Weirdbook 32

by Douglas Draa

  So right then all I wanted to do was get in that bed. There was no Howard family tradition at the time so I turned off the lights, walked right over to it and, without even changing clothes or getting under the blanket, collapsed and fell instantly asleep.

  * * * *

  It was at that point in telling his story that my Dad paused. He had finished his beer and was working on a second. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and took one giant sip from the bottle.

  “You know, I told your mother this story but she never believed it.”

  He said that as if he was talking to the world and not just to me. I didn’t respond.

  “She refuses to talk to me about it anymore. Like it’s a part of me she’s ashamed of.”

  He put the beer bottle on the table, a little harder than he normally would have. The knock of the glass on the wood seemed to jolt him back to reality. His eyes focused back on me.

  “But we aren’t talking about your mother here. I’m just telling you what happened that night.”

  * * * *

  It was the kind of sleep so deep that an alarm clock would need to ring for twenty minutes before I even heard it. The mattress had been soft and inviting and I sunk into it and didn’t remember a thing until I started waking up. And for a minute I didn’t even know where I was. It was dark still, and the room was unfamiliar. Finally I remembered. But why was it still dark out? And why was I waking up?

  The mattress was moving. Undulating beneath me. I shifted, rolled over, looked about, trying to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. It looked like something was moving at the foot of the bed. And I still felt movement underneath me.

  Then I heard it, too. The shuffle of something moving on the carpet, moving away from the foot of the bed, coming around it towards me. Adrenaline shot through my body, waking me up and chilling me down deep. I rolled off the bed in the other direction, which happened to be away from the front door, towards the bathroom. My eyes were starting to adjust and there was definitely something there. Something in the room. I backed up to the bathroom door, fumbled against the frame, my hand frantically sliding across the wall, feeling for the lightswitch.

  The thing by the bed stopped moving. It was a human, short enough to be a child. It turned towards me and started to move closer on its stubby legs. Then, from the foot of the bed, something else appeared out of nowhere. A black shape in the darkness, it looked like it was coming out of the mattress. That was impossible, right? But in the shadows that’s what it looked like. The thing sloughed onto the ground, disgorged from the gullet of the bed, and rose up on two legs. Another child-shaped thing. This one also starting to move towards me.

  Both of my arms were feeling for the lightswitch now as I backed further into the bathroom. My head hit something, and I screamed. A thin chain hanging from the ceiling. The light! The things in front of me momentarily stopped moving when I made the sound. I reached up and grabbed the chain, and pulled it just as something else poked out of the mattress.

  The bathroom light flared on, and for a second I couldn’t see a thing, blinded. But I recovered quickly and the light was now illuminating the other room enough for me to see what was in there. When I did, my fist tightened on the chain, my whole arm shaking. I had to will myself to let it go so I didn’t accidentally turn off the light.

  They were children. Two small naked boys, no more than toddlers. Both looked exactly the same, like twins. Thin and emaciated, their skin pale as milk. Chests sunken. Their hair wild and dirty, long like it hadn’t been cut. Their nails as well, long, some cracked and broken. Mouths open, breathing heavy, teeth a smudgy brown. Their eyes almost completely black, pupils the size of nickels, were aimed straight at me.

  The thing behind them was sticking out of a hole in the foot of the mattress. A jagged slash in the white fabric. It was a woman’s head, two shoulders, one arm out, the other emerging as she looked at me. Her hair was black with streaks of grey, her skin also dead-white. Her eyes like black buttons on her skull. Her teeth crooked and rotting, mouth open.

  She was making a sound. A high-pitched keen almost like a tea-kettle letting out air. The children turned their attention away from me and back to her. I had backed away as far as I could. The bathroom window was behind me. I tried to open it, but it was stuck or locked and I didn’t want to turn my back on those things to figure it out.

  By now the woman was half out of the bed, she was naked as well, her breasts small and thin, hanging down like deflated balloons. Her hands were reaching out towards the children, arms and fingers just skin around bone, bird-like. The children got within her reach and she snatched them up, her eyes darting back and forth between them and me, and then she started sliding back into the mattress, pulling them with her.

  Her face disappeared into the bed, her arms still out guiding first one child in after her and then the other. The children helped part the slash in the mattress with their tiny hands and then each slid in head first. The last I saw of them was one of the child’s little feet kicking, its long nails like talons, as it disappeared inside the mattress.

  One of the hardest things I ever had to do was run past that mattress to the front door, right past that slash in the side of it. But I did it. The fear of staying in that room overcame the fear of a pale white arm reaching out and grabbing for me as I ran by.

  I ran, and nothing reached out to grab me. At least, I don’t think so, I never turned to check. I fumbled with that door knob for what felt like minutes but was probably a second, and ran out, slamming it behind me.

  * * * *

  My father seemed to deflate a little at that point. Recalling the story had taken a toll on him. Me too. I had been listening, rapt, and didn’t even realize my mouth was completely dry. I went to take another sip of the beer, but it was empty.

  “After that, I debated just getting in my car and leaving. But instead I went back to the front desk and woke up the old lady.”

  He stood, went to the refrigerator and took out two more beers. He handed one to me and took one for himself. I drank from it eagerly.

  “What did you tell her?” I asked.

  He wiped some of the perspiration off of the beer bottle with his hand and ran it across his face, his bald pate, the back of his neck.

  “I’m not sure to be honest.” he said. “I was in shock, babbling incoherently probably. But whatever I said eventually got her to call the police. And within the hour two officers were there and I was explaining the story to everyone.”

  “Did they believe you?”

  My Dad laughed. “Nope! But they did check the room anyway. And the slash in the mattress was there, just like I told them it was.”

  “And that…family?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. The mattress was empty. They even had one of them pry it open, and the other stuck his head inside with a flashlight. Nothing. They said it was just an old mattress with a slash cut in it and some stuffing missing.”

  “So then what happened?” I asked.

  He was staring off into space, my question seemed to have startled him.

  “Then? Well, nothing. That was it. The cops said they would write it up and then just left.”

  He shrugged. “And I wasn’t going to stay. I got in my car and drove straight through to Colorado. But that was only after checking the trunk and hitting each seat with the crowbar a couple of times.”

  That was when my father looked me in the eyes for the first time since he started telling the story. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I knew I owed him enough to at least hold his gaze.

  He looked at me and said “I don’t know who those people were, or where they came from or why they were there. And sometimes I even wonder if it really happened. But then I remember their big black eyes, and the sound that woman made, and the feeling of them moving beneath me while I laid on the bed. That’s why I do what I do
when we go to a hotel room. And that’s why I want you to do the same thing when I’m not around.”

  I imagined being in that hotel room. In the dark. I nodded.

  “Promise me.” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “I promise.” I said. And I meant it.

  “Good!” and just like that he was my dad again. The dad I know. No fear. No dark secrets. Just jovial and easy-going and carefree.

  Together we downed the last of our drinks and threw out the bottles. By the time my mom got home we were in the living room watching a game. But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was thinking about what my friends would say when they saw the Howard family tradition, or what my future kids would think when I someday passed it on to them. But mostly I thought about those things in the hotel room. I wondered if they now had their own tradition. One where they thumped on the inside of the mattress before climbing out.

  ▲

  ODE TO ASHTORETH, by K.A. Opperman

  For David Park Barnitz

  O Ashtoreth, O perfect corpse-wan queen,

  O Goddess gowned in glimmers of the moon,

  O shining eyes half-shut in silver swoon,

  I set your crown with what white gems men glean

  From out the stars; I send you perfumed praise

  Upon a golden censer’s breath, so soon

  Extinguishèd…. I fain would die between

  Your deathly breasts, thereon to end my days.

  For I have seen you in my love’s fair face—

  She who lies cold beneath the moon’s blue rays!

  And I have kissed on her corrupt pale lips

  Your poppied lips; in hers, known your embrace.

  O Ashtoreth, pray pity him who sips

  From out your down-tipped opalled cup—I chase

  Upon my love’s cold breast the last eclipse.

  HELL IN A BOXCAR, by Scott A. Cupp

  Rising from the floor of the boxcar, Bob was reminded of just how hot it was. The Rising Star Bank, a few blocks away, had proudly proclaimed the temperature to be 103o an hour or so ago when he and his friends had arrived a scant hour ago. He also vowed to kill Dave Lee when this was over.

  Dave had brought a smudged handbill back from Ft. Worth. He had a friend working at the Hotel Texas who was able to procure most anything. When he mentioned a friend who was a good boxer, “Dolly” Jim Thompson had searched his files and produced an advertising flyer. Dave said “Dolly” was working an occasional boxing match with $100 prize for anyone who could go three rounds with the Champion. “Dolly” Thompson said that he wanted to be a writer himself someday and had written a few profiles of some oil field workers that he was trying to sell. He found it exciting that a writer would be a boxer. He wanted to meet Bob at some point. So Dave had convinced Bob and Clyde to check out the fight. A couple of beers on a hot day and they were more than willing to go.

  That was how Bob found himself, bruised, stripped to the waist, boxing—not for the prize anymore but for his very life against this hellish being.

  The boxcar had once been a refrigerated car. The car was now abandoned on a small rail spur. There was a crowd of people standing around the edges, cheering him on. Their cries echoed off the steel walls and were amplified in his ears. At least he hoped it was him they were cheering on.

  The sound was powerful, but the smell was worse. The smell of long gone meat and blood. The smell of men inflamed into a blood lust. Bob’s own sweat was tremendous. Even though he had fought just one three minute round, he felt like he had lost a couple of pounds. Rivers of sweat poured over his chest, making little mud pies in the dirt as it fell to the floor. The sweat offered no cooling in the heat as no wind hastened its evaporation.

  Bob looked at Clyde who was trying to loosen him up. “God Almighty, Bob! How do you fight a thing like that?” His eyes widened with fear. “Let’s just get the Hell out of here!”

  Bob stared at Clyde in disbelief. “Are you deaf, man? Did you not hear the man say that once we started we go until three rounds have passed or until one of us could go no more? There’s no throwin’ in the towel. This is bare knuckles boxing as it’s always been done.”

  Bob looked over in the corner at the fight promoter. The strange man was of no ethnic origin that Bob could identify. He might be part Egyptian or something worse.

  It had been so easy. Bob and the boys had found the crowd gathered near the boxcar just as the flyer had indicated. The gnomish wizened figure in the ornate purple robe might have had gray skin. It certainly was not white, black, brown, yellow, or tanned. The skin was stretched tightly across a bald head, resembling nothing as much as a skull.

  He certainly had an accent. He introduced himself as Todd Amen, or, at least that is how Bob had heard it. The old man’s voice was quiet and hard to discern against the background noise from within the boxcar.

  The boxcar had maybe 25 people crowded inside. They looked like a typical mixed bag of workers—some from the oil fields, some from the farms, others were just the ramblers that passed on through from somewhere headed to somewhere else.

  Bob had pointed inside the car. “Them yahoos gonna fight your boy, too?’

  The old man shook his head. “No, sirrah. They have not the courage, strength, will, nor the heart to do such a thing. The Tulsa Doom—my boy, as you call him—is well known among their crowd. I offer the $100 to entice folks to come and I never have to pay. He is unbeatable. At least, up to now. Do you have those qualities, sirrah? Is the $100 enough to make you try?”

  “Where is he?” said Bob, “I need to size up the competition before I beat the tar out of him.” He punched Dave on the shoulder and began to take off his shirt. Bob was a big strong man—6 feet tall and 200 pounds. He was a born fighter. His fists were large, positioned at the end of powerfully muscled arms. But he was neither a bully nor a rowdy. He was writer of tales filled with action and adventure.

  His heroes were larger than life—strong men of undeniable strength, courage and honor. To learn about them and to write realistic tales about them, Bob had learned to box. He may have been an amateur but he was good.

  The old man continued. “The Doom—he does not come out until we are ready to begin.” Bob could not place the promoter’s age—he could be 60, 70, maybe older. The voice had a gleeful, almost sinister cackle to it.

  “OK, then, “said Bob, “where’s the gloves?” His shirt off, he extended his hands, ready to receive the leather gauntlets.

  “We use no gloves. Things can be hidden there, sirrah. This is no frills, bare knuckle boxing, just as our ancestors fought. Bone and sinew, strength and stamina, brutal and honest.”

  Bob was taken aback by this. But he had come too far. The beer he had had earlier gave him some courage. Besides, he was good and his father, the good doctor, could help him out if he got bruised or cut up a little.

  Someone gave him a push. “Come on, Bob. You can do it! You can lick any man. Show them who is King of the Ring and King of the Pulps.”

  Bob glared at the old promoter. “Let’s see the color of your cash before we get going. You say you’ve never had to pay. Let’s see that you can pay.”

  The old man bowed slightly. “Your fear shows you to be a prudent man, effendi. Here is the color of my money.” He pulled a roll of bills from within his purple robe. It was large. “Now, let’s see the color of your courage. Step inside and meet the Doom.”

  They entered the boxcar and a cheer went up. Clyde and Dave began making a few side bets with other spectators. Bob stood in the center of the car. Only one way in. The door let in a little light. He surveyed the crowd, looking for his opponent.

  It was damn hot. If it was 103o outside, it must be 120o or more inside. Damn Texas summers. At least the humidity was low. But 120o is hot no matter what. Sweat beads began appearing on his chest.

  The promote
r moved to the center of the boxcar, next to Bob. “Gentlemen,” he yelled. “We have a challenger! Someone brave enough to face his Doom—my Doom—the Tulsa Doom! Your name, please.”

  “I’m Bob Howard of Cross Plains. I’m big as a bear and twice as mean. I will send you Doom back to Tulsa!” A broad smile filled his face. He flexed his muscles and posed for the crowd.

  The crowd gave a lackluster cheer. They seemed jaded. But, plenty of men were willing to take bets from Clyde and Dave.

  “Mr. Howard, this is three rounds of bare knuckles boxing. Each round is three minutes. Time will be kept by Mr. James “Dolly” Thompson, formerly of the Texas Hotel in Ft. Worth.” A dapper young man raised his hand and a big stopwatch. Bob reached over and shook his hand.

  “Keep good time,” Bob said. Thompson nodded and sat down.

  “You will box until the bell rings or until you cannot continue. There is no quitting once the round starts. The Doom—he fights from bell to bell. If you are still standing at the end of the three rounds, you win $100 in US American cash money!” He displayed the roll of bills again, fanning it out to show various denominations. “If you should somehow knock out my fighter,” he reached in another pocket for another wad of bills, “you win twice the prize!”

  The crowd cheered wildly at the sight of so much money. Larcenous thoughts were almost tangible across their faces. Amen pointed to the corner. “Deputy Stark of the local police is here to hold the money and ensure that we have a fair fight. Show them your gun, Clay.” The deputy produced a huge Colt revolver.

  “No one better have no thoughts about this here money,” he said. He put the money into his uniform pocket. He kept the pistol out.

  Amen worked his way through the rough crowd, now beginning to smell with the heat and sweat in the confined area. In a dark corner he approached a stained canvas covering. With a flourish he pulled the cover away revealing a corpse-like figure. The figure was a dusky Negroid fully six and one half feet tall.