The Little Man in His Head by Lawrence Buentello
The nature of evil is not always visible to the normal eye.
At first, I believed my new next door neighbor, Mr. Harris, to be guilty of numerous violent murders recent to the city—horrible crimes of extreme brutality, which left police investigators baffled in their attempts to ascertain a meaningful pattern to these heinous violations.
My belief in Mr. Harris’ guilt had nothing to do with the man’s general demeanor, in fact, when he settled into the apartment room across the hallway from my own I initially considered him quite innocuous. A man of middle years, burdened by corpulence and a previous accident which left him limping noticeably through his day, and subsequently retired from active employment, I observed nothing to suggest a nefarious character. Quite the contrary, he rarely left his apartment and seemed almost agoraphobic.
This tendency alerted me to his connection to the recent series of murders, though: I quickly began to notice that his leaving of his apartment in the evening, very infrequently to be certain, coincided with the news announcements the following morning of another local killing.
My own ascetic habits contributed to my misperceptions, as I accepted only the sound of his brusquely closing door, heard from where I sat in my reading chair in my apartment, as evidence of his nocturnal departures. I was mistaken.
So perfectly timed was this pattern of closing doors and grotesquely murdered people that I began to wonder if I should notify the authorities of my suspicions. But if I had difficulty envisioning the unathletic Mr. Harris stalking able-bodied victims in dark alleys, ranging from elderly women to college football players, I had to believe the police would simply ascribe my suspicions to coincidence (and an unwarranted invasion of another man’s privacy).
I felt I should confirm my suspicions in other ways before bothering the police.
Therefore I made an effort to become more familiar to Mr. Harris in order to gain his confidence so I could arrange a surreptitious interview, given in the guise of neighborly sociability.
This I accomplished over the next few days, beginning with casual greetings at the mailboxes downstairs and concluding in my bringing him the surplus of an afternoon of baking. Yes, I said as I handed him the carefully arranged basket of brioche, we should share coffee one day in order to get to know each other better. That would be fine, he replied, though an uneasy crease fell across his brow.
Despite his reticence, I finally arranged for coffee and conversation one Saturday evening and arrived at his door, for he only felt comfortable socializing in his own apartment, fully intent on examining his true character.
Now I must explain my own history so the following details are not ascribed to some mental deficiency on my part—I, too, had retired early from active employment, but only after securing an appreciable financial nest egg with which to see to my admittedly simple needs. I had great fortune investing the money I’d earned, as a small bakery owner, in the stock market years before, returns some might describe as lucky and others as canny. I would describe my financial gains as the result of an inheritance: not of money, but of a special psychic gift from my mother’s family, particularly my maternal grandmother. I was born with second sight.
I shared in her wild talents to a lesser degree, though sufficient to assist me in steering the course of my life in practical ways. The only annoyance I experienced from this normally beneficial gift was a predilection to seeing visions of a world parallel to our own, these visions becoming occasionally disturbing. But since I never felt oppressed by these revelations I simply ignored them whenever they manifested.
Such a gift is neither completely beneficial nor detrimental, merely present.
So when I arrived at Mr. Harris’ door that evening, croissants in hand, I felt no fear of finding myself behind closed doors with a potential serial killer—his eyes, trapped in folds of premature aging, stared on me benignly. I felt no indication within my second sense of being in any peril.
We sat in his living room with our cups of coffee, myself speaking predominantly, for he seemed reluctantly to espouse on his own history beyond brief details of schooling and a stint as an overseas buyer for exotic home decor. This last disclosure seemed utterly incongruous in the moment, as his apartment lay adorned with little more than basic furnishings, a plain sofa and table, nondescript wooden shelves devoid of books, garish reproduced paintings hung inexpertly on the walls—if Mr. Harris had been a purveyor of stylish decor in his past, he’d lost his good taste on his way to the present.
After observing his poor locomotion and listening to his plain oratory, I came to believe my suspicions had to be in error. This was not a man, stooped and partially crippled, who could overpower strong, healthy young men and women. The connection I’d made to his opening door and the ensuing reporting of new murders certainly had to be coincidence.
I was preparing to return to my own apartment relieved of my suspicions, despite the unnerving urgings of my psychic sense, until I noticed a glassy expression cross Mr. Harris’ portly face; he held his cup still in the air, as if frozen, his eyes certainly perceiving nothing through their glaze. I felt myself partially rising from my chair, fearing he’d suffered a seizure, but then sat again, paralyzed by the vision I beheld.
Upon the dull bald pate of his head a black fissure appeared, as if a bloodless gap were opening in the skin. This fissure expanded slowly until acquiring a split of approximately six inches—and then, on either side of the opening, two small hands appeared, searching blindly to acquire a grip on Mr. Harris’ flesh. A moment later, through the exertions of tiny arms, a tiny head emerged into the air, hairless, earless, though bearing two tiny black eyes and a thin mouth full of needle-like teeth. This small, naked homunculus completed its escape from the interior of Mr. Harris’ skull and, gripping the man’s ring of white hair, climbed down to sit upon his motionless shoulder.
Would you have cried out and fled the room?
Most certainly, I have no doubt.
But I had been seeing similar visions for years and had grown accustomed to the shock of alien spirits in our world.
So I sat as if I’d seen nothing, as how rarely are such things actually seen? The little naked man sat on the vacant Mr. Harris’ shoulder grinning at me, perhaps assessing me, his mouth pouting in the air like a goldfish sucking at floating food flakes, his tiny hands gesturing obscenely. Then this little man, who’d emerged from Mr. Harris’ head, climbed down the comatose man’s leg and scurried to the door of the apartment.
Not even six inches tall, I couldn’t imagine his intentions—until I witnessed through the corner of my eye, as I didn’t wish to alert the entity to my knowledge of his existence, the little man’s arm reach up toward the doorknob, expand in dimension to the size of a grown man’s hand and arm, and expertly turn the knob.
The little man fled the apartment, shutting the door behind himself with a resounding thud.
I set my cup down astounded, for I’d never seen any supernatural vision actually interact with the physicality of our world in the manner of the little man. Mr. Harris sat inert, devoid of reaction, incapable of hearing my words. At a loss, I wondered if I should leave the apartment and lock myself away in my own room, but an intuition forbid me to move from my chair. I obeyed this feeling reluctantly, but had learned to trust my psychic instincts and their unerring accuracy.
Perhaps thirty minutes later, I heard the doorknob turning and quickly assumed a natural pose, speaking idly as if Mr. Harris were still capable of coherent speech.
The door opened and then hurriedly closed; from the corner of my eye, I saw the little man walk across the living room rug, ascend the monument of Mr. Harris’ leg, and sit once again upon the man’s shoulder. Now the little man’s face shone scarlet with streaks of blood, his mouth open in a bloody grin. In his tiny hands he held the bloody stump of a black cat’s paw with which he slowly cleansed the gore from his face.
Then, even as I continued my charade of sociability, the little man began eating the cat’s paw, emitting sucking noises as he chewed, until he’d consumed the entire feline limb. Still staring at me, and no doubt assessing the ridiculous grin I wore as my mask against his perceptions, he pulled himself up along Mr. Harris’ ring of white hair and quietly slipped down into the bloodless fissure upon the shining pate.
When the fissure inexplicably sealed itself, the corpulent man’s eyes fluttered briefly and Mr. Harris seemed himself again, his eyes animate and his voice croaking mucosally as he exclaimed how nice it had been to spend the hour in pleasant company.
When I returned to my own apartment I was left with only one conclusion—that Mr. Harris wasn’t a serial killer, as I’d suspected—the murderer had to be the little man in his head.
#
I must admit I’d been thoroughly disarmed by my evening in Mr. Harris’ apartment.
I suspect the man remained quite unaware of the supernatural agent living inside of him. I had seen innumerable instances of spiritual parasites attached to persons who were likewise unaware of their uninvited guests, children with needful ghostly twins, young women with adoring eidolons, old men with gleeful demons whispering instructions for the grave, though I had never witnessed a being quite like the one inhabiting my guileless neighbor. This creature seemed to possess actual physicality, not mere spiritual presence, a power capable of morphing size and strength, and a bloodlust defining its evil nature.
Perhaps he’d acquired his strange passenger during one of his trips to India, or Malaysia, or China, where ancient spirits drifted in the air like seeds in the vernal season; wherever he’d acquired the little man, that same entity now lived to inflict carnage and death in our part of the world. He had to be stopped, but how could I inform the police of his existence?
True second sight has always been a rare commodity, witnessed by few, attested to by fewer still.
I couldn’t possibly report these circumstances to the police now, they would think me a lunatic. Yet, could I sit idly in my apartment listening to the opening and closing of my neighbor’s door knowing the little man prowled the streets in search of his next victim?
I assumed that, because of my proximity to Mr. Harris and the rarity of my talents, the little man wouldn’t risk inflicting harm on me since that would quickly bring the authorities to his door. Could I use this knowledge to my advantage in dispatching the little man myself?
Still, another intuition informed me that my assumptions were not quite correct. But in what way?
The universe is a strange place, filled with the potential for bizarre perceptions. When those perceptions manifested in destructive ways, they had to be abolished. And since I was the person entrusted with the knowledge of my neighbor’s parasite, it thus became my responsibility to rid the human world of its influence.
I began by studying the little man’s itinerary—his coming and going, charting his schedule of murders by listening closely to the opening and closing of Mr. Harris’ door. By this faithful vigil I determined that he seemed to be coordinating his excursions to the phases of the moon, new moon, half moon, full moon—a lunar cycle reminding me of ancient cultures and the worship of lunar influences.
The worst murders took place during the full moon; the least onerous offenses nearer to the new moon. For instance, the little man’s dining on the cat’s paw occurred the evening of the new moon while a particularly gristly triple-murder transpired on the night of a harvest moon. This told me that the creature was weakest during the new moon phase, a circumstance for which I could plan my ‘intervention’.
The little man never spent more than five hours away from his host, which let me know that his manifestations could not be sustained outside of Mr. Harris’ body for very long, a typical quality of other spiritual parasites and a detail I intended to wield as my only weapon against this supernatural instrument.
I admit I was terrified. Who wouldn’t be? But I couldn’t fear the future, despite its surprises. I felt it was a responsibility given to me by divine agents, so what happened that night wasn’t my fault. How could I know?
On the evening of the next new moon I stood prepared, standing by the front door of my apartment with the rented wheelchair beside me.
When I heard Mr. Harris’ door open that night, then shut forcefully, I waited a good five minutes before opening my own door and pushing the wheelchair toward my neighbor’s apartment. I quickly scanned the hallway, marked my isolation, then quietly turned the unlocked doorknob and slipped inside Mr. Harris’ living room.
Again, the portly, disheveled Mr. Harris sat vacuously in his chair, oblivious to the inquiries I fairly shouted into his ear; the same fissure gaped sarcastically like a vertical leer. Without hesitation, I used all of my strength to lift the man into the seat of the waiting conveyance, securing his feet in the stirrups, before hurriedly rolling him from his apartment and into my own. I closed the door to his apartment, then thoroughly locked my own door, leaving the comatose Mr. Harris secreted in my bedroom for the night.
Then I waited by my door, ancient religious talisman in hand, listening.
Before midnight I heard the doorknob turning, the door opening, the door closing violently—and then—
Have you heard the calling of the loon? The loud, deep, plaintive cry rending the night sky and echoing sadly up to heaven? As if the world had cracked and all the sorrows of the ages were evaporating into the sky?
The cries I heard from next door were exponentially more horrid, a sudden, desperate crying for resolution, and the realization that a once warm sanctuary had suddenly vanished into the ether—
I listened to this wailing the entire night—perhaps only I could hear it, for my neighbors never reported these supernatural cries of anguish shaking the entire building. I listened, my hand trembling around my blessed talisman, praying the little man would perish come the rising of the sun. And near dawn, as my resolve diminished and my trembling became a violent shivering, the cries abruptly ceased.
Only after sunrise did I find the courage to leave my apartment and open my neighbor’s door.
By then no threat existed. Though the air lay heavy with the putrid stench of sulfur and rot, the only evidence of the little man’s previous existence lay as a bloody, smoldering stain on the pale green carpet, preserved in the impression of a tiny little man.
After kissing my talisman, I returned to my apartment triumphantly, having freed my hapless neighbor of his horrid infestation. I hurried to my bedroom to minister to Mr. Harris’ recovery and found him sitting in the wheelchair, the gaping fissure on his bald pate now closed, but the glassy stare still present in his eyes.
In fact, his mouth, now agape, issued an unpleasant string of drool and his pupils had fully dilated in his dark brown eyes.
Mr. Harris’ catatonia remained, the artifact of a massive brain hemorrhage leaving him permanently damaged. Fortunately, he did not survive long in this horribly unhealthy state, and died within a few days in the charity hospital. I came to visit him, of course, and sat by his bed, chagrinned. I know he couldn’t have heard my apologies, but I still asked for his forgiveness.
I’d thought Mr. Harris couldn’t have been a murderer—but I’d been wrong.
A demon hadn’t infested Mr. Harris’ brain—Mr. Harris’ brain was the demon. As I said earlier, the nature of evil is not always visible to the ordinary eye. Or the invisible eye.
There are more things in heaven and earth—
At least the murders ceased.
—
Lawrence Buentello has published fiction in many magazines and anthologies. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
