魔角 (2010)

Horns is a 2010 dark fantasy novel by Joe Hill and is the author's second published novel. The novel also incorporates elements of contemporary fantasy, crime fiction, and Gothic fiction. It employs the third-person omniscient, nonlinear narrative in telling the story of Ig Perrish, who—in the aftermath of his girlfriend Merrin Williams' mysterious rape and murder—awakes one morning to find horns growing from his head and diabolical powers at his command. The novel consists of fifty chapters grouped into five sections of ten chapters each, named as follows: "Hell", "Cherry", "The Fire Sermon", "The Fixer", and "The Gospel According to Mick and Keith".

Plot summary

After a drunken night in the woods containing an old foundry, near where his girlfriend's corpse was discovered, twenty-six-year-old Ignatius "Ig" Perrish wakes up one morning to find that he has sprouted bony, sensitive horns from his temples. Ig is the second son of a renowned musician and the younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, Terry Perrish. Ig had position and security within his hometown of Gideon, New Hampshire, but the rape and murder of his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, changed all that. Despite his innocence, and although he was neither charged nor tried, Ig is largely considered guilty in public opinion.

As Ig leaves the apartment he shares with Glenna Nicholson, a childhood acquaintance of his whom he occasionally has sex with, he notices that she is strangely honest with him about her innermost desires, especially admitting to have performed oral sex on a mutual high school friend of theirs, Lee Tourneau, the previous night. When Ig goes to a medical clinic to deal with the growth of his horns, other people blatantly admit to him their darkest urges and that no one seems surprised to see the horns. Also, physical contact with people allows him to know their identities and some of their darkest secrets. Throughout the day he makes people give in to the ugly urges: including two police officers, his church's priest and a nun, and others. Going home, he discovers that his parents and grandmother secretly detest him, believing that he killed Merrin. He then meets his brother, Terry, who admits under the horns' power that Lee Tourneau was Merrin's killer. A furious Ig releases the brake on his grandmother's wheelchair and she goes rushing down a slope and crashes.

Back in his high school years, Ig becomes infatuated with Merrin at church when she flirtatiously reflects light off her cross necklace into his eyes. She mistakenly leaves the necklace which Ig finds and, noticing that it's broken, resolves to fix it. Later Ig and Terry go to the foundry where other teens hang out. There, Eric Hannity bets that if anyone rides naked down a perilous trail in the woods, he will give them a cherry bomb that he and Terry have been playing with over the summer. Ig agrees to the bet, but he crashes into the river. Ig survives, believing that Lee pulled him out of the water and resuscitated him. Ig and Lee immediately become friends. When Lee also expresses an interest in Merrin and shows him how to fix the necklace, Ig lets him have it instead. Later, Ig trades his cherry bomb with Lee in order to get back the cross. Ig and Merrin eventually begin dating. Lee detonates the cherry bomb and damages his eye. Not only does Ig feel responsible for Lee's accident, but that Merrin should not go to the hospital with him to visit Lee, because Ig thinks it would be tantamount to gloating their relationship in Lee's face.

On the night of Merrin's murder, she attempts to break things off with Ig. Merrin explains that Ig, who is about to go to England for six months for his job, should openly pursue other women while there, in order to gain some more romantic experience. This infuriates Ig, who accuses her of cheating on him. He drives away from the restaurant, leaving her in the rain. He is later arrested at the airport.

Back in the present, Ig goes to the congressman's office where Lee works to make him admit that he killed Merrin. However, he is unable to manipulate Lee with the horns. He also cannot attack Lee because of the congressman's security team, which includes Eric Hannity. Driving back to the foundry, Ig notices that snakes have started congregating around him. He listens to voicemails left by his friends and family, discovering that they have no memory of interacting with him while under the mysterious influence of his horns. He drives back to his and Glenna's apartment where he is attacked by Eric, just narrowly escaping.

Returning to his parents' home, Ig touches a sleeping Terry's wrist and suddenly sees the events of the night of Merrin's murder through his eyes. Terry was riding in Lee's car when they pick up Merrin, but is drunk and high and passes out while the actual murder takes place. Later, Lee threatens Terry to keep quiet and five months later unsuccessfully attempts suicide. Although Terry begins to wake up, Ig mimics their mother's voice and tells Terry to return to Los Angeles before departing. Ig returns to the foundry where he delivers a drunken speech to the snakes. The following morning Ig is abruptly assaulted by Lee, and the contact with him enlightens Ig as to just how Lee murdered Merrin. Ig removes Merrin's cross from Lee's neck, leaving him exposed to the horns' influence. Lee tosses Ig into the latter's AMC Gremlin, douses the car with gasoline, and lights it on fire before it crashes into the river. Ig emerges unharmed but naked, the fire having healed him and made his skin redder.