Fiends

    Then he heard, in the distance, the faint sound of a motor. Opening his eyes, he squinted down the road. A car was approaching. For a moment, he considered thumbing a ride. But that, he decided, would be stupid now that he had a car of his own. He closed his eyes again to wait for the car to pass.

    But it didn’t pass. It stopped.

    He opened his eyes and gasped.

    ‘Afternoon,’ the stranger called out.

    ‘Howdy, Officer,’ he said, his heart thudding.

    ‘You got a spare?’

    ‘I think so.’

    ‘What do you mean, you think so? You either have a spare or you don’t.’

    ‘What I meant was, I’m not sure if it’s any good. It’s been a while since I’ve had any use for it, you understand?’

    ‘Of course I understand. Guess I’ll stick around till we find out.

    This is rough country. A person can die out here. If the spare’s no good, I’ll radio for a tow.’

    ‘Okay, thanks.’ He opened the door and took the keys from the ignition.

    Everything’s okay, he told himself. No reason in the world for this cop to suspect anything.

    ‘Did you go off the road back a ways?’

    ‘No, why?’ Even as he asked, he fumbled the keys. They fell to the ground. The other man picked them up.

    ‘Flats around here, they’re usually caused by cactus spines. They’re murder.’

    He followed the officer to the rear of the car.

    The octagonal key didn’t fit the trunk.

    ‘Don’t know why those dopes in Detroit don’t just make one key that’ll fit the door and trunk both.’

    ‘I don’t know,’ the young man said, matching the other’s tone of disgust and feeling even more confident.

    The round key fit. The trunk popped open.

    The officer threw a tarp onto the ground and then leveled his pistol at the young man, who was staring at the body of a middle-aged man who obviously had class.

The Mask

    The Palace Theater screened a different horror classic every Saturday at midnight. Allan Hunter hadn’t missed one in over a year. Tonight, he’d watched the original Nosferatu with Max Schreck.

    Though he owned a car, he’d always made the two-mile journey from his apartment to the Palace afoot. The trip to the theater was enjoyable, but it was the return trip that he craved. He knew there were dangers. A more sensible man would drive to and from the movies rather than risk a mugging, or worse. But if he drove, safe and insulated inside his car, he knew he would miss the thrill.

    For Allan relished the mysteries of the night.

    Apartment windows enticed him. If dark, who slept within? Or who didn’t sleep, but lay awake or made love or stood at the black windows, peering out, perhaps watching him wander by? If still aglow in the deep hours of the night, who was about inside, doing what?

    The shops and stores along the way, locked and deserted, intrigued him. If their fronts were barricaded by iron gates, all the better. The accordion gates tantalized Allan. They whispered of the owner’s fear. He often stopped and peered through them, wondering what needed such protection through the night.

    Each time a car swept past Allan on the quiet streets, he tried to glimpse who was in it and he wondered, going where? People heading home after work, after a late film or party? A lover on his way to a rendezvous? A wife fleeing her brutal husband? A maniac on the prowl for his next victim? Often when a car went by, he imagined that its brake lights might suddenly flash on, that it might swing to the curb in front of him, that its door might fly open and someone call to him - or leap out and rush him. Just thinking about that gave Allan goosebumps.

    And so did thinking about what might lurk in the dark spaces along his route: recessed entryways and those narrow gaps he encountered where two buildings didn’t quite join - and alleys. Such places gave him a delicious tingle. He always quickened his pace to get past them. Often he couldn’t force himself to glance in, appalled by the possibilities of what he might find. Derelicts, or worse.

    There were derelicts abroad. Some slept in entryways, or on bus-stop benches. Some, curled in shadows, glared at him as he hurried by. Others shambled along the sidewalks or down the streets, clutching secret prizes. Or trudged behind rattling supermarket carts piled high with bizarre shapes. Allan found no magic, no excitement, in contemplating such wrecks. They scared him, disgusted him. They hardly seemed human at all.

    They were the worst thing about walking home after the midnight movies.

    Whenever possible, he crossed the street or even backtracked to avoid confronting one. But sometimes he was caught by surprise and had no choice but to endure the stench, the maniacal jibbering, the whiny plea for money.

    With such mad, vile creatures lurking in the night, it was little wonder that Allan rarely encountered normal people during his treks home from the movies.

    Most of those he saw were in the midst of rushing to or from their parked cars. Occasionally, he spotted someone walking a dog. Once in a great while, a pair of joggers. Never a jogger out by himself, always with a companion. Sometimes a lone man hurrying along. Almost never a woman.

    No woman in her right mind, he thought, would wander about the city alone at this hour.

    When the woman came into sight as he walked home after Nosferatu, he thought she must be mad - or wildly reckless. Even though she was a block away, he could see she was no derelict. Her stride was too steady as she approached the corner. Her hair, silvery in the streetlight, looked trim and well groomed. She wore a pale blouse, shorts that reached almost to her knees, white socks and dark shoes.

    Certainly not a derelict.

    A prostitute? Allan had never encountered any prostitutes in this neighborhood. And wouldn’t a streetwalker be dressed in something exotic or scanty?

    This woman looked more like a co-ed who’d wandered too far from campus. Or like one of the young teachers at the high school where he taught - Shelly Gates or Maureen O’Toole, for instance. Or like some of the women he liked to watch when he made his weekly trips to the supermarket. Casually dressed, trim and neat and clean.

    Allan realized that he had stopped walking.

    How strange to see someone like her roaming about at this hour!

    She had come to a halt at the street corner, her head turned away. She seemed to be checking for traffic, preparing to cross the intersection.

    But then she turned around.

    She had no face. Allan’s heart slammed.

    What’s wrong with her!

    She walked briskly toward him.

    No face!

    He glanced at the street, tempted to race across and escape. But when he looked at the stranger again, she was closer. Close enough for him to see the shimmer of fabric that draped her face. Silver, glossy. It hung from her forehead, slotted with holes for her eyes and mouth, and fluttered below her chin.

    A mask!

    Allan heard himself moan. Chills chased up his back. His scalp prickled.

    He leaped off the sidewalk and sprinted for the other side of the street.

    What if she comes after me?