The Naked Face
by Jeffrey Greene
Evan James Rickard is on a quest in the southwestern U.S. in the 20th century, but he’s in an alternate timeline where an airborne virus has caused an extremely serious pandemic. Facial masks now do more than prevent infection; their many designs taken from popular culture and folklore make them a means of personal identification and expression to the point where people just aren’t comfortable with “naked faces” or even names anymore. The plague culture will make it all the harder for Rickard to seek out and take revenge on the woman who has murdered his wife.
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3, 4, |
part 3
Clouds were massing on the horizon, the first he’d seen all day. At the corner of the single traffic light, Rickard passed a diner called the Green Light Café, apparently the lone restaurant. He’d picked himself a winner to get stranded in. The Drifter was a run-down semi-circle of red-brick units with evergreen-painted doors. Every metal surface of the motel’s neon sign was peeling, rust-rheumed, and the “n” in “no vacancy” was burned out, spelling “o vacancy” in a soapy, diluted green. The only other vehicles in the lot were a dusty Harley with a side car and a low-riding tank of a Chrysler at least fifty years old.
He walked into the manager’s office and met the orange gaze of a coal-black Persian cat sprawled inertly on the desk, its tail almost brushing the face of the manager, a sour specimen in a Chill Wills mask, whose expression said he’d seen Rickard walk in from the highway and pegged him as carless riff-raff.
“Afternoon,” he said, laying his bag on the counter.
“Hot one.” The innkeeper’s mask looked as if the crows had gotten to it.
“Need a room for one, maybe two nights.”
“One night’s ninety-three sixty with tax,” the man said, sliding a registration form across the desk.
Rickard filled it out with lies and paid in cash.
The man pushed himself back in his wheeled office chair to reach the key and, as he did so, his pants came up above his socks, showing that his shoe held a prosthetic foot on the right side. He handed Rickard the key along with an ice bucket.
“Third room from the end,” he said, gesturing left with his thumb. “Ice machine’s out back. And I watch this place like a hawk.”
“I feel safer already,” Rickard said, holding the man’s suspicious gaze for an extra beat; then he turned and walked outside.
The wind was picking up, and the piled clouds to the northwest were now black and much closer, trailing the fine gray hair of distant rain. Surveying the grounds behind the motel as he filled the ice bucket, he saw a parched strip of grass ending at a rusted chain-link fence; behind that, a small, fenced-in power station; beyond that, nothing, just empty, plowed fields. He felt a withering shock of loneliness.
The stale-smelling room was depressing, with its fake wood paneling, lumpy bed and paper-thin carpet dotted with cigarette burns, but with luck it was only for a night. He drank two glasses of ice water, took a shower, then slept for thirty minutes. At six o’clock, he got dressed and walked to the Green Light Café.
A gust of rain-smelling wind blew off his straw fedora as he opened the café door, landing at the feet of a heavy-set, bull-masked man in a wheel chair sitting at a table by himself, who handed it to him without a word.
“Thanks.”
“De nada.”
The air-conditioned chill couldn’t hide the odor of rancid cooking oil but, considering the deserted streets, the place was surprisingly full. Prim people masks, a few cute animals and less identifiable creatures turned to stare as he sat at the counter and plucked a laminated menu from a clip on the side of a condiment tray.
A bustling blonde waitress in jeans and a black, button-down shirt bearing the logo of a green traffic light, her sleek cheetah mask managing to combine the projecting muzzle of a cat with the full lips of a woman, stopped with a guarded smile. Her name tag identified her as Amber.
“Hi. Something to drink while you decide?”
“Do you have Lone Star?”
“Sure do. Ready to order?”
“What’s good?”
“You can’t go wrong with the chicken-fried steak. Meatloaf’s okay. I’d stay away from the fish.”
“Okay, the steak. With, uh, mashed potatoes, succotash, tossed salad with creamy Italian. How’s the tomato soup?”
“Canned.”
“Just the dinner, then.”
“Okay. Bring your beer in a second.”
“Thanks.”
Cradling a pitcher of beer, glasses and several loaded plates on one sturdy arm, she set off at a fast pace to the other end of the café. He caught himself staring at her rear end and looked away. Had a nice swing to it, but best to be careful in these one-light towns. Never knew who was married to what asshole with a Glock in the glove box. Maybe her hubby was Sheriff Werewolf in that booth over there, deep in conversation with the monster-pawed Horned Toad fixing his car. They’d already turned to check him out twice since he’d walked in. This town was rubbing him the wrong way in record time.
The beer at least was cold, the food no better than expected, but he was hungry and, by the second beer and a slice of rhubarb pie, the café was already emptying out. He left the waitress a big tip, and she thanked him as he got up and put his hat on.
“A pleasure,” he said.
“In town long?” she asked, her pencil eraser bouncing a nervous rhythm on the counter.
“Till my car’s fixed. Tomorrow, if I’m lucky.”
“No reason not to hope for the best,” she said with a sliver of sarcasm.
With the place almost empty now, he took a good look at her. Early thirties, her cheetah melding nicely with her broad, high cheek-boned face, attractive in a quiet way, with heavy, dark-blonde hair that brushed her shoulder blades. Her body was large-boned and generously curved, slender waist, womanly hips and muscular legs. No wedding ring. Looking into her warm, wary, curious brown eyes, he saw a divorced woman who’d wanted kids but probably didn’t get any. Spinning her wheels out here in the desert, he thought, like the rest of us.
“Well, it’s a little early to go back to my room,” he said. “Guess I’ll take in the sights.”
“That oughta fill up five minutes.”
He smiled. “Not exactly a booster for Clifford, are you?”
“I tell myself there are worse places.”
“Why stay, then?”
“Well, I got me a little house down the road. Where else could you own a house waiting tables?”
He could almost hear what she’d left unsaid: that and the alimony.
“Maybe we all belong where we end up,” he said.
“Where do you belong?” she asked.
“Good question.”
“Just make sure you don’t end up in Clifford.” She nodded goodbye, then gathered up his dirty dishes and hustled into the kitchen.
Another warning, the second one since he’d hit town, and at that moment the rain came down hard, stopping less than three minutes later. He stood on the corner watching steam rise from the streets and sidewalks. The rain had barely settled the dust, but the sunset was cinematic: great herds of cloud beasts marched across the horizon, their saurian heads pointing north, blackly silhouetted against a narrow strip of ignited sky.
Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey Greene
