Tales From The Mist: An Anthology of Horror and Paranormal Stories

by Scott Nicholsonan

  Sometime—maybe tomorrow, maybe next year—a bunch of uniforms would pound on her door. They would arrest Meg, and she would go to prison just like all those TV murderers. And she probably deserved to go.

  Ted’s nasty–spirited mother had depended on her devoted son. His employees at the golf pro shop would be out of work. His beer–gutted buddies would miss his jokes and his loyalty.

  Meg already missed Ted. He had been a good companion before the midlife crazies hit. She should have kept her temper in check. The silliness would have passed. Brittany would have gotten bored and moved on to the next victim. Meg and Ted would have grown old together just like they planned.

  Not now, though. Meg had blown her top and stomped their lives into rubble. Maybe she didn’t deserve to live.

  In a flash, Meg knew what she had to do.

  Ten minutes later, Meg stood staring at the exposed beams of the attic. She held a crudely fashioned noose in one hand. A footstool sat next to her feet.

  She worked quickly, looping the noose around the highest beam and keeping it short enough to prevent her feet from gaining purchase on the attic floor. She would rather choke to death than die in prison. Meg squeezed her eyes shut as she slipped her head into the noose. There was no other way out of this mess.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she kicked the footstool. The noose tightened around her neck, the rough fibers digging into the tender skin.

  Meg reached up to pull it away, to stop the discomfort. She whooped for air, but there was none to be had. This was it. The end. Agony took away all rational thought. She flailed at the end of the rope and clawed at her neck. The pressure behind her eyes built. Her head felt as though it might pop off.

  The beam holding Meg aloft let out a crack. She glanced upward just in time to see the beam splinter and break. The thud of her hitting the attic floor shook the house. It hurt like a bitch, too. She clawed the noose away from her neck and gasped for air.

  Act in haste; repent at leisure.

  Tears stung Meg’s eyes. She’d failed at killing herself. She would have been better off using one of Ted’s guns, but guns scared her. They were so loud. A sob worked its way up Meg’s damaged throat and tore out of her.

  This was all the fault of the stupid laws. She shouldn’t have to kill herself just to escape prison. She fantasized about telling an understanding, middle-aged, female judge that Ted had gotten more attractive with age while she’d turned into a human toad. In appearance, anyway. This fantasy judge would understand that Meg just snapped. She would be set free. Maybe with a key to the city.

  Life wasn’t fair. Old age. Sagging tits. Cottage cheese ass and thighs. It all sucked.

  “Not fair, not fair.” Meg burbled between sobs. She clenched her fists and beat them on the attic floor. For the first time since she was a toddler, Meg threw a tantrum. She drummed her heels on the attic floor and waved her fists in the air. She cried herself to sleep.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  Bright sunlight dappled the attic floor when Meg opened her eyes. She lay on her back, watching the dust motes float and studying the beam she’d damaged the night before. She touched her neck and found puffy, abraded skin. It hurt to swallow.

  Did she want to go get one of the guns? Finish the job? No. She didn’t want to die. Not right now anyway. All she had to do was stay cool. She might still get away with this.

  Her stomach let out a rumble. She hadn’t felt this hungry since she started getting thick around the middle and noticing spider veins in her legs from standing all day. Meg pushed herself to a sitting position and let out a shriek.

  Squatting in a nearby corner of the attic was Ted. He cocked his head and watched her.

  Cold fear crept up Meg’s back and tickled at the back of her neck. Her skin crawled with clamminess. Her mind raced, tripping over answers. How could Ted be alive after she slashed him so many times with that machete? He didn’t have a mark on him, and she remembered hitting him in the face a few times. Besides, she knew she’d chopped up both bodies. They now existed in pieces. Meg shook off her doubts and forced her face into a smile.

  “Good morning, honey.” She swallowed and cringed as the dry insides of her throat rubbed together. She kneaded her hands in front of her until she noticed what she was doing and shoved them behind her back.

  Her husband didn’t answer. He just stared, his dark eyes devoid of emotion.

  As Meg approached, he faded into nothingness.

  A cold chill rolled through the attic. Panic wrapped itself around her so tight she thought her ribs would burst from the pressure.

  “That was a ghost. A real, honest–to–goodness, ghost.” Her knees wobbled, and she sat down on the attic floor with a painful thump. Her stomach felt light and jumpy as though it might fly away. Heart slamming in her chest, she thought about all the times the doctor admonished her to lose some weight. Wouldn’t it be a scream if she died of a heart attack, after everything that had happened?

  A chuckle hissed out of her mouth. Several more followed until she rocked back and forth on the attic floor bellowing laughter.

  Something echoed down in the main part of the house. It sounded like a door slamming. Meg struggled to her feet and hurried out of the attic, toward the front door. Had she left it unlocked all night? Maybe. It had always been Ted’s job to lock the house.

  “Hello?” She finger-fluffed her hair, even though it was a lost cause, and rushed through the formal dining room and into the entryway. “Hello?”

  The entryway was empty. But the sound of footsteps on the hardwood floors in the living room carried through the house. Meg spun and pounded into the living room, trying desperately to remember if she’d left anything incriminating in there. But it, too, was empty.

  Meg stood in the middle of the living room gasping. Running through the house had taxed her to her limit. Where the hell had they gone?

  She held still and sucked in her breath. Almost on cue, she heard a voice. It came from the master bedroom suite that she and Ted had just had remodeled.

  “Oh, Ted honey. This bed is great. Maybe we can fuck on it.” A girlish giggle followed.

  Meg would have recognized the voice anywhere. Trashy little Brittany with her perky tits.

  The sounds of passionate lovemaking drifted into the living room. Meg crept toward her prized master bedroom suite and cracked open the door.

  And there they were. Trashy Brittany was crouched on the bed in semi-doggy style position. The palms of her hands rested on the floor beside the bed. She squealed in delight as Ted pounded her from behind.

  Meg slammed the door and leaned against it. Her hammering heart ached in her chest, and she sank onto her brand–new wood floor. Those stupid paranormal shows on TV gave her nightmares, and she never watched them. But now she had two ghosts in the house with her.

  Scratch that. She had two fucking ghosts in the house with her. Those dirty-minded haints were bumping uglies right under her roof.

  Her stomach clenched in nausea and bile stung her throat. Nasty. Had the two had sex all over her house during their affair? Or had they waited until she killed them, thinking that death gave them the upper hand?

  Well, if so, they were wrong. Meg would regain control of her home.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  She found the Bible her grandmother gave her as a wedding gift. The spine popped as she opened it. This was the first time she had used the holy book. She had simply moved it from house to house as she and Ted became moderately affluent.

  She flipped through the thin pages, looking for the book of Psalms. Once she found it, she turned straight to the twenty-third Psalm. Marching around the house, she read aloud.

  “Goodbye, Ted and Brittany,” she concluded to the empty house. “May you enjoy the afterlife.”

  She returned the Bible to its shelf and yawned. Sleeping in the attic hadn’t done her a bit of good. It had been hotter than August asphalt up there. She needed a bed. Her bed. Meg retired to her prized m
aster suite.

  Many tosses and turns later, Meg gave up. She couldn’t quit picturing the ghostly lovebirds going at it in her bed. She wouldn’t be able to sleep in that bed until she bought new linens. Grabbing her pillow, she went into the guest room and fell asleep almost as soon as she snuggled into the Egyptian cotton sheets.

  She awakened to the bed shaking and jolted to a sitting position. In bed right next to her were the horniest ghosts in Texas. Brittany lay on her back with her head propped on the headboard. Ted knelt in front of her, shoving himself in and out of her mouth.

  Meg leapt out of bed and skittered away from the spectral pairing. The stench of rotting flesh filled the room. As she watched, cuts appeared on the copulating, naked bodies of her husband and his young lover. Their limbs separated from their bodies in the exact places Meg had hacked them off. Soon, all that lay on the bed was a pile of stinking meat. Meg ran into the guest bathroom and dropped to her knees in front of the toilet, gagging before she even got the lid raised.

  A half hour later, she sat on the expensive couch in her living room looking out the picture window. Sleep was out of the question. TV made her paranoid. In the silence, Meg conceived and rejected solutions to her misery. She came to a sad conclusion: she couldn’t live in her beautiful house, not with the ghost of her dead husband and his equally dead booty buddy doing the spectral bump-and-grind everywhere she looked.

  She could have Ted declared missing, then dead. Then she could sell the house. But she didn’t want to do that. This house represented her hard work and sharp business sense. An idea came to her. There might be a way to get rid of the ghosts without selling the house. A psychic. She saw them all the time on TV. Surely a psychic could expel the fornicating apparitions.

  She thumbed through the yellow pages until she found a listing for a Psychic Medium and called the number. Someone picked up on the first ring.

  “Hellooo?” The happy voice was androgynous—not necessarily deep enough to belong to a man but not quite feminine enough to belong to a woman.

  “Hi …” Meg trailed off, uncertain what to say. Then, it hit her. “Do you ever cleanse haunted houses? You know, get the ghosts out of them?”

  The person on the other end didn’t answer for several long seconds. Then, “Helloo? I do not care for jokes.”

  “This ain’t a joke.” Meg spoke louder. For some reason, the effort tired her. “My house is haunted, and I need to get them out. The ghosts, that is. I can’t sleep. They won’t let me sleep.”

  A deep sigh came over the line. When the voice spoke it had lost the jaunty edge it had at first. It was now guarded. “I can help you. Please give me your address.”

  Meg did as she was told.

  “I’ll be over in one hour,” the voice said.

  One hour later, an emerald green Lexus parked in front of the house. A short, stocky woman with huge breasts and a masculine face climbed out of the car and walked into the house without knocking.

  Meg’s savior wore a tropical print muumuu and a matching turban. Her skin had a swarthy cast, and her eyes were so dark the pupils blended right into the irises.

  “When did this ghost show up?”

  “There’s actually two of them. Two ghosts, I mean,” Meg said. “They showed up yesterday.”

  The woman turned to Meg and raised her eyebrows. “After you killed them?”

  Meg’s stomach plummeted to her feet. How had this woman known? Hadn’t they only exchanged a few words?

  “You might as well tell the truth.” The woman pulled a gold pocket watch out of her bag and glanced at the time.

  “Please.” Tears stung Meg’s eyes. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “It’s not my job to send you to jail or not send you to jail,” the woman said. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell the truth.”

  So Meg told the truth. “My husband and his lover were planning to take the rainy-day money we’d saved and use it to start a new life together. I just got so … angry.”

  She felt as though a weight had been lifted off her. For the first time in her life, her hasty decision had been right.

  The woman nodded, her expression never changing. “And where is this rainy-day money now? That’s what I’ll require for my pay.”

  “It’s out in the shed where I always keep it.” Meg didn’t want to lose her bankroll, but if she could get away with the murders and keep the house, it might be worth it. “On the top shelf in an empty paint can.”

  “I’ll need to walk through the house to get the ghosts out.” The woman started walking before she even put a period on the sentence. Meg followed, trying to ignore the growing feeling that something was off. Was the self-proclaimed Psychic Medium a crook? Would she knock Meg in the head and steal her money?

  The stocky woman stopped in each room and drew in a deep breath. Finally, at the end of the hallway, she cocked her head at the attic trapdoor.

  “What’s up there?”

  “The attic.” Meg didn’t want that woman in her attic. She’d see the noose and know about the suicide attempt. She might even trap Meg up there and steal the money without sending Beetlejuice and Casper’s slutty sister to the swinger’s club in the sky.

  “We have to go up there.” The woman reached for the string that pulled down the trap door.

  “We can’t,” Meg blurted.

  The woman stared at a point right beside Meg, her lips pursed and piggy eyes narrowed with impatience. The fraud couldn’t wait to get her hands on that money.

  “I had a sort of mishap up there.” Meg fingered the abrasions circling her neck.

  “It’s fine. I’m like the gynecologist. I’ve seen it all.” The woman climbed the fold-out stairs, grunting with each step. She clung precariously to the flimsy pop-up rail as it rocked with the strain.

  Meg climbed the steps behind her, an impending sense of doom heavy on her shoulders. Some primitive part of her mind screamed to run away from this. To push the psychic down the stairs. But she ignored it and dragged herself forward, one step at a time. That same primitive part of Meg knew she could never go back.

  Repent at leisure.

  Too soon, the women stood side by side in the stuffy attic. Nothing had changed. The psychic’s eyes widened as she stared the noose dangling from the broken beam. Meg tried to think of words to explain. Before she could speak, the woman squeezed her eyes shut and spoke in a loud monotone.

  “Spirits open your eyes and see.”

  Meg frowned at the woman. How would she get this weirdo out of her home? Something moved in her peripheral vision, and she glanced at the broken beam. Only now it wasn’t broken. Now a body swung from the beam.

  Meg’s mouth dried out, and a buzzing sound filled her head. She stumbled toward the body.

  It couldn’t be. The body twisted at the end of the rope and began to spin around. She waited to see the face, even as she recognized her own clothes and hair. The sight of her own blackened face—eyes wide and tongue protruding—repelled her. She clambered backward and hit something soft and permeable. Passing through it felt like moving through warm water. Meg found herself standing behind the psychic. She’d gone through her. How?

  Her stomach spun in dizzying loops as the truth slipped into her mind. A ghost. She was a ghost. Just like Ted and Brittany. Wild horror rose in her, and the room grew cold with her heightened emotion.

  She stared at her body. She’d been fatter than she realized. Her clothes were dowdy and ill-fitting. No wonder Ted had an affair.

  The psychic retrieved Meg’s cell phone from the attic floor where it must have fallen out of her pocket during her death struggles. She dialed 911, dropped the phone, and walked from the room.

  “Wait!” Meg chased after the woman, who now ignored her. At the attic exit, the woman waved a dismissive hand behind her. She descended the stairs and left the attic access open.

  Meg tried to follow and bounced off an invisible barrier. A frustrated shout worked its way out of her. It so
unded muffled, trapped inside her head. She pounded at the open space. Her fists sank into something soft but impenetrable. She backed up and ran at doorway, only to be thrown backward.

  The back door slammed. Meg raced to the window. The psychic waddled across the back yard and went into the storage shed. She reappeared, holding a wad of cash, and calmly got into her car and drove away.

  A voice buzzed from Meg’s cell phone. “911. What is your emergency? Hello? 911. What is your emergency?”

  A sigh drew her attention away from the cell phone. Trashy Brittany arched her back as Ted trailed kisses along her neck. Ted’s lover glanced at his wife and slipped her a lecherous wink.

  Meg sat on the attic floor and covered her face. Before long, she put her hands over her ears. Listening to them was worse than seeing them.

  An eternity of watching those two horndogs go at it was worse punishment than skinny-dipping in a lake of fire.

  Act in haste …

  About Catie

  Catie Rhodes is that kid your mother warned you about. She cusses, doesn’t wash her hands after petting the dog, and she lies. But in Catie’s family of storytellers, a lie is simply a story you didn’t get people to believe. Traveling through her native land of Texas has given her enough weird, spooky, and funny to write about for this lifetime and the next ten to come. You can find out more about Catie at her website, www.catierhodes.com

  KING OF RATS

  By Gregory Carrico

  Part One: The Alley King’s Plan

  As his cockroach spy and only friend, Skit, scurried away down the earthen tunnel, King Giles of the Alley Rats enjoyed a rare moment of contentment. His age had been showing lately. He was indecisive at times, and had even been seen showing mercy. In a king, these were unfortunate signs of weakness, and in his warren, the weak were shunned.

  Four of his subjects had vanished, either fled or taken by an enemy. Either way, it was an insult to the pack, and an unanswered challenge to the King. Worse, yet, someone had been stealing food from the pack’s hoard, forcing the smaller rats to go hungry. This meant Giles was no longer feared, at least by some of his subjects. For a king, these were unforgivable signs of incompetence, and in his warren, the incompetent were killed.