Horror Library, Volume 5

by Boyd E. Harris R. J. Cavender

  He had the cabbie follow Bradley to an office parking lot some thirty blocks away. Bradley climbed out and locked his vehicle. Erick instructed his driver to return to the state building. At 4:45, Erick drove in his own car back to Bradley’s office building. He parked across the one-way street about half a block back to keep an eye on the parking garage exit. Forty minutes later, the Excursion emerged from the shadows onto the street, and Erick followed Bradley home.

  * * *

  It might be the gene alone. If so, the carrier will be born with it and grow up this way, besieged until one day he or she implodes.

  Or it might be something new. Maybe some kind of intruder has leeched itself into society, and is well on its way to seizing and controlling everyone. It does seem more prevalent now than when you were young.

  Whichever the case, you’ve got to be a step ahead. It is critical that you understand what’s behind this guy’s core, because what’s in him holds the answers that you seek. Yes, as frightening as it may be, and with as much as you have to lose, you must investigate further.

  * * *

  Erick knew what It was capable of. In eleventh grade, a video got around. The two boys who played it for Erick and other students claimed they had stolen it, but wouldn’t tell anyone from where.

  It was lunchtime and Erick’s best friend, Dennis, had scored some medical grade. The seniors who had the tape met a small group of students at Dennis’s house, and they smoked a joint out back. Then everyone collected in Dennis’s living room and settled into chairs and sofas. Erick sat on the floor with his back against the coffee table.

  The video began. The first scene was of a woman being strapped to a table by two men with stockings over their heads. Her eyes were wide and fearful, but she screamed obscenities at them. The sound quality was poor, mostly muffled, but one of the guys playing the tape claimed the woman was a waitress that had been kidnapped on her way home. Within less than a minute, one of the captors hand-started a loud machine. It was a commercial Weedwhacker. She screamed as he brought the buzzing end of the apparatus to her head, and though the camera had a poor angle, Erick witnessed her face disappear in a heap of blood and flesh. He wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. Morbid curiosity, he told himself. That was all.

  Then the men dissected the waitress. This tape was not a hoax. The video was not shot well, and the lighting and sound were poor, but it was absolutely real. When it ended, the room was silent. Everyone walked out of Dennis’s house without a word. No one made eye contact. Erick felt soiled for watching the thing through, never closing his eyes or turning away. Curiosity was a powerful seed.

  He would never be offered to see such a thing again, but he was pretty sure he’d have refused if the opportunity had presented itself. Pretty sure.

  * * *

  It was on the tube at six, then again at ten. What Bradley did the night before. They went on and on about it. Erick knew. The Wicked Coast Strangler. Definitely him. Intuition was an electric quality that Erick was very familiar with. The specific, individual sensation emanating off Bradley the day before had returned during this newscast. The beast depicted in this story, whose work was repeatedly making appearances in the news, never really strangled his victims. He got his jollies off dunking them backward into a body of water with their faces up, so he could look into their eyes and suck the fear from them as they drowned.

  Investigators had revealed very little regarding how much they knew, but Morton Reyes, a polished investigative reporter for the Iscariot Falls Daily Herald, had recognized thumb marks on the neck of two of the victims, and of course had printed it for the world to know.

  The authorities held plenty of DNA evidence; hair, skin fragments under one of the victim’s fingernails, but no suspects to match them to.

  Things were different now. While he’d begun stalking Bradley in order to study the phenomenon, Erick now knew that he could be the link to this man’s capture. All he needed to do was tip them off with one piece of information that would signal Bradley as a suspect. The detectives would then use the DNA to complete the match.

  But how would he go about it? For days the authorities received tips, but none of those led anywhere. A tipster would need a connection to the man or be an eyewitness to a crime before the police could take him or her seriously.

  Regardless of how he’d eventually act on this, Erick needed to get closer. He needed to follow Bradley on one of those nights.

  * * *

  Amber played with her cut-up steak. A piece dangled off the fork over the floor, and her mother ignored the tense moment.

  Erick, on the other hand, felt his teeth grinding. “Darling, your bite is about to…”

  “Oops Daddy, it fell off.” She held her free hand over her face and giggled, then looked at each parent in the I’m so cute, you can’t get too mad at me way that had proven to be successful many times.

  Erick lowered his eyes and covered them.

  Mindy noticed. “You okay, honey?”

  Amber giggled and leaned over the chair to stare at the errant cut of meat.

  He shook his head and reached down to pick up the tidbit from the floor. Trooper, the family schnauzer, beat him to it, and was now eagerly snooping around the base of the girl’s chair.

  Erick looked up. “I’m just feeling a little more stress than usual, that’s all.” He looked at Amber. “Daddy wants you to eat some of your dinner and help us keep Trooper from getting fat.”

  She grinned, and added another giggle. “Trooper’s already fat, Daddy.”

  He paused, pressure pounding on his temples, then settled. He grinned back, almost genuinely, and said, “And I wonder how he got that way.”

  Amber giggled again, and Mindy, who’d been staring at Erick the whole time, broke away from it and joined her, but kept her eye on him.

  Erick made eye contact with Mindy and forced a smile. He mouthed, “I’ll be okay.”

  Her nod was not a convinced one.

  * * *

  From across the street and with his cell phone turned off, Erick waited. He faced the closed blinds of the living room window, staring almost trancelike at the malignant emissions seeping through the glass and stucco siding. After four hours, Erick’s patience was rewarded. The office and living room lights went out, and a moment later the garage door two stories down opened. Bradley’s Expedition eased out along a short sloping driveway and into the street. Erick gave him half a block, then followed.

  The man made a few turns, then entered Purgatory Parkway, with Erick pacing comfortably behind. It was important not to get too close or Bradley would sense his presence.

  Bradley never operated in town. He was too smart for that. He avoided patterns as well. He struck in Fort Cerberus one time, Cedar Bluff another. Iscariot Falls proper was safe from him for the time being.

  The sun set over the water in the bay, blinding commuters to an uncomfortable degree. Soon it would be dark. Time for the boogeyman, for the Wicked Coast Strangler.

  Bradley turned off at Hades Beach Bridge, crossed over the miniature East Coast version of the Golden Gate and was soon cruising Hades Beach Boulevard.

  Approximately fifteen intersections later, Bradley turned left, toward the bay, away from the beach. He slowed to a crawl just outside the paid parking entrance of Cain’s Marina.

  Erick pulled over half a block back, noted the cameras atop a metal post near the gate and the parking guard inside a small tollbooth. He jotted down the time, 8:22. If Bradley indeed mounted an attack on someone tonight, Erick could now lead authorities to solid evidence that his man had been in the area.

  Bradley inched along, searching for a less secure entrance. With an abrupt jerk, he pulled the Expedition into an unsecured parking lot. Within seconds the vehicle security system chirped and Bradley crossed the street on foot, which was approximately a block away from Erick’s car. The distance was just about right for Erick. He didn’t need the man to sense him. Space was his ally.

  Er
ick killed the ignition. The rear of his car was protruding uncomfortably from the curb, but there were no meter maids this time of evening, and traffic was minimal. There was also risk of losing Bradley, so he locked up and darted across the avenue. Just as he reached the other side, the street lamps clicked on, the incongruent hums coming from one light to the next as they each labored to warm up.

  He trotted toward the spot where Bradley had hustled off into the marina boardwalk.

  Neon flickered in the aging Hades Fisherman’s Market. Erick was too far away to read the individual signs, but he knew the place well. There were five or six sit-down restaurants, a couple of gift shops, an arcade and a salt water taffy shop. Things changed hands, businesses changed names, but only the signs changed, not the innards, at least not by much.

  The district was rather busy, this being a Friday. Tourists and locals alike browsed the area. Erick could feel It churning in the market, Its power brimming up, mounting. This was not just Bradley he felt, but a conglomeration of individuals who were infected with the rotting core. It drummed in his head, rang in his ears, but it also provided one thing he really needed at this moment–cover.

  Hidden by the edge of a windowless service building, across the boardwalk and a hundred paces away, Erick watched Bradley enter the taffy shop. Erick scurried from the safety of the building and down the boardwalk to the market entrance. He stood in front of a restaurant across the way, tried a sample of lobster bisque from a kettle at the request of the hostess. He sipped it, nodding at her comments, but not listening to a word. He kept his eyes on Bradley, who stood in front of a very attractive young girl behind the counter, who was dropping something into a shopping bag for him. She giggled and smiled at a comment Bradley made and flipped her hair for him. Though the customer was thirty-eight and she was maybe seventeen, his charm was working. Bradley was keeping her interest.

  The girl was flirtatious, and yet she was prudish. There was the same sassiness in her that he saw in his little Amber.

  Erick asked the hostess of the Cutting Block Steakhouse if he could use the restroom. She gave him an affirmative nod and he ducked in. After a rushed moment at the urinal, he returned, fully expecting to see the two in the taffy shop carrying on. But no, Bradley was gone from sight.

  She was standing there behind the counter, but where was Erick’s subject? Over the angry swirl of the many afflicted around the wharf, Erick still sensed the psychopath nearby. He stepped out into the walkway and almost missed it: his suspect sampling the lobster bisque with the hostess four feet away.

  Erick froze, his eyes fixed on the back of Bradley’s head, the perfectly groomed mass of dark hair spiking in the cool evening breeze. The man turned around, but Erick couldn’t look away. He stared, as does a wild animal in a set of oncoming headlights, and when Bradley had completed his 180-degree turn, the two men’s eyes fused to one another’s.

  Erick saw through them, partly through the falsely normal exterior of the hazel pupils to the corrupted gene, which was eaten away by an unearthly entity, and was at that moment patiently churning.

  Garrett Simon Bradley turned up the corners of his lips, revealing two rows of perfect teeth, and peeled his lids wide. He leaned forward, not two feet from Erick’s face.

  “Come for the party?”

  Erick resisted the urge to step back, to turn away from the threatening man. “Party?” Erick asked, refusing to show intimidation, and yet fearing he’d be pulled in by Bradley’s powerful spell.

  A malevolent chortle hissed through Bradley’s nose in spurts. “I remember mine well. The first one. There’s nothing like it.” This man, who’d made a successful life on his alluring charm, now bared nothing more than acute dementia. He broke contact, leaving Erick momentarily weakened. Bradley ambled away, never looking back.

  Erick looked at the hostess, who had not been paying attention. Unaware of the powerful moment, she glanced at him from her scheduler and asked, “Are you ready for a table?”

  Erick shook his head and backed away from the entrance, into the market. He began toward the bayside end of the market, in the other direction from where Bradley had gone, scouring for new courage. He roamed through the market, stopping in front of several more restaurants and pretending to sample the contents of their kettles. He frequently glanced at the salt water taffy store, feeling a need to keep track of the girl, finding her safe behind her counter.

  The walkway became more crowded, people coming and going from the many eateries, each going about his and her own business, and Erick felt a familiar sense of dread mounting.

  It was here. At this very moment, It was thriving, feasting on a plethora of hosts, pushing them to their limits, ready to activate someone, maybe several.

  Erick looked at a man who was holding a camera, taking snapshots of the wharf between two dockside buildings. This bushy haired, thick-browed character, complete with a handlebar mustache, lowered his camera and by mistake, made eye contact. He sneered and looked away. Erick felt the formidable rage rushing through his veins.

  An adolescent girl, maybe twelve years old, with short dyed black hair and pasty skin stepped out of an arcade, stopped and stared. Erick was a few feet away when he looked through her eyes and saw It clear as day, Its structure swelling and contracting in her, no doubt driving her to the edge of madness. Her eyes went wide, then settled. She turned and scuttled back into the arcade.

  A man rolling a large trash receptacle toward the entrance did a double take as he passed by. He tilted his head down, almost ashamed that he’d been made. His blood boiled with anxious evil, and yet he cowered as Erick spotted him.

  An overweight college student in sweats and a Hades Beach baseball cap brushed by, glancing briefly, but quickly hiding his eyes under the bill, which was pulled down low.

  Within seconds, Erick felt a powerful wave of hate stream through the walk, a malevolent surge that caused his head to spin. It wanted something, he could sense it. There were no individual cries of pain or frustration coming from within; this was a collective squall and it was bearing down on him.

  Never before had he been attacked by a mixture of emotions so extreme. The whirling forces of hate smothered him, stabbing, clawing to get in.

  He stumbled off, racing back toward the entrance, away from the waterfront, brushing by people and bumping others, each who in return gawked at his spastic behavior. Its emerging mass was so potent, so traumatic, that he could no longer separate the infected from the independent. Erick burst out of the market and stumbled to a halt in front of his adversary, Bradley, who now stood in his passageway to the parking lot. Bradley was facing away, arms crossed, his windbreaker ruffling in the wind.

  Erick turned north, headed down the boardwalk, staggering along. The powerful surge resonating in his spine, humming in his extremities, continued to swell. It rang in his ears, threatening to swallow him. He ran faster, but soon lost his step, falling forward and sliding onto a stretch of the boardwalk. He reached his palms out to soften the blow, but his chin caught hard in the small gap between two planks, jarring his neck, rattling his skull. Blackness struck, then yellow flickering images of light flashed across his eyelids. He rolled himself over and looked back down the path he’d just taken.

  It was there! The sinister force streamed out of the market, neon appendages of light stretching around corners, searching for him. He crawled to the edge and rolled into a thicket of tall shrubbery along the inland side of the boardwalk. He felt his consciousness fading, so he squirmed his way into the bushes, climbed between two stalks and snuggled under the leafy canopy of a neatly trimmed wax-leaf ligustrum. A dreamlike timelessness overtook him and his consciousness faded.

  When Erick came around, the uneasy swarm of hatred was still in the air. His subject was near. There were voices, a female and a male. He raised his head, peered through the stems and leaves into the direction of the conversation.

  A girl came into view. He blinked a few times to focus. It was the girl
from the taffy shop. There was concern in her voice. “You know, I really don’t need you to escort me to my car.”

  Bradley answered, heavy with sarcasm. “Oh, but you liked me so much before, when you were safe in the candy shop.”

  Erick fixed on her eyes, watched them widen, as she went from annoyed to fearful. “Please let go of my arm. I’m sorry, it was a misunderstanding.”

  “You were a prissy little flirt when that big counter was between us.” She pulled to move away, but he jerked her to face him. “Some might call you a tease.”

  “I’m friendly to everyone. Is there something wrong with that?” She looked at his hand where it gripped her arm just above the elbow. Her lips trembled and her voice weakened. “Please, you’re hurting me.”

  Bradley grinned, then reached out and grabbed the other. “So, do you find it proper etiquette to tease men who are twice your age?”

  Erick watched, as the cobwebs melted away from his waking mind. He’d known it was coming. He’d known it would happen tonight.

  “Please let me go,” she managed in a childlike whine. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  Images of his little Amber spotted his vision. As panic set in for the girl, he saw what might become of his own child, something he’d imagined many times before, but never with this clarity.

  Bradley’s grin widened and the girl’s face contorted into a shivering frown.

  He shoved her forcibly, which sent her somersaulting backward off the boardwalk and into the sand at the water’s edge. She looked up, her long hair fanning out over her face. From thirty feet away and under the yellow lamps of the boardwalk, Erick could see her body shivering in the sand.

  Bradley stepped off and moved closer.

  To her left and to her right there was room to run, but she didn’t so much as attempt to get up.

  Erick wanted to scream, to maybe jump up and disrupt the attack, but he was stricken with fear and something else, which left him motionless. Frozen, like her. Like Amber would be. He had to see.

  Bradley moved in, speaking to her in a cutesy schoolyard tone, but because he was facing away and surrounded by the crashing of waves, Erick could not make out what he was saying. Bradley knelt in front of her, cracking his knuckles above his head in the brisk night air.