Psyc 03_The Call of the Mild Read Online Free PDF Page A

worse. Its face was waxen white, its lips bloodred, its eyes ringed with thick black. Gus’ first instinct was to run screaming out of the snack bar area; his second was for a frontal attack. Before he could decide between fight and flight, though, he noticed that the creature was slamming its blue-and-white-striped appendages uselessly against some kind of invisible barrier.
    “It’s trapped in the box,” Gus said.
    “For the moment,” Shawn agreed. “But that’s not going to last long. Before we can do anything, it will be out of the box and then it will start walking into the wind. And after that, well, you know what happens.”
    Gus did. Once the wind stopped blowing, the demon would turn its bereted head on the innocent people in the garden and start to imitate them. But this wouldn’t be just any imitation. It would be vicious caricature, emphasizing the least attractive aspects of its victims. Or, far more likely, emphasizing whatever set of moves it had been taught in mime class that week.
    “Should we alert security?” Gus whispered.
    “It’s apparently neutralized the guards.” Shawn pointed down at the second beret lying at the mime’s feet. It was dotted with coins, mostly pennies, but also the occasional nickel or dime, along with a single quarter. One lone dollar bill was tucked into the brim, obviously placed there by the mime itself to plant the idea of donating paper money in the minds of its viewers. “To haul in that much cash, it must have been here for hours.”
    “Without us noticing it?”
    “It’s very quiet,” Shawn said. “Which is what we should be. Let’s put our trash in the wastebasket and walk out of here.”
    “But if we leave first, he’ll target us for sure.”
    “Just look straight ahead and keep walking,” Shawn said. “Whatever happens, keep walking.”
    Gus didn’t need Shawn to tell him that. He still remembered that terrible day on the Santa Barbara Pier fifteen years ago when he had been targeted for mockery by a particularly cruel mime. By the time he escaped into the crowd, Gus had witnessed such a vicious deconstruction of his walk that he was paralyzed by self-consciousness and unable to get out of bed for a week.
    Balling up their trash and tossing it in a receptacle, Shawn and Gus walked slowly but determinedly away from the snack bar, past the bathrooms, and towards the exit. As they rounded the ticket booth, Gus noticed that Shawn wasn’t next to him anymore.
    “He’s gone,” Shawn said.
    Gus stopped walking, but refused to turn his head to see Shawn behind him.. “You looked back?”
    “No,” Shawn said. “Not really. More of a glance. A glimpse, maybe.”
    “That’s what they all say, right before they turn into a pillar of salt.”
    “Better than being a pillar of Jell-O,” Shawn said.
    “Yeah?” Gus said. “Wait until it rains and see which pillar lasts longer.”
    “How many times do I have to tell you?” Shawn said. “There’s more to life than how long you can stand out in the rain without melting.”
    “If there is, I haven’t come across it,” Gus said, still refusing to cast a backwards glance. “Can we go now?”
    Apparently not. Shawn hadn’t moved. He was staring back towards the snack bar, looking for the vanished mime. “There was something wrong with that mime,” Shawn said.
    “By definition,” Gus said.
    “No, something else,” Shawn said, still looking back where they’d last seen the mime. “Something I noticed but didn’t register until after we left.”
    There was a long moment of silence. Then Gus spoke quietly. “You mean like he had a gun pointed at my head?”
    “I think I would have noticed that a little quicker,” Shawn said. “No, it was—”
    “Shawn!”
    “Yes?”
    “The mime has a gun pointed at my head.”
    Shawn turned back to his partner. The mime stood in front of Gus, his white-gloved hand leveling a gleaming pistol at Gus’ forehead.
    “Please,” the mime said. “Don’t