Ten Open Graves: A Collection of Supernatural Horror

by David Wood

  He watched the bookcase for a while longer. Tried to convince himself that the light that spilled in from the living room was insufficient, that his mind was playing tricks. But the bookshelves seemed even closer than they were just a few moments ago when he had reached for them a second time.

  Again with his left hand he grabbed the edge of the mattress. With his right he reached out. He stretched with all his remaining strength, the muscles in his arm finally giving in to spasms.

  This time the tip of his finger touched the broken binding of one of the books.

  He cried out.

  Then a hardcover flew off the top shelf, struck him on the forehead. Another shot out of the second shelf, hit him square in the chin. Then two more from the bottom, three from the middle. Firing at his shoulders until he could no longer maintain his grip.

  The fabric of the mattress slipped through his fingers and he fell awkwardly to the floor, landing on his right elbow, the full right side of his body taking the brunt.

  The books continued firing at him as he shielded his face with his hands, curling up his legs to protect his groin.

  He screamed.

  The bookcase itself then started tipping over, threatening to land on his head. The fado was as loud as ever, drowning out his calls for help. The pulse in his ear intensified, and he feared it would be the last thing he heard before his death.

  He cried out for Amy one last time, just as the bookcase came down at his face.

  Chapter 27

  She sat silently on the floor by his side as he rested on the couch. She had found him on the floor of the bedroom, unconscious, under the fallen bookcase. He had a deep gash on the right side of his head. Blood had been pouring down his forehead and into his eyes. The top of the bookcase rested atop the bed. The bare stained mattress may very well have saved his life.

  Outside it had become dark, and the dying living room bulb had finally burned out. All that was left in the flat was the bleak light from the kitchen and the useless fixture in the bathroom above the sink. She supposed she could take one of those bulbs and replace the one in the living room, but what was the point? There was nothing worth seeing, no real reason to see.

  She had been able to rouse Craig after a few minutes, had been able to help him out from under the weight of the bookcase by using the bed as leverage. A good thing since the wooden bookcase was far too heavy for either of them to lift. After another half hour or so she’d been able to help him to the couch.

  Now she listened to him breathe, in and out, in and out. Watched his chest rise and fall with the rhythm of the relentless fado. It no longer sounded as though it were coming through the wall in the bedroom. It now sounded like it came from somewhere inside their flat.

  He didn’t look well. His face had lost all of its rosy hue. Short rough hairs rose out of his normally clean-shaven cheeks; welts formed where he had scratched at his face. He was too thin, losing weight far more quickly than she was. And the whites of his eyes, when visible, were now as red as blood.

  Part of her felt sorry for him. Another part of her wanted to kill him.

  It was his mistakes, not hers, that had led them to this. When they’d first met he had never expressed any discontent over his life as a lawyer in Manhattan. Never a word until the day after that rainy night in November. And that night was certainly his mistake.

  Hawaii was his mistake, too. Leading her there without a plan. Allowing the bills to pile up. Not working, not helping to earn his keep. Letting her fall deeper and deeper into debt without affording her any relief. His mistake, not hers.

  And she had never forced him to come back to the mainland, back to Manhattan. It was his choice, not hers. His choice to seek her out again, to ask her to move back in with him. He had assured her then that he could be happy living in New York, happy so long as he had her. And she, of course, had fallen for it. She hated herself for that. He had waited to spring Portugal on her until she felt as though she couldn’t live without him again. Now here they were, in the country’s capital, in its most ravaged district, trapped like rats in a tumbledown flat.

  It was her fault. Her fault for getting on that plane at all when she’d had such reservations. Her fault for not listening to her mom, or to her own gut instincts. Her fault for not getting back into that taxi with her bloody nose (that was a sign if there ever was one, wasn’t it?) when she’d first seen the building’s exterior, when she’d gazed down the decrepit street. Her fault for not running out the door and down the stairs the moment she saw the condition of the flat.

  She got to her knees. Her joints remained achy and weak. She felt her legs spasm as she pushed herself to her feet and stepped toward the bedroom. Felt she needed to check the phone.

  They had already searched the entire flat for another jack. She didn’t hold out much hope for a dial tone but she had to see. Had to give it a shot.

  She stepped into the bedroom and held her breath against the stench. It was getting worse, spilling under the bathroom door without relent.

  The bookcase was blocking her path to the phone. She would have to navigate around the bed and climb over to her side to get to it. She slipped between the mattress and the dresser and caught her reflection in the mirror. She turned to it. The darkness played with her eyes. She looked shorter, older, heavier, than she did in real life.

  She shook off the image and moved around the bed, careful not to stub her badly bruised toes again. Pain still shot through her legs. Slowly she lifted a knee onto the mattress.

  And that was when the phone began ringing again.

  The sound alarmed her at first. She felt a rush of fear but also a dash of hope. She hurriedly crawled along the mattress toward the sound, toward the outline of the plastic phone on the night table.

  Something suddenly grabbed hold of a fistful of her hair and yanked as though it were trying to rip it from her head.

  She shrieked in pain as her neck jerked back. Her scalp tingled as though it had been sliced with a knife.

  The phone kept ringing, the sound piercing through the fado.

  Just as suddenly the pressure ceased and her damp hair fell back over her face.

  Her breathing deepened. She gathered herself and reached for the phone.

  But something suddenly smacked her hard across the left cheek. She cried out in shock and buried her head in the mattress.

  Something like an open hand struck her back, her calves. Then a rude, vicious slap against her ass.

  She screamed again, rolled like a crocodile and nearly tumbled off the bed.

  Then the fado fell silent, the ringing for the moment the only sound in the flat.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and crawled frantically toward the phone.

  But something snatched at her hair again, lifted her in the air and flung her off the bed, into the dresser.

  Her back cracked against one of the drawers, then she slumped to the floor.

  It came at her again, yanking her hair, slapping her face, kicking at her ribs and back. She cried out again, screamed until it chopped at her throat, silencing her.

  Then she heard a pounding on the bathroom door.

  She tried to glance toward it, but something like sand struck her square in the eyes.

  The bathroom door rocked thunderously in its frame. The phone still rang.

  The mirror atop the dresser fell and cracked, shattered on top of her, spraying her with glass.

  Curled up in a ball, she tried to get to her knees but was immediately battered back down to the floor. In a panic she clawed at the carpet, tried to drag herself toward the bedroom door.

  Another few feet.

  But just then, the door swung closed. Slammed shut with the violent report of a gunshot.

  Amy tried again to find her voice as an icy pair of strong male hands closed around her throat.

  Chapter 28

  “Get your hands off me,” she said later in her sleep.

  Craig lay on his back on the bare mattres
s next to her, eyes wide open, unable to drift off. Light spilled in from under the bathroom door. Barely enough to subdue the blackness. Barely enough to allow Amy to sleep.

  It had taken him hours to calm her down, to assure her she was safe, that whatever had attacked them had gone and wasn’t coming back. That so long as they stuck together, nothing further would happen. Nothing could cause them to break.

  When he’d finally regained consciousness after the brutal blow from the bookcase, Amy had helped him out from under it, led him to the living room where he collapsed again and went back out. When he’d come to a second time, she was screaming from the bedroom, crying his name, pleading for help.

  He’d gotten off the couch, tried to stand and immediately felt dizzy. He’d steadied himself and moved purposefully toward the bedroom, where the fado was mixing with her screams and the sounds of objects smacking against the walls, of drawers opening and closing on their own.

  He burned his hand on the doorknob again then quickly removed his shirt. The door opened as it did before and he was hit again by a vicious blast of searing heat.

  Amy was on the floor, a handful of her hair standing straight up, pointing toward the ceiling as though it were being pulled, as though some invisible line were yanking it up. She was screaming. Even in the faint light spilling in from the kitchen he could see there were red marks all across her face and neck.

  He moved forward but was immediately thrown back by a powerful shot to the chest.

  He struck the floor, the brunt of this fall taken by his back. He then felt a kick and instantly attempted to protect his head.

  The phone was ringing.

  The bathroom door rattled in its frame as though someone were inside trying to escape.

  Craig thrashed about, eyes squeezed tight.

  Finally he felt a pair of warm hands on him, not delivering the vicious blows he’d been taking but instead soothing and caressing his bruised and battered face and neck. He stopped fighting.

  Amy’s voice was hoarse, her breathing labored. She smelled of body odor and her breath stunk of dead fish.

  “Get us out of here,” she begged him. “Please, Craig, get us out.”

  He pulled her down on top of him and squeezed her with all his might.

  “I will,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I will, baby. I promise.”

  Now, as he lay next to her on the mattress, he wished he had never said it. It was just one more goddamn promise he knew he couldn’t keep.

  “Chega!” she suddenly shouted in her sleep. “Pare com isso. Va-se embora.”

  He set his hand on her back. Her top was drenched with sweat. Her body was warm, burning even. Her hair was soaking wet. He pulled his hand away.

  The pulse pounded in his ear.

  (It’s a tumor.)

  (Or an aneurism.)

  (With an aneurism you go like that!)

  ...if the starvation doesn’t get me first, he thought. No, not the starvation. Amy said we’d die of thirst. Of dehydration.

  His head ached, so did his neck. His stomach grumbled, felt nauseous. The palm of his right hand stung from the burns. The gash on his forehead throbbed but no longer really hurt. He closed his eyes. Tried to regulate his breathing. His nose felt stuffed up from the heat.

  He tried to concentrate, to focus on finding a way to get out of the flat. This was their fourth night in Lisbon, their third night trapped.

  Is that right?

  His mind was all over the place. It was becoming more and more difficult to think straight. How long had they been without water? How long without food?

  Doesn’t matter. All that matters now is getting out.

  “Craig, please,” she said. “Stop it.”

  He turned toward her, rested his hand on her arm. “Stop what, sweetie?”

  “Stop touching me there.”

  He lay silent. She didn’t sound as she normally did in her sleep. She came across as clear, alert, awake.

  “Babe?” he said. “What?”

  “I haven’t put my hands on anything other than your arm and back.” She rolled toward him. Her eyes were wide open, her cracked lips parted, showing her teeth. She suddenly sprung to her knees on the mattress, placed a hand between her legs. Her breathing was loud and fast.

  “I felt you,” she said. “I felt someone.”

  He sat up too, rested a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, doll. It’s all right. Lay back down. I’ll keep watch over you. You have to get some sleep.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “Get some sleep? How? And why? So that we’re well rested when this fucking flat finally kills us?”

  “No,” he said, searching the darkness, gently petting her sweaty head. “You need to get some sleep...” He took a deep breath. “Because we’re getting the hell out of here tomorrow.”

  It took her some time but eventually she went back to sleep. Craig stayed awake, staring up at the ceiling. Thinking of how he was going to come through for her, how he was going to get them out of the flat.

  The stench from the bathroom was growing worse in the heat, so bad that he began to breathe through the mouth all the time.

  How do we get out? He imagined being locked in an actual prison, having others to help him plan his escape. A connected inmate, maybe. Or a dirty screw on the take. Wrong direction. He was trapped in a flat and all he had was Amy.

  He had been locked in a basement before, something he really didn’t want to think about. Not because of his fits of claustrophobia, but because of the bugs. And he didn’t escape then. He had to wait until his mother finally let him out.

  As he contemplated their escape, the room suddenly became cooler.

  The suffocating heat vanished and he could see his breath.

  A clicking sounded from the doorway. He sprung up on the mattress and waited for his eyes to readjust.

  At first he saw nothing. Then… something. Something tall and slim. In the blackness he squinted, leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse without leaving the relative safety of the bed.

  The form moved. Only slightly. Forward, haltingly, clicking as it went.

  Craig slid backwards on the mattress until his shoulders pushed up against the headboard. Up and down his arms rose tiny bumps of gooseflesh. He looked toward the outline of light around the bathroom door and considered leaving the bed, opening it, letting the light in.

  But he didn’t want to leave the bed. Didn’t really want to see (who) what was there. But again it moved toward him, the clicking now resembling the cracking of bones, mimicking the sound his pinky finger made when it snapped, when he’d dislocated his kneecap, when he’d tried to resuscitate Danny using CPR and instead broke three of his ribs.

  A terrible smell came off of this bitch, worse than anything in the room before. Worse than the vomit and shit leaking out of the bathroom, worse than the sheets and his soiled shorts still lying in the shower. Worse, he decided, than anything he had ever smelled before.

  Amy lay still and silent. Sleeping like

  (“The dead don’t whisper. They scream.”)

  The shadow moved closer, and Craig could make out the shape. A long lean figure. Like the cab driver they had found the other night, the irksome son of a bitch who had driven them back to the Alfama.

  (“Deed dey grub yer cuck?”)

  The red rose in him, pushing aside some of the fear. Craig’s hands balled into fists, his teeth bared.

  (“I bet they grabbed your cock. That’s what they do, these gypsy girls.”) Craig slid his feet under him, ready to launch himself, toward it, away from it, he didn’t yet know. All he knew was he wanted to be ready to move, to spring himself to his feet, to leap in any direction, depending on whatever or whoever this might be.

  The figure moved slowly, so goddamn slowly, toward the bed.

  Click. Click.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Craig held his breath, the stench growing so foul he needed to vomit, to expel the last bit of bi
le from his otherwise empty stomach.

  Then he thought, The fucking thing’s just one long shadow. There’s nothing, there’s no one there. I’m fucking hallucinating. Losing it. It’s just another trick in my head. Another goddamn mindfuck!

  But then he saw its face. Gray and thin and dead. The flesh sagging off the cheekbones, the eyes a pale yellow, in the corners a gruesome red. Its mouth fell open; he could smell the stench of its breath. Its teeth were rotten. Its tongue was black and swollen. Its lips were gone, the gums exposed. Its nose was missing and its hair was long and thin and filthy, while writhing tendrils of some kind slithered out of its ears and nose and neck.

  Click.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Click.

  “Oh my God,” Craig said. Then he reached for Amy. Her body was still drenched with sweat. He jostled her, poked her, prodded her, screamed for her to wake up.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Aside from that sound, the room was silent. He suddenly found himself missing the fado, crying as the clicks came closer, unsure what to do or which way to run.

  “What the fuck do you want from me,” he screamed, pushing back against the headboard. The figure only moved forward, now standing at the foot of the bed, its long thin neck slanting—click click, click click— its rotted eyes staring, though they had to be unseeing in any conventional sense, at Amy and Craig.

  She lay unmoving and for a long moment Craig feared she was dead.

  The ringing of the phone pierced the silence, the sound reverberating in Craig’s chest. At first he sat frozen, unable to move. Then he pushed himself, scrambled over Amy and reached for the end table next to the bed.

  The shadow moved with him, faster yet haltingly, around the side of the bed.

  Click Click

  clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick.

  Craig reached for the receiver just as the figure extended its hand.

  In a panic, Craig swiped the handset from the cradle and put it to his pulsing ear.