Coming of Age: Three Novellas (Dark Suspense, Gothic Thriller, Supernatural Horror)

by Douglas Clegg

  “Men never cease to live down to my expectations,” Bronwyn said, shaking her head, and dropping the last of her cigarette in the dust. She stubbed at it with her toe, and then shivered a little as if she were cold.

  “You okay?” Josh asked.

  “Just that feeling. You know—the one where they say a goose walked over your grave. Like something’s wrong.” Then she laughed. “Maybe I just need another cigarette.”

  Bronwyn had to scrunch up next to the trucker, but she didn’t mind. He was a rugged, rode-hard kind of guy with a face that must’ve been pretty at one time, but turned into baked granite from the sun, with crack lines along his smile and around his eyes.

  “Best I can do is dump you up ahead, there’s a place about two miles up.”

  “That’d be great,” Josh said.

  “It was nice of you to stop,” Bronwyn said, and then leaned a bit against his shoulder. He smelled like axle grease, but there was something comforting about it.

  “I drive this highway eight times a week, back and forth. There ain’t much here.” He introduced himself: Ely. He told them about his life, which was mainly travels on the road and a little shack out in a town called Naga. It wasn't too far away. You knew you had reached his place because a paved road ended where a dirt road shot off to the west. From there, you could see a silvery glimmer from all the hubcaps hanging on the front fence and you could hear the music he blasted from his workshop out back.

  “Mainly ZZ Top," he said. "Mainly. Sometimes I get into the mood for Boston. But mainly ZZ.”

  “That’s quite a life,” Josh said.

  “Ha,” Ely spat back. “I bet you kids are rich and are on spring break and just tooling around because you got nothin’ else to do.”

  “I think that pretty much sums it up, except we really don’t have money.” Bronwyn glanced sidelong at Josh. “Don’t you think?”

  "If I had money I'd be in L.A. right now," Josh said.

  “Ha," Ely said. "Well, you get out here, and life smacks you like you’re the bug and it’s the windshield. Ass first, and you got about two seconds to dodge.”

  “So what’s this town like?” Josh asked. “Nada?”

  “Naga. It’s a little town. You’d hate it. Jesus H, why even talk to you about it. You’ll never go there. Look,” Ely said, pointing toward a rise to the left—a long flat corrugated metal roof that canopied gas pumps that looked like they were out of the 1920s. Behind it, a long rectangular building curved metal roof, and three big signs with various versions of: “SEE THE ATTRACTION! DON’T GO HOME WITHOUT SEEING THE ATTRACTION! THE UNSPEAKABLE UNKNOWABLE MYSTERY! IT’S THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD AND THE SECOND WONDER OF THE NEW WORLD! 75 CENTS ADMISSION! BUY INDIAN BLANKETS! GET COFFEE! GAS IS CHEAP! COFFEE’S CHEAPER!”

  “Wow. It’s where I wanted to go,” Bronwyn said. “It’s the Unspeakable Mystery place.”

  “They sound a little desperate,” Josh said.

  “I usually never stop here,” Ely said.

  “Why’s that?” Josh asked.

  “That thing they got. That attraction. Gives me the creeps.”

  Then, Ely slowed the truck, and it groaned and rattled a bit. He turned the wheel to the left, crossing the empty highway, and then spun the wheel to the right, taking the truck onto the gravelly service road.

  When he dropped them off near the pumps, Ely said, “Now, if you ever get lost out here, find your way over to Naga, and look for end of the paved road, and the silvery light from the hubcaps in the sun and ZZ Top blasting from the back. You’re welcome to see my place and check out Naga. It’s a cool town, but probably not as sophisticated as you two. You kids be careful on the road. Lots of nuts out there.”

  The Brakedown Palace Gas and Sundries was the biggest thing for miles—mainly because there was nothing around it. Bronwyn went in to buy some more cigarettes, and Josh went around by the garage bays to look for the boss.

  A big man, the size of a bear and with a growl not far from one, rose up out of a greasepit in the back. He had sun-baked copper skin that had begun to go from tan to alligator hide. “Whatja want?”

  “Our car’s got a flat. Just back a little ways. Down the road.”

  The man’s eyes were almost like fish-eyes, nearly perfectly round. A nose like a hammer, and big lips that held an unlit cigarette between them. He wore a black bandanna tied around his head, and an enormous white t-shirt that clung tight to his barrel-chest and pot belly. His hips were wide, and he wore stained jeans that looked like they were homemade. On his feet, boots with steel tips at the toes. He was exactly what Bronwyn would call “a real character.”

  “Hell, kid, I’m busy. You need a tow? It’ll be twenty minutes at best.”

  “Okay,” Josh said.

  “Fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty? It’s just a couple miles away. Fifty bucks?”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Fifty? Doesn’t that seem a little absurd?”

  The man shrugged, then wiped some grease-sweat off his brow. “There’s another gas station, twenty-five miles up. You want to go there, I ain’t stoppin’ you.”

  After a discussion with Bronwyn, the fee was paid, the tow truck went out, and soon enough, Tammy, Griff, and Ziggy showed up, looking as if they had been drained of all energy, with the car hooked like a mackerel to the back of the truck.

  The big guy was named Charlie Goodrow, and after introducing himself around, he told them that they could each have a Coke on him.

  “Fifty bucks worth of Coke,” Josh said.

  The sun was moving westward too fast, and someone finally asked Goodrow how long it might take for the tire change, and Charlie Goodrow laughed and said, “Go wander the shop. I’ll have it down in twenty minutes. Or less. I’ll check your brakes, too. Free of charge.”

  “Fifty bucks worth of checking brakes,” Josh said, only barely under his breath.

  “I want to go see the Great Unspeakable Mystery,” Bronwyn said. “It’s less than a buck and you enter in the back of the store.”

  All of them went into the Sundries Shop for the free Cokes, and Tammy wanted to look at the cheap jewelry they had near the Indian blankets. Bronwyn grabbed Griff by the elbow, and tugged him toward the back of the shop. There was a narrow door there, and it had a sign that read, “For the CHEAP ADMISSION PRICE of just 75 CENTS! See the Eighth Wonder of the World! The Mystery of the Southwest! The Aztec Demon Known as Xipe Totec! Found many miles south of here, smuggled up by an outlaw who believed it contained treasures! SEE THE UNSPEAKABLE SAVAGE MYSTERY OF THE ANCIENT PRE-COLUMBIAN WORLD!”

  “Come on,” Bronwyn said, pulling on his arm. Griff pulled away.

  “I’m waiting for Tammy.”

  “Josh?” Bron let go of Griff, and stomped over to where Josh stood, near the glass refrigerator, sipping his Coke.

  “Okay, but we’re not paying,” Josh said. “We’ve already blown tonight’s motel room budget on the car. I don’t intend to make Charlie Goodrow a little richer.”

  Griff and Tammy followed them, and Ziggy showed up soon after, slurping his Coke through a straw. There was just a little box for the quarters, but none of them put any in, and since it was honor system, they snuck through the entry feeling like delinquents. Josh didn’t, though. He felt damn good when he went in there and said, “Fifty bucks worth of the Unspeakable Mystery of the Universe.”

  The corridor was dark, but with fine spears of light that came through at the roof’s edge. They’d left the rectangular building of the Brakedown Palace, and had entered on a concrete floor, down a walkway with corrugated metal walls and what seemed to be a curved roof.

  “It’s a Quonset hut,” Josh said. “They had them on the sub base when I was a kid.”

  “Navy brat,” Tammy said, in a way that was so sexy that it nearly turned Josh on to hear her voice. She purred like a kitten sometimes.

  Then, the spears of light became brighter.Bulbs had been strung al
ong the roof, hanging down like clunky Christmas ornaments. The wiring above their heads was exposed as the lights brightened.

  “Holy shit,” Ziggy said. “This is like some freak show.”

  He pointed to the metal walls. Small dried animals hung by strings—lizards, rats, rabbits, quail.

  “That’s sick.”

  “It’s just shit you find on the desert,” Griff said. “Dried up crap and dead animals.”

  Then, as they ventured forward, they entered into a well-lit space that had poorly made wood and stone sculpture. “The ancient Aztecs were a fierce, bloodthirsty people,” Bronwyn read from the sign above the sculpture. “Jesus, some moron wrote this up. Ignorant desert scum.” Then, she glanced at the diorama. “Oh my god, look,” she said with a voice that seemed as much filled with childish wonder and still held the possibility of being disgusted, “They’re little Aztecs, sacrificing someone. How adorable. And repulsive.”

  Josh crouched down and glanced over the divider that kept the diorama and sculpture protected from tourists. “That’s funky.” It was a replica of a Mexican pyramid, about knee-high, and at the flat top, a little stone-carved man was cutting open another little stone-carved man. On the wall, beyond this, a cheap plastic replica of a Mayan calendar. “Someone’s obsessed with Aztecs and Mayans here.”

  “Some redneck who doesn’t know his history well enough,” Bronwyn said.

  “It’s like a dollhouse of death,” Tammy said, a sweet edge to her voice.

  “You’re my doll,” Griff said, pulling her tightly into him, and somehow managing to unbutton the top two buttons of her blouse at the same time.

  They moved on, down the long corridor that went, alternately, dark and then light again as various kind of bulbs and lamps lit sections, highlighting pictures that had obviously been torn from a book on the Aztecs. There was a scene of blood running from a warrior’s chest, a look of horror on his face, as several priests stood around him, with one raising his still-beating heart high. Other large pictures included a poorly done painting of what appeared to be a tomb with stone jaguars and scorpions and what Josh guessed was the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl. A crystal skull hung suspended above their heads. They all giggled and snorted or just laughed out loud as they passed through a spot-lighted area with a tall carved-wood sculpture of a naked woman. The sign behind the sculpture read, “This work of art was found behind the arroyo and is believed to have been carved by the Ancients.”

  Finally, a new doorway, and over it, the sign, “It’s not too late to turn back! You don’t want to see the Unspeakable Mystery! The Ancient Savage Flayer of Men! The Flesh-Scraper of the Pyramids of Teotihuacan!”

  Josh was the first one through the door, and what he saw there made him cry out.

  Dave Olshaker had been on the road too long, and was sleepy as hell. He and Billy Dunne had to slap each other a few times just to keep their eyes open, and then the heat of the day just fried them out, that and the piss-warm beer. Dave had to take a dump twice back in the sagebrush because something he’d eaten the night before hadn’t set well.

  But they had watched it all.

  Billy had wanted to go help with the tire change. “It’s our chance. We can help ‘em, and then beat the shit out of Griff. And you can get Tammy.”

  But Dave, not feeling so great, held back. He’d just driven around and around the narrow, dusty side road off the highway, trying to keep out of sight of the gang with the Pimpmobile.

  Once the towtruck had come out, he decided to follow it up to the Brakedown Palace, but he still stayed a ways back until he saw all of them go inside the shop.

  When he drove up to the Palace, he gassed up the car, and then, he went inside.

  “Fuel,” Billy said, grabbing Hostess Cupcakes, Twinkies, and some Drake’s Yodels from the shelves, stuffing them down his pants as if the bulge wouldn’t be noticeable.

  “That a Twinkie in your jeans or are you just happy to see me?” Dave chuckled.

  “Where’d they go anyway?” Billy asked.

  Charlie Goodrow had come back inside the shop, and pointed to the doorway in the back. “They went back there. And you’re paying for every damn Twinkie you got in your pants, kid.”

  Inside the inner sanctum, Josh was shocked by the smell—it was of some kind of church incense. The room was smoky with it.

  The others came up behind him, Tammy coughing, Ziggy saying something about getting high off “sacred fumes,” and Bronwyn pointing out the lack of ventilation, despite the cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

  But Josh had already gone over to the display case. The Mystery. The Great and Powerful It.

  With spotlights on signs and images behind it—signs that warned of ancient curses and Aztec savagery, and images of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon as well as of some man-creature covered with blood, holding what looked like a human head in his hands—a glass case stood at the center of the room, lit from beneath and behind with a cool blue and white light, and within the glass display, some kind of curved rock.

  It was in what looked like a large stone bowl. As if a geode the size of a desk had been cracked open to cradle it.

  “It’s a dead kid,” Griff said.

  “No, it’s not. Look at the hands.”

  “And feet,” Josh added. “Christ.”

  “It’s disgusting,” Tammy said.

  “I don’t know,” Bronwyn said. “Makes me feel a little creepy. But it has its good points.”

  “Like?”

  Bronwyn shrugged. “It looks like the kind of baby someone I know will have someday.”

  “Like a baby freak,” Griff said.

  The only one not talking much was Ziggy. Josh noticed that he just stood off to the side, and wouldn’t do more than peer at the Great Unspeakable Mystery from the corner of his eye, as if it reminded him of something not so wonderful.

  The thing itself was a light dusty gray color all over with a sort of brackish, almost seaweed under-color to it—faint, but noticeable. Its skull seemed enlarged, as it if were too big for the rest of its skeleton. Wrapped around its head and along its collarbone, gauze-like strips, that criss-crossed all the way to its shriveled belly. Its skin was somehow glued to the gauze, and Josh just blurted out, “It’s a mummy. A creepy little crappy mummy. These people are whack jobs to sell tickets to it.”

  Its hands were elongated, with fingers that looked more like fins that then curled into talons. At the end of its fingertips, what looked like long, sharp, curved, black, shiny, smooth stone that ended in hooks. Its feet and toenails were similar.

  In its eye sockets, two rounded turquoise stones.

  Bronwyn read aloud from one of the signs. “It is a creature of the night, although it never sleeps. But the Sun God is its enemy, and so it prefers darkness.”

  Its hands were crossed over each other, with a twisted, knotted rope keeping them together.

  “It looks like a big baby, sleeping,” Tammy cooed. “From Hell.”

  “Big ugly bondage baby,” Griff chuckled.

  “It’s the size of a kid. Maybe it’s a small adult. I can’t tell,” Bronwyn said.

  “I like the turquoise,” Tammy added. “I kept hoping we’d find someplace to find some decent jewelry out here. So far, this is the closest I’ve come to any.”

  “Maybe I should pop his little eyes out,” Griff said. “Put them in a necklace for you.”

  “Ew,” Tammy said.

  “How could they do this?” Josh asked. “They had to dig up a grave and then do something to the body? It’s sick.”

  Bronwyn lit up a cigarette. “Maybe. But you know, out here on the desert, people die, bodies are found years later. The desert mummifies them. Maybe it’s fake. I mean, it could be plastic.”

  “I bet it is,” Griff said.

  “Nope, it’s real,” Josh said.

  “No way. Look at those hands. Nobody can have hands like that. Look at them. It’s so fake it’s funny.”

  Josh leaned over
the glass cover of the display. “I can’t tell. This is probably all fake.”

  “Just lift the lid up,” Griff said. Then, he pushed Josh back a little and went to feel under the glass lid. “Here’s the hinge.” He lifted the lid up and held it back. “Touch it.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Oh, Christ, chicken shit.” Griff reached in and touched the forehead of the skull.

  For just a second, Josh felt as if something happened. Not anything awful, just as if something changed. Then, he began coughing. It was dust—the dust of the display case had come up in a brief smoky cloud and then dissipated.

  “Hell,” Griff said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s warm. This thing is warm.”

  “No shit,” Bronwyn said. “It probably bakes in here every day.”

  “No, I mean, it’s…it’s…alive!” Griff shouted and then cackled gleefully. Then, stupidly, he let go of the glass display top, and it fell backward, shattering on the floor.

  Each of them looked at the other.

  “I wonder how much that’ll cost to replace,” Bronwyn said.

  After several seconds, Josh said, “They didn’t hear it in the shop. We’re too far out here.”

  “Well, we can’t leave it like that.”

  “Oh yeah we can,” Griff said.

  That’s when Josh noticed the sign. He read it aloud. “Please Do Not Touch Glass. We at the Brakedown Palace have nicknamed this special ancient mummy, Scratch, and he has been good luck for us all these years. We must warn any who view it that there is a legend that once Scratch gets fresh human skin under its fingernails and the taste of blood, he'll come back from oblivion to reap the human harvest. Do Not Touch. Do Not Feed.”