In Your Face Horror (Chamber Of Horror Series)

by Billy Wells

  Marla turned off the TV. The migraine was returning, and the strange sensation she’d felt before in her stomach frightened her.

  Stella, Luther, and now Clarence, one of their best high school friends, were all dead since she had gotten the tattoo.

  “Her cell phone rang and answering it, an unfamiliar female voice said, “Marla, you don’t know me, but I know who’s responsible for the death of your sister, Luther and Clarence.”

  “Who is this? How did you get my cell number?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m just giving you a head’s up that Jose Mendoza, the man who gave you the tattoo, is seeking to avenge the death of his sister, and you’re next in line to die.”

  Looking in her purse for a cigarette, she remembered she’d stopped smoking three months ago. Jose had acted very strange at the Tattoo Parlor. She tried to put the pieces together.

  “Why am I involved? I don’t know anything about Lila’s death. The paper said she was the victim of a hit and run driver. The police suspect it was a gangland retaliation of some kind.”

  “I was in the car with Luther, Clarence, and your sister when it happened, but Jose thinks you were the fourth person since you’re Luther’s squeeze, not me.”

  “You’re saying Luther was driving the car that ran down Lila, and the three of you were with him?”

  “I’ll never tell the cops that, but yes, he was driving. The Cobras killed Hector Flores, and the Sombreros had to get even. Lila had just started going with Ramon, the Sombreros gang leader, and her death evened the score.”

  “An animal killed Luther, Clarence, and my sister, not a gangbanger.”

  “I was with Clarence last night when the panther attacked him outside his apartment. I started running and screaming for help, but there was no one on the street. I slipped on the sidewalk and sprained my ankle so badly I couldn’t stand on it anymore. I tried to crawl, but I didn’t get far. When the panther finished with Clarence, it looked right at me and then turned and disappeared into the alley. Clarence told me when we heard an animal had killed Luther and your sister that Jose had placed a voodoo curse on the four of us. He said we were all going to die.”

  “A voodoo curse?” Marla barked, searching for another cigarette.”

  ‘Believe what you want, bitch. I’m trying to help you, but you’re too dense to understand what’s about to bite you on the ass. My plane’s about to take off, and you’re never going to hear from me again. Good luck with the panther, bitch.”

  Marla heard a click, and the line was dead. She assumed the caller was Clarence’s girlfriend, Eva. She found it hard to believe a voodoo curse was responsible for her world turning to shit, but it did tie in all the loose ends. Her head was getting that mysterious feeling again. It was the same sensation she’d felt in Stella’s apartment.

  Fifteen minutes before she boarded a plane, Eva decided to go to the ladies room. Entering the vacant washroom, she selected the first stall to the right. A moment later, the outside door slammed against the tile wall, and the lights went out. She recognized the same gut-wrenching growl she’d heard at Clarence’s the previous night. The door to the stall exploded from its hinges, and the beast leapt upon her, ripping and tearing at her throat. She felt the blood pooling around her body. It tore a piece of her cheek away from her face, leaving one eye dangling from its socket. She heard a women screaming as the florescent ceiling lights came back on allowing her remaining eye to watch the voracious beast devouring her limb by limb.

  Jose arose from his chair, went to the front door of the shop, and locked it. Turning the sign around to the closed position, he pulled down the shade and went to the back room to inspect the cage. When he saw it empty, he smiled and returned to the front of the parlor. With the curse completed, he’d gotten his revenge. The voodoo tattoo had caused Marla to summon the panther to kill Luther, Stella, and Clarence. After the death of the third victim, Marla was cursed to become the panther herself and never return to human form. Afterward, the authorities would track her down and destroy her as a man-eater.

  Jose had paid the witch doctor $5,000 for the curse to avenge his sister’s death, and it was worth it. He would have paid much more to finally get revenge for Luther running down his sister in his SUV. He remembered that fateful night like it was yesterday. He’d heard a scream and the thump of the collision. Rushing to the window of his apartment, he saw his sister writhing in pain on the asphalt, trying to get to her feet. Spellbound, he watched in horror as Luther ran over her again and again, He heard the four of them laughing as they pulled away.

  When the police had come to question him, he said he didn’t see or hear anything. He had his own plans for the heartless bastards.

  When Marla opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the bed in the cheap motel room. She felt as if she’d slept for days, and the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. The sensation of the beast on her stomach also seemed different. She pulled up her blouse and looked at her reflection in the mirror on the wall. The tattoo was gone. She went into the bathroom for a better look. There was not a trace. It was like a terrible dream that had never happened.

  She started to cry. Stella was dead, and she knew how much she would miss her. Her sister wasn’t perfect, but she’d loved her with all her heart. Luther, the man she’d planned to marry, was also dead, but the vision of his turning Jose’s sister into road kill and fucking Stella, made the loss more bearable. She remembered how Luther’s big anaconda tattoo had drawn her to him. Now she realized she would never be interested in someone with a tattoo again.

  When Jose turned on the evening news and heard Eva Ramos was the fourth victim of the panther, he knew Marla was not in the car when Luther had killed his sister. He didn’t know what would happen to the panther and to Marla if he had named the wrong victims in the curse. Was Marla still alive?

  He went to the file cabinet, looked up her cell number from the purchase order, and called her. After three rings, Marla said, “hello.” Then he heard the ominous growl of the black beast behind him.

  Marla heard Jose shout something just before his phone bounced off the tile floor, and he let out a short-lived blood-curdling scream. Holding the phone to her ear, she listened to the ripping and tearing of flesh and the snap, crackle, and pop of bones breaking as the soundtrack of final Jeopardy started to play on the dilapidated 19-inch TV.

  * * *

  Cyclops

  Jed Norman received a telephone call from Harvey Hawkins in mid-August 1967. Harvey was a former classmate at Strasburg High School who had moved to Pennsylvania after graduating three years before.

  When Harvey attended Strasburg, everyone in the small town knew that his folks were extremely poor. He had been missing his right front tooth for most of high school, and for that reason, he never smiled when they took his picture for the yearbook. Before he moved away, he lived on a farm ten miles off the main highway, Route 11, and was notorious for bumming rides whenever he needed to come to town. Jed assumed immediately that this is why Harvey was calling him now since they had never been friends and hadn’t seen each other for three years.

  Jed and Harvey exchanged a few pleasantries about current events for a few minutes and then Harvey finally got around to the reason for the call.

  “Look, I’m visiting with my grandma for a couple of weeks, and I was wondering if you could do me a big favor and let me catch a ride with you to the Woodstock Fair next week. I’d be happy to help you with the gas since you’d be going out of your way. You always treated me well at school, and I don’t know anyone else I can turn to.”

  Jed rolled Harvey’s words around in his mind for a few seconds and finally said, “Sure, I can swing by your grandma’s place and pick you up. You can forget the gas. I don’t mind doing you a favor.”

  Harvey’s voice cracked with emotion as he continued, “You don’t know how much this means to me. To be honest, I already called everyone I know, and they all turned me down. You
were my last chance.”

  “That’s OK, you can put the ride on your list of things not to worry about. Your grandma still lives in the green house at Columbia Furnace?”

  “She sure does.”

  I’ll pick you up at your grandma’s on August twenty-ninth at six o’clock.”

  “I really appreciate it,” Harvey beamed, “August twenty-ninth at six o’clock. I’ll be there with bells on.”

  When Jed hung up the phone he was sorry he had been home when Harvey called, but once on the phone, he had not had the heart to tell him no. he felt sorry for him.

  Harvey had always looked much older than his years, and even before he moved to Pennsylvania, he was already showing signs of going bald. He remembered that he had been held back a few grades and was probably close to nineteen when he graduated from Strasburg. He was short and stubby and had a gigantic head for the size of his body. He had always been someone only a mother could love and had very few friends. Since none of the girls in their class would even speak to Harvey, he doubted that he had ever had a date.

  The dog days of summer sizzled by, and August 29 arrived in a flash. It was Saturday night, and this was the last night of the annual county fair that had been running all week. When Jed drove up to the green house in Columbia Furnace, Harvey looked like a boy with a brand new toy. He was talking a mile a minute when he got in the car. He was dressed in a yellow cowboy shirt that looked like it came direct from the Grand Ole Opry. He donned a wide-brimmed Stetson hat and had a red bandana tied around his neck. His blue jeans looked brand new. The joy of going to the fair had transformed his personality entirely. He was nothing like the introverted soul Jed had known when they attended classes at Strasburg. It was a welcome change.

  “Wow!” Harvey shouted straightening his crooked wire-rimmed glasses. “I can’t wait to get to the hoochie coochie shows. I’ve been saving up all year for this one night.”

  “You know,” Jed mused, “I’ll bet almost every boy in the Shenandoah Valley had his first feel of a woman in a hoochie coochie show at the Woodstock Fair.”

  “Jimmy Yost said he was only twelve the first time he got in. The police stood right outside the tent and watched him go in with his hat pulled low over his eyes and holding up his dollar.”

  “It’s unbelievable,” Jed said as he accelerated past a slow car and veered back into the far right lane. “I can’t believe the girls actually come out completely nude on a stage no more than eight foot square and go from there.”

  “With a hundred half-loaded farmers screaming like banshees with their elbows on the stage.”

  Jed and Harvey pulled into the fairgrounds in a cloud of dust and parked as close as they could to the action. The midway was standing room only, and the tents were decorated with huge banners with two-foot-high words that were shocking to the eye like “Macabre,” “Bizarre,” and “Weird.” It was these shows that interested Jed the most. He had a fascination for humans that were deformed or had more arms and legs than they should have. He’d seen a lady with a long black beard last year and a contortionist who folded his body into a small box the year before.

  “I’ll meet you right here in front of the Ferris wheel at midnight,” Harvey said as he ordered a big hot dog with everything on it.

  “Don’t be late. I’m supposed to meet Timmy Miller at the Blue Stone Inn at one o’clock,” Jed shouted over the din of the crowd and also ordered a hot dog.

  Harvey turned away from Jed and disappeared into the crowd in the direction of the hoochie coochie shows. Jed finished the hot dog and strode off toward the freak shows.

  On the way down the midway, numerous hucksters propositioned Jed. One man wanted to bet him he couldn’t knock down a stand of milk bottles with one throw. Another said that he couldn’t put an oversized basketball through a tiny hoop. Another carnie wanted to bet him he could guess how much he weighed within two pounds. Jed resisted these temptations and remembered that Skipper Norman had warned him about gambling at the fair. He said that no matter how easy the task looked, the game was rigged so you could not win. Skipper confessed he had learned the hard way. He had even gotten his nose broken when he tried to get his money back.

  Jed had one of his best times ever. In addition to seeing three girlie shows, the various rides like the tilt-a-whirl, the roundup, the scrambler, and the octopus added a welcome variety to the freak shows, which were much better than the previous year. He saw a woman with three breasts. He saw a man with no arms and legs that could lift his body off the ground with his tongue. He saw a cow with four ears and a boy with six toes on one foot. It was fascinating, and the night flew by.

  After riding the roller coaster three times in a row and eating an enormous amount of fries and hot dogs, Jed was down to his last two dollars. Before him was the only side show he had not seen. There was a huge sign on top of the tent that read, “See it inside! Once in a lifetime! The Cyclops!”

  It was five minutes to twelve. Jed knew he was supposed to meet Harvey at the Ferris wheel at midnight. He decided this show was too good to miss. The “Cyclops” was the last show at the end of the fairgrounds, and there was no one waiting in line. Some of the tents across the way had already closed down. The hoochie coochie shows were mostly dark down the midway, and the final stragglers were marching toward the entrance to exit.

  When Jed held up his dollar, the ticket taker gave him an odd look, but he decided to let him into the final show. The Coasters were singing “Little Egypt” as he found a seat in the dark interior. When his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw a scarlet curtain draped across a stage that was raised off the ground. He looked around and discovered that he was the only customer. The Coasters ditty stopped, and an organ that must have been behind the curtain started playing a death dirge like something out of the original Phantom of the Opera.

  Dum, dum, tee dum, dum, tee dum, tee dum, tee dum….

  “Wow!” he thought, “This show is really scary, particularly since he was alone.” The curtain started to rise, and he saw a man dressed in a flowing black cape floating above the stage about three feet off the floor. The man’s back was facing the audience, and Jed was mesmerized.

  As the death dirge continued the suspended man started to turn. He could see thin wires attached to the man’s arms and legs, which led off in various directions on all sides of the stage. A strobe light began to pulse and then started to intensify as the suspended man’s body turned farther toward the front of the stage.

  Jed’s jaw dropped as he saw the most horrible sight he had ever seen in a freak show. Right in the center of the man’s forehead was a large yellow eye with an enormous black pupil. The yellow orb bulged from its socket and glared in his direction. The grotesque eye reminded him of a squid’s eye he had once seen in an old horror movie.

  The eye seemed to expand and contract like the beating of a heart. It fixed on him with overpowering, unblinking menace as it advanced toward the seat where he was sitting. Jed sat paralyzed with fear as the strobes accelerated across the hideous face and the death dirge built to an ear-splitting crescendo.

  Suddenly, two normal eyes blinked open from their customary position on the suspended man’s head, and a flesh-colored material that had filled the eye sockets slid from his cheek and fell to the floor. These eyes, rather than threatening, seemed disoriented and confused as they darted to and fro as if searching every corner of the tent for some kind of nightmarish beast who was preparing to leap upon him and tear him apart. Not finding such a beast, the eyes suddenly fixed on Jed, who was sitting right in front of him. These eyes, rather than menacing like the one pulsating on his forehead, were sad and filled with pain as a tear rolled down the Cyclops’s cheek.

  A sudden sensation of déjà vu swept over Jed as he looked closer at the horrific figure that was suspended before him. He could see the man’s face more clearly now, and although it was totally bizarre, it was also uncannily familiar. He had stitches on both sides of his forehead as if Doctor F
rankenstein had just completed giving him a new brain. The big yellow eye that bulged from the middle of its forehead was encircled by crude, black stitches that seemed to be dripping tiny droplets of blood.

  Jed was still trying to connect the dots in his mind when the Cyclops’s lips parted and it started mouthing Jed’s name over and over as the two normal eyes seemed to cry out for help. Jed immediately recognized the oversized head and the missing right front tooth that he had seen many times at Strasburg High. It was Harvey, but the words he mouthed were only gibberish since he had only an empty, bloody cavern where his tongue had been.

  The music stopped abruptly as the scarlet curtain swooped down, and the interior of the tent was bathed in a flood of blinding lights.

  Jed jumped up from his seat and started running for the exit.

  Three carnies with lead pipes stood in his path looking him over to see what kind of freak he could be for tomorrow night’s show in North Carolina.

  * * *

  Victim 13

  The serial killer watched the young woman as she walked along the deserted Manhattan Street. It was almost midnight, and a low-hanging fog obscured the sidewalk ahead. The dim streetlamps cast spectral fingers of shadow on the ground as the trees lining the walk trembled in the night wind. Despite the eerie solitude of the surroundings, the woman proceeded toward him without any sign of trepidation.

  The killer was amazed how brazenly she had entered his kill zone and how nonchalantly she walked toward her destination without regard to the lateness of the hour or the string of murders that he had perpetrated on these very streets over the past twelve months.

  She wore a light raincoat, which the killer knew his scalpel would slice through like pea soup. She was dressed sensibly and didn’t carry herself like a prostitute, but the killer questioned who else would be walking alone in this part of town at this hour. The only sounds were her footsteps on the sidewalk and the rustling of the wind in the leaves.