Graham Masterton - Death Mask

“Come on, Sissy. Let’s take a closer look.”

“Please, Uncle Henry. I’m so scared.”

“You have to do this. There’s no other way. You’re here for a very good reason, Sissy Sawyer, and you know it. So you have to overcome your fear, young lady, and do what’s necessary.”

Uncle Henry tugged on the parking brake and climbed out of the car. He came around to Sissy’s door and opened it. There was a warm wind blowing from the southwest, and his baggy pants were rippling.

“Come on, Sissy. He’s not going to hurt you.”

Reluctantly, Sissy took hold of Uncle Henry’s hand and stepped down onto the road. Some grit flew into her eye, and she had to blink furiously to get it out. Uncle Henry led her along by the side of the road, where blazing star and purple prairie clover were nodding in the wind.

They reached the giant’s feet. At first Sissy didn’t want to look up at him. His feet were black and his pants were black, all painted in shiny black varnish.

“Lift up your eyes, Sissy. You have to. Look him in the face.”

“Please, Uncle Henry, I’m too frightened. What if he recognizes me and comes chasing after me in my dreams?”

“He’s made of wood, Sissy. He can’t chase you anywhere.”

“Are you sure?”

“Surer than rabbits. Surer than all fall down.”

Very slowly, Sissy raised her head. The giant was wearing a black coat, with a dark red shirt underneath it. His arms were crossed over his chest, and in each of his hands he held a large triangular butcher knife, painted metallic silver.

It was when she saw his face that she really froze. It was painted bright red, with two narrow chisel cuts for eyes and a wider chisel cut for a mouth.

“Red Mask,” she whispered. “Oh God in heaven, it’s Red Mask.”

But Uncle Henry was shaking his head and smiling and saying something to her, although the wind made his voice sound very blurry.

“I can’t hear you. I don’t understand.”

Uncle Henry took hold of her arm and pointed to a large aluminum-sided building not far away with trucks and pickups parked outside it. A large sign on top of the roof said BORROWSVILLE MEAT PACKING CO.

“It’s an advertisement, that’s all. It’s never going to chase you.”

But a harsh voice said, “Trust your Uncle Henry, do you? Uncle Henry died years ago. What does he know about reality? You wait till the blood starts spraying like summer rain!”

There was a deep rumble of thunder, and rain began to fall, only a few silvery spots at first, but then harder and harder.

Run, Sissy! Run!

Molly said, “Wake up, Sissy. There’s somebody to see you.”

She opened her eyes. It was morning and her bedroom was filled with sunshine. Molly was standing at the end of the bed with a large glass of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice for her.

“What? Somebody to see me? Can’t it wait until I’m decent?”

“I shouldn’t worry about it. I think this particular somebody has seen you in your nightgown once or twice before.”

Sissy sat up and reached across to the night table for her glasses. As she did so, Frank came in wearing a blue striped shirt and khaki chinos. He came straight across to her and took hold of her hands and kissed her.

“Oh my God. Frank. I don’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Molly told her. “Instead of tossing and turning, I thought I might as well do something useful, and — well, I brought him back to life again.”

“Oh, Frank.” Sissy pulled him closer and kissed him again, and for a few dreamlike moments she forgot that he was nothing but a likeness of Frank, and that she was twenty-four years older than he was. He felt like Frank and he smelled like Frank, and she wanted him so much to be alive and real that her very bones ached.

“Sissy,” said Frank. “You haven’t changed, have you?”

“My hair is gray, Frank. I have crow’s-feet. Look at my hands.”

Frank gave her a sloping, rueful smile. “I didn’t mean that. But even that’s better than being dead, any day.”

“Do you remember what happened yesterday?” she asked him.

“Sure I remember. I may be a painting, and nothing more than that, but there’s nothing wrong with my short-term memory.”

“When you were burning — didn’t it hurt ?”

“Didn’t feel a thing. I guess it might have been different if I was flesh and blood. But I’ve known guys catch alight, ninety percent burns, and they didn’t feel nothing, either. Once the nerve endings are burned away, you might as well be made out of wood.”

Sissy said, “I had a dream last night about a man made out of wood. It was Red Mask, I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t get it. Red Mask is made out of wood ?”

She nodded. “Didn’t you ever see those giant roadside figures like Paul Bunyan and the Muffler Men? When I was a child, I used to go visit my Uncle Henry and my Aunt Mattie on their farm in Iowa, and on the way to Webster, there was this huge man all dressed in black, with two huge butcher knives.

“It used to scare me so much that I always used to close my eyes tight shut whenever we drove past it, and I wouldn’t allow myself even to think about it. But I’ve been having dreams about it ever since I first saw one of Molly’s sketches of Red Mask. I kept seeing it on the horizon, but I was always too frightened to take a look at its face. Until last night, anyhow.”

“What made you look?” Frank asked her.

“Losing you, Frank. That’s what made me look. I don’t want to lose you again.”

“And this giant figure? It was Red Mask?”

“No doubt about it. He’s a roadside advertisement for some meatpacking company in Borrowsville.”

Molly said, “Wait up a moment, Sissy. Why would anybody disguise themselves as a giant roadside figure from Iowa? Like, draw attention to yourself, or what? And it’s so darned — I don’t know. It’s so darned obscure .”

“There are dozens of roadside giants,” Frank told her. “Indian braves, cowboys, half-wits, girls in swimming costumes. Up near New Milford, we have a thirty-foot corn dolly.”

“I know. But why choose a meat packer from Nowheresville, Iowa?”

Sissy pulled back her bedcovers. “I think we need to talk to Jane Becker, urgently. I really have a bad feeling about this.”

Frank said, “I’ll come with you. And we can take Deputy, too.”

Sissy looked across at Molly. “You didn’t?”

“I surely did. I had a busy night last night, while you were dreaming about scary giants.”

Sissy climbed out of bed and went to the window. In the backyard, Mr. Boots and Deputy were jumping up and down together, snapping at cicadas.

“They made friends right away,” said Molly. “I think that Mr. Boots kind of understands that Deputy isn’t going to try to take his place.”

“Oh, that’s what you think?” said Sissy. “I think that Mr. Boots is intelligent enough not to get into a fight with a German Shepherd half his age.”

Frank said. “I’ll let you get dressed. My coffee’s getting cold, and my chocolate pecan cookies are getting staler by the minute.”

When he had gone back through to the kitchen, Sissy said to Molly, “Has Victoria seen him yet?”

“No. She left for school before he — you know — rematerialized , or whatever we’re supposed to call it.”

“She’ll be so delighted.”

“I know. But I’m not so sure this is something that I want her to get delighted about. It can’t last, can it? He’s a painting, an image, not a real person.”