The Barrens & Others (50 page)

"Shanna!"

She chanced one last look upward.

The third floor doors had retracted to the floor and ceiling lines. Most of Jake's torso seemed to be hanging over the edge.

"It's for–

He leaned too far.

Oh, shit, he's falling!

"–yooooouuuuu!"

Shanna's high-pitched scream of "Noooo!" blended with Jake's voice in a fearful harmony that ended with his head striking the upper edge of the elevator car's rear wall. As the rest of his body whipped around in a wild, blood-splattering, pinwheeling sprawl, his shoed foot slammed against Shanna's head, knocking her back against the door lever. Half-dazed, she watched the steel doors reverse their opening motion.

"No!"

And Jake...Jake was still moving, crawling toward her an inch at a time on twisted arms, broken legs, his shattered head raised, trying to speak, still clutching the vest in one hand, still offering it to her.

The coat seemed to ripple around her, moving on its own. She had to get
out
of here!

The doors! Shanna lunged for the opening, reaching toward the light from the deserted front foyer. She could make it through if –

She slipped on the blood, went down on one knee, still reaching as the steel doors slammed down on her wrist. Shanna heard her bones crunch as pain beyond anything she had ever known ran up her arm. She would have screamed but the agony had stolen her voice. She tried to pull free but she was caught, tried to reach the lever but it was a good foot beyond her grasp.

Something touched her foot. Jake – it was what was left of Jake holding his vest out to her with one hand, caressing her bare foot with the one of the fur strips wrapped around the fingers of his other hand. She kicked at him, slid herself away from him. She couldn't let him get near her. He'd want to put that vest on her, want to try to do other things to her. And she was bare-ass naked under this coat. She had to get free, get free of these doors, anything to get free!

She began chewing at the flesh of her trapped wrist, tearing at it, unmindful of the greater pain, of the running blood. It seemed the natural thing to do, the
only
thing to do.

Free! She had to get
free!

3

Juanita wasn't having much luck tonight. She'd just pushed her shopping cart with all her worldly belongings the length of a narrow alley looking for a safe place to huddle for the night, an alcove or deep doorway, someplace out of sight and out of the wind. A good alley, real potential, but already occupied by someone very drunk and very nasty. She'd moved on.

Cold. Really felt the cold these days. Didn't know how old she was but knew that her bones creaked and her back hurt and she couldn't stand the cold like she used to. If she could find a place to hide her cart, maybe she could sneak into the subway for the night. Always warmer down there. But when she came up top again all her things might be gone.

Didn't want to be carted off to no shelter, neither. Even a safe one. Didn't like being closed in, and once they got you into those places they never let you go till morning. Liked to come and go as she pleased. Besides, she got confused indoors and her mind wouldn't work straight. She was an outdoors person. That was where she did her clearest thinking, where she intended to stay.

As she turned a corner she spotted all the flashing red and blue lights outside a building she remembered as a warehouse but was now a bunch of apartments. Like a child, she was drawn to the bright, pretty lights to see what was going on.

Took her a while to find out. Juanita allowed herself few illusions. She knew not many people want to explain things to someone who looks like a walking rag pile, but she persisted and eventually managed to pick up half a dozen variations on what had happened inside. All agreed on one thing: a gruesome double murder in the building's elevator involving a naked woman and a half-naked man. After that the stories got crazy. Some said the man had been flayed alive and the woman was wearing his skin, others said the man had cut off the woman's hand, still others said she'd
chewed
her own hand off.

Enough. Shuddering, Juanita turned and pushed her cart away. She'd gone only a few yards when she spotted movement as she was passing a shadowed doorway. Not human movement; too low to the ground. Looked like an animal but it was too big for a rat, even a New York City rat. Light from a passing EMS wagon glinted off the thing and Juanita was struck by the thickness of its fur, by the way the light danced and flickered over its surface.

Then she realized it was a coat – a fur coat. Even in the dark she could see that it wasn't some junky fun fur. This was the real thing, a true, blue, top-of-the-line, utterly fabulous fur coat. She grabbed it and held it up.
Mira!
Even in the dark she could see how lovely it was, how the fur glistened.

She slipped into it. The coat seemed to ripple away from her for a second, then it snuggled against her. Instantly she was warm. So warm. Almost as if the fur was generating its own heat, like an electric blanket. Seemed to draw the cold right out of her bones. Must've been ages since she last felt so toasty. But she forced herself to pull free of it and hold it up again.

Sadly, Juanita shook her head. No good. Too nice. Wear this thing around and someone'd think she was rich and roll her but good. Maybe she could pawn it. But it was probably hot and that would get her busted. Couldn't take being locked up ever again. A shame, though. Such a nice warm coat and she couldn't wear it.

And then she had an idea. She found an alley like the one she'd left before and dropped the coat onto the pavement, fur side down. Then she knelt beside it and began to rub it into the filth. From top to bottom she covered the fur with any grime she could find. Practically cleaned the end of the alley with that coat. Then she held it up again.

Better. Much better. No one would recognize it and hardly anybody would bother stealing it the way it looked now. But what did she care how she looked in it? As long as it served its purpose, that was all she asked. She slipped into it again and once more the warmth enveloped her.

She smiled and felt the wind whistle through the gaps between her teeth.

This is living! Nothing like a fur to keep you warm. And after all, for those who of us who do our living in the outdoors, ain't that what fur is for?

foreword to "Pelts" the play

I'm including this piece because it's the offspring of the preceding story. "Pelts" and its stage adaptation should be read back to back.

The stage version started at the tail end of March 1990 when I received a call from someone named Al Corley who'd got my number from Joe Lansdale. He said he was putting together a Grand Guignol type production called
Screamplay
for off Broadway, featuring state of the art special effects and midgets for ushers. Would I be interested in writing a one act play for them?

My first thought: This is a Lansdale joke. Joe is setting me up.

But as Al Corley talked on about how they had the Astor Place Theatre reserved, and how Del Close was scheduled to direct, I realized he was serious. So I sent him a copy of
Soft & Others
plus a few manuscripts of stories that were in the pipeline. He latched onto "Pelts" immediately and suggested I adapt it.

So while my agent informed the producers of all the unacceptable clauses in their contract, I began the first draft. I started on May 3 and finished it in four days. Al Corley read it and said there was one major problem: I'd written the play just like the story, which meant it had three sets. That was two too many. One set. Do it with one set.

One set? This was more restrictive than
Monsters
. But the challenge of distilling the action and interaction down to the bare essentials intrigued me. Took me two days. The revision was completed on July 1.

The result is almost a different story. What little subtlety there is to be found in the prose version (not much, I grant you) is gone, obliterated by sprays of red. This is a very bloody,
busy
one act play. But the special effects consultants said the bashed heads and flayings and such were no problem.

I didn't allow myself to get psyched. I wanted very badly to see this performed, but I'd learned from my experience with THE KEEP not to get emotionally involved until the opening credits begin to roll – and even then, hold back. So I downplayed
Screamplay
whenever it was brought up.

Just as well.
Screamplay
never reached the stage. And that's a damn shame. With material by Nancy Collins and Joe Lansdale and other super talents, dramatized with state of the art live special effects (and let's not forget the midget ushers),
Screamplay
would have been a very hot ticket among New York's jaded theatergoers. But Wall Street's mini crash in the fall of '90 and the deepening recession through '91 sucked off the financing. Opening was pushed back to March of '91, then postponed indefinitely.

So here's the one act stage version of "Pelts." This, I think you'll agree, would have been
something
to see.

PELTS

SCENE ONE

Dawn. The Jersey Pine Barrens.

(All action in Scene One takes place behind a white translucent screen. Scrub pines are silhouetted on the screen, as are squirming lumps along the floorline.)

Jeb and Gary (in silhouette) come upon their traps.

GARY: Lookit, Pa! Lookit the traps! Lookit what we got!

JEB: I see 'em, boy. Lookit all them beauties! A whole line of 'em! Damn if that ain't a sight to behold!

GARY: But what on earth are they? They look like raccoons but I ain't never seen–

JEB: Don't vex me with your pointy headed questions, boy! Who cares what they are? They got the best looking fur I ever seen! Let's get to work!

As they start pounding at the lumps with their clubs, the theater fills with the THUDDING of the clubs accompanied by high pitched SQUEALS of pain.

JEB: The heads, boy! Get their heads! How many times I got to tell you not to mess up the pelts?

GARY: I'm tryin', Pa, but they're squirmin' around so! Hard to get a bead on the little suckers!

JEB: Just take your time, Gary. Gotta learn to take your time. Just take your time, Gary. Gotta learn to take your time. They's just sitting ducks when they's caught in the leg traps. Look at 'em. All tuckered out from strugglin' all night long to pull free. All you got to do is stroll up to 'em one by one and beat their heads in. No hurry, boy. They's trapped. They ain't goin' nowhere.

As Jeb and Gary keep pounding at the trapped, huddled, SQUEALING lumps, the lighting on the screen changes slowly to crimson, then BLACKS OUT, leaving only the THUDS and the SQUEALS. Soon those fade as well.

SCENE TWO

Evening. The Jersey Pine Barrens. Jeb's barn.

Both Jeb and Gary are in bloody bib overalls. Jeb sits facing the audience from behind the work bench while Gary moves about down stage. Two blood splattered baseball bats are stacked near the pot belly stove. Jeb is pretty well sloshed on the Jersey lightning (applejack) he's been sipping from a jug. He watches Gary tack the last of the pelts to the stretching boards.

JEB: (irritable, slurring his words) Ain't you done with them pelts yet? I swear to–

GARY: Stretchin' the last few now, Daddy.

JEB: Good! A good day's work! Have we ever had a day like this, boy? Ever?

GARY: Not as I can recall.

JEB: Me neither. Never seen anything like it. The whole line of traps and each an' every one with somethin' squirmin' in it. Beautiful sight.

GARY: Yeah. An' after we was finished and packed up all the critters, I looked back as we was leavin' and there was a bright red spot on the snow by each and every trap. Looked to me like a bloody footed giant had stomped through that field.

JEB: (sipping and nodding wistfully) Yeah, it did, didn't it? That's almost like poetry. (straightens abruptly and shoots a look at Gary) You ain't turning into no sissy-boy, are you?

GARY: (laughs) No, Daddy. But I been thinking. Are you sure these things ain't gonna be causin' us trouble?

JEB: Trouble? What the hell's that supposed to mean?

GARY: Well, I mean, we did poach 'em off old man Forster's land. You know what they say about his place.

As Jeb replies, one of the PELTs draped over the top of one of the stretching board MOVES a little. Neither Jeb nor Gary notices.

JEB: Garbage! Superstitious garbage. I heard all them stories – hunters goin' onto his land and never comin' out, strange noises, weird lights. Garbage! Old man Forster spreads them tales hisself, just like his daddy afore him. Wants to keep everybody off his acreage. Fine. Let the other chickenshits believe that stuff, but it ain't gonna stop me! Hell, we trapped that land today and got away scott free with a goldmine, didn't we, boy! Didn't we?