Journals of Horror: Found Fiction

by Todd Keisling

  JOURNALS OF HORROR

  Found Fiction

  An anthology edited by Terry M. West

  JOURNALS OF HORROR: Found Fiction Copyright © 2014 by Terry M. West & Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Inc.

  Individual stories are Copyright © by the respective creators

  Published by Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Inc.

  http://www.pleasantstorm.com

  Hamburger Lady by Darryl Dawson previously appeared in The Crawlspace published by Fear of Sleep Press (2009).

  IN THE WOODS, WE WAIT by Matt Hayward was previously published by author in 2013.

  All rights reserved. No part of these stories may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Electronic Edition

  Before you begin this collection, please enjoy this preview of Night Things: Dracula versus Frankenstein

  Prologue

  The Northern Ice

  Many, many years ago

  The creature sought warmth near the fire. Night had fallen on the ice and this cave in the frozen mountain would serve the monster well as a new sanctuary. His old cavern had been buried that day by an avalanche. He had lost little; a bed he had fashioned from branches and dead leaves and a worn fishing spear. As he sat near the fire, he used a rock to sharpen the end of a thick branch and fashion a new lance. He had snapped the limb from a large tree near the tundra. The fiend with no name had also hauled a parcel of firewood from the timberline to birth flame and warm his new home.

  He was hungry, but the blistering wind at this time of night would cut even his strong hide. He would ice fish at dawn.

  This frozen hell continued to test him, and the cold always soaked his bones; even near the blaze of a campfire. There was no idea in him of how long he had existed in this bleak place. It could have been weeks, years or centuries, for all he knew. But it was quiet here. Quiet and too dangerous for man to intrude.

  He looked to his hands as they performed their task. Both had been harvested from strangers and sewn to forearms that he merely borrowed. His body was composed of orphaned parts and he often wondered about their origins. The stick was sharp enough to pierce scales, so the monster set it aside and warmed his uneven hands on the fire.

  When he could feel them again, he ran them gently over his face, feeling the scars that no longer bore laces. They had fallen out long ago but he still felt them, hooked beneath his skin. His long, dark hair rested on his shoulders, warming them. He wore a polar bear skin over his clothes that were irredeemably filthy. At least his reborn flesh didn't promote a beard, so there was a chore he needn't attend, though it might have helped keep his chin and cheeks a bit warmer.

  Here, he had forgotten how hideous he was, how badly his clothes reeked and how frighteningly hellish his face glowed in the fire. Here he was a man of endless days living in peace.

  "I have sought after you for months," a voice spoke from the darkness behind him.

  The creature snarled, grasped a burning log from the fire, and twisted upward. He panted angrily.

  "You would be wise to leave this cave," he warned. "I am a murderer stitched from dead men and I will add you to my victims if you do not depart at once."

  The trespasser stepped slowly into the light of the fire. He was an attractive and pale man with dark hair and features. His height rivaled the creature's. Though it was cold enough to kill a man wrapped in several layers of clothing without a fire nearby, the stranger wore a dark greatcoat and breeches that spoke aristocrat and his breath was invisible on the freezing air. The man should have been dead, dressed as he was, in this temperature.

  "What are you called?" the man said, with a calm smile. "I deserve to know the name of my executioner, yes?"

  "I have no name," the creature said. "I have been labeled demon or monster. Linger and I will show you why."

  "Why do you seek seclusion in this God forsaken place?"

  "Because I am done with man," the creature said. "This is their world, so let them have it. Now leave, mortal. This is your final caution."

  "But I am not a mortal, my good fellow," the stranger insisted.

  "Then what are you, besides one who places little value on his life?" the creature asked.

  The man's eyes suddenly blazed and fangs grew from his mouth. He hissed.

  The creature drew back. "What are you?" he asked again, his voice fearful.

  The stranger reverted back to a friendly countenance. "I am vampyre. The oldest of my kind. And, like you, I have been unjustly pursued by superstitious mortals. We are kin, my friend. And there are many like us out there, hiding in shadow."

  The vampire slowly came nearer.

  "I have heard the tale of your creation," the vampire said empathetically. "Your father, he abandoned you. He left you alone the very day of your birth to perish in the night. You arrived naked and unloved and no creature should have to endure such a thing. But you survived. Because you are superior. Like me. We deserve better than caves and coffins and dreary castles to be stormed by angry mobs. We deserve a place of our own. A world of our own."

  "My father died. I hated him. But still I mourned," the creature said. "I have nothing now. My vengeance has been exhausted, and that was my only motivation in this life."

  The creature didn't know why, but his apprehension toward this unexpected guest began to die away. Humanity was his enemy and he had thought himself a tribe of one. But now here was a cousin. And the creation of mad science began to entertain the thought of belonging. It was a dream he had dare not consider before that moment. It was an aspiration that would have driven him mad in the lonely cold.

  "Let me be the patriarch you deserve. Trust in me, and you will know happiness. You needn't be alone. I can guide you to a glorious fate."

  The creature returned the log to the fire and stepped closer to the vampire. "What do you want of me?"

  "I want you to join me. We can build a peaceful world that accepts our kind. But I need soldiers who are willing to fight for this. You are the first I have sought to enlist and I have a place for you high in our new society. But liberation, true liberation, rarely comes with clean hands."

  "Blood washes away," the creature assured his visitor. "And it isn't a stranger to these hands."

  The vampire reached out and gripped the monster's shoulder. The monster felt a chill. But it wasn't a chill, really; quite the opposite. It was the first kind touch the creature could recall and its tenderness nearly made him misty-eyed. To have such a trivial squeeze of the shoulder elicit such a response. He was ignorant to a proper reaction so he merely stood there, dumbly.

  The vampire smiled and removed his hand, breaking the creature's heart. "Then I count you as my first. But I need to call you something other than fiend."

  The vampire thought on it, and then nodded. "Yes, I have it. I shall call you Primul. I see you have no possessions to carry so I can easily sweep you on the wind from this place. Swear your allegiance to me and let us begin our journey of conquest, Primul."

  The creature grasped the beautiful vampire's cold hand. He felt power and destiny in the grip. And he never wanted to let go of that icy appendage. "Then I, Primul, swe
ar by the limbs on this wretched body and my black soul, if it dwells inside, to serve you."

  "Then come, my brother, my son, my friend," the vampire said. "Our future awaits."

  1.

  New York City

  Now

  Darkness fell across the city. The Night Things emerged from their shaded havens. The man who ruled them and most of New York's organized crime of both the human and undead varieties gazed down at the dimming metropolis. He looked through the window of a penthouse few could afford.

  He stared through his own gray reflection and liked how his face glowed in the purple and black sky above the streets. The mug that stared back at him was one of several masks that he had worn. This one had belonged to a striking enemy he had encountered in Budapest some fifty sixty?- years ago. He had forgotten what his original stitched visage had looked like when he was first lashed to life by the chemicals and lightning. He had been born without a name; created by an indifferent God who rejected the monster as his first mewl still rang from his throat. So the being had fashioned his own identities throughout the years; an endless parade of faces and names and other new parts as he needed them.

  These days, he went by the moniker of Johnny Stücke. It was a joke, of course, and though only a few understood it, it was still a name that circulated a lot of fear in the city to both the Night Things and the human criminals. To the normal law-abiding day dwellers, he was largely unknown. But anything that schemed and hungered in the night knew who Johnny Stücke was.

  Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 played on a turntable in the room behind Johnny. The music washed over him. It was his favorite piece and his staff was subjected to it every night around this time.

  Glass, a muscular and quiet African-American man who was currently Johnny's right hand, appeared in the reflection next to Johnny.

  "Who does this one again?" Glass asked, having recently taken an active interest in his boss' music.

  "Tchaikovsky," Johnny replied. "Symphony No. 6 in B minor. Pathétique. This is Adagio lamentoso- the finale. If this doesn’t stir you inside, you have no soul. It was performed for the first time in 1893. Same year as the Lizzie Borden trial. It was a dark and interesting time. What does your ear make of the music?"

  Glass absorbed the melancholy tune. "Sad, but poetic," he said. "Bittersweet, I guess."

  "Well, this piece was written shortly before Tchaikovsky's death, and many think it was his farewell to the world," Johnny explained.

  "How did he die?" Glass asked.

  "On the books, it was cholera. But some say he killed himself and this symphony was a transparent suicide note. He was a homosexual and prone to depression. And the world has a way of making those who are different believe they are monsters."

  "My cousin works for an electronics chain. I could upgrade your system, so you don't get all of that needle noise," Glass said.

  "No, I like it better this way. The imperfections give it character. I have no respect for someone who doesn't recognize the value of a scar," Johnny said.

  "We are ready to move Sheila," Glass reported, as if the music had distracted him from the reason he had entered the room but he was back on course now. Johnny understood how the music could sidetrack someone.

  Sheila Gillings was an adult orphan whom Johnny had taken in as his ward. She was the daughter of Felix Gillings, a camera assistant who had perished on a zombie gangbang movie set. It was an inspired piece of monster porn that had claimed a few causalities, but was his most profitable film to date. Even if it was highly illegal and dangerous.

  So he had taken the girl in, because he wasn't heartless and who else would care for her? Sheila had Down's syndrome, but she was a bright flower and Johnny adored having her around.

  "Bring her in so I can say goodbye," Johnny instructed.

  Glass' reflection shrank away and Johnny followed it. He went to the phonograph and pulled the needle gently away from the vinyl record. He went to the bar and made a martini.

  He finished it just as Sheila bounded ahead of Glass into the room. The usually cold bodyguard always wore a half-grin around the girl.

  "Uncle Johnny!" she said, rushing up and wrapping her arms around his waist.

  She released Johnny, bent back up and smiled at him. She wore a very pink and girly sundress and her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Sheila had the most beautiful green eyes. It was nice for Johnny; having a person around him who saw nothing but a trusted benefactor. If Sheila ever spotted a monster in Johnny, she gave no hint. Maybe it was her condition. He didn't know for sure, but whatever it was, it made Johnny feel more human. He tried really hard to keep the creature from her sight.

  "You ready to go to Piermont for a few days?" Johnny said.

  "Yeah, but why aren't you coming?" Sheila whined playfully.

  "I have some business to settle. But if I finish it early, I'll join you. We'll eat at the seafood place you like," Johnny promised.

  "Pier 701?" Sheila beamed.

  "Yes ma'am."

  "Can we go apple picking, too?" Sheila asked.

  "If there are still apples on the trees this time of year," Johnny replied.

  "Or we could tie some to the limbs if there aren't any," Sheila teased.

  "Where there is a will, there's a way," Johnny said with a chuckle.

  Sheila motioned with her finger and Johnny smiled and arched down. She planted purple lipstick on his grey cheek, and then she left with Glass. Johnny watched her go and he smiled. He took a handkerchief from his jacket and mopped the lipstick off of his face.

  He had to prepare for his meeting with the mafia. It was time to squelch the beef the human mob had with him. Just as he wondered if the conference room was dressed, his butler, Victor stepped into the room.

  But, of course, Victor was more than a butler. He was one of Johnny's closest friends. He was a mute and feral hunchback. Johnny had discovered Victor in a sewer in France two decades ago. He didn't know the man's real name. Victor had been Johnny's damnable father's name, but it made the hunchback feel like kin to dub him so.

  "Everything ready in the conference room, Victor?" Johnny asked.

  Victor nodded his head, his light red wisps of hair waving in the air.

  "Good. You can knock off early tonight," Johnny said.

  Victor grunted in defiance and shook his head, parading his stringy hair in another direction.

  Johnny walked to his man Friday and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. "I can handle this, Victor. I have tripled the security. I can't afford to lose you, my friend. I couldn't tie my shoes without you."

  Victor sighed and turned, reluctantly trudging toward his basement level apartment.

  Johnny felt lighter, taking his family out of harm's way. He would be hosting a sit down with the most powerful mobsters in the city. Chefs from Babbo were preparing a feast in Johnny's extensive but seldom used kitchen. He would either bring these men to his cause or he would bury the fuckers.

  Glass reappeared. "The car is on the way to the bridge," he announced. "And your guests are in the elevator."

  ***

  Johnny let the men dine and mingle without him. Johnny appeared just as the caterers poured after dinner drinks. The men stood when Johnny walked into the conference room. He waved them back to their chairs and took his position at the head of the table. He knew they were all armed, and that didn't frighten him. Glass and five other sentries stood like stone at the walls and watched the proceedings. Johnny noticed enough hair petroleum and bad cologne in the room to blow his penthouse to the heavens.

  "Sorry it took me a bit to join you," Johnny said, lighting a cigar. "I had some business to attend."

  The men nodded, assuring that they understood, and Johnny took them in. He knew the smiles they pointed at him were insincere and that fear and hatred was pulsing just beneath their skin. There was a mixture of family bosses and captains. The older guests weren't as friendly as the younger ones who were no doubt playing catch as catch can. He knew
the hungrier ones would seek gains from this meeting, while the elder guard would be more abrasive and hard to rally.

  A rather sour looking old mobster raised his hand for attention. It was Joseph Caci, the boss of Brooklyn's Caci family.

  "Please, speak, Joseph," Johnny encouraged.

  "It is a mess out there," Joseph stated, wiping at a food stain on the sleeve of his tailored jacket. "We got Night Things worming their way in on every corner. The vamps claim you back them."

  "That's bullshit," Johnny cut in. "I don't employee Night Things on my crew. Sure, I may hire one or two for a freelance errand, if it fits their skill set. But I don't back fangs, dead skin or fur on the street."