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

by Mark McLaughlin

  “Like what?”

  “It’s probably just a dog or something—but I’ve really got to check it out.”

  “Oh…okay.” Was there actual concern in George’s voice? “Well, call back as soon as you find out what it is, okay?”

  “Will do, George.” He hung up and looked around for something to use as a weapon. He wanted to call the police, but he was always calling them for information on his various investigations, and they never seemed to take him seriously. They sure weren’t going to break their butts to rush and help him.

  In his odds-and-ends drawer he found his dad’s big old fishing knife. He grabbed it and moved down the hall toward the porch, listening. Somebody was moving around on the back porch—the screen door had been locked, so whoever it was must have broken through it.

  Usually, the back porch light was always on, since there were several large, shady trees lining that side of the house, and it was always dark back there. But now, no light shone through the curtains of the window looking out onto the porch. But he could see a larger shadow that seemed to shift uneasily through the darkness. The rest of the view was obscured by a thick, swirling fog.

  “Who’s out there?” Michael called out.

  The shadow moved directly in front of the darkened window. It was shaped roughly like a huge person with some sort of shaggy mane around the head. A surge of bile rose up in his throat. His stomach always acted up whenever he was worried. Or nervous. Or scared out of his mind.

  “You should not…” A thick voice, full of phlegm, murmured. At least, Michael supposed it was phlegm.

  “What shouldn’t I do?” Michael called out, moving a little closer. There was a hammer on the table by the couch. He’d been fixing a bookshelf in that room earlier that day. He didn’t want to get too close to the window, but the hammer would make a good weapon, if needed.

  “No more talk. Why are you saying these things? You are one of us.” The voice had an odd, halting accent to it—either that, or the speaker just wasn’t used to speaking. “You are a Thragg. Forever.”

  As Michael’s hand closed around the handle of the hammer, something dawned on him.

  A picture. I should get a picture. It would be proof.

  But where was the camera—? Then he remembered. It was outside, in the glove compartment of his car, along with his mother’s old tape recorder. He’d taken them to a UFO symposium in Peoria the week before, and had forgotten to bring them back in the house.

  A ripe, fishy odor seeped into the house. It was so strong that Michael soon began to feel nauseous.

  “You must be quiet,” the shadow murmured. “Do not destroy all we have worked for. In time you will join us in the water. In the mud and decay and darkness. You are a Thragg, and you cannot escape your destiny. You cannot escape … this.”

  Something hit the window with a wet smack. A hand had emerged from the fog and was now pressed against the glass: a wide hand with long, clawed fingers and veined, scaly webbing.

  “This shall be you,” the voice chortled, bubbling with slime.

  Michael blinked repeatedly. Yes, his own fingers were very long, but he’d never given it much thought. After all, his mother’s fingers were long, and so were his grandmother’s on that side of the family…the side that traced back to…the Thraggs.…

  “We have friends who have been telling us about your…” The voice paused. “…your treachery. We do not like what you have been saying. But there is still time for you to undo your foolishness. Then the way will be cleared for both of you, and we will embrace you when at last you are ready.”

  “Both? Who else are you talking about?”

  “The other Thragg…the one who speaks to everyone.…”

  “George Flicker?”

  The being on the other side of the window pulled away its hand and chuckled. “Yes. He is older than you, he will be joining us soon. How surprised he will be when his gills open up and his fingerwebs begin to grow … when his skin grows cold and slick.…”

  The creature then pressed, for just a moment, its face against the glass. Or rather, it pressed one side of its face; perhaps to get a better look at Michael. And he was shocked by the fact that the face was—

  Beautiful.

  Yes, it was unmistakably the face of a beautiful woman, with sculpted cheekbones, a well-shaped patrician nose, an imperious forehead and full, pouting lips. True, the sky-blue eye that ogled against the glass was huge and watery, and thin fleshy whiskers dangled from the top lip, but still, there was no denying that this was a face of ancient, unspeakable beauty.

  “Who are you?” Michael said. Then he remembered a name. “Are you Hecuba Thragg?”

  The voice bubbled with laughter. “Mother is much too huge to leave the river’s depths. No, I am Lavinia.” The hand slapped against the glass once more. “You can still undo the damage you have brought about. You must call that program again and tell the people that you were…” The hand half-rubbed, half-clawed at the glass. “…joking. Tell them it was all a sort of amusement.”

  Michael shook his head. “Never!”

  “Simple-minded dolt!” the creature bellowed. “It would be easy…so very easy…for us to kill you and then ask one of our friends…the creatures from the stars…to take on your voice and appearance and tell everyone it was all a game. But we are giving you a chance to redeem yourself. Go to the phone. Do it. Do it now.”

  Michael raised the hammer, preparing to give it a good strong throw, right through the window. But then that beautiful sky-blue eye pressed up to the window again. The full lips parted and a low, rhythmic murmur—a timeless and compelling song—poured forth from that slime-coated throat.

  Michael stood completely still, listening, transfixed. One single, all-encompassing thought oozed through his brain:

  Obey … obey … obey…

  He turned and moved back down the hall.

  Obey … obey…

  Behind him, he heard the sharp crash of breaking wood, but he did not turn around to see what had happened. He already knew. The thing on the porch had burst through the porch door, singing with triumph.

  Obey … obey…

  When he reached the phone, the hammer and knife dropped from his hands. He found himself picking up the phone receiver and punching in numbers. He did not want to … but he had no choice. He had to obey … obey…

  He was about to punch in the seventh number when he paused. Someone was now by his side. He looked up at the grotesque creature standing next to him.

  The beautiful, unearthly face was surrounded by a tangled mass of thick, writhing tentacles. The body was thick and powerfully muscled, with a slick, leathery tail that whipped around savagely. The lashing tail upset a small table, sending figurines crashed to the floor.

  Michael gasped and slammed the phone receiver down. “Look what you did! Those were Mother’s!” He stared at the beast and realized, with a sudden rush of exhilaration, that the hypnotic spell had been broken.

  Lavinia Thragg stopped singing and let loose with a piglike squeal of rage.

  His hand swept down, snatched up the hammer and swept back up, as high as he could reach. He then brought it down with all his force, right on top of the creature’s head.

  Lavinia collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. After a moment, she stopped moving.

  Michael suddenly realized that the radio was still on. And of course, George was still talking. The guy never shut up.

  “Well, we still haven’t heard back from Michael,” George said. “Call in, dude. Please. I promise I won’t call you Fishboy. I just want to know if you’re okay out there.”

  Yes, it was time to call in. Michael took a deep breath—and then vomited. The fishlike reek of the dead creature was overpowering. It looked even slimier in death than it had in li
fe. In fact, it seemed to be turning—liquescent. Greenish-yellow rivulets of rank liquid flowed down the oversized carcass.

  Soon the floor was awash with stinking, oily fluid. The body was quickly turning into a pool of rot. He couldn’t allow his mother’s house to turn into a fishy slop-pit. He found some buckets and a mop and began to clean away the mess. He poured it all down the sink, letting the garbage disposal take care of the larger, semi-solid chunks.

  Four hours later, he realized that the call-in show was long over.

  Five hours later, when the clean-up was finally finished, he realized he had discarded the best evidence he’d ever had in his possession.

  At least his clothes were still coated with that ungodly fish-juice. Maybe some scientists could analyze that. He took them off, dropped them into a garbage bag and stuck that in the freezer.

  God, but he felt itchy. No surprise. His skin had been soaking in that smelly goo during the entire clean-up. He examined his skin to see if that horrible ooze had given him some sort of rash.

  He shook his head wearily. No, not a rash.

  Something else. Something worse.

  His skin was turning grey and slimy … leathery, too, like the hide of a catfish.

  He trudged to the shower and turned on a nice cool stream. He let the water pour over him. Nice, very nice. As he changed, his growing eyes protruded from their sockets, and the waters washed the contacts right off of them.

  When at last he emerged from the shower, it was midnight. His finger-webbing had grown in completely.

  He looked around his mother’s house. There was no way he could stay here, stinking up the place with his heavy fish-smell.

  He fumbled open the door, looked around, and shambled off into the night.…

  Toward the river.

  The beautiful river.

  WHY THE CATHARTOLEPTIC

  APPROACH IS NOW LOOKED UPON WITH DISFAVOR

  “Your mother, Peter. It would be good for us to talk about her,” Dr. Matapathamos said. “Is she large-breasted? Passive? Docile?”

  “What rude, ridiculous questions!” Peter cried, biting at a nail. “My mother has nothing to do with my problems. And you shouldn’t be asking about such personal questions about her! But for the record: she is small-breasted and bitchy.”

  “Very well then…” The psychologist tapped his full lips with his silver pen. “Tell me about the cows.”

  “Do I have to?” The boy fingered a bruised patch along the front of his throat. “You know I don’t like talking about the farm.”

  “And that is why you must.” The doctor raised an eyebrow. “One must probe. Explore. One must lift the rock to see what crawls beneath.”

  Pale, thin Peter reclined on an overstuffed couch. The flesh around his dark eyes was finely wrinkled, though he was only fifteen years old. The doctor sat by his side, taking notes.

  Peter looked about the room, desperate for a distraction. Anything, anything at all to take his mind off of the cows. How cruel that Dr. Matapathamos actually wanted him to focus on the horrid beasts. He took in random details as he scanned the office. Books bound in red and black buckram. A brass and crystal clock, clack-clack-clacking on the mahogany desk. Diplomas in dusty, mismatched frames.

  “Tell me about the cows,” the doctor repeated.

  “They were big,” Peter sighed, defeated. “They were black and white and they smelled bad. They were cows. That’s all.”

  “No, that is not all.” Dr. Matapathamos extended a finger toward Peter’s throat, then pulled it back just before making contact. “You tried to hang yourself in the barn. Your suicide note read…” He took a manila folder from the desk, shuffled through its contents, then pulled out a ragged piece of paper. “Here it is: The cows want me to die. I cannot help myself. Do you still believe that these cows—these big, foul-smelling, black and white cows—await your demise?”

  Peter turned away from the psychologist and caught a glimpse of the word Meat on a bookshelf. He tried to find the word again, but failed.

  The doctor leaned over to his desk and pressed an intercom button. “Some refreshments, please, Muti.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to tell you about the cows eventually,” Peter murmured, “though you’ll probably have me locked up until I’m really old. Then I’ll become one of those stinky bagpeople.”

  “My dear boy. The Institute of Cathartoleptic Research is not in the business of manufacturing the homeless.”

  Muti, a thin, dark-haired young woman, entered the office carrying a glass of water and a brown ceramic mug. She handed the glass to Peter and the mug to the doctor. Just before closing the door on her way out, she turned and gave the boy a small sad smile.

  The psychologist took a long pull from the mug, then wiped a slathering of milk from his moustache. “When your father and uncle brought you here, I told them I would do my very best to help you, and so I shall. I am here for you, my boy. Now about those cows…”

  Peter took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to spend the summer with Uncle Viktor, but my father said that I had to because it would make a man out of me. Uncle Viktor has a huge dairy farm with about two hundred cows. My Aunt Flora died a month before I got there. It happened during a thunderstorm. A cow had jumped a broken fence and she was helping my uncle to chase it back into the pasture. The cow was scared by the thunder and it trampled her.” He glanced toward the bookshelf again and spotted the title: The Trauma of Meat: The Cathartoleptic Perspective. The author? Emil S. Matapathamos, Ph.D.

  “How awful. Your uncle must have been devastated. Consumed with guilt.” The doctor’s heavy spectacles slid down his nose. He pushed them back in place with a ring finger. “I’ve seen it happen. ‘The highway of life is filled with motion-sick drivers.’ That’s my little joke, Peter. And as with most humor, it has a basis in truth. Please continue.”

  Peter wished that he could take the book down from the shelf and skim through it. Would there be pictures? What sort of trauma was the book about? And what sort of meat? “Uncle Viktor told me that the cows hated Aunt Flora,” he said. “Whenever she wanted more beef, she would take a big orange grease pencil, walk up to the pasture fence, and mark the nearest cow for death. Uncle didn’t approve, but what could he do? He’d never learned to read or write, so Aunt Flora did all the paperwork. She ruled the checkbook, so she ruled the farm. Uncle didn’t bother to wear black for her funeral. He just wore his overalls and a feedstore cap. I had to do all of Uncle’s paperwork during my stay.

  “Uncle Viktor began talking to his herd. He would forget his chores and walk for hours in the pasture. After a while I joined him on his walks, even though I hated the cows. I knew that nothing would happen to me in his presence.”

  “And just what did you think would happen?” Dr. Matapathamos asked. “Were the cows going to do something to you?”

  “Oh no, they were going to make me do it to myself. By staring at me. By thinking at me. They didn’t want to share Uncle with anyone. Aunt Flora’s death started the process and Uncle’s reverence completed it. He was their priest, you see. The cows had gained a sort of power, and they used that power to make me attempt suicide.”

  “Do you know where your Uncle Viktor is now? We haven’t heard from him since your admittance to the Institution. I’m concerned about him, too.”

  Suddenly there was a fierce pounding at the door, followed by an earsplitting bellow. “The cows are after me!” Peter screamed. “The cows! Help me, doctor!”

  “You are in no danger. One of my other patients is early for her appointment. That is all.” The psychologist pressed the intercom button. “Muti? Poor Peter is distraught, so I want to show him that there is nothing to worry about. Please show Mrs. Pronka in.”

  Muti opened the door and led a heavyset elderly woman into the room. The mottled flesh of the
vile old thing was horrid to Peter. Her skin reminded him of the hide of a Holstein cow, with irregular black splotches on a living field of white. Or perhaps rivers of white carving islands out of a black plain.

  “Get her out of here, doctor. Please! She’s staring at me!” Peter covered his eyes with his hands. “Oh, she’s staring! Make her stop!” He began to utter short high screams.

  “Yes, Peter—scream! But don’t cover your eyes.” Dr. Matapathamos reached out and pinched Peter’s wrists, but the boy would not uncover his eyes. “Look at her. Look at her and scream. Mrs. Pronka claims that she is the living incarnation of Hathor, the Egyptian cow-goddess. What do you think of that? Scream! Scream and heal yourself, Peter.”

  Mrs. Pronka stared at Peter with dull cow-eyes. Then she reached for the doctor, but Muti turned her toward the door. Muti whispered an unintelligible phrase as she pushed the old woman out of the room.

  Peter’s screams faded to whimpers. He finally stopped after a quick peek between his fingers. Then he sat up on the couch. “You did that on purpose,” he shouted, kicking the doctor in the ankle.

  The doctor winced, but did not cry out. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “The old woman…you and your girl arranged for me to see her. I know you did. You wanted to scare me.”

  “You scared yourself.” The doctor wrote for a moment in his journal. “Mrs. Pronka bore a resemblance to a certain sort of cow, yes? You think that she is an avatar of dread; she thinks that she is a deity. But thinking does not bring these delusions to life. The woman has a pigment disorder. It’s as simple as that.” The psychologist patted Peter on the cheek. “Cathartolepsy: a revitalizing frenzy of release. We are progressing nicely. I await the moment when your screams shall purge you of your rage and self-horror. We shall talk more tomorrow.”