A Dark Collection: 12 Scary Stories

by Lukens, Mark

  She was sure sleep would be impossible for her tonight.

  • • •

  Joyce snapped awake when their bedroom door burst open.

  “What the hell?” Richard screamed as he sat up in bed.

  “Shut the fuck up, fat man!” a black-clad man shouted through a tight-fitting clown mask.

  Richard turned to reach for the nightstand, for his gun in the drawer.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” the masked man growled as he pointed his pistol at Richard’s forehead. The gun looked too long, and Joyce realized that it must have a silencer on it.

  Three other men in black clothing rushed inside the room. Each of them wore a different clown mask that fit their heads tightly. Two of the men bolted across the room and grabbed Joyce.

  “Hey!” Richard yelled, sitting up, his back against the headboard. “What is this? Take what you want. Just leave her alone.”

  Joyce screamed as rubber-gloved hands clutched her and pulled her from the bed. One of the men slapped her face to stop her screaming.

  She froze and stared at the clown mask in front of her. She could see that the dark eyes behind the mask had no mercy in them. And then she thought that maybe she’d been wrong about Frank. She felt certain in that moment that she was going to be killed right along with Richard.

  “Take her to the other room,” the man with his gun aimed at Richard told the two men. He was the only one talking so far, and he seemed like he was the leader.

  The men dragged Joyce across the room to the door.

  Richard jumped up from the bed. “No! Please, take me! Don’t hurt her. I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt her.”

  “I’ll try to be gentle,” one of the men escorting Joyce out of the room grumbled.

  “You move again and you get a bullet in your knee,” the leader told Richard.

  “I love you,” Richard called after Joyce, and she could hear the hitch in his voice.

  “Bring a chair in here,” the leader told the other man in the room.

  The man came back with an expensive chair from the office down the hall. It was a sturdy chair with arms on it.

  “Sit down!” the leader told Richard.

  “What do you want? I’ll give you anything you want.”

  “I know you will. Now sit the fuck down.”

  Richard shook his head as the tears flowed from his eyes. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Get in that chair or I’m going to go in there and tell them to kill your wife. I’ll tell them to start bringing me pieces of her, one by one.”

  Richard nodded numbly and collapsed down into the chair. Another man entered the room with a large roll of plastic wrap. He wrapped the plastic around Richard’s wrists and forearms, strapping them down to the arms of the chair. Then he wrapped the plastic around his calves and ankles, securing them to the legs of the chair. He wrapped more plastic around Richard’s chest and shoulders and lap, pinning him to the chair. The other man pulled a roll of duct tape from his large pants pockets and taped Richard’s arms, legs, and chest over the plastic wrap.

  Richard tried to struggle but he was taped to the chair too tightly.

  The leader set his pistol on the end of the bed and told one of the other men to bring the bag in now.

  “The bag?” Richard asked, his heart pounding in his chest. The plastic and tape was so tight around his chest that it felt like it was hard to breathe.

  “We have a few questions for you, Mr. Corbett.”

  • • •

  In the other room, one of their guest rooms, Joyce stood in the middle of the floor. The masked man stood near her and he had instructed her when to scream.

  “Make it convincing,” he whispered to her.

  She nodded and tried to stop crying.

  The man produced a notecard from his pocket. On it were sentences written in large block letters. He pointed to the first sentence, and he didn’t need to tell her again to make it convincing, she could see it in his eyes.

  “No,” Joyce cried out. “Please don’t!”

  “Again,” the man whispered.

  “Oh God, please don’t!!”

  “That’s a good girl,” the masked man purred.

  • • •

  “What are they doing to her?” Richard asked as tears spilled from his eyes.

  “Oh, they’re having their fun. But they’re not hurting her too bad yet. That all depends on you, Richard. Do you mind if I call you Richard?”

  Richard shook his head no.

  A masked man came back into the bedroom with a large black bag. He set it on the floor and pulled items out and laid them on the carpet: a hammer and large nails; a variety of razors and knives; pairs of pliers; different kinds of scissors; an assortment of small, battery-powered saws and drills; a blow torch; and a small ax.

  “Whatarethosefor?” Richard blubbered.

  “I want to know where the green lockbox is, Richard,” the leader said. “The one with the papers in it.”

  “I … I don’t know. What green lockbox?”

  “Richard, don’t fuck with me. Just tell me where the green lockbox is and all of this can go away.”

  “No, please. Wait. I don’t … don’t know. I don’t have a green lockbox.”

  “It’s a metal box. Painted green. It has a combination lock on it. And there are papers inside that I need.”

  “I don’t own a box like that. I swear to God. I have a small safe in the closet. That’s all.”

  “Richard, you’re trying to fuck with me, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not. I swear to God. I don’t have a metal green box. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “Are you Richard Corbett?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’ve got the right guy.”

  Richard could feel his chest getting tighter. He tried to draw in deeper breaths, but the plastic wrap and duct tape seemed to get tighter with every breath he drew.

  “What papers do you want?” Richard asked.

  “The papers in the green box.”

  “I don’t have a green box,” Richard said.

  The leader looked down at the assortment of tools on the carpet. “Let’s see. Where do we start? A nice large nail through one of your testicles?”

  “Oh God …” Richard whimpered.

  “Wait,” the leader said excitedly, “I know. How about we scoop out one of your eyeballs with one of these knives?”

  Richard could barely breathe now.

  “Or maybe we take some of the skin off of your face. Just on one side.”

  Richard tried to talk. He shook his head no, his breathing and words coming out in wheezes, his face red, consciousness wanting to slip away.

  “Just answer the question, Richard. Tell me where the green lockbox is or I’ll start hacking on your body. I’ve got a blow torch to cauterize the wounds. We could be here for days.”

  “I … I … I don’t … don’t know. Please. What box?” Richard was sobbing and wheezing even harder now.

  “YOU KNOW WHERE THE BOX IS!! TELL ME!!”

  “I don’t know. Oh God, I don’t know.”

  The leader stared at Richard for a long moment, his eyes just dark pebbles behind the eyeholes of the clown mask. He turned to the other man and nodded. “Tell them to start on her.”

  The other man nodded and collected the tools from the floor and put them back into the black bag.

  “No,” Richard breathed out. He could feel sharp pains in his chest now, jagged heat rushing through his left arm and up into his neck and jaw.

  “Just tell me where the lockbox is and your wife keeps all of her body parts.”

  Richard drew in quick, sharp breaths, his mind reeling, trying to think of what this man could possibly be talking about.

  • • •

  In the guest bedroom, the men told Joyce to start her screaming now. They gave her a rag to stuff into her mouth like she was gagged.

  Another man turned on the small
power saw and Joyce’s screams intensified. She shoved the rag deeper into her own mouth and screamed as loud as she ever had before. One long, continuous scream.

  The other man, the one who had handed her the rag, pulled a large plastic bag out of another duffel bag. The inside of the bag was smeared with blood, but Joyce could easily see what else was inside of it—a woman’s foot; it was about the size of her own foot. The ankle of the foot had been burned to a crisp, cauterized.

  The other man turned the saw off and started the blow torch.

  Joyce screamed even longer and harder into the rag now.

  • • •

  Richard didn’t last much longer after seeing the foot, and then the hand brought in one at a time in the blood-stained baggies. His heart stopped. He writhed in the chair clawed at the arms of the chair with his fingers. His eyeballs rolled up into his eyelids. And then he was dead.

  The cleanup didn’t take too long. They left Richard in the chair after they had removed the plastic wrap and tape. The bonds had left slight impressions, but they would go away and there would be no bruising. If anything was detected during the medical exam, Joyce was instructed to tell the police that they had been engaged in some kinky sex when Richard suffered his heart attack.

  They laid Richard’s body on the bed. Then they left, carrying their bags of tools and body parts, without another word to Joyce.

  Joyce waited ten minutes after they left, and then she called 911. She was hysterical on the phone, screaming that her husband wasn’t breathing anymore. She thought he was having a heart attack. And she didn’t have to fake her hysteria.

  The paramedics tried in vain to resuscitate Richard, but it was too late. They told Joyce they were very sorry as she cried and nodded at them. A cop tried to soothe Joyce, but she was inconsolable. She leaned against the man and cried.

  • • •

  Joyce met with Frank Savantino two months later to pay him the rest of his money. Everything had worked out just as he said it would. Everyone believed Richard had died from a sudden massive heart attack. Everyone did their best to console her.

  “Times are different these days,” Frank told Joyce. “Today, we have to come up with new ways to make hits—too much forensics out there.”

  Joyce didn’t comment. She didn’t care anymore. She still felt numb even two months after Richard’s death. She was pretty sure she’d made the wrong decision now, but it was too late.

  “Joyce,” Frank said, snapping her attention back to him. She realized that he’d been saying something and she hadn’t even heard him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Do you have plans now?” he asked again. “Are you moving?”

  “Yes,” she answered and cleared her throat. “Selling the house. Moving far away from here. Facing Richard’s family was tough. Tougher than I thought it was going to be.”

  “It’s always more difficult than people imagine,” Frank said. He sounded like he was trying to ease her, but everything he said now sounded like a threat.

  “I found some things after he was gone,” Joyce said, trying her best not to cry.

  Frank didn’t say anything. He just stared at her with dark eyes. Merciless eyes. They reminded her of the eyes behind the clown masks.

  “I don’t think there were any mistresses. I don’t know. I guess I’ll never know. But I found a Valentine’s Day card he bought for me. He had written some … some things down inside. He had been planning on taking me to Florida for our anniversary. Inside the card he’d written that I was the love of his life, his reason for existing.”

  Joyce grabbed a tissue from her purse. She couldn’t continue. And it didn’t seem like Frank really cared.

  “I’m just saying that I think he really loved me,” Joyce said as tears slipped from her eyes. She wiped at them.

  Frank still said nothing. He glanced away a few times like he had other more important and interesting matters to attend to.

  “Frank, can I ask you one thing?”

  “Sure,” he said with a tight smile.

  “What if … I mean, suppose Richard hadn’t had a heart attack? I mean what if this hadn’t worked?”

  “Then we would’ve went to Plan B,” Frank said with that tight smile still on his face, and his eyes like shiny black pebbles.

  “Plan B?”

  “Where we make it look like a robbery and random killings.”

  Frank had said killings with an ‘s.’ Plural. She didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t thank him. She just gave him his payment and she left the restaurant. And she had meant what she’d said about moving far away from here.

  • • •

  Trish arrived at the restaurant at ten o’clock as instructed. She glanced around before she pulled the door open. She couldn’t help feeling like she was being watched or followed.

  But that was just her nerves getting to her.

  And she had every right to be nervous.

  She was met inside by a tall, thin man in a tux. He took her coat and led her to the private room in the back where Frank waited for her.

  Frank asked for her husband’s fears.

  “Spiders,” she told Frank. “He’s afraid of spiders.”

  MARCH

  SQUISH

  This tale takes place in late spring when there may still be a chill in the air and the roads may still be icy at night—accidents can happen.

  In this story a man creates an accident on a lonely road so he can film it to sell the footage. The accident leaves three people dead. But soon he is haunted by his actions in a very strange way.

  Vince couldn’t believe his luck.

  It had taken him an hour to get things set up. He had parked at the side of the road and rolled the two gigantic rolls of mesh wire up the hill and stashed them in the bushes. Then he parked his car a few miles away on a dirt drive off of the road, hidden from view. And now he waited up on top of the hill among the shadows and trees. He had his handheld digital camera charged and ready.

  He had staked out this road for weeks now and he knew that every Saturday night these two guys on their crotch-rocket motorcycles raced down this road at a hundred miles an hour.

  Vince waited for three hours, watching the lonely road at the bottom of the hill below him in the darkness, and then he finally heard the whine of the powerful motorcycles. He looked to his left and he could already see the lights from the bikes washing through the trees from the bend in the road.

  He had to time this exactly right. He wasn’t a mathematical genius by any stretch, so he was just going to have to use his best guess, his gut instinct. And this could only work once. If he missed, he would never get another chance.

  He had the heavy rolls of wire in position and he held on to them, waiting. Then he let go, even giving them a solid kick with his worn-out cowboy boots, and maybe that little kick, that little extra push, had helped.

  Or maybe it was luck.

  Or maybe it was fate.

  He watched the rolls of wire tumble down the grassy hill. They popped up into the air a little when they hit a rock. For a moment Vince thought the rolls of wire might collide and knock each other off course.

  But they didn’t.

  Vince had chosen a spot in the road at a curve where the bikes would have to slow down just a bit. And at this curve was a large collection of brush near the road that blocked the view of the grassy hill until the last second. If he timed it right, they would never see it coming.

  Time seemed to stretch out for Vince as he watched the rolls of wire tumble to the bottom and down into the road that was now awash with the light from the bikes’ headlights.

  Then it happened.

  It was so fast. A screech of tires split the night air at the last possible second. There was a slamming of metal on pavement, then maybe a scream, and then the whine of powerful motor, and then the satisfying crumpling sound of the bikes and bodies turning over and over down the road, all of the
pieces sliding to the edge of the road and colliding with a telephone pole and a thick stand of trees.

  Vince grabbed his handheld camera and he raced down the hill to film the aftermath.

  They were dead. They had to be dead.

  When he got to the road, he saw dark smears on the pavement underneath the strewn wreckage. Was it oil? Blood?

  He had to hurry. Even though this road wasn’t used much, a truck or car could still come by. He ran to the piles of motorcycle parts and body parts. There was no sound now. The engines were dead. There wasn’t even a scream or any moaning, just an eerie silence in the night.

  He couldn’t believe his luck. Everything had worked out better than he’d even dared to imagine.

  One of the riders, a man in his early twenties Vince guessed, was crumpled up against the base of a tree. He had on old faded jeans and a T-shirt on this warm late March evening. It looked like the man had sideswiped a tree trunk and lost the bottom half of his left arm and left leg. The pieces were lying in the grass and weeds.

  The other rider, about the same age as the first one, had fared even worse. He must have flown through the air and hit the tension wire of the telephone pole which had cut him in half at the waist.

  Vince let his camera roam over the carnage.

  And as a bonus, a young woman had been riding on the back of one of their bikes—he really couldn’t tell which one. She had collided with a thick tree trunk and left most of her face behind.

  Vince got the footage he needed, and then he got out of there. He didn’t bother collecting the rolls of wire—they were stuck in the brush on the other side of the road.

  No one would ever know who did this. He wouldn’t leave any evidence behind. He’d thought it all through. He crept up into the woods and began his mile-long trek back to his parked car. It really was a pleasant night for a walk underneath the moonlight.

  • • •

  It was after midnight when Vince got home. He set his camera down on the kitchen counter and locked the kitchen door. He wriggled out of his jacket and threw it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He wore a wrinkled and sweat-stained button down shirt that covered his bony shoulders.