Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls. Mark McLaughlin

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СКАЧАТЬ with Emily Randolph, who tells us her puppy, Mindy, ran out of the house when one of her children left the door open after coming home from a friend’s house. The puppy is now lost—outside—in these icy temperatures.”

      “Outside!” Jessica repeated with dread.

      “Mrs. Randolph,” Chad said, “what is going through your mind right now, knowing that little Mindy is somewhere out in the cold, alone and helpless?”

      “It’s not that cold,” Emily Randolph said. “I mean, it’s no big deal. Why are you even here? Geez, this must really be a slow news day! You’re stirring up a big panic over nothing.”

      “Have you printed up posters of the missing puppy?” Chad asked earnestly, his face a study in polite concern. “How much are you willing to offer as a reward?”

      Emily rolled her eyes. “Give me a break! It’s not even cold enough to freeze an ice cube out here. Mindy will be okay.”

      “Maybe so,” Chad said. “But what if it suddenly gets even colder? In blustery conditions, every second counts!”

      The housewife shrugged. “I suppose I could run some posters off on my laser printer, and put them around the neighborhood first thing in the morning. It’s a black-and-white printer, though. The posters don’t have to be color, do they?”

      Chad raised an eyebrow. “A color printout would be much more helpful in ensuring positive identification of the missing family member.”

      “Wha—? It’s not like one of my kids is lost. It’s just a puppy.” The woman sighed. “Well, my boy Skip has a scanner on his computer. I suppose I could scan in a color picture, take it down to Kinko’s on a disk and—”

      Suddenly a boy’s voice rang out off-camera. “Hey, Mom! I found Mindy! She was in the garage.”

      “And there you have it!” Chad said. “Crisis averted here on Lincoln Street. A beloved puppy has been reunited with her human family!”

      Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. “That was a close call.”

      Chad nodded. “Maybe a little too close. Back to you, Brett and Jessica!”

      “Thanks, Chad.” Brett smiled for the camera. “We’ll be right back. When we return—more on Cold Snap! Sugarville in Peril!”

      It was time for a commercial break.

      A potbellied man shoveled snow from the sidewalk in front of his house. He waved to his wife, watching him from the living room window. Suddenly he clutched his chest and collapsed.

      “Don’t let this happen to you!” boomed a deep male voice. “Clearing the walk can be a breeze with a Winter-Pro Sno-Blower, on sale now at Munsen Hardware.”

      The image of Munsen Hardware filled the screen. By the door stood the owner, Harold Munsen, who said, with a cheery nasal twang, “Serving Sugarville for twenty-seven years! We’re at the intersection of Lombard Street and Culpepper Avenue, with plenty of free parking. And as always, free balloons for the kids!”

      The screen returned to the sidewalk, where the wife was proudly pushing a Winter-Pro Sno-Blower as the paramedics took away her dead husband.

      In the next commercial, a thin, pale man in a black suit blew his icy breath over an old woman’s hands as she tried to unlock her ice-encrusted front door on a winter’s day. The man’s face glittered like a fresh snowball. The woman winced with pain.

      “When winter’s numbing gusts make your arthritis flare up, take action!” purred a throaty but still very feminine voice. “Soooothe the pain with deep penetrating Campho-Supreme.”

      The old woman pulled an orange tube out of her purse and rubbed some pink cream onto her hands.

      Three chorus girls in orange sequined gowns then danced into view. The old woman finally opened the door of the house and the three dancers led the pale man inside. Suddenly the girls and the man, minus their eveningwear, are seen soaking in a large hot tub. Behind them, the old woman happily opened pickle jars and broke walnuts with a nutcracker, delighted by her newfound manual dexterity.

      The pale man sighed with pleasure as he slowly melted into the tub. Apparently his flesh and bones were made of packed snow.

      “Campho-Supreme!” purred the voice. “Available at all HealthPal Drugstores!”

      With a blare of dramatic music, the news returned.

      “We’ve just learned,” Brett said, “that the temperature has dropped another two degrees.”

      On the monitor, the logo popped up again—COLD SNAP! SUGARVILLE IN PERIL.

      A crew member moussed Jessica’s hair a bit higher during the commercial. “Let’s look in on Channel 7 Action News meteorologist Jason Kincaid,” the anchorwoman said. “Jason, are these temperatures just going to keep dropping and dropping until Sugarville reaches absolute zero?”

      “Ummm…” Jason sported red hair, a golden moustache and a black goatee. The weather set was actually located less than forty feet to the right of the news desk. “That sort of thing very rarely happens, Jessica. In fact, it never happens.”

      He then turned to the huge map of the metro area and outlying communities behind him. Sugarville was represented by red outlines around various districts of the city. Jason glanced at an off-camera monitor to check the wall behind him, since from his perspective, it was only a flat blue-screen surface.

      Turbulent white and gray swirls appeared to be closing in on the city. Within one of the larger swirls, a bizarre, multi-limbed figure writhed fitfully. “We have an—unusual—atmospheric condition on our hands tonight, Jessica.”

      “Is this the start of a new Ice Age?” she suggested.

      “Ordinarily,” Jason said, “I would tell you…no. That’s really unlikely. But—” He gestured toward the writhing figure. “With this squirmy, spidery thing here, which seems to be some kind of living creature—I’m not sure what to tell you.”

      “So Jason,” Brett said, “this spidery-looking thingamajig we’re looking at… That’s not normal?”

      The weatherman cocked his head to one side. “Earth to Brett! No, it is not normal. Calling it unusual would even be a gigantic understatement. This is way beyond weird. This is like some kind of alien freakshow from space-Hell. It’s horrible. Frightening. And it’s happening to us.”

      “Did you say ‘alien’?” Jessica said, her eyes bright with the promise of a sensational story.

      Brett nodded. “He did indeed say ‘alien’. And I think the question on everybody’s mind right now is: What does this alien being want, and why is it trying to freeze Sugarville?”

      Suddenly a new logo appeared on the monitor—a picture of the multi-limbed shape, surrounded by the blood-red, dripping words ALIEN MENACE! SUGARVILLE IN TERROR.

      Brett’s forehead furrowed with concern. “Jason, do you think there’s any connection between this alien and the Martians in the classic science-fiction movie, War of the Worlds?”

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