The Faceless One (19 page)

Steven peered at his son through a veil of Liz’s hair. The boy was sleeping, his lips slightly parted. As Steven watched, the boy smiled. Steven smiled as love for his son flooded through him. He hoped the boy was having a good dream.

* * *

Bobby was indeed having a good dream. It hadn’t started that way. He had been chased by Mr. Manyteeth down streets of ice, everything frozen and still. Icicles as sharp as daggers jutted from
every doorway, every rain gutter, every street sign and tree branch. Each car was covered with spines of ice, like sculpted crystalline porcupines. He had to run carefully because if he slipped, he might fall on those sharp points and hurt himself.

He had been crying for his mommy and daddy but couldn’t find them. The only other person on the streets was Mr. Manyteeth, with his inky-black clothes and his spiderweb face. He laughed as he chased Bobby, and his laugh was a shriek that sounded like a wheezing old man sawing a nail with a hacksaw.

As Bobby had reached the door of his own house, which was, for some reason, in the middle of this strange street, the Bird-Man had come out the door. He had shrieked at Bobby in his harsh bird voice and held up a shining black knife. Bobby had shrieked as well and run down a nearby alley. The Bird-Man and Mr. Manyteeth, who he had thought were enemies, now joined together to chase him. As they ran after him, he could hear them argue over who would eat him up.

The alley seemed to stretch out before him for miles and miles. He was tired by then and knew he was dreaming. That happened to him sometimes. When it did he could sometimes make things happen in his dream. Once he had taken a trip to Disneyland all by himself and spent his lucid dream in the company of Buzz Lightyear and Bonomo the Bear, who had been alive and real.

He tried to make the bad people stop chasing him, but they wouldn’t listen. Even though it was his dream, they ignored his orders. He tried to make himself wake up, but he could not. He was sure that Mr. Manyteeth and the Bird-Man would catch him; and then they would either share him or argue over him like a piece of cake.

Suddenly, a creature the size of a small dog had run into the alley. It was sleek and brown, and had large, friendly eyes. It had stood up on its hind legs and chattered fiercely at the things chasing Bobby.

Amazingly enough, they had slunk away like children who were afraid of being spanked.

Bobby looked down at the little creature, which looked somewhat like a dog and somewhat like a seal. The creature regarded Bobby with its large eyes and wiggled its whiskers at him. Bobby laughed. It was so friendly!

It looked familiar, and he thought he had seen one at the zoo before. It wasn’t a monkey though it did have a long tail. It wasn’t a possum or a dog or a wolf or a jaguar.

“Otter!” Bobby remembered, and the creature answered him with a high, musical whistle.

The creature had held out one paw, and Bobby leaned slightly to grasp the waddling creature’s paw. It was soft and leathery. It felt nice.

The otter led him through a magic green door that had suddenly appeared in the alley. There was a sign above the door, one written in blue and red on a bright yellow banner. Bobby
was a good reader and made out what it said.

The sign read,
PARTY TOWN
. The letters lit up and changed colors in patterns that were beautiful and seductive.

He and the little creature went through the bright green door.

Party Town turned out to be the best place ever. Filled with balloons and confetti and happy music, it was a giant toy store, where all his favorite toys and cartoon characters were alive. In the center was a large park where birthday cake and ice cream were being served by a hippopotamus with a straw hat and a striped vest. He and the otter each got a plate with a huge piece of cake and a big scoop of ice cream. Chunky Monkey ice cream, which was his current favorite.

The otter took him over to a table where Bonomo, Buzz Lightyear, Pikachu, and Bugs Bunny were sitting.

“Sit next to me, Doc,” Bugs said, anxiously grabbing a chair.

“The young cadet will sit next to me,” said Buzz Lightyear imperiously.

“Bobby is my friend,” said Bonomo in his low, slow voice.

“Pi-ka-chu!” declared Pickachu, an arc of lightning coruscating around him.

Several pixies and a small blue frog in a tuxedo held out a chair for him. Bobby sat down with his cake and ice cream. He smiled at the otter, who looked at him and spoke in a series of little barks and chirps. “Keh-keh-keh-keh-keh-keh!” it said, looking at him with gravity.

Bobby couldn’t understand what it was saying. “I don’t understand. I don’t speak Otter.”

“He said it’s time we put on our masks,” said Buzz Lightyear.

Bugs grabbed a big box of party masks and took one for himself. It was a Daffy Duck mask. Bugs passed the box.

Buzz Lightyear selected a jolly pumpkin-head mask. Pikachu selected a Zorro mask. Bonomo took a Batman mask.

The otter took a simple domino mask and passed the box to Bobby. Bobby peered in and was disappointed to see only one mask left. It was round and black, with no face or eyeholes.

He looked at the others.

“Go ahead, Doc,” urged Bugs, “try it on.”

The others agreed, their voices muffled by their disguises.

Bobby looked at the otter, who smiled. Somehow, the smile didn’t look friendly.

Bobby heard his mother calling to him. She seemed far away. “Bobby … Bahhh-beeeeee …” She sounded like she was flying away from him. He looked down at the otter, which had cocked its head.

“That’s my mom. Let’s go see what she wants!”

He started to move forward, but the otter held his ground. Bobby looked at him.

“Don’t you wanna go?”

The otter shook his head and looked very sad.

“Bahhhh-beeeee …” Her voice was musical, and fading. Bobby felt panic rising inside him. He didn’t want to abandon his new friend, but he needed to see his mother. He saw the otter recede from him, as if he were on a magic carpet soaring away silently. The otter waved sadly, and Party Land slowly blurred into oblivion.

Bobby woke up. His mother smiled down at him. She had been gently shaking him to wake him up. He could hear the thrum of the jet engines and remembered now that they were flying to New York.

“Dinner, honey,” his mother said. “Sit up now, okay?”

Bobby sat up. He remembered he had visited a nice place in his dream but couldn’t remember where. He hugged ever-faithful Bonomo to him as he struggled to remember. He nearly had it when the stewardess, a pretty brunette named Marie, put down a dinner of chicken tenders and french fries for him. The smell of the food, coupled with the appearance of a brownie for dessert, made him forget everything but dinner.

Fred, formerly the Old Fart, had proved to be a real ally. Not only did he give Jimmy and George the money they needed to get to L.A., he booked their plane tickets on the Internet while each threw some clothes into what battered luggage they had. Fred had also called them a cab, then occupied Nurse Belva with one of his tales of “Old Hollywood” while they slipped away.

People rarely ran away from Golden Summer. This was not because they were afraid but because many simply had no other place to go. And, despite their complaining, Golden Summer was better than a hotel or standing in the Washington rain.

Because no one ever tried to slip out, the reception area was empty, and the orderly on duty was in the television room watching
Survivor
with those residents who were still awake and cognizant of their surroundings.

Jimmy and George stepped through the double glass doors and out onto the concrete steps. There were four steps leading up to the front door, which seemed at odds with Golden Summer’s being a rest home. In the early sixties, it had actually been a youth hostel, and the presence of steps was the least of student worries. When it had been purchased by the Broomfield Corporation in 1981, the investors decided that a wheelchair ramp would satisfy anyone’s need for safe access to their retirement home. The ramp went down a gentle slope and angled off to the front drive. Jimmy had always refused to walk the ramp. Its gradual slope made him feel like he was ascending or descending a peak of molehill proportions, all at a speed that would make a turtle laugh with derision.

Jimmy felt a little naked without his cane. He didn’t always need it—just when a change in the weather or exertion made his hip flare up. He had stared at it for a long time in his room and decided he must leave the cane behind. It was a talisman of his life here, and he had no wish to carry a literal crutch if he was going to meet The Faceless One. Better he take a shot of whiskey if the pain was too much rather than hobble around like an old spider. He was Jimmy Kalmaku, nephew of a great shaman. He was Tlingit, and he wouldn’t take any crap from anyone. The cane stayed in the corner, near the hated seascape.

Jimmy was dressed in a blue plaid shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. His concession to the night was a canvas coat that his daughter-in-law had sent him two Christmases ago, and his well-worn Stetson. In his right shirt pocket he carried the gifts of Raven, the copper talisman, the two
jet marbles, and the small obsidian knife, all in a piece of soft leather. Rose’s mitten was in his other pocket, close to his heart.

George, on the other hand, saw their adventure as a chance to be even more dapper than usual. He wore a brown tweed suit with a bright yellow shirt and a bolo tie that featured a scorpion set in Lucite. This outfit was topped by a tweed hat with a small yellow-and-red feather set in the brim. George told Jimmy he thought they looked stylish. Jimmy smiled and said nothing.

The cab was waiting in the drive. The driver got out when he saw them, opening the trunk with a release under the seat as he did so. George walked briskly down the steps, happy to break with routine and do some traveling. Jimmy started to follow when his right foot shot out from under him. It was if he had stepped on a slick patch of ice, which was crazy in this July heat. He grabbed for the handrail and caught it, avoiding cracking his skull on the concrete landing behind him. There was a lancing pain in his lower back and hip, a fire that seared through his muscles and made him wince. He stood up and made his way carefully down the steps. George was about to make a joke when he saw that Jimmy had really hurt himself. He hurried back up the steps to help his friend down.

“You okay, Injun Joe?” he asked worriedly.

“Never better, Uncle Remus,” Jimmy replied, hissing slightly at the pain. That slip was going to cost him. He could already feel the ache settling into his hip joint. He wasn’t going to let this beat him. True, he had no whiskey yet, but he had packed some Arthritis Pain Formula in his bag. He’d take a couple of those. He glanced back at the steps as they walked to the cab. They were dry and free of dirt, as he knew they would be.

It could be that he had slipped on some grease or oil someone had tracked up the steps, but he wondered if his fall might have had more sinister origins than that.

The Faceless One didn’t want him going anywhere near Los Angeles.

Now he felt afraid, really afraid, as he had in that cave so long ago. Unlike George, he had an idea of what they were heading toward. What’s more, the thing knew him, and …

This was ridiculous. He hadn’t even gotten off the grounds yet and had already conceded the contest. The Faceless One hadn’t made him slip; he was an old man, and he was nervous, nothing more. If The Faceless One had really set his sights on him, then he would have been found in his bed or bath, encased in ice like his friends in Yanut.

Yeah, he was scared—this was no prank, no silly lark they were on—this was deadly serious, which was precisely why he must go.

They put their bags in the trunk and got into the cab. No one raised an alarm, no one ran out the doors yelling after the two aged fugitives. They settled into the cab and proceeded to the airport, successfully escaping their confinement.

George chatted pleasantly with the driver, spinning a charming story about visiting their sons in Baton Rouge. According to George, their sons had married twin sisters who worked for the Bellingham Circus, a pair of twins named Candy and Constance who went by the names Sparkle and Spangle. The sons were inviting their fathers out for an extended holiday because their grandsons were turning two and three, respectively. The driver was taken with the exotic sincerity of George’s tale and wanted details on the children and their likes and dislikes. George was only too happy to oblige, waxing ecstatic about his grandson, Micah (who liked fire trucks and jazz but hated macaroni and cheese), and Jimmy’s grandson, TJ (who liked peanut butter and dinosaurs but hated Disney cartoons and peanut brittle). Jimmy knew that George had at first wanted to talk about the bawdy potential of wives who were twins, but now he seemed to enjoy his fictional family, adding to the cast of characters a nanny named Prudence Jo MacIntyre and a pet badger named Forrester. Jimmy leaned back and closed his eyes. He fell asleep as George was talking about the Christmas where the whole family got stranded on Lake Mead, and he and Jimmy had won two thousand at the slots to get their boat engine replaced.

Jimmy watched the cab recede into the distance. He knew he was still in the backseat and that George was still spinning yarns for the driver’s amusement. He was in the Dreamtime, and he must look for clues to stopping The Faceless One.

There was a small hillock to his right, covered with ferns. He could hear music from over the hill, music played by a calliope. There was also the laughter of children, bright flashes of sound. He walked up the hill, the pain in his back and hip not even a memory.

As Jimmy crested the hill, the sound of laughter faded into silence. He reached the top, noting that the ferns and grass gave way to burned scrub and pocked granite boulders.

Before him stretched a plain of black glass, some of it smooth, other portions raised in jagged shards or broken by bubbles that had risen to the surface while it was still molten. A chill wind blew over it, whistling through the crystalline craters like random notes on a crude flute. It was a lonely sound, full of loss.