The Year's Best Horror Stories 21

FALLEN IDOL by Lillian Csernica

I watched her while I ate my sandwich at a table in the mall. The gang of skinheads and punkers around her did nothing without her approval. She never smiled. She never spoke. Only a faint nod or a limp gesture, but the gang responded as if they were commands.

Her face. That was what really caught me. I could do a series of portrait photos on that alone. Her paleness made her black-painted lips stand out harsh and strange. Her eyelids were silver with the faint blue shine of bad meat. Shed shaved her eyebrows then painted lines like barbed wire over her dull eyes.

I was in the mall covering a fashion show held by one of the major stores to kick off a new line. The models were so many bits of clumsy flash next to the dark, sullen poise of this girl. Girl? Woman? Hard to tell. Her bizarre makeup hid her age. After watching the models float around in bright spring florals, I was drawn to the maze of black cloth around her: a high-necked ruffled blouse, tight black leather miniskirt, black stockings ending in little boots with pointy heels. Over it all she wore a coat with immense shoulder pads, its hem brushing her boots. Delicate gloves hid her fingers, between which dangled a cigarette whose smoke stung my nose with strange sweetness.

Excitement made me gobble my sandwich. After years of covering fashion shows and garden parties, taking mother-and-baby shots for the feature pages, I wanted something wild, something dangerous. Here she was. The paper paid me well enough, but I was a guy who wanted more. My hands itched to snap her photo, to catch her in other costumes. Her gaudy clash of face and clothing could make a modern Mona Lisa.

I chased her for a week, haunting the mall and using a telephoto lens to get as close to her face as possible. Six of her faces were proofed and protected in a small album inside my backpack, next to my camera. She never wore the same face twice, and not one of the faces ever smiled.

At the end of the week I sat watching her through a screen of ferns, my coffee cooling in front of me. Today she was done up like a zombie Pierrot. Her face was dead white, her lips blackened in a shape that mocked Betty Boop’s kiss. One eye was ringed in black, the other leaked painted tears. Again she wore nothing but black. She was a true artist, knowing the right backdrop for the paintings she wore.

Every day toward sunset she would appear here, taking a table near the food counters where she would sit and smoke. The punkers and skinheads would find her and begin their complicated games of boredom and gossip, their glances at her and hidden whispers a way of paying homage to her superior outrageousness and consummate ennui. Their obvious fascination took on the nature of worship. If she was grateful, it never showed.

Another week yielded more faces, each unique. I stayed up late in my darkroom every night, examining the day’s “catch.” Other assignments got shelved while I compared a black eye on a flesh-colored cheek to that eerie blue shimmer leaking tears onto smeared rouge. I couldn’t wait to see her and the next day’s ingenuity. I debated showing my many-faced lady the album. Would she be flattered? Angry? I wanted to light a spark in those empty eyes. I thought of her while I lay in bed, wondering where she was, what she was thinking. My eyes made shadows into her long hair, dyed that dull black so popular among her worshipers. Not once had I seen even an inch of her naked skin. She was always hidden by black cloth or heavy makeup. I had no idea what color her skin might really be. I wanted to watch her strip, see her shed the black layer by layer, revealing her own skin while my camera caught every naked inch.

Sleep would not come until I decided to force some reaction from her. If the old superstitions were true, I had a lot of power over her. I had her soul on film. Thirteen faces—thirteen different souls? I intended to count them all. On Monday I waited outside the mall for her, just before closing time. The crowds dwindled and the parking lot emptied. Lights went out inside. Gates came down over the doors of the shops. She had to come out this door. It was closest to the food counters where she held court. Another ten minutes passed. Security guards checked the door and locked it. I felt the rising sourness of disappointment. The way back to my car felt impossibly long. I was halfway to it when I heard the peculiar sound of spike heels on cement. The red spark of a cigarette caught my eye. There she was! She walked straight across the parking lot, weaving in and out among the few remaining cars.

I paced her, trying to keep my own stride slow and casual. She lounged on the bus stop bench, still smoking. The night deepened around her. The evening breeze brought me that sweet smoke like her singular perfume. I went to the opposite end of the bench and sat down. She didn’t look over, just stared straight ahead and smoked with that curious determination.

“Hello,” I tried.

No response. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the album. She had to react to it. I flipped it open and held it out to her.

“I have all your faces.”

Those cadaverous eyes swung around. She stared down at the open pages.

Four of her faces stared back. Her painted brows rose. The black pucker of her mouth fell open. At last her eyes met mine.

“They’re good shots.” I turned the page. “I took several. Have you ever considered modeling?” Another page, and four more. None the same. She reached out toward the album, her hand shaking. Then she snatched her hand back, leaped up and ran. I stuffed the album into my backpack and charged after her, fumbling with the backpack’s zipper. She ran toward the mail’s loading bay. Few light poles lit the area. The gaping mouth of the only open bay doorway loomed ahead of us. The shadows reached out to her. I lost her for a moment in the blended darkness, then the shower of sparks from her thrown cigarette told me where she was. I ran for the doorway as she vanished into it. The bay was a cavern, filled with boxes and crates. The few yellowed bulbs burning high above cast a feeble light.

“Hey!” I called. A chorus of echoes answered. “Don’t be afraid. I’m a photographer. I just wanted to show you—”

Metal screeched off to my left. Something came flying at me out of the gloom. I fell to my knees, hugging the backpack to protect my camera. Overhead a thick chain whistled past. I scrambled over to a big box and crouched there in the dark behind it, trying to quiet my ragged breathing.

Her heels clattered somewhere ahead of me. I followed the sound, moving farther into the maze of crates and boxes. I eased the zipper open on my backpack and pulled out the Swiss Army knife I kept inside. It was handy for tightening screws or opening film boxes, but right now its blade could serve a more defensive purpose. If she wanted to play rough, I was ready.

I crept forward, listening for her heels. At a crossroad in the narrow aisles she darted past, the tail of her long hair flashing by. I lunged forward, trying to keep her in sight. Echoes told me she turned down another aisle close by. I followed, turning the corner into an even darker and tighter aisle. Cardboard rasped. A weight hit my shoulders and flattened me. The heavy box pinned me. My legs were bent oddly. Thank God the camera wasn’t under me.

Her little stiletto-heel boots tiptoed around the corner. I twisted my head around to follow them but the box blocked my sight.

“Hey! Are you crazy? Get this off me!”

I felt a jerk on my left arm. The backpack straps were tangled around it, cutting off circulation. She tugged harder. I heard the zipper give an inch or so. She fought with it. Good thing it was partially wedged under the box with me.

“Listen! I can get you reprints. Who are you? Talk to me?”

Her silence was scaring the hell out of me. The tugging and zipper noise stopped. Pain stabbed my knife hand. I twisted my head around to see the heel of her boot digging into the back of that hand. Her gloved fingers reached down for my knife. I clung to it, pulling my hand back as far as I could. She stamped down again and wrenched my fingers free. The knife vanished upward in her grip. Real fear chilled me. Maybe she was insane.

More tugging on the backpack, and the rasp of the knife on the straps. She was trying to cut it free! I kicked out, fighting to shove the box off me; it was too heavy. I couldn’t drag the backpack any closer. My left arm was nearly numb. The straps slid down it a few inches. I strained to grab them with my right hand. She was not getting my camera!

The loud clang and roll of the bay door closing filled her horrible silence. The wrenching of the backpack stopped. I heard the knife hit the cement floor. The clatter of her heels faded as she ran. I let out a long breath, sucked in another. My heart hammered and sweat slicked my palms. Now I had to get out.

With much grunting and scraping, I managed to roll over part way onto my back. That gave me enough room to shove the box upward inch by inch, working my knee up under it and wedging it between the walls of the aisle. I worked myself out, dragging my limp arm and backpack after me. I snatched up my knife and staggered down the aisle to retrace my way to the door.

Full night filled the bay with darkness. Even the dim ceiling lights had been turned off. A narrow rectangle of faint light showed me the door was still open a little. I hurried toward it, wary of ambush. She’d need a cigarette after going so long without. I sniffed the air, watching for the red glow, but that oddly sweet smoke had vanished with her.

Out in the parking lot, I leaned against my car and calmed down. Sense told me to find another project. Sense told me to stick with the bread-and-butter work at the paper. Another part of me whispered this was my chance. She was wild. She was dangerous.

I pulled out the album and flipped through it, marveling again at all her different faces. She was gifted, to think up so many and execute them with such precise skill. And the flair she had, to parade her art in such a bourgeois setting. It was too late to listen to sense. With every face I looked on, my fascination with her grew.

The first answer would have to be where that bus took her. I’d start there.

On Sunday the mall closed early. I waited in the parking lot, watching from inside my car. I had my knife in one pocket and in my backpack a flashlight big enough to double as a club. The gas tank was full.

The sun went down. Parking lot lights flickered and lit themselves, pale halos shining against the gathering dark. Shoppers poured out of the mall. Again she was the last one out the door. She reached the bench and smoked a steady stream of cigarettes until a bus pulled up. She stepped inside the steel body and it rumbled off. I was out the driveway and behind it before the bus got too far ahead. It wound its ponderous way through the city. Stores and residences began to thin. The occasional neon of a bar sign lit otherwise blank rows of buildings. City noise faded, leaving me with the audible groans of the bus brakes.

On the dingy outskirts of the industrial zone, the bus pulled up beside the sign marking the isolated stop. The last passenger aboard, she stepped out the back door and took off down a straight stretch of sidewalk.

An empty parking lot was just ahead. I parked, watching the bus make a U-turn. So this was the end of the line. I shouldered my backpack and went after her. She was a block ahead. She kept walking, on and on through the pools of darkness between street lights. I followed, feeling the hum of the overhead power lines in my bones. No cars passed, no dogs barked. We were alone. No fear or anxiety hurried her, a woman on her own in this concrete desolation.

She turned in at a gravel drive which led through a rusted chain link gate hanging crooked on its hinges. I stepped lightly on the gravel, begging silence from my battered Nikes. A small shed offered cover. I ducked behind it. I watched her stop before a large warehouse. In the glare from the single streetlight by the gate, all I could see was cracked wood and a litter of debris. No metal shone through the dark smears of rust.

She crushed out her cigarette beneath her boot and walked around to the side of the building. Ringing thuds carried through the stillness. I ran across the gravel to the warehouse, hoping her noise would cover mine. A door opened and closed, its hinges crying with rust. I inched around the corner. The metal stairway around the side of the warehouse was empty. I eased up the stair and listened at the door. Nothing. The stairway continued upward. I started up, hoping for a skylight.

More gravel and splintered boards lay everywhere on the roof. Air vents thrust up their squat rusty squares. I stepped carefully around them. One bad board and I was in serious trouble. I prowled among the skylights. Those that weren’t boarded over were too dirty to see through.

The sound of voices froze me. I crouched behind a large vent. The sound grew, the thin whisper of several voices. I peered over the chill metal’s edge. There was no one up there but me. I glanced down. A feint streak of light showed between the blades of the enormous ceiling fan inside the vent. The voices rose. They were coming from inside.

Their whisper grew to a babble. They talked over each other, all at once. I couldn’t make sense out of their increasing clamor. Beneath the voices I could hear something else, a sound like a guitar badly out of tune. It had a coughing, chugging quality more like someone pounding on a calliope rotten with age. I strained to recognize it over the babble.

Laughter. Cold, ugly, laughter.

I crept on stiff, cramped legs to the stairway and inched down each step, fighting the panicky urge to hurry. Every step took me closer to the door. I prayed it stayed closed. I did not want to meet whatever made that horrible sound.

Crossing the gravel was an agony of slowness. At last silent concrete led me to the comfort of my car. I slid behind the wheel, dropping my backpack on the seat beside me. For a moment all I did was sit there. I switched on the car heater and fired up the engine. Calm, warm, away from the weird scene happening in that warehouse, I started to think again.

Now I knew where she went after holding court at the mall. I knew she was afraid of something, to judge from her reaction to the album. She was strong, could be crazy, might even be mute. She might live in that warehouse, along with whatever made that godawful noise. I shivered again, thinking of it.

Sense nudged me again and told me this was likely nothing more than a group of aspiring actors rehearsing together. The paper had run a few articles on the movement among the homeless who created collections of stories and art based on their experiences. The warehouse could also be a drug hangout, a shooting gallery where she met more of her bizarre crowd. Or the voices could be just another obnoxious type of punk music.

My curiosity would not be bought off. The weird makeup was becoming almost a side issue now. More than ever, I wanted to know more, to know her name and hear her speak. Most of all, I wanted inside that warehouse with a pack full of film and my camera. There was a story here, and a good story always meant good photos.

There was only one thing to do.

The next night I waited until eight p.m. to be sure no after hours business might keep anyone in the neighborhood. The mall would close at nine. The bus would drop her off around ten. I had until ten-thirty at most. This could be the only chance I’d get. If she heard me last night, she might panic and run for another hideout.

I parked my car in the same lot. The only lit windows were three blocks back. The door off the stairway was jammed shut. The lock was so badly rusted a key couldn’t turn in it. I twitched at every shadow, scanning the landing for some clue about what to do next. The landing was clear but for a two-by-two split down the middle. I picked it up. It fit through a large crack in the door. I pulled upward, felt it bang against a crossbar. I gave it a hard jerk upward. Something hit the floor inside. The door opened.

The dust was thick as shag carpeting. Smashed crates and smaller debris had been pushed against the walls. The flashlight’s beam showed me a path worn through the dust. It led me back to a far corner.

A rickety cane chair sat by two small crates piled to form a table. A smudge of blue glittered against the splintered wood. Next to it was a waxy blob of hard red. Makeup. None of her clothes were visible, hung up or piled nearby. Seeing their total blackness would have been a trick anyway. No mattress or even a pile of blankets showed whether or not she lived here.

Broken glass sparkled on one wall when I turned. I walked carefully toward it, stepping over small piles of wood and plaster, and found the windows. No wonder it was darker than the inside of a cave. The windows weren’t just clouded over with age and dirt. They had been painted over in thick black paint from the inside. Even by day, no light would penetrate here. Uneasiness made me step back too quickly. My foot came down on another pile of rubble. I slipped, flinging out my empty hand. It closed on a fistful of old cloth.

A large curtain hung down beside me, so huge I couldn’t see the top or the other side. It rippled, disturbed by my frantic grab. The returning air billowed with dust and the stink of rotting fruit, sweet and awful. I fumbled around until I found a cord dangling beside the curtain and pulled down on it. Rusty screeching ripped the silent gloom. I jumped, heart pounding, and nearly fell again. I steadied myself against the windows and gulped the dusty air. Just some old curtain hooks. Nothing dangerous. The sweet stench was stronger, making me cough.

Row upon row of pale oval shapes reached up into the darkness cloaking the rafters. I ran the beam of the flashlight over them. Faces glared at me from eyeless holes. I sprang back. When they stayed still, I reached out to brush one with my fingertips. It felt a little like clay, more like wax. That face bore the frozen snarl of a Kabuki demon, with red eye holes and a black slash of a mouth. A mask! The breath whooshed out of me and I grinned a little at my silliness. I touched it again, guessing it to be some hybrid of papier-mâché.

I touched more of the masks, some down by my knees, others so high I had to stretch on tiptoe. Some were dried and cracking like autumn leaves, others smooth and pliant. A faint nausea stirred in me when I touched them. I wrote it off to that sweetish reek.

One mask wore the Betty Boop kiss. I dug out the album, flipping through and glancing up at the masks I could see. Here and there were the elements of her parade of faces. So this was where she got her inspiration! It must have taken her years to collect so many. Why keep them here, at risk from damp and decay? I had one answer, but a dozen new questions.

The whispering began. I shut it out. My imagination was overworked from raw nerves. I raised the beam to see the upper rows of masks.

Their lips were moving.

Fascination conquered my jolt of fear. I played the light over the faces, watching their expressions change with the things they said. Keeping my eyes on them, I set down my backpack and the album, then pulled out my camera and flash attachment. Both were worth gold right now. I had visions of a Time article on this lost hoard of ancient art. I needed better light, but I didn’t dare risk missing this by hunting for a switch. I ached for a camcorder to catch both the masks’ sound and movement. Time probably had somebody on call who would know what weird language the masks spoke.

I could see no electronic rig, no power cables. The on/off switch must be hooked up to the cord I pulled. The flash was ready and the focus all set when I heard another noise behind me. The sound of stiletto heels.

Nightmare fear clamped my muscles. I spun around, too slowly. The plank she swung caught me across the side of the head. The last thing I heard was that awful calliope laugh.

Pain pulsed through every inch of my skull, threatening to split it wide open. I tried to get up. Nothing moved. I strained, feeling blood pound as dizziness spun me around. I went limp and let the vertigo pass. Something tight pinned my wrist. I tried lifting the other. Same thing. My ankles, too. I was tied to something hard and flat. A strap bound my forehead and another clamped my mouth. The smell of old seatbelt made me want to gag.

Two desk lamps blazed down into my eyes. They were angled down from behind my head, letting me see past my feet. More lights were on, illuminating the wall of masks. My eyes went wide despite the painful light. Hundreds of masks reached up to the rusted girders in the ceiling. Every higher row held masks cruder than those below, less stylized and far older. On them the quasipapier-mache was brown and cracked, making their designs impossible to see.

Then I spotted her.

She sat at the makeshift table and stared at me, crushing out yet another cigarette. She smiled. It was a slow stretch of muscle, empty of any human warmth. Those dead eyes stayed cold. I shut my eyes against the sight of it. Thank God I never got that on film.

“I’m so glad you woke up.” Her voice was full of odd clicks and slidings, like marbles gargled in oil. She fired up another cigarette. “You were very brave, coming here. There are those who fear to walk in my shadow.”

Behind her the masks chanted, a low rumble of old thunder. The album sat next to her on the table. She picked it up. One by one, she pulled out each photo and tore it to pieces. Then she yanked the film from my camera.

“You wanted these.” Bits of photo sprinkled through her fingers to the dusty floor. “And even those.” She tilted her head at the chanting masks. She drew on the cigarette. Its red glow shone in her eyes. “You came to steal! Thieves die quick deaths for lesser prizes. But you… It has been so long since I have spoken.” She smiled again, running one fingertip over her painted cheek. “Did you touch them? They feel like leather, or rice paper, or old wax. Do you know the worth of what you sought to steal? Of course not. But you will learn. Oh, yes.” She turned to the table and snapped on the lights of a small portable makeup mirror.

My neck ached from straining forward against the straps. I kept straining, anxious to see what she took out of a small case. She raised her hand. Metal flashed. She drew the metal across her forehead at her hairline, then down along the edge of her cheek and jaw. She tilted her head to do the other side of her face. She wiped the metal on her skirt and laid it aside, then stood up and walked over to me, bending close. The harsh light showed a thin bloody line edging her face. I cringed back against the plank.

She leaned closer, forcing me to see only her, then grinned, baring teeth stained by tobacco and worse. Her breath stank like a wind off a sewer. She put finger and thumb to both temples and tugged downward. Muscles and veins stretched and throbbed as her skin peeled away. Bile flooded my throat, gagging me. My muscles cramped with the need to get away from her.

She freed the straps and forced my head sideways. I coughed, spitting over the side of the plank.

“Keep breathing! We can’t have you dying now.”

“Look,” I gasped. “You’ve had your fun. I’m sorry if I trespassed. Just let me out of here. You can keep your secrets. Just let me go!”

“You lie, little thief. You see your fortune made by using me, telling your world all about me. Do you think you are the first?” She dangled the flayed skin in front of my face. I jerked my head aside, bile gushing into my mouth. “I think I will allow you the answers you seek. You know art. You recognize the skills I possess even in these poor times.”

She went back to the table and bent to lift something out from under it. It was a thin plastic mask, a mockery of a human face, the kind on sale for a few dollars at Halloween. She arranged the flayed skin over it, then lifted a spray can from under the table. She shook it, then sprayed the skin. She turned to grin at me. I flinched, eyes slamming shut.

“Fixative,” she said. “When I first began, there were no such marvels. My works would just rot away. Such a waste.”

Her works? My mind clawed its way back from the horrid implication. Row upon row of them, not the source of her inspiration, but the evidence of it? She carried the rigid skin to the wall, hanging it among the lower masks. The higher ones decayed, and that rotting smell… I shoved away the frightening answers. This was no kinky punker. She was insane!

“I see you begin to understand. They are all mine, all parts of me. My only solace.”

“What about the kids at the mall?” Maybe I could talk my way out of this. The paper had run an article on a woman who escaped rape and probably death by getting her attacker to talk out his violence.

“My little friends? Poor substitutes for past glories.” She picked up her chair and sat next to me, close to the lights. I had to watch her, had to be alert for her next move, but I shrank from every glimpse of those dead eyes bulging out of the raw meat on her skull. Why wasn’t she bleeding?

“Once there were temples in my honor. Priestesses to offer sacrifice, priests only too glad to maim themselves in my honor. An army of assassins making daily offerings, bringing me new worshipers.” She sighed, exhaling the stench of old blood. “The altars were never dry. The fires, the chanting, the screams… I miss it.

“This is what I am reduced to. Imitating the games of children with no real bloodlust. I wanted to go to England. To rip the pulsing heart from their smug queen, to take vengeance for my servants slaughtered to the gods of their morality… Yet here I sit, chatting with a frightened thief. I cannot even raise a proper pyre in this modern barn. The whole place would go up. I cannot risk my faces. They are my only believers now.” She sighed again. I held my breath, turning away.

“Look at me.”

I fought until I thought my neck muscles would snap. Yet my eyes opened and my head turned. Instead of raw flesh, I stared at scabbing which grew as I watched.

“A little longer and you will see a fresh canvas for my paints. Do you know me yet? Have you guessed that I cannot do these things and be human?” She threw her head back and laughed. The sweat froze on my body. Of course. That hideous laughter was hers.

She stared down at me, a slow grin cracking the scabs. She ran her fingertips across my forehead and down my cheek.

“Why, little thief, you have given me an idea.” She went to the table. The metal flashed in her hand again. She carried it back and sat down. “You tried to capture me in your little box. You want more than my faces—you want my soul. When my word was law, such arrogance would have you dragged bodily to the temple. My priestesses would lash you to the altar and rip the skin from your body, hacking off that dangling bit of flesh you men are so proud of. Then your chest would be split and your beating heart flung on the fires to appease me!”

The masks roared their chant, filling the warehouse with the echoes of their fury. She smiled on them, then raised a hand. They quieted, their chant the pulse of an enormous heart.

“I am tired of living like a beast, alone and unworshiped. You chose to invade what little peace I had. I could simply kill you, little thief.” She stroked my hair. My skin crawled from her touch. “And yet,” she crooned, “you have brought me a gift. I see now I do not have to be alone with only my own faces. Those stupid children will delight in the lesser of my rites. When the time comes, they will join my present worshipers. How am I to reward you, when all you deserve is agonizing death?”

I screamed. I kept screaming until my throat was raw. There would be no talking her into untying me. It had to be near morning. Somebody had to hear me!

“My editor knows I’m here. I told my girlfriend where I’d be. Let me go now and I won’t even call the police! If you don’t—”

“Silence!”

My voice died in my throat. Even the masks shut up. She glared down at me, looming taller and more ferocious than the body she wore. My soul begged to run from the unholy rage flaming in her dead eyes.

“Know what all who meet me know, little thief: I am the Destroyer! All that is created comes into my hands. You are mine now, as surely as the skin I wear. For you, there is… no… hope!” She dragged the seatbelt back over my mouth and lashed it tight. She stood back as I thrashed and kicked against the bonds. No belt gave even a fraction of an inch.

“Why such fury, little thief? My gift to you is one many have died to obtain.” She held up the glittering metal. She sliced across my forehead with the scalpel. I screamed, arching up against the merciless straps. The pain was hot and sharp. She cut downward through my cheek. Red wetness dripped into my eyes. Blackness smothered me.

Dirty yellow light. No more straps, no feeling at all. Chanting all around me, from me, through me. Over and over, words whose meanings I don’t know. I can’t stop chanting.

Below me, she crouches over the body still tied to the plank. She lifts her head from her feasting and smiles with her bloody mouth.

“Too long since blood has sated me! You have your reward, little thief!”

I am first among her new worshipers, in a new row on the wall.