Curiosity Killed the Man

‘Twas a busy, bright, and humid day as the beating sun bore down on the denizens of The Town Olivia. Everyone had places to appear, missions to partake, and journeys to see through. If one were to rest in The Town Olivia, sojourn must they, for if one were to entertain settlement it would surely be the grave. The Town Olivia was rather small, yet a hefty fog entombed the busiest of its streets. What with the fog and the dense population, I, with no destination, traveled a road only few have known; so few, the fog ne’er dared a plume to find scarce food. Having turned the corner, trees and townhomes walled both my sides as I motored down the old and pot-hold path. Further through I went the walls would rise – the hills grew, and the houses grew, as I traveled down this winding road in The Town Olivia. When the hill released its gated breath the road became the most turbulent; the dead hill with its determined claws of rigor mortis had latched on to shake, rattle, and blunder my poor motor. With the aggravated exhale of its tires came the cessation of its futile perseverance. Vehicle pushed to the yellowed curb of the depression, I inhaled the humidity as I started towards the trunk compartment of my mauled motor-steed. That is, until a peculiar figure appeared and stealthily sat in the corner of my vision. 

In the center of the turbulent trail sat a bleakly cunning black cat, phosphorescent yellow eyes boring into the depths of my countenance. It was unnerving, the feeling of a mere animal stripping my body of its soul and leaving it on display. That cat’s coat was rather clean and sleeked tight to the beast’s bones, giving its small face a rather triangular shape, ears like horns warding off any and all oppressors. A curiously conscious little thing. The beast was bordered by an air of intent and barely barred malice - the same of what one would find in a spiteful primate behind the bars of a fetid zoo. I, with my keen collecting eye, could almost make out a subtle smile. Surely, I couldn’t have found myself mistaken, yet a measly cat could never be so resentful, so full of barely-restrained scorn which would give the most fearsome of men a fitful night’s futile reach for rest. Still, I found myself compelled to follow the trail of the cat’s tail up the winding road, its cat-cord sashaying before the horizon of the boy-blue sky meeting the end of the dullardous road. 

That graceful beast laid its behind upon the road and searched back once again for my person. It had reached the corner of a cul-de-sac, a long, scooping, curved and dark pore, lined with the decently-sized homes of the suburban middle class. The entrance was crowded by the poorest of the folk, houses growing larger and more looming the further one peers into the collection of homes. The cat started again and continued into the pore. I followed. The deeper I traveled, the more haunted I became. The houses became less like homes and more like shells, those eye-like windows growing more and more vacant, building by building. Lawns kept for show, paint ne’er a-peeling. Stealing the breath from out my lungs, and nearly rooting my soles to the stone, was the sky–or rather, what appeared to be a ceiling. After entering this cave of a commune, one look at the sky gives one the impression it was merely painted above the houses. Artificial, and entirely for presentation. Nevertheless, the cat continued marching on, familiar and unfazed.

As I followed the black cat into the depths of the curve, two things set me unnerved: one, the cat’s fur had become voluminous over the course of a few traveled yards. The cat became thicker, almost like a cloud of fur reaching for the sky after having fallen to the earth; two, the once clear sky became bombarded with oppressingly dreary 2-D clouds hell-bent on churning the humidity of the air. And right underneath the eye of it all, at the very bottom of the house pouch, was the largest of the buildings in the vicinity. At the bottom of the structure and meeting the dirt was a collection of bricks, carefully arranged to base the woods and to fortify the depths of the cavern. Rising to the mysticism of space were panels of wood, standing as prison bars and leaving little room for breath. The planks arranged on the sides of that shell-like building were painted an old yellow, while the face of it was smothered in fresh grey, as if the owner was due to conceal the remainder of a dirty past. There was no light left in its empty eyes, aside from an itty candle posturing itself at the bottom of the highest window.

This house was the – now incredibly puffy – cat’s object, and, soon enough, the two of us had reached the yellow, holey driveway. The cat moved no further, but looked back at me one last time. Its breast had become white, its yellow eyes dilated. A metal door creaked open and it lept, dashing to the back of the looming, monstrous structure.

“Is that who I think it is? Geoffrey Gall?” called a very projected voice, followed by an exaggerated, and strained, gasp. My eyes snapped from the previous position of that cat up to a rather average-looking man. Average height, head slightly balding, belly slightly bulging. It was a face I easily recognized as one of my past. A face that only appeared average, all because those average features were just that: average. Yet, the collection of parts presented a mask of gruesome ugliness and distaste, if only one were to truly scrutinize the image of the man. 

“If it isn’t Campbell,” I replied in my calm, or rather dull, demeanor. “Don’t tell me you live here?”

“Sure do, pal! What brings you out here?” He added, after a moment of realization, “Where’d you leave your car?”

“Shortly up the road. I moved into town only a couple of weeks ago. Decided to drive around and got a flat.” I decided not to mention the cat.

“Oh, let me help you fix that up!” he was as energetic and eager-to-assist as I remembered him to be. Truth be told, we were never close. It was his younger brother whom I was closer in camaraderie with. He’d stop by, but he’d never stick around; he’d always busy himself with his next goal, his next desire; marking his deadlines where deadlines were due. Before I could respond, he beckoned me forth, “Come on! Let me show you what I’ve been working on!”

He left no room for rejection and never looked back once, automatically assuming I would follow his trail. I did. It’s not that I intended to, I really didn’t care to. Without my noticing, he snapped a collar around the circumference of my neck and led me with a rope of his own creation. Galloping towards myself was his garage, filled not with cars, but with carpentry equipment. I remember, back in our youth, he had always crafted boxes and black foxes for anyone who had looked his way. He, truly, was a master at manipulating the wood folk.

The woodshop was positively devoured in dust. While he demanded the attention of my eyes, I felt compelled to have mercy upon my ears. My mind was allowed to wander once my body was flying autopilot. But instead of wandering, my mind latched onto a presence felt from my left side. Unintentionally, I allowed my head to whip up to the house’s side window, and my old acquaintance’s eyes followed my deviant deportment. 

“Oh! That’s my daughter! My Dolly Dove!” It sounded as if he had been so wrapped up in himself that he forgot she lived. In the once vacant window was the dorsal of his daughter. Her lengthy knotted hair, much like a curtain, prevented anyone from a good glimpse of her person. It looked like a waterfall of clumpy mud. “Hey, come on outside.” He cut the short phone call dead - it wasn’t a request. The girl was gone. While we were awaiting her reappearance, he blabbered on with complaints of how she “never leaves that old room of hers.” He held my ears this time, but my eyes were searching behind my brain. There was a presence, barely human, if human at all – it was crawling up my spine and sneaking under my hair, soon engulfing the bicep of my right arm – I startled back and to the side.

Gliding along the concrete came the ghastly mud girl, body void of all expression as Campbell met her with a side embrace and a squeezing of the shoulder. His fat, rough hands seemed like they would break her skin; her ghastly pallor luminescent in the cloud-covered day. The wan appearance of her countenance gave away no notion of discomfort or chagrin. She–no, I would do well to apply the pronoun ‘it’ – merely stared at my shoes. That was not the face of a human being. It couldn’t be. It was a very attractive face, aged no more than a human’s thirteen years; it could even be called “beautiful” to the average eye. However, to anyone familiar with the aesthetics of the world, this face was uglier than that of the father. It was a blank mask painted with plaster by a three-year-old. It was the facial flesh of a suicidal ape. It was, and nothing more, the death of once was and the life one could never be. This was not a girl in front of my eyes, but the ghost of strangled toddlery.

“Dolly, this is my old friend Geoffrey Gall,” his voice sounded courteous. It sounded as if he was suggesting it should give me a firm hand-shake, or at least a warm “hello”. But it’s hand was both dangerous and malleable. It was moldable and would come if only I had extended mine. Still, this thing was absent of any warmth. How could Campbell not see it wasn’t capable of such a function? I would not greet this “girl”. I wouldn’t, for I couldn’t. I could not in good conscience allow my arm to extend to the teeth of this unsettling beast.

Still, my arm raised, no matter my mind, and opened to embrace the cadaverous hand of a ghost. His soul could not allow me to refuse, and he did always portray, although covered in a thin sheet, a rather forceful presence. It’s eyes raised from my shoes, finally, to my extended hand of human complexion. And finally, I came to the realization of why this being had felt eerily human to my intuition.

It’s eyes, to perhaps just my own, were unmistakably and irrevocably human. The eyelashes were as long as mine, but the eyelids rarely met in conference. The waterline and tearduct were stripped of all life. The eyeball itself appeared rather sunken into the socket, a deep shadow forming upon all edges of sclera. The white was no longer pristine, but a dark grey, and the pupil was unnaturally sharp on a vertical line. All alone, this would present the image of a dead beast. But there was that gleam – it was small, yet undeniably present – the same gleam in the eye of mine, albeit reduced in size. I released the hand from my own.

From then on, I could not consciously register any word from out Campbell’s mouth. This Thing was rotting in life, and the bacteria lie in his jaws. He dismissed the Thing, but it was no mercy. It soon appeared once again in the house which lie open, but is never entered. And I left it at that. I hoped to rest my eyes upon such an apparition nevermore.

I quickly excused myself, for I feared my heart couldn’t withstand the terror of such a haunt. If I slashed his speech loose alongside his lead of rope, I would never know. Halfway back up the driveway, I glanced back to the opposite corner of the house from which I came. The Hell Cat was there once again, but the white it showed me once before had escaped as swiftly as my breath. It soon turned toward the house, a gaze which I followed, then away. The candle from the top window… it was snuffed right before my very eyes. Now the house belonged to that of a doll. If it seemed real at all, or if my heart were not so strained, I might have even called it a tomb.

Dallying no longer, I dashed up the street, grasping at rocks, tearing through the path, climbing with abandon, reaching toward the opening of the pouch I scrambled in before – God forbid – it tied me shut inside of this Hellish soul-catcher. Once my skin met the light of day I didn’t dare rest for breath; I dashed as a mad dog for my motor vehicle, a steel shield full of dare and care just for me. Only when the door locked closed was my heart keen to gradually descend in pace. I didn’t care for any flat tires – I knew I wouldn’t regret any manner of my escape. My dutiful motor-steed revved to leave. I finally could caress a steady breath.

Finally, I departed, vowing never to lose a busy day, to never stray from the common cloud of fog. My seat belt was buckled, and my headlights were on. I was alone once again, and no other vehicle intruded into my mirrors.

In that rear-view mirror, however, was a sight I would never come to rid from my perceptive eyes. It was the Thing of muddy hair and wan physique, stock-stiff with rigor, and eyes blown wide with Judgement. 

I had met with the face of Death, and would no longer know peace, in the humid and horrifying Town Olivia. Everyone therefore would hear it from out of my cavernous mouth: curiosity does indeed have a taste for blood, and it is fiendishly out to kill.