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

by Douglas Clegg

  “Scratch. Now that’s original,” Bronwyn said. "That's nothing but some little kid mummified and they stuck fake longer fingernails on him. But they call him ‘Scratch’. Lovely Mr. Goodrow.”

  “There’s something wrong with this,” Tammy said. For the first time since he’d known her, Josh felt he heard something adult in her voice, as if she’d been hiding behind a little-girl persona during college. “I don’t feel good about it.”

  “I know. It’s not right,” Ziggy said, startling the others.

  Josh turned—Ziggy had pressed himself up against the metal wall. He was tripping somehow—it looked as if he’d finally hit the legendary limit of too much weed and too much speed. “What’s up. Zig?”

  “I had a dream about this. A vision. Like a shaman.”

  Griff snorted. “Doin’ ‘shrooms, was ya?”

  “I had this vision where I saw this thing coming for me, only it was all bloody and torn up, but it had eyes just like this.”

  “It was a dream. That’s all,” Josh said.

  “I don’t know. Shit. I am never ever taking anything again,” Ziggy said. “Crap. My brain is fried. I know it is.”

  Bronwyn went over to him and touched the edge of his elbow. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Look, let’s go back down to the shop. I’m sure the car’s nearly ready. We can get some Cokes. Want a Coke? My treat.”

  "Some freak put this together," Ziggy whispered. “Some freak. Some sick nutjob. That’s a kid. Or a dwarf. Or a very little person. Jesus Holy Mother of Mary.”

  “It’s okay,” Bronwyn said, softly. She tugged at his arm, and Ziggy, head down, began walking with her down the long corridor, past the paintings and the stonework of the Quonset Hut, back to the shop at the Brakedown Palace.

  “I never wanna get that burnt out on drugs,” Tammy said. “I like weed too much.”

  “Remember that acid?”

  “Only three times,” Tammy said.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Josh said.

  “Eh, we just broke some cheap piece of glass. It’s no biggie,” Griff said. “Hey, let’s find out if this thing is real. Let’s feed it.”

  “Hardy-har-har.”

  “I mean it. Come on. We can just give it a little skin. Just a little.”

  “You’re getting creepy on me, baby,” Tammy said.

  “Creepy can be good.” Griff reached for her left breast and gave it a squeeze. Tammy slapped him hard on the cheek—the smack echoed as much as the breaking glass had.

  Josh stood there, wishing he could disappear.

  “You slut,” Griff spat, and swung a fist out at Tammy, connecting with the side of her neck. Tammy fell—knocked off her feet by the blow.

  “Hey!” Josh moved forward, grabbing Griff’s arm, pulling it back.

  Griff tugged hard, pulling Josh off-balance.

  “Leave me the hell alone!” Griff shouted. Josh wasn’t sure what he yelled back, and he was only dimly aware that Tammy was screaming and weeping in a heap in the corner, but the next thing he knew, he was thrown backward into the glass display case.

  He felt a sliver of glass go into his side, and then a sick little crunch.

  At first, he thought he’d broken his back, but then realized it was just the Unspeakable Mystery Attraction, Scratch, beneath him.

  “Shit,” Josh moaned, finally. “You probably killed me.”

  Griff’s face was deep red and sweaty—but the smash-up of the display had got his attention and stopped the fight.

  “Did I kill you?”Griff said.

  Griff gingerly pulled him up by the waist from the broken display.

  Josh felt a pain in his back and side, but after a minute, lifting his torn shirt up, Griff only found two small bits of glass, and they had just scraped his skin a bit.

  “Oh man,” Griff said.

  “You are one fat moron,” Tammy said, as if it were the worst insult she could hurl.

  “Okay. Just leave me alone,” Josh said, pulling back from Griff.

  “I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. Okay? I’m fine. Don’t touch me. And do not hit her ever again.”

  “She hit me first,” Griff said.

  “What, are you two-years’ old? She slapped you because you copped a feel. And you slugged her. Get a grip. See a psychiatrist. But don’t ever hit her again.”

  Then, to Tammy, “You okay?”

  She rubbed her neck, and accepted his outstretched hand as a lift up. “I’m fine.”

  “Oh baby, I’m sorry,” Griff said. “I’m so so sorry, baby.”

  “I know you are.” Tammy let go of Josh’s hand, and stepped toward Griff.

  I do not believe this, Josh thought. They are going to kiss and make up.

  And that’s when he happened to glance down and see the body of Scratch.

  "Fucking corpse," Griff said, squatting down it.

  “Holy shit,” Josh said. “We broke it.”

  “Goddamn kids,” a gruff voice from down the corridor.

  Josh spun around—it was none other than Charlie Goodrow with a big shotgun at his side.

  “Holy mother of fuck!” one of them shouted.

  Josh wasn’t even sure who’d shouted, and it might’ve even come from his mouth. They all went running—at least that’s what it seemed like—Josh pushing Bronwyn forward through the final door that expelled them into blinding sunlight. They just ran as fast as they could to the car, which was parked just outside the garage bay at the side of the Brakedown Palace Gas & Sundries building. Josh noticed that the gas cap was off, but that didn’t matter. They had to get the hell out of there.

  “Where’s Griff?” Tammy cried out, alternately laughing hysterically and whining a bit.

  “Just get in!” Josh said, shoving her into the back of the car. Ziggy, somehow, had already managed to squeeze into the back ahead of them.

  “Hurry up! He’s crazy!” Bronwyn shouted from the frontseat.

  Then, there was the sound of the shotgun’s blast.

  “Griff!” Bronwyn shouted.

  But Griff came running around the corner with what looked like a kid in his arms. He was laughing hysterically as he ran.

  “Go! Go!” he shouted and then leapt into the shotgun seat of the car, squeezing Bronwyn over into Josh’s driver’s seat. Josh got the car in reverse, and his foot dropped heavily onto the accelerator. The car screeched, and then he put it in drive, but it went in neutral instead. The thought flashed through his mind that the engine would stall, but he knocked the lever into drive, and at that moment, here’s what he saw, frozen in some strange tableau, as if he’d set off a flash camera to stop the action of life for a moment:

  Not Charlie Goodrow running from the back of the Palace, but someone who looked big and slovenly and had a little blonde sidekick with him. It registered who it was:

  Dave Olshaker? What the—

  Then the action of life began again, and Dave limped and half-jogged toward them.

  “I been shot!” Dave shouted, clutching his ass. “I been shot!”

  “Sons of bitches!” his sidekick shouted at them.

  “Tammy! I love you, baby! Come back to me!” Dave howled, and then fell to the pavement, his hands still nursing his butt.

  But the Pimpmobile was already heading out onto the service road, kicking up dust and gravel in its wake.

  “This is just too much to process,” Bronwyn said when Josh finally slowed the car down, having driven off the road a little, out behind a hill, at least twenty miles away from the Brakedown Palace.

  “What the hell was Olshaker doing there? What the hell?” Josh asked, glancing in the rearview mirror at Tammy, who glared back at him.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I dumped him a long time ago. I guess some people just never give up.”

  “He’s a prick,” Griff said. “But looks like he got shot up in the hiney.”

  And it was sometime between spinning out of the gas station, and getting
out onto the dusty road, that Josh realized what Griff had brought with him.

  The Unspeakable Scratch.

  “Little bastard,” as Ziggy started to call it.

  “You stole that thing?”

  “Come on. It’s not just a thing. It’s the Unspeakable Mystery of the Ancient Aztecs,” Griff said, holding his prize up on his lap, like a ventroloquist’s dummy. “Hello, my name is Scratch.”

  “I gotta pee,” Tammy said. “Come on. I gotta pee. When I get nervous, I gotta pee.”

  “Okay, okay,” Bronwyn said. “Get out and go take a leak.”

  “Come with me. I’m scared.”

  Bronwyn made a noise of moderate disgust from the back of her throat, but flicked her cigarette out into the dirt and pushed Griff and his stolen Mystery out of the car.

  “What, are you two years’ old?” she asked Tammy.

  “There might be snakes. And scorpions.”

  “One can only hope,” Bronwyn said.

  “What happened back there?”

  “It was funny as hell,” Griff said. “That old man came at us with the gun, but he didn’t know that Olshaker and his buddy were right behind him. God knows what the hell Olshaker’s doing out here. He’s obsessed with my girl, and I guess he’s been trailing us. Well, the old guy spun around, Olshaker squealed like a little kid and tried to grab the shotgun. I was surprised to see the little shit myself, but after you guys took off, you missed the best part—Olshaker and his buddy fighting with the old guy for the shotgun, and I just saw this little fella and decided he’d be great back at The House.”

  Griff always referred to his frat house as The House. Scratch would not be the first thing he’d ever stolen for The House. He had a stag’s head from one of the Dean’s homes, up in the balcony room on the second floor, and he’d even stolen a trophy from a rival football team and they had it in the basement of The House.

  “Imagine this little guy up on the mantle during a party. Cowabunga!” He laughed, pulling the little mummy’s arms up in the air, pretending to talk with a babyish voice. “I’m the Monster of the House! Wheee!”

  “Why’d you steal it?”

  He shrugged. “Chill out. He’s all broke up around the ribs. We’d have had to pay for it anyway.” Then, he held up one of Scratch’s fingernails. “See? Broke right off.”

  He passed it over to Josh, who nearly pricked his finger on the sharp tip.

  “It’s obsidian. Like a knife. Sharp as hell.”

  “I think it’s a cool souvenir from this crappy trip,” Griff said.

  Ziggy in the backseat had already lit up a joint, and he and Griff passed it back and forth, waiting for the girls to come back to the car.

  They were all quiet for a minute or two, and then Ziggy said, “Just don’t feed that little bastard.”

  “Huh?”

  “It said don’t feed it.”

  “I wonder what it eats,” Griff said. “I mean, if it eats skin or blood, then I hate to say it, but our buddy Josh already gave it it’s first meal. Look.” Griff pressed his finger to Scratch’s clenched jaws. He drew his finger back and held it up. A tiny spot of blood. “When you fell on it, buddy. It got a little taste o’ Joshua.”

  “We’re so very, very screwed,” Ziggy said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Josh laughed. “Oh my god, Ziggy, give up the weed. It’s messing with your head. I mean it. Give it up.”

  “No, we’re cursed. I know we are. That little bastard was in my vision dream. Shamans used mushrooms and herbs and weed to see things. I saw it. I had a shaman trip. I saw the little bastard in it. We’re up shit’s creek like nobody’s ever been up shit’s creek.”

  “Further up the creek than you’d guess, Plow-boy” Griff said. He pointed to the gas gage.

  It was just beneath empty.

  “Great. Just great,” Josh said, hitting the horn with his fist.

  The sound of the horn echoed across the dusty road.

  After a minute, Ziggy said, “Throw the little bastard out. It’s bad luck.”

  The trunk of the Pimpmobile popped up.

  “This is the ugliest, nastiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Josh said. “When we get going again, we’re going to return it. We are.”

  “No way,” Griff said, heaving Scratch into the back of the trunk, among the girl’s suitcases and the guys’ backpacks and clothes.

  They both stared at it.

  “What were you thinking? What was going on in that mind of yours? You thought, ‘I’ll add robbery to my college career. Not just robbery, but stealing a nasty stupid sick little gas station mummy that’s probably covered with some diseases lice or something’.”

  “Look. Live slow, die slow if you want. I watched my grandpa live like that and he ended up spending ten years in a damn nursing home. You live like that, you get a long boring life. Go ahead, have that life. Someday when you’re in that nursing home sucking back puree and shittin’ your diapers, you’re going to remember this moment,” Griff said, chuckling. “You’ll remember its face. Look at it. With its little grin. It’s kinda cute.”

  “That’s not a grin. That’s dried up flesh around clenched teeth in some old corpse with an enlarged skull. That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Don’t say that about my newborn baby. It’s grinning,” Griff said, and then slammed the trunk closed. He slapped his hand around Josh’s shoulder. “It does not get cooler than this.”

  “You just put a corpse in with my clothes,” Josh said.

  “Don’t think of it as a corpse. Think of it,” Griff said, “as a memento.”

  Tammy dropped her jeans and stepped out of her panties to squat down and take a leak.

  “You okay?” Bronwyn asked, her back to Tammy.

  “Fine.”

  “Olshaker must really love you,” Bronwyn said.

  “Like a bounty hunter,” Tammy said. Then, when she was done, she got back into her panties and jeans, zipping up. “He’s a guy I’d like to put in jail.”

  “He steal something of yours?”

  “Maybe,” Tammy said. “You got a smoke on you?”

  “Sure,” Bron said. “Here ya go.” She passed her one of the few remaining cigarettes. Then, she slid one out of the pack for herself and lit it up. Sucked in that first taste of smoke.

  “I know I’m going to have to quit someday. Everybody either quits or gets cancer.”

  “Or both,” Tammy said, lighting hers from Bronwyn’s.

  “When I’m having a bad day, a smoke just takes the edge off things.”

  “How true. I started when I was fourteen because I saw an ad with these beautiful women smoking and I just wanted to be one of them. Stupid, huh? But I was fourteen and I didn’t look like much then and I just wanted to be grown-up more than anything in the world.” Tammy blew a perfect smoke ring into the air.

  “I started smoking when my folks split. I was a little younger than that. I thought I was intellectual to do it. I thought all these French intellectuals smoked, why not me?” Bronwyn laughed, coughing out a brief white cloud. “I think that’s pretty stupid, too. I snuck cigarettes from my mother’s purse. She didn’t smoke much, so she always had a full pack. She never mentioned the ones that were missing.”

  “We have a lot in common,” Tammy grinned. “I snuck smokes from my older brother’s sock drawer. They always smelled a little like dirty feet because he rarely ever washed his gym socks and he just balled them up and threw them in there on top of his packs of Marlboro.”

  Bronwyn let out a guffaw. “I had a boyfriend once who never washed anything. He smelled like a locker-room half the time.”

  They both puffed on their cigarettes.

  Tammy said, softly, “You still love Griff.”

  Bronwyn took a breath. “Yeah, I guess I do. I guess I do.” She glanced over at Tammy and chuckled slightly. “It’s stupid, I know. I’m practically the top of our class, I’m planning to get a master’s and then maybe even a Ph.D., and he pr
obably wants the kind of woman who…” Realizing what she’d just begun saying, she added, “I don’t mean…what it sounds like…I mean…I mean, what I mean—”

  Tammy cut her off. “I know how you think of me. I know what the other girls think, too. But what you don’t know about me could fill a book. But I know what you mean.”

  “I’m a jerk,” Bronwyn said.

  “I like him,” Tammy said. “But he’s not the kind of guy you’re really supposed to fall in love with.”

  The sky was beautiful and Bronwyn’s eyes started filling with tears, which she quickly wiped away.

  Tammy slung an arm over Bronwyn’s shoulder. “You should find someone new. He’s not the best guy. He’s a fun guy. But he’s not right for you. Or for me. We’re gonna break up.”

  “What? You have all this…sex all the time.”

  “Sure,” Tammy said, puffing on the cig. “I like sex with him. He likes sex with me. But there’s not much else.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I know what that ‘oh’ means. ‘Oh, you’re happy being a slut’. Just because I like to party and have a little fun, doesn’t mean I am just some mindless bimbo. Look, we’re in college. Someday I’m going to be like my mother. I know it. I can feel it. All uptight and full of rules and making sure the silver’s polished for Thanksgiving, even if I have some half-assed career. I know I’m headed that way. And I want to put that off as long as possible. I don’t want a ring on my finger, not yet. Not for years. And Griff is…Griff is a pretty boy. He’s a jock. He’s a guy who’s young and has fun and gets along with nearly everybody when he’s not acting like a four-year-old. He’s not long-term for me. Or for you.”

  “Says you.”

  “That’s right,” Tammy said. “Says me.”

  “You don’t think you might be hurting yourself?” Bronwyn asked.

  Tammy drew back a little, and began walking back to the car. She turned around to glance back at Bronwyn, after just a few steps forward. “You might just ask yourself that same question.”

  After the girls got back, they all piled back into the Pimpmobile. Josh drove another few miles along the road, but finally the car came to a sputtering halt.