The Skull and Other Stories

By Venla Mäkelä

A lap dance changes a murderer's mind; a sale on Craigslist does not end well; a Gothic trinket store is gifted a human skull. Six short stories of horror, supernatural and weird fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Venla Mäkelä
• Release date: Oct 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311285096

Venla Mäkelä

Venla Mäkelä writes screenplays and fiction.She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Book preview

The Skull and Other Stories

Venla Mäkelä

Copyright 2015 by Venla Mäkelä

Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

The Skull

In addition to collectibles, Dark Rooms sold new Gothic stuff; books, toys, Halloween themed items all year round, even chocolate - dark of course - and T-shirts.

It was five minutes to closing time, and Annabelle, in the back room separated from the store by a heavy velvet curtain, was putting on lipgloss. The front door bell chimed; a silver-haired woman walked in. She carried a square box in a supermarket plastic bag and lifted it onto the counter and waited for Annabelle to appear. Annabelle was annoyed: she was supposed to meet her friends in half an hour at a small club where her boyfriend's band had a gig. The woman clearly wanted to sell something, probably her grown-up son's comic books, or some shitty figurines her late husband had collected.

People who didn't collect stuff seldom understood the true value of things. Just because something was a few decades old didn't mean it had any value at all, and Annabelle was tired of trying to explain this. Even if she knew by now which items were worth buying, she mostly just took all the stuff and asked Robert, her boss and the owner of Dark Rooms, to take a look at it, and told the customers she'd get back to them in a few days. Robert either bought the collectibles, at a fair price - he was a good, honest guy - or explained why the item was not worth a penny. When Annabelle reported to the sellers which items Robert had picked and what he had not picked and why, they usually understood.

The woman was in her mid seventies and looked weary, but she wore an elegant Palm Beach-style knit top and soft silk pants. Another Toluca Lake garage cleaner, Annabelle thought. Her husband died recently, and now she's selling the house. The husband probably worked in the movie business in the sixties and had gathered tons of set props as mementos, the garage filled with small statues and vases and ashtrays and paintings.

Annabelle smiled and greeted her.

My husband died recently, the woman said. She placed her hand on top of the box. He had this in the garage. I don't know what to do with it. I'm selling the house, and I just need to get rid of stuff.

Ten points to me, Annabelle thought. She smiled and said, Right.

The woman opened the box. We got it from a friend - we never understood why he would give us such a weird... thing. In the box, padded with rumpled yellowed newspaper, was a human skull, dry and grayish white. I don't know where he got it from, it might have been a movie prop or something, he never explained. But it's a real human skull, and I just don't know what to do with it. I mean, how do you dispose of a human skull? I guess I could bury it in the garden, but I don't wanna shock the people who buy the house and plant a tree or something and then find a skull.

Right, I get you, Annabelle said.

For some reason it always freaked me out a little bit, the woman said. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Even if it was just in the box in the garage. I thought, your store has this... gothic décor, you might want something like this. So, it's all yours, do whatever you want with it. She patted the box, turned and left.

It took Annabelle a moment. Excuse me - wait - please-

The woman stopped at the door.

We... don't you want a receipt? Annabella asked. She didn't know whether Robert would like the skull or not and was already worried about having to get rid of it somehow, like that one time they were gifted a taxidermied skunk.

No, just keep it, the woman said.

But we usually - usually Robert, my boss, goes through everything and then if we don't need something we call the owners to come get it.

The woman waved a goodbye and stepped out. It's all yours. And she was gone.

Annabelle was left standing behind the counter, the box in front of her. She realized she should to stop the woman and get her contact information, but when she got to the door the woman was nowhere to be seen. Confused, Annabelle looked up and down Magnolia Boulevard. People strolled in the balmy evening, enjoying the retro street, eating frozen yogurt, sipping coffee.

Annabelle closed the door and locked it and turned the Closed-sign to face the street. It was 7:59 now, surely the last goddamn minute didn't matter. She walked back to the counter, studied the skull for a moment and put it back into the box and put the box on the shelf in the back room. It was up to Robert to decide what to do with it.

*

Dark Rooms was open on Sundays too, so around nine a.m. Annabelle had to drag herself out of bed. She got to the store ten minutes to eleven, which was when they opened, and Robert was already there. He had another store in Long Beach from where he conducted the eBay sales, so he came to Burbank only twice a week, maybe more often if there were interesting estate sales nearby.

Did you take a look at it? Annabelle asked. She had called Robert last night about the skull.

I did, I put it over there, Robert said and nodded at a corner shelf behind the counter. It's kinda beautiful.

Okay, Annabelle said. She had no problem with the skull, as long as she didn't have to trace the woman who left it. She went to the front door and propped it open.

The day went fast and Annabelle sold an enormous amount of T-shirts with a metallic pumpkin print. It was two weeks to Halloween. She made some hot, non-alcoholic cranberry punch, named it Vampire's Dream and served it to the customers. Around four in the afternoon Robert said he'd be back on Thursday and left. The store was closed on Mondays, and on Tuesdays there was another salesgirl, Carrie. Carrie and Annabelle almost never worked the same hours - only the last week before Halloween and then again the week before Christmas when it got busy - which was good, since Carrie was intense. She wrote sci-fi and fantasy ebooks with unnecessarily complicated plots and was a preachy vegan and often wanted to discuss matters like are there really structures on the moon? or since virtual reality is becoming more 'real' every day, should people be forced to live in the real world at least some percentage of time? and so on.

At eight p.m. Annabelle locked the door and organized the T-shirt shelves and the stacks of comic books. Somebody had bitten a chocolate popsicle in half and left it lying on top of the Dracula coffee mugs. She knew it was one of the idiot teenagers who had swarmed the store about hour ago, skateboards underarm, hollering and laughing and pulling T-shits over their hoodies.

Annabelle glanced at the skull. It seemed to be looking at her, the eye sockets bottomless. She stepped closer and forced herself to stare at the grinning mouth. There were a few teeth left, sticking out like ruins. She felt a sudden breeze on her face and, slightly startled, stepped away.

*

Carrie called on Tuesday, around noon. Annabelle and her boyfriend were just having lunch at a Chinese restaurant on Cahuenga in Hollywood. Irritated, Annabelle put down her chopsticks.

People keep on asking about the skull, Carrie said. Is it for sale?

Ask Robert when he gets there, Annabelle said.

Is it real?

Yeah, I think.

Where did it come from? Carrie asked.

Annabelle told her.

Oh, Carrie said.

I'm pretty sure it's for sale, I can't see why Robert would want to keep it.

Perhaps the old lady killed someone and kept only the head, Carrie said. She dissolved the flesh in acid.

Maybe, Annabelle said, her appetite spoiled for a moment. A piece of chicken on her plate looked like human flesh.

Is it male or female?

Looks like a guy to me, Annabelle said. But I have no idea.

That evening when Annabelle and her boyfriend were watching Homeland and making out on the sofa, Carrie called again.

Did you notice that the skull is glow-in-the-dark? she asked.

How's that possible? Annabelle said. It's a real human skull. It's just bone.

Maybe it isn't. It glows in the dark, I'm telling you, you'll have to check it out.

Perhaps it just reflects off the street lights, it's so white, Annabelle said, messaging to her boyfriend with her eyes, 'talking to a loony.'

No, it's really glowing. I just turned the lights off, and it is glowing. I even took a photo.

Uh-hum, Annabelle said. Her boyfriend traced his finger along her spine and snapped her bra.

So, nobody bought it yet? Annabelle said.

No, but Robert said we can sell it, Carrie said.

Did you put a price tag on it?

Yeah, Robert said a hundred and eighty dollars might be the right price.

Okay. Great.

On Wednesday Annabelle went back to work and the skull was still there on the shelf. She didn't pay much attention to it, but at closing time, when it was dark outside and she turned off all the lights, she happened to notice that the it really did seem to glow a little. The light was faint, giving off a pale whitish-green halo. It was odd, but not so odd that it really bothered her, and she locked the door and left. Perhaps the skull had been treated with some chemical. Probably radioactive. Perhaps it wasn't a real skull at all, just a