Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls. Mark McLaughlin

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СКАЧАТЬ monitor to check the latest weather readings. “Oh my God!” he shouted. “The temperature has just dropped thirty degrees! I can’t believe you people. Some kind of freaky space-spider is freezing Sugarville and you’re all just as flaky as ever, acting like this is some kind of movie, logos and all! Well, I quit! I’m leaving before this stupid town turns into one big idiot iceberg!”

      So saying, he snatched off his chip-on microphone, threw it to the floor and ran out of the studio.

      Jessica and Brett gazed at the weather map, enthralled by the unearthly image that stirred there. The grotesque silhouette had at least a dozen twitching, multi-jointed legs, as well as numerous clusters of groping tentacles.

      “We have another report from Chad Yamata and the Channel 7 Action News Van,” Brett said at last. “Chad, what’s happening on the streets of Sugarville?”

      On the monitor, Chad had his coat wrapped tightly around him. The wind had whipped his moussed hair into a frenzied bird’s-nest. Behind him, the sky had the same color scheme as a three-day-old bruise—mostly deep purple, but lightly tinted with pus-yellow and a nauseating shade of green.

      “This cold snap has really taken a sudden turn for the worse,” Chad said. “It’s as cold as a deep-freeze out here. The wind has gone wild—and then there’s that thing up there…” He pointed up, and the camera-man diligently aimed above their heads.

      And there it was.

      The creature from the weather screen.

      Except here it wasn’t a mere silhouette.

      Here it was a loathsome abnormality with flesh like ice-blue alligator hide. Crystalline fibers grew in bristly tufts all over its body. Muscular tentacles sprouted from the joints of its flexing legs. The monster stared down at Sugarville with six clusters of blood-red eyes, like enormous cocktail rings loaded with rubies as big as watermelons.

      But the creature’s most horrific feature by far was its mouth. Its gnashing, vertical maw was loaded with saber-like teeth, with two prominent tusks in the center of each sideways jaw. The mouth was surrounded by longer groupings of the crystalline bristles, and judging from the direction in which they moved in the wind, it looked like the creature was sucking in air rapidly as it descended upon the city.

      On the roof of the Sugarville Bank Building, a man in a trench coat took pictures of the monster. Suddenly he was caught up in the wind that rushed into that insatiable mouth. He was carried aloft, and the grinding sabers slashed him into thin red ribbons in mere seconds.

      “Good night, Sugarville,” Chad said. “We’re getting the hell out of here! Terry, let’s roll!”

      “You bet your ass,” a gruff voice said as the camera was clicked off.

      Brett gnawed his lower lip lightly, fretfully. A minute passed. Then at last he turned toward the studio camera. “And so an unspeakable alien menace threatens Sugarville.” He then moved to face Jessica—

      But Jessica wasn’t there.

      He reached over to her chair and picked up a piece of paper. “Jessica left a note. It says, ‘Brett, I’m going to get my kid and then we’re heading south. You and the crew had better take off, too. Save yourself. Love, Jess.’”

      Brett stood up and looked out past the cameras.

      “Well,” he said, resuming his seat, “I see the crew has already left. Looks like it’s just me, this camera and whoever happens to be watching. Wow.”

      He stared straight ahead, thinking.

      “My wife left me two years ago,” he said. “We never had any kids. I don’t have any pets. All my relatives hate me—personal matter, no need to get into that. So I guess I’ll…stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

      “Besides, this TV station is probably a pretty safe place to be. It’s on the outskirts of town, so maybe that spider-thing won’t notice it.

      “It looked like that creature was sucking in air… Maybe it’s somehow sucking in all the heat. But then, I’m no scientist, so what do I know? The thing seemed to be made of some kind of icy stuff, so that could also be part of the whole temperature deal.

      “If there’s anybody watching, I just want you to know I’ve had a lot of fun being your news guy. When I was little, my family always called me stupid—my wife used to call me ‘the talking head’ and I know she didn’t mean that in any kind of nice way. But being a news guy, that has always made me feel smart. Really, I had mostly good grades in high school and college. I’m not an idiot.”

      He pulled a small earphone out of his left ear. “I mean, sure, I have this little whatchamacallit so they can tell me what to say if there’s a problem. I guess Ashley must’ve left, too. That’s the copywriter at the other end of this thing. She was the one who came up with that War of the Worlds line. That was pretty stupid. I mean, that movie was all made-up stuff, right? That Ashley! She could have at least said goodbye.”

      He threw the earphone across the studio. Then he simply sat and listened.

      Outside the building, the wind—and perhaps something else—roared like thunder. Then the ground began to shake.

      “Listen to that!” Brett cried. “That big space-monster must be coming this way! It’s so fucking huge—maybe it’s already destroyed Sugarville. Something that big, it wouldn’t take long!

      “You know what? I’m just going to stay right here. If it gets me—it gets me. As simple as that. I’m no technical wizard, but the power is still on, so this place must have some kind of back-up generator. And Camera One’s little red light is still on! I bet somewhere in the building, this broadcast is being recorded. Maybe my death can be a big contribution to the news world, and science, and humanity in general. Folks can watch that thing eat me close-up, and then maybe in the process, they’ll learn something really important about the monster…something that will help Earth to defeat it.”

      A tear rolled down his cheek. “I really do care what happens to people. I’m not just a talking head. And by the way, my name’s not Brett Bellamy. It’s Harry Peters. Yeah, go ahead, make fun of my name. I don’t care. Make fun of some poor guy who’s probably going to be dead in about two minutes.”

      At that moment, an enormous ice-blue cylinder—a single leg of the creature—burst through the wall and then jerked quickly upward, flinging off the entire roof.

      Harry Peters looked up in utter horror at a mouth filled with hundreds of enormous teeth, streaked with bright blood and dark gore. The larger tusks gnashed hungrily.

      Harry turned with a crazed smile toward the camera.

      “Are you watching? Are you? Watch, you fuckers! Watch this! Watch! Watch!”

      The nightmare mouth began to descend.

      Then the creature stepped inside the building to steady itself.

      An enormous, razor-clawed foot landed right on Camera One, smashing it to bits.

      I AM NOT PAINSETTIA PLONT

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