Peculiar Tales (2 page)
Authors: Ron Miller
“Look,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “I realize this will be a big decision for you. Let me leave some of these samples with you along with a few pieces of descriptive literature. Look it all over at your leisure. Take your time! Here’s my card. Feel free to call me whenever you’ve decided what you need. Be delighted to send one of my men out to process the contract. Delighted. Absolutely delighted.”
The room had been growing dark as Helsinki had been talking, but suddenly the moon rose above the trees and a silvery light flooded through the open window. Apparently Helsinki had been distracted by our conversation since this seemed to have taken him entirely by surprise. “No!” he cried, like a startled bull, and rushed to the tall window. Beyond the glass I could see dozens of tiny, glittering points of light. Fireflies, I thought. How pretty! But how unusual, too, that they would all be moving about in pairs.
“Too late! Too late! Too late!” Helsinki was shouting as he blundered around the room like a madman...which I presumed was exactly what he was. He tore the door from one of the gun cabinets with his bare hands, flinging the shattered wood and glass to the floor. “I thought I had them fooled at last! I changed my address! I bought this place under an assumed name! I grew a beard! How? How? They must have hired detectives!”
I had pretty much realized by this point that I wasn’t going to make a Lustron porcelain-clad siding sale and began edging toward the door, hoping that whatever it was beyond the window that was exciting Helsinki so much would keep him distracted from
me.
I threw a final glance through the window and was amazed to see the fireflies still there. Strange fireflies that didn’t blink and, oddest thing of all, still moved about in pairs, like luminous dancing partners. No, I take that back. The
oddest
thing was that they all seemed to be moving toward the house.
The moon cleared the last branches and the room was as brilliantly lit as if someone had thrown a switch. I instinctively turned away from the window, toward the walls covered with the gruesome trophies. The hairy, scaley, feathered, armored, brutish faces glowed in the moonlight as though splashed with phosphorescent paint. Then...
Then they began to
change
.
Where there had once been decapitated boars, wolves, cats and God knows what all, there were now the heads of
men.
Men of all ages and races, their faces filled with fury and...and surprise. And then I realized that there were not only the heads of men but women, too, some of them heart-stoppingly beautiful, others with the faces of degenerate hags. But worst of all were the
children...
I didn’t wait to see any more of
that
. I bolted through the door, not really bothering to see if it were open or not, and flung myself headlong down the hall toward the front door. The latter was unlocked, thank God, and my car was still where I’d left it. As I wrenched the door open and started to clamber into the front seat I heard shots from the house, then a terrible, terrible wailing. An ululation—if ululation is the word I want—that rose and rose and rose, then collapsed into a horrible gurgle.
Before I could even begin to imagine what that had been all about, I had the engine started and was half a mile away from that damned house.
I don’t know how long I drove before I realized that I wasn’t alone in the car. I could hear something breathing softly in the back seat. I glanced into the rear view mirror but whatever it was was hiding behind my seat.
“Wh-wh-who...?” I managed to croak.
“Mr. Barrow?”
It wasn’t a snarl or a hiss or a growl, so I was reassured. In fact, it was a very pleasant voice indeed...which was even more reassuring.
“Who is it?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew the answer already. As I glanced again in the mirror I saw a pale face rise into the glass. It reminded me, for a terrifying moment, of the moon rising into the window back at the house. But it was who I thought it was: the “ward” I’d met earlier that evening. Her face looked like a hard-boiled egg nestled in black velvet. The only color was in her vast green eyes.
“It’s me, Mr. Barrow. Mr. Helsinki’s ward...”
“Yes, of course. Uh, Susi. But what are you doing here?”
“The same thing you are, Mr. Barrow...escaping that awful house!”
“You’d better climb into the front seat with me. I have to look at you to talk and if I keep my eyes on the mirror we’re going to get killed because I can tell you right now, I’m not stopping for anything!”
“I don’t blame you one little bit, Mr. Barrow!” she said as she clambered over the seat back. I was astonished at the grace with which she did that—and maybe a little disappointed at the lack of leg revealed in the process. She seemed to flow over the seat like warm taffy. “Where are we going?”
“Which way is Helsinki’s place?”
“Back there,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder.
“Then we’re going this way,” I replied, pointing straight ahead.
We didn’t say much to one another after that, but instead drove deeper into the night. It took a couple of hours before either of us calmed down enough to trust our thoughts to words.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Mr. Barrow.”
“Please, call me Creighton.”
“Yes...Creighton. It must have been an awful experience for you.”
“You aren’t just whistling Dixie, baby! What in the hell was that all about?”
“I guess it was pretty much what Helsinki told you—I was listening at the door, I confess. He was a monomaniac...and a megalomaniac at the same time. A pretty bad combination, I guess.”
“I guess.”
“Well, anyway, I was practically a prisoner back there. He...he’d taken me in when my parents were killed.”
“I’m sorry...”
“I’m pretty sure he killed them, too.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s...he was a collector. I suppose I was just one more specimen for him. I guess he must have thought I was beautiful.”
She was all of that, all right. For all that he was a nut of the first order, I couldn’t fault him on his taste. I stole a quick glance toward the girl, just to confirm my conclusion that she was the most perfectly beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
We drove along like that for hours, not saying much at all. I started to slow down and pay attention to where I was going as my nerves got back to normal. And as these things happened, I became more and more aware of the girl sitting quietly next to me. I was aware of the almost phosphorescent quality of her pale skin, which was the color of a cup of cream with a single drop of blood stirred into it, of the way her black hair glistened in the light of passing cars and street lamps, but mostly of that sweet, musky scent she had. It was almost unpleasant but never quite crossed that line. Instead, it seemed to get into my head like one of those tunes you hear and can’t shake for days.
“It must be nearly dawn,” she said. They were the first words she’d spoken in hours and the sound of her voice startled me. I’d forgotten how husky and sibilant it was...or maybe I’d never noticed before. She was right, though. Dead ahead of us the sky was growing light.
“I suppose it’s about time we thought about where we’re going,” I said. “I haven’t been paying a lot of attention. We must be in the middle of nowhere.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. All I care about is being as far away as I can get from...from that
cage!”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible to
hiss
a word that had no S’s in it, but she managed to do it—and the vehemence with which she spit it out startled me. Scared me a little, too. I was a little surprised, too, at her use of the word “cage”. Helsinki had a pretty swank place, as near as I could tell, so “cage” seemed to me a little over-dramatic.
“I guess I can’t imagine what Helskinki was doing to you back there.”
“No, no you can’t. Nor what he has done.”
“He had something to do with your parents’ death,” I said in a sudden flash of inspiration. “Didn’t he?”
“Yes!” This time the word had an S in it and she used it. “And he forced me to marry him. It was easily done back in the old country. But he didn’t care about me...never loved me. I was nothing but a trophy wife to him. Just another trophy.”
Well, I had to admit to myself I could hardly blame the man. The girl was a looker, for sure. But that was no reason for anyone to abuse her. There’s never a good excuse for abusing a woman. I’m a gentleman and I know better.
“He collected were-animals; you know that now. He was obsessed with them and, to the were-world, he became a murderer. No, worse: a serial killer. A mad criminal to be hunted down and eliminated. They were determined to stop him...and finally did, as you saw last night.”
“But what could all of that have to do with you? I know you’re not a were-something-or-another. I mean, we’ve been driving under a full moon all night and you’re still you.”
“My dear new friend. If there are were-animals doesn’t it make sense that there must also be were-humans?”
As she turned to look at me the first rays of the rising sun topped the horizon ahead of us and fell fully onto her face. Her pale skin seemed to become incandescent, like white-hot iron, and for a moment I imagined her face melting in the glare.
“Good grief!” I said. “I had no idea that your eyes were so big and round!”
“All the better to see my handsome new friend!”
“Your ears, too! I never noticed before how large they were!”
“All the better to listen to the wonderful things you say to me!”
“And your mouth...Holy smoke! Your
teeth!”
“Oh, Creighton, all the better to eat with!”
Fortunately, there was a roadside diner just around the next bend. I wasn’t terribly hungry after everything I’d been through and just picked at my food but Susi ate like a wolf.
THE BRIDGE
S
he had one long, slim leg over the railing when I first spotted her. It was nearly midnight and what with that and the fog rolling over the bridge I would have missed her if I’d been on the other walkway. I trotted over and laid a hand on her arm. She hadn’t heard me coming and turned with a sharp gasp. I spoke before she could.
“Jesus, lady, you gotta be more careful.”
She shook her hair out of her face so she could see me. It was very nice hair and a very nice face. And the leg she swung back onto the walk was very nice, too.
“What the hell is it to you?”
“Nothing, I guess...”
“Then why don’t you leave me the hell alone?”
“I guess it’s just not in me to stand by and let someone have an accident.”
“This wasn’t going to be no accident.”
“That’s kind of what I figured. Want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. And what’s it to you, anyway?”
“Nothing. But what difference is it going to make one way or the other?”
“You some sort of missionary or something? You trying to save my soul?”
“Don’t make me laugh. I ain’t got a soul I’m aware of, so I’m in no position to try to save anyone else’s.”
“Yeah, well, why don’t you just keep on heading toward wherever you were heading and let me get on with my...”
“Life?”
“Jesus Christ, mister—if I ain’t got enough problems already...”
“We all got problems, lady.”
I pulled out my last two Luckies and handed her one. I lit it for her. In the brief flare of the match her pale face looked as cold and smooth as vanilla ice cream. I sat on the curb and dragged on my butt. There was no traffic. It was late and the bridge went nowhere.
Behind me, the girl was quiet. Then she said, “I made a mistake... I—I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I—I saw something I shouldn’t have. I talked about it. It—it made some people angry...very angry. They—they want to hurt me. Hurt me real bad.”
“So jumping off a bridge is an improvement? Kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face, ain’t it?”
“Not if you know these people. Better this way. Quicker.” She shuddered. “I know for sure it’d be quicker.”
“Why not just run? Why not get out of town?”
“What with? I ain’t got a dime to my name. How far could I get?”
“I guess I can’t argue with you there. I ain’t had a job in two years. Got a wife and kid back in Oklahoma I ain’t seen in all that time. All I can do is send ‘em a couple a bucks whenever I can get work. It’s been pretty tough.”
“It’s been tough all over, mister.”
It was starting to drizzle and I stood up. I had a hat and even if my coat didn’t look like much any more it could still keep me dry. The girl didn’t have a hat or coat. She was shivering in a thin, damp dress and her wet hair looked like butterscotch poured over that ice cream face of hers. She took a final drag on her butt and threw it over the railing.
“Yeah,” she said again, “it’s been rotten tough.”
“I’ve had to take whatever I can get,” I told her, “and sometimes I’ve had to do things I ain’t been so proud of.”
“We all gotta do that sometime, mister, just to stay alive.”
“Yeah, you gotta do some pretty awful things sometime. Things you ain’t so proud of. Things you don’t ever want your kid to know you had to do to keep ‘em alive.”
I heard a clock chiming somewhere. I figured it for a church. It must be midnight, I guessed. Time was running out. When I turned back, the girl was leaning over the railing, looking down at the invisible water. Her hair hung around her face like yellow icicles. I couldn’t see her expression, but I didn’t really have to.
“Life’s only worth living, mister, if you got something to live for.”
“Yeah.”
“When you stopped me I was going to die to spite someone. It’s all I got, spite. I ain’t got nothing else. So I guess I got more to die for than live for. You should just keep on walking, mister, and forget you ever saw me. You got enough problems of your own.”
“Yeah, I do.”
I pulled out the gun they’d given me and shot her behind her right ear. I knew she was going to be dead soon anyway but I didn’t want to lose my fifty bucks.
INTERVIEW WITH THE MAD SCIENTIST
T
hat’s sure something you got there,” I told the carny who was lounging in front of a tent festooned with banners proclaiming “See the Monster!” and “Man-Made Freak!” and “Frankenstein Lives!” and which were illuminated by pretty nifty paintings of something that looked like a cross between Boris Karloff and the lead in a high school driver’s ed film. It was just before noon on Thursday and the carnival grounds were practically deserted. I had just covered the arrival of a litter of new dalmatian puppies at Fire Station #3, which was across the street from the open lot where Gluberg’s Grand World-Wide Wonder Fun Fest had set up a couple of days before. The puppy story was set for the Saturday ‘Round ‘Bout Town section so, it being such a swell day, I was in no particular hurry to get back to the paper. I wandered over to see what I could see and maybe promote myself a free hot dog for lunch.
I was disappointed. Not only was the hot dog stand closed, the whole carnival was like a ghost town—which just made the whole place creepier, and I’d always found carnivals creepy in the first place. They look their best at night and filled with people. In the daytime, deserted but for a couple dozen tough-looking carnies loitering around not doing much of anything in particular except glaring at me from under hooded, half-hostile, half-indifferent eyes, the carnival look tawdry and threadbare and inexpressibly sad. I was beginning to be sorry I came in.
I naturally gravitated to the midway and its row of assorted freak shows since that sort of thing has always fascinated me. Armadillo Boy, Rubber Girl, The Human Paper Clip, Lobster Man, The Girl with Two-and-a-Half Heads, Two-Ton Tallulah, Blister Boy, Cellophane Man—they were all there. I strolled past their tents, scanning the gaudy banners as though I were going through the pages of my high school yearbook, gazing fondly at the faces of old friends because you know you’ve done pretty well and they’re just twenty-dollar-a-week shoe store clerks. The Man-Made Freak stopped me, though. That was a new one. God only knew what was behind the banner, since I knew perfectly well there was no particular compunction on the part of a freak show to deliver what its banners promise. The Cobra Woman, after all, was more likely to be some poor eczema sufferer than a creature discovered at the headwaters of the Amazon. I was no greenhorn.
Another reason I stopped was because of the man sitting on the edge of the platform. All the other freak shows appeared to be deserted, so seeing someone at all caught my attention. At least, I thought, here was someone to talk to. Maybe, with both of us having a little time on our hands, I might be able to get a story out of him. It’d sure beat going back uptown and squeezing out six column inches about dalmatian puppies. I figured any carny ought to have plenty of good stories, even if that notion is in fact contrary to my actual experience. Every carny I’d ever talked to turned out to have a life no more interesting than the average bobby soxer down at the five and dime. Still, hope springs eternal—especially with the dalmatian puppy story facing me—so I strolled over, tipped my hat onto the back of my head, hooked my thumb at the banner behind the fellow and said, “That sure looks like something you got there, mister.”
He’d looked up as I approached and smiled. A handsome fellow and youngish—looked like a college boy, which I figured he probably was, working for the summer. Athletic-looking, too, but not big—not a football player or anything like that. I figured him for the rowing team. It’d go with those Frank Merriwell good looks he had. He was probably a real sheik with the ladies.
“Sure is,” he replied. “Wanta see ‘im? Only cost you a dime.”
I told him, sure, I wanted to see the Man-Made Freak, who wouldn’t? He hopped down beside me with a kind of lazy grace and dusted off the seat of his trousers. A boxer, maybe, I thought, or a track and field man.
“Haven’t had many folks out this early,” he continued. “Most of the shows aren’t even set up yet. Everyone’s sleepin’ in or havin’ a late breakfast. Thursday’s are always pretty dead. Things don’t pick up much until after dark.”
“Yeah, I noticed there’s not much action around here.”
“Nope. Dead as a doornail.”
He turned toward me as we reached the flap that covered the entrance. He looked expectant so I fished out a dime and handed it over. He flipped it, caught it and stuck it into a pocket without a word.
He held the canvas flap aside and I went in. It was dark inside and much too warm. I had expected the smell of rotten straw and mildew and urine, and there was that but there was something else, too. Something like old meat and stale vomit. As my eyes adjusted I saw a low platform in the back of the tent with a tall folding screen set up on it. Standing next to it, the handsome young talker was reciting his spiel.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said with all the practiced indifference of a phonograph, “boys and girls. You are about to witness one of the greatest, most awe-inspiring, most bone-chilling wonders of this or any other world! The awful fruit of science gone wrong, the original, the one and only...
Frankenstein!
” And with that he pulled the screen aside.
Well, what he revealed sure lived up to the advertising, which surprised the hell out of me, I got to admit. In fact, I was not a little sorry that it did because it was no doubt the most awful thing I’d ever seen and being a correspondent during the recent unpleasantness in Europe I’d seen some pretty godawful stuff.
It had been sitting on a wooden chair and when the screen was pulled away, it stood up— slowly and painfully, which only made it seem worse. I keep saying
It
, but I didn’t know what else to call it at the time. It must’ve been well over six feet tall, maybe six and half, but standing there on the raised platform it was hard to tell. As for what it looked like . . . you ever see that Hollywood version of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
? The one with the painting that Chicago artist did, Ivan Albright, if I got his name right? The one that made Dorian Gray look like he was made of rotting cottage cheese and earthworms? Well, this thing was something like that. A pair of fishy eyes stared gelatinously from the moldy face and a livery tongue lolled over the pendulous blue-grey lips, like a huge, glistening slug crawling over the toppled gravestones of the creature’s crumbling, mossy teeth. It was more than obvious now where the odd smell had been coming from.
“Jesus Christ,” I told the barker. “You sure live up to your advertising.”
“Pretty impressive, ain’t he?”
“No kidding. What is it? Some sort of skin disease or something?”
“Hell, no! He’s the real thing all right.”
“Look, just between you and me, let’s not be kidding each other here. I know there’s no such thing as a real Frankenstein. That was just a story whatsername wrote. They made a couple a movies from it. That’s all. There ain’t no such thing as a real Frankenstein.”
“Ah, well, that’s just where most people go wrong. There sure was a real Frankenstein and there he is, in the flesh, what’s left of it at any rate.”
“Say, pal, I’m not one of your ignorant rubes. I work for a paper. I been around. Come on, lemme have the real story. It’s good enough, I’ll pay you for it.”
“I told you the truth mister,” the barker said, unfolding the screen and placing it back in front of his exhibit, “and there ain’t much more I can tell you than that.”
“Who is he, really? What’s wrong with him?”
“Say, I’ll tell you what. You stand me to a beer and I’ll tell you. Deal?”
“Sure. There’s a tavern right down the block, got a good lunch there, too.”
“That’s just what I was hoping you’d say.”
We were heading back out into the sunlight when I thought of something. “Say, what about ...?”
“Frankie? He’ll
keep
, have no fear!” For some reason the kid thought this was really funny.
I found a booth for us in a quiet corner of the tavern, ordered some beer and sandwiches and when the waiter left the table I leaned toward my friend and said, “All right. Let’s have it.”
“Well...I suppose you’ve read the book or seen the movie
—Frankenstein
, I mean?”
“Who ain’t seen the movie? But, yeah, I read the book when I was in high school. Pretty tough going, I can tell you, and not half so creepy as the movie.”
“Yeah, well, I always wanted to sue Mary Shelley for libel, the way she described what he was trying to do—and especially the way she described the creature he made. ‘Hideous monster’, phooey! It was no more hideous than you are!”
Well, thinking back to the abomination I’d seen in the tent, I sure didn’t take that as any sort of compliment. But, I figured, maybe he’d lived with the awful thing so long he’d gotten used to it. Saw it’s better side, as it were. Maybe it had a nice personality. So I didn’t say anything and let him keep on talking, which he did.
“All I can say is that you at least got the basic idea of what Frankenstein was after. Sure, he was trying to create life. But he was after more than that. He not only wanted to create life, he wanted his
own
life to go on forever. Immortality. Eternal life. And you know what?
He did it.
He figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“Figured out how to live forever. He figured if his formula would give eternal life to his creation, it would work just as well on himself. So he mixed himself up a big batch of his formula and he drank it.”
“He did, huh? I suppose Frankenstein is still with us, then?”
“He sure is!”
Our beers arrived just then. The kid took a long suck on his, wiped his lips and leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Guess how old I am. Go ahead. Give it a shot.”
“I dunno. Twenty, twenty-five?”
“That’s what I figured you say. What would you think if I told you I was more’n a hundred and sixty years old?”
“What d’you think I’d say?”
“I can prove it!”
“If you can do that, then I’d say you earned yourself your free lunch. So what you’re trying to tell me is that
you’re
...?”
“You bet I am! That’s just
exactly
who I am!”
If he was a hundred and sixty year-old mad scientist I was Primo Carnera, so I just smiled and bit into my sandwich, which had meanwhile arrived and was very tasty.
“Yeah, well, you’ll see. Tell you the truth, I’ve been wanting to get the whole thing off my chest for a long time. Why not? I’m getting pretty sick and tired, I can tell you, of sneaking around like this, reduced to playing these two-bit carnivals. God—you know how long it’s been since I had a
girl
? I don’t mean that way, I mean a regular girlfriend? I don’t want to tell you!”
That was too bad, too, because he was a pretty good-looking kid, like I been saying.
When we got back to the carnival, the kid took me behind the tent where he’d shown me the monster. There was a pre-war Buick parked there and a trailer. As we entered the latter, I asked, “Your pal Frankenstein live in here, too?”
“Hell, no. He couldn’t get through the door even if he wanted to, and, besides, he leaks all the time and stuff comes off him. And, Jesus, if you knew what he
smells
like. Naw. I got him fixed up with a cot behind the stage with a rubber sheet and all and a couple a buckets.”
“Nice little set-up you got here,” I said, looking around. And he did, too. Kind of like a serious college student’s den. There were books everywhere, on shelves, in stacks, piled on the furniture. Really old books, too. Big things with crumbling leather covers and brass clasps and everything. Besides the books, there were rolls of parchment and sheets of manuscripts, all of which looked really old, too.
“Take a look back here,” he said, leading me into the rear of the trailer.
“Say, this is pretty impressive,” I said and meant it. If he was a student, he must’ve been a conscientious one, lugging a whole chemical laboratory around with him like that. God knows what all the stuff was ‘cause I didn’t. To me it was just a complicated maze of test tubes and beakers and flasks and bottles and curly glass tubes. There were alcohol burners under some of the flasks in which gruesome-looking liquids were bubbling and fizzing. It all looked exactly like the mad scientist’s laboratories you see in the serials.
“What’s all this in aid of?” I asked. “Prohibition was repealed twenty years ago.”
“Naw...I gotta make the stuff that keeps my friend going. It’s pretty complicated.”
“Looked to me like the only thing that’d keep
him
would be about ten gallons of embalming fluid.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” he said as he pulled a heavy book from under a stack of papers and handed it to me. I opened it and looked at the first page. The paper was soft and linen-like. While it was still white, it felt old. I knew that paper like this hadn’t been made in a long time. The words “Das Tagebuch und die Aufzeichnung der Versuche von Victor Frankenstein, 1810-1816” were handwritten in ink that’d turned rusty with age. I flipped through the pages. They were filled with a crabbed, spiky-looking script, page after page of it, broken up with scientific formulas, drawings and sketches, mostly anatomical and some of them pretty nasty-looking, I can tell you.
“You see,” he said, taking the book away from me, “once the secret of creating life had been discovered, the secret of immortality soon followed. Unfortunately, the results were, well, pretty appalling.”
“You mean that thing...?”
“Yes. Unfortunate...but now you can see why I must care for the poor fellow? I feel as though he’s my responsibility. After all, if it hadn’t been for that terrible experiment...”
If he’d been telling me all this back in the tavern, I would’ve been insulted that anyone’d consider me such a low-grade moron as to think that I’d swallow even a word of such a tall tale... but here, in the gloomy recesses of the trailer, that looked like the cell of some medieval monk, surrounded by bubbling flasks and antique books... and with the memory of that inhuman horror in the tent...well, I have to admit I was getting kind of caught up in the con. I mean, if he
was
pulling some kind of scam, it was well worth the price of admission, whatever it was going to be. There was something about the whole thing...I mean, it was one thing to tell a tall tale over a beer in a tavern, but to go to all this trouble? Just to get me to believe that he was really the mad scientist from that old book? I believed him when he told me that he hadn’t ever before let anyone into the trailer, or told them the things he was telling me. I don’t know for sure exactly
why
I believed that. Reporters just develop a kind of internal lie detector, I guess. Whatever the reason, I was starting to believe him.
