episode FORTY-FOUR
Showdown.
The
vast room Jack entered was a theatre, the old-fashioned kind with a vast sweep
of bloody-red velvet curtains at the front, thirty feet high, that stretched an
easy seventy-five feet from side to side. The stage had the old-fashioned footlights
that looked like shells, shielding the audience from the bright glare, focusing
the limelight upon the actors. At the moment, there seemed to be only two
actors on the stage, Punchinello, dressed like a mad scientist in a long white
lab coat hanging heavy with bulging pockets, a series of mechanical magnifying
devices extended from a ring on his head with various lenses, as well as absurd
magnifying lenses over his bulging eyes. The other actor was Anne, strapped
down upon a slab, with Punchinello hovering over her, an array of large blades
that flashed in the footlights, arrayed about her. Jack’s heart leapt in his
chest, but he did not move, not yet. He glanced about the vast theatre—it must seat
at least a thousand people, perhaps more, the red velvet theatre seats trailing
into the darkened theatre. Only the stage was lit.
Jack
glanced back, viewing the sloping theatre, the ceiling must be forty feet high
over the stage, and it swept back larger toward the back, where he could just
make out box seating up high along the walls, and a huge balcony in the far
back. He moved his eyes forward and back, taking everything in. He adjusted the
lighting in his view, peering about, ensuring that there were no lurkers in the
seats. He checked with heat vision. He checked with motion detectors, and
apparently, from all appearances, it was just these three, Anne, Punchinello,
and Jack, alone in the vast skull-shaped theatre.
That’s
what was bothering him. It was like they were in the interior of a giant skull,
these three little worms, crawling in Punchinello’s mammoth head. Jack scanned
and observed that the theatre was meshed in copper, and that huge magnets were
set all along the scaffolding, and that even larger magnets were spread everywhere
beneath the floors, and in the walls. He thought he could feel the force of the
magnetic waves. Electricity coiled and strung all about everywhere, living,
humming electricity.
What
was that thing called? A Faraday cage—Jack did a quick information search. Yes,
the theatre was a vast Faraday cage, it all had to be the design of Nikola
Tesla, or possibly Victor Frankenstein. Signals could not reach inside this
place. Jack was here, inside Punchinello’s head, and nobody would help him—if
he failed, nobody outside this shielded area would ever know his fate, or what
happened to him.
He
and Anne would be gone. Or worse, they would be changed, and reconfigured, as
many of the people were modified that Jack had observed from his cage. Many of
the people seemed to be dead, zombies, while others were complete automatons,
and others were the mixture of the two, the dead and the mechanical. But Tesa
and Frankenstein seemed to be unchanged, just men, working of their own will
and volition for Punchinello.
Jack
had seen both men coming and going over the last few days. Once or twice it
appeared that Tesla would approach him, huddled in his cage, but the man always
reconsidered, and passed on without speaking. There was something about the
genius inventor’s eyes, as if he were attempting to communicate with Jack, with
those quick, covert glances.
Jack
thought about all of this, and lifted himself up. He hovered, weightless, ten
feet above the ground, now at the same level as Punchinello and Anne upon the
raised stage. He felt odd, unprepared, this was all on-the-job training for him,
after all, and he hardly knew what he was doing, or what he was capable of
accomplishing with these new strange shadow tools. But that creature upon the
stage was about to slice into his Anne, and Jack had to stop the monster.
This
is all a simulation, Jack told himself. This crazy dark world mixed with
impossible things, living and breathing literary creations alongside their
creators; warped developers, coders, programmers, had begun all of this
madness, and now it had gone off all half-cocked and crazy, evolving in its own
mad play. And the inmates were now in charge of the asylum. Monsters lurked
everywhere, and this was now Punchinello’s world.
Jack
gripped his shillelagh, for comfort, but he was also constantly modifying the
weapon, adding and enhancing. He took a hint from Punchinello, and introduced
powerful magnets at both ends of his blackthorn walking stick. He too could
work a little Faraday magic.
“It
is a woman's nature to be constant—to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly,
and for ever—bless them, dear creatures!” Anne said from the stage, and Jack’s
heart leapt and clenched inside his breast.
“Yes,
yes,” Punchinello replied, sourly, “that is very sweet, and utterly tragic. Now
please, Miss Brontë...shut up. I
might decide to begin with your head, discover its secrets, while severing your
tiresome vocal chords.”
“Might
I see him, please, just one more time, prior to your surgery?” Anne whispered,
but Jack could hear her distinctly. It was partly due to the enhanced acoustics
of this place, but also Jack kept twiddling with the volume controls,
magnifying his own hearing, while diminishing any sound that his passage might
produce.
“It
is not my surgery, dear puppet, but yours,” Punchinello corrected. Then he
sighed and sat upright, moving aside the lenses from his eyes. “I have a little
something that the teeth doctors have figured out, it is called cocaine, and
apparently it reduces pain, and I will introduce this miracle elixir to you at
each point of...separation, although
I am not certain you actually require the stuff. As we have deduced in our days
of delight together, you do feel
pain, Miss Brontë, and you are close enough to the humans that I might be able
to alleviate some of the pain that you will most certainly experience. I will
do this for you, dear lady, for your sake, and silence, as I do quite enjoy
pain—both my own, but especially that of others. In time, I think you might
begin to see things my way, dear puppet, as most people generally do.”
“I
do not care about the pain,” Anne said. “It seems my life and my hope must
cease together. But I want to see my Jack, one last time. Please.”
Jack
moved forward. He felt he was approaching death, death incarnate, there upon
the stage. He hovered like a cloud, decreasing his shadows as he neared, and he
experimented by drawing light toward himself, and reflecting it at angles away
from the stage. He thought now of himself as a mirror, less shadow. He must now
hide in the light. And he could not help but feel that this was all a little
play, for his benefit, that Punchinello was aware of everything, and was
tracking him, even now.
Punchinello
sighed a loud theatrical sigh.
“The
things I do for women,” he said, stripping away the rectangle of face from his
head. He held this out, and shook wet drips from it. He seemed to be cleaning
lint from the grim visage, or picking its nose. The eyes glittered in the
footlights. Jack paused, hovering. It truly was a sight of horror, that strip
of face held up above its own head.
“What?”
the mouth said on Punchinello’s head, as the eyes in the rectangle of flesh
grew sharp. Punchinello’s body turned on its high stool, and his hands
reaffixed the rectangle of face back into its head. “Did you see something?”
Anne
lifted her head from the surgical slab, and she peered into the darkened
theatre.
Jack
almost felt her eyes fix upon him. He adjusted both his opacity and
translucency, hoping he achieved the proper mixture. Anne’s eyes continued,
searching. Punchinello stood and strode to the footlights at the outer ring of
the stage. He peered into the theatre.
Jack
kept himself still, bobbing slightly in the air. He held his breath, his hands
squeezing his shillelagh. Should he just attack, now? He felt sweat trickle
down his neck, and he adjusted the heating level, and felt a wave of cool air
blow over him. And what angle of attack could he launch against such a
creature?
Punchinello
turned back to Anne. He produced another theatrical sigh.
“Anything
else? A last meal, perhaps? How about a cigarette? A blindfold?”
“Please.
Let me see Jack.”
“Fine.
But do not say I never did anything for you,” Punchinello said, wearily. “You
are such a gold-digger, Miss Brontë, you use men for every little thing. It is
quite heartless of you.”
Jack
felt a spark of fear. Was Punchinello planning to bring him in here? Dragged in
chains, like Charlton Heston to grovel before Yul Brynner? Maybe if the monster
left the room, it might provide Jack with his chance to liberate Anne!
But
Punchinello had other ideas. He crooked his finger and two of the featureless
automatons entered the stage from the rear, pushing what looked like a
television set, rolling it forward on a cart.
“This
is a little wonder from our dubious genius Mr. Tesla, a little something
project he is still working on, just a trifle. But I kind of like it. I
convinced him to provide us this little prototype, the poor man is always
lacking funds,” Punchinello said, proudly, grandly sweeping his hand toward the
device.
Jack
peered. It was definitely not a television set, but some alternate-reality
version, all glistening pipes and tubes circling what appeared to be a
rectangle of common glass, or two sheets of glass, spaced apart, with glass at
the top and sides. Steam began to fill the area between the sheets of glass.
“They
say it is all done with smoke and mirrors,” Punchinello said, smiling broadly. “But
I think the magic is in the steam. I believe all magic is of the illusory type.”
A
small pipe rising above the glass suddenly burped a puff of steam, which first
looked like a miniature mushroom cloud, but then spread into a great ring that
rose into the scaffolding above the stage. The steam in the glass box roiled.
“Jack
cannot be in that thing,” Anne said, glowering at Punchinello.
“An
interesting idea, that,” Punchinello said. “There might actually be a market
for animated bodies in glass boxes. I will have to think about it. If there are
royalties, however, I doubt I will be sharing.” He shrugged, grinning. “I am
only saying.”
Anne
gasped. For in the steam, shapes were clarifying. A series of sparks ran across
the glass, then arcing electricity, little hands and fingers of light and fire.
A side view of the iron cage appeared, gradually, with a huddled shape in the
corner of the iron box. Electricity danced in short arcs, flickering, burning
the air.
“What
have you done to him?” Anne demanded, straining against the shackles that held
her down.
“Done
to him? Dear lady, absolutely nothing, I assure you he is quite comfortable,
and quite well fed, and warm. The truth is, I even opened the doors for him, a
clear passage to the world above, and the dear man chose to remain here, with
us. Isn’t that adorable?” Punchinello said, warmly, smiling. He looked
benevolent, and kind. The filthy liar. “You certainly know how to pick’em, Miss
Brontë.”
“Oh
Jack, Jack, I am so sorry,” Anne breathed.
“But
notice, dear Miss Brontë, he is not strapped down to a surgical table. I have
no interest in the boy. He is a mere human, sad thing. His friends, however, I
would like to have them for...dinner, yes I would. I could just eat them up,
dear things.”
Jack
reached out and sat the figure up in the iron box. To Jack’s eyes, it looked
just like a live-feed video of himself hunched over in a cage. Jack had his
image look around. Though bizarre in invention, the device was producing an
image that was becoming more realistic than any television screen or monitor.
In fact, it was beginning to look more and more as if they were looking through
time and space—could this be another form of portal? Was there anything that
Tesla couldn’t create?
“That
is odd, yes, very odd indeed,” Punchinello said, staring at the steaming screen.
“Jack,
I am fine, please, leave, Jack, please save yourself,” Anne shouted, to the
image in the steaming screen.
“He
cannot hear you,” Punchinello said, “but oddly enough, he seems to sense your
presence, which is of course...impossible.”
The
image in the steaming screen looked out of the iron box, and angrily, it shot
forward its uplifted fist, with middle finger extended.
“Strange.
He is looking at someone, and yet I can see as well that there is no other
living creature in the room with him, but he is giving the...illusion...of looking at us...”
Punchinello said, trailing off, deep in thought.
Jack
knew that things had progressed about as far as they could, and that now he
must take action. He still had absolutely no idea of what he could or should do
next, but it was certainly time.
“An
illusion,” muttered Punchinello. “Yes, yes, I see. Smoke and mirrors and steam.”
The
Puppet Master abruptly turned and looked into the darkened theatre.
Jack
floated himself to Anne, increasing his speed, not worrying so much about
stealth any longer. But he did not drop his covering reflections. As he neared
her he popped away all the restraints holding her down—it was as easy as
flicking kernels of popcorn away.
Punchinello
produced a small pair of opera glasses and scanned the theatre.
Jack
was at Anne’s side, touching down, and she was glancing up, blinking, seeing
something but not at all certain as to what she was seeing. It was as if she
were seeing a distorted version of reality, in one lump, like witnessing a heat
wave creating a mirage on a hot day. She saw something, but it looked
unnatural, like nothing she had ever seen in her long years.
“So,
the boy is not as simple as I thought, but then why did he spend so much time
in the cage, it defies reason,” Punchinello growled, scanning, looking up along
the scaffolding, searching the theatre, looking everywhere but where Jack now
stood.
Jack
placed his hands beneath Anne’s shoulders, lifting her into a sitting position.
“Jack?”
Anne breathed.
“Shhhh,”
he whispered against her ear. Oh, but it felt glorious to have his hands upon
her, to have her here with him, alive, and well. Her eyes were searching about,
trying to see him, and he thought and drew her into his protective shell,
equipping her with all the perceptions and shadow tools he was currently using.
She gasped, seeing him, feeling him. Suddenly, he was truly quite...there, as
if by magic.
Punchinello
turned, and blinked, staring at the empty surgical slab with its burst
shackles. He looked all about, peering beneath the slab, and then he lifted the
opera glasses to his rectangle of face and stared at them, gawking.
“I
see you,” he said. “But what in the world have you...done, dear boy?”
Jack
moved his mind, slightly, and he turned the opera glasses into a cream pie, and
this he slammed into Punchinello’s face, the cream exploding all about the
Puppet Master’s head and body. Punchinello spluttered, scooping the cream out
of his eyes with his index fingers.
“Damn
it, but no, this is—my world!”
Punchinello shouted. “You shall not
show me such disrespect.”
Jack
thought and Punchinello’s pants feel down about his ankles, and there were the
expected red silk boxer shorts, complete with shiny white satin Valentine
hearts.
Punchinello
sputtered. He lifted his hands and made fists, and squeezed.
Jack
suddenly felt a huge pressure about him, as if a giant hand was clamping down
upon his very being. He felt Anne squished into his back and for a moment he
almost panicked. But then he shrugged out of the vice and flipped it over,
bringing it down like a monstrous sledge hammer upon Punchinello. The Puppet
Master crumpled, and flattened, even as he reached down for his fallen pants,
and Jack smoothed him out, like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, literally smearing the
Puppet Master into a two-dimensional image upon the stage boards, flat,
steamrolled. Punchinello’s eyes glared up at him, balefully.
Jack
stripped the rectangle out of Punchinello’s face, lifted it in the air and
stretched it into a broad sheet of paper, and this he deftly folded into a
paper airplane, which he sailed toward the back of the theatre. What a perfect
flight! It was almost like magic.
“How
are you doing this?” Anne breathed against the back of his neck. “You have his
magic, Jack, I cannot believe it.”
“It’s
not magic,” Jack said, “and what I’m doing is different from what he does. He
said it himself—his is all smoke and mirrors, and steam—none of it is real. I,
however, am twisting reality.”
The
flattened body on the theatre floor sat up, forming into a three-dimensional
being again, making a terrible sucking sound as it lifted away from the boards.
Jack fought against it, trying to force it back down, but its power was
terrible, and it shoved him rudely back. Jack and Anne nearly stumbled over
each other as the body missing its face climbed to its feet. They could see the
glistening mess inside the skull, with one fat worm thing protruding from the
hole, sampling the air, wriggling and writhing.
Jack
snatched at the worm, plucking it from the gaping skull, and popped it between
mental fingers. It exploded in a shower of purple goo. Punchinello’s body
reacted, staggering backward, upending the tray full of knives and scalpels and
other sharp things. It stumbled forward, crazily, like a zombie, and thrashed
over the surgical slab.
Jack
felt alive with power. All of this was image, and all of the image was data,
and it seemed he could reach right into the numbers, seizing handfuls of ones
and zeroes, and he could meld it, make it, reform it, turn it and push it, and
what Punchinello did was something else entirely, in fact Jack doubted that
Punchinello understood—reality—no,
instead, he had come up with some other means, all of it false, and could make
anyone believe what the Puppet Master wished them to believe, and by believing
the lie, anyone was under Punchinello’s power.
Jack
was sick and tired of lies. He was sick and tired of being powerless. He was
sick and tired of being shuttled between realities. He sent Anne a quick note,
like texting, only it was more of a download, a package of things he now knew
and partially understood, and she went rigid as her mind expanded, numbers
spilling into her being. And she knew what he knew, although she probably
understood less than he did, but she also knew things Jack could never know, because
she had lived many of these things before, in other versions of reality. She
had survived reboots and grand scrolls.
“Jack,”
she said, half-sputtering while inhaling. “Oh Jack, you are just—so cool.”
“Stick
with me,” he said, so overjoyed at having her close behind him. There was
nobody better for having his back.
“Forever
Jack, I am yours, forever,” she said, hugging him from behind, her cheek
against his.
He
actually meant, stick close to me, right now, strength in numbers—but her words
so filled him with joy he felt like literally exploding, just shooting out in a
shower of stars, flaming meteorites, and he had to be careful, because, conceivably,
he might just do exactly as he thought—blow apart, become a fireworks display,
go out in a very happy cloud of smoke and drifting ash. He had to be careful,
especially while thinking. He would have to find a way to detach himself from
this power, soon, when they were safe, because he could easily become his own
worst monster, but right now, he was fully immersed, fully empowered, and he
lifted Punchinello’s body off the ground and held it immobile in his mental
grasp.
Punchinello,
in his hold, became a fiery angel of light, beautiful, and awesome to behold.
Wings a full thirty-two feet in breadth spread regally about the being. It
lifted a fiery sword in its hand.
“You
have passed my test,” the fiery angel said, in a booming, beautiful voice. “You
are worthy, Jack Messenger. I sent for you, and you came. I tested you, and you
are judged, and now you shall take your rightful place at my side. I shall make
you—a god.”
Jack
felt the sinuous temptation. It was like warm butter dripping down the inside
of his soul. What Punchinello the angel offered, well, it shouldn’t be, but
Jack actually found it tempting. Not only could the monster offer something
utterly unrealistic, and make it attractive, but he could also fill you with an
overwhelming desire for something you had never felt before, greed, lust,
ambition, the yearning for more and more power. And it seemed real. That was
Punchinello’s power, he could make you think you wanted something, even if it
was the opposite of what you actually desired.
“Just
knock it off,” Jack said, and stripped away the illusion. He held a puppet off
the ground, just a thing partially alive, partially dead, partially mechanical,
and mostly held together by various illusions, a grotesque piecemeal affair
hobbled together by chicken wire and spit, old bubble gum, wax, and a child’s
kite string.
The
body dropped from the air. It landed upon its feet and stood there, very still,
an automaton, with that missing piece of its face, exposing that gory view into
its glistening skull. Then the paper airplane came sailing back upon an
invisible current that had nothing to do with air. It stabbed through
Punchinello’s head, and remained there, half the large sheet of paper airplane
protruding equidistantly through each side of the Puppet Master’s head. The
distorted face made of paper looked at Jack, with kindly eyes, and the mouth
beneath the surreal face smiled.
“Good
job, Jack, I am delighted with your progress,” the paper airplane face said,
winking at Jack. “You have done better than anyone could have hoped. They chose
well, in sending you to face me. But they never realized that it was I that
gave them such an idea. I brought you here, my son. Yes, Jack, I am your
father.”
“Here
he goes again,” Jack said to Anne, “just don’t trust anything he says.
Everything he says is a lie.”
“Oh
but no, that is not true,” Punchinello said, “a man who only lies, why, he
cannot fool anyone. He cannot convince anyone. He will have no power. My
formula for success is two percent lie, ninety-seven percent truth. I retain
that one percent, just for wiggle room.”
Jack
zipped the mouth shut, the metal-upon-metal mesh of the zipper closing very
loud.
Punchinello
casually reached and unzipped his mouth.
“I
like how you use humor, in everything you do,” Punchinello said, “and as you
see, that is a truth that I just told. You do amuse me, Jack. Let us amuse the
world together. We shall offer the world Cocaine and a smile!”
“I
think your humor is crude, and only the basest people think it is funny,” Jack
said, holding his shillelagh out before him like a shield, his elbows flexed, his
fingers tightly gripping the wood for confidence. “Still, I have to admit, it
was pretty hilarious when Judy was going to sit on your head.” Yes, it was
crude, but didn’t people react to the lowest form of slapstick—a man trips and
breaks his nose, bloody spurting everywhere—come on already, didn’t anyone and
everyone think that was funny? Jack giggled, and his giggle very quickly became
a belly laugh.
“Yes,
you begin to see, I bring laughter to the world. That is a good thing, isn’t
it?” Punchinello said, nodding wisely, smiling beneficently, lifting his hands
in blessing. “You cannot fault me for cheering up the world, can you Jack?”
Absolutely
not, Jack thought. Sure, he was a monster, but he certainly was a hilarious
monster, and that really was a good
thing, wasn’t it?
“Jack,
don’t,” Anne said, gripping him tightly, talking right into his ear.
“Come
on Anne, do not be such a sour puss,” Punchinello cried, and suddenly he was
dressed in country barb, a bright red bandana around his neck, a garish yellow
straw hat cocked on his head—incongruously his face was still that of a paper
airplane sticking out of his head. He stomped his cowboy boots and a band of
puppets rose up strumming banjos, sawing away on fiddles—the puppets were all
wearing blue overalls, stomping their wooden feet, but they were all the
generic artist manikins, but they energetically produced the song Something Stupid, with a folk flair,
romantic, countrified—square dance music! A hoe down at the showdown, what fun!
Punchinello
danced in place, it was a do-si-do, the basic square dance step where you hop
in place, touching heel to toe, back and forth, it was hilarious, and joyous,
clapping your hands and then crossing your arms over your chest, It was fun!
Punch was the funnest guy! He was like a barrel crammed with dead and dying
monkeys, it was wonderful.
Anne
and Jack couldn’t help themselves, it was just too joyous, they began do-si-doing
in place, and then joined by several puppets they started a whirling, hopping-bopping
ring in their square dance. And wasn’t that funny? Square dancing, in a ring?
Get it? Come on that was the best ever! A circle was a square how appropriate.
A circle was a square, like a Bilbo Baggins riddle in the dark. Jack and Anne
laughed and laughed. And Punch laughed, clapping his hands, watching the spectacle
of it all. Jack actually cast his shillelagh to the side, because what did
weapons have to do with dancing? This was family! This was fun! Good
old-fashioned square-dancing in a circle of fun! Oh boy! Oh those dead monkeys!
Oh boy!
Jack
and Anne smiled at each other, wasn’t this wonderful?
Then
the music shifted, to a kind of Latin salsa, or was it tango, what was this? Sway, yes, it was good, and Punchinello
was on the floor with them, dressed in a flashy bullfighter’s ensemble, tight
black pants and towering heels on his feet, that cool cropped jacket, and the winding
of red ribbon, and hey, Punch could really dance. He spun Anne like a top, and
then seized Jack, and dipped him, it was all incredible. What were they
thinking, Punch, a bad guy? Come on, he was a ball of laughs! This guy knew how
to have a good time, the very best time!
A barrel full of dead
and dying monkeys, what the hell kind of thought was that?
Jack
laughed but his eyebrows jerked, thinking about those dead monkeys. Then Punch
was doing some funky dance steps, jerking his body, doing the dirty dog,
pumping his pelvis and grinning like an idiot, and that was hilarious, so Jack
started doing the dance too, and it was hilarious, like in a Beyoncé video,
jerk-hump, jerk-pump, whacka-whacka-whacka, and Anne caught on and began to
suggestively pump her hips, moving toward Jack, that look in her eyes, and Jack
knew he was blushing, and still dancing, he moved around behind her, and what
was this called? Grinding? And what was Anne doing, the twerk? Something like
that, and Punch was laughing, clapping his hands.
Until
Stacey appeared in their midst—the party pooper—knocking Jack and Anne apart,
swinging his shillelagh up, knocking off Punchinello’s poor, laughing head. The
head sailed up twenty feet in the air, and when it came down Stacey caught the
thing, even as he planted his boot in Punchinello’s chest, pushing, sending the
decapitated body tumbling over.
The
music was gone, just like that. As were the manikins, and they were on the
stage amidst the toppled surgical instruments and the surgical slab on its side.
Jack
bent, his hands on his knees, gasping for air, and Anne hunched over him,
checking to make sure he was not hurt. Jack felt drained of all his blood, or
like someone had delivered the most terrific blow to his kidneys. He could not
catch his wind.
“Really
nice dance class, Jack,” Stacey said, holding the snarling Punchinello’s head
between his hands. He had his shillelagh wedged between the teeth of the
severed head.
“Stacey?
Is it really you?” Jack gasped, hardly able to get his breath back. He didn’t
know what was wrong with him, but he felt utterly drained.
“It’s
me, in the flesh,” Stacey said, giving Jack that big smile that looked like a
pirate leer. “Well, sort of in the flesh. I’m projected here, and I can never
stay long. Thankfully, I didn’t have to knock too many heads, other than this
one here. Saves time, that.”
Stacey
tossed the head to Jack. Then he bent and manfully lifted the surgical slab,
righting it. He motioned to Jack, who set Punchinello’s head on the slab.
“Why
don’t we open this sucker up?” Stacey said.
“How
long do you have?” Jack asked, producing a huge shiny butcher knife from the
floor.
“Usually
only two minutes—of projection time, which equates to about two years of aging—and
I figure we’ve used half of the two minutes already, so we have to hurry,”
Stacey said.
“This
isn’t very sterile, I just got it off the floor,” Jack said, proffering the
cleaver to Stacey.
“I
don’t think our friend Mr. Punch should mind that too much,” Stacey said,
snatching the steel knife from Jack.
“Hurry,
he has magic, and we can hardly do anything about it,” Anne said, her arm about
Jack.
“Hello
Anne, your sister Emily says hello, and that we will all be together soon,”
Stacey said, winking at the automaton. This was the much older Stacey missing
his left eye, with the deep furrows gouged in his left cheek, and the long
white hair streaming down his back.
“So
Emily finally caught you?” Anne said, eyes sparkling.
“In
a manner of speaking. She actually carried me a lot, and nursed me whenever she
had the chance,” Stacey said.
“Stacey!”
Jack said, blushing.
“I
meant, you know, nursing me back to health, like with care, and attention,
silly Jack,” Stacey said, aiming the cleaver at Punch’s head, taking several
slow, practice swings.
“Please
do not do this. I was hoping that you would appear, I have been waiting for
you,” the head babbled, very fast.
Jack
was already feeling the effects of that voice. He mentally zipped the lips, and
the zipper again appeared and closed the mouth. Without hands, the Puppet
Master could not unzip his lips, but he strained against the closure, eyes
bulging in the paper airplane face. Jack couldn’t help thinking of that first
night, when Punch’s head was on the ground, and Judy lifted her skirts to sit
upon it, daintily like Little Miss Muffet upon her tuffet, and he stifled a
burble of laughter.
Stacey
paused, holding the moment, the big cleaver up, and then he brought it down
with terrible force, splitting the skull in the very middle. The mess lay there
a moment wriggling with those terrible, slimy worms, and then Stacey cleared
some of the mess away with the edge of the cleaver, until he had uncovered a
glinting box in the very center of the mass.
“What
in the world?” Jack said, peering, unable to look away, but feeling he might
vomit, and he mentally soothed his stomach, bringing down a curtain of calm
upon his body. Whew, that was better, and a very close moment or two.
“Don’t
touch any of the brain goo, or the worms,” Stacey said, wedging the cleaver
down into the mess and prying up the glinting metal box. It looked like gold.
He looked about for a moment, until he saw the writhing body upon the floor. He
leapt toward it, snatched a purple scarf from about the neck, and brought this
back, placing the cloth over the box, and then he pulled the box out of the
shattered skull and brains, and it made a terrible noise as wires pulled free
of the flesh and goo. Ripping, fleshy, and wet. Stacey yanked the box free and
slammed it down upon the slab. “Keep this with you, and whatever you do, don’t
let him free. I think you should—”
But
Stacey winked out of existence, his words hanging in space.
“Stacey!”
Jack cried.
“He
is gone, Jack, and we have to get out of here,” Anne said, looking about,
expecting an attack of puppets. She had seen some terrible things in her days
here, and she might never recover from some of the things that were done to her
in her captivity, but her first and foremost desire was to keep Jack safe.
The
body on the floor had stopped writhing and the shattered skull on the table was
only that, even all traces of the surreal paper airplane were gone. It was just
a ruined head, dead, with no trace of the hatred or wicked delight usually
emanating. Without the box, it was over. And they perceived the terrible smell
of rotting flesh, for the first time. It was overwhelming.
“I
do not think I actually can vomit,” Anne said, “but I certainly feel like it.”
“What
should we do with this thing?” Jack said, lifting up the box from where it had
fallen when Stacey vanished.
“Use
your magic, make a box,” Anne said.
Jack
didn’t like for her to even think it was magic that he was doing, not even for
a second. But he would have to explain, later. He produced a metal Faraday
cage, almost the size of the golden box, and he slid the box inside and shut
the door, and spun the little locking dials, setting the password. This new
container he slipped into an inner coat pocket. Strange, when he slipped the
box into the new box, it seemed that he had perceived tiny doors, and tiny
windows, like a miniature...house. He
mentally sealed his Faraday box. Nothing was coming out of there.
“That
is too cool,” Anne said in wonder.
“Okay,
Anne, let’s go,” he said, putting out an arm, which she immediately snatched in
both her arms, hugging his biceps tight. She placed her head upon his shoulder.
She could barely walk.
They
went to the little set of steps leading down from the stage and Jack led her
out of the theatre, calling up all his shadows and shells, enhancing their
vision and sensors, decreasing their weight to aid in their passage. He
experimented, putting some spring into their step. But they needed rest.
“Everything
is going to be okay, now that we are together,” Jack said, moving them out
between the silent rows of puppets. He half expected the creatures to leap at
him. Passing Cyrano was a very bad few moments, but the puppet seemed lifeless.
“Oh,
I am very weary, though tears no longer flow; my eyes are tired of weeping, my
heart is sick of woe,” Anne whispered. “But I am so happy that Emily finally
found her Heathcliff.”
“I
love you,” Jack whispered.
“I
love you,” she returned, shivering against him.
He
led the way to the staircase leading up, and when he turned the handle, the
door opened, and they crept between the two massive nutcracker soldiers that
stood out front. The eyes did not follow them. None of the puppetry displayed
any signs of life. Jack walked leaning upon his shillelagh, actually requiring
the stick as a crutch, and Anne leaned against him. They were exhausted,
expended, and felt sucked of almost all their life force.
They
strode into a world full of sunshine, not even the fog was present. It looked
like early morning, and it felt like Spring.
“Springtime
time in Hawaii,” Jack said, smiling, remembering when all of this had begun in
the park. Hawaii would always exist, somewhere, waiting.
“That
sounds wonderful,” Anne replied, still shivering. “Some place warm, very warm.”
“You
are my warmth,” Jack said, and she squeezed his arm, and they stumbled forward,
into the Olde London of the Honey Moon.
© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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