Howls From Hell

by Grady Hendrix

  For several minutes, she sat in the dark room and tried to squeeze a rational explanation from her brain. She was dreaming. She was so tired that she’d fallen asleep in the chair and encountered a horrible nightmare, the unattended film burned at its conclusion. Yet a pinch to her skin did nothing. She was awake, sober, and alert—painfully so.

  Play us forever.

  The film was destroyed. How could she play it?

  Then she remembered the other reels. They beckoned silently, as if they lived and breathed beside her.

  Us.

  With a shaking hand, she swiped the remaining powder from the projector.

  A deep breath. A closing and opening of the eyes. She could figure this out. She just needed to stay calm.

  She locked the next reel into place and guided its leader through the labyrinth of sprockets and gates. As it began to play, she clenched her teeth so tightly her head hurt.

  Another lone person, this one a middle-aged woman. She stood before the same ruffled white backdrop. Clad in an elegant dress and labored curls, she shifted back and forth in discomfort. An arm reached into frame, beckoned her closer to the shot’s center. She moved and stared into the camera. For several minutes, she only looked onward.

  The woman turned to her side and stood still for another few minutes. Over and over, she raised her arms or changed her position slightly as if it was important that every inch of her body was recorded. Then she turned around, then again to the other side, then faced the camera once more.

  The reel went blank before it reached its end.

  Though less overtly disturbing, the reel formed a void in Julia’s stomach, an anomalous sense of doom.

  She put on the next reel. This one showed a young girl, perhaps six years old, also wearing a beautiful dress. Confused, she looked at someone off screen and nodded. For the next few minutes, she displayed every inch of herself, just as the woman had. Then it ended.

  Every reel displayed more people doing the same. Other children. Elderly folks. All mildly confused, all instructed to turn and lift their arms and display themselves.

  And that was it. Sixteen reels, one destroyed, the others all the same.

  Play us forever.

  She now understood who “us” was. If only she understood anything else.

  Earlier that morning, she’d wavered in the doorway of Dr. van der Meer’s office.

  “Where’d they come from?” she asked the old professor, clearing her throat.

  Though he’d decked out his office at the University of Amsterdam in old movie posters and photos of his boat, this workspace at the film archive was empty beyond a desk, a chair, and a thin layer of dust.

  “Anonymous donor,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  Julia’s eyelids perked back up, but she didn’t move from the doorway.

  “Fine.” She forced a smile. “Just a late night. I was going to sleep in, but this is honestly better. Thank you.”

  The old man shook his head, chuckling as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Be careful,” he said. “Americans—you don’t know how to drink. They keep your beer away until you’re twenty-one and then throw you out in the world and say, ‘Drink up!’ It’s no wonder you keep vomiting in our canals.”

  “I’ll aim my puke at a British stag party next time.”

  “Ah! That’s how you’ll gain your citizenship!” He both charmed and annoyed her. How could someone have so much energy this early on a Saturday?

  “Not to question a good thing, but why me? Aren’t there staff or interns who normally do stuff like this?”

  “Well, to be honest, it isn’t me or the university that’s paying you,” he said, leaning back into his chair. “The donor included a cash payment to have the films investigated on short notice. It must be done this weekend. Maybe they are hoping to uncover something special for the festival next weekend. Ha! Like they have room for last-minute programming . . . or maybe the donor has more money than patience. Either way, no one else was willing to work on a Saturday.”

  Julia laughed, feeling a jolt of caffeine finally enter her bloodstream. She sipped from the mug in her hand. “You took a bribe?”

  Dr. van der Meer shrugged. “I prefer the term ‘extra donation.’ It seemed harmless enough. I assumed you could use the cash, too.”

  “No kidding. That woman at orientation underestimated how much I should’ve saved for Dutch socializing. Is there a screening room around here? I want to get started before this caffeine wears off.”

  “Just down the hall. There’s a dolly for the canisters and a rolling projector in there as well,” he said. “And take this.”

  He tossed her a bottle of water. She missed the catch, and her face went hot when she bent down to pick it up.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “we drink water in Europe, too.”

  Now she stood outside Dr. van der Meer’s door again, this time shaking and coated with sweat. He wasn’t there. Not surprising considering it was late afternoon. A note on the door told her to leave the reels inside, so she pushed through and left them in a stack beside his desk.

  He’d left his laptop open. Faint light from the screensaver beckoned her. Snooping felt wrong, but everything about this situation felt wrong.

  I am fucking losing it.

  This conclusion acted as permission. After what she’d seen, this seemed a minor—if not necessary—transgression.

  She sat at the desk and tapped a key to bring the computer to life. It was unlocked. She scrolled through two pages of undeleted emails before the phrase anoniem donatie caught her eye. Anonymous donation. For a native English speaker, learning Dutch was all but pointless, but she’d learned to pick up on some patterns. She copied the email and pasted it into an online translation program then interpreted the broken English.

  A woman named “Emma Jansen” had asked a week prior when she could bring in the reels on behalf of a donor. Julia typed the woman’s email address on her phone, then logged out.

  As she left the building and strode through the cold streets of Amsterdam, the void in her gut spread throughout her body. Night had set in early. Wind gusts dug into her skin, tiny ice picks prying molecules from her body, one by one. She rode the ferry across the river, lamenting her decision to live on the darker side of Amsterdam. Two teenage boys spoke to her in Dutch, and when she responded with confusion, they laughed hysterically and spoke more. The words sounded like English that fell apart in her ears before they reached her brain.

  She wanted to push them overboard.

  The other side of the river was calm and quiet, the effect like a blanket of freshly fallen snow. The only visible occupant of her apartment complex was a man outside the entrance wearing a dark hoodie and smoking a joint, sending puffs billowing toward a flickering streetlight. He paid her no mind, but the scent of his smoke followed her into the elevator.

  The plain white walls didn’t usually bother her. She was only here a year, after all, and purchasing decor was impractical. Tonight she wished it felt less like a sanatorium. From her bed, she wrote an email:

  * * *

  Dear Emma Jansen,

  I’m the student assigned to the film donation you provided. This might sound strange, but I was wondering if you would be willing to tell me anything about the origins of the reels. I realize they were an anonymous donation, but I would very much like to discuss the contents with the donor. They would remain functionally anonymous, of course.

  Sincerely,

  Julia Williams

  She stared at the blinking cursor for a moment before deciding to add: Please, it is extremely important.

  Afterward, she took a shower hoping it could ease her anxiety. It was no use. No amount of soap could wash away what she’d seen. As the water ran down her skin, images flashed before her eyes—herself sitting in the screening room, watched by an impossible camera, the man’s smile as he held his sign. She lathered the loofah and scrubbed herself thoroughly. When she was done,
her skin was raw and pink, like she’d scraped roughly and removed too much skin. The stinging sensation followed her to bed. As she tried to drift off, the man’s sign kept appearing in her mind.

  play us forever.

  She awoke to morning light streaming into her room and immediately checked her email. A new message.

  * * *

  Hello Julia,

  I’m excited to hear there was something of interest on those films, but I’m afraid I cannot put you in contact with the donor. My grandmother was a bit of a hoarder who recently passed away, and I found them locked in a vault in her apartment. I thought maybe they would be worth something since they were so secured. Maybe I’m right? I hope so. If you are telling me that the films are important then I would be happy to help you however I can. Let me know if you want to chat more.

  Sincerely,

  Emma Jansen

  * * *

  Damn. Not what she was hoping for, but still a lead. Julia replied, asking if she could meet the woman at her grandmother’s apartment sometime soon. Willing herself not to overthink the message, she quickly sent it.

  Though she wasn’t really hungry, Julia scrambled some eggs and made toast while she waited for a response. She needed something, anything to distract her. But soon her laptop dinged with a new email saying that, though it seemed a little strange, Emma would be cleaning up her grandmother’s apartment all day and Julia was welcome to come by.

  Once she copied the address into her phone, she left immediately.

  The apartment was in Amstelveen, a suburb just south of Amsterdam. The bike ride took about an hour. Though it was warmer than the night before, bursts of wind still dug into her exposed flesh and stung her. Had she really scraped off so much skin in the shower? It didn’t seem possible, but her mind had been in an awful place. Today, she felt more sane, like yesterday was a faraway dream that only needed interpretation.

  She arrived at the address and stared up at the building. The bottom floor was an Indonesian restaurant called Toko Madjoe, where an old woman in a grey dress slowly swept dust across creaking floorboards. The upper floor’s facade was a series of rotting green wood panels surrounding a boarded up window, where a hole was visible through the glass. She double checked the map on her phone. This was the place.

  When she went upstairs and knocked on the door, a middle-aged woman in sweatpants and a t-shirt opened it. Her blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail.

  “Julia? Come in.”

  The house was in a hell of a state. Emma hadn’t exaggerated in calling her grandmother a hoarder. The rooms were so stuffed with objects that it was difficult to maneuver. Yet there was no stench of old food or animal droppings, no garbage at all. Instead, there were hundreds of books, small knick-knacks, photos, and other relics of a bygone era. Dust coated everything in sight, and beams of sunlight streamed in and illuminated airborne motes as they drifted. It was hard to believe anything had been removed at all, but Emma insisted she’d been working for more than a week already. The woman led her through the living room, carefully weaving through makeshift pathways between the stacks and into the kitchen.

  “So what was on the reels?” Emma asked, sipping a Heineken she’d pulled from the fridge. She offered one to Julia, who briefly hesitated at the early hour, then accepted. “Grandma was kind enough to leave every object in existence behind except a working projector. She did leave a broken one, though.”

  Julia took a deep breath and a long pull from the beer bottle.

  She hesitated but was surprised by how desperately she wanted to share the truth’s burden. The story spilled out, from the impossible recording of herself and the cryptic message to its self-destruction and the contents of the other reels. Emma watched her, fascinated by the tale.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” Julia asked.

  Emma sipped her beer and stared at Julia.

  “So what, you think this very old, very dead person is going to make you . . . play a bunch of film reels?” Emma replied. “What’s he going to do if you don’t?”

  “I don’t know.” Julia twisted her hair between her fingertips. The story sounded even less believable out loud. “Maybe nothing. But he filmed me back. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s true.”

  “But that film he took of you is now mysteriously destroyed.”

  Neither woman spoke for a moment.

  “You do think I’m crazy. Jesus, am I?”

  Emma turned away and thumbed through a stack of books. “Hey, it’s okay. My sister was crazy. She joined a cult in Cambodia three years ago. She either ascended to a higher dimension, or she’s dead in a jungle somewhere.”

  Julia laughed and choked on her sip of beer. “Thanks, that’s reassuring.”

  Emma shrugged. “Maybe I’m crazy too. To be honest, I was hoping those reels would be worth some money, like maybe that film festival would want to buy them. Wasting money in the hopes of making more, now that is its own kind of crazy.”

  Julia smiled. She liked Emma already, despite her misguided business venture. Did she not realize she donated the reels? Oh well, no need to mention it.

  “But I don’t understand,” Emma said. “What made you want to come here?”

  “I guess I just wanted to know if there were any clues. Assuming I’m not insane, I don’t suppose you know why she had those reels?”

  “I didn’t really know her.” Emma dug up a couple of chairs and offered one to Julia. They sat in a small clearing. “She lived here for like fifty years or something. Kind of a strange lady. Never tried to talk to me, even though I was her only relative and I lived in basically the same city. Then she insisted in her will that I be the one to handle her affairs. Not that there was anyone else to do it. Who knows, maybe I can turn this place around and sell it.”

  Julia scanned the room, noticing a pile of framed photos on a short table in the corner.

  “Mind if I take a look at these?”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you took those, honestly. Take whatever you want.”

  Julia flipped through the pictures. Mostly scenes from around the city—canals, bridges, churches. Whoever took them clearly had an appreciation for Amsterdam, but none held any clues.

  Emma resumed cleaning the kitchen, taking handfuls of dishes and stuffing them into sacks. For three hours, Julia looked through boxes. She found plenty of interesting photographs—more city scenes, portraits, still lifes, family gatherings—but nothing to help her understand what she’d seen. Her eyes became sore, and the constant clinking of dishes and plastic wore on her mind.

  In one box, she found a stack of photos labeled The Jansens. One photo showed a young man and woman with their backs to the camera, looking out over a canal. A little girl stood between them, hands intertwined in theirs. On it, someone had written Emma and drawn a heart.

  Julia entered the kitchen, where Emma had stopped cleaning to lean against a counter and scroll through her phone. “Thought you might want this.”

  Emma took the photo.

  “Oh, shit.” She almost dropped it, eyes lighting up. “I’ve never even seen this photo before.”

  “How long have they been gone?”

  She placed the photo on the counter and stared at it.

  “Twelve years. Car accident. My dad was drunk.”

  A brief silence.

  “Well, maybe your grandmother did care about you,” Julia said. “She kept that photo.”

  “Look around,” Emma said, disgust seeping into her voice. “She kept everything. I doubt she even knew she had it. A word of advice, Julia. Don’t have kids. All they do is inherit your baggage.”

  Emma pulled another beer from the fridge and sipped it. Her eyes explored the still-messy kitchen—plates and stacks of papers still covered the countertops so thoroughly the surface was barely visible—and sighed. She didn’t meet Julia’s gaze, instead stared at her shoes. Was she angry, or was it something else?

  Unsure how to respond, Julia returned to her s
earch in the living room. The clinking of dishes didn’t resume.

  An hour later, Julia was on the verge of giving up when she spotted one last box with a photo sticking out of an edge. It was shoved into a corner of the bedroom, obscured by a vinyl raincoat. She flipped open the lid. More portraits. But her heart jumped when something caught her eye.

  A familiar man with a familiar mustache. He stood beside a familiar projector, grinning proudly. She shuddered at the memory of him on screen. Though he held no sign now, his icy expression was just as piercing. She tried to call out, but choked on the words at first.

  “This is him!” she managed to say. “The man from the reel!”

  Emma sauntered into the room cautiously and looked at the photo.

  “Huh,” Emma said. “He does look a little familiar. So does his name. It’s really faint though, maybe from when I was a kid.”

  A scribbled name and date on the back of the photo: Hans Veldt, 1923.

  She kept looking through the box until she found more familiar faces. Fifteen of them. A stack of unframed photos wrapped in string. Each a simple portrait with a name and the year 1923 written on the back.

  “Can I take these?” Julia asked.

  “Like I said, take whatever you want.”

  “Still think I’m crazy?”

  “Is this supposed to convince me otherwise?”

  Julia shrugged and smiled. “No, I guess not.”

  Emma sighed. She flipped through the photos without expression. “What did he say again? ‘You are mine’? ‘Play us forever’?”

  Julia nodded. Emma bit her lip.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “But if I’ve done something . . . wrong, I’m sorry.”

  They were both silent a moment.

  “What do you mean?” Julia asked. “How could you have done something wrong?”