Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror)

by William Markly O'Neal

  In the west, lightning fell from the sky.

  ******

  They always gathered in the living room. According to the stories, it was there, in the living room, that ghosts had been seen, tied to chairs, screaming for help. The prevailing wisdom was visitors didn’t need to be here in January, near the anniversary of the murders.

  For the ghosts in Crimson House, it was always winter.

  At some point in the distant past, someone brought five chairs here, one for each of the alleged victims. The teenagers never sat on them. The living sat on the floor.

  One of the things that amused Cyrus was how the number of victims grew. When he originally told the ghost story to his two sons, the death toll was limited to a woman and her two sons. When he told the story to his own two boys, he wanted the story to strike as close to home as possible.

  Years ago, the death count rose to six, although there was always differing opinions about whether the four murdered children were boys or girls.

  He wondered how high of a death toll would be discussed this year.

  When the teenagers gathered, Cyrus was excited to see the girls this year outnumbered the boys. One girl in particular really captured his attention.

  All of Cyrus’s previous victims were young women that he kidnapped from the Big City, nearly thirty miles away. He had never killed anyone from around here, even though he was tempted to on many occasions.

  Cyrus prided himself on his self-control. He believed it was the reason he’d never been caught.

  These young people were in no danger from him.

  He would never strike so close to home.

  But he was tempted. The young blonde—he soon learned her name was Isabella- was exactly the type of girl that Cyrus had always loved. She was beautiful, every bit as beautiful as the girls buried in the basement.

  He became aroused as he watched her. At his age, it was amazing how amorous he felt.

  He knew he would need to go to the Big City after all. He might even go later tonight.

  He wanted Isabella.

  But he’d never give in to his desires.

  It was too dangerous.

  ******

  After lighting the incense, Isabella persuaded one of her friends to work the Ouija board with her. A few minutes later, the clouds burst. There was a roof over their heads but it was full of holes and offered little shelter. When splashing dribbles put out one of the guys’ cigarettes, he immediately declared he was leaving.

  Isabella wasn’t ready to go yet. She had always been warm-blooded; despite a radical drop in the temperature, she was not the slightest bit chilled; and she hadn’t tried her drums yet.

  She decided to stay.

  Her friends tried to talk her out of it but she was determined to try some tricks.

  She wanted to see some spirits… or at least hear some spirits through her Ouija board. And this place seemed ripe for some reason. This place felt like a place where the unseen was very close to being seen.

  And so her friends (and her friend’s friends) left her, not thinking for a moment that she was in any jeopardy. They all went running out of Crimson House, dashing into the rain, unknowingly leaving Isabella alone with a serial killer.

  ******

  Cyrus began to sweat when he realized he was alone with Isabella. The old cravings were back with a vengeance, stronger than ever before. The girl had gotten herself wet, the ceiling above her was a sieve, and her sweatshirt was clinging provocatively to her chest. He imagined how much fun it would be to grab her, to strip her, to rape her and cut her. Lightning sizzled and thunder roared. The thought of loving/torturing Isabella while the storm raged outside made Cyrus particularly randy. He would love to hear her screams intermingled with the thunder.

  The longer he watched her, however, the more confused he became, particularly when she began playing her tom-toms. She talked to herself but in such a low whisper he couldn’t hear her, no matter how hard he strained. She began a circular march, moving around and around the five chairs in the center of the room. Her wanderings periodically brought her near Cyrus’s hiding place, a closet that opened through another room with a peephole opening on this man living room. He finally was able to catch snatches of what this honey was chanting.

  He was startled to realize Isabella wasn’t talking to herself after all.

  She was talking to the ghosts.

  She was beseeching them to show themselves, to appear to her.

  Cyrus found that profoundly odd. He couldn’t understand why she would do such a thing.

  Isabella continued to walk round and around the room, pounding her drums.

  Cyrus’s confusion and curiosity dulled his passion.

  Feeling his lust wane ignited his anger.

  Then Isabella did something that caused Cyrus’s hot blood to go cold.

  ******

  Isabella turned again to her Ouija board, but not before stripping off her wet sweatshirt. Barely covered by a black lycra bra, her young breasts pointed unknowingly at Cyrus. She sat on the floor, bent over her planchette, and she asked a series of yes or no questions which established there was, indeed, a presence here in Crimson House.

  Thrilled, Isabella asked the ghost to name itself.

  ******

  Cyrus remembered all his girls, each and every one of them. He remembered their faces, their names, the way they screamed when they were hurt, the sounds of their gasps when they were dispatched by his knives.

  Cyrus loved every one of them.

  They belonged to him.

  When the Ouija board spelled out the name of his first victim, both her first and last name, Cyrus was petrified.

  But the hateful/lovable girl didn’t stop there!

  She began spelling out the name of his second victim, speaking each letter aloud as the planchette stopped on it.

  That’s when Cyrus lost all self-control.

  ******

  When Isabella wasn’t home by midnight, her parents checked with her friends. Learning where she was last seen, her father went looking for her.

  When he found her Ouija board and discarded sweatshirt, he became frightened. When he found her bloody underwear, he nearly panicked.

  Hearing someone whistling, Isabella’s father crept down into the basement of the dilapidated red house. There in the cellar, Lee Idlewine discovered Cyrus Colton burying his ravaged daughter.

  There was a struggle but the outcome was never in doubt. Cyrus was old and spent. Isabella’s father was young, grief stricken, and enraged. Lee’s fury was fueled by adrenalin and despair.

  Cyrus was killed with his own shovel.

  While his body was buried elsewhere, in a nearby cemetery, Cyrus’s spirit remained trapped in Crimson House. Like all his other victims, Isabella’s soul moved on, ascending into the Light.

  It would be another seven years before Crimson House was finally torn down. During that time, many teenagers would come to it, hoping to catch a glimpse of the old man’s specter.

  Cyrus’s ghost was sometimes spotted in the basement, whistling happily as he dug another grave.

  THE END

  The Legend of Bullet Lake

  ______________________

  Another Middleridge Tale

  ______________________

  The hunting trip to Bullet Lake was Drake’s idea. He had always been the leader of their group. Drake Dupree, Tom Pascal, John Womack, Kyle Cain, and Roger Luttman had been friends all of their short lives. They grew up together in the city of Middleridge, Indiana. They all went to Middleridge High School together; they were Middleridge Mavericks. It was Drake who gave them their name: The Fearless Five. Most of the trouble they got into when they were young was instigated by Dupree. He was their alpha male.

  Drake Dupree was a handsome, healthy twenty-year old. He had curly blond hair, deep blue eyes, and rugged features. In high school, he was on the basketball and baseball teams. He still worked out, keeping his abs hard and his biceps bulging.
He was always optimistic, generally cheery, and had an easy smile he knew could charm the pants off girls . . . and often did.

  Drake had gotten the boys into minor trouble at various times when they were younger, but Drake wasn’t bad; he just hated boundaries. Drake was an explorer. He also loved testing his own limits. When, for instance, Roger fractured both his legs jumping into the Hook river when they were sophomores, it was only by the grace of God Drake didn’t break his own limbs. Drake was the first to jump; Roger was simply unlucky, landing as he did on that submerged log.

  Drake was the first to start smoking. They all agreed cigarettes were nasty and never picked up the habit but they all tried them, thanks to Dupree. Then they moved on to marijuana and that they didn’t give up. They all loved a good blunt. Drake was also the first to do Ecstasy, which he then got the others to try. Drake was the one who stole peppermint schnapps from his father to provide all of them, at the age of sixteen, with their first drunk.

  Drake Dupree wasn’t mean-spirited and he wasn’t stupid. He was bright enough to work in his father’s accounting office and, despite the fact he received exorbitant pay for his labors (his father secretly practiced nepotism, which make the other guys jealous), his father did expect Drake to work.

  In one regard, however, Drake had never exhibited any intelligence whatsoever. When it came to pretty girls, he had no common sense. He knocked up Jody Troxell on the night of their senior prom. He married her four months later, after having sex with two different prostitutes during his bachelor party.

  All the guys were surprised when he settled down after the baby was born. Drake loved his infant son and he believed himself to be a great dad, even though Jody changed all the dirty diapers.

  Drake currently lived in a four room apartment above his in-law’s garage. The apartment was tiny and his wife was always grumpy about having company over. Consequently, Drake hadn’t seen much of the guys lately.

  Except, of course, for Tom.

  Tom Pascal was Drake’s best friend. Like Drake, Tom was good-looking, although his features were more sensitive, even a bit feminine. He had wavy brown hair that he wore thick and feathered back: a 1980s hair style. He had a willowy body, thin but not skinny. He had brown eyes, a boyish smile, and a melodic voice.

  Tom was the musician of their group. He played guitar, piano, and saxophone. In high school, the others all expected he would go on to college. Tom wanted to go to college, to study Music Theory, but so far that hadn’t worked out. While exceptionally talented, he was easily distracted in high school and didn’t obtain a scholarship. And his parents were poor. His mother had a stable position as a secretary in a dentist’s office but his father had had a string of miserably low-paying jobs over the years, everything from a gas station attendant to a shift manager at a Pizza Hut.

  Tom was currently working at Taco Bell while he tried to save up for college but he always seemed to end up spending all his spare money on dope. Tom was the biggest pothead of the five.

  The members of Tom’s rock band, Cold Dead Love, put on make-up so that they looked like mangled zombies. They had played at a couple of local birthday parties but they never made enough money to offset their expenses (which included marijuana).

  Currently, Tom was dating Teresa Troxell, sister of Drake’s wife, Jody. They sometimes double dated, whenever Jody could get her mother to babysit.

  One night in mid-May, when the two couples were together at Drake and Jody’s apartment playing euchre, Drake broached the subject of a camping trip in the presence of the Troxell sisters.

  “We should get the guys together,” Drake said to Tom. “The five of us haven’t been hunting in a coon’s age.”

  Of course, Jody felt obligated to point out, “That’s because you’re married now.”

  Teresa aimed a withering stare at Tom.

  Tom knew Teresa wanted him to pop the question. She and Jody both believed it was ‘long past due’ that he proposed. Tom, however, had no intention of getting tied down. Particularly after seeing what marriage had done to Drake.

  Drake never heard what he didn’t want to hear. Undaunted, he asked, “When is Kyle getting back from school?”

  Tom didn’t know. “The end of May, I think. Maybe June.”

  “Well,” Drake chuckled, “it’ll probably be hard as hell to drag John away from his new squeeze… but I know Roger would love it. He works entirely too hard.”

  Tom nodded. “John’ll come too. You know he will. He’s not that pussy-whipped.”

  Teresa slapped him, saying, “You say ‘pussy-whipped’ like that’s a bad thing.”

  Jody giggled.

  Again, Drake didn’t seem to hear the women. “We should do this, dawg. We could all use some down time. Head over to Bullet Lake, trek out into the woods, set up camp, drink some beers, do some huntin’ and fishin,’ unwind a bit.”

  Now it was Drake’s turn to get slapped by Jody. “Like you have anything to be stressed out about!” His wife sang her favorite tune: “Try spending the whole day at home with the baby and then talk to me about needing to unwind!”

  The conversation went on from there but the matter was settled.

  The women didn’t want the men to go on a hunting trip.

  The men fully intended to go anyway.

  A couple of days later, Drake stopped in at the garage on the west side of Middleridge where Roger worked.

  Roger was the oldest of the Fearless Five, having just recently turned twenty-one. That was a celebrated event because it meant the group would never again have to worry about how to get liquor.

  Roger Luttman was the oldest because he had been held back a year in school, in the fifth grade. His nickname was ‘Lunkhead’ but Luttman never seemed to mind when his friends called him that (although he might take offense if someone outside their group called him that). Roger was a big guy. By the age of seventeen he stood six-feet-six-inches tall. He had monster long limbs, a crane-like neck with a softball-sized Adam’s apple, and emaciated facial features vaguely reminiscent of a ghoul. With his gangly body, he was never very good at sports, although he did play football (badly) for two years.

  Roger talked very slowly and generally said very little. Most people who didn’t know him thought he was dimwitted. His friends knew differently. In many things, Roger lacked common sense, and he was painfully shy around strangers (or any girls) but, in at least one area— mechanics— Roger was a genius. He had a passion for fixing cars and he absolutely loved guns. Roger enjoyed disassembling things and putting them back together again.

  Tom once called him, “Our idiot savant.”

  None of them expected much from Roger after high school. His current success working as an auto mechanic had surprised them all. Of the five of them, he had the coolest car and the nicest apartment, even if he did have to share his place with an obnoxious roommate.

  Drake caught up with Roger as he got off work, telling him, “We’re going camping, dawg. The Fearless Five, back in the saddle again.”

  Roger gave Drake some shit. “Jody’s actually letting you out of the house?”

  Drake’s face darkened but his eyes sparkled with good humor. “Fuck you, Lunkhead. At least I’ve got a woman.”

  Roger tried to play this off but color rose in his cheeks. “Women are more trouble than they’re worth.”

  Drake smiled smugly. “Yeah? That’s not what you said after my bachelor party.”

  Roger was a virgin until the night of Drake’s bachelor party. Drake got him his first piece of ass and he never let Roger forget it.

  A smile slowly gathered on Roger’s pale, skinless face. He asked Drake, “So camping, huh? A hunting trip?”

  “Hunting, fishing, drinkin’, smokin’, the whole nine yards, buddy.” Drake slapped Roger on the back. He would have draped an arm around Roger’s shoulder but Lunkhead was too tall. Drake asked, “John still has his tent, right?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And his granddad sti
ll has his place on the lake, right?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Hell, maybe we’ll even go look for the Indian burial grounds again. We haven’t done that since we were what? Sixteen?”

  Roger looked at his feet and nodded.

  “Who knows?” Drake continued, now grinning. “Maybe we’ll even run into Injun Joe this time!”

  Roger looked sharply at Drake and said, “Fuck you.”

  When they were kids, Roger was the one most frightened by the old ghost story. More than once, when they were teenagers, they went looking for the spirit of the old Delaware Indian chief that locals had long ago dubbed ‘Injun Joe.’ Joe was supposed to haunt a fenced-in section of a thick forest along the western banks of Bullet Lake, a place known in legend as Bountiful Woods.

  The Fearless Five never found the woods, of course, let alone Injun Joe. None of them expected to find Joe . . . except for Roger.

  “So what do you say?” Drake asked, already knowing the answer.

  Later that night, after supper with Jody, Drake snuck out of their rat-hole apartment above his in-law’s garage. He went for a walk down the sidewalk of his residential neighborhood on the northeast side of Middleridge, headed for the nearby Dairy Queen, four blocks away. He was thinking he would buy Jody a strawberry sundae (her favorite) to surprise her. It was a beautiful night, warm and dry, and all the two-story houses on East 6th Street were lit-up from within, while outside their lawns were lit by streetlamps. Crickets and other nocturnal creatures were serenading each other. Despite the glow of the city, the dark sky still revealed the light from distant suns. Fireflies in the grasses competed with the blue-white glitter of the stars by flashing yellow responses.

  As he walked toward ice cream, Drake pulled out his cell phone and called John.

  Drake had known John Womack longer than any of the others. Growing up, Drake and John were next door neighbors.

  John was short, barely 5'3". In high school, since he couldn’t play basketball effectively, he took to track and baseball. He worked out obsessively, jogged twice daily, and ate sensibly, all in an effort to make certain he had the perfect physique. Drake had long believed John was overcompensating for the fact he was so short.