by Gahan Wilson
It seemed difficult for strangers to get by the endless flatness of the landscape, not to mention the unusual and persistent gloominess of its climate, and he supposed that the gray, twisty scrub growth together with the withered, gnarly trees didn't help too much, nor did those bogs and swamps and hollows full of all that spooky, clammy mist. You had to make the best of things in Le Piege county, truth be told.
Then people would keep on spreading the worst rumors they could get hold of, going all the way back to those foolish tales the early settlers spread about every local Indian they came across being a cannibal down to the last brave and squaw, and if the newspapers or the television anchormen ever spoke of the area they were always sure to insert some witty reference to those old-time legends about the scruffy, spooky Hawker family and the weird and deadly hotel they operated during the gold rush days where the guests were killed and robbed and then served up as stew dinners to any following pioneers who'd paused to take advantage of the Hawker hospitality.
Of course what really got the place's reputation permanently into trouble was the Worper child, Wendell, who'd killed his bullying mother and then stitched her up and stuffed her because he'd felt guilty about hacking her into small, gory pieces with his ax, and because he didn't like messes. When Wendell saw that she'd come out of the process looking rather well it seemed to have stirred up some sort of peculiar creative spark in the boy and inspired him to go on to produce further artistic sculptures using the corpses of other ladies he'd acquired from various local graveyards rather than killing a variety of old women who'd been unlucky enough to remind him of his mother.
Naturally all that might have gone unnoticed and no one the wiser, but Wendell hadn't been content with confining his new hobby to interior decoration; no, he'd felt the need to continue by suspending a quantity of new dead females from the outside corners of his house like gargoyles and to beautify the roof with others, including rigging up one of them so that she held out a black lace umbrella and then mounting her onto a swivel atop the peak over the widow's walk to serve as a weather vane.
Even that wasn't enough for Wendell now he'd hit his full creative stride, and he was soon happily absorbed in the process of posing and arranging more than a dozen more stuffed dead women as lawn ornaments on the property overlooking the road. It may be significant that he was working on the thirteenth one, seating her on a planter made from a truck tire painted white, when a gentleman from the Museum of Folk Art in the city who was passing through had to stop his car in the middle of the road at the sight of all that beauty, and in no time at all Wendell found himself having a one-man retrospective show filling two floors of the museum, but when the big city police read the rave reviews in the papers and started pondering his sources of supply, Wendell soon commenced his long unhappy slide into trouble and the State Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
However none of all that seemed to bother the Bleaks the tiniest little bit. They even surprised Dorry Phipps, the realtor who showed them the place, by falling in love with the Worper place on first sight—which she had to admit to herself was a decidedly gloomy old pile, especially now that it had been cleared of the brightening effect which Wendell's funereally gaudy art works had lent it—and when she finally got her nerve up enough to tell Mr. Bleak about who had lived there she was amazed and delighted to find the author was so pleased about the revelation that he clapped his hands and chuckled!
The rest of the family seemed just as nice, Dorry said, and she told about Mrs. Bleak lighting up when she spotted some pumpkins growing in a corner of a field and making a homely little joke about having a jack-o'-lantern patch, and Dorry and old Ned Whalen at the garage had to smile at one another when they saw the Bleak children enthusiastically pretending to bring a plastic toy Frankenstein monster to life in the back seat of the car when the family stopped for a little gas. The Sheriff listened to all that along with a good many other encouraging reports, and when he read a few of the horror stories Mr. Bleak wrote for a living on top of that, every doubt fled and it seemed to him that they were just the sort of people who'd blend right into the admittedly eccentric ways of Commonplace without giving the town any problems at all. Now, speeding faster and faster down Route 46 until the fence posts blended, he knew with a sickening certainty that he had aided and abetted the establishment of a vipers' nest in the very heart of the community he'd solemnly sworn to protect.
The first hints he might have guessed wrong on the Bleaks came in fairly early, but though they did sound a little odd, he didn't find it all that hard to brush them off, and he never even so much as noticed the first little dent between his eyes which marked the commencement of his brand-new frown line.
The postman, Harry Billings, started it all by informing the Sheriff about the time he came by with his mail truck and found Mrs. Bleak pulling weeds alongside the fence as he drove up. He had barely managed to get in a good morning before she stood, wringing her hands, and proceeded to go on about how worried she was about their neighbors on the opposite hill, the Whitbys, and she asked him in a whisper did he know if there'd been some tragedy? When Harry said as how he didn't know of one Mrs. Bleak anxiously told him about the Whitbys' lights going off and on at "odd hours" during the night, and how she and Mr. Bleak had been awakened time after time by "strange noises." Harry asked her what kind of noises and she paused and swallowed and then suddenly blurted out that they were sometimes "like the horrible screams of people being killed!" When Harry gave her a grin and shrugged and tried to reassure her by pointing out that since it was warm and folks' windows weren't shut like they would be in colder times you had to expect to hear private doings every now and again, this reassurance didn't seem to calm Mrs. Bleak in the least. She silently opened and closed her mouth a couple of times as though she were trying to speak but only succeeded in making a couple of soft little squawks, and Harry said she watched after him as he drove off, and kept doing it till he was all the way out of sight, and he recalled clearly that she had a very odd look on her face.
Then one day Ed Pierce at the hardware store started to chuckle and told the Sheriff about the time Mr. Bleak had been in to buy a shotgun because he and Mrs. Bleak were terribly concerned about "all the people" they'd heard lately sneaking about in the grounds outside the house in the dark of night, and how once they thought they'd caught a glimpse of someone dragging someone else wrapped in what looked to be a bloody sheet. Harry said when he tried to calm him down by telling him you "just naturally got to expect folks to take advantage of these nice summer nights," Bleak went still and then, after staring at him very intently and quietly for a moment or two, told him to add on five more boxes of ammo to his order. Sheriff Olson looked in the mirror while he was shaving the very next morning after he heard that and for the first time noticed a tiny frown line had blossomed on his forehead
But though he didn't like the sound of what he'd heard, the Sheriff assumed it was all only a case of city people being understandably jumpy because they were new to the country life style, to all that quiet at night, to the way the local inhabitants tended to keep their private business private. He would listen to the stories, and then he would smile and scratch his big jaw and try to paper it over by telling anybody who had brought him another depressing story to be patient, that it wouldn't be any time at all before the Bleaks got used to things, that soon you wouldn't hear of any more complaining. He would assure them all the Bleaks would fit in fine.
But the stories kept coming in and they kept adding up. Ben Frazier at the butcher shop said he saw Mrs. Bleak studying the specialty meats in the separate case at the back with extreme care one day when she was waiting for the rain to ease off when suddenly she gave a little cry and began to peer harder and harder until she started to actually tremble. When Ben walked over to her she pointed at an arm and asked him "What’6 that?" in a kind of a hiss, and there was something in her tone of voice that made him decide not to tell her just then what it wasf so he said it was a le
g of veal though he knew she didn't believe him. After she left he looked at the meat carefully and was more than a little irritated to realize that the tourist lady's watch had left an easily recognizable indentation on her wrist.
And Doc Huggins at the pharmacy said he cut Mr. Bleak short with a friendly smile once when he'd started going on and on about how he was killing some rats in order to explain why he needed a tin of cyanide he'd come to buy. Doc did his best to assure him that no excuses at all were needed when it came to buying poison in Commonplace; he told his that as a matter of fact the store took special pride in the quality and wide variety of the poisons which they stocked. He was in the process of proving the point by bending down and fishing around in a lower drawer in order to get a jar of the new nerve gas the Ryan boy had brought in on his last leave from the Marines, but when he straightened up with the jar in his hand he realized Mr. Bleak had left and that he'd scuttled right out of the establishment in such a rush that he'd left his package of cyanide behind all wrapped up neatly and tidily as you please on the counter.
There was all of that and a lot more and it just would not stop and the frown line got so deep and long that the Sheriff's wife had taken to fretting over it audibly, but somehow he'd managed to fend all these tales off, to keep pushing them away, to make excuses.
Then, just before he'd left the cafe and gotten that call from Wilbur which had proven to be the final straw, Mae had to go and tell him her funny little story.
It would never have seemed anywhere near so ominous by itself since it wasn't more than a tiny thing, but landing as it did atop of all those other accumulated accounts which had been steadily heaping up through the days and weeks and months, it somehow managed to strike Sheriff Olson as being particularly discouraging.
He remembered he'd paused after turning off the engine when he'd parked in Mae's lot to stand and listen to the early morning birds chirping in the soft, fresh air, and it had put him into such a pleasant, peaceful mood that he'd walked into the cafe whistling, something he' never done before, but he stopped that on a dime when he saw Mae studying him sidewise and slyly with her tiny, cold little eyes and noticed she was wearing that twisty, snaky smile she only let show when she knew she'd snagged onto something that would really hurt.
She didn't say anything much in particular while he worked his way through his chili burger, she just hovered over her grill, picking at little raised bits of carbon with the sharp tip of a long, red fingernail. He ate as quietly as he could, then snuck his money under the side of his plate and was nearly beginning to believe he'd manage to sneak out of there without her noticing when she was on him with the suddenness of a shark, full of simpers and coy cooings and giving his cup an extra, unwanted pour of coffee.
"You hear about what little Harold Bentley told his maw and paw about the Bleak kids, Sheriff, honey?" she asked in an almost motherly manner.
"Can't say as I have, Mae," he murmured
"Well it's quite a shock and that's the truth," she said, shaking her head in a slow, sad righteous manner, " Particularly seeing as how it all come up in a schoolyard where you wouldn't expect anything of that nature to take place."
"In a schoolyard," he repeated.
11 All the poor, dear children was trying to do was teach them Bleak kids an innocent playground game when the girl begun to cry and holler something awful and her brother got so darn fool mad things almost ended in a fist fight!"
"What game was that, Mae?" Sheriff Olson asked, standing and carefully adjusting his belt so that his belly would pop over it comfortably.
"Why good old ’Rob the Coffin,'" said Mae, her eyes widening with astonishment. "The same game as you and I and every boy and girl that's grown up around hereabouts has played since lord knows when. The sweet little dears explained them all the rules, such as how each member of the one team plays a body part—choosing the head or the heart or the bowels and such—while the other team plays the ghouls. That cute little Finley girl was showing them how you draw the blood pump in the funeral parlor diagram with a stick on the playground dirt, and Harold Billins was explaining how if you shout ’I'm embalmed!' three times before the ghouls grab you they can't eat you, when out of the blue and all of a sudden the Bleak girl began screaming and carrying on fit to beat the band and her brother got all mad and uppity and like to pop poor Harold Perkins right on the nose and maybe broke it if the teacher hadn't heard all the caterwauling and come rushing out to calm things down."
Mae paused in order to give the counter a little swipe with a paper towel before she twisted her knife.
"I hate to mention it because I know you vouched for them Bleaks, Sheriff, honey, and are more responsible than anybody else for them presently living in our little community," she purred, "but I feel it's my civic duty, painful though it may be, and besides, we're all sure you'll put things right again once you've gone and realized your mistake."
When Sheriff Olson saw the shiny new stainless steel mailbox with BLEAK glued on it in bright red, reflective letters he extinguished his car's flashing lights and siren, slowed to a civilian speed, and turned off Route 46 onto a dirt road winding up a craggy hill. He cringed a little when, in the process of doing all this, he caught a peek at his reflection in the rearview mirror and hoped he hadn't looked that dismally gloomy when he'd been leaving Mae's Cafe as it would have pleased her far too much. The frown line, which was now the most noticeable feature of his face, presently traversed the entire length of his forehead and he feared if it cut any deeper it might expose his very skull.
He chewed a corner of his moustache as he bumped up the road, watching the gray spot on the mountain top grow into a big, old, drearily menacing house with tall, thin, secretive windows peering over and under a quantity of crouching roofs, and he didn't even try to fight off wishing little Wendell Worper still lived there. Peaceful Wendell, with never a complaint from him or about him, content to play shyly and quietly with his mother and all the rest of those stuffed dead women, always careful never to bother a soul, save for his victims.
But that brief, nostalgic revery was exploded by the sight of Robert Bleak leaning his scrawny frame over the fence and flapping his long arms at him like an agitated blue jay. Olson sighed, smoothed the frown line from his forehead with a great effort, and arranged his face into what he hoped would seem a relaxed, convincingly official smile as he pulled to the side of the road.
"Well now, Mr. Bleak," he said, easing his big body out of the car, "what seems to be the trouble?" '
"That,” said Bleak, waving frantically at the ground, and the Sheriff saw a pale object jammed onto the end of a short board stuck into the ground. It was a hand with its index finger pointed in Bleak's general direction and its other fingers and thumb tightly clenched. It was a macabre object, without doubt, but it undeniably had a peculiar kind of charm. It looked very much like an antique direction indicator in some old-fashioned place of business except, perhaps, for its gory stump.
Sheriff Olson studied it for a moment with his eyes narrowed slightly and his head tilted to one side. There seemed to be something oddly familiar about that hand; those chubby, spatulate fingers definitely rang a muffled bell.
"Well now," said Olson after a pause, "so this here is why you called me? This is what the fuss is all about?"
"All the fuss?" gritted Bleak, leaning even farther over his fence and firmly fixing his visitor with an incredulous glare. "All the fuss? I should think the discovery of an item as horrible and gruesome as this would be a perfectly appropriate occasion for a fuss! I should indeed!"
"Well now," Olson said again, visibly disconcerted at the sight of Bleak actually wringing his hands, "I want you please to understand I meant no offense when I said that, Mr. Bleak, sir, none at all. The truth be told, I'd really hoped you'd take it as a kind of compliment!"
Bleak blinked, obviously puzzled. His jaw moved slightly as if he were chewing over what he'd just heard.
"Compliment?" he said at length.
Tm afraid I don't follow you at all on that, Sheriff Olson.''
Extending both his palms before him in a double-barreled gesture of peace, Olson made his way to the fence, speaking as he went.
"What I was trying to say, sir, is that I wouldn't think a person such as yourself would bother to call the police about some little bitty thing like this," he said, indicating the severed hand with an almost dismissive wave. "I'd expect a lot of folks might be spooked by it, sure, but not you, sir, not;you!"
Now the Sheriff was directly across the fence from Bleak. He was trying to keep his easy, friendly, Sheriff's smile in place but it persisted in slipping away whereas his frown line kept treacherously popping into view in spite of all his efforts. The author studied him warily as the Sheriff continued speaking more and more in a rush.
"Heck, sir, if anything, I'd have thought you'd be able to manage something like this little old hand here a whole lot better than me. Oh, sure, I've seen a bunch of bodies and stuff like that what with one thing and another, but, hell, I'm just a country cop, Mr. Bleak, I'm just a hayseed, and you're worldwide known as a master of the macabre, dammit, sir, just like it says on the covers of your books, and I know you really are, sir, because I've read those books and what it says is the plain truth, so I just can't see how come a bitty piece of corpse meat has got you so riled up!"
Bleak stared at him with bug-eyed incredulity for a moment and then pointed back at the pointing hand.
"That thing stuck on that little post in the ground between your feet and mine is real, Sheriff Olson," he said, speaking slowly and grimly. "It is part of a genuine dead body. In my stories amputated hands are only made-up things which I create both because I enjoy doing it and because it makes me a feasible living. They are works of fiction and therefore they won't slowly turn into green slime or mummify into cracklings or attract worms or do any of the other things a real dead hand such as that one there can do. My dead hands are just pretend dead hands."