Jennifer stared at her clock eagerly. It was close to twelve-o’clock. If she was lucky, Luis and she would be at her old child-hood house before the crack of dawn. She couldn’t help her excitement; just thinking of Luis made her wet with anticipation. She was already thinking of different positions that they both could enjoy. She knew than her boyfriend will be far to busy for that, because he was an anthropologist and an architect, and cold not stop talking about her old house. Or as legend will have it, House of Harry the Mangler.

   The house was affectionately known as the House of the Dead.

   She stretched her whole body, enjoying the cool air of the sun on her face. What a perfect day for her to go to her old house. Springtime in the woods, seeing old faces of friends. A whole week away from her hectic doctor life. Luis was really looking forward to some vacations from the archeological department down at Los Angeles Museum. Luis desperately needed his vacations, too. He was working way too hard; he also needed a brake from travels across the world, he was exhausted.

   Luis excitedly ran out of an old store, with a cart full of groceries. "Hey, honey, can you be a doll and help me with this stuff, please."

   Jennifer grabbed a hand full of bags. "Hey, what’s up with all this, are we in vacations for a month …or what?" she laughed at her own comment.

   "I’m just very excited of spending the whole week with you, and you know…we might burn-up a lot of calories, if you get my drift. Luis grinningly said. "Once we go in the house and locate the mysterious basement, I wouldn’t want to die on an empty stomach."

   "Oh crap, I forgot something, wait here," He said. "I’m coming to," She responded.

   An elderly woman appeared, carrying the last of their bags. "Hey, you’re Jennifer aren’t you…old crazy-coon’s daughter ain’t cha."

   "We’re going back to her house," Luis said. "Yes, I wanna see my old room and how the house had been holding up after…you know." Jennifer nervously said. "Has any one try to go in the house?" Luis asked.

   The old woman took a moment scratch her head, and nervously shook it. "That house is haunted by the dead, a lot of people have gone in it, and never ever returned. If you live around these parts, people will tell you, stay the hell away from that place."

   "And if you’re smart, you will stay the hell away from it too, that place is bad news, mister."

   "Why is it a bad place?" Luis jokingly asked.

   The old woman looked uneasy and her facial features didn’t help any. She had an old wrinkled face with a big black ward on her nose, snow white hair and a lazy left-eye. "It’s an evil place. Very unsafe. After Harry mangled all those people and put them on the basement. A lot of good people died. Since then, towners and out-of-towners leave it alone."

   "I can understand that," Luis said. "Abandoned houses can be very dangerous but I’m an architect, and my fiancé is a doctor. We know what were doing." He left the store and got into the Navigator.

   "Wait a minute!" the old woman said. She sounded very upset and Jennifer thought she saw a tear in her eyes. "You don’t get it! I’m not talking about that kind of danger. I’m talking about…" She nervously paused, biting her lower lip.

   "Well, on with it," Jennifer said.

   "You probably think I’m cucu," said the old woman, "but I’m going to tell you the house is own by the Devil."

   "Devil! You’re kidding me right." Luis let out this loud chuckled. "Oh, scary the boogie-man!" he laugh some more.

   "Go ahead, make fun of this old bag-of-bones," the old woman’s face appeared to be wrinkling some more. Her face turned purple with anger. "I don’t care what you think, but it’s true! Only stupid people will go into that house!" She walked back to the store.

   "Wait!" Jennifer appeared to be concern. "Why do you say that my house is the Devils?"

   The old woman turned around, mad-dogging her. "I’m not saying another word, young lady. I’m just warning you! Stay the hell away from that place; it’s not your house any more is his!" "His," Jennifer said. "Yes, Harry the Mangler!"

?????

   "Let go, Jenny," Luis said, pulling her by the hand. "Let’s get the hell out of here; she is giving me the creeps."

   Jennifer shook Luis’s hand off. "I wanted to hear more of what she had to say," she said snarling at him. "You shouldn’t have made fun of her, Luis."

   "She probably said that just to scare us," Luis said. "The house must be in poorer shape than I thought. I’m not stupid enough to buy the whole Devil Mangler talk."

   "She didn’t say it was haunted," Jennifer said. "She said it was cursed by the Devil himself, you know ….the left hand of SATAN!"

   "Boogie-man, Harry the Mangler—what the bleeding difference? Let’s talk about how sexy you look in them jeans." He said jokingly.

   "I don’t remember a basement in our house, my parents probably must have put it in after I left for college," Jennifer said.

   "Do you still know Aramaic?" Luis Questioned.

   "Yes a little, why? Jennifer Said.

   "Look at this." Her fiancé pulled an ancient book from his jacket-pocket.

   "I found it on a dig I did back in the desert of Iraq. This is Harry Hunters journal as in Harry the Mangler. I started to research the records digging back through them and sure enough, I found the date that Harry the Mangler kill all those people. Funny thing, this journal’s last entry was back in July 12, 1848. And the murder happened July 12, 1980." They both stared at each other, for a few seconds.

   "I don’t know about this anymore, I’m seriously getting the chills." Jennifer commented.

   "So how did he kill all those people," Jennifer said.

   "It was very brutal," Luis said. "Everyone got trapped in the house including Harry the Mangler. It was too much for him. He went insane and died about a year later inside the basement. He fed on the remains of the corpses."

   Jennifer shivered. "Harry the Mangler died in the basement! What else those that journal say?"

   "Oh, I didn’t get it from this. This is in Aramaic. I found out about the killing and Harry from some of the locals and old news papers."

   "It’s all in Aramaic, ha?" Jennifer questioned him. She couldn’t help it, she started laughing. "That’s why you asked me to take my vacations early, didn’t you? You wanted a translator for this, this journal? It’s nice having a fiancé who majored in linguistics in college, isn’t it?"

   Luis started laughing now. "No, I didn’t ask you for that. I just love the pleasure of your company. I bet that journal is full of encryptions and what-not. I mean, how hard can it be to find a basement in your house?"

   Jennifer flipped through the brownish burnt pages, trying to read the faded symbols and incredible hard to read handwriting. Luis found this journal boring, but Jennifer was hypnotized by the antiquity of the journal. On the end page she read something that made her skin crawl. Mangler last entry was in a hurry. The handwriting was almost child-like. That when Jennifer noticed the ancient word 'yL 'yL Lmn' bqtny—forsaken! And, she couldn’t forget the look of fear and pain in the woman’s eyes. Jennifer made up her mind, she will read the journal as soon as they set-up shop.

?????

   Three hours later Luis pulled up the Navigator off the road and into a small narrow drive-way. From this point they will hike the rest of the way if they needed water. The house was located on the top of a hill surrounded by beautiful meadow.

   It was late when Luis stopped walking and pointed through the trees. "Hey, look is that the odd-house?"

   "Yes it is, Everytime the bathroom was broken, we had to use that disgusting thing." Jennifer said.

   "Let go and see what we find." Luis eagerly said.

   They pushed through the trees, until they saw the odd-house right in-front of them. On the opposite site of the odd-house was the basement, but it looked like a bomb-shelter.

   "Oh my God, I remember my parents never use to let Jimmy or me inside, they said it was only for adults." Jennifer said.

   "Wow, this is it! The famous basement," Luis said, jumping like a child.

   "It is to quite up here," Jennifer said. Suddenly she felt sick her stomach doing a thousand revulsions per-second. There were no sounds, not even birds singing or worms crawling.

   "Well you go back to the house and set up our sleeping gear, I will stay here to see what I could find," Luis said.

   "Be careful sweetie," Jennifer said.

   The house looked very old but held up in good condition according to Luis. Jennifer pushed the double door open and then peered into her child-hood house that was in total darkness. A few rays of light slipped through the cracks in the windows, wooden doors and made the dirt more apparent on the floor. A stone fire-place had been build into the wall. The air was humid and had a musty odor to it. Jennifer stepped inside.

   The bamboo roof was very strong and steardy. The sofa in front of the fireplace looked very cozy. Strangely enough, there was no sign of animal life in the house. No roaches, no rats, not even your occasional bat, and no spider-webs in the fireplace. All of-a-sudden, she had this sick feeling in her stomach. It appeared that when Harry the Mangler died, every single thing in this place died with it.

   She left the house and stepped outside, thinking how Luis was holding up. She saw him prancing along down the trail from the odd-house. He was holding something.

   "What did you find?" Jennifer wailed.

   Luis was pale and had a puzzle look on his face. "That guy that they said he was dragged into the basement," he said. "He wasn’t dragged in, somebody sealed the entrance of the basement, which means something inside killed him."

   "That doesn’t really make any sense," Jennifer said.

   "I know. But…" Luis was holding up the thing he found. It was a rough, handmade bamboo pentacle with leafs coil around it. "This thing was on top of the basement entrance. Some of the locals might have put it there. Maybe they are paying their respects with this, but I mean this thing looks creepy as hell."

   "I’m beginning to thing this was a really bad idea," Jennifer voice trembled.

   "I just wanted to see this place, can we get out of here please and go some where else."

   "Look I know you’re scare but it’ll be okay I promise." Luis said. "Look, Jennifer I didn’t come all this way to be spooked by the local lore and I didn’t drive all this way just for some silly superstitions. I am certainly not scared by what that old woman said. We’re staying!" He tossed the pentacle into the meadow. "Its camp all set up?" He said, walking pass Jennifer. She had no choice but to follow him, but she followed him very slowly, unable to shake off her bolting nervousness.

   Luis agreed that only for today they should sleep in the leaving room. Jennifer threw some wood into the fireplace; her fiancé laid out the inflatable bed and began to pump. No conversation was made when they were eating dinner; they were left with their own thoughts. Every now and them they would share a nervous glance through the double door window. They could see the sun-set lowering through the meadow peak. Every tree created its own walking shadow.

   Luis finished and set the empty plate on the floor. He grabbed his tool kit and one of the flashlights he bought at the shop.

   "Are you leaving?" Jennifer didn’t want his fiancé to leave.

   "Yes, I’m going to try to open the basement."

   "Please don’t go! It will be dark in an hour or so, can you start tomorrow, I though we came to relax and have fun, not to work."

   "Don’t you want to see what in the basement? ...I do"

   He stormed out of the house, shutting the doors behind him.

   Oh, what the hell! She though. She lit a gas lantern took the journal from the floor and began to read. At least she would have something to do until her fiancé came back. And maybe this journal would keep her mind from that saddened feeling.

?????

   She tried and tried to understand the worn-out handwriting. She soon found herself fascinated by the life of Harry the Mangler. Harry had shipped his way from Helsinki, Finland to Los Angels, California in 1848. On the ship he met people of different cultures and countries. They were heading towards California for the gold rush hoping to strike at rich. One man named Venuto, a witch doctor from Italy. He was a strange, silent man who carried all his belonging in barrels.

   When the ship came to a halt in Los Angeles, Venuto asked if he was lucky enough to accompany Harry and his companions. The others gave him stinky-eye. Harry felt sorry for him. He convinced the others into letting Venuto join the crew.

   Jennifer excitedly threw more wood into the fireplace. Harry story was getting interesting by the second.

   A few months after they left Los Angeles, they reached a mountain that had a trail of gold dust leading to it. Harry and his crew were excited, certain that this mountain would make them all very rich men!

   All of a sudden, very weird things started happening! One night when they rained stopped and everybody was out, they found several of the donkeys dead. Their throat had been completely pulled out and their stomached ripped open, internal organs gone. And all of their blood drained from their bodies.

   Jennifer almost threw up from that image on her head. She was now even more impress and couldn’t put the journal down.

   Harry’s crew decided that it was a wild boar or a pack of hungry wolves that killed their live-stock. That very night they drew straws, one with the shortest straw would keep guard, but in the morning that particular guard was nowhere to be found. Harry’s crew stopped working in the mountain and formed a massive search party. But they found no sign of their missing crew member. That very night they posted more crew members to guard the site. By the next morning, the posted crew members had also gone missing.

   A loud bang came from the fireplace, sending showers of red and yellow sparks. Jennifer jumped at the sudden noise that the log created. She looked over her shoulder. The firelight couldn’t brake through the thick shadows that fire created from the corners of the living room. She focus her ear to hear sounds that let her know that her fiancé was returning safe to her. But all she heard was drilling through metal. With that she knew he was working, and returned her attention to her reading.

   The crew members were focus on trapping the wild boar or the wolf-pack. They sharpened their picks and axes and they posted more crew members to set guard. Bong-fires were built to keep the wild animal away.

   Harry stood guard until he was relieved shortly after the days-end. Tired and cold he was relieved; he climbed into his TP and was very much asleep. He woke up to the sound of silence to find that everything was isolated. Harry ran outside scared just in time to see Venuto disappearing down the trail. He chased him down, only to be met by a horrible sight. The rest of the donkeys were dead and all his crew members have gone missing.

   Harry searched the meadow around the site, repetitiously calling his crew names. The only response he got was his own voices echoing back to him. He gave up, returning to the site that was very much isolated, still. Harry was utterly mystified. How could his crew have departed so quickly and silently, without leaving so much of a trail, and why?

   Then Harry remembered the mountain. Was he sure that his crew could still be working? He had no clue what was out there, or what he might find. But he was strong-minded to search the entire mountain. He took his lantern and left for the mountain.

   Jennifer looked at her watch. It was almost ten o’clock. What was holding Luis up? How long does it take to get into the basement?

   She hurried to the door and cracked it open. The night had an eerie vibe to it. There was no sound from animal life; the only sound was the wind hitting the trees.

   "Luis?" She yelled.

   Her voice returned to her with no response. She nervously waited, she called his name again. Still only her voice returned to her. The silence made her uneasy and was like dead weight in her soul.

   Jennifer closed the double door, and this time she slammed it. She walked back to the fire and threw the remaining logs into the fire. The logs crackled joyfully, but the light and hotness could not slap her worries.

?????

   At the middle of the mountain, Harry smoothed a turn and was horrified to see, in the dim light, a horrible scene. The lifeless bodies of his crew members spread across the floor forming a pentacle. The air was broad with the smell of a month-old decomposed meat.

   All of the men had a look to them; they were terribly of a grayish color. And there faces had circles of blood in them, as if someone had painted them. There skin was very crusted and looked of old mold. There clothing was torn and wet with some sort of drooled substance. Harry almost lost his lunch when he made the discovery, like all the donkeys, the pentacle bodies were drained of blood and internal organs.

   As he stared at the bodies in horrifying electrified shock, a frozen wariness went up his backbone. He had the oddest feeling that someone—or something—was studying him! He shook it off and was about to walk away, that’s when he noticed a pair of big yellowish-eyes in the darkness behind the trees. Harry was in shock with stupefied terror as the yellow-eye creature moved towards him and out of the darkness of the trees.

   It was not a man, and not a wild-animal or beast. Its skin was grayish-color that of his crew members, but the eyes glowing with ruthless life. The clothes of the creature was rotten to the core and the dampness smell was worst than being on a cemetery’s crematory. Harry screamed as that thing threw its head back to let out a hollow laugh and when the mouth opened the thing revealed sharp needle-like teeth.

   He got this sick feeling on his stomach when he realized what had killed his crew members, friends and donkeys. He knew why Venuto ran away. Venuto, a witch doctor to the most horrible of dark forces, had brought this plague to America. He ran so he can let loose this thing on an unwary earth.

   Harry slowly stepped back as that thing moved towards him.

   "Damn you Venuto, you brought this thing here didn’t you."

"Yes I did, he is my son my inheritor, he is my PROGENY."

   He turned around when he heard the leaves breaking behind him. His crew members and friends were in seizures, rising to their feet. They staggered toward him, their eyes glowing yellow, their needle sharp mouths open.

   Harry threw his lantern at that thing that was blocking his path. Glass immediately braking, and splashing flames into the ground. The zombie head hissed, and dropped to the floor in pain. The others moved backwards into unseen tunnels on the mountain, seeking the protection of the darkness of their shadows. In that instant, Harry ran like a madman.

   Harry ran like hell-fire, getting lost in the process. But found his way out of the infernal maze that Venuto created. That Zombie could not run very fast and was slow witted. Harry didn’t realize this but when he turned around every body that was dead was now inches away from him. He ran into a shelter and all of the creatures followed him inside. Harry was fast and got out of the shelter on the ground and locked them inside forever.

   Jennifer stared at the ancient journal in horror. No wonder why the woman didn’t want to talk about what happened! Who in their right-mind would believe such a tale of the walking dead?

   Harry’s last entry screamed a final warning! "Do not remove the pentacle! It is the shield that guards this cursed shelter! If the pentacle is removed, mankind will know of the curse, the walking dead. Do not remove the pentacle! That is prohibited!"

   The pentacle! Luis had taken it away from the entrance of the basement. Luis was opening the curse! Oh, God, he had no idea what he was opening…

   Jennifer ran out the door, falling down in the process.

   At that instant, she heard a piercing-shrill scream from outside the meadows.

?????

   "Luis," she wailed.

   Her voice returned to her, there was a still silence in the air. The silence was no invading her soul again. Jennifer gripped the door knob, until her knuckles were ghost white, the reflection of the fireplace made the trees dance in a hypnotic trance. Where is Luis? She had this sick feeling in her heart that something had happen to him.

   Fear shook her. She slammed the door and dead bolted it, holding the door knob for support.

   She tried to tell herself that Luis was OK or that he might had a little accident. He could have tripped on a tree trunk and fallen to the ground. He might be still lying there with some blood loss from his head and out-cold.

   She nervously bit her lower lip, speculating what else to do. What was she going to think, could she believe Harry’s story? Or was he so blinded by the gold rush that he hallucinated in the hot sun and came up with this story from his sick demented mind?

   Scanning around, Jennifer saw the second flashlight. She went to it to switch it on. Waiting inside the house was unbearable. She had no choice but to go out there and help Luis, if he was in trouble or in need of medical assistance she had to find out.

   She had the flash light in her hands and hesitantly walked slowly to the door. She tried to wake up every endorphin in her body to leave the safety of her child-hood house.

   There was a hollow voice coming from outside!

   "Luis…!"

   It was Luis voice that came from outside. Oh, My God my fiancé is alright! She happily sobbed; she threw the flash light in excitement, and unlocked the dead-bolted door.

   The double door swung open, the hinges creating a squeaky sound, this made Jennifer’s nerves jolt in anticipation.

   Without any kind of warning, the doors exploded against the walls. Jennifer screamed! Standing in the middle of the doors was Luis. But it was a Luis she didn’t know!

   A monster with Luis physique loomed over her. Yellowish-eyes gazed impatiently into hers. Pink and purple lips were flipped over back with an evil grin, revealing needle-sharp teeth.

   Monster Luis raises his arms and drove them toward her. Jennifer’s nerves made her walk backward, letting out a high-pitch scream in terror. Jennifer lost her footing. She fell head first, back second to the floor. Luis former self moved in closer.

   She now noticed what she tripped over, it wasn’t the wood from the door anymore, it was now moving body parts, legs, arms and torsos. Everything in the house came alive. The windows were flaps of skin; and the walls were pulsating muscle tissue. The roof was dripping with puss, the floor made of bloody moving fingers and the fireplace became a grinning hideous face, which had soul piecing yellow-eyes and foot long tusks.

   Luis backed away as the creature from the fireplace emerged out of the fire. The creature body was huge, and his grayish-skin was made of millions torture faces. He knelt to the floor and spoke. 

   "Oh, my God," she understood what that thing had said. The creature spoke the ancient language; it was not Aramaic but Angelic dialect. It said, I’m your father and you’re my progeny. The creature began to change, his face was changing into the face she grew to love, and it was her fathers face.

   The creature was walking away from Jennifer, it was walking towards Luis. With one quick slash from his razor sharp hands made freshly cut cubes from Luis’s form.

   He turn back and looked at Jennifer, she backed away from the creature and into a corner in the living room. She dropped down, curled her body into the fetal position, crying non stop. The creature’s faces let out piercing cries of torture and split the house in half. Her voice suddenly changing, it wasn’t human anymore.

   Yes, indeed. "One two we’re coming for you…!"

 ©2004 Zombie "TheJesus" Dirge

Zombie "TheJesus"Dirge is a writer for the Los Angeles Times "Business Section." He lives with his pet lizard that is addicted to crack, a girl whose name he can't remember, and a smell that has being lingering for years.