A Mystery Story in Serial

"So this is the extent of your curse?" Sterling asked mildly. "Glasses shatter in your hands?"

Evan shrugged. "Among other things. The usual curse fare - nightsweats, terrible dreams of claustrophic darkness, lights blinking as I approach, seeing formless shadows moving on the edges of my field of vision, hearing strange noises- an unimaginative list of events, I suppose, but I confess I find them rather disconcerting."

"Tell him about the accident," Hal urged.

Evan looked annoyed for a brief moment but then he shrugged and made a helpless gesture with his hands. "That could well have been nothing but a coincidence." He smiled apologetically at Sterling. "I was driving home a few weeks ago - dead of the night, as of course a band such as ours tends to work latish hours - the other members lolling in the back paying no attention whatsoever to anything but their own inner muses, and a car came out of nowhere and smashed into our van."

"Well, that does tend to happen -" Sterling began.

"Literally out of nowhere," Hal insisted. "That stretch of freeway has unlimited visibility for miles in every direction and all of the guys agreed that there wasn't any traffic there at all. Then all of a sudden - wham!"

"They could have been mistaken," Evan said. "They were hardly in a state to judge. We often get free drinks as part of our pittance of pay for performances," he explained. "And we had been paid rather well that night, if you take my meaning."

"Had you been drinking too?" Sterling asked.

"Not that night. I was our designated driver. A repulsive term, incidentally, though that's neither here nor there. But being a rock band, and known to the authorities as such, we have to be careful. The police do like to pull us over to search for various possible infractions. You know how musicians are. Or are suspected to be, at any rate." he winked broadly.

"And then it disappeared again," Hal spoke up, stubbornly. "The cadillac, I mean."

"Well, yes, there is that," Evan agreed. "And I admit, there was no easy way for it to do so. As for its appearing from nowhere, unlimited visibility for miles is, perhaps, something of an exaggeration, but..." He shrugged. "Somehow it got away with no one seeing where it had gone. And by that time we were certainly paying attention."

"And it was a black cadillac," Hal added.

"They do exist -"

"And it had tinted windows so you couldn't see inside."

Sterling frowned. "That's illegal in this state, isn't it?."

"And no plates."

Evan shrugged. "Well, no one saw plates, but we were somewhat rattled at the time, obviously. But one supposed they had a good reason for desiring anonymity. Drug lords, perhaps, or something equally nefarious. I don't mean to make mysteries where there are none. It was probably just an accident, nothing more or less."

"Maybe." Sterling turned the skull over and over in his hands, thinking. "But you do believe this thing may be influencing your life in some way?" he asked, looking up at Evan questioningly.

"Oh, absolutely. No doubt whatsoever. Perhaps not a curse in a technical sense - I confess I know rather little of such arcane matters, my education has been strictly musical - but it's definitely doing something. And I'd just as soon it stopped. I'm beginning to find it somewhat annoying."

"If you think the skull carries a curse, why don't you just throw it away?" Sterling asked.

"I have. Repeatedly. But it keeps coming back."

Sterling's ears perked up and for the first time he found himself becoming interested. "Really?"

"You have no idea how many times I've tossed this charming fellow into the old dumpster out back," Evan said, taking the skull from Sterling's hands. "Then retired to my lonely bed with the sense of a job well done. Only to wake to find it sitting on my dresser, staring eyelessly back me. One assumes its expression was mocking, though since it has no flesh it's rather hard to tell, actually." He held the skull up next to his own head face outward and blinked owlishly, as if mocking its wide, empty stare.

"You have any proof of this?" Sterling asked.

Evan shrugged. "As I said, 'lonely bed.' Presently I suffer the misfortune of sleeping alone. Alas. Witnesses? No." He shook his head.

"Well, I did see you throw it away that one time," Hal put in. He turned to Sterling. "I was with him when he put it in the dumpster. And then the next morning, there it was on the counter again."

"But you weren't with me every moment after, Hal," Evan pointed out. "I may have gone down to retrieve it sometime during the night."

"Did you?" Sterling asked.

"No, I did not. I merely point out that I have no proof," Evan explained patiently. "Frankly, I'm less concerned with proving that it's haunting me than in eliminating its shadowy influence from my life. Let the psychics and rationalists fight out truth and falsehood amongst themselves. I simply want to be left alone with my music."

"Hmm. And you don't want to tell me where you got it?"

Evan blinked. "What gave you that idea?"

"Well, when I asked before -"

The young Englishman waved a hand. "Sorry. I got distracted. No, I have no objections whatsoever to telling you. I picked it up at a little fleamarket just down the street."

"Elbowes," Hal explained. "That's the name of the place," he added when Sterling gave him a blank look..

"I rather expect there's some obscure reference to arses to elbows in that one," Evan said. "Though of course I've never asked. One would hate to suggest such a thing and then be mistaken."

"It has all sorts of second-hand stuff," Hal told Sterling. "Most of the guys here get their clothes there. And used CDs and plates and knives and forks and whatever they need."

"And glasses," Sterling remarked. The others looked at him somewhat suspiciously. "Sorry," he half-apologized. "Just thinking out loud." He looked up to Evan. "Did you ask them about it? Like where they got it?"

Evan smiled slightly. "Clearly you're not familiar with our dear old Elbowes.."

"What does that mean?"

"It just means, no, I haven't. With good reason."

Sterling let that one go for a moment. "Have you tried giving the skull away?" he asked. "Or even selling it?"

"And saddle someone else with a curse?" Evan asked with an expression of mild incredulity. "Oh come now. I don't claim to be the most considerate man on earth, but even I have my limits. Much better to neutralize it, don't you think? If at all possible, of course."

"Have you looked into that, then?" Sterling asked. "There must be spells -"

Evan rolled his eyes. "Spells? I'm not completely gullible. I'm willing to admit that there's something disturbing about this skull because I can't deny the evidence of my own senses, but I rather doubt dancing widdershins at midnight chanting bits of bad poetry at the moon will have much influence. If there's such a thing as magic, I suspect it requires more than that to activate. Or in this case, to deactivate."

"What do you think it might take, then?"

Evan looked at him with large, seemingly innocent eyes. "Well, when it comes to that, you're the expert on such things, aren't you?" He asked. "I should imagine you have a better grasp of the necessities than I."

"One would think so," Sterling muttered. He glanced back and forth between the two young men. "You share this apartment?" he asked.

"Nope," Hal shook his head. "The Center doesn't really approve of roomies. They like one body to a room so they know who to hold accountable if anything happens."

"I believe there are some sort of local ordinances involved," Evan explained. "Just what they may be one shudders to imagine."

"I just wondered how - I mean, the skull was in the closet here, but you asked if Hal had any glasses..."

Evan smiled slightly. "A simple answer, Mr Holmes. I've asked Hal here to keep the skull here when he's out. An arrangement that allows me at least a few hours of undisturbed sleep. Of course if it caused him any problems I should immediately retrieve it, but so far..." He shrugged.

"It hasn't?" Sterling asked Hal.

The young man made a face. "It was kind of creepy the first couple of nights," he admitted. "Even though I give it back to Ev when I get home so it wasn't here anymore. Just thinking it had been around, I guess. But no, nothing has happened."

"Then why don't you just leave it here all the time?" Sterling asked. "Problem solved, right?"

Hal blanched and Evan laughed. "One imagines if there actually is a curse, it can handle only one victim at a time," the Englishman explained. "If one were to leave the skull here on a permanent basis I suspect poor Hal's peace wouldn't last very long." Then he turned serious. "I said I won't inflict anyone else with what I'm going through and I won't. I'm grateful that Hal is willing to take the skull for brief periods while I try to get some undisturbed sleep, but I won't risk his safety beyond those narrow limits. And even that..." He shook his head.

"No, for the good of everyone concerned we need to find what's at the root of this and put an end to it," he said. "Before someone gets hurt."

Read Chapter Four of The Cult of Skulls

Copyright © 2005 by Gary Raab

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