A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Chet Williamson

  “But you’re a man, and there was a draft then. I’m talking about Brooke.”

  Looking uncomfortable, Conrad Neuhaus said, “It was good for me. I matured in the service.”

  His wife looked sternly at him, as if to say, You take the other side, then you’d better know what you’re getting into, bub.

  Brooke said, “How’s it feel to always be right, Mother?”

  “Don’t talk to me that way, Brooke,” Anna Neuhaus said, turning the stern look on her daughter.

  Brooke exploded. “Look, it’s my life too, you know! What’s wrong with working for a while or traveling? I can still go to college in a year or two. What’s the big deal?”

  “At your age, you don’t know what’s best.”

  “Right. And when I’m your age, I’ll know everything.”

  “Brooke, I don’t like your attitude one bit.”

  The words tough shit hung on Brooke’s lips, but she settled for thinking them. Seeing no point in continuing the argument, she shifted her eyes to her plate and stabbed a piece of pork roast.

  To Brooke, her parents didn’t look as though they belonged together. Her mother, after numerous failed diets, was overweight and round-faced. Her blonde hair was curly, and the overall effect was of an aged cherub. Her father, on the other hand, was tall and bony, almost gaunt, and he looked as she’d always pictured Ichabod Crane.

  Anna Neuhaus drew in a slow breath. “Brooke,” she said slowly, “this matter is closed. You are not going to California. And you are not working as a stewardess. You are going to college in the fall. That’s the end of it.”

  “Like hell,” Brooke muttered.

  “What?” her mother said, sounding shocked.

  Oh, crap, Brooke thought. Here we go. “I said, ‘Like hell,’ Mother.”

  “Now you listen, young lady,” her mother said, her face reddening. She looked at Brooke with blue eyes that simultaneously seemed icy cold and angry hot. “I have absolutely no intention of—”

  Anna Neuhaus stopped as if she’d been switched off. For a moment, Brooke just stared at her. Then she realized her father, too, seemed a little weird. Both of them were staring at the table, glassy-eyed.

  Anna Neuhaus looked at her watch. “It’s time to go to the revival,” she said.

  “Yes,” Conrad Neuhaus said.

  Together, like a pair of Earthlings under the influence of alien creatures in an old fifties sci-fi movie, they rose and walked out of the room. Brooke stared at them in stunned disbelief.

  9

  Hiram Bellamy and his wife, Gwen, were sitting in the living room, watching television. Abruptly Gwen got up and walked out of the room. “Honey,” Bellamy said.

  When she didn’t answer, he called to her again. He heard the front door close. Getting up, he hurried to the window and looked out. Gwen was walking down the sidewalk, away from the house. He quickly ran to the door. “Gwen!” She seemed not to hear him. “Gwen! Where are you going?” She turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

  10

  Joe Coleman, Ice Island’s mayor, postmaster, and pharmacist, was filling a prescription for Tad Tyler, a junior high boy with a bad acne problem. The medicine wasn’t for his complexion, however; it was penicillin for an ear infection. He was typing the label for the bottle when the urge to go to the revival came over him. For a few seconds, he simply stood there, the label half completed in his typewriter, trying to understand what was happening. He’d had absolutely no intention of going to the revival until this moment. Why had the urge suddenly come over him? And why was it so intense? It drew him like the smell of baking bread drew a starving man.

  No, he thought. I don’t want to go to the revival.

  But he turned from the typewriter and walked toward the gate in the counter. The urge was absolutely compelling now, and it pulled him toward the church as if he were being reeled in by a winch. He opened the gate in the counter and walked toward the exit.

  “Mr. Coleman?” Tad said hesitantly.

  The pharmacist walked past a counter full of cold remedies and cough medicines, put his hand on the door, and opened it.

  “What about my prescription?” the boy said.

  Coleman stepped outside. The door closed behind him.

  “What about my prescription?” Tad asked again, although there was no one in the store to hear him.

  11

  Ralph Higgins was still sitting at the bar in the Icicle Lounge, drinking beer, when both Susan and Todd Wolfe abruptly walked out of the place without a word to anybody.

  12

  Carl Zellner was fixing himself a dinner of canned stew and toast, while Brute lay a few feet away, watching him. Suddenly the dog sat up and emitted a long, eerie, wolf-like howl.

  13

  Don Farraday had just gotten home. Stepping through the back door and into the kitchen, he found Allison at the stove, stirring the contents of a pot, while Sarah set the table.

  Abruptly Allison turned from the stove, frowning. “It’s time for the revival,” she said.

  Surprised, Don said, “You’re not going, are you?”

  “Of course,” she said and walked out the door.

  “Mom … ?” Sarah said, clearly puzzled.

  “I didn’t know she was going to the revival,” Don said, bewildered.

  “Neither did I,” Sarah said. “Dad, what’s going on?”

  From outside came the sound of Allison’s car backing out of the driveway.

  14

  Irene Waggoner recognized the sound of Kevin’s Plymouth. The way the engine clanked and sputtered. The rattle of the door as it closed. Then she heard the door of the house opening.

  She was still spread-eagled on the bed. Her efforts to free herself had only served to burn and abrade her wrists and ankles. During the day she’d heard the mailman at the box by the front door, and three times someone had rung the door chimes, but all she could do was pull against the ropes and mumble her muffled pleas.

  For a few minutes, she heard the sounds of Kevin moving through the house. Then he appeared at the doorway and stood there, just looking at her. His eyes seemed distant, unfocused, and at the same time they seemed merciless. Not cruel like a sadist’s eyes, but simply uncaring, as if her well-being were unimportant. Something icy popped into the pit of her stomach, as if she’d just developed a hailstone. And then it grew, spreading through her middle, out to the ends of her limbs, causing her flesh to crawl into goose bumps as it went.

  Moving to the bed, he removed the gag from her mouth. “How have you been?” he asked.

  Her mouth was so dry she was unable to speak. She moved her lips, but no sounds came out.

  He produced a pocket knife, opened it, studied the silvery blade.

  “Y-you going to cut me?” she managed to ask.

  “No.” He severed the ropes. The blade passed through them with ease, and she wondered whether he’d spent the day honing it, preparing for this moment.

  “Kevin,” she said, “why … why are you doing this to me?”

  “You know.”

  “I … I didn’t do what you said.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Irene.”

  “I’m not lying.” She crawled over to him, started to slip her arms around him, but he backed away. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “You never cared about me. Why should I care about you?”

  She sat up, began untying the ropes, which were now just one-foot lengths hanging from her wrists and ankles. After the first one was off, she winced as she rubbed her red, raw wrist.

  “I’m your wife,” she said. “I cook and clean for you. I take care of you when you’re sick. I’m good to you, Kevin.” She was crying, the tears dripping on the rope she was trying to get off her right wrist. “I don’t understand how you could treat me like this.”

  “Irene, you married me because you didn’t want to get a job. You needed someone to support you.”

  She shook her head, but she could
see by looking in his eyes that nothing she said would make any difference. He would do what he was going to do. Nothing could change his mind.

  “Kevin,” she sobbed, “please.”

  “Hurry up and untie those ropes,” he said, his voice emotionless.

  She finished untying her wrists and started on her ankles.

  “What … what are you going to do to me?”

  “I already told you. We’re going to the revival.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about.

  But she knew something awful was going to happen to her.

  Ten

  1

  Irene felt better when they arrived at the church and saw the banner above the front door. There would be other people around, which meant she’d be safe. She could even refuse to leave with him. There’d be nothing he could do. Although her parents were both dead, her niece, Nicola Effington, would take her in.

  Kevin drove slowly past the church in her Bronco, looking for a parking space. The area was crammed with cars and pedestrians, and Irene was beginning to realize just how big a deal this revival was. It could well be the biggest event Ice Island had ever seen. Kevin finally found a parking space in the grocery store’s lot, two blocks away from the church. When they got out of the car, he grabbed her arm, as if he were escorting some dangerous criminal. It was unnecessary, for if Irene was going to break loose and run, it would be to the exact place he was taking her. To the church. Where all the people were.

  As they neared it, they encountered other Ice Islanders who’d been forced to park some distance away and walk to the revival. She spotted Joan Faulk, with whom she’d been friendly in high school, but when she tried to catch Joan’s eye, the woman walked past as if she hadn’t seen her. And then Irene noticed that everyone seemed to be walking like that, as if lost in their own thoughts, unaware of what was around them. Suddenly that hailstone was back in Irene’s midsection, not growing but not going away either.

  The very idea of a revival on Ice Island was ridiculous. Ice Islanders were practical, sober people, hardly the sort to go in for faith healing or talking in tongues or whatever.

  And she didn’t understand why Kevin was taking her here. Had he suddenly gotten religion? Was he bringing her to the church so she could see the error of her ways? She promptly dismissed the notion. Kevin with any kind of a cause was impossible to picture. He was a fat, lazy slob who didn’t give a shit about anything.

  He gave enough of a shit to stick a gun in your mouth and look like he was going to blow your brains all over the bedspread, a part of her warned.

  Reluctantly Irene considered that. Somehow he’d found out about her and Paul. And it hurt him in a way that had surprised her. It wasn’t losing her affections that bothered him—not that they were all that affectionate—but a more personal, basic thing. She had hurt his pride, his ego. Until now Irene hadn’t known he had any pride. He seemed content to work as a clerk in a hardware store, making slave-labor wages. He did nothing about his weight. He did nothing about his subtle but constant body odor. But Irene had been wrong in assuming he had no self-respect at all. There was something in the center of him, deeply buried, that was sensitive, easily hurt. And she had wounded it by seeing Paul Edley.

  Irene felt badly about that. True, she didn’t really love Kevin. And nothing—except maybe a complete change in the man—would ever make her respect him very much. Still, she hadn’t deliberately set out to hurt him.

  But then that particular damage had been done. Her pressing problem was how to keep him from hurting her.

  There are people around, she reminded herself. He can’t do anything to you here. And yet he still gripped her arm as if she were a prisoner.

  They started up the wide walk, toward the big double doors. Irene had never thought too much about the small stone church, but now it seemed strangely menacing to her, as if she were walking into the castle of Bluebeard or the wicked witch. They were in a press of people now, some of whom she knew better than others, but all of whom were familiar. Faces that stared straight ahead, unaware of her, unaware of anything except the church, the big wooden doors. Reverend Pfeil stood at the entrance, smiling at the people passing through the doors. Neither he nor they spoke.

  As Irene stepped inside the stone building, the cold pebble in her gut began to grow. This was not what the inside of a church was supposed to look like.

  Black material covered the walls, blocking out the colored light from the stained-glass windows.

  The big cross behind the altar was upside down.

  On the front of the pulpit was a five-pointed star inscribed within concentric circles.

  Within the star was a horned head.

  A little voice inside Irene was saying, Uh-uh, no way is this happening, because you just stepped into a horror flick, Irene, old girl, like the ones you used to go and see on the mainland when you were a teenager, and Ricky Claussen tried to feel you up. The ones where the devil worshippers had taken over the town and the innocent couple driving through found themselves knee-deep in shit.

  Irene had the feeling she was the stranger passing through. Suddenly the icy chunk within her seemed to be alive, sending out tendrils that were encircling her heart. Calling up every drop of adrenaline she could find, Irene yanked her arm free of Kevin’s grasp, whirled, and dashed for the door. Instantly her way was blocked, and she was looking at the faces of Ice Islanders, expressionless faces that seemed to stare through her.

  She spun around, hoping to find the way clear in another direction, but she was surrounded. And the bodies were moving, as one, toward the altar. She was being herded, she realized.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed.

  No one answered. No one even spoke.

  “Kevin! Oh, God, Kevin, please help me!”

  And still the only sound other than her screaming was the shuffling of feet as the dazed-looking people surrounding her moved her toward the altar.

  Suddenly the crowd parted.

  Reverend Pfeil stood at the altar, and beside him was a long table with candles burning on each end.

  Hands grabbed her, and she was dragged to the table, lifted, laid on top of it.

  “Kevin! Please!” But then she realized that Kevin was one of the people who’d put her on, the table.

  Her hands and feet were bound, the ropes digging into the sore spots where she’d been tied before. This is a nightmare, something inside her asserted. You’re dreaming an old grade B horror flick, but don’t worry because you’ll wake up before the unthinkable happens, because that’s the rule, you always wake up.

  Reverend Pfeil was addressing the congregation in a strange-sounding language. They rose as one, moaning, waving their arms in the air, and swaying, the movement eerie and rhythmic. Then he turned, stepped toward Irene, and she saw what was in his hand. A long, very sharp-looking knife.

  Time to wake up. Now. Please.

  Pfeil slipped the blade under the cloth of her blouse, slit it with a single upward motion. The cloth slipped to the sides, exposing her bra. He slit that as well, the blade passing between her breasts. Starting at the ankles, he slit her pants legs. A few moments later, she was naked.

  The minister turned toward the congregation, again speaking in that strange language. Wake up, she thought. Wake up! Wake up!

  Reverend Pfeil turned back to Irene.

  Wake up! Wake up!

  The minister raised the knife, its shiny blade reflecting the flickering orange light from the candles.

  Wake up! Wake up!

  Staring up at him, Irene realized she could see the candles flicker in his eyes, too. And then she saw that his eyes were actually glowing, turning from orange to red. He looked down at her, smiling, and for just an instant he seemed to be something else. Irene saw sharp pointed teeth; scaly, leathery flesh; a furry body; and a subtle stench like rotting eggs filled her nostrils.

  She tried to scream, but her mouth had gone dry. She saw Reverend Pfeil, and she
saw the other thing as well, and she was relieved because she knew that this was definitely a nightmare. That it could be reality was inconceivable, so what else could it be except a bad dream? The knife would start downward, and she would wake up. That’s all there was to it.

  The blade, still reflecting the candle flames, plunged downward.

  Irene did not wake up.

  2

  “Weird,” Sarah said, “the way Mom just walked out in the middle of getting dinner.”

  Don and his daughter were sitting in the living room. The TV set was on, but they weren’t paying much attention to it. Allison had walked out of the house an hour and a half ago.

  “Do you think you should have gone after her?” Sarah asked. She was sitting on the couch. Don was in his favorite chair.

  “By the time I thought of it, she was already gone,” he said. “I would’ve had to chase her in the patrol car.”

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “Sarah, she didn’t seem to be in any danger. And I knew where she was going.”

  “Yeah, but it was so weird. Aren’t you worried?”

  “Of course I’m concerned. But chasing after her in a car just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Besides, we drove by the church and saw her car there. Half the town’s at that revival. We know where she is, and we know she’s not in any danger, not with all those people around.”

  Sarah sighed. “I think you’re just trying to keep me from worrying.”

  There was some truth to that, because Don was every bit as concerned as Sarah. When your wife walks out of the house in the middle of cooking dinner, you know something’s not right. Especially when she says she’s going to a revival she earlier said she had no intention of attending. Especially when the wife in question was a level-headed businesswoman who got embarrassed if she rooted too enthusiastically for her favorite team while watching the World Series. Allison was a born conformer, a person who believed in doing the “right thing,” being responsible, not making too many waves. Such people did not walk out of the house in the middle of fixing dinner.