by Alan Spencer
Take a picture.
It will last longer.
Those words were gold. Carve them into stone.
Tommy wasn’t very sociable. His grades weren’t high. He wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t going to marry a woman, fall in love or lose his virginity, but one thing you could say about Tommy, he was sneaky. Even with a bulky Polaroid camera, he could flash a picture, and sometimes, if he was real nice and careful, the women wouldn’t notice.
The Polaroid camera allowed him to get a picture of a woman instantly. Sometimes it was a woman walking by him on the street. But most of the time, he snapped them through people’s windows at night. Women eating dinner. Women on the toilet. Women who were changing their clothes, and their curtains weren’t quite closed all the way. Other times, he’d pay hookers to pose and take pictures of them. He’d ask them to spread their legs wide. Smoke a cigarette for him. Finger themselves. He asked them to smile. That always confused the dumb fucking whores. Don’t ask me why I want you to smile! Just do it, bitch! Smile, you dumb whore. I’m paying you, so come on! Smile, bitch.
Tommy became braver and bolder as he accumulated hundreds, no, a thousand! Polaroid photos. He taped them up to his basement wall and admired them. Tommy was working up the courage to take even bolder and wilder pictures. Ones that took risk to get. He could get caught. Someone could spot him, and he’d suffer those wicked painful flashes under his skin. Oh, the pain! Don’t see me! Don’t talk to me! Just let me do what I want to and leave me alone!
It was his first time trying this new tactic. The first night, Tommy drove at night and parked outside of a house when he noticed the husband driving up the street to the bar Side Pockets. The woman was all alone in the house. He could sneak into the house, take a picture of her without her even knowing he was inside with her, and he’d be out of there, nobody the wiser. He’d tape the lovely to his wall, fawn over her and honor her.
The moment Tommy stepped into the back door, he heard the shower running. The woman was taking a shower. She couldn’t hear him. It was the perfect cover. He’d wait for her to go into her room, and he’d flash a picture, and run like hell.
No, no, no, that wouldn’t work. She’d hear the camera click. She’d see the flash. And when she realized there was somebody in the house, she’d scream. The police would find him and take him away.
But if he knocked her out, that wouldn’t be an issue. He wouldn’t kill her. Only knock her out. He could take her clothes off, pose her any way he wanted, and he’d take his pictures (several, if he was going to work that hard for his lady!), and off he’d go free and clear.
That’s exactly what he did. Tommy waited for the woman to leave the bathroom. She walked right into her room. By the time he got there, he realized he had nothing to knock her out with, so he grabbed a nine iron from the bag of golf clubs nearby. The woman had her back turned. She heard him move when the floor creaked. No worries. He whacked her a good one to the head. Not enough to kill her, no. She was unconscious, and sure, she was bleeding from the back of the head, but dead, no way. Of course not. He wouldn’t kill her. Not for a picture. That would be stupid.
He wasn’t a sicko. Once he saw that blood, he realized he couldn’t use the pictures. Her head kept oozing red. It wasn’t pretty at all. He was getting pissed because he was going to have to leave her house without a good picture. This had been a fucking waste of time.
Then Tommy looked to her bed. The scrapbook was open to a page. It was this woman’s prom picture. There were dozens of them in the scrapbook. Who would miss the one? Tommy could cut out the bozo standing in the picture with her. It was his picture to own now. He walked out of the house a happy man. The woman would be okay. She’d wake up and clean her head wound and everything would be just fine. No big deal.
He wiped clean the nine iron of fingerprints before leaving. He didn’t want anybody to know he was ever here. If they knew what Tommy did in his basement to burn the spare hours between work and free time, they would judge him. That burning feeling wouldn’t end. The rest of his life, that shameful burning would continue on like a morbid eternal flame. Fuck that. A man’s private life was his own business.
Now, Tommy got up from the couch to change out his vinyl records. He was now listening to Ted Nugent. He carried his sour mash bottle and scanned the wall of pictures of women. They literally covered the wall. Those he couldn’t fit on the wall, he put in a scrapbook.
His eyes fell on one picture.
Deborah’s.
Tommy only knew her name because it said Deborah and Steve’s Prom Night on the back of the picture.
He had heard in the news way back when that Deborah had indeed died from massive head trauma. That was so many years ago. He didn’t mean to kill her. It was an accident. Not murder. An accident, so stop thinking about it.
Tommy placed two fingers on Deborah’s picture.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
Tommy swigged hard from the bottle.
“If it’s any consolation, you are so beautiful.”
The light bulb in the room flickered out.
“Shit.”
Then it came back on.
“Oh goddamn!”
The room was blood red. Tommy was assaulted by the smell of burning things. The room was as hot as the inside of a furnace. Tommy dropped his bottle of sour mash and ran for the stairs leading up to the first floor. When he looked up, the doorway was burning red. Blinded by the heat, Tommy was forced back into the basement.
Somebody grabbed his arm.
Tommy was dragged across the room.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? Wait, I can explain what’s on the walls if you’d give me a second, please!”
Two arms forced Tommy into a seated position. He reeled at the large table, not his table, because he’d never seen this table before! It was gouged with holes, scratches and mysterious faded orange-brown stains.
Before Tommy comprehended anything else, there it was, a nail hammered in the middle of his hand.
When Tommy looked up at the tall man doing this to him, his peals of horror reached ear-blasting peaks.
“Now, Tommy, let’s talk about how you killed my wife.”
Epilogue
Yes, this was his house again as it should be, but no, Morty would never sleep under its roof again. He wanted nothing to do with the property or the new memories created within its walls. Morty did one last thing before leaving his house for the very last time. He called the police. They didn’t answer. The line was dead. He tried his cell phone, and he got no bars. That was impossible, being in town. He should’ve got a signal nice and clear. It didn’t take Morty very long to understand why the phones didn’t work.
The night sky owned shades of blood red. The streetlight shed crimson onto the street. He heard screams coming from down the block. From everywhere. Two fast-moving vehicles were racing after each other for unknown reasons. Both cars were firing guns at each other. Neighbors were standing outside of their houses asking each other what the hell was happening. People asked Morty if he was okay. Morty forgot he was covered in blood from top to bottom. His hand was leaking blood. He didn’t feel the pain. He was numb. His body either accepted the sensation or didn’t care one way or the other. Morty absorbed the pain like he was taking a punishment he deserved. Cheyenne and Glenda were dead. Bruce, his best friend, was also slain. Everything he lived for was gone.
Morty noticed rows of police cars were unmanned outside of his house. They were empty of officers or anybody that could help. Where they had gone, he didn’t know, nor did he care to investigate. Morty wanted away from his house right now.
He approached one of the empty police cars on the block and noticed the keys were still in the ignition. Morty turned on the engine and drove.
He knew exactly where he was going.
Driving past Side Pockets, Morty saw
there were people inside the bar barricaded in behind boarded up windows. He only saw a group of four persons through a small opening in the front window. He also noticed the corpse standing behind one of them with a knife pressed to her throat.
At Valley View Heights Church down the way, people were huddled together inside the property. The people inside, including Preacher Masterson, stared out onto the front lawn at the corpses standing around the property looking in at them.
The lights in the church suddenly flickered to red.
The people inside screamed.
The corpses approached the church.
Morty knew what they wanted.
There was nothing he could do for them.
Hitting the highway, Morty picked up speed fast. There was nobody in sight until he was approaching the exit he was going to take.
Two people, a man and woman, were running away from a Cadillac chasing after them. The headlights were deadly crimson beams. The driver, the cackling corpse of a mother and her two dead children in the back, were making fast progress after their victims.
There was nothing he could do.
Morty took the exit for Hillsdale Lake.
The dirt road leading to Hillsdale Lake was surrounded by dense woods. Those woods were active with moving flashlight beams the color of burning cherry. Morty distinguished people running or hiding throughout the woods, as he did corpses who taunted and appeared and reappeared out of thin air. The sounds of delight crashed headfirst against the screams of genuine terror.
Morty understood what was happening. He also knew where he was going, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got there. That destination was the lake itself. He parked in front of it, turned off the headlights and eyed the pump action 12 gauge left in the passenger side window.
He picked the shotgun up and placed the firing end against his chin.
Apologies were all he had to offer the departed. He thought about Glenda. How he would’ve loved her no matter how dark or seedy her past was, or why she felt the need to keep secrets from him. Love was love, and his heart wouldn’t change its mind. Poor Cheyenne, her children wouldn’t have a mother. Her husband would be without a wife.
Morty rested his finger on the trigger. All he had to do was pull it back. He knew when he died, there would be no mystery. He killed himself. Nobody would have to solve a complicated murder if he came back to life to haunt the living. He could rest in peace. There would be no burning doorways, or red purgatories or access denied into Heaven or Hell. Morty would be going straight to where he belonged. He would haunt nobody in death. Death would be peace. Death would be permanent. Death would transpire as it should.
He closed his eyes and kept them shut.
Morty edged back the trigger.
Then he said goodbye to the world.
Red flashed. All he could see was the brilliant burst of neon red. Then he heard a long scream: “Help me, please, help me! Oh my God!” Morty opened his eyes and faced the lake. His eyes went small against the powerful glare of the red coming from the water’s surface. Then two fists beat against the window of the police car. The woman screaming opened the car door and begged Morty to come and help her.
She didn’t notice how he came so close to blowing off his own head. The woman was in her twenties with claw marks going down her shoulders to the meat of her forearms. The side of her blonde hair was thick with somebody else’s blood. Those eyes had seen terror and death, and more was on its way.
“Please, sir, don’t leave me alone. They killed my boyfriend, and they killed our friends. We were camping in the woods, and Jesus, I left my tent, and there was this dead guy who kept telling us how he was killed fifteen years ago. He wanted us, I, I don’t know, I think he wanted us to solve his murder. But he’s dead. He’s dead!
“How can this be happening? It’s weird. This dead man, he carried this lantern that burned red. I swear to God it was blood red! He’s after me. He’s coming. I can see the light from his lantern coming closer. You can’t let him kill me. Please, don’t leave me alone! Help me. I’m begging you. Drive me out of here. Save me.”
Morty saw a moving light in the woods come closer to the lake. When the light moved closer, the lake burned an even brighter red.
“He died here,” Morty said. “The man who’s after you, I mean.”
“Who cares? Please, just drive me out of here.”
Morty held onto the shotgun and stepped out of the car.
“If you’re going to survive this, we’re going to have to solve his murder.”
“What the hell are you saying? Drive me out of here now. It’s not safe here.”
“Listen, lady. I know things. I’ve been through this already. You’ve been chosen to solve this dead guy’s murder. Whoever’s after you won’t leave you alone until you’re either dead or his killer is revealed. It’s insane, but so is a burning red lake and walking dead people.”
The woman stared at Morty, dumbfounded.
The corpse carrying the lantern was close enough to be seen.
Morty had a lot of things to explain to this woman.
The night was far from over.
At least he had a shotgun.
About the Author
Alan Spencer has published nearly thirty books in the horror genre. His latest releases include B-Movie War, Lampreys, and Demon Mansion. He enjoys trash cinema. Some of his favorite movies are Nail Gun Massacre, Sledgehammer, Day of the Dead, Night of the Zombies, Burial Ground, and Zombie 2. The Doorway will be his sixth novel with Samhain Publishing. The author loves e-mails, so drop him a line at: [email protected].
Look for these titles by Alan Spencer
Now Available:
B-Movie Reels
B-Movie Attack
Psycho Therapy
Protect All Monsters
B-Movie War
War is hell when the enemy is an army of B-movie monsters!
B-Movie War
© 2014 Alan Spencer
A possessed movie reel is played at a theatre in New Jersey, releasing B-movie icon Mr. Ratchet into our world. Mr. Ratchet plans to play his film, The Final Flesh, at theaters across the planet with the help of villains dredged up from the most vile and offensive horror movies ever made. Movie monsters made real.
Once The Final Flesh makes its midnight premiere, it’s the people vs. B-movie terror. Only a theatre manager, a man with a serious anger problem, and a B-movie aficionado can prevent full-scale war from annihilating everybody on earth. Can the rag tag team come up with a plan to save the world, or will everybody be sent packing straight to hell? Be warned, this war will be epic!
Enjoy the following excerpt for B-Movie War:
Plan B was real. The package arrived on Jules Baxter’s desk only days after the previous monster attack in Chicago had ceased. This package would serve as the catalyst to a global scale war. Scrawled in red ink on the front were wild slash marks spelling out Jules’s name and the business address for The Odyssey Theatre. Jules knew it wasn’t a bill because there was no return address. Holding the package in his hands, judging by the weight and the way the object moved inside, Jules knew what it contained from prior experience. Film reels were shipped here by the batch regularly, but this package was much smaller. Tearing it open, he uncovered a single film reel. It wasn’t enough for a complete film. That made the item all the more interesting.
Jules couldn’t wait to view it.
The Odyssey Theatre would be permanently closed down in a matter of months, or whenever the bill collectors decided to spring their trap and take over his property. Since his wife, Darlene, died of breast cancer two years ago, the heart and soul of the place died with her. His ambition to run a quality establishment had been erased after eleven successful years of business. But all of his troubles were forgotten by this mysterious short reel.
> What could be inside, Jules kept thinking. Oh, I bet it’s something so cool. Vintage cool.
Jules decided to give himself a special showing of the mystery reel after hours. The afternoon and evening went by agonizingly slow, but it was worth the wait. The staff had clocked out and were off the premises. Jules, a sixty year old overweight man, forgot about his financial failures and loneliness and enjoyed buttered popcorn and sat in the middle of Theatre 4 for his private showing. He had to set up the reel himself, having to hurry from the projection booth to find his seat so he wouldn’t miss a single second. Watching in anticipation, a random scene from the film Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home played out on the large screen. The footage was grainy. The print damaged by age. It didn’t tarnish the experience. Jules watched with wide eyes and a big smile.
Footage of a graveyard surrounded in thick fog played out for five minutes. Nothing happened: no new scene, actors, or dialogue. Only the churning of fog. The soundtrack was creepy chamber music. The music got louder, and before the first scene panned out, a beam of bright white light streaked down the side aisle of the theatre. Where the beam stopped, the woman materialized. She was dressed in a red usher’s uniform. She pointed her flashlight and held the beam on Jules.
In the sweetest voice she asked, “Why are you watching the movie all alone, honey?”
Jules lost his composure. Warm tears edged down his face. He rushed to touch her, to smell her hair, to reassure himself she was real. She was young again, in her twenties, with curvy hips, long black hair and a soft face. She was dolled up with ruby red lipstick and blue eye shadow. It was Darlene, or as Jules lovingly called her, “Darling.”
It was Jules’s wife.
“Darling,” came a joyful gasp from Jules. “It’s really you.”
His wife drew him in for a long embrace. How Jules needed her touch. That one of a kind feeling. One he could never have again, he believed, until tonight.
Darlene drew him in for a kiss. They tore each other’s clothes off in a wild display of passion. As they made love against one of the seats, the collection of vampire tramps, the naked black reptilian creatures with leathery wings, exited the theatre unseen. They flew high into the night. There was much work to be done.