Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls: Tales of Horror and the Bizarre

by Mark McLaughlin

  Hector went into the living room to watch TV. The only shows that looked even halfway interesting were cartoons. The animation on these shows was incredibly poor. The mouths moved while the eyes stayed still and dead. Did children actually enjoy this?

  On the table by the television, he had placed a packet of paperwork relating to Uncle Ezekiel’s property. In this pile was a letter from Uncle that he had never bothered to open. Ezekiel had been the liveliest of the scarecrow clan: tall and thin, but with some color to his cheeks and a horsy smile. He had been something of a traveler, and was actually an expert on—what? Some odd topic. Starfish? No, but it had reminded Hector of marine life. The last time Uncle had stopped by to visit, about three years ago, he had rambled on and on about some strange project, constantly repeating himself like a stuck record. Also, the old boy had given him a pencilled map to the house. Hector dug through the odds-and-ends drawer of his desk, found the map and paper-clipped it to the letter.

  Hector decided to try calling Uncle’s lawyer again. He had called earlier that morning but no one had answered—probably still asleep. Even so, he had some questions he needed answered before he went out to the house.

  Mr. Pierce sounded raspy and annoyed. “It’s Saturday morning. Not even nine yet. What can I help you with?”

  “I’m going out to my uncle’s house today, remember? I told you yesterday when you gave me the key.”

  “Is something wrong? Did you lose it?”

  Hector started to chew on a thumb-nail, but stopped himself. “No, I just wanted to know if the power switch would be on.”

  The lawyer sighed. “The power switch, as you put it, isn’t in my bedroom.”

  “But will anything be on? Electricity, heat, phones?” Hector could hear Mrs. Pierce’s birdy little voice chirping in the background.

  “I doubt it,” Pierce said. “And there isn’t a phone. Evidently you never tried to call him. Is there anything else?”

  The birdy piping was getting louder. Clearly Mrs. Pierce wanted peace and quiet. Not that it mattered. Hector had once met the woman and she was too far gone for beauty sleep. “Refresh my memory. I’m trying to remember what the old thing did for a living.”

  “Haven’t you looked over any of the papers I gave you? He was a writer. Which reminds me—there was a book he’d wanted you to read. I put a copy in with those papers. Yes, dear, I know.” This last comment was directed at the bird-woman. “Your uncle did leave you practically everything he owned, Hector. He wasn’t a thing—he was a person. A very generous person. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed.

  * * * *

  Later, as he was getting ready to leave the apartment, Hector did glance through the packet of papers. Tons of small print, of course. Even his uncle’s book was small print, and nonfiction at that: Mind, Matter and Life: Legends of the Aquastor. That last word rang a bell. Ezekiel had mentioned it in his ramblings; it was what made Hector think of the sea.

  The book’s cover art depicted a gaunt, shadowy figure with glowing yellow eyes. Under the author’s photo on the back was a list of other books by Ezekiel Derhake. There were at least a dozen, all concerning the occult. Hector took the letter and map with him, as well as the book to look over when he stopped for lunch.

  On the drive to Ezekiel’s town, Wajno Grove, he had a cigarette, his first of the day. In a little while he had another. He was trying to quit, and even though he was cheating, he felt that he was making progress. In the past, he’d have gone through half a pack by this time.

  He really had no idea what he would do with a house in the middle of nowhere. Wajno Grove was something of a bedroom community. Maybe he could rent it out to newlyweds—or better yet, a retired couple. He stopped for lunch at the Fat Granny Cafe. The painted wooden cutout above the door certainly didn’t encourage an appetite. It depicted a large elderly woman with a stirring spoon, but the colors were lifeless, and the spoon was too thick and phallic. Probably some backwoods Picasso’s idea of subliminal advertising.

  He thumbed through the book as he ate. From what he could make of it, an aquastor was like an imaginary playmate, except that it actually existed. Someone thought it up, performed a ritual, and voila!—it came to life.

  He noticed that a paragraph under the heading of The Aquastor in Muslim Demonology had been highlighted in yellow marker:

  In ancient times such a being was known as a jinni. This creature was the mental spawn of a sorcerer, who brought it forth from primal darkness. Spacial constraints limited the powers of the jinni; even so, it could still exercise control over the workings of time and space, and command a multitude of minor demons…

  Here Hector stopped. The book was a complete waste of time. He laid it aside and broke open Uncle’s letter.

  After reading some of the letter, Hector looked back at the postmark date. Ezekiel had mailed it two weeks before his death. The old boy’s mind had been on the blink, no question. The content was fragmented and, like Ezekiel’s style of speech, repetitive to the point of being meaningless.

  Dear Hector,

  Mr. Pierce stopped by the other day so I gave him a book for you to read. I couldn’t trust the mail with it. The book is important to you. He said he would drop it by your office but he may forget. It was nice of him to visit. I think he worries about me. The book is important to you.

  I am not well at all—I am completely drained. After you read the book you’ll have a better idea of what I’m talking about. It took years of study—years and years. But now it has finished me. The room at the end of the hall. I’m finished and soon will be gone. Read the book from cover to cover.

  The book is important to you. I want you to do this for me. I’m finished and soon will be gone. Pay heed and you can take control. The room at the end of the hall.

  Ezekiel D.

  Hector crumpled up the letter and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. His waitress, a stocky woman in her fifties, came to the table with his bill. “Never saw a man with fake nails before,” she said.

  “I bite my fingernails. It’s a nervous habit.” People were always looking at his nails. They were too thick and a little too glossy. “My doctor told me these artificial nails would stop me from biting. They’re as hard as rock.”

  She shrugged her big round shoulders. Hector noticed she was wearing heart-shaped earrings and a matching necklace, all far too delicate for her. “I wasn’t accusing you of being funny,” she said. She reached for his plate, practically thrusting her breasts in his face. She saw the book and picked it up instead. “You got one of Zeke’s books. You kind of look like him—any relation?”

  “He was my uncle. My name is Hector.” The scarecrow had a girlfriend?

  “I’m Myra. I’m awful sorry your uncle passed away. He used to come in all the time. We’d drive down for steaks in Springfield whenever we felt like having some real food.” She studied the photograph on the back cover for a moment before handing the book back. “But then he got sick—all skinny and wrung-out. He’d throw a tantrum whenever I mentioned doctors.”

  Myra sat down next to him. The manager, leaning in a doorway across the room, looked annoyed but could hardly complain. There were no other customers.

  “Now if I were you, Hector,” she said, “I’d check to be sure none of your uncle’s things are missing. I think he had someone in that house who was making trouble for him.”

  What did this mean—another girlfriend? Hector could hardly picture his uncle entertaining a harem. “I don’t follow you. His lawyer never mentioned any companions.”

  “Lawyers don’t know everything. I’d stop by every now and then to bring Zeke something to eat. We’d be talking in the front room and, sometimes, I’d hear someone else in back. Shuffling around. And typing! I always heard typing, no matter what time it was. I think there were dogs, too, because I could hear�
��” She thought for a moment. “Something running around. Claws clicking on the wood floor. No barking, though.”

  By now Hector was completely baffled. “So why would this person, this typist, make trouble for my uncle?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s just that if I ever brought it up, he refused to talk about it. He died not too long after that. I told all this to the sheriff, and he did say that things were a little weird out there. He found something… Was your uncle religious?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “Well, I didn’t see it myself. The sheriff said one of the rooms was set up weird. I suppose you’ll see when you go out there. You are going out to the house?”

  Hector nodded. “I need to find out what kind of shape the place is in. I really don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”

  Myra got up from the table. “If you want, I can stop by when I get off work. I’ll even bring some pie if we’ve got any left.” She gave him a wink and smiled. Hector hoped that she would drop in. She was too old for him, but she would be company.

  Hector wasn’t too worried about the noises the waitress had mentioned. His uncle probably had a secretary who was just as odd as her employer. She might have brought a dog with her now and then—one of the copywriters at the agency was always bringing in her old Persian cat. Hector was more worried about his uncle’s mental state. In the bathroom of the cafe, he tore up the letter and flushed it down the toilet. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know that Ezekiel’s mind was going. Pierce might even make trouble.

  After lunch, Hector’s drive to the house led down a rustic stretch of road. The crickets here were practically ear-splitting. The sound was like nails on a blackboard, he thought: not all the nails at once, but one finger at a time, in an odd little rhythm. Ee-ee ee-ee-ee ee-ee-ee. Ee-ee ee-ee-ee ee-ee-ee.

  Then it struck him. The sound was echoing a phrase out of Ezekiel’s letter: the room at the end of the hall.

  He tried to remember the gist of the letter. It had taken his uncle years to create something, and now it was complete—but the process had finished him. But what could it be? A collection of some sort? A new manuscript? The only thing he could recall word for word was that phrase. The room at the end of the hall.

  At last Hector came to the “X” of the map. The Derhake house was an ugly grey structure, flanked with weeping willows. The ivy growing on the walls made it difficult to tell where the house ended and the trees began. The front door was open, swinging with the wind.

  The house looked like a dead thing left to rot. Some day it would probably fall in on itself. He remembered from the letter that Pierce had called upon his uncle to check up on him. Was it actual worry on the lawyer’s part, or did he know something about this room at the end of the hall? Hector didn’t doubt it; something extraordinary was hidden there.

  He took a flashlight from the car and walked up to the front door. From another part of the house he could hear—a typewriter? He called out as loud as he could, but no one answered. As he crossed the threshold the door slammed shut behind him, plunging him into darkness. Startled, he dropped the flashlight before he had a chance to turn it on. He could hear it roll across the room.

  Thu-thuk thu-thu-thuk thu-thu-thuk.

  Immediately Hector turned around, only to bump into a solid wall. He called out again, but the typewriter still chattered away without pausing. Couldn’t whoever was typing hear him? He felt along the wall for the door. Where was it?

  Arms stretched forward, he moved cautiously about the room. A table corner gouged his thigh; a strip of what felt like lace or cobweb brushed over his face. It was strange, but he found himself wishing he had Ezekiel’s book. But the book was outside in the car.

  An animal of some sort rubbed his ankle—a cat? It smelled horrible, like rotten meat. He reached down and flung it away. It was covered with short, stiff hair and a slime that reminded him of earthworms.

  “I want to get out of this house!” Hector muttered. As he wiped his hands on his trousers, he came across a small square lump in his pocket: his matches.

  Hector pulled out the matchbook and fumbled it open. He could feel three matches left. He tore one out and lit it. He scanned the floor but could not see the flashlight. In front of him was a large bookcase spotted with fungi. The shelves were filled with hundreds of typed manuscripts, crudely bound with wire. The ceiling above the bookcase was discolored and swollen. Either a pipe had once burst or the roof was desperately in need of repair. Some of the manuscripts had suffered water damage, and were crinkled from uneven drying.

  The match burned down almost to his fingers and went out. Tearing a handful of pages from one of the manuscripts, he rolled them up tightly and lit them with his second match. The sound of the typewriter was louder now. Clack-clack clack-clack-clack clack-clack-clack.

  Hector’s paper torch was slightly damp, and its flame crackled fitfully. He glanced at the cover page of one of the manuscripts: it was entitled The Room at the End of the Hall. He looked at another, another, yet another. The titles were all the same.

  Dozens of boxes were stacked throughout the room. The furniture seemed to be arranged in a sort of labyrinth. It was impossible to walk three feet forward in any one direction. He could not see the door; his light was so dim that the walls were lost in shadows. A few manuscripts were scattered across the floor. He noticed one that had fallen open—something about the arrangements of the words seemed strange. He knelt next to the manuscript and read part of a page:

  The end of the hall has a room. The room at the end of the hall. The hall has a room at the end. The room at

  He turned the pages to another section.

  the hall has a room at the end the end of the hall has a room the room at the end of the hall the end of the hall has a room the room at the end of the hall the hall has a room at the end the room

  Hector stopped—a door had slammed. He stood up and listened. Had someone called his name? Then there was another sound. Closer. Overhead.

  Something thin and angular was crawling along the mouldering ceiling. It dropped down onto the bookcase with a dry rattle. Reaching down with a long groping arm, it drew out a manuscript, tore off the last page and flung it to the floor. It then sat and watched him with eyes like slivers of glass.

  Hector picked up the torn page. There were no margins; the words filled the paper completely from side to side:

  THERE WAS NO ESCAPE FOR HIM NOW THE ROOM AT THE END OF THE HALL THE FOOLISH ONE SOON WOULD BE GONE THERE WAS NO ESCAPE NO ESCAPE THE ROOM AT THE END OF THE HALL THE FOOLISH ONE SOON WOULD BE DEAD NO ESCAPE

  The sound of the typewriter stopped. Hector’s torch flickered and died, leaving him in darkness.

  From the depths of the house came shrill laughter. Hector cried out as papery wings flapped against his face. In his surprise, he dropped the page and his paper torch. The laughter grew louder and higher, echoing in eight shrill syllables.

  He still had one match left; this time he would make a bigger torch. He would set the manuscripts, even the house on fire if he had to, so long as there was light. He groped around him—where did the bookcase go? He stumbled through the cramped furniture. Then his foot hit something soft. Was it that horrible animal again? No, whatever this was, it smelled like perfume. He reached down and felt—a face. Here was a mouth, a chin—a necklace? Yes, and a little metal heart.

  The waitress had come by after all. But was she alive? He tried to feel for a heartbeat, but below the shoulders there was—nothing.

  Screaming, Hector scrambled to his feet, backing away from what he had found. His cries seemed suddenly magnified, as if he had just entered a small room—or a narrow hall. A door clicked open behind him in the darkness. With another click, the door eased shut, this time in front of him.

  Hector was in a different room now. It appeared to be some s
ort of chapel. Flickering candles were scattered about, on chairs and on the floor. The walls were covered with sheets of black cloth. In the center of the room stood a tall platform: a pulpit, carved of dark wood. Beyond the pulpit was darkness.

  But was it a pulpit? Normal pulpits were not crisscrossed with hundreds of deep gashes, like claw marks. He walked closer. There was something on top of the platform. A typewriter, surrounded by stacks of manuscripts.

  He sat down in a chair and waited. His parents had never taken him to church as a child. On those few occasions he had accompanied his college friends to Mass, the experience had left him unmoved. Now as he sat before the dark pulpit, he surely felt—what? Something new to him. He began to chew and grind on his artificial nails. When the darkness of the room behind the pulpit began to solidify, to condense, he felt that he was indeed in the church of his own heart. And not alone.

  Tall, lean, bestial, the shadow stepped down from the pulpit. An entourage of creatures followed, all small and twisted, some leaving tracks of blood. Their claws clicked against the hardwood floor. The shadow held a book in its hooked, gnarled fingers—a copy of Mind, Matter and Life: Legends of the Aquastor.

  The shadow grinned, revealing fangs like those of a deep-sea carnivore. It read from the book in a shrill voice, vastly amused. “Thought brought to life. What would it look like? How would it act? What limitations would nature impose upon it?”

  Something spidery, with a jumbled multitude of limbs, parted from the swarm. It leaped onto the pulpit and began to type in a cadence now quite familiar to Hector.

  The shadow turned to the center of the book and read on. “The creation of the jinni was a lengthy, grueling ritual. In bringing the creature into existence, the sorcerer would concentrate upon a singular rhythm: the mantric pulse of the jinni. The sorcerer could very well perish, for his soul served as nourishment for the gestation of the beast. Although the stakes were high, the rewards were immeasurably great; the jinni could grant boons transcending the very limits of reality. But first, it was necessary to take control of the jinni by…”