The Garage Sale on Azathoth Road
Short fiction from One Day in Hell
The car horn shocked Phillip out of bed. He grabbed his watch from the nightstand: 7:30 am, Saturday morning. The horn sounded again. Veronica's arm came up out of the blankets to smack clumsily at the alarm clock.
"Idiot," Phillip whispered. He went to the window. A car parked on his lawn was blocked in by another parked on the sidewalk.
Phillip pulled on some clothes and ran down the steps, ready to raise some hell, and that was when he saw that his neighbors were having a garage sale.
Phillip again cursed the day he had let Veronica talk him into buying property so near the edge of the Pleasant Valley Condominiums, so close to giant Hammer-horror reject that was the ancient Akeley house. Once outside, he could see that there were cars lined up and down both sides of Azathoth Road. Each disgorged the typical early-morning garage sale shoppers—decrepit men, shrunken women. The entire block smelled of old people. It was enough to make Phillip gag, but he internalized the reflex, using the urge to stoke his anger instead.
Phillip was storming up the cracked slate Akeley walkway, dodging the shopping dead at every step, when a voice croaked, "Can I help you?"
Phillip turned and saw an old, old man – not Akeley himself, but some decrepit relation-- standing behind one of the shoddy tables that dribbled down the piebald front lawn as if the house had projectile vomited its own dust-shrouded insides into the open air.
"You can help me by shoving this sale-" was as far as Phillip got, because he saw something, then: a large glass jar filled with piss-yellow suspension, with a biological specimen floating within.
The fluid was murky, but Phillip could see this much. The thing was about seven inches long, conical, a pair of tentacles dangled from the half-flattened spiral shell. There were bumps on each side that might be eyes.
"That there," Phillip said. "How much?"
"This?" the old man said, bloodless lips twisting into a horrid salesman’s grin. "Expensive."
The old man thought expensive meant $50. By 8:00 a.m. Phillip had bought the jar, put coffee on, and had the laptop open on the kitchen table, busy tracking his hunch down.
Phillip had made his fortune in insurance, but in his awkward teen years, he had been something of an amateur paleontologist, and he still retained a few facts. He thought he had a good idea what the thing in the jar was. If he was correct, then expensive wasn't the word.
Veronica came down. "Why are people parking on our lawn?" Receiving no answer from Phillip, she crossed to the bay windows in the living room and peered through the lace curtains. As she watched, an old man came running from Akeley's yard, carrying some small object in his hands. His expression shone in an overzealous parody of an all-consuming joy.
She closed the curtain and saw the jar. "What is that?" Just the sight of the dust-covered thing brought up memories of a dark corner in her grandfather's barn in Utah, where something she didn't like to think about had happened to her when she was young. "I don't like it," she said.
"You don't have to like it," Phillip said as looked swiftly from the jar to the laptop and back again. "It just has to be what I think it is."
"And what do you think it is?" She poured herself a cup of coffee.
"I think it's a hyolithid."
Veronica's unpleasant memory of the barn wouldn't fade: cobwebs, the faint odor of long-dead horses, a pressing down she did not want but could not successfully resist. "Who cares?" she asked.
Phillip looked up. "Honey, hyolithids went extinct millions of years before the dinosaurs. This thing could be priceless. But it could also be a more recent organism, like a screw shell." Phillip had only just learned about the screwshell mollusk via Google. Now he thought he might be out $50.00
"So take it out and look at it." Even as she spoke, Veronica realized that she didn't want to see the thing any better.
Phillip didn't answer. He knew that a preserved specimen might disintegrate if exposed to air. But what bothered him even more was what old man Akeley had said when he sold him the jar:
"This is one place," he had said, holding up a large, tattered book from the table. "This is another," he swept his arm to encompass the yard, the neighborhood, the world. "This is in between." He tapped the jar with his free hand. "Never open it," he said, "never go inside."
The warning stayed with Phillip, a thick, warm presence in his mind.
"You're afraid," Veronica taunted. She blamed Phillip for resurrecting her unpleasant memory.
Outside, there came the sound of a car crunching into another, then shouting, then a loud, keening scream that climbed higher and higher, until it soared past the range of hearing, but the wail could still be felt, making words, calling names Veronica had never heard but somehow knew. Another, deeper chill swept through her, an inexplicable terror building in layers from deep inside herself.
Phillip fetched a pair of salad tongs from a drawer.
Veronica watched. A tear seeped from her left eye.
Phillip opened the jar. The room filled instantly with a crushing saltwater reek. Veronica thought of the Great Salt Lake she had visited many times while as a girl: sunken and flat, steaming in high summer like a miles-wide organism cooking in the summer sun.
Phillip removed the specimen. The hard spiral shell gleamed in the energy-efficient fluorescent lights. What Phillip though might be eyes bulged out from beneath the shell like stippled warts. One split open, revealing a moist black sphere that orientated towards him.
Phillip dropped the tongs and stepped backward, his foot coming down into the suck of rushing water. He looked down: a pale, viscous liquid was pouring into the kitchen from the seam where the wall met the floor, rising fast as the sea flooding a holed ship. The ooze was clear, hot as blood, filled with wriggling life--worms that had teeth, eyes, faces-
Veronica saw no water, no creatures. She watched Phillip scream and leap about the room as if the floor were suddenly burning hot. The specimen landed on the table and lay there inert – a dead, rotting thing. Veronica suddenly had to vomit.
She ran for the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her threw up into the toilet until she collapsed.
Veronica hadn't turned on the light, and the bathroom had no windows. She lay there in the dark, gasping. She listened to the thrashing sounds coming from the kitchen. Something huge -the refrigerator?- toppled over.
The smell of the jar clung to her. Veronica panted, each breath tasting like the sea.
Suddenly Phillip was in the room with her.
The door did not open, there was no sound, yet there was a presence she could not mistake. She heard the wet struggling of gills laboring with air, the stench of rotting fish stung her eyes, there was a pressing down-
The End
The car horn shocked Phillip out of bed. He grabbed his watch from the nightstand: 7:30 am, Saturday morning. The horn sounded again. Veronica's arm came up out of the blankets to smack clumsily at the alarm clock.
"Idiot," Phillip whispered. He went to the window. A car parked on his lawn was blocked in by another parked on the sidewalk.
Phillip pulled on some clothes and ran down the steps, ready to raise some hell, and that was when he saw that his neighbors were having a garage sale.
Phillip again cursed the day he had let Veronica talk him into buying property so near the edge of the Pleasant Valley Condominiums, so close to giant Hammer-horror reject that was the ancient Akeley house. Once outside, he could see that there were cars lined up and down both sides of Azathoth Road. Each disgorged the typical early-morning garage sale shoppers—decrepit men, shrunken women. The entire block smelled of old people. It was enough to make Phillip gag, but he internalized the reflex, using the urge to stoke his anger instead.
Phillip was storming up the cracked slate Akeley walkway, dodging the shopping dead at every step, when a voice croaked, "Can I help you?"
Phillip turned and saw an old, old man – not Akeley himself, but some decrepit relation-- standing behind one of the shoddy tables that dribbled down the piebald front lawn as if the house had projectile vomited its own dust-shrouded insides into the open air.
"You can help me by shoving this sale-" was as far as Phillip got, because he saw something, then: a large glass jar filled with piss-yellow suspension, with a biological specimen floating within.
The fluid was murky, but Phillip could see this much. The thing was about seven inches long, conical, a pair of tentacles dangled from the half-flattened spiral shell. There were bumps on each side that might be eyes.
"That there," Phillip said. "How much?"
"This?" the old man said, bloodless lips twisting into a horrid salesman’s grin. "Expensive."
The old man thought expensive meant $50. By 8:00 a.m. Phillip had bought the jar, put coffee on, and had the laptop open on the kitchen table, busy tracking his hunch down.
Phillip had made his fortune in insurance, but in his awkward teen years, he had been something of an amateur paleontologist, and he still retained a few facts. He thought he had a good idea what the thing in the jar was. If he was correct, then expensive wasn't the word.
Veronica came down. "Why are people parking on our lawn?" Receiving no answer from Phillip, she crossed to the bay windows in the living room and peered through the lace curtains. As she watched, an old man came running from Akeley's yard, carrying some small object in his hands. His expression shone in an overzealous parody of an all-consuming joy.
She closed the curtain and saw the jar. "What is that?" Just the sight of the dust-covered thing brought up memories of a dark corner in her grandfather's barn in Utah, where something she didn't like to think about had happened to her when she was young. "I don't like it," she said.
"You don't have to like it," Phillip said as looked swiftly from the jar to the laptop and back again. "It just has to be what I think it is."
"And what do you think it is?" She poured herself a cup of coffee.
"I think it's a hyolithid."
Veronica's unpleasant memory of the barn wouldn't fade: cobwebs, the faint odor of long-dead horses, a pressing down she did not want but could not successfully resist. "Who cares?" she asked.
Phillip looked up. "Honey, hyolithids went extinct millions of years before the dinosaurs. This thing could be priceless. But it could also be a more recent organism, like a screw shell." Phillip had only just learned about the screwshell mollusk via Google. Now he thought he might be out $50.00
"So take it out and look at it." Even as she spoke, Veronica realized that she didn't want to see the thing any better.
Phillip didn't answer. He knew that a preserved specimen might disintegrate if exposed to air. But what bothered him even more was what old man Akeley had said when he sold him the jar:
"This is one place," he had said, holding up a large, tattered book from the table. "This is another," he swept his arm to encompass the yard, the neighborhood, the world. "This is in between." He tapped the jar with his free hand. "Never open it," he said, "never go inside."
The warning stayed with Phillip, a thick, warm presence in his mind.
"You're afraid," Veronica taunted. She blamed Phillip for resurrecting her unpleasant memory.
Outside, there came the sound of a car crunching into another, then shouting, then a loud, keening scream that climbed higher and higher, until it soared past the range of hearing, but the wail could still be felt, making words, calling names Veronica had never heard but somehow knew. Another, deeper chill swept through her, an inexplicable terror building in layers from deep inside herself.
Phillip fetched a pair of salad tongs from a drawer.
Veronica watched. A tear seeped from her left eye.
Phillip opened the jar. The room filled instantly with a crushing saltwater reek. Veronica thought of the Great Salt Lake she had visited many times while as a girl: sunken and flat, steaming in high summer like a miles-wide organism cooking in the summer sun.
Phillip removed the specimen. The hard spiral shell gleamed in the energy-efficient fluorescent lights. What Phillip though might be eyes bulged out from beneath the shell like stippled warts. One split open, revealing a moist black sphere that orientated towards him.
Phillip dropped the tongs and stepped backward, his foot coming down into the suck of rushing water. He looked down: a pale, viscous liquid was pouring into the kitchen from the seam where the wall met the floor, rising fast as the sea flooding a holed ship. The ooze was clear, hot as blood, filled with wriggling life--worms that had teeth, eyes, faces-
Veronica saw no water, no creatures. She watched Phillip scream and leap about the room as if the floor were suddenly burning hot. The specimen landed on the table and lay there inert – a dead, rotting thing. Veronica suddenly had to vomit.
She ran for the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her threw up into the toilet until she collapsed.
Veronica hadn't turned on the light, and the bathroom had no windows. She lay there in the dark, gasping. She listened to the thrashing sounds coming from the kitchen. Something huge -the refrigerator?- toppled over.
The smell of the jar clung to her. Veronica panted, each breath tasting like the sea.
Suddenly Phillip was in the room with her.
The door did not open, there was no sound, yet there was a presence she could not mistake. She heard the wet struggling of gills laboring with air, the stench of rotting fish stung her eyes, there was a pressing down-
The End
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