The Hinkelheim Curse

The Hinkelheim Curse

Emily Delacroix watched her husband, Ron, gripping the sides of a glass case in the Estate Antique Shop, staring at the item contained within. As the shopkeeper approached him, he looked up. Emily smiled as Ron’s face turned red and he removed his hands from the case.

“I have to have that pen,” he told her. “I have to have it.”

Emily smiled. He sounded like a child. “How much is it?” She asked.

“It’s only fifteen-hundred,” Ron said. “I have money from my last royalty check.”

“Fifteen-hundred?” Emily asked. “That’s a lot of money, Ron.”

“But I have the money,” Ron said. His eyes were dark, the pupils dilated. “I need that pen.”

“We need a new furnace,” Emily said. “You have tons of pens at home that you don’t even touch.”

Ron went back to the case. Emily looked over his shoulder and thought about his birthday coming up. She had the money from the sale of her most recent novel, so she decided to buy it for him.

When she told him she would get it for him, he dipped her, and kissed her long and hard. The shop keeper cleared his throat and they straightened up.

They got into the pickup with their purchase. He started the truck and pulled out into traffic. Two cars swerved to miss him and honked their horns.

“Pay attention, Ron!” Emily shrieked. “You almost caused an accident!”

“I don’t care,” Ron said. He gripped the wheel. “I need to get home to write with that pen.”

When they got home, Ron reached for the pen, but Emily pulled it away.

“It’s not your birthday yet,” she teased.

“Give it to me!” Ron yelled.

“What’s gotten into you?” She said, handing him the pen. “No ‘thank you,’ or kiss or anything?”

Ron had already started up the stairs to his office. “I kissed you at the store,” he said. Emily heard the click of his office door shutting, and shrugged her shoulders.

A few hours later, she knocked on the office door and opened it. He sat at his desk, scribbling furiously in a notebook. When she approached him, he didn’t look up, but kept scribbling. She looked down and saw that he really was scribbling. The red ink from the pen strewn across the page with sharp jagged lines so deep in some places the page was torn.

“Ron, are you okay?” She asked. She touched his shoulder lightly and he jumped.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. His eyes were sunken and red rimmed. “Actually, I feel odd,” he stood up and brushed past her and lay down on the couch in his office, clutching the pen.

The next day when Emily woke up, Ron’s side of the bed was untouched. She went to his office and peeked inside. He was at his desk wearing the same clothes from the day before. She expected to see him writing furiously on some new idea, as was usual when he didn’t come to bed, but he merely sat at his desk, rotating his new pen in his hands, staring.

“Honey?” She said quietly. He didn’t hear her so she opened the door. As it creaked open, Ron started and looked at her with unfocused, bloodshot eyes.

“Get out,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Do you want some breakfast?” Emily asked.

“Did you not hear me, woman?” He shouted. “Get out!”

Emily stepped back, shocked. “What has gotten into you?” She asked.

She backed toward the door as Ron stood up, gripping the pen in his fist. When she reached the hallway, he slammed the door in her face. A picture fell from the wall, the glass shattered on the floor. It was their wedding photo taken three months before. She brushed the broken glass from the frame and held the picture to her chest. Tears burned in her eyes, but she willed herself not to cry.

Ron locked himself in his office every day for nearly a week. He didn’t talk to her, didn’t come to bed. She was afraid to disturb him, but she couldn’t take the estrangement any longer. She stood outside his office and gently knocked on the door. When there was no answer, she opened it a crack and looked inside. Ron was asleep at his desk.

“Ron?” Emily said. She touched his arm, it was cool. She shook him gently and he lolled to the side. An envelope opener stuck from his throat, shoved in up to the handle. Blood stained the front of his shirt. Emily screamed and backed toward the door. When she reached the doorway, she ran down the hall and called the police.

The police came and went in a matter of hours. An officer touched her elbow and handed her a slip of paper.

“Don’t read that until you feel better,” he warned her. Emily nodded, tears dripping down her face.


It was two weeks before she could go into Ron’s office again. She stepped inside like there was glass on the floor, and looked at his desk. The crystal pen lay on a notebook. Ink had dribbled from the tip. She leaned closer and examined it. It wasn’t an ink spill; it was words, in Ron’s handwriting.

Baron La Croix.

She went to her desk and grabbed the paper the police gave her. She opened it and read it, then sat back, holding the letter, wishing there was something she could have done. A hot tear slipped down her cheek. It was a suicide note.

Two days later, Emily decided to go to the library to research the pen. She traced Ron’s odd behavior to when he first saw it in the antique store. One name came up in the search results. Hinkelheim. There were obituaries and a notice of an estate sale. The manor was about twenty minutes away, located up a hill that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

She went with the hopes that another Hinkelheim had moved in, but when she pulled into the drive the manor had caution tape draped over the entry and No Trespassing signs slathered on every surface.

Emily grabbed the flashlight from her glove box, and went to the front door. Strangely, it was unlocked, so she slipped inside and flicked on the flashlight to look around. There was furniture covered in ghostly sheets, spider web covered candelabras, and paintings stood against the walls, recently taken down.

Her beam of light swept over a mahogany bookcase with glass doors. The books inside were faded with torn canvas covers, stitched bindings, and gold embossed titles on the spines. She noticed a book with no title, opened the glass door and pulled it from the shelf.

Opening the cover she read, The Journal of Humphrey Hinkelheim I. She turned the page.

If you are reading this, I am dead. The curse, it was true. Baron La Croix is wicked and evil and must be destroyed. The pen is his undoing.

She flipped to the last entry. I cannot live another day feeling this way. I am going to use the pen.

She flipped a few pages and a note fluttered to the floor. It was a suicide letter in red ink signed by Humphrey Hinkelheim.

She tucked the book her bag and looked around. She gasped as the light landed on a painting propped against the wall. It was a portrait of Ron.

There was a sound behind her. Emily turned around to a beam of light in her face.

“You’re trespassing,” a masculine voice said.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said in a small voice. Her heart pounded in her ears. She swallowed hard.

“I’ll get going, then,” she started for the door, the beam of light shaking with her hand.

“No, stop,” the light fell from her, and the man switched on the lights.

Emily squinted against the sudden brightness. She was ready to run if the man approached her, but when her eyes adjusted, she gasped.

“I know,” he said with a chuckle and a smile. “I look just like the man in that portrait, except the eyes,” he batted his eyelashes, and indeed, where the portrait’s eyes were dark brown, nearly black, his were blue. “I’m Hugh,” he said.

“Emily,” she said. “Who is that in the portrait?”

“That is Humphrey Hinkelheim the first,” Hugh said. “My brother was the seventh; he committed suicide recently,” he brushed dust nonchalantly from a table.

“That’s Humphrey Hinkelheim?” Emily asked.

“Yes. Why?” Hugh said.

“My husband, Ron Delacroix, looked just like that man,”

“Delacroix?” Hugh thought for a moment. “Right,” he looked at Emily.

Hugh explained that the first Delacriox was a slave of the Hinkelheim Estate. She seduced Humphrey several times.

“I guess they had a string of illegitimate children. The Hinkelheim genes are strong, which explains your husband’s likeness,” he said. “Let me show you,”

Hugh went to the bookcase and pulled an album from a shelf. He flipped it open to pictures of the female Hinkelheims. They all looked like Humphrey, save for their long hair and fancy dresses.

“So your husband is a Delacroix?” Hugh asked.

“He was,” Emily said. She looked at her hands.

“Oh,” Hugh said. “Is he gone?”

Emily took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “A few weeks ago,” she felt her throat tighten and forced herself to be strong.

“How did it happen?” Hugh asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Emily straightened and headed for the door.

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Hugh said. “Take this,” he handed her a business card with his contact information.

“Thanks,” Emily said.


When she got back home, she examined the pen closer. She pulled out Ron’s notebook and flipped through it before turning to a clean page. She tried to write her name but no ink came out. She held the crystal barrel up to the light. It was full of dark red ink, why didn’t it write? She tried again, but soon gave up and went to bed.

Emily awoke in the middle of the night by a faint scratching. She thought maybe there was a mouse in the room, but when she opened her eyes, she screamed. There was a man sitting at the desk, writing with the pen.

Heart pounding, she reached with a shaky hand for the phone to call the police, and something blunt to protect herself with. There was something strange about the man. Gripping the phone in one hand, and pulling the sheets tight around her with the other, she climbed out of bed.

“What are you doing in here?” She asked from the far side of the room. The man didn’t answer. She shivered against the sudden chill in the room, swallowed hard and stepped toward him. “Hello?” She said. Her voice came out as a choked whisper. She stopped and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath she opened them and stepped closer, heart pounding. She looked over his shoulder.

The hand that held the pen was gray, tendons showed in places where the skin had rotted away. He was writing a letter to Baron La Croix, asking for forgiveness and to spare his family of this wretched curse. He turned his head and Emily jumped back against the bedroom door and screamed. One eye dangled from a socket, an envelope opener stuck deep within. The other was wide and bloodshot. His face was pale, skin hung from his cheeks like wet rags on a fence. His mouth gaped open, exposing a row of yellowed teeth.

He stepped forward. Emily fumbled for the door knob and jiggled it. It wouldn’t turn.

“Destroy the pen, kill Baron La Croix,” he said in a moan. Emily braced herself against the door as Hinkelheim came within inches of her face. She turned her head and closed her eyes tight.

“Baron La Croix,” he said in a puff of putrid breath. A low wail started in his chest followed by screeching. Emily grabbed her ears as it erupted from his mouth along with a stream of bats that circled around the room. “Baron La Croix!” he yelled over the hundreds of flapping wings.

The phone rang and Emily jolted up in bed, covered in sweat. It rang again. She clicked it on.

“Hello?” She said.

“Baron La Croix,” a voice crackled over the line. She tossed the phone to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest. She covered her face with her hands. When she left her bed a few minutes later, she paused by her desk. There was a letter on yellowed, brittle paper to Baron La Croix, signed by Humphrey Hinkelheim. Emily decided she had to see Hugh. She needed some answers.

Hugh agreed to meet her at the manor.

“I’m not sure what happened to my husband,” Emily said as she walked up to him. He sat on the front steps of the house. “It was suicide, he’d been acting strange ever since I bought him this pen,” she handed it to Hugh. “I also brought this,” she handed him the letter she found that morning. Her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Hugh said. “It seems like you’ve been through a lot.” He awkwardly touched her arm. “Listen,” he said. “This might sound funny, but I need you to come with me,”

“Where?” Emily asked.

“To my house,” he said. “It’s about this pen, and this letter.”

A few minutes later they pulled up outside of a large house that was in dire need of repairs. Instead of going up the broken porch steps, Hugh led her around to a set of cellar doors. She stopped and watched him descend part way. When he noticed she wasn’t following him, he came back up.

“I know, weird, right?”

“A little,” Emily replied.

“Don’t worry, I’m harmless,” he said with a devilish grin.

“The last person who said that to me was my husband, and a few months later we were married,” Emily laughed for the first time since Ron died.

Hugh grinned. “Come on,” he said.

They went down into a dark interior. With a click, a single bulb lit up part of the cellar. The small circumference of light illuminated tables strewn with newspapers, yellowed and curling with age. Emily glanced at a few headlines. They all proclaimed of Hinkelheim suicides. She tightened her sweater around her.

Hugh clicked on another light, exposing a kitchenette and a mattress with blankets on it.

“Okay, I live down here,” he said. “I bought this house but the upstairs is so bad that I decided to live down here,”

“Weird, but okay,” Emily said. “What is all this stuff?”

“My research,” Hugh said. He sat down at a table with a magnifying light. “See this?” He moved so she could look through the glass.

“Yeah, what is that?” Emily asked.

“The Voudoun insignia for death,” Hugh whispered.

“The curse,” Emily said. “Hinkelheim’s journal said something about a curse,”

“I’m going to write with it,” Hugh said.

“No!” Emily held his arm. “You might die like the others!”

“No I won’t,” Hugh laughed. “You see, I kind of lied to you,” he gave her a wicked grin and stood up.

“What do you mean?” She said, backing away.

“I’m only half Hinkelheim, but I do have Hinkelheim blood,” he looked at the pen, eyes dilated. “If I write with this, it will most likely be a suicide letter,” he held the pen up to the light. “That’s all you can write with it,” His voice was dreamy. “Anyone with Hinkelheim blood is cursed upon the use of this pen, all because of daddy Hinkelheim, you know, the first one,” already Hugh was affected by the pen. He stared intently at it, his blue eyes dark. “I won’t die,” his eyes sparkled. “I know I won’t,” his grin made her pull her sweater even tighter around her body. “This pen belongs in the hands of a Hinkelheim,”

As Hugh held the pen up to the light, watching the red ink inside, Emily took his distraction as an opportunity. She snatched it from his hands. He yelped and grabbed for it, but she backed away and ran up the stairs to her car.

She sped off, and after making sure he wasn’t following her, drove to the library to look up Baron La Croix, the Hinkelheims, the Delacroixs, and anything else that might give her a clue about what was going on.

Emily sat down at a computer and typed Baron La Croix into a search engine. She clicked on the first search result, a Voodoo glossary.

Apparently Baron La Croix was the Voodoun Loa, or diety, of the dead. A string of historical links followed the brief definition. One in particular stood out among many others.

Baron La Croix: Hinkelheim Curse

The link confirmed that Mistress Delacriox was a black slave in the Hinkelheim Manor. She was fifteen when Hinkelheim cornered her in the cellar and raped her. She ran away after his violent attack and stumbled upon a Voodoun ritual. The Voodoun Priestess, angered by what had happened to the girl, adopted her into their tribe and taught her the ways of the Voodoun.

Over time, Delacriox was able to invoke the Loa. She invoked Baron La Croix, Loa of the Dead, and the Loa possessed her body, as was common with invocation. She seduced Hinkelheim, and acquired his favorite crystal fountain pen and placed a powerful Voodoun curse upon it.

The human part of Mistress Delacroix warned Humphrey of the curse, and he vowed to never use the pen again. Over time, her belly grew with his seed. When she gave birth, she died instantly and Baron La Croix transferred his soul into her son, who continued her quest against the Hinkelheims by raping his daughters and other women in the manor.

Emily left the library sweating and shaken. She felt queasy and a lump of anxiety sat in her stomach like a stifled scream. She decided, with great reluctance and against her better judgment, to meet with Hugh once again.

He was happy to meet her at the manor, under one condition. She had to give him the pen. Emily agreed, and at two in the afternoon, she found herself pulling up to the Hinkelheim manor for the third time.

“Do you have the pen?” Hugh asked before she had finished climbing from her car.

“Yes,” she said. “Keep your distance.” She rubbed her arms against the chilly sea breeze that blew in from the ocean.

“Let’s get inside out of this heat,” Hugh said, pulling his shirt away from his chest. He was pale, and sweat dripped down his face. His eyes were sunken and red rimmed.

Emily’s heart raced as she stepped inside the manor. She couldn’t help but feel trapped once Hugh closed the front doors. She knew what stood before her. His youthful skin had already started to sag.

“I did some research,” Emily said after taking a deep breath and steeling herself. “I found out some interesting things about the Hinkelheims and Baron La Croix,”

A cruel sneer formed on his lips.

“There were a lot of references to Mistress Delacroix,” Emily said. She recounted what she had learned. “Generations later, according to a genealogy, a familiar name appeared on the tree.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “There was a Hugh Delacroix, but no mention of a Hugh Hinkelheim. In fact, your name was the last name on the family tree,”

Hugh stared at Emily intently. His blue eyes were black, and when he spoke, his voice rough.

“Give me the pen,” he said. “It needs to be in the hands of a Hinkelheim or the curse will expire!”

“You will never have this pen,” Emily swallowed hard and gritted her teeth. “Baron La Croix,”

Hugh’s eyes turned red. His skin bubbled like hot mud. He started to scream as it slid, melting from his body into a puddle on the floor.

Emily screamed as the Baron dropped to his knees and gripped his head. She backed up and watched as horns sprouted from his skull, talons from his fingers. Razor spines erupted from each vertebra. A lashing tail grew rapidly from his tail bone. With a cry of agony, leather wings shot from his shoulder blades and flapped; dust fluttered and swirled around Emily. A heavy wind began to blow.

He stood on hind legs with cloven hooves and let out a terrible roar exposing a row of sharp teeth with long fangs. He stood over her, over seven feet tall, chest heaving, tail lashing, fangs dripping. He moved swiftly and trapped her against a wall with a hand around her throat.

“I would have killed you sooner, but I need your body,” he hissed in her face, spackling her cheeks with rancid saliva.

Emily steeled herself, heart pounding. Her hands were clammy around the barrel of the pen; her breathing hard. She gritted her teeth and raised the pen above her head.

“You will never hurt another soul!” She screamed. She stared the Death Loa in his red, slit-pupil eyes and with one sweeping motion, threw the pen as hard as she could against the hard wood floor. With a satisfying crash, the crystal barrel shattered, spilling the red ink onto the floorboards.

“What have you done?” Baron La Croix roared. He released her and dropped to his knees by the pen. Emily rubbed her throat and gasped for air, then backed away as a hard wind began to blow.

Moans and shrieks issued from the broken pen. Green smoke billowed from the bubbling ink. Wisps of white circled the Baron, slithered in and out of his nose and mouth. He cried out in agony and gripped his ears.

“For years your curse has terrorized our family,” a wailing voice cried. “So you could live forever, Baron La Croix. Now we are free. You cannot harm another in our line,”

The souls disappeared inside the Baron. The wind subsided.

Baron La Croix stood up and looked at Emily who cowered by a table. He stepped toward her, a low laugh erupting in a horrible cackle that echoed through the manor. He threw his head back with a roar, then a gasp. He gripped his throat, then his chest. A lump moved around his torso under his skin. He grabbed at it, but missed every time.

Green smoke seeped from the Baron’s ears. A high pitched wail made him grab his head and fall to his knees. White light shot from his mouth, jerking his head back. Emily gasped as the wailing became louder. The Baron roared as his arms were jerked to his sides. A crack of light formed at the top of his skull. It jutted down his face, neck, and chest. Finally, with the tearing of paper, Baron La Croix was ripped in two.

The wind stopped. The wailing subsided. White souls drifted to the ceiling and disappeared.

Emily gripped the table and pressed her head against the back of her hand. She let out a sob, and caught her breath. When she looked up, one last soul drifted from the Baron’s remains. It hovered near her. It was Ron.

He smiled and kissed her forehead, then began to drift toward the ceiling.

Emily stood up, holding his hand as long as she could. He drifted to the highest point of the ceiling and disappeared forever.

Emily left the manor for the last time. She didn’t see the Baron’s remains turn to dust and drift through the manor. She wasn’t there to watch the red ink move along the floor. She never saw the dust and red ink swirl together, forming the shape of a woman, nor did she see that woman leave the manor, red eyes gleaming in the sunlight.