Hunting Season (4 page)

Vic's eyes shifted from Bill to Frank and back again.  "What kind of trouble?"

"We're wasting time, Frank."

Frank pulled his own .357 from his coat and pointed it at Jimmy's head.  "Where is he?"

Vic could smell the distinct scent of urine coming from the other side of the bar.

Frank cocked the hammer.  "Where?"

"The back."  Vic's voice shuddered.  "He's in the back."

"The back," Bill said.  "Should have known.  That's all these dives have are
backs
."

A low growl emanated from the back office.  Vic had never heard anything like it.  Meaner than a dog's growl.  Wet and full of saliva.  Rabid.

"Guess time's up, Bill."  Frank stood up.  "Would have been nice to get him before the change."

Bill grabbed his pistol from the bar.  "Let's go finish it."

"What's back there with Ted?" Vic said.

"That is Ted," Bill said.  "Was Ted.  You two stay out here."

Both men walked to the back office.

Vic leaned over the bar, terrified yet curious.  He tried to see what lay on the other side of the door but as the two strangers opened it and rushed through, Vic couldn't make out a damn thing.  He could hear it though.

The growl turned into an ungodly roar.  Vic covered his ears but kept his eyes locked on the door, trying his best to glimpse Ted...or whatever Ted had become.  The roar lasted another second before the eruption of Frank and Bill's guns cut it off for good.

Gun smoke and silence crept from the backroom.  Vic still leaned over the bar, eyes glued to the back.  Jimmy's whimpers fill the void.  Then plastic rustling from the back.  Zippers opening.  Closing.

Frank said, "He's a heavy son of a bitch."

A few minutes passed before Frank and Bill emerged from the office.  Each one carried the end of an oversized body bag, the middle sagging, barely an inch off the ground.

As they walked by, Bill dropped a five dollar bill on the bar.  "For the bourbon."

The two strangers walked through the front door with their bag into the pale light of the moon.  Then they turned and headed out of sight.

Vic's eyes settled on Jimmy.  He still cried, hands clenched in a death grip around his glass.

Vic reached down and felt his own pants.  Wet with piss.

"Go home, Jimmy."  His voice soft, broken.

Jimmy shook his head, tears gushing.

Vic reached across the bar and clenched Jimmy's shoulder.  "Go home.  We're closed."

Jimmy wiped his eyes.  "What just happened?  What did they do to Ted?"

"I don't know and I don't want to know."

Jimmy tried to drink from an empty glass.  "Give me another shot, Vic."

"We're closed, Jimmy.  For good."

"Just another shot, huh?"

"We're closed, damn it."  Vic looked to the front again, half expecting Frank and Bill to change their minds and storm back in and finish off the witnesses but also relieved he'd survived whatever had just happened.  "I'm leaving, Jimmy.  Right now."

FACES

You're nothing without a decent set of headshots.  Casting directors, agents, other aspiring actors tell you this as soon as you step off the bus in Hollywood.  Need to have a highlight reel, so to speak, which sells your talent.  But when you start out you don't have a movie-of-the-week or a television pilot or even a public service announcement to demonstrate said talent.

What you have is your face and you need to land pictures of it on as many desks as possible.  A good headshot will land you an audition.  A good headshot could score a sit-down with an agent.  A good headshot might bless you with a part in a pilot for a network.  I need some good headshots.

As I walk down the street toward my shitty apartment in West Hollywood, I think about headshots and cost.  Don't want to be cheap.  Having cheap headshots is like having none at all and earns the same results.  No, want to pony up the cash and ensure the photos turn out well.

A facial is a must a few days before any photo shoot.  Not the day before, just in case your skin blotches or you break out a little.  No, get one a few days prior but definitely get one.

So now I'm thinking about facials when I notice the place across the street.

FACES.

Can't see through the tinted windows.  Posters are taped to the exterior glass, though, and I see pictures of different products used for eliminating dark circles and frown lines.

Nothing about the name FACES attracts me but it's straightforward and appears to offer what I need.  Moments later, I stand in front of the door, looking at a poster of a smiling woman with clear skin and perky eyebrows.

Inside, I see white.  The walls, the ceiling, the tiled floor.  White, white, white.  Even the desk the receptionist stands behind with a white Formica top.  A second or two passes then my eyes adjust to the brightness of what looks like a waiting room.

After blinking a few times, I can see okay and walk over to the receptionist's desk.  The Formica top hovers just above waist height and provides an excellent surface to rest my elbows.

The receptionist rifles through a cabinet with her back to me.  I glance at her ass.  Her dress hugs two round, hard cheeks.  I admire it for a moment then clear my throat.

She doesn't respond and keeps digging through files.

"Excuse me," I say and she stops.  "I'd like to get a facial.  Nothing too fancy.  Just something to help before a photo shoot."

The receptionist slowly turns and faces me.

I jump back a step and a cry sticks in my throat.  My hands tremble and a voice inside me says, "RUN!" but what I see hypnotizes me into a grotesque trance.

No face.  It's like God placed a ball of flesh-colored putty on a neck.  No eyes.  No nose.  No mouth.  Just a smooth surface of pink skin.

Another step backwards.  Still can't run.

The receptionist lifts her right fist.  In it she holds a scalpel.  She pounds the Formica then lifts and pounds again.  Over and over she pounds, light glinting off the blade in blurry arcs.

I imagine a smile where her mouth would be and find the power to run.

Hit the door at full speed and bounce off.  Try again but with the same results.

The receptionist still pounds the counter.

My heart racing and sweat flowing down my face, kick the glass of the door and crack toes.  Scream and reach for my foot.

The receptionist pounds.

Hear a door creak open, look over my shoulder, and see two doctors walk into the other side of the waiting room.  Both have normal, honest-to-goodness faces with plump cheeks and crooked noses.  For a moment, I think everything will be okay.

Then I see their jaw lines and the top of their foreheads and their chins.  The skin is jagged and torn around the edges.  Blood drips down from their jaws onto their clothes.

They walk toward me, scalpels raised.

The receptionist still pounds.

They have no eyes.  See the smoothness of their flesh through the eyeholes of faces which once belonged to others.

They inch closer as the pounding continues.

No place to run.  Stuck in a nightmare of reality.  Close my eyes and pray for it to end.  Grab fistfuls of my hair and scream.

Then I hear laughter.  Hysterical laughter.

Fists still holding clumps of hair, I slowly look up and see the doctors bent over, holding their guts, unable to contain their taunting laughter.  Then see the receptionist pointing and cackling like a magpie in heat.

What the fuck?

Everyone laughs while I cower on my knees, first from terror and now dumb confusion.

The doctors remove their faces.  They pry the smooth skin underneath, tearing it away to reveal two young, white men looking down at me.  They have eyes, noses, lips and big smiles.

For some reason I feel like I'm in the ending of a horrible Scooby-Doo cartoon.

The receptionist removes her flesh mask, revealing her blue eyes and rosy cheeks and supple lips.  I hate that I'm attracted to her.

"That was awesome," the doctor on the left says.

"Best one yet," says the other.

My hands shake.  My thighs feel warm and I realize I pissed my pants.

"You okay, buddy?" the doctor on the left says.

"What?" I say, my throat sore from screaming.

The other doctor slaps my shoulder.  "Everything's fine.  It was all a joke."

Joke, I think.  Joke.

The hot receptionist giggles some more.

"Just a joke," the doctor on the left says.  "That the whole world gets to see."

"What?"  My throat burns. 

The other doctor points at the corners of the waiting room.  I follow his gestures and see cameras mounted on the walls.  All of them focus on me like the eyes of witnesses at an execution.

A practical joke.  For the whole world to see.

"Internet, buddy," the doctor on the left says.  "Streaming LIVE."

The blood drains from my face and I stare at a camera and wish the faceless doctors had been real.

The other doctor laughs again and says, "You're gonna be fuckin' famous."

*  *  *  *  *

"It's you," the casting director says.

I look from her to the script, thinking she said a line.  She hadn't.  I look back to her.

"Me?"

"You."

Before she says anything else, I know what's coming.  It's been coming every day for three weeks.

"The guy from YouTube.  The Scared Shitless Guy."

Scared Shitless Guy.  Yep, that's me now.

"I thought I recognized you in line," she says.  "You were fucking hilarious."

I look at my hands in my lap.  "Thanks."

"Was that a real joke or was it all set up?"

"Real."

"Man, they got you good."

"Yes.  Yes, they did."

The casting director chuckles.  "Did you really piss yourself?"

Ball my hands around the script.  "Are you going to let me read for the part, or what?"

"What? Oh, no.  We've already cast the part.  I just wanted to see if it was really you."

I drop the script and stand and head for the door.  As I walk through it she says, "Well, did you piss yourself or what?"

*  *  *  *  *

My acting career dies before it ever lives.  People tell me to give it time, let the popularity of the YouTube video pass over, wait for the next celebrity scandal to draw away the devastating attention.

Sure, sounds reasonable but every time I leave the apartment, people recognize me and yell, "Scared Shitless Guy!"

My neighbors snicker and point.  The bum who sleeps outside the complex winks and giggles.  I think my landlord is planning a business where he provides tours of Scared Shitless Guy's apartment.

I'm sick of people recognizing me and asking if I pissed myself.  A few inquire whether I shit myself, too.

Can't watch TV without seeing my famous video.  Jimmy Kimmel did a spoof of it the other night.  When Letterman does a joke which falls flat, he plays a clip of me screaming.  The local radio morning shows have lots of fun at my expense.  I'm a ratings godsend, apparently.

Instead of going to casting calls anymore, I drink.  Everyday at the same time, sometimes in my apartment and others at bars.  But never the same bar.  Can't risk anyone recognizing me.  Always wear a hat and sunglass, too, just in case.

At the bar, a line of empty shot glasses sit in front of me.  I ponder what to do with my life and for a moment entertain the idea of moving to Alaska and becoming the next Ted Kazinsky.  Letter bombs for all my friends.

On the TV above the bar I see the two guys who pretended to be faceless doctors.  I've refused to learn their names.  Right now they're on
Extra
being interviewed by some blonde ditz.  I can't hear them but the banner underneath them reads: NEW REALITY SHOW HITS TUBE THIS FALL.

I want to drink blood.  These two assholes pull a joke, post it on the internet, and land a TV gig.  I try to stoke my rage some more but now
Extra
is showing me screaming on YouTube with the two assholes laughing.

My forehead thuds loudly on the bar.

"Need another shot?" the bartender says.

I look up, ready to nod but I see this look of surprise on the bartender's face, like he just had a successful bowel movement after weeks of constipation.  He looks at the TV then me and points.

"Hey, you're the Scared Shitless Guy."

Fuck.

Now other people sitting next to me are looking.

"You know you should get the reality show."  The bartender jerks his thumb at the TV.  "Not these assholes."

"Thanks."  I drop two twenties on the bar and head for the door.

"Hey," the bartender yells.  "Is it true you pissed yourself?"

*  *  *  *  *

Walking home from the bar, I notice two guys tailing me.  I speed up but so do they.  Before I can run they snatch me by the shoulders and drag me into an alley.

One of them, a tall guy with breath like a bum's asshole, slams me into a wall, knocking the wind out of me.  I suck air like a guppy.

"I don't have any money," I say.

The other guy, shorter than his friend, whips out a digital handheld and starts recording.

"We don't want money," the shorter guy says.

The tall guy pulls out a gun and sticks it in my face.  My hands shoot up, reflexively shielding my face.  My knees bend, weak, and my head turns away.

"He ain't pissed himself," the shorter guy says.  "Scare 'im some more."

The taller guy pushes the barrel against my forehead.  "Piss motherfucker!"

I'm shaking all over but can't squeeze out a drop.

"Do it!" the shorter guy yells.

"Why?"

"'Cuz you gonna make us rich like them otha jokas.  People on the web want to see ya pee."

"Yeah," the taller guy says.  "People love watching you get the shit scared out of you."

"The joke was what made me popular," I say.

"The joke?" the taller guy says.

"The joke," I say.  "People like watching me react to the joke.  That's why those assholes who pulled it are getting famous.  People think they're creative.  Nobody's going to pay you a lot of money for video of me getting a gun stuck in my face."