Doll Face

44

Though Ramona knew it was probably a mistake, she went with the woman to her house that fronted the park. Inside, there were lights from guttering candles and she brewed them tea. The woman said her name was Mrs. McGuiness and she had been in Stokes a long, long time and knew how things worked. That was the sugar she used to get Ramona to go with her. That was the bait that drew the fly into the spider’s web.

Mrs. McGuiness was a large, but sickly woman. She was round and fleshy, but her skin was yellow and dry, almost flaky. But beyond that, her blue eyes were friendly in their puffy sockets and she said she knew things and Ramona desperately wanted to know what those things were.

As she sipped her tea, Mrs. McGuiness said, “Now, I can imagine you were pulled in here as oftentimes people are… but where is it you thought you were going?”

“I’m going east,” Ramona told her. “I’m tracking this to its source.”

“That’s a foolish proposition.”

Ramona shrugged. “God loves fools. Better to take the fight to the source than be on the defensive.”

“You certainly have a tongue on you.”

Ramona ignored that. She was beyond the point where such things mattered. She looked at the tea in her cup and decided it was probably black with poison. She would not drink it. “You told me I don’t know anything.”

“You don’t. You’re only guessing.”

“Then tell me what I don’t know.”

“It’s quite a yarn.”

“I’ve got the time.”

Mrs. McGuiness shrugged. “So you say. I’ve been here a long time, as I said. No one but the Mother herself has been here longer. I was one of the ones that did not try to run and did not conspire against her, so here I stay. I am provided for. I am left alone. I am not a synthetic thing that obeys its master because it has no soul.”

“Who is the Mother?”

Mrs. McGuiness rattled her cup against its saucer. “Who? Well, maybe what might be a better question, but no matter, no matter. She is Mother Crow. She is the last of the family. The last one and the most practiced of all.”

“Practiced in what?”

“Well, in the arts of the doll makers, the puppet masters. The Crows were not simple toy makers, dear. Oh no, oh no no no. Their figures—because that’s what they called them, figures—were more often than not mechanized. You see, the Crows weren’t always doll makers. Back in old Europe, they were clockmakers, artisans of fine precision instruments and delicate clockworks. They applied those skills, secrets, and techniques to their dolls. Not the window dummies, of course. Nobody likes their window dummies walking around, now do they?”

“This is… this is all so insane.”

The old woman smiled at that, as if she understood the feeling all too well. “You said you were going east… do you know where it was you were really going?”

“The siren,” Ramona said. “I was seeking the siren.”

Mrs. McGuiness nodded. “Smart girl or maybe not so smart at all. The siren sounds and those things out there wake up, don’t they? Like wooden puppets deciding they are no longer wooden, eh? Well, listen. The siren is the shift whistle that puts them to work and it is Mother Crow who sounds that whistle as she’s always sounded it as generations of Crows sounded it before her.”

“Shift whistle for what?”

“The factory, child, the factory. The place where the dolls were made… at least, where they were made. Now other things go on there that would chill your blood to know of them.” She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Now listen. Before the fire of 1960—and I can see by your face that the fire is known to you—the Crow factory on the hill was the lifeblood of Stokes. Nearly the entire town worked there and it was a good town with good people who lived a good life and were respectful of one another. Not like the vermin in the big city. These were good folks and this was their town and the Crow family provided so that all might flourish. You’re far too young to know about this town or the factory, but once upon a time when the factory went nonstop and was the blood of this town, dolls were made up there. Dolls for children. Puppets, marionettes, even dime-store dummies of particular artistry. Crow figures were world-famous and the orders just rolled in and people were fat and happy and the town thrived. And watching, always watching, over the town and the factory, was Mother Crow, good Mother Crow like the old woman who lived in the shoe, loving each of her children more than she loved herself.”

Ramona lifted an eyebrow at that. She did not seem to remember the Old Woman in the Shoe being a loving mother, but that was neither here nor there. “So let me guess. The factory went belly-up, closed, people moved away to where the grass was greener, and Mother Crow took it personally.”

“That tongue,” Mrs. McGuiness said, shaking her head. “That awful tongue.”

“I got something wrong?”

“Yes, dear, you did. When they needed her, she was there for them. But when she needed them, they abandoned her. They took the good name of Crow in vain and paid no homage to who she was and what her fine family had done for them.”

Ramona nodded. “People need to eat, ma’am. I’m sure they hated leaving, but they had to go where there were jobs so they could feed their kids. I hardly think that’s a crime. What the hell did she want from them? Their firstborn?”

A darkness passed over the old lady’s face and Ramona figured she had gone too far. There was a time and place to speak your mind and mouth off and maybe this was not it. But she couldn’t help herself. She had been through too much, seen and experienced things that left her nerves not only on edge but humming like telephone lines. Proper conduct and etiquette seemed to have no place now. Her back was up and she was ready for a fight and she didn’t have the patience for trifling bullshit.

The darkness shadowing the old lady’s face remained a moment too long and Ramona wondered what horrors were hiding beneath, sharpening their teeth.

“Maybe she did want that,” Mrs. McGuiness said, her breath coming fast now. “Maybe she deserved that. She and her family had given blood and they wanted some in return and maybe all she really wanted was the simplest of things: loyalty.”

Ramona nodded. Yes, the Old Woman in the Shoe who whipped her children soundly and put them to bed. “Maybe. But maybe she asked for too much. Loyalty is great but it won’t put food on the table. Was Mother Crow willing to support everyone out of her own pockets?”

“Her pockets were as empty as theirs!”

“So they had no choice. They left.”

Mrs. McGuiness nodded. “Not all of them, not right away. But family by family they hightailed it out and left a graveyard in their passing. That’s what Stokes was, a big old graveyard and when the wind blew on dark nights, you could hear the emptiness of it and feel the sorrow and sense the desertion. Those are things you can feel in your soul, missy, and the soul of the town was blighted like a summer field, diseased black to its roots, and that’s when it began to bleed. I don’t expect you to believe it, but those that were still around—I was one of their number—we all saw it. Blood began to seep from the earth, bubbling up like crude oil but it was no oil—it was blood. You could smell it and taste it in the air. It came up through cracks in the street and filled yards and ran in the gutters. It terrified some and others were in rapture over the mysticism of the whole thing. These were the ones that would bow down before it and offer prayers to God above and lower things that crawled below.”

Ramona sighed. “And Mother Crow? What did she say about the blood?”

“Nobody knew. She was hidden away up in that silent old factory like a spider in a crevice and she wasn’t coming out for no one.”

Spider was right, Ramona figured, because that crazy old woman in her own way had webbed up the town and she wasn’t too happy about the townsfolk—her people—slipping out of her grasp like flies sneaking out of a spider’s web. But the blood? How did you explain that? Either Mrs. McGuiness was confused and deluded by the years or exaggerating to make a point or something very weird had happened and with all Ramona had seen, she would not have doubted that things could happen in Stokes that could not happen elsewhere.

“How do you explain the blood?”

Mrs. McGuiness rattled her cup again. “The seed of that is belief, missy. That’s what lies at the core of it. This town was dying fast. It was gasping its last breath. And like anything that lies wounded and worn on its deathbed, it was bleeding out. A malignancy had seeped into this town and as its flesh went to rot so did its bones and blood as the body decayed. And we saw it. Yes, we all saw it. Houses were falling apart, trees standing and leafless. The water in the creek went bad and the sky boiled black and there was a graveyard stench to the wind. Impossible, you say? You think I’m talking symbolically, don’t you? I am not. I am talking literally. This town was diseased. We didn’t know it then but there was a good reason for it. You see, up in the factory, Mother Crow was dying, too. The collapse of her family business, which created the collapse of Stokes, was like a knife stuck into her. The malignancy that blighted the town started in her and spread down from the factory into the town. I told you the blood of this town was the Crows’ blood and so it was. As she sickened and died, so did the town. By then, there weren’t too many left. Maybe twenty families, no more. But they witnessed it.”

She went on to say that Mother Crow might have physically died, but something in her refused to lie quiet. Whatever it was—stubborn pride, anger, or dark witchery—it lived. It grew stronger up there and it seized hold of the town and decided to make those that were planning on getting out pay an awful price.

“It wanted sacrifice?” Ramona said.

“Yes, of a sort. You look at me like I’m insane, my dear, and maybe I am, but I saw things. Awful things visited upon those who were not loyal to the family that had given them life and breath and allowed their children to grow strong and vital. I saw these things. However it could be, it was. That dark machinery up at the factory was still turning out figures of a sort and one by one, those in the town below became those figures or were replaced by them until there were no people left… just walking dolls.”

“Then there was the fire.”

Mrs. McGuiness looked pained by that. “Yes, they said it started in the town and burned its way right up to the factory and when it was done, Stokes was a gutted ruin of black trees and standing chimneys, cinders and wreckage blown by ash. But what was up in that factory, what had been Mother Crow, was still up there, something that fused itself with the machinery, something so powerful it remade the town in its own ideal image and now and again, it needed people. People like you. Because that’s the key to it, my dear. You and your friends, you don’t have to die or let them horrors run you ragged and suck the spirit out of you. Stop fighting. Settle in as I have. Accept things and be part of the Mother and her town and she will provide all that you will ever need or want.”

Ramona just sat there.

She had no voice to speak with. It was all bullshit. Not that she didn’t believe it was true, but the very idea behind it was mad bullshit. Did old Mother Crow really think she could suck people into this netherworld and they would be content to live in the graveyard of Stokes and accept what she offered and make homage to her, their bright and shining fairy queen who guaranteed a happy ending each and every time? Fucking madness. That’s what it was. Ramona was more intent than ever to get up to that factory and sort this out.

“I’m not about to accept this,” she said, “and neither would anyone else in their right mind. Mother Crow or whatever she now is has to be stopped. This insanity has gone far enough. Who the hell did she think she was? Who gave her the right to own those people?”

That darkness passed over Mrs. McGuiness’s face, but this time it stayed like shadows creeping in at twilight. It darkened the wrinkles and ruts of her face, casting gray pools under her eyes, which were no longer that striking perfect blue, but yellow and runny like the yolks of poached eggs.

The monster was nearly out.

“She did everything for them! While they slept, she toiled! While they prospered, she bled! They were her wheat and she treated them lovingly and with great care, scything the weeds that grew up around them! There was no sacrifice too great for Mother Crow! And she only asked for loyalty and… and obedience! And these were hers by birthright! By who she was and what she was and the name she carried and the family she was born into!”

Mrs. McGuiness was standing now and her sallow lips had pulled away from long graying teeth in a sour grin.

“They worked their shifts! Eight to four and four to midnight and midnight to eight, oh yes! But she worked them all until there was no separation from her and the factory and the town itself! All in one and she wanted them to understand that nothing is free! That everyone must sacrifice and everyone must suffer for the good of all and in the end, we are all owned! Do you hear me, you silly little twat? In the end, we are all owned!”

Ramona was on her feet now, too.

She let Mrs. McGuiness rant because there was no talking a zealot out of their beliefs. Mother Crow, while she lived, sounded like the dark lord of all micro-managers and control freaks. She probably drove people away with her obsession and misguided attention to small, meaningless details. They called it bossitis, Ramona knew. That was when a boss felt he or she had to work more hours than their employees to prove that they were sacrificing so much more and working so much harder. But as their employees soon learned, the more said boss worked, the less he or she got done and it was all just an excuse to hide their rampant OCD, which demanded that they oversee every meaningless detail that could have easily been taken care of by their employees. She had worked for a man like that once. Like most bosses of that stripe, he was suspicious and paranoid by nature, believing that his employees were trying to fuck him but there was really no need since he was fucking himself so damn hard.

“I’m leaving now,” Ramona told her.

“YOOOUUU ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!”

As Ramona stood there, Mrs. McGuiness got louder and louder, her voice scraping and screeching like a reed instrument being played with a sawtoothed file: “A WHORE like YOU cannot understand the responsibility of Mother Crow and what she did and what she must do to maintain this town! YOU do not know the suffering and torment and anguish of birthing this town whole again! YOU cannot see nor feel that the blood of Stokes is her blood! That it is her child that she brooded and nurtured and will never EVER let go of! YOU are nothing but a synthetic little whore like your entire generation! VIPERS! WHORES! COCK-WHORE! WITCH-WHORE! SLUT-WHORE! USER AND TAKER AND ABUSER! YOU DO NOT SEE THE PURITY OF MOTHER CROW’S VISION! YOU CANNOT SHARE IN THE BEAUTY OF WHAT SHE HAS MADE! LIKE ALL THE REST! VERMIN! YOU ARE—”

“Shut up!” Ramona shouted at her. “YOU… JUST… SHUT THE FUCK… UP!”

As she tried to pass, Mrs. McGuiness, who didn’t exist now and probably never had, gripped her by the arm and in that instant it felt like something exploded inside of Ramona. Her head was filled with glaring light and fireworks and hot steam. This was not Mrs. McGuinness just as she had suspected all along, it was Mother Crow, a projection of Mother Crow, who still brooded up in the ruined factory like a tick on a blood-filled artery, like a rat in a bone pile. This was her. And Mother Crow knew that she knew and the understanding that flashed between them was not mutually advantageous, but mutually destructive because they both saw the power and wrath of one another and shrank in fear and rose up in anger. Ramona felt like an expanding bag of hot blood that might burst at any moment. The realization that she was being touched by the parasitic horror that engineered this nightmare was almost enough to make her scream.

In fact, it did make her scream.

And as she screamed, she yanked her arm free, very aware of the fact that where Mother Crow/Mrs. McGuiness had gripped her was now cold and numb and that pretty much said all that needed saying about the leech herself.

As Mother Crow’s anger spiked, the house began to tremble and the wind, which had been nonexistent, began to whip outside, moaning at the windows as if it was in pain. For a moment or two, it almost seemed like the house was wavering slightly in and out of reality, shifting between solid and something far less substantial than a gas. The spell of Mother Crow was either weakening or she was tiring of putting forth the massive mental/psychic energy of making Stokes real.

“YOU’LL GO NOWHERE!” she shrieked at Ramona. “NO ONE LEAVES UNTIL THE MOTHER ALLOWS! NOT NOW AND NOT BEFORE, YOU CUNTING LITTLE WHORE! YOU FILTHY DIRTY LEG-SPREADING COCK-EATING LITTLE TRAMP! YOU HAVE NO SAY HERE! YOU HAVE NO—”

And it was at that moment, as Mother Crow made another grab for her, her eyes wild and her sneering mouth flecked with white saliva, that Ramona swung the flashlight at her face with pure rage. The Ray-O-Vac’s stainless steel shell, heavy with the added dead weight of D-cell batteries, split Mother Crow’s Mrs. McGuiness mask like dry pine. Ramona felt it sheer through the mask and then imbed itself into something soft and pliable just beneath.

“EEEEEYAAAWWWW!” cried Mother Crow, her mask cracked open to reveal something gray and grinning beneath that looked like the fissured face of a mummy. “DIRTY DIRTY DIRTY BITCH! TREACHEROUS LIKE ALL THE OTHERS! JUST LIKE YOUR LITTLE FRIEND UPSTAIRS! THE ONE WHOSE WOMB BLEEDS FOR THE DARK SINS SHE HAS WROUGHT AND MADE COVENANT WITH! THE GOOK! THE CHINK! THE SLOPE! RICE-PICKING ZIPPERHEAD DOG-EATING RICE NIGGER CHINATWAT!”

The phobic racial slurs blew out of her mouth like vomit, empowered by a black cesspool of a mind that was probably rank and rotting when she was still truly alive. She was nothing but a sack of poison, intolerance, hatred, and fear. Fear because that’s really what this was all about: that’s what had kept her mind, her spirit, her essence on this side of the grave. Fear of change. Fear of anything that was different. Fear that she had lost her omnipotent sway over the good folks of Stokes and that she could no longer squeeze them in her arthritic fists until the blood ran from them. Fear of the loss of control. And, ultimately, the fear of being alone, of having to look the demented, vindictive hag she indeed was right in the face.

Ramona, shouting herself now, battered Mother Crow until the hag’s head split open, half of it sliding down a few inches and giving her the look of some fairground monster reflected in a shattered mirror. Things broke inside her face as Ramona kept hitting her, but she did not go down despite the snapping and cracking of her anatomy or the black viscous-looking blood that ran from beneath the remains of the Mrs. McGuiness mask.

“GO THEN!” she said in a mocking voice. “GO SEE YOUR LITTLE TWO-DOLLAR GOOK WHORE FRIEND WHOSE LEGS ARE HINGED TO SPREAD AND SEE WHAT SHE HAS PUT FORTH!”

Then the mask fell completely away and Ramona saw the sardonic face of Mother Crow revealed. It looked like grinning wicker, the eyes like juicy red meat, the teeth long and sharp… and then she was gone. There was nothing to mark her passing but a wisp of smoke and shards of the Mrs. McGuiness mask on the floor. And overhead, Ramona heard something bump along the floor.

The flashlight in her hand, terror opening her up like knives, she went to the stairs and started up.

To what waited there in the darkness.

It was then she heard the siren ring.