* * *
Jimmy walked down the hall, listening at the door of Steven and Liz’s room. He could hear two sets of snores, Steven’s heavier one countered by Liz’s higher, slightly whistling murmur. He knew that The Faceless One had taken them deep down into happy corridors of artifice. Whatever was coming, The Faceless One wanted them out of the picture as much as Jimmy did.
Would The Faceless One know what he was doing? Perhaps the god had an inkling. If he knew, it would never work. He would trick the boy into wearing the mask, and it would all be finished.
Jimmy collected what he needed, putting the things either into his pockets or a plastic
grocery bag he retrieved from the kitchen. He would have felt more secure wearing his traditional costume, but his uncle had told him that such vestments would not be needed here. Indeed, they would interfere with what he needed to do.
He went to the door, and whispered softly, “Bobby.”
There was a rustle of sheets, and the boy came to the door, dressed in Batman pajamas. He motioned to the boy to be silent and follow him. They went into Steven’s office, its tall bookshelves absorbing the sounds of their voices.
Jimmy looked down on the boy. He looked so tiny, so frail. It pained him to know what he must do, but he had no choice. It was absolutely crucial that he proceed, but that didn’t ease his conscience.
“Bobby, I need you to help me.”
“Help you what?” the boy whispered.
“You know there is a very evil thing outside, right?”
The boy nodded, his eyes very wide in the dim light.
“I can stop it, but I need your help.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“We have to go out to the shed.”
“My daddy says I have to stay away from there. I’ll get spanked.”
“I know, but we have to disobey your father.”
The boy squirmed, unhappy with the prospect of angering his father.
“Bobby, do you remember the story I told you?”
Bobby nodded.
“Do you remember what Raven did?”
“He became a baby so he could get the sun and moon back.”
“And how did he do that?”
“He was naughty and didn’t obey his grandpa.” Realization dawned in the boy’s eyes. “You want me to be a hero like Raven.”
Jimmy nodded. “Will you help me?” he asked the child.
The boy considered it, his thoughts filled with small heroes like Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter. He nodded vigorously, eager to join such company. “Go get dressed, and be very quiet.”
The boy scurried into his room and put on his clothes. Jimmy saw a hooded sweatshirt hanging on the back of the office door and grabbed it. He went into Bobby’s room as the boy was trying to tie his shoes. In his excitement, he was unable to complete the task.
“Put this on, it’s cold outside,” Jimmy said, and bent to tie his shoes.
“This is my dad’s,” Bobby announced, his whisper full of warning.
“I know; I think it will be okay if you borrow it.”
Bobby struggled into the large shirt and pulled the hood up. He admired his reflection in the window.
“I’m a hobbit,” he announced.
“Let’s go, Frodo,” Jimmy said. He had read Tolkien his first year at Golden Summer. Many of the elements of the story reminded him of Tlingit myths, and he had enjoyed it immensely.
Pleased, Bobby said, “Okay, Gandalf.”
Jimmy went to open the window. It was stuck, moisture having frozen around the sill, but he strained, and it at last came free with a small crack. He and the boy waited to hear if they had awakened anyone. There was no sound. Jimmy eased up the window and helped the boy out. The drop was shorter than it usually was because a drift of snow was forming under the window. Bobby looked for Mr. Whiskers or the mean otter but there wasn’t any sign of either. Jimmy grabbed his bag and climbed out the window. He eased it shut.
In their bedroom, Steven and Liz slept on, each in their happy fantasy.
In the living room, Stan had heard the sound of the window’s being opened. He rose slowly and went to look out the kitchen window.
Jimmy and the Slater boy were walking awkwardly through the high snow toward the maintenance shed.
Toward the mask.
Suddenly, the boy stumbled, the fresh powder too deep for him to walk. The Indian reached down, picked him up, and hurried toward the shed, carrying him.
The Big Boss had fucking gotten to him, and he was going to put the mask on the kid.
Stan hurried to the back door and thumbed the dead bolt. As he was reaching for the knob, he heard a sound behind him. He turned, and instinctively ducked. George, swinging a frying pan, still managed to deliver a glancing blow to the side of Stan’s head. Stan stumbled sideways, crashing into a pantry shelf. Several jars fell to the floor, shattering explosively on the tiles and splattering both men with spaghetti sauce, olive oil, and pickle relish. Stan dropped to the ground, dazed, cutting his bare arms on shards of glass. George stood over him, panting and brandishing the pan.
Steven and Liz both woke instantly at the noise, wrenched from their pleasant dreams. Pulling on their robes, they rushed to the kitchen.
Outside, the world was cold, white, and preternaturally silent. Jimmy and Bobby were at the maintenance shed, now. Jimmy set the boy down and looked at the door. The hasp and lock were new, but the door itself was old. He smashed into it with one shoulder and the door splintered and crashed inward. Bobby watched this destruction with awe, glad that this was one
infraction he would not bear any responsibility for.
Inside, Jimmy removed a couple of candles he had gotten from the bathroom and lit them. He looked over at the little boy, dwarflike in the huge sweatshirt.
“Sit down, Bobby,” he said gently.
Bobby sat down, his former exhilaration now turning to fear. He wanted his Mommy, and he needed to pee.
Jimmy knelt and told him what he needed him to do, leaving out several crucial details. If he had told the boy what exactly he was going to do, the boy would never have agreed to help.
Jimmy removed his own shirt, gingerly touching the spiral scar on his chest. It pulsed hot at his touch, full of a feverish power. He removed the objects from the bag and laid them on the workbench. In his left hand, he held a soul-catcher, old and brittle, perhaps crafted in the time The Faceless One had first confronted his people. He chanted softly and felt the wooden carving thrum gently in his hand. From his pocket he withdrew the blade that Raven had fashioned from his own beak. As it came from his pocket, it elongated, transforming into an obsidian knife almost a foot long. Jimmy drew the knife tip along the scar, cutting into his own flesh. He winced as he did and heard the boy gasp. He glanced back at Bobby. The boy was terrified, but he did not run. Jimmy was impressed with his courage.
He turned back to the workbench and picked up the charcoal briquette he had retrieved from the barbecue earlier. He smeared charcoal over his face and arms. At last he turned, his chest streaked with blood, his face and arms blackened.
Bobby looked up, and saw the Bird-Man he had feared for so long. The Bird-Man’s chest had a funny design that seemed to glow faintly with a golden light. The pattern made him feel good, like it was a Christmas present or his mommy’s kiss. The Bird-Man held up a long, black knife, blood running down the shining blade and along his ash-smeared arm.
“Will it hurt?” Bobby whispered.
“No,” the Bird-Man lied.
Inside the house, Steven and Liz found Stan semiconscious and bleeding among puddles of sauce that looked like great gouts of blood in the dim light. At first, Steven had thought that George had stabbed Stan, then the smell of tomatoes and garlic reached his nose, and he realized that jars of sauce had shattered on the floor.
George looked up at them, his heart racing, his breath short.
“He loaded his gun! He’s going to kill somebody!”
Stan tried to struggle to his feet. George made ready to swing again and Steven grabbed his arm.
“Gotta stop him,” Stan groaned.
“Who?” Steven demanded.
Liz bolted out of the room, calling for Bobby. She returned within seconds, her face ashen.
“Bobby’s gone,” she cried, her voice full of dread.
Steven helped Stan to his feet, the task made difficult because the floor was covered with sauce and oil.
“Where’s Jimmy?” he demanded. “Where’s Bobby?”
Stan motioned toward the backyard, but Liz was already peering out the window. In the distance, she could see a glow coming from the windows of the toolshed.
“Someone’s out there,” she said.
And then they heard Bobby scream.
Steven and Liz rushed past Stan and George into the snow. Neither of them was wearing anything more than a robe and pajamas, and the cold sliced into them like knives. They hurried through the drifts, propelled by fierce love for their son.
Bobby screamed again, his voice filled with terror and pain, and the sound of it tore at their hearts. Liz cried out, and Steven felt his eyes filling with tears even while a burning rage blossomed in his heart. Someone was hurting his child.
They struggled on, unaware that both Stan and George were following them, each keeping up by using the paths already created by Steven and Liz.
Ahead, the door of the shed opened, and Bobby tumbled out, his small chest covered in blood. He had to have been mortally wounded, and Liz screamed when she saw him.
The boy was crying, scrambling to get away from whatever was in the shed, then Steven saw something that made his heart seize up in his chest.
Bobby was carrying the mask.
Steven screamed at him. “Bobby! We’re coming! Put that down!”
“Baby, I’m here!” Liz cried.
Bobby didn’t hear them. Sobbing, he tried to make his way in the snow, falling now and again, his legs too small to negotiate the drifts.
“Bobby, we’re coming, sweetie! Throw the mask away!” Steven was terrified that The Faceless One would get to Bobby before they did. Jimmy was nowhere to be seen, and he cursed the old man for endangering his son, for damning them all to this horror.
The boy looked at them, and Stan saw that there were crimson streaks on his face, like war paint. Hideous designs rendered in the boy’s own blood. Bobby’s eyes gleamed black in the moonlight.
They were fifty feet from the boy, close now. He would be all right, Steven vowed. They would get rid of the damned mask and move far away.
And then Bobby put the mask on.
Steven screamed.
The boy let his hands drop, and the mask stayed in place, as if it had always belonged there. The boy jerked upright, as straight and stiff as a marionette, waiting for the puppeteer’s
hands.
Everything seemed to stop, and Steven couldn’t even hear his own breathing. Snow stopped falling except around Bobby. But the flakes there began to spiral around him faster and faster, whipping around the small figure like a tornado of ivory chips. With horror, Steven saw the boy begin to stretch, growing in height like a lump of clay on a pottery wheel. The boy emitted an eerie cry, at first like an animal caught in a trap, but that small cry soon rose to a wrenching scream, the sound of shearing metal.
Steven and Liz cowered in the snow as their child grew, his arms becoming muscled and knotted, long spikes emerging from the forearms, glinting indigo in the moonlight. His torso rippled and expanded, and the boy was approaching a height of seven feet. Steven felt his sanity slipping away as his nightmare came true. His boy was lost to him, just as the world was lost.
Sounds came from the figure then, words or gibberish, it was impossible to tell. They reverberated over the ice, growing in volume. The sounds became as loud and sonorous as bells in some vast cathedral, tolling notes of doom and heralding the Apocalypse.
Behind them, Stan sighted on the boy. If he could shoot the thing in the heart before it finished transforming, perhaps he could stop this.
George saw Stan drawing down and realized that this was for the best. Better to lose the boy than damn the world to whatever hell this thing came from.
And then he heard a voice, small and urgent. George looked down, and a black otter was at his feet, staring at him.
“Stop him, George,” he heard in his head.
George knew the Tlingit regarded the otter with suspicion, and surely this one worked for The Faceless One. If he stopped Stan, then the thing would finish its entry into this world and everyone would suffer.
The thing looked at him, its eyes pleading.
George realized he trusted it … But wasn’t that also a characteristic of The Faceless One? Didn’t it spin lies as sweet and fragile as dried honey?
George looked inside himself, wanting to save the child but needing to save the world more.
And as Stan pulled the trigger, George Watters hurled himself into the man, causing the shot to go wild.
One last bullet, striking a tree somewhere off to the right with a loud crack.
Steven looked back and realized what had happened. He wasn’t sure whether George had saved his child or doomed him.
The figure before them was nearly nine feet tall, and there was a thick black miasma forming around it, a hellish nimbus writhing and twisting, tentacles of energy that whipped and
churned.
The thing stretched to its full height, reveling in its power.
And then something curious happened.
Bobby appeared at the shed door.
They all heard a hellish shriek of pain and surprise in their minds, and the figure before them suddenly buckled. Some of its dark spines seemed to wither and turn to ash, borne away on the winds that dispersed the toxic cloud around it. The entity twisted and jerked, clearly in pain. A small cry escaped it, then it seemed to shrink. The nearly featureless black mask fell away and landed in the snow. As they watched in amazement, they saw the figure reach up and pull its face off.
Revealing Jimmy Kalmaku.
Jimmy collapsed in the snow. Bobby rushed for him and hugged him, crying.
Steven, Liz, George, and Stan gathered around the fallen man. George gently lifted his head. George was crying openly, his tears glistening on his caramel skin.