Tar: An apocalyptic horror novella

by Iain Rob Wright

  "You mean Jeffrey."

  "Jeffrey?" Sarah grew more frustrated. "What the hell is happening?"

  "Jeffrey is the person that killed your boyfriend," Ally said. "He's really not that bad when he's not possessed."

  "Possessed?"

  "Working the ride. Is it still the Tunnel of Love?"

  "Yeah," Sarah said, letting out a deep breath. "What the hell is going on?"

  "Shhh...you'll wake the others. Tammy can be a bitch if she doesn't get her beauty sleep. I don't know the whole story, Jeffrey tells me bits and pieces when he's not possessed. What I know is Jeffrey and his girlfriend were at a county fair back in '65 when a freak accident killed his girl. She stepped on a live wire that electrocuted her. He won't talk much about her though. He says it's too painful."

  "1965?" Sarah asked.

  "Yeah. He always walks around humming 'My Girl.' I really hate that song now, but it was their song. He loved her so much."

  "That bastard killed my boyfriend right in front me. He knows nothing about love."

  "He killed mine too," Ally said. "But, it really wasn't Jeffrey. He's not himself when he's manning the ride. He told me he asked God to bring her back, but God never answered. So, he turned to the Devil. One day as he sat at the place his girl died, the Devil came to him and promised to bring her back under one condition. He had to find ten couples in love, true love, and bring the women to the Devil. The only way to be sure it was true love was for the man to die for his woman."

  "This is insane," Sarah said, looking at the other cells. "There's at least twenty women here. The Devil didn't bring back his girlfriend. He can't, once you're dead, you're dead."

  "I know. And Jeffrey knows, but he keeps trying. Hoping one day, the Devil will honor his word. Jeffrey's faith is unbreakable."

  "Jesus Christ, this can't be happening," Sarah said. "The Devil is the father of lies. He will never honor his word."

  "Love makes you do stupid things," Ally said, laughing. "But, hey it's not that bad here. Jeffrey gives us three meals a day and puts a roof over our heads. I say it's not bad, but that only counts if it's not your number."

  "Number?" Sarah asked.

  "At some point, Jeffrey will take you away from here."

  "Where does he take you?"

  "I'm not sure. No one's ever come back," Ally said, pointing to an empty cell about four cells down. "He took Amanda two days ago. But she'd been here longer than me. The best thing about being here is you never age."

  "I have to get out of here," Sarah said, pulling on the bars. She stopped and looked at Ally's clothes. "Never age? Wait," she paused. "How long have you been here?"

  "What year is it?" Ally asked.

  "2011"

  Ally counted on her fingers. "I've been here thirty-four years."

  Sarah sank to her knees, still clutching the bars.

  "Like I said, it's not too bad. You don't have to worry about wrinkles." Ally smiled. "It's just like my shirt," she pointed to the hotel. "You can check out whenever you want, but you'll never leave."

  "Someone will come looking for me. My parents know that I was at the fair. They'll come."

  Ally sighed and asked, "Was anyone else on the ride?"

  "No."

  "Was anyone in line when you got on the ride?"

  "No."

  "Didn't you find that a little odd?"

  "Not at the time. It was raining. I just wanted to get out of the rain."

  "It's always raining. Not everyone can get on the ride," Ally said.

  "They'll find me. I know my family."

  Ally's lips turned down, her eyes glistened with tears. "I'm really sorry. I'm sure they'll come looking for you," she said, wiping away the tears. "But they'll never find you. They can't"

  "Why is that?" Sarah asked. "It's a goddamn fair ride. Someone has to find it."

  "They can't find you because this place doesn't exist."

  5

  December 2013

  THE HEADLINE WAS ONE WORD — simple, yet powerful. In bold, black Helvetica, the word, "Murderer." He had seen it all too frequently. He reached underneath a Bible and pulled out a yellowing newspaper with the headline "Murderer." He compared the papers. The font was similar, but there were a few variances. Under the headline of the current paper was a photo of Michael Gordon. The date of the yellowing paper was September 13, 1965. Underneath the headline was picture of Jeffrey Richards.

  "WHAT'S THE PROGNOSIS, doc?"

  "Probably four week tops, Warden. With stage four lung cancer, it's a waiting game. But I'd say Richards has used up about all of his time."

  "Hear that, Jeffrey," the voice whispered into Jeffrey's ear.

  "I'm ready for it to end. You promised me I'd get to see Betty again. I'll see her in the afterlife."

  The cherub appeared beside the stainless steel sink in the jail cell.

  "Oh poor, misguided Jeffrey. Betty is in a place you'll never be allowed to enter. You're a murderer."

  "I didn't kill her."

  The cherub giggled. "You murdered Betty in a fit of rage after seeing her kiss that other boy. The other boy was her cousin. They weren't kissing cousins from West Virginia. She hadn't seen him for years. Not since he left to fight in Vietnam. She loved you, Jeffrey."

  "You're the Devil. You're a liar. She stepped on the wire and electrocuted herself."

  More laughter. The cherub hopped onto the sink and became eye level with Jeffrey.

  "You strangled the life out of her in front of all those kids. Even when she begged and pleaded for her life. She told you that she loved you. Jealousy deafened you. Rage led you."

  In the mirror, behind the sink, the cherub took its true form. A small creature covered in brown hair, black circles around its eyes, and four-inch horns on its head.

  "I know what you really are," Jeffrey said.

  "Oh really, do tell."

  "You're an alp," Jeffrey said. "A filthy, little demon that gets off on entering people's dreams, creating nightmares, and sucking the life from them. You're a fucking vampire."

  "Am I now? Interesting. Tell me more."

  "You tricked me into thinking I could see Betty again when you knew that was not possible. You used my love for her as a way to collect those women."

  The alp laughed.

  "No, Jeffrey, you used your love as rage to murder the girl of your dreams. If you hadn't I could have never come to you. And don't act like those women are innocent."

  "They are. They don't deserve what you do to them."

  "They deserve worse. They are no different than you. Those women murdered the love of their lives too. Or else they couldn't get on the ride. The last one you took, Sarah. In an alcohol-fueled rage, she stabbed her boyfriend through the heart. All because he wanted her to stop drinking. The nerve of him."

  Laughter.

  "You said the ride wouldn't work unless there was true love," Jeffrey said.

  "Did I now? I'm always getting true love mixed up with murder."

  "Why are you here? It's not time for the ride to open," Jeffrey said.

  "What do you think happens when you bring me the girls?" the alp asked.

  "I don't know. You eat them?"

  The alp laughed. The shrill caused Jeffrey to cover his ears.

  "Not even close. Murderers leave a bitter aftertaste. So I hear. When I ask you to bring me a girls, death has come calling to take them to Hell. This little thing that we have going is sort of like a time-out. A place for them to reflect on what they've done. Sadly none of them ever admit it. They just play the victim card. Kinda like you."

  The alp pointed a hairy finger with a three-inch crooked black nail at Jeffrey.

  "Why are you here?"

  The alp placed the fingernail on the current newspaper. He traced Michael Gordon's photo, cutting it away from the paper with the sharp nail. He held the photo up.

  "This is why."

  "But you don't like men," Jeffrey said.

  The alp giggled. "So tr
ue. Women are so much more fun. But Jeffrey your time has come to an end. The cancer has won."

  "He's my replacement?" Jeffrey asked.

  "Well, Michael did kill his wife, cut her up, and stuff her in a mattress. I'd say he's more than worthy. But there's time for that later."

  "So, why are you?" Jeffrey asked. Rage fueled his words.

  "Oh, are you going to strangle me too?"

  The alp laughed and his face morphed into Betty's

  "No," Jeffrey said reaching out for the alp's neck.

  Jeffery's hands started to burn. The heat shot up his forearms to his shoulders. The alp continued to giggle. The pain became unbearable. Jeffrey closed his eyes. Praying it would end. The pain let up a bit. He opened his eyes to a sign — written on cardboard, in red ink were the words, "Welcome to Hell. Come Aboard, We've Been Expecting You."

  The End

  If you enjoyed Jeffrey's Wild Ride, you can grab the Paul Seiple Starter Pack for free by signing up for his newsletter.

  OVER MY DEAD BODY

  BY ISRAEL FINN

  Israel Finn is a horror, dark fantasy, and speculative fiction writer, and a winner of the 80th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Story Competition.

  He’s had a life-long love affair with books, and was weaned on authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Arthur C. Clarke and H.G. Wells. Books were always strewn everywhere about the big white house in the Midwest where he grew up.

  Later, he discovered Robert McCammon, Dean Koontz, F. Paul Wilson, Dan Simmons, Ramsey Campbell, and Stephen King, as well as several others, and the die was indelibly cast.

  Israel now lives in southern California.

  www.israelfinn.com

  1

  Eddie Merrick couldn’t shake the feeling. Like something was about to happen. Something bad. The sensation was so strong, so intense, it felt like a presence occupied actual space on the seat beside him.

  He wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have heisted the car on a Friday night. And on Halloween. Way too many people out and about. But he hadn’t been able to resist the shiny new 1940 Ford Coupe sitting in the parking lot of Murphy’s Bar with the keys dangling in the ignition like an invitation. He swore this was the last time. One more good score and he'd get out of this town, go somewhere with a lot of trees. Get an honest job. Now, sitting behind the wheel of the car, he couldn’t wait to get rid of it. He estimated pulling into Paulie’s Garage in fifteen minutes, give or take. Another ten minutes and he’d be handing the keys to this bucket over to Paulie himself. As he hung a left onto Jersey Avenue Eddie felt a crawling sensation in his testicles and along his spine. Like someone was watching him.

  You’re just antsy. You think because it's your last time, you’re gonna get pinched. Stop being so superstitious.

  He switched on the car radio and got the news. A man’s nasally, urgent voice said that the president promised not to send “our boys” into the war. Eddie didn’t believe it. If Roosevelt planned on keeping the U.S. out of it, then why had he enacted the draft? The Jerrys wouldn’t be happy until they took over the whole damn world. Eddie had seen Hitler a few times on the newsreels. A man that relentless wouldn’t stop until you stopped him. Looking for a way out of his dead end life, Eddie had tried to join the Army four years ago, on his eighteenth birthday. They turned him down flat because of his bum leg. When he was thirteen, Eddie’s old man beat him unconscious with a baseball bat for bringing home a bad report card. Eddie had never hated the drunken bastard more than he did the day he left the recruiter’s office with that rejection slip in his hand.

  Eddie soon tired of the news. He fiddled with the radio until he came across a station playing his favorite song, Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood.” He took it as a good omen, and hummed along with the tune. He turned right onto Mercer Street and gunned the engine.

  There was a flash of bright red through the windshield. He mashed his foot down on the brake pedal—a second too late. There was a sickening thump as the car collided with whatever had crossed its path. The Ford screeched to a halt, and Eddie stared out past the gleaming black hood, his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel in a death grip, cold sweat prickling his skin. Someone screamed and Eddie’s head snapped around. At the curb stood a girl and a boy, dressed respectively as a witch and a pirate. From the witch’s right hand dangled a plastic jack-o’-lantern bucket. In her left hand she gripped a broom. The pirate carried his booty in a white paper bag with a picture of a skull and crossbones on the side. A black eyepatch covered one eye while the other eye gazed in shock at the red clump in the middle of the street.

  The radio was still blasting “In The Mood.” Eddie reached out with trembling fingers and switched it off. The sudden silence was deafening. He got out of the car and, his heart thudding in his chest, limped toward the red bundle.

  It was a little girl. Dressed like Red Riding Hood. She lay on her back a good thirty feet beyond the car’s grill, awash in the headlamps like an actress playing a death scene on a stage. And dead she was; if the enormous amount of blood pooling around her head didn’t tell you the story, her open and vacant eyes sure as hell did. She had landed in such a way that the back of her skull had cracked open like a raw egg. An insane and unbidden thought arose in Eddie’s mind: You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. He felt his gorge rise.

  “Margaret?” said the witch in a tiny voice. She was twelve or thirteen. “Get up, Margaret.”

  The boy who was much younger, rolled an accusing blue eye toward Eddie. “You ran over our sister. You’re a bad man.” Then a single tear welled up in that eye and spilled down his cheek.

  Eddie thought, this can’t be happening. But he looked down at the dead girl’s face, at the empty eyes staring up into the night sky, and knew it was. Panic wrapped its icy fingers around him. Without thinking, he made the sign of the cross, a buried ritual from his childhood.

  Margaret had been toting a jack-o’-lantern bucket, like her big sister. It had rolled away against the far curb like a severed head, spilling its contents all over the street the same way Margaret’s head had spilled its own.

  The witch screamed again. Eddie looked up. Other trick-or-treaters had gathered. Faces were appearing at windows in some of the nearby houses. The commotion had drawn a few people out onto their porches. For one insane moment, it occurred to Eddie to explain to the onlookers what had happened here. She came out of nowhere, folks, I swear. I was just minding my business, out for a little spin on a Friday night and listening to Glenn Miller on the radio, when she stepped right out in front of me. And I haven’t had a drop to drink, either. Sober as the Pope on Sunday morning. Oh, the car? Well, it’s like this….

  Two guys hurried across their lawns toward the street. The witch-girl was still screaming, a terrible piercing cry that set Eddie’s teeth on edge and blended with another, similar sound: the distant approach of police sirens.

  Eddie took off. Didn’t know in what direction, and didn’t care. As long as it was away. He hopped fences and shambled across backyards, leaving in his wake barking dogs, trampled flowers, and dented garbage cans. He lurched through side streets, between houses, and down dark alleys. Hid behind trees or parked cars whenever he saw headlamps coming toward him. When he entered an alley at one point Eddie observed a flow of people streaming past at the other end of it. He decided getting lost in a crowd would be his best bet for escape. Slowing his pace, Eddie attempted to pull himself together as he approached the alley’s exit. He entered the street and shuffled along the sidewalk, trying to blend in with the crowd.

  He was on Newark Avenue. First chance he got he’d grab a cab and take it across the river into New York. Then he'd lay low for a while until he could figure something out. He didn’t hold out much hope though; his prints were all over the Coupe. And a couple of those folks would be able to pick him out of a lineup, no sweat.

  There were a lot of costumed people on the street, adult partygoers celebrating the holiday and the wee
kend ahead. He passed Frankenstein’s monster and his bride, and as he eyeballed them, Eddie bumped into Superman.

  “Watch it, Mac,” the man of steel warned, and then stuck a fat cigar in his pie hole.

  Eddie saw a cowboy with his arm around an Indian squaw, and a spaceman wearing a silver suit and what looked like a large fishbowl over his head. The whole atmosphere lent a sense of unreality to an already bizarre situation.

  The marquee of the Palace Theater loomed up ahead. As Eddie drew near he became confused. He had passed the Palace only an hour ago, on his way (unbeknownst to him at the time) to steal the Ford. The theater had been showing the new movie by Charlie Chaplain, The Great Dictator. Eddie remembered because he had made a note he wanted to see it over the weekend. Now the marquee read The Conjuring 2. Eddie frowned. He had never heard of The Conjuring 1, much less its sequel. Had the Chaplain movie been damaged?

  These thoughts were purely sensory, fleeting, there one minute and gone the next. Deeper down, Eddie’s mind shouted out the absolute certainty that the cops were hunting for him at that exact moment. And the real possibility that they were closing in on him.

  A city bus lumbered by on its way to the bus stop half a block down the street. On its side was an advertisement. Eddie had seen nothing like it before, and he gaped at it. It was showy, splashed with bright purples and yellows that made his head hurt. The ad featured two palookas grinning like monkeys. Screaming in bright red letters a foot and a half tall was the message MORNING DRIVE-TIME WITH PHIL AND THE ROOSTER! And under that, only a fraction less gaudy: 105.1 The Kick—Jersey City’s #1 Rock-and-roll radio!

  Eddie didn’t know what to think, except What the hell is rock-and-roll? As he approached its stop, Eddie watched the bus pull to the curb and spill its passengers onto the sidewalk. They all went their separate ways, and there was nothing remarkable about any of them, but one. She moved along the sidewalk in his direction, lighting a cigarette as she came. Tattered denim shorts barely covered her midsection and ripped black stockings ran down her long legs to a pair of scuffed army boots. The arms of a flannel shirt were cinched around her waist. She wore a black t-shirt, the name RAMONES emblazoned in white across her jiggling breasts. Her blonde hair was longish on one side, buzzed to a bristle on the other, and her face and ears flashed with so many metal rings and thingamabobs she looked like a human pincushion. Eddie found himself appalled and aroused at the same time.