Dark Screams, Volume 8 Read online

  —

  An incredible banshee wail—so profoundly wretched and full of despair that every muscle in Howard’s body contracted involuntarily, even his sphincter—pierced the apartment and sent him rocketing off the couch. Goggle-eyed, hair standing on end, skin the color of chalk dust, he flung open his bedroom door and was stunned to see the rear half of a large cat sticking out of his typewriter, writhing like a gyroscope. The beast was wailing, making that incredible sound, clawing at the air with its hind legs, every hair standing straight out as if its face were plugged into a light socket, tail as stiff and straight as a broom handle.

  Howard leaped toward the desk to grab the tail and yank the cat out of the machine, but he hadn’t even gotten halfway there when he heard a horrible CRUNCH! (a sound that would live in his memory forever: CRUNCH!), and the cat flopped over, limp as a dead trout.

  Then the Selectric ate the cat, just gobbled him up.

  Howard had never seen anything so ghastly in his entire life. In fact, it brought new meaning to the word ghastly. The Amazing Disappearing Pussycat, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages! Here, kitty, kitty—CRUNCH!—now you see him, now you don’t!

  The typewriter belched and a fine cloud of cat fur wafted over the desk. Then it coughed up a Sergeant’s flea collar with jingly bell attached. Last but not least came the cat’s claws, spat rapid-fire across the room like watermelon seeds.

  There, now, Howard, that wasn’t so bad, was it? rattled the Selectric. Cat tartare is a small enough price to pay for a literary masterpiece, don’t you think?

  The machine got back to work finishing the last chapter. Howard stood and watched it for a time, then clamped his hands over his mouth and ran around the house, looking for a place to barf.

  —

  By external standards, Howard was on top of the world. The second book proved to be an even greater success than the first, critically and commercially. The initial print run sold out its first week on the shelves, and Spielberg had snapped up the film rights while it was still in galleys. It was, by anybody’s definition, a publishing phenomenon.

  But these things meant very little to Howard. He moved through his daily routine on automatic pilot, functioning in a slow-motion daze, walking like a man underwater. He seldom shaved anymore, and when he did he usually managed to butcher his face. He barely noticed, though; in a fog, he’d simply apply shreds of toilet paper to the cuts. On bad days he wound up looking like Boris Karloff in The Mummy.

  Then he’d shamble from the bathroom, past the monster that was churning out the third and final book, and settle down on the couch to watch daytime TV on his old black-and-white set, which now sat perched atop his roast-demolished Mitsubishi. General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, One Life to Live, Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, Scooby Doo, Leave It to Beaver, and an endless, incessant stream of commercials. (“Why so glum, Terry Strasik? Pain and itch of hemorrhoidal tissues getting you down?” “Gee, Mr. Winkly, you know I’m a professional jockey and mother of three. Sometimes when I’m coming in on that final furlong, it feels like somebody’s ramming red-hot rivets up my ass!”) He never dressed unless he was going out to replenish the monster’s food supply, so he wore the same tattered bathrobe day in and day out, gazing slack-jawed at the flickering images on the tube, his brain slowly turning to Jell-O.

  In short, Howard was shell-shocked. Burned out. Circuit breakers had tripped somewhere in his skull and the lights had been extinguished. He had given up, thrown in the towel, surrendered the flag, and basically offered no further resistance. He knew the typewriter would get its way no matter what. The Amazing Disappearing Pussycat (CRUNCH!) had proven that conclusively. He knew he was powerless in the face of the Selectric’s overwhelming will, so he just went quietly about fulfilling his purpose in life: procuring the evening meal.

  He sat through an old M*A*S*H episode, something about a misplaced shipment of tongue depressors, and longed for the day he could climb through the TV screen and strangle Klinger with his own bra strap. Then he watched Three’s Company. And then it was getting dark. Time to go.

  He forced himself to his feet and went into the bedroom to change. Neither he nor the typewriter acknowledged the other’s presence.

  —

  He drove east on the 134 Freeway behind the wheel of a used Ford Econoline he’d picked up for six hundred dollars in The Recycler. Four large cages rattled around in the back of the van, waiting to be filled. The windows were spray-painted from the inside to keep out prying eyes, particularly his landlady’s.

  He’d already been to most of the animal shelters in the phone book—North Hollywood, Burbank, Glendale, Chatsworth, Agoura, Hawthorne, Santa Monica, and the four in Los Angeles proper. Tonight he headed for the one in Pasadena. If this kept up, he’d run out of animal shelters in L.A. County.

  No, that was impossible. The third book would be done soon, a few days at most, and then it would all be over.

  God, how sweet that sounded! The book would be done! That was the day he could start living like a human being again. He’d pitch the demon out on his ass, send him crawling back to that old bastard Cyril Pratt. He’d be shut of them both, and would leave Naomi Fassbinder’s bungalow behind for some elegant, secluded part of the world where his only neighbors would be other rich writers and artists who would respect his privacy. Someplace in New England, maybe. He’d buy a charming gingerbread Victorian house, then get on with the business of enjoying his life. A Porsche. Trips to Europe. Women. Maybe even someone special he could settle down with.

  One thing for sure, he would never write another word as long as he lived. He’d never even go near a typewriter ever again.

  —

  The girl who helped him at the animal shelter was a cute dimpled blonde who looked like she was still in college, probably studying veterinary medicine. She kept throwing appreciative glances his way, though there were younger, handsomer men in the place. Howard knew her type, even dated a few once upon a time. Their hearts bleed for any stray that drags its sorry ass off the street, and Howard did have to admit he looked like a stray. Dark, tired circles under his eyes, hat pulled low, coat collar turned up against the early chill. Hell, he looked like a recently freed political prisoner.

  “What kind of animal did you have in mind?” she asked brightly, her fingers touching the sleeve of his arm. It was a subtle gesture. “Cats,” he mumbled.

  “Oh, you’re a cat lover. I have two at home myself.” She touched his sleeve again and gave him a dazzling smile. Howard tried to return it, but his attempt felt like a grimace. She didn’t seem to notice. “Why don’t I take you back where the cats are? I’m sure you’ll find one you like.”

  “Actually, I was thinking of taking four.”

  “Four! You really do love cats, don’t you?”

  Howard nodded. It was true, he really did like cats. But not nearly as much as his typewriter did. A hysterical shriek of laughter tried to escape him, but he managed to suppress it.

  She took him to the back rooms where the poor beasts were kept in wire cages. He asked her to point out the ones scheduled to be put to sleep and selected the four largest of these. He tried consoling himself with the thought that they were death-row inmates anyway, but it didn’t help much. He couldn’t look them in the eyes.

  He supplied false information on all the adoption papers, making everything up as he went along. This time he was a “Mr. Eichmann” living on Treblinka Street.

  “That’s really wonderful, you know? Most people come in here for kittens or puppies. If they’re old and no longer cute, forget it. But you want the ones about to be gassed. I think that’s great, you know?” She flashed him that dazzling smile again. “If you need anything else, be sure to call. My name’s Alison.”

  He smiled at her and nodded, picturing her previous boyfriends. All guys with problems. And the more screwed-up they were, the more she had probably loved them.

  As soon as he got rid of the typewriter
, he might come back and ask her out.

  “Goodbye, Alison,” he said, and took his cats.

  —

  Howard wrestled the big tabby into the canvas Adidas bag. It tried clawing him, but that didn’t work because he always wore thick elbow-length rubber gloves. He zipped the bag shut and the animal started mewing piteously. He ignored it, stripped off the gloves, and crammed them under the passenger seat.

  He left the other three cats in the van, each with a dish of tuna and a bowl of water in its cage, and walked up the path toward his bungalow. He felt Naomi Fassbinder’s eyes peering from her window every step of the way. He swung the Adidas bag lazily to disguise the shifting weight of the cat as it squirmed around inside.

  When he was safely in his apartment, he let the cat out of the bag (Lucius needled him constantly with this pun: Did you let the cat out of the bag yet, Howard? Huh? Did you, Howard? DID YOU LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG?). He picked up the animal, tossed it gently into the bedroom, and shut the door. The typewriter would do the rest.

  Howard supposed he was fortunate that the Hollywood Riviera Apartments consisted of separate Spanish-style bungalows built in the late 1920s. There was no danger of anybody hearing the cats screaming when the Selectric ate them because the walls were two feet thick and made of plaster and lath. They built them sturdy back then.

  Nobody could hear a thing. Nobody but Howard.

  The cat in the bedroom started shrieking, and the sound slammed into Howard’s brain like an ice pick. He tried to block it out by pressing his hands over his ears until tears squeezed through his eyelids, but it didn’t work. It never worked. No matter how he tried to shut out the sound, it always managed to seep through. He sank into a corner, hands clamped to the sides of his head, and fought to keep from adding his own screams to the cat’s.

  The sound ended abruptly, as always.

  The silence that followed was almost worse than the screaming. Howard took his hands away from his ears. All he could hear now was the soft tick tick tick of the kitchen clock.

  A realization came to him. A vague déjà-vu feeling had been lurking in his subconscious for weeks now, and it finally floated to the top of his mind as simply and undramatically as an air bubble rising to the surface of a pond.

  He was Dwight Frye, and the typewriter in his room was Bela Lugosi! He was playing Renfield to the Selectric’s Dracula!

  Yes, Master, I’ll do everything you ask, just leave it to me! I’ll care for your coffin, I’ll bring victims to satisfy your hunger, I’ll scrape and bow and grovel on my belly—just let me eat the flies off the wall, that’s all I ask!

  Howard went limp and slumped against the wall, filled with incredible self-loathing. He had been eight when he first saw that movie in 1969. The local Bijou spent that summer reissuing all the Universal horror classics, making it the place to be if you were a kid with a quarter on a hot afternoon. His mother had tried to put the kibosh on the whole thing (Honestly, Howie, you’ll have nightmares for a month!), but finally gave in to his crying and pleading. She let him go to a matinee with brother Roy and his friends (the Big Kids), worried that the sight of Bela Lugosi in his cape and spit-shined hair might be too frightening for her youngest son.

  She needn’t have worried. Bela Lugosi weren’t nothin’, he barely merited peeking at the screen through your fingers.

  Now, Renfield…Renfield was another matter.

  Renfield scared the galloping bejeezus out of little eight-year-old Howard Walpuski. He was so petrified he didn’t even realize he’d wet himself until the movie ended and the lights came up. Roy’s friends hadn’t been particularly understanding: Pussy, pussy, baby wet his pants ’cause he’s a pussy! Annoyed to the point of apoplexy, and somehow convinced Howard had done this on purpose to embarrass him in front of his friends, Roy had dragged him off to the bathroom to clean him up and explain as best he could that Renfield was really just an actor named Dwight Frye: “You got that, shithead? Renfield ain’t nothin’ but this guy named Dwight Frye who lives in Hollywood! Dwight Frye! Got that?”

  Howard got it, all right, oh, yes. It was crystal clear: Dwight Frye was the scariest son of a bitch in the universe.

  He spent many sleepless nights after that, convinced beyond all doubt that Dwight Frye was crouching in the closet, peering at him through the crack of the door, munch-munch-munching from a brightly colored box full of Raisinets with legs. He’d lie sweating in bed for hours, afraid he might scream (and if he did it would wake Roy in the top bunk, and, boy, would he wail the tar out of his kid brother, you bet!), eyes wide and riveted to the closet door, knowing that at any moment it would start to swing open, revealing a grinning, demented face made parchment-white with pancake makeup. He’d hear that low, moaning, lunatic laugh—“huuuunnhhh, huuuunnhhh, huuuunnhhh!”—and then the face would loom from the closet like a floating jack-o’-lantern, followed by the shambling, spastic, scarecrow body. And when that happened, he’d be petrified, helpless, unable to scream now that it really counted, and Dwight Frye would slither across the room in the dark, crawl onto his bed with him, and shake his fist so that little Howard could hear the spiders and flies rattling around in his bony hand like pebbles in a maraca. Then, still grinning, Dwight Frye would pry open little Howie’s jaws, stuff a handful of nightcrawlers in his mouth, and make him eat every last bite. Together they would munch munch munch the night away.

  The adult Howard Walpuski chuckled savagely. There was no need to fear Dwight Frye! He was Dwight Frye! He just hadn’t gotten around to whipping up a spider soufflé yet!

  He got to his feet, raged across the room, and threw the bedroom door open. He wanted to hurt the machine, kill it, chainsaw it to shreds, anything!

  A long silence followed.

  Well? clattered the machine.

  “Nothing,” said Howard at last. “I was just wondering when you’d be finished.”

  I’m on the last chapter. Maybe tomorrow night.

  “Thank God,” said Howard faintly, and closed the door.

  —

  The following day he was taut as a piano wire, his senses in a hyper state, every sound and movement strangely amplified and distorted, somewhat unreal. His heart raced, his pulse fluttered, his hands shook. He felt he might shatter and break into a million pieces if he made any sudden moves. He imagined this was the way a prisoner must feel on the final day of a long incarceration, knowing that freedom is imminent, the minutes and seconds magically slowing down and stretching out as if molasses had been poured into the very gears and cogs of time itself.

  He chain-smoked.

  Gnawed on his knuckles.

  Chewed on his lip.

  Counted his teeth with his tongue.

  Picked his cuticles ragged.

  Knotted his fingers together, clasping and unclasping.

  Please, God, oh, pleeeeeze, let the son of a bitch finish tonight! He said he might, said he was on the last chapter! He will finish tonight, won’t he, God? Won’t he?

  If God knew, He wasn’t talking.

  —

  An eternity passed in the space of one afternoon. Civilizations flourished and collapsed. Suns were born and died. By the time it started getting dark, he knew what entropy felt like. He could sense the universe decaying around him.

  The typing in the bedroom stopped.

  He got up and crossed the living room unsteadily, not quite trusting his own feet. He opened the door. The typewriter was waiting for him. When Howard spoke, his voice came out a dry, dusty croak.

  “Finished?”

  Nope, clattered the machine.

  Howard almost burst into tears but stopped himself. He wouldn’t give the typewriter the satisfaction. “But you said tonight. You will finish tonight, won’t you?”

  What’s the matter, Howie old spark, getting tired of my company? Don’t fret your pea brain, pal. Tonight’s the night, like I said. Assuming I get fed, of course.

  Howard nodded. One more feeding. Just one, and then he’d b
e free. He shrugged into his overcoat and thought about the three cats out in the van. How was he going to decide which one died and which two lived? Playing God was, in its way, even worse than simple feline genocide. And what was he to do with the survivors? Keep them? No, he couldn’t do that. He’d never be able to look at a cat again without a shiver crawling up his spine. He grabbed his Adidas bag and headed for the door.

  Before you go, rattled the typewriter, there’s something you should know.

  Howard turned back, eyes skimming the words. “What?”

  Remember that dog food commercial? About changing dietary needs?

  Howard gritted his teeth, a dull red throb of pain building behind his eyes. “Now what?” he snapped. “Cats aren’t good enough anymore? You want a Great Dane? A giraffe? My Friend Flicka? What?”

  Mmm, sounds tasty…but no, not quite. I need something more nourishing, more substantial. In fact, what I need isn’t really an animal. It’s of a higher order, you might say.

  Howard started to laugh—the typewriter was joking, had to be—but the laugh died in his throat.

  Because the typewriter was serious. Of course it was.

  When he realized that, he almost laughed again but clutched a hand to his throat to choke it off. He knew if he started laughing now, he might not be able to stop.

  Ever.

  The Selectric was still clattering. He looked at the words and tried to read them, but they were a jumble and all he could see was one specific word among the rest.

  One. Specific. Word.

  Human.

  He could feel his brain sputtering and going out like a dying fuse.

  Couldn’t feel anything after that.

  Said nothing.

  Wasn’t even aware of leaving the house.

  —

  It was daytime.

  He was on a park bench.

  He had no idea how long he’d been on that bench, nor any real recollection of how he’d gotten there. He had a vague feeling he might have been walking all night, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember. The night was a hazy, forgotten dream, insubstantial as smoke.