Horns (novel)
Encyclopedia
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.
, near where his girlfriend's corpse was discovered) to find that he has spouted 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. Within his hometown of Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig had position and security, but the rape and murder of his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, changed all that. Though he was neither charged nor tried (nor had committed the crime), Ig is largely considered guilty in public opinion.
As Ig leaves the apartment he shares with his friend with benefits
, Glenna Nicholson, he notices that she is strangely honest with him about her desire to binge, her feelings about his unwanted presence, and the fact that she performed oral sex
on a mutual high school friend of theirs, Lee Tourneau, the previous night. As Ig goes to a medical clinic to deal with the growth of his horns, he discovers that people have a sudden compulsion to blatantly express their ugliest and most animalistic urges, desires, and opinions to him, and that no one (neither those whom he already knows nor those he meets for the first time) seems surprised to see the horns. Moreover, when he makes skin-to-skin contact with individuals, he immediately learns their identities and some of their darkest secrets. They forget about their conversations with him as soon as they're over, as well as forgetting about the horns. He also realizes that he can make people give in to the ugly urges they have—in fact, the horns pulse in a pleasurable fashion when he does so—but he cannot make them do things they do not already want to do. He experiences these revelations with the doctor he talks to, two previously acquainted police officers, his church's priest and a nun, and others he encounters. Going home, he discovers that his parents and grandmother detest him and believe him to be Merrin's killer; he then meets his brother, Terry, who seems to be the only sympathetic member of the Perrish family. Terry, however, under the influence of the horns' power, confesses that he knows who killed Merrin: Lee Tourneau. Ig, in an episode of diabolic passion, releases the brake on his grandmother's wheelchair, and she goes rushing down a slope at a precarious speed.
as a common motif
, referring to Merrin's red hair, the loss of virginity, and the characters' involvement with cherry bomb
s. Ig agrees to a bet: if he rides a shopping cart naked down a perilous trail in the woods by the Knowles River, he will receive a cherry bomb. Although he breaks his nose and briefly loses consciousness when he crashes into the river, Ig survives, believing that Lee Tourneau pulled him out of the water and resuscitated him. Ig and Lee immediately become friends, though Ig is pestered by the uncomfortable feeling of owing Lee a debt. In church, Ig becomes infatuated with a red-headed girl who has been flirtatiously reflecting light off her cross necklace into his eyes. When the necklace breaks and, unnoticed by her, falls down, Ig collects it and decides to impress her by fixing it. But when Lee expresses an interest in her 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. With this, Ig greets Merrin and the two soon become de facto
girlfriend and boyfriend. Lee detonates the cherry bomb and damages his eye, which becomes milky and has impaired vision, though his other eye is unimpaired. Lee is also revealed to be a juvenile delinquent, having stolen and sold various items, perhaps as a way of venting his seemingly groundless hatred of his mother. Ig feels not only that he may be 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 in Lee's face (having won the girl over Lee).
Meanwhile, in the present day, Ig goes to the congressman's office where Lee works and tells Lee he knows that Lee killed Merrin, but for some reason, 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, another high school acquaintance. Ig drives back to the woods and the foundry and notices that snakes have started congregating around him. He listens to voice mails left by his friends and family on his cell phone and realizes that they think he is missing, having apparently not remembered just seeing 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, from Terry's perspective, the events of the night of Merrin's murder: Terry is 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 convinces Terry to keep quiet and five months later, a guilt-ridden Terry unsuccessfully attempts suicide. Although Terry begins to wake up, Ig discovers another power of his—he can perfectly mimic other voices— and convinces Terry that he is their mother, in the dark room, before departing.
Ig returns to the foundry where he finds an affinity with fire (and wine) and delivers a speech to the snakes. He asserts that the devil and women have always caused fear in God, with women being the more powerful because they, like God, have the power of creation. He argues that when Merrin decided to break away from him to pursue her own ends, God detested her and refused to come to her aid while she was being raped and murdered, all because He feared a "woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit." God is a failed character too detested by his own creations to appreciate them. Ig concludes that only the devil loves humans for what they are, despite some of their negative characteristics.
The following morning at the foundry, Ig is abruptly asssaulted by Lee, and the contact with him enlightens Ig as to just how Lee murdered Merrin. Ig finds that Lee is wearing Merrin's cross and tears it off him, leaving Lee exposed to the horns' influence. Lee viciously beats Ig and tosses him in Ig's AMC Gremlin
, douses the car with gasoline, and lights it on fire. Ig is able to release the parking brake, and the car, ablaze, rolls down into the river, in imitation of Ig's journey in the shopping cart years earlier. The fire, though reddening Ig's skin, has somehow completely restored him to physical health, healing the damage from his fight with Lee. There is another flashback
with Merrin, regarding the time she and Ig visited a mysterious treehouse in the woods filled with religious paraphernalia. The two have sex and then pray when suddenly someone startles them by banging on the door in the floor of the treehouse. They quickly dress as the pounding continues, but when they open the door, no one is there. They are never able to relocate the tree house and begin to believe they both imagined it, dubbing it the "Treehouse of the Mind."
congressman) and his sexual pursuit of Merrin is explored. His mother acquired dementia and became weak and confused. Lee uses this as an opportunity to torture her, while pretending to be a loving, caring son whenever anyone visits. Ultimately she dies, and he uses her death as an excuse to become close to Merrin. He consistently finds more meaning than is intended from Merrin's gestures and choice of words, believing her to be sexually interested in him and, knowing that Ig will soon be leaving for Britain, eager to begin an affair with him. In reality she means no such thing. Lee also remembers an experience from his childhood in which he attempted to feed and befriend a stray cat, only to be swatted at, causing him to fall from a fence and hit his head; he is impaled in the head by a spike and receives serious brain damage; he undergoes a hallucination in which he perceives things as God would, and murders the cat. When he returns, his mother perceives nothing wrong, but it appears that from this point in time, his personality is changed and he has psychopathic thoughts. The section concludes with Lee's realization that Merrin never wanted a relationship with him, and his decision to rape and kill her.
and a mammogram that reveals that Merrin too had breast cancer. Ig deciphers the Morse code to read a note written to him by Merrin, who describes her feelings about knowing she will die from breast cancer; she encourages him to find another romantic partner, though she loves him; she says she believes in the gospel of Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards
, quoting from The Rolling Stones
song "You Can't Always Get What You Want
." It turns out she had decided she didn't want chemo, but she knew if she stayed with Ig, he would find out she had cancer and for love of him, she'd have chemo anyway. So she decided to break up with him and die on her own, to save him pain.
Ig reunties with Glenna, whom he convinces to lead a more fulfilling life, and when she accidentally leaves her cell phone, Ig uses it to call Lee and, mimicking Glenna's voice, persuades him to drive to the foundry, where Ig hopes to ambush and kill him. Terry unexpectedly arrives at the foundry, confessing that he has quit his TV job, though Ig begs that he flee. Lee's car arrives, and both Lee and Eric exit the vehicle, armed with guns and aware of Ig's trap, having talked to the real Glenna. Ig and Eric struggle for a time before Lee shoots and kills Eric, hoping that it will look as though Ig and Eric killed each other, without Lee's involvement. Lee then gorily beats Ig with the empty shotgun until Terry reappears, blasting his trumpet into Lee's ear. With this distraction, Ig finally slams his horns into Lee's body. He then telekinetically convinces a snake to slide down Lee's throat, finishing him off. As Terry goes to use Glenna's phone to call emergency services, he is bitten by a venomous snake that Ig had placed there to attack Lee. Desperately, the gruesomely injured Ig crawls over to a gasoline canister, hoping that he can light himself on fire quick enough to restore his diabolic flesh and get Terry to a hospital. As he prepares to self-immolate
, Ig begins to remember in hazy flashback his activities of the night he was drunk the morning before he awoke to discover the horns: in his inebriated state, he miraculously came across the elusive Treehouse of the Mind and while knocking on the trap door, discovered that he was the one the younger versions of himself and Merrin had heard knocking on the door all along. The night before he grew horns, he climbed into it and set in on fire. The treehouse had rules written on a piece of parchment: "TAKE WHAT YOU WANT WHILE YOU'RE HERE/GET WHAT YOU NEED WHEN YOU LEAVE." He needed to kill the person who murdered Merrin, he felt, and began to feel a tingling near his temples (implying that this desire would later cause him to become devil-like).
Back in the present time, Ig is restored to health by the flames and tells Terry that he needs to lie about what has happened here; Eric and Lee are both dead, and Terry needs to believe that Ig died too. Ig then goes to the cherry tree that once held the Treehouse of the Mind to find that a line of fire has reached it from the foundry. The treehouse itself has reappeared beyond the flames and Ig climbs up into the burning tree, enters the treehouse, and finds a wedding party within and Merrin awaiting him.
Sometime later, Terry is recuperating from his snakebite, believing (thanks to the influence of Ig's horns) that Eric and Lee killed Ig by burning him in his car, and that the two then tortured Terry with a venomous snake, before they killed one another. Although the detective doubts that this story is true, Terry is the only living witness. Terry goes to the woods to have some peace of mind and is joined by Glenna. When she leaves to begin packing for her move to New York City, Terry believes he can hear the faint sound of a trumpet, and decides it is time for him to leave too.
The inner front and back cover of the book has a repeating message written in morse code. It reads, "Pleased to meet you; hope you guess my name," which are lyrics from the Rolling Stones song, "Sympathy for the Devil
." It refers to the novel's themes that the devil is more of an anti-hero
than a villain.
2010 in literature
The year 2010 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February - The Wheeler Centre, Australia's "literary hub", officially opened.*April 3 - First release of the Apple iPad, electronic book reading device....
dark fantasy
Dark fantasy
Dark fantasy is a term used to describe a fantasy story with a pronounced horror element.-Overview:A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down. Gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Both Charles L...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Joe Hill
Joe Hill (writer)
Joseph Hillstrom King , better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American author and comic book writer. He has published two novels—Heart Shaped Box and Horns—and a collection of short stories entitled 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the author of the graphic novel series Locke & Key...
and is the author's second published novel. The novel also incorporates elements of contemporary fantasy
Contemporary fantasy
Contemporary fantasy, also known as modern fantasy or indigenous fantasy, is a sub-genre of fantasy, set in the present day. It is perhaps most popular for its sub-genre, urban fantasy.-Definition and overview:...
, crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
, and Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
. 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.
Plot summary
The novel consists of fifty chapters, with ten each divided into five larger sections, named as follows:Hell
26-year-old Ignatius "Ig" Perrish wakes up one morning after a drunken night (in the woods containing an old foundryFoundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
, near where his girlfriend's corpse was discovered) to find that he has spouted 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. Within his hometown of Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig had position and security, but the rape and murder of his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, changed all that. Though he was neither charged nor tried (nor had committed the crime), Ig is largely considered guilty in public opinion.
As Ig leaves the apartment he shares with his friend with benefits
Casual relationship
A casual relationship, colloquially known as a fling, is a physical and emotional relationship between two people who may have a sexual relationship or a near-sexual relationship without necessarily demanding or expecting the extra commitments of a more formal romantic relationship...
, Glenna Nicholson, he notices that she is strangely honest with him about her desire to binge, her feelings about his unwanted presence, and the fact that she performed oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
on a mutual high school friend of theirs, Lee Tourneau, the previous night. As Ig goes to a medical clinic to deal with the growth of his horns, he discovers that people have a sudden compulsion to blatantly express their ugliest and most animalistic urges, desires, and opinions to him, and that no one (neither those whom he already knows nor those he meets for the first time) seems surprised to see the horns. Moreover, when he makes skin-to-skin contact with individuals, he immediately learns their identities and some of their darkest secrets. They forget about their conversations with him as soon as they're over, as well as forgetting about the horns. He also realizes that he can make people give in to the ugly urges they have—in fact, the horns pulse in a pleasurable fashion when he does so—but he cannot make them do things they do not already want to do. He experiences these revelations with the doctor he talks to, two previously acquainted police officers, his church's priest and a nun, and others he encounters. Going home, he discovers that his parents and grandmother detest him and believe him to be Merrin's killer; he then meets his brother, Terry, who seems to be the only sympathetic member of the Perrish family. Terry, however, under the influence of the horns' power, confesses that he knows who killed Merrin: Lee Tourneau. Ig, in an episode of diabolic passion, releases the brake on his grandmother's wheelchair, and she goes rushing down a slope at a precarious speed.
Cherry
The high school past of Ig and Terry Perrish, Merrin Williams, and Lee Tourneau is explored, with the cherryCherry
The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....
as a common motif
Motif (narrative)
In narrative, a motif is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative aspects such as theme or mood....
, referring to Merrin's red hair, the loss of virginity, and the characters' involvement with cherry bomb
Cherry bomb
Cherry Bombs are approximately spherical shaped exploding fireworks, ranging in size from three-quarters-inch to one-and-one-half-inch in diameter...
s. Ig agrees to a bet: if he rides a shopping cart naked down a perilous trail in the woods by the Knowles River, he will receive a cherry bomb. Although he breaks his nose and briefly loses consciousness when he crashes into the river, Ig survives, believing that Lee Tourneau pulled him out of the water and resuscitated him. Ig and Lee immediately become friends, though Ig is pestered by the uncomfortable feeling of owing Lee a debt. In church, Ig becomes infatuated with a red-headed girl who has been flirtatiously reflecting light off her cross necklace into his eyes. When the necklace breaks and, unnoticed by her, falls down, Ig collects it and decides to impress her by fixing it. But when Lee expresses an interest in her 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. With this, Ig greets Merrin and the two soon become de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
girlfriend and boyfriend. Lee detonates the cherry bomb and damages his eye, which becomes milky and has impaired vision, though his other eye is unimpaired. Lee is also revealed to be a juvenile delinquent, having stolen and sold various items, perhaps as a way of venting his seemingly groundless hatred of his mother. Ig feels not only that he may be 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 in Lee's face (having won the girl over Lee).
The Fire Sermon
The night of Merrin's murder is partially revealed; specifically, the drunken argument between her and Ig in a restaurant (the last time they see each other). 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 (Merrin being his only romance ever). Ig is infuriated, thinking (correctly) that she wishes to permanently end their relationship and suspecting she may have been cheating on him. He drives away from the restaurant, leaving her in the rain. Later, at the airport, he is about to board the plane when he is suddenly surrounded by police officers.Meanwhile, in the present day, Ig goes to the congressman's office where Lee works and tells Lee he knows that Lee killed Merrin, but for some reason, 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, another high school acquaintance. Ig drives back to the woods and the foundry and notices that snakes have started congregating around him. He listens to voice mails left by his friends and family on his cell phone and realizes that they think he is missing, having apparently not remembered just seeing 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, from Terry's perspective, the events of the night of Merrin's murder: Terry is 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 convinces Terry to keep quiet and five months later, a guilt-ridden Terry unsuccessfully attempts suicide. Although Terry begins to wake up, Ig discovers another power of his—he can perfectly mimic other voices— and convinces Terry that he is their mother, in the dark room, before departing.
Ig returns to the foundry where he finds an affinity with fire (and wine) and delivers a speech to the snakes. He asserts that the devil and women have always caused fear in God, with women being the more powerful because they, like God, have the power of creation. He argues that when Merrin decided to break away from him to pursue her own ends, God detested her and refused to come to her aid while she was being raped and murdered, all because He feared a "woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit." God is a failed character too detested by his own creations to appreciate them. Ig concludes that only the devil loves humans for what they are, despite some of their negative characteristics.
The following morning at the foundry, Ig is abruptly asssaulted by Lee, and the contact with him enlightens Ig as to just how Lee murdered Merrin. Ig finds that Lee is wearing Merrin's cross and tears it off him, leaving Lee exposed to the horns' influence. Lee viciously beats Ig and tosses him in Ig's AMC Gremlin
AMC Gremlin
The AMC Gremlin is a two-door subcompact car produced in the United States and Canada by the American Motors Corporation between 1970 and 1978. AMC reduced its development and manufacturing costs by adapting a shortened Hornet platform with a Kammback-type tail...
, douses the car with gasoline, and lights it on fire. Ig is able to release the parking brake, and the car, ablaze, rolls down into the river, in imitation of Ig's journey in the shopping cart years earlier. The fire, though reddening Ig's skin, has somehow completely restored him to physical health, healing the damage from his fight with Lee. There is another flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
with Merrin, regarding the time she and Ig visited a mysterious treehouse in the woods filled with religious paraphernalia. The two have sex and then pray when suddenly someone startles them by banging on the door in the floor of the treehouse. They quickly dress as the pounding continues, but when they open the door, no one is there. They are never able to relocate the tree house and begin to believe they both imagined it, dubbing it the "Treehouse of the Mind."
The Fixer
Lee Tourneau's adult life (as a close associate of a Christian conservativeChristian conservative
Christian conservative may refer to political position:*Christian right*Christian agrarian conservatism of Europe...
congressman) and his sexual pursuit of Merrin is explored. His mother acquired dementia and became weak and confused. Lee uses this as an opportunity to torture her, while pretending to be a loving, caring son whenever anyone visits. Ultimately she dies, and he uses her death as an excuse to become close to Merrin. He consistently finds more meaning than is intended from Merrin's gestures and choice of words, believing her to be sexually interested in him and, knowing that Ig will soon be leaving for Britain, eager to begin an affair with him. In reality she means no such thing. Lee also remembers an experience from his childhood in which he attempted to feed and befriend a stray cat, only to be swatted at, causing him to fall from a fence and hit his head; he is impaled in the head by a spike and receives serious brain damage; he undergoes a hallucination in which he perceives things as God would, and murders the cat. When he returns, his mother perceives nothing wrong, but it appears that from this point in time, his personality is changed and he has psychopathic thoughts. The section concludes with Lee's realization that Merrin never wanted a relationship with him, and his decision to rape and kill her.
The Gospel According to Mick and Keith
Ig is fully healed by the flames, but his clothes have burned off. Naked, he finds an old skirt and black overcoat to wear in the woods. He scoops up Merrin's cross and sees Dale Williams, Merrin's father, among a small crowd that has formed near the burnt car. Dale, against his will, gives Ig a ride to the Williams house, and the two discuss their conflicts and the death of Regan Williams, Merrin's older sister, from breast cancer, long before Ig and Merrin ever met. Ig has a strange impulse to go the Williams' attic, seemingly having visions of the Treehouse of the Mind and its similar trap door. In the attic, Ig finds a group of papers written in Morse codeMorse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
and a mammogram that reveals that Merrin too had breast cancer. Ig deciphers the Morse code to read a note written to him by Merrin, who describes her feelings about knowing she will die from breast cancer; she encourages him to find another romantic partner, though she loves him; she says she believes in the gospel of Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
and Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
, quoting from The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
song "You Can't Always Get What You Want
You Can't Always Get What You Want
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" is a song by The Rolling Stones released on their 1969 album Let It Bleed. Written primarily by Mick Jagger with assistance from Keith Richards, it was named as the 100th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone in its 2004 list of "500 Greatest Songs of All...
." It turns out she had decided she didn't want chemo, but she knew if she stayed with Ig, he would find out she had cancer and for love of him, she'd have chemo anyway. So she decided to break up with him and die on her own, to save him pain.
Ig reunties with Glenna, whom he convinces to lead a more fulfilling life, and when she accidentally leaves her cell phone, Ig uses it to call Lee and, mimicking Glenna's voice, persuades him to drive to the foundry, where Ig hopes to ambush and kill him. Terry unexpectedly arrives at the foundry, confessing that he has quit his TV job, though Ig begs that he flee. Lee's car arrives, and both Lee and Eric exit the vehicle, armed with guns and aware of Ig's trap, having talked to the real Glenna. Ig and Eric struggle for a time before Lee shoots and kills Eric, hoping that it will look as though Ig and Eric killed each other, without Lee's involvement. Lee then gorily beats Ig with the empty shotgun until Terry reappears, blasting his trumpet into Lee's ear. With this distraction, Ig finally slams his horns into Lee's body. He then telekinetically convinces a snake to slide down Lee's throat, finishing him off. As Terry goes to use Glenna's phone to call emergency services, he is bitten by a venomous snake that Ig had placed there to attack Lee. Desperately, the gruesomely injured Ig crawls over to a gasoline canister, hoping that he can light himself on fire quick enough to restore his diabolic flesh and get Terry to a hospital. As he prepares to self-immolate
Self-immolation
Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...
, Ig begins to remember in hazy flashback his activities of the night he was drunk the morning before he awoke to discover the horns: in his inebriated state, he miraculously came across the elusive Treehouse of the Mind and while knocking on the trap door, discovered that he was the one the younger versions of himself and Merrin had heard knocking on the door all along. The night before he grew horns, he climbed into it and set in on fire. The treehouse had rules written on a piece of parchment: "TAKE WHAT YOU WANT WHILE YOU'RE HERE/GET WHAT YOU NEED WHEN YOU LEAVE." He needed to kill the person who murdered Merrin, he felt, and began to feel a tingling near his temples (implying that this desire would later cause him to become devil-like).
Back in the present time, Ig is restored to health by the flames and tells Terry that he needs to lie about what has happened here; Eric and Lee are both dead, and Terry needs to believe that Ig died too. Ig then goes to the cherry tree that once held the Treehouse of the Mind to find that a line of fire has reached it from the foundry. The treehouse itself has reappeared beyond the flames and Ig climbs up into the burning tree, enters the treehouse, and finds a wedding party within and Merrin awaiting him.
Sometime later, Terry is recuperating from his snakebite, believing (thanks to the influence of Ig's horns) that Eric and Lee killed Ig by burning him in his car, and that the two then tortured Terry with a venomous snake, before they killed one another. Although the detective doubts that this story is true, Terry is the only living witness. Terry goes to the woods to have some peace of mind and is joined by Glenna. When she leaves to begin packing for her move to New York City, Terry believes he can hear the faint sound of a trumpet, and decides it is time for him to leave too.
The inner front and back cover of the book has a repeating message written in morse code. It reads, "Pleased to meet you; hope you guess my name," which are lyrics from the Rolling Stones song, "Sympathy for the Devil
Sympathy for the Devil
"Sympathy for the Devil" is a song by The Rolling Stones which first appeared as the opening track on the band's 1968 album Beggars Banquet. It was written by Mick Jagger credited to Jagger/Richards...
." It refers to the novel's themes that the devil is more of an anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
than a villain.