Head Case
By
David O’Mahony
Jonah had kept the skull above his desk for years. Despite all the moves across six continents over two decades, that had remained constant. No matter where he shacked up, he had a desk against a wall with that skull above it; sometimes mounted on the wall, other times, like now, just hanging from the ceiling.
It didn’t look all that remarkable, the skull. It was worn smooth in places from being handled, with traces of a yellow ivory colour. Other parts of it were black from burning candles, chunks of coloured wax, and in one place cracked where it had fallen off the wall during an earthquake in Perth. But all in all, it had held up well. Which was good, because it was his.
That had been a wild night in Edinburgh, coming up against his doppelganger. At first he thought it was too much of those scotch bombs his roommate had tried to pioneer, cheap whisky mixed with powdered magic mushrooms. He’d seen all sorts after a few of those. But the other hallucinations had vanished as soon as he’d tried to touch them. This guy simply stiffened, his eyes wide with shock.
They had been on the street below the castle, Jonah and a couple of compatriots staggering past the masons’ shop and the other Jonah alone on the other side of the road, bundled up in a coat that covered his lower face despite it being July. It was the only reason Jonah had even paid attention to him.
“Hey! Hey yoos! Yoos in the coat,” he bellowed, giggling like a numbskull as his fellows cheered him on with the last bit, which they seemed to consider an absolute zinger of an insult.
The other Jonah looked over, jumped, and tried to hurry on his way, only to get bogged down by a group of Japanese tourists who had taken a wrong turn. A boisterous Jonah and his friends crossed the road and surrounded him for a bit of fun. Not ultra-violence fun, just amusement. That was when Jonah had noticed this other guy looked exactly like him. “You… you’re not supposed to be here,” said the other man, panicked. “You’re supposed to be… gone.”
“Gone where,” said Jonah, suddenly sober.
“Gone beyond,” said the other Jonah. “That’s why they let me in.”
But Jonah didn’t believe in God, heaven, or the devil, so he thought the other man was just plain crazy. So when the other Jonah started running away, he felt not only the urge to chase him but a blind rage that his doppelganger wouldn’t want to stay around him. “WE COULD BE TWINS,” he yelled as they sprinted down a hill, yelled until his alter ego, looking behind him, stepped out onto the road and into the path of an oncoming bus.
Jonah watched in numb horror as the other Jonah flowed like water under the front wheels. The brakes screeched, the passengers screeched, the driver clutched his chest and collapsed. But there was nobody under the bus. Not even the trace of a coat. The only thing left behind was the head, which had popped off (like a champagne cork, Jonah thought to himself, in a fit of giggling) and now lay on the pavement staring up at him, eyes wide.
Jonah swept it up, compelled by he knew not what, and hid it under his shirt before running off into the night and not coming back to his senses until three days later, when he was in the lotus position on a living room floor (not his) and looking up at the severed head (kind of his) as if it were some sort of totem. It was already rotting, but it didn’t smell. It was kind of like the skin and muscle was evaporating like yoghurt spilled in the sun, leaving only some thick residue here and there. By the end of the day, when he had made it back to his apartment fifteen miles south - he never found out whose house he’d been in - the skull was almost bare and he was able to rinse off what was left.
It was a fabulous skull, really, he thought with pride. It was a shame the man, shame he, had to die in order to show it off. He set it a pedestal of books so it could gaze down on him while he slept.
He woke to the sound of somebody fumbling with the door handle. They were trying to be quiet, but were making a mess of it. The door pushed open gently though. Jonah was throwing off the blanket when a small grey device poked through the doorway and he was paralysed. Then he walked through the door.
“Hello, me,” said another Jonah. “I see what you did there,” and he gestured toward the skull, “and the others aren’t going to like it. I, though, am a bit more like yourself so way to go on breaking the rules.” He applauded quietly, smiling, then looked to the far wall as if he had noticed something. There was a humming, then a grunt, then a pop, and a third Jonah appeared.
“Ah,” said the second Jonah.
The third Jonah growled at doorway Jonah, moving to the bed instead. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done,” he asked in a clipped voice very different from how he normally spoke. “Moron. Only one of us is supposed to be in any universe at any given time. He could have left but now that skull is destabilising everything. Give it back.” He went toward it but the second Jonah wrestled him to the ground. Able to use his legs again, Jonah swept up the skull and sprinted away, beginning a chase that had followed him all over the world.
The longest he had been able to stay in one place was about five months. But, inevitably, there would come that humming and grunting and another Jonah would appear, sometimes with a beard, sometimes in an elegant suit, once with a spectacular ginger mohawk, and often with more than one trying to snatch him or the skull. It was the most fun Jonah had had in years, even if he no longer slept. He lived a sort of dreamy existence filled with the most beautifully haze of lights everywhere he looked. A trail of natural disasters had followed him, with earthquakes in places they’d never been and meteor strikes just miles from wherever he had stashed himself. But he was slowing down, and his leg had never worked the same after that wildfire obliterated Cancun during the three months he’d been living there.
So, after the village in Quebec had started to fall into a sinkhole, he headed back to Scotland, disappearing into the Highlands and breaking into a small dusty cottage. For the first time in years he felt the pressing, crushing need to rest.
He had been sitting in front of the skull for three weeks, listening to the mountains rumble and skies tear themselves apart, before first one, then two, then a dozen pops brought a battalion of himself. He held a hand up to stop them.
“I know the drill, just give me a second to get up.” Two kindly avatars helped him to his feet and steadied him as he stood. “Let me say goodbye to myself.” For the skull had not just been an extension of himself, but a confidant in bleak times, a fellow conspirator in mischief during the good ones. He reached out a fire-scarred hand to touch it once more, and was thrust outside of himself, outside of the Earth itself until he was gazing down from some unimaginable distance at a swirling galaxy of stars spinning forever around a vast red expanse bigger than he could comprehend. “Is that… us?” he asked the room, and the Jonahs exchanged looks and shrugs.
“It’s what’s coming unless we set everything back the way it was,” said a black-haired Jonah with a German accent. “Red death. Now hurry, we are almost out of time.”
Jonah nodded, and without understanding how he knew what to do, held the skull out to his alternates, and one by one they all extended an arm to it. When the final Jonah, a bruiser of one with a much-broken nose, placed his hand on the skull there was an almighty roar from everywhere and nowhere at once. The ground quaked, the sky shook, everybody screamed as the skull erupted in flame and there was an almighty pulse of red and white light that blazed up and beyond to somewhere outside his comprehension.
Without warning it was gone. The light, the skull, the roof, the Jonahs. With a sense of relief greater than the warmest hug from a loved one, he lay down and slept for the first time in years, and as he did so crumbled into dust, leaving only a skull.
David O'Mahony is a horror and dark fantasy writer from Cork, Ireland, with a particular fondness for ghost stories. He has had 20 stories published across the globe, with his work appearing in the US, Canada, Australia, India, and Thailand. He has written non-fiction at irishexaminer.com, where he is assistant editor. He is looking for good homes for two short story collections and is writing his first novel.
By
David O’Mahony
Jonah had kept the skull above his desk for years. Despite all the moves across six continents over two decades, that had remained constant. No matter where he shacked up, he had a desk against a wall with that skull above it; sometimes mounted on the wall, other times, like now, just hanging from the ceiling.
It didn’t look all that remarkable, the skull. It was worn smooth in places from being handled, with traces of a yellow ivory colour. Other parts of it were black from burning candles, chunks of coloured wax, and in one place cracked where it had fallen off the wall during an earthquake in Perth. But all in all, it had held up well. Which was good, because it was his.
That had been a wild night in Edinburgh, coming up against his doppelganger. At first he thought it was too much of those scotch bombs his roommate had tried to pioneer, cheap whisky mixed with powdered magic mushrooms. He’d seen all sorts after a few of those. But the other hallucinations had vanished as soon as he’d tried to touch them. This guy simply stiffened, his eyes wide with shock.
They had been on the street below the castle, Jonah and a couple of compatriots staggering past the masons’ shop and the other Jonah alone on the other side of the road, bundled up in a coat that covered his lower face despite it being July. It was the only reason Jonah had even paid attention to him.
“Hey! Hey yoos! Yoos in the coat,” he bellowed, giggling like a numbskull as his fellows cheered him on with the last bit, which they seemed to consider an absolute zinger of an insult.
The other Jonah looked over, jumped, and tried to hurry on his way, only to get bogged down by a group of Japanese tourists who had taken a wrong turn. A boisterous Jonah and his friends crossed the road and surrounded him for a bit of fun. Not ultra-violence fun, just amusement. That was when Jonah had noticed this other guy looked exactly like him. “You… you’re not supposed to be here,” said the other man, panicked. “You’re supposed to be… gone.”
“Gone where,” said Jonah, suddenly sober.
“Gone beyond,” said the other Jonah. “That’s why they let me in.”
But Jonah didn’t believe in God, heaven, or the devil, so he thought the other man was just plain crazy. So when the other Jonah started running away, he felt not only the urge to chase him but a blind rage that his doppelganger wouldn’t want to stay around him. “WE COULD BE TWINS,” he yelled as they sprinted down a hill, yelled until his alter ego, looking behind him, stepped out onto the road and into the path of an oncoming bus.
Jonah watched in numb horror as the other Jonah flowed like water under the front wheels. The brakes screeched, the passengers screeched, the driver clutched his chest and collapsed. But there was nobody under the bus. Not even the trace of a coat. The only thing left behind was the head, which had popped off (like a champagne cork, Jonah thought to himself, in a fit of giggling) and now lay on the pavement staring up at him, eyes wide.
Jonah swept it up, compelled by he knew not what, and hid it under his shirt before running off into the night and not coming back to his senses until three days later, when he was in the lotus position on a living room floor (not his) and looking up at the severed head (kind of his) as if it were some sort of totem. It was already rotting, but it didn’t smell. It was kind of like the skin and muscle was evaporating like yoghurt spilled in the sun, leaving only some thick residue here and there. By the end of the day, when he had made it back to his apartment fifteen miles south - he never found out whose house he’d been in - the skull was almost bare and he was able to rinse off what was left.
It was a fabulous skull, really, he thought with pride. It was a shame the man, shame he, had to die in order to show it off. He set it a pedestal of books so it could gaze down on him while he slept.
He woke to the sound of somebody fumbling with the door handle. They were trying to be quiet, but were making a mess of it. The door pushed open gently though. Jonah was throwing off the blanket when a small grey device poked through the doorway and he was paralysed. Then he walked through the door.
“Hello, me,” said another Jonah. “I see what you did there,” and he gestured toward the skull, “and the others aren’t going to like it. I, though, am a bit more like yourself so way to go on breaking the rules.” He applauded quietly, smiling, then looked to the far wall as if he had noticed something. There was a humming, then a grunt, then a pop, and a third Jonah appeared.
“Ah,” said the second Jonah.
The third Jonah growled at doorway Jonah, moving to the bed instead. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done,” he asked in a clipped voice very different from how he normally spoke. “Moron. Only one of us is supposed to be in any universe at any given time. He could have left but now that skull is destabilising everything. Give it back.” He went toward it but the second Jonah wrestled him to the ground. Able to use his legs again, Jonah swept up the skull and sprinted away, beginning a chase that had followed him all over the world.
The longest he had been able to stay in one place was about five months. But, inevitably, there would come that humming and grunting and another Jonah would appear, sometimes with a beard, sometimes in an elegant suit, once with a spectacular ginger mohawk, and often with more than one trying to snatch him or the skull. It was the most fun Jonah had had in years, even if he no longer slept. He lived a sort of dreamy existence filled with the most beautifully haze of lights everywhere he looked. A trail of natural disasters had followed him, with earthquakes in places they’d never been and meteor strikes just miles from wherever he had stashed himself. But he was slowing down, and his leg had never worked the same after that wildfire obliterated Cancun during the three months he’d been living there.
So, after the village in Quebec had started to fall into a sinkhole, he headed back to Scotland, disappearing into the Highlands and breaking into a small dusty cottage. For the first time in years he felt the pressing, crushing need to rest.
He had been sitting in front of the skull for three weeks, listening to the mountains rumble and skies tear themselves apart, before first one, then two, then a dozen pops brought a battalion of himself. He held a hand up to stop them.
“I know the drill, just give me a second to get up.” Two kindly avatars helped him to his feet and steadied him as he stood. “Let me say goodbye to myself.” For the skull had not just been an extension of himself, but a confidant in bleak times, a fellow conspirator in mischief during the good ones. He reached out a fire-scarred hand to touch it once more, and was thrust outside of himself, outside of the Earth itself until he was gazing down from some unimaginable distance at a swirling galaxy of stars spinning forever around a vast red expanse bigger than he could comprehend. “Is that… us?” he asked the room, and the Jonahs exchanged looks and shrugs.
“It’s what’s coming unless we set everything back the way it was,” said a black-haired Jonah with a German accent. “Red death. Now hurry, we are almost out of time.”
Jonah nodded, and without understanding how he knew what to do, held the skull out to his alternates, and one by one they all extended an arm to it. When the final Jonah, a bruiser of one with a much-broken nose, placed his hand on the skull there was an almighty roar from everywhere and nowhere at once. The ground quaked, the sky shook, everybody screamed as the skull erupted in flame and there was an almighty pulse of red and white light that blazed up and beyond to somewhere outside his comprehension.
Without warning it was gone. The light, the skull, the roof, the Jonahs. With a sense of relief greater than the warmest hug from a loved one, he lay down and slept for the first time in years, and as he did so crumbled into dust, leaving only a skull.
David O'Mahony is a horror and dark fantasy writer from Cork, Ireland, with a particular fondness for ghost stories. He has had 20 stories published across the globe, with his work appearing in the US, Canada, Australia, India, and Thailand. He has written non-fiction at irishexaminer.com, where he is assistant editor. He is looking for good homes for two short story collections and is writing his first novel.
