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

by Mark McLaughlin

After breakfast, Gopher went to his study to work. As soon as we were alone, I told Mona about what I’d seen.

  She was about to give me a hug but I stopped her—one good squeeze would break all my ribs. “You saw Brother Starwind! You’re so lucky, Jacob!”

  “Brother Starwind’s a cockroach?”

  Mona shook her head. “No, no, no.” She ran upstairs. She came down a moment later with her weirdbox. “Brother Starwind gave himself to the Bug King two weeks ago.”

  We looked at the green book together. Mona told me that during the Salem witch trials, Cotton Mather’s scribes had written down all of the testimony. The book contained the testimony of Goody Clay, accused of making maggots appear in the neighbor’s porridge. She’d been only too happy to share the details of her spells and rituals with the court. While she was being led to the hangman, a cloud of flies blotted out the sun and in the confusion, she disappeared.

  “She wasn’t really what you’d call a witch,” Mona said. “Witches are actually wise-women who use their spiritual energy to help others. Goody Clay observed the Way of the Swarm. Like me and my friends.”

  She rummaged in the box and found a huge amulet shaped like a grasshopper.

  “Gordon’s going golfing with his agent this afternoon.” She smiled with her little cat’s teeth. “Free this afternoon? Care to pencil a little ritual into your schedule?”

  “You’re psychotic, Mona. Does Gopher know you’re into bug worship?”

  She placed a pale hand under each breast. “Do you think he’d even care?”

  * * * *

  Gopher took off for the golf course at two. At two-fifteen, Mona began the ritual. She wanted to call some of the other members of her cult, but I talked her out of it.

  It was strange, but I wasn’t really worried. At worst, the Bug King would suck me down like a popsicle. Not like I had anything else planned.

  I watched as Mona scattered cicada skins across the floor. When she finished, she whisked her hands together like a housewife shaking off flour. “Okay,” she said. “Now let’s get you ready.”

  She noticed the red marks on my chest as she undid the velcro on my shirt. “You did pretty good,” she said, “but you messed up on the positioning.”

  After my clothes were off, I stretched out on some large throw pillows on the floor. She put the amulet around my neck and placed one crystal over my heart, one over my liver, and one at my crotch.

  Mona stared down at me. “Relax your body. Concentrate. Focus on your desires.”

  I desired Mona, yes—but not as much as I desired strong bones. Rigid bones. Shining metal bones.

  What can I say? I saw The Insekt Moste Effluvious, slopping up Brother Starwind’s brain. And this time, I could smell the roach-god: he reeked like a bucket-sized cocktail of baby-shit, motor oil, and moldy green meat. I saw a crystal pyramid with translucent millipedes flowing out of the entryway. I saw a harem of dancing hermaphrodites with praying mantis eyes and puffy pink scorpion tails. I saw a sky filled with dog-sized copper wasps with yellow venom dripping from their mandibles.

  When I awoke from the visions, the crystals were gone. In their place I found three purple sores. Mona told me that the Moon Eyes had been absorbed into my flesh, worms and all.

  SUNDAY

  Even though he usually sleeps in on Sundays, Gopher woke up early and made breakfast. Before wheeling me to the kitchen, he asked if we could talk.

  “I don’t spend enough time with you, Jacob. You know—quality time.”

  “That’s okay, Gopher. Veronica’s a busy guy.”

  His long, sad face got even longer and sadder. “Since your mother died…” Blah blah blah. Mother died right after I was born, so Gopher’s mom speeches meant nothing to me. Sad but true. I faded out on him as I felt the heart-sore under my pajamas. After a while I tuned back in. “…That’s why I think it’s time for me to remarry.”

  “Remarry?” I was blown away. “You can’t mean Mona.”

  “We’ve been seeing each for quite some time now and…” On and on with all the soap opera caca. “She makes me feel young…” More precisely, he liked feeling her young goodies. “She’ll never replace your mother, but…” But the worst was yet to come. “…And wouldn’t you like a little brother?”

  “Mona carrying your baby?” I turned my chair away from him. “In your dreams. You’ve got some heavy evolving to do if you want to match her chromosome count. You know, Gopher, I always thought I looked a little like the TV repairman…”

  “Now you stop that!” Gopher grabbed me by the shoulder. “The name is Gordon. G, O, R, D, O, N! I am your father and I will not have you making fun of me in my own house!” Before I knew it, he was all red in the face and shaking me and slapping me. Enough to break every bone in my body.

  A look of horror spread across his face. His eyes looked like they’d pop right out of his head. “Oh my God Jacob I’m so sorry what have I done oh my God are you all right please say something!” He babbled on and on but the funny thing was, I was okay. No cracks, no snaps, no broken-pencil agony deep in my muscles.

  I spit in Gopher’s face. What a moron. A miserable hack with a pumpkin-head full of shit and cliches. “I’m okay, you rat’s ass with teeth. Now get out of my room.”

  * * * *

  Mona came up with my breakfast a half-hour later.

  “Your dad told me what happened. He’s completely freaked.” She looked at me suspiciously. “Did you ask for anything yesterday?”

  I gave her my best duh? face. “Ask who?”

  She set the breakfast tray on the bed and stared at me.

  Finally I nodded. “Sure. I asked for strong bones. Maybe I got them.”

  Mona felt my arms, my legs, my neck. She stopped by the door before she left. “What does the Bug King know about bones? He doesn’t have any.”

  * * * *

  The sun hasn’t even set yet, but I’m midnight tired. My skin feels different—it slides on top of the weird rubbery muscles underneath. Better get some sleep.

  MONDAY

  I don’t know what came over me when Gopher stepped into my room this morning. He may have been an utter jackass, but still, it was awfully petty of me to lop off his head with my new mandibles. I said to myself, Franz Kafka, eat your heart out. Then I picked up Gopher and carried him down to the kitchen. For breakfast.

  I’m not complete yet. My hands are still human enough to hold a pen. They have a few bones left in them, but those will melt away after the skin grows thick and rigid.

  I wonder what Mona will do when she sees me? I’m sure she won’t scream. In fact, I think she will be proud.

  After all, she’s bound to admire my shell. It’s as hard as nails. As hard as cast-iron. Bronze. Stainless steel. And how it gleams.

  HER HORRIBLE APARTMENT

  As soon as she came through the door, she told us she’d found an apartment at the mall. This didn’t seem to make any sense, but everybody smiled and said how lucky she was, and so we made plans to see the place after work. We even decided to make a little party of the occasion.

  I liked my job—computer graphics—but the workload was very boring that day: plopping copy into the same old newsletter formats. She walked by my desk on her way to the copying machine, and I thought: she’s so skinny. She’s starving herself like one of those scrawny fashion models. She was a pretty girl, and a very nice person, but I didn’t find her attractive. Her skinny neck and nervous eye movements were too birdlike.

  At break time, I went down to the vending machine area and there she was, sipping steaming black coffee from a styrofoam cup.

  “So. The mall.” I gave her the most encouraging grin I could muster. “You’ll be shopping like crazy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m right next to my favorite store, The Bracelet H
ut. It’s like heaven.”

  I looked at her wrists. She was wearing dozens of thin bracelets—plastic, copper, gold, beaded. Had she always worn so many? Probably so.

  “Lot of food places at the mall… Hope you don’t have a pest problem.” I meant rats, of course, but I didn’t want to scare her.

  “There are some bugs, but that’s okay.” She shrugged. “Nothing’s perfect. Only stupid people expect things to be perfect.”

  After work, I drove to a discount liquor store for some wine, then headed for the mall. I was pretty proud of myself: the wine I’d bought was a dirt-cheap German vintage with a long name. Everyone at the party would think it was so chic.

  The shoppers were out in full force, and I had to park a long way from the mall entrance. As I walked across the lot, a heavyset blonde woman sneered at me, and I suddenly realized that I probably looked like some kind of bum, carrying around a bottle in a paper bag.

  Inside, I located The Bracelet Hut on a directory display (it was practically at the other end of the mall) and began walking again. After a while, I noticed that people were staring at me. Staring with looks of disgust. Of pity. I slipped into a menswear store and found a mirror.

  My suit was all dirty and torn. My face was covered with dark stubble. There were dark circles around my eyes. I thought to myself, Oh, this must be a dream, and tried to wake up. And—

  Nothing happened.

  I left the menswear store and said “Damn!”—because men swear. Well, I was dirty and a little scary, but no matter: I was only dreaming. Probably. I hurried along to the party, the silly little party for her silly little apartment at the mall.

  I passed Doughnut Heaven and Makeup Madness and and Love Them Computers and a lot of other stupid stores. I stopped for a moment to look through the door of a store called Measure Your Pleasure: inside, naked men were gauging their privates with golden rulers.

  I just laughed. Oh, I HAD to be dreaming!

  Finally, I found The Bracelet Hut—and next to it, a dusky-pink door with the words Her Apartment on it. I knocked and she let me in.

  The apartment was nothing more than a converted men’s room, complete with urinals (she’d planted flowers in them). A dozen or so middle-aged men in blue coveralls were standing about, laughing, drinking, gobbling hors d’oeuvres, pretending they were going to pee on the flowers. Each man was holding a blue lawn rake.

  I turned to her and said, “Who are these guys? Where are the folks from work?”

  Her eyes were very sad. “These are the exterminators. I had to cancel the party because of the bug problem. But please, don’t let the snacks go to waste.” She crossed to a side table and returned with a trayful of cocktail weenies. “So why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

  I looked down in utter shock: I was naked, caked with dirt, and my toenails needed trimming. Everyone in the room turned toward me and laughed. Except her: she simply sighed.

  Suddenly, fat, moist-looking iridescent bugs began to scurry around the room. They had way too many legs and bulging compound eyes. They seemed to be talking to each other in a shrill little buggy language. As I watched them, I realized that a form of nausea very close to car-sickness was building inside of me.

  One of the exterminators, a tall man with red hair and a redder face, handed me a rake. “Make yourself useful, ya bum,” he said.

  I looked around and saw that all the other men were chasing the bugs, slicing them to bits by passing the rake-teeth over them. I sliced up a few of the slower bugs, and hated doing it. Sure, the slimy freaks were utterly loathsome, but they were still living beings. My nausea became so intense that finally, I had to crouch in a corner and breathe deeply to keep from vomiting.

  “Don’t do that,” said the red-haired man, pulling me to my feet. “Are you crazy, letting your butt drag so close to the floor? One of those bugs could have crawled up there, and then…” He made a face—a disgusted yet smirkingly knowing face—and returned to the task of bug-raking. More and more of the creatures were crawling about. Soon they were joined by frogs, scorpions and lizards, all multi-colored, all dewy with slime. Thin rivulets of steaming ichor flowed across the floor as more of the little horrors were sliced up. A hot, farty smell filled the air.

  My skinny hostess took my hand. “Let’s go,” she said. “We don’t want to get in their way.”

  As we were heading out the door, I looked back for a second, just in time to see an iguana force its way down the red-haired man’s throat. The look in his eyes was—well, I suppose it was one of pleasure. There are so many different kinds of pleasure, and oddly enough, some of them aren’t all that pleasant.

  She led me next door to the Bracelet Hut, where the clerks were fighting off glistening Komodo dragons. She loaded down her wrists with gold and platinum, pearls and diamonds. Then we zipped across the corridor to Chick-Chick-Chicken, where we helped ourselves to some tasty hot wings. The fry-boys were too busy to stop us: they had their hands full, smacking rainbow-hued crocodiles with brooms.

  We sat by the fountain in the middle of the mall’s Food Court, licking wing-sauce off each other’s fingers.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said. “It’s not like we love each other or anything like that.”

  “Well, we are friends, aren’t we?” The tone of her voice was borderline frantic. “Everything’s going to hell and it would be nice to face the end with a friend.”

  I looked—really looked at her. Sure, she resembled a sad, skinny little bird, but this particular bird needed me. Needed my support. My understanding.

  I cradled her face in my hands. “For a while now, I’ve been thinking that this whole day has been one big bad dream. Not mine, not yours… Maybe the God of Slimy Things is taking a nap. Why don’t we just wait and see what happens? It sure can’t get any worse.”

  She flashed a cheery smile, revealing hundreds of thin, sharp iridescent teeth. “Okay.”

  WHAT THE NERVOUS OLD LADY ON THE BUS HAD TO SAY

  Oh, good. I’m so glad you sat down next to me.

  You look so normal and friendly and clean, which is more than I can say for most of these…people.

  I’m on my way to Baltimore to see my daughter, Denise. I started out in Sioux City—it feels like I’ve been on the road forever! I hate these buses, but there’s no way anyone is ever going to get me into one of those awful planes. What if the one with me in it crashed and burned up? I’d be strapped in my seat, as helpless as a baby, screaming with pain. No thank you! Denise bought me my bus ticket. Wasn’t that nice of her?

  You wouldn’t believe some of the people I’ve had to sit right next to. So close, they could have just stuck out a finger and touched me! These buses really should have little walls between the passengers. Little walls that go up and down. If you want to be left alone, you can just make the little wall go up.

  There was this one guy who sat down right next to me—I swear, he smelled like a dead animal. I wanted to ask him, “Do you need a bath, or are you carrying around something dead in one of your pockets?” Of course, knowing my luck, he probably would have pulled something right out of his pocket to show me—some stinky, sliced-up little dead thing.

  He was one of those Asian fellows, so he probably wouldn’t have understood me anyway. Why do people come to this country if they aren’t even going to bother to learn the language? Those Asian men, they have a real passion for white women, you know. The age doesn’t matter to them. I didn’t say a word to him, not a single word. I wasn’t about to do anything to excite him, I can tell you that!

  White female skin, it drives them insane. That’s why I’d never eat alone in one of those Asian restaurants. My goodness! Suppose they put something in my food to make me pass out, so they could—well, you can imagine. They have all sorts of ancient Asian herbs, passed down through the centuries from Gen
ghis Khan and awful people like that. I’m sure they know how to make a white woman go into a deep sleep so they can do their dirty business.

  It makes me shiver just to think about it.

  Why, what if I was abroad and had something to eat in one of their restaurants right in the middle of China? I’d probably pass out and all those awful, awful Asian men—millions of them! There are quite a lot of people in China, you know. They would have their way with me, one right after the other. For years! I’m sure I would die from the abuse—I’m just a tiny thing. But that wouldn’t stop them, I’m sure!

  I suppose you must think I’m one of those prejudiced bigots, but I’m not. Actually, what I’m saying probably applies to all men. White men aren’t that different. I hate to tell you this, but it is a sad fact that when I was very young, I was raped by my own father. And he was a man of the cloth—the kind that can marry, of course, not one of those Catholics. My own father! Men are such pigs, they really are. Not all men, but most.

  Well, here on a crowded bus, I’m safe. And you’re so good-looking, you’re probably one of those funny men who like to play with other men’s thingies. Sometimes I wish all the men in the world were gay homos, so they would just leave me alone.

  My goodness, it drives me insane sometimes, it really does, walking around outside and seeing some yellow devil-man looking at me—or one of those black fellows. I’ve never talked to one in my whole life, but I think I’d die five times in a row if one of those black fellows tried to have his way with me. I hear their private gender organs are quite huge—I’m sure it would split me right in half.

  How is a poor old woman like me supposed to survive in today’s world? That’s why I carry a gun, you know. I have my gun with me right now, right here in my pretty pink purse—just in case some sex-mad rapist tries any funny business with me. I’m not afraid to pull the trigger!

  I really wish I could take a little nap, but I’m just too nervous. I do tend to get nervous, particularly around a lot of people. But it’s just as well that I stay awake. If I fell asleep, I’d probably have one of my awful dreams.