“The Djinn in the Horse Head”

By outward appearances, there was nothing remarkable about the horsehead bookend – smoothly carved from black stone, expression unreadably bland. The weirdest thing was its lack of counterpart, and I looked all over the booth trying to find one. Bookends usually come in pairs – obviously – but this one was alone.

I meandered around, selected a few more things, nothing special – a candlestick holder, a little vase – and $23.67 later, emerged from the dimly lit shop, blinking in the warm May sunlight.

The vase was for my mom. Mother’s Day was fast approaching and I wanted to give her something thoughtful, and I knew she’d love it. The candle holder and horsehead were for me. I was looking forward to a late-night reading session with a little candle burning in the holder and the watchful, mysterious bookend for company.

If only I’d known then what I know now.

I never would have touched that horsehead.

* * * * * *

It was technically a day early but I didn’t want to wait, so I gave mom her present on Saturday.

She was thrilled with the vase, making an extra big deal out of something that wasn’t that special, but I was pleased she liked it. She made a show of picking some lilacs – early this year – and sticking them in the vase, prominently displayed in the kitchen window.

I know being a teenager means it’s deeply uncool to love your mom, but we’ve always been close. She is a tiger when it comes to her kids, and she stood by me without flinching, from the really crummy times in middle school, to high school, when peers are the shittiest people on the planet.

Everything was always eventually okay, because she made it okay.

I’m one of the lucky ones.

Or at least, I was.

But that night, I settled in for my indulgent reading session, taper candle flickering deliciously eerily, horsehead standing alertly on my bedside table.

I’m not superstitious, but I love horror, and I was deep in the clutches of Lovecraft’s ‘The Hound’, when the grandfather clock on the landing scared the absolute shit out of me, booming brutally loudly, announcing three o’ clock. I jumped like a rabbit, heart pounding, then laughed a little self-consciously for being so stupid.

But the clock doesn’t normally sound the hours. Its deep, resonant voice was still echoing through the hallways, which was weird because it’s always silent. We have it set specifically not to chime.

I tried to shake it off and go back to my story, but my gaze landed on the horsehead. I swear to god it was glowing faintly silver in the candlelight, which made even less sense than the clock chiming, but I blinked hard and the glow disappeared.

What the hell?

I reached for it curiously and turned it over in my hands, examining carefully for any signs of the extraordinary. Not totally surprised but a little disappointed when I didn’t find anything. Just the same, smooth, kind of plain carving and not much else.

I set it back on the stand, absently rubbed its forehead, and went back to my book.

I hadn’t even gotten the book open when a cold wind suddenly rushed through my bedroom, extinguishing the candle, whispering across my skin like ice. My lamp flickered, then stabilized. Then a silver light suddenly flashed brilliantly in my room, blinding me while I sat dumbfounded in bed, clutching my book like a teddy bear. I blinked furiously, until my vision cleared.

Nothing looked different. The lamp was casting its normal light, the book was still in my hands, the bookend sat right where I’d left it. The candle was even burning again. But I know what I felt, what I saw.

What the HELL?

Hairs prickling on the back of my neck, I got up to check on my little brother, Rory. It was kind of weird that he was still quiet after the grandfather clock incident, because he’s just little – a baby, really – and doesn’t sleep very well on the best of nights. But he hadn’t made a peep about the clock, and after a cold wind and silver lightning in my room, I felt the need to check, deeply shaken, not knowing why.

I padded silently down the hallway, book in hand. His bedroom door was cracked open a smidge, so I pushed it open the rest of the way and felt instantly better.

Mom was rocking him in the willow-wicker rocking chair, cradling him gently, singing soft lullabies.

No wonder he was quiet. Those lullabies are magic, and I’m not ashamed to say she used to sing them to me, as late as middle school. When I came home sobbing and couldn’t settle down. Not until she ruffled my hair, smiling sweetly, squeezing me tight, and sang lullabies.

I smiled, leaning against the doorframe, watching her rock Rory-bear, soothing us both with her voice.

She looked up and smiled back – but just for a second. Because in the next moment, her glance traveled over my shoulder and her expression twisted in a grotesque mask of horror, worse than anything I’d ever seen, not even in my nightmares.

My body froze instantly, pulse racing, cold sweat drenching my pajamas when I felt that icy wind again, this time at my back. I could only watch, petrified, as a silver fog materialized at my side, then slowly took shape. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. A person? An alien? A creature?

It was humanoid, but that’s where any similarity ended. Lean and smoothly muscled, with flashes of silver light streaking restlessly, at irregular intervals beneath its bluish-grey skin. Strange markings covered the surface, almost like tattoos, but I didn’t recognize the symbols. Its ears tapered into sharp points, predatory and alert, teeth pale and sharp. Silver eyes too bright to look at without feeling a sudden, searing pain in my head.

I wanted so badly to scream, to fling myself between mom and Rory-bear, and this…this thing. But I couldn’t move. Neither could mom. She’d stopped rocking, her voice had gone silent. Rory started to cry.

One second it was at my side, the next it materialized at mom’s. Looking down at her, grinning evilly. I would have given anything to be able to do something – anything – but I was a useless statue, an idiotic block of ice, a brainless rock. I couldn’t scream, or cry, or even blink.

All I could do was watch in horror while it turned back into silvery smoke and filtered lazily into my mom’s nose and mouth, invading more deeply with each panicked inhale.

Mom and I locked gazes, both of us scared, not understanding, helpless. It ripped my heart to pieces, knowing she was in pain, I could tell by her eyes. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Tears slipped silently down her cheeks but the smoke kept disappearing into her nose, her mouth, making her breathe it in like poison.

When she’d breathed the last of it, her eyes flashed briefly silver and I knew my mom was gone. This thing had taken over. It smiled brilliantly at me, with teeth that weren’t quite hers, with eyes that hurt me to the core, with lips that curled viciously, a cruelty inhabiting her face that didn’t belong there.

It turned its gaze to Rory and cooed softly, instantly shutting him up. No way he knew what was happening – hell, neither did I – but he went quiet, out of fear or something else.

Then the thing started singing. Soothing little lullabies, in hushed and silvery tones, in a voice that wasn’t mom’s but also partly was. A bit richer, a bit more melodic, almost luxurious. With an undertone of seduction woven throughout, making me feel a sharp stab of guilt for listening to it and not hating it.

Almost like when you’re poring over truly filthy shit online instead of doing your homework, and you’re worried you’ll get caught – or go to hell – but you keep looking at it. It felt like that.

I stood in frozen guilt, listening to it sing lullaby after lullaby, rocking my baby brother, until he was just drifting off to sleep. Then it opened its mouth and started breathing deeply, as though sucking the air away from him.

And I had to watch, for the second time, as this thing wounded my family without being able to do a damn thing to stop it.

A glow started in Rory’s tummy, then solidified in orb shape. It was beautiful and it felt pure and sacred. A shiver danced over my spine when I thought – stupidly – I was seeing his soul. For a minute, I was so struck by wonder and awe, I forgot what was happening. But then it all came back in a crash when the thing inhaled even deeper, breathing almost aggressively, greedy for the orb of light. It sucked the orb from Rory’s body, through his mouth and up to its fangs, and swallowed the light with a disgusting gulp.

All the light in Rory’s body went out. And I don’t mean light from a lamp, or a flashlight. I mean light. The energy, the aura that tells you someone is alive. It’s like this monster just flicked a switch and Rory died. Just like that.

One minute he was a vibrant, playful, energetic little newborn, and the next, nothing. A paperweight. A lump of skin and baby chubbiness and soft bones, and nothing else.

I could feel bile rising in my throat when the creature looked up and grinned, then yawned ferociously, showing all its hideous fangs. Like it just devoured the most enormously satisfying dinner, but now it was really tired and needed a nap.

Something in me snapped.

I finally broke free of whatever hold it had and did the only thing I could think of – I hurled my book at it.

Not very heroic, I know, but it was the best I could manage.

The monster laughed, swatting the book away with one careless swipe of its claws. Then it blew me a kiss, blinded me with another flash of silver lightning, and disappeared.

By the time I could see again, mom’s body was slumped over in the rocking chair, Rory’s lifeless form cradled limply in her arms.

I screamed bloody murder.

And screamed, and screamed.

I couldn’t stop screaming.

I screamed till my eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head. I screamed till my throat was on fire, till it felt like my lungs were bleeding.

Long after dad came sprinting from his room, oblivious to everything that had just happened, trying to hold me and comfort me, checking on mom and Rory, calling emergency services. Long after they’d arrived, waiting in my dad’s arms, eyes fixed in horror on the bodies of my mom and brother. Long after both were pronounced dead, after preliminary sympathies were offered, after my dad started sobbing.

Long after all of that, I kept screaming and didn’t stop.

Not until one of the medics gently pressed a needle to my neck and the room went dark.

* * * * * *

Dad comes to visit me in the insane asylum, but we don’t say much.

He looks older, and more tired, with each visit. I tell him not to come, that it’s okay, I know it would be better if he forgot all about me. I am the monument to our horror, it lives in me, I keep it alive just by breathing. He should move on. Start a new life with a new family and pretend like ours was all just a bad dream.

I like my dad just fine, but I’m not sure we ever really knew how to love each other. Mom was my heart. And Rory was my sweet baby brother. But dad? We were always just vaguely polite roommates more than anything else.

But he keeps coming to see me, looking older and wearier every time. One of these days, I’ll just tell the nursing staff not to let him in. Set him free from his parental obligations, send him off to live an actual life. At least he still has a chance.

My heart died with mom and Rory, when that thing murdered them.

I can’t stop seeing it. Reliving that scene in my memory, in my dreams.

The nursing staff are so kind, they’ve read my file, they know what I told the police and later, the psychiatrists. I am sure of what I saw, even if I don’t understand any of it. They suggest all kinds of rational explanations, but I’m not having it. I stick stubbornly to my story, because I know it’s the truth.

My art projects are all of smoke and lightning and death, the name Lullaby Lucie scrawled all over them, so deeply I tear through the paper sometimes without realizing it. I don’t remember writing it, or even thinking of it, but I repeat it like a poisonous mantra. The ghost that haunts me, along with the memories of mom and Rory. Locked in my mind forever, until the moment of my death.

I know it will be here. I know I will be an inmate in this asylum until I die. I pretend I’m in a Lovecraft story sometimes, that I’m one of the characters and this…this tale has happened to me and it’s just print in a book, nothing more. Just a bit of entertainment for someone to read and shiver and then laugh about because it’s not real, it didn’t really happen, it can’t happen to them.

I even call this Arkham Asylum, which feels uncomfortably apt, but the staff play along because they’re nice. They call me Lovecraft sometimes, one of the few things that actually makes me smile.

I keep to myself, imagining that thing. How it murdered my family and stole my life.

I wonder if it’s still out there.

It breaks my heart. And it doesn’t stop breaking, like Sisyphus condemned to push his rock up the hill for eternity, pointless and cursed. The pain never ends, and my heart never stops breaking.

Because I think that it is.

I wish for a lot of things. I wish that I’d never gone to that antique store. That I’d never seen the horse head. That I’d just walked away. That I hadn’t brought it into my house, my life, endangered my family. That I hadn’t touched it. That I hadn’t let it murder my mom and brother. That none of this would have happened. That it wasn’t my fault.

But most of all, more than anything else, with a feverish ache that burns my bones…

I wish this was just a story.