Hunting Season Read Online Free PDF

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