, stuck against the inside of the glass of the barber-shop door, written on white paper in green pencil:

  CLOSED

  Dane Rhymer

  Marie Rhymer, Dane Rhymer, he thought dully. While through the glass, inside the dark barber shop, he could see it dimly—the white-clad figure of the little barber as it dangled from the chandelier and turned slowly, left to right, right to left, left to right…

  CARTOONIST

  (in collaboration with Mack Reynolds)

  There were six letters in Bill Garrigan’s box, but he could tell from a quick glance at the envelopes that not one of them was a check. Would-be gags from would-be gagmen. And, nine chances out of ten, not a yak in the lot.

  He carried them back to the adobe hut he called his studio before bothering to open them. He tossed his disreputable hat onto the two-burner kerosene stove. He sat down and twisted his legs around the legs of the kitchen chair before the rickety table which doubled as a place to eat and his drawing board.

  It had been a long time since the last sale and he hoped, even though he didn’t dare expect, that there’d be a really salable gag in this lot. Miracles do happen.

  He tore open the first envelope. Six gags from some guy up in Oregon, sent to him on the usual basis; if he liked any of them he’d draw them up and if they sold the guy got a percentage. Bill Garrigan looked at the first one. It read:

  guy and gal drive up to restaurant. sign on car reads “herma
n the fire eater.” through windows of restaurant people eating by candlelight.

  guy:“oh, boy, this looks like a good place to eat!”

  Bill Garrigan groaned and looked at the next card. And the next. And the next. He opened the next envelope. And the next.

  This was getting really bad. Cartooning is a tough racket to make a living in, even when you live in a little town in the Southwest where living doesn’t cost you much. And once you start slipping—well, the thing was a vicious circle. As your stuff was seen less and less often in the big markets, the best gagmen started sending their material elsewhere. You wound up with the leftovers, which, of course, put the skids under you that much worse.

  He pulled the last gag from the final envelope. It read:

  scene on some other planet. emperor snook, a hideous monster, is talking to some of his scientists.

  emperor: “yes, i understand that you’ve devised a method of visiting earth, but who would want to with all those horrible humans living there?”

  Bill Garrigan scratched the end of his nose thoughtfully. It had possibilities. After all, the science-fiction market was growing like mad. And if he could draw these extra-terrestrial creatures hideous enough to bring out the gag—

  He reached for a pencil and a piece of paper and started to sketch out a rough. The first version of the Emperor and his scientists didn’t look quite ugly enough. He crumpled up the paper and reached for another piece.

  Let’s see. He could give each one of the monsters three heads, each head with six protruding, goggling eyes. Half-a-dozen stubby arms. Hmmm, not bad. Very long torsos, very short legs. Four apiece, front ones bending one way, back ones the other. Splay feet. Now how about the face, outside of the six eyes? Leave ’em blank below the eyes. A mouth, a big one, in the middle of the chest. That way a monster wouldn’t get to arguing with himself as to which head should do the eating.

  He added a few quick lines for the background; he looked upon his work and it was good. Maybe too good; maybe editors would think their readers too squeamish to look upon such terrible monstrosities. And yet, unless he made them as horrible as he could, the gag would be lost.

  In fact, maybe he could make them even a little more hideous. He tried, and found that he could.

  He worked on the rough until he was sure he’d got as much as could be drawn out of the gag, found an envelope and addressed it to his best market—or what had been his best market up to several months ago when he’d started slipping. He’d made his last sale there fully two months ago. But maybe they’d take this one; Rod Corey, the editor, liked his cartoons a bit on the bizarre side.

  Bill Garrigan had almost forgotten the submission by the time it came back almost six weeks later.

  He tore open the envelope. The rough was there with a big red “O.K. Let’s have a finish,” scrawled to one side of it and with the initials “R.C.” beneath.

  He’d eat again!

  Bill made it back from the post office in double time, brushed the odds and ends of food, books, and clothing from the table top and reached for paper, pencil, pen, and ink.

  He wedged the rough between a milk can and a dirty saucer to work from it, and he stared at it until he got himself back in the frame of mind he’d been in when he’d first roughed out the idea.

  He did a job of it, because Rod Corey’s market was in there with the best; the only one that gave him a hundred bucks a crack. Of course some of the really top markets paid higher than that to name-cartoonists, but Bill Garrigan had lost any delusions of his own grandeur. Sure, he’d give his right arm to hit the top, but it didn’t seem likely to happen. And right now he’d settle for selling enough to keep him. eating.

  He took almost two hours to complete the finish, did it up carefully with cardboard and made his way back to the post office. He mailed it and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. Money in the bank. He’d be able to get the broken transmission fixed on his jalopy and be on wheels again, and he’d be able to catch up fractionally on his grocery and rent bills to boot. Only it was a shame that old R.C. wasn’t quicker pay.

  As a matter of fact the check didn’t come until the day the issue containing the cartoon hit the stands. But in the meantime he’d made a couple of small sales to trade magazines and hadn’t actually gone hungry. Still in all the check looked wonderful when it came.

  He cashed it at the bank on his way from the post office and stopped off at the Sagebrush Tap for a couple of quick ones. And they tasted so good and made him feel so cheerful that he stopped at the liquor store and picked up a bottle of Metaxa. He couldn’t afford Metaxa, of course—who can?—but somewhere along the line a man has to do a reasonable amount of celebrating.

  Once home, he opened the bottle of precious Greek brandy, had a couple of slugs of it and then settled his long body into the chair, propped his scuffed shoes on the rickety table and let out a sigh of pure contentment. Tomorrow he’d regret the money he’d spent and he’d probably have a hangover to boot, but tomorrow was mañana.

  Reaching out a hand he picked the least dirty of the glasses within his reach and poured a stiff shot into it. Maybe, he thought, fame is the food of the soul and he’d never be a famous cartoonist, but this afternoon at least cartooning was giving with the liquor of the gods.

  He raised the glass toward his lips, but he didn’t quite make it. His eyes widened.

  Before him, the adobe wall seemed to shimmer, quiver, shake. Then, slowly, a small aperture appeared. It enlarged, grew, widened; suddenly it was the size of a doorway.

  Bill darted a reproachful look at the brandy. Hell, he told himself, I’ve hardly touched it. His unbelieving eyes went back to the doorway in the wall. It could be an earthquake. In fact, it must be. What else—

  Two six-armed creatures emerged. Each had three heads and each head had six goggling eyes. Four legs, a mouth in the middle of—

  “Oh, no,” Bill said.

  Each of the creatures held an awesome, respect-inspiring gunlike object. Each pointed it at Bill Garrigan.

  “Gentlemen,” Bill said, “I realize that this is one of the most potent drinks on earth, but, so help me, two jiggers couldn’t do this.”

  The monsters stared at him and shuddered, and each one closed all but one of its twenty-four eyes.

  “Hideous indeed,” said the first one to have come through the aperture. “The most hideous specimen in the solar system, is he not, Agol?”

  “Me?” said Bill Garrigan faintly.

  “You. But do not be afraid. We have come not to harm you but to take you into the mighty presence of Bon Whir III, Emperor Snook, where you will be suitably rewarded.”

  “How? For what? Where’s—Snook?”

  “Will you please ask questions one at a time? I could answer all three of those simultaneously, one with each head, but I fear you are not equipped to understand multiple communication.”

  Bill Garrigan closed his eyes. “You’ve got three heads, but only one mouth. How can you talk three ways with only one mouth?”

  The monsters mouth laughed. “What makes you think we talk with our mouths? We only laugh with them. We eat by osmosis. We talk by vibrating diaphragms in the tops of our heads. Now, which of your three previous questions do you wish answered?”

  “How will I be rewarded?”

  “The Emperor did not tell us. But it will be a great reward. It is our duty merely to bring you. These weapons are merely a precaution in case you resist. And they do not kill; we are too civilized to kill. They merely stun.”

  “You aren’t really there,” Bill said. He opened his eyes and quickly closed them again. “I’ve never touched a reefer in my life. Nor had d.t.’s, and I couldn’t suddenly get them on only two brandies—well, four if you count the ones at the bar.”

  “You are ready to go with us?”

  “Go where?”

  “To Snook.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The fifth planet, retrograde, of System K-14-320-GM, Space Co
ntinuum 1745-88JHT-97608.”

  “Where, with relation to here?”

  The monster gestured with one of his six arms. “Immediately through that aperture in your wall. Are you ready?”

  “No. What am I being rewarded for? That cartoon? How did you see it?”.

  “Yes. For that cartoon. We are thoroughly familiar with your world and civilization; it is parallel to ours but in a different continuum. We are people with a great sense of humor. We have artists but no cartoonists; we lack that faculty. The cartoon you drew is, to us, excruciatingly funny. Already, everyone in Snook is laughing at it. Are you now ready?”

  “No,” said Bill Garrigan.

  Both monsters lifted their guns. Two clicks came simultaneously.

  “You are conscious again,” a voice told him. “This way to the throne room, please.”

  There wasn’t any use arguing. Bill went. He was here now, wherever here was, and maybe they’d reward him by letting him go back if he behaved himself.

  The room was familiar. Just as he’d drawn it. And he’d have recognized the Emperor anywhere. Not only the Emperor, but the scientists who were with him.

  Could it, conceivably, have been coincidence that he had drawn a scene and creatures that actually existed? Or—hadn’t he read somewhere the theory that there existed an infinite number of universes in an infinite number of space-time continuums, so that any state of being of which one could possibly think actually existed somewhere? He’d thought that had sounded ridiculous when he’d read it, but he wasn’t so sure now.

  A voice from somewhere—it sounded as though from an amplifier—said, “The great, the mighty Emperor Bon Whir III, Leader of the Faithful, Commander of the Glories, Receiver of the Light, Lord of the Galaxies, Beloved of His People.”

  It stopped and Bill said, “Bill Garrigan.”