Chapter 1: Curiosity
Once is curiosity,
Twice is a fool,
Thrice is a face on the wall
Curiosity
There is that house on every block, full of dirty wooden slats and long grass leading up to the cracked wooden picket fence. People always seem drawn to such creepy houses. They are drawn to it like a fish caught on a line. Especially so are children seeing within objects that really appeal to them.
Anyone who travels through the grass and makes it through the front doors finds a whole new world. Moving from town to town, they are invisible to the horrors that lie within these walls.
Myriads of dense flies are ladled within the spider’s webs, in every eave of the roofing. Evil waits, always waiting, unheard by the passerby; this house was a place like no other abandoned house.
Often children are drawn here by some strange irresistible magnetism. A ball through the window, the lure of a fixable broken bicycle, or some well-kept doll.
The house was the vile Witch opening her deadly shark like maw leading them into a dream; along the leaves up the drive. Once inside they felt ticks and fleas, an itch that and scratch at one’s heels.
Who knew the mystery Dirigible houses, of course this mystery of its sudden disappearance of children came from town to town. Witches do not ride on broom sticks, but in moving houses floating in the air like balloons; house of terrors waiting for more children. And as soon as the house had its full garden and all, it disappeared to another place or time.
One such mystical dirigible house found itself on Carver Street. A couple of kids took notice of it and made their plans to seek out its treasures. Five in all; Simon, Desmond, Keisha, Mel and Don, the horror club. They dared not go by daylight, as it may be called in as trespassing. So, it would have to be night. They all knew what would work and what would not. They would soon wish that the tropes of horror films would hold up true, for example one: the rules of horror movie lore, don’t run upstairs etc. and the like.
2
They tried the door, but it was locked.
“We should crawl under the hose, sometimes there is a latch opening.”
They all agreed. First was to light the candles with a match. Another rule of horror movies is that lighters would fail, and torches would flicker and die out if there was something supernatural in the air. All this rom watching horror film after, noting that these things would fail in the movies they had seen. They pulled out their candles and lit them with a match and began their descent beneath the house.
It was dark and cramped but they crawled along steadily. After a while, there was a hatch. Simon tried it, but it seemed locked or jammed from time and rust.
Don, who was the strongest of the group said, “Let me have a go.”
There were no keyholes, so he assumed the hinges were just rusted. He pushed and pushed, “A little help here please.” He whispered to the group. They all pushed together and snapping sound of the trapdoor giving,” One more push should do it “He said confidently. Snap! The door was open. Don was both relieved and that his idea had worked. Now for the adventure of exploration.
3
They entered a bare room with white tiles. No lavatory, no mirrors or windows.“
‘What is this place meg asked’ Meg asked in whispers
“No Idea” Don replied.
“Come on, treasure lies within, through that door.” Keisha replied.
They pushed at the door, it didn’t creak or make a sound, but what they saw horrified them. It was a corridor of living flesh. Faces moved, their togues cut out and teeth, missing, occasionally there was an arm without fingers reaching out to grab something, probably them they assumed. This was horror that they never expected. Simon pulled out his Zippo lighter, which he had brought in case. There was awful moaning coming from these walls.
‘Which way?’ Simon deliberated among the moans and cries.
“Left, always left, is it how horror games work, right? They turned left, dodging the reaching fingerless arms. They were heading for the front door. The sight being too much for them, utterly horrific. When a voice came from behind them, more of a cacophony of voices, inhuman, it came from behind them. They did not want to look, but compulsion is a strange thing. They turned around and were terrified of what they saw.
They stood ambling one floor to the other. Only in nightmares were such things, how could this be in the real world.
It stared at them for a moment, then words proceeded from their mouths if you could call it that. It was covered in fur and had three, maybe four heads. One was a wolf howling, the face of some prehistoric bird screeched, and another was a broken human head, deformed and it spoke. But when it spoke, all the other creatures attached to it formed grotesque words, that made you want to run, but their feet were firmly planted in fear where they stood.
Their voices alone were wild and evil sounding, but they came together in one voice.
“Once is curiosity,
Twice is a fool,
Thrice is a face on the wall
The front door is not an option; go the way you came in.” It was pure chaos and cacophony. They ran back into the tiled room with no windows and a strong smell of bleach. Don managed to open the hatch, and as they each passed through relief was growing in their hearts. First Meg, the Eisha, then Don. But the door slammed shut before Simon could get through. The voices called from outside the room, “Looks like you’re here to stay” it said with menace. The beast entered the tiled room backwards and could finally see what the other deformed beast was. It was a porcupine with large teeth and shot out a piercing spine that entered his neck.
“We guess you’ll be our guest this evening as everything turned black and he was gone.
4
When Simon awoke, he was in deep discomfort. He was in a chair like cage. His temples had been screwed with bolts so that he could not move his head left or right. The arm and feet cages left him merely inches of movement. Was this how he was going to die, by torture. A sharp stiletto blade struck between his fingers. His mind was full of questions, but no answer came when the second strike of the blade came before his next finger. Then a third and then a fourth.
A gravely woman’s voice said to him “Are you afraid boy?”
The first question out of his mouth was “Are you that scary beast in the hall?”
“No, I am worse!”
“Then how come you keep missing my fingers?” He had kept them in place the entire time.
“I like to play” she returned rasping.
“I’ve been in worse situations at home” he put bluntly.
Simon knew that moving one finger, he would lose it, He kept his hand solid and in one position. He did not shake or allow himself to be afraid.
Her face moved out of the shadow, right up to his, caged as it was.
The sight was unbearable. She had no hair in the front of her face, where the left side exposed a giant scar with one grey eye.
“Why are you not afraid boy!” she spat, “Am I not the most wretched thing you’ve ever seen, this experience that would make most men weep?”
He spoke slowly, “My stepfather is scarier.”
“How so?” she rasped.
The creature lay silent behind him, waiting for any reason to inflict pain.
“I could put you in my wall of flesh!”
My stepfather, when drunk, would find anything irritating I did, take me to my room, gag and blindfold me. He would strike with a leatherbound steel pole at my legs. The next thing I knew my pants were at my feet and he beat me and beat me, until he did worse…”
“Stop!” the grotesque face showed some pity, at least in the one eye. She got up, hunched and with cane in hand she almost crawled to his side and undid the shackles on his hands, feet and face, hissing as she did so.
“Don’t run little boy.” Those words did scare him. He’d heard them from his father.
“You are more like me than you think. I was once like you…”
The creature stirred.
“You know the story of Goldilocks and the three bears… You can call me Goldy, but certainly not godly.”
“Leaning up to his ear, she told him the story, “This is the story as it should be told. I was a curious girl, attracted to this house, because I had no home, what lay in the window looked too inviting to resist, food. No one was there, I moved from plate to plate, because I found blood in each bowl except the last, which I quickly devoured. It made me feel a little drowsy, so I stumbled past the wall of flesh and wailing mouths, but my weariness prevented me from hearing them because now my body and my eyes felt heavy. I made it up the stairs, to find three nests, the smallest being the softest, so I lay there and drifted off. I little while later I was roused from my slumber by the door slamming, and this curious roaring that at first was masked by the rain. I then noticed they were not nests, but beds of straw, and the headboards of faces, mouths sewn shut and eyes looking down at me. Only the medium sized bed had no headboard. What I heard downstairs was not human, nor animal. I climbed out of the second story window and lowered myself to the ground, but I slipped and in falling damaged my leg… as you see. Before I knew it, two terrifying beasts, one with 8 heads, another with three, and the smallest left behind. I sped on through the rain, stumbling as I went, until I fell through the gates of a graveyard, and kept hobbling. I hid behind a gravestone and peeked out. The two largest beasts didn’t notice where I was until I turned and looked. They were being sucked into the soil of the graveyard. One grabbed my face scourging it with heat, but I pulled back and another ripped off my scalp and they were gone. Whether it was because it was holy ground or that the grave wanted them back, the truth was in the riddle:
Once is curiosity
Twice the fool,
Thrice the face upon the wall of flesh.
They were back in the house, yet I didn’t know it yet. On the wall of flesh. The little one beckoned to me from the house window, and I relented out of pity, I was not afraid. Blood ran down my face, and I could barely walk yet had a newer strength in me. It must have been the stuff I had eaten.
He or she recited the riddle to me and I understood. Should I enter the house again, I would have no return except in suffering. And such has been my life, replacing the straw of the second bed with a mattress from the attic, where mind you many a strange thing may be found there. But now only for your eyes.
You remind me of that young thing, screeching for its parents, and I returned, never to venture out again. But the house had one other secret. It moves, town to town, neighborhood to neighborhood, awaiting other curios fool like me to enter. I must feed this beast, not blood mind you, or it may become a monster like its parents, but by some strange magic, that pot in the corner, the porridge I ate has given me long life and never seems to empty. If I get tired, there are always chickens and other beasts on the wall, but be warned, for by cutting them out you inflict pain upon that whole corridor. When I returned, I found the little beasts’ parents, like molded statues on either side of the door, immobile. That is my story, and it is not such a lonely one, there’s Mike behind you (because of the spines), and the faces on the wall are foolish enough to return. I am going to let you go now, but remember no evil deed goes unpunished, but don’t be a fool and return here forever, who knows where you’ll end up.”
He noticed a telephone and a delivery driver sitting next to it.
“And this works?
“You can’t live on porridge every day, so a pizza or burger could be ordered at any time. I shouldn’t tell you this, but there is a ton of cash among other things in the attic that would last a lonely resident a lifetime of junk food.”
As he was being walked with her to the front door. Remember: Twice is the fool, thrice is a face of flesh on these walls.“Another thing, never feed the faces or give them what they want, you’ll release them all as monsters into the world as you know it”
Simon was silent, he did not want to go home, the abuse he suffered there was far worse than these wretched creatures, especially Goldy and Mike too. But he did. It was midday and he would catch hell from his stepfather Jacob. How could life be so evil, when monsters were so compassionate? He decided to meet up with Ron and head home when his mother came home from her shift.
“Don’t come back, unless you like it here.” a smile on the haggard face of Goldy. She had her own plans.
He tried to explain what happened to Ron, but he remembered none of it. Well, I guess people forget the monsters they have seen in their mind, like bad dreams.
