CHAPTER TWO
963 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Toby Higgins blinked with surprise. The woman sprawled on the grass in Cottage Grove Park was lying in an odd position. And she wasn’t moving.
Toby and his German Shepherd, Jupiter, were out for their routine early morning walk along the park’s pedestrian pathways. As usual, Jupiter kept tugging aggressively on his leash.
“Not so fast, boy,” Toby said, pulling him back.
But Jupiter kept right on pulling.
Toby tugged again and spoke more sharply, “Stay.”
This time Jupiter stopped pulling and looked up as if to ask what he was supposed to do next.
“Good boy,” Toby told his dog, pleased that the obedience lessons were being effective. Then he moved closer to the low-lying iron fence that separated the grass from the path and stared at the figure. She was ten feet or more beyond the fence, and she’d ignored a DON’T WALK ON THE GRASS sign when she chose that spot.
“Performance art,” a voice beside him commented.
Toby realized that he wasn’t the only passerby who had noticed the woman. Four other people had gathered to look at her. Others who kept walking along hesitated long enough to gawk, point, and laugh.
Teapa was an art town, and performance art was becoming so common that people were getting to be kind of jaded with it. Recently he’d seen a nearly n***d woman lying motionless on a gallery floor, twisted and still as patrons oohed and ahhed and stepped around her, nodding to each other and making sage comments about what the performance’s hidden meaning must be.
But there had been a proliferation of outdoor acts during the summer, to the point where you ran into some kind of odd, artsy behavior almost every day. Yesterday a group of dancers had performed as though they were marionettes, creating an illusion so powerful that Toby could almost see the nonexistent strings that “controlled” their movements.
But he’d been most impressed by last week’s “human statue” who managed to hold difficult poses for astonishing long intervals without any visible movement. He thought that must be what this woman was doing today, although lying down must make it easier.
A couple of other onlookers called out snidely to the woman.
“You’re not very good at this, lady.”
“Don’t quit your day job.”
To her credit, the woman didn’t show even the slightest trace of a reaction.
She looks pretty good at it to me, Toby thought.
The pose was a weird one, though. With her right arm reaching forward and her left leg stretched back with the toe pointed, it didn’t look like a position she could hold for more than a few minutes.
Toby asked one of the watchers, “How long has she been doing this?”
The man shrugged.
“I dunno. I guess she was already out here when people started coming by early this morning.”
Toby felt a tingle of uneasiness now. Something didn’t seem right about this particular performance. For one thing, the woman was wearing perfectly ordinary clothes, not a costume.
What kind of a statement is she trying to make? Toby wondered.
He heard Jupiter whine and looked down to see that his dog was staring through the fence. Jupiter seemed anxious to leave the path and go over to the woman on the grass.
Toby tried to shake off his worry and get on with his morning.
“Let’s go, boy,” Toby said, starting to walk away.
But Jupiter wouldn’t come with him. He began to shuffle agitatedly back and forth in front of the low fence.
Toby squinted at the prone woman, feeling worried now.
Maybe I’d better check this out, he thought.
He slacked up on the leash, and Jupiter hopped over the low fence. Toby followed behind him.
One of the watchers called out with a laugh, “Hey, can’t you read the sign?”
Another complained, “Leave her alone; you’re going to ruin her act.”
Toby ignored them and continued over to where the woman was sprawled in her peculiar pose. Then he saw how she was managing to stay in that position. A gray mound of what looked like clay supported her head. Two more gray mounds held her arm and leg in place.
So that’s how she stays so still, he thought.
Then Jupiter suddenly poked his nose on the woman’s left elbow, but she still didn’t budge.
As Toby watched closely, he couldn’t even see any sign of her breathing.
His own breathing was getting unsteady now.
This is more than just good concentration, he thought.
Then he laughed nervously.
Now I get it.
Surely this wasn’t a person at all, but some sort of detailed mannequin. He walked around to get a better look at the figure’s face.
For a moment Toby felt relieved. The face did seem weirdly masklike, waxy and pale. The hairline had been shaved back above her forehead and the eyes were closed. Even so, Toby could see that the skin was porous—and real.
This was no mannequin.
With a whine, Jupiter poked his nose against the woman’s cheek. Nothing about the face changed—not so much as a flutter of an eyelid.
Something’s really wrong with her, Toby thought.
Then he recalled how a woman’s body had been found a couple of days ago right near here. An awful realization seized Toby, and he staggered back a few steps with a loud cry. As he struggled to keep from falling to the ground, he realized that people on the walkway were staring at him now.
“Someone call 911,” he shouted. “She’s dead.”
- Writer
