One Buck Horror: Volume One

by Christopher Hawkins, ed. , et al.

  He burst free from the snow and sprawled headfirst into the road that separated the cornfield from his house. Lights blinded him. A horn blared. Tires squealed.

  A car skidded past, missing him by inches before crashing into a snow bank.

  Jack waited for the creature to spring over the car, but nothing happened. A light came on and a small alarm chimed as a balding man in a tan trench coat peered over the driver side door.

  “You alright, kid?” he said, slamming the door shut. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. The hell are you thinking jumping out in the road like that!”

  Jack was looking everywhere except at him.

  “You hear me, son?”

  Then Jack focused on him, or rather, above him. His eyes widened.

  The man frowned, turned, and had just enough time to see two thickly clawed feet on the roof of his car before something clamped on his head. He was pulled from his feet, screaming like a slaughterhouse hog. Jack covered his ears to block the sound.

  My fault, he thought. All my fault.

  Silhouetted against the moon, the creature held the struggling man in the air. Bone crunched as it bit into his head, and the screams got even higher. His legs kicked wildly, shoes scraping across the car’s icy roof.

  Jack scrambled to his feet and sprinted away. He could hear it chewing behind him. His house was close, at the top of a long driveway, but as he started up his feet skidded out from under him. He pitched forward but kept his balance. His legs burned. He could see his mother in the picture window, on the phone, probably asking Pete’s dad where her son was. He thought of the safety of that warm kitchen and pumped his legs harder.

  Then he stopped. How safe would they be even if he did get inside? He couldn’t bring this thing right to his front door.

  He twisted around and looked for the creature. It was still on top of the car, holding the man’s body. Vomit burned in the back of Jack’s throat as he watched it nearly decapitate the man with a vicious bite. Blood splashed on the car like it was dumped from a bucket.

  The thing looked at the head for a moment, then plucked something out and swallowed it with a wet slurp. Jack realized a moment later that it was an eye. He bent over and puked in the snow.

  It tossed the body away and sniffed the air for a moment, breath steaming from its mouth in long plumes. Jack wiped his lips on his sleeve and stood still. He dared to hope it had forgotten him.

  Then its head snapped towards him, and Jack felt a cold bolt shoot through his stomach. The creature roared and bounded down off the car, kicking snow as it raced up the driveway.

  Through the window, Jack watched his mother hang up the phone, her face furrowed with concern. The front door was twenty feet away. He could make it.

  But he knew he couldn’t.

  His house had an attached garage with an outside entrance and he ran for it. The thing was maybe forty feet from him when he ripped open the door and scrambled inside. Something slammed into him in the darkness and knocked the breath from his lungs. Gasping, he reached out and felt the cold metal of his father’s SUV. He felt his way down the car and crouched by the front passenger side tire.

  An instant later the outside door crashed open. A sliver of blue light stabbed out from under the car, framing the creature’s hunched silhouette. Jack dropped to all fours and caught a glimpse of huge, fur-covered feet. Claws the size of carpenter’s nails clicked on the concrete.

  He spun around and looked for a weapon, but he'd picked the wrong side of the garage to make a stand. A peg-board covered with his father’s tools hung on the opposite wall. He had only a basket of his mother’s gardening implements and his sister’s toys to defend himself with.

  Deep, ragged breaths filled the garage like an idling engine. Jack curled up next to the tire and hugged his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  Don’t just sit here and wait for it to find you. It’s already in the house.

  Jack thought of his family again. Mom. Dad. Brad. He opened his eyes and searched frantically again for something to fight with.

  And found it.

  The clicking stopped, and the breathing became a deep, low growl. The car suddenly rocked against his head, shocks squealing.

  Hot breath warmed the top of Jack’s head. He forced himself to look up.

  It was right there, laying across the hood and staring down at him. Foul breath hissed from a snout full of three-inch fangs. A line of thick drool fell from between its curled lips and pooled on Jack’s face. He could swear it was smiling.

  Its bright green eyes widened, and a long tongue slithered across its mouth. Fur-covered muscles tensed like iron cables as it prepared to spring.

  Jack screamed and swung what was in his hands.

  The garden trowel had a serrated edge designed to cut thick weeds, and it severed the large tendon in the thing’s neck just as easily. Jack heard a loud snap as he rammed the small shovel in deep. Black blood spurted into his face.

  The thing howled, long and deep, like a bloodhound. The whole garage shook as it spun away from him and rolled off the far side of the hood. What looked like a gallon of motor oil splattered the windshield.

  Jack slowly peered over the hood. All he could see was the blood-streaked wall opposite him. He held his breath and listened. At first there was nothing, and he prayed the thing had run away. Then he heard a low panting, shallow and fast, like his dog during last summer’s heat wave.

  Jack jumped as something clattered across the floor and came to rest in a patch of moonlight. The trowel. It lay in a Rorschach test of black blots.

  The thing was hurt, but Jack had no idea how bad. He couldn’t stay here and let it regain strength. He looked up and saw his father’s axe hanging among the rack of tools. He sprang up onto the hood, scrambled across it and jumped, reaching for the weapon while still in the air. He gripped the wooden handle but the axe-head caught in its hook, and the entire rack ripped off the wall and came down on top of him. Shovels, rakes and saws rang on the concrete floor like church bells.

  Jack screamed, furiously trying to free himself from the pile. He kicked the pegboard away and came up with the axe hefted over his head.

  “Jack?” a voice said behind him.

  There was a click and the garage filled with light. Jack looked down and saw nothing but a pool of black blood slowly eddying into a drain on the floor. The thing was gone.

  He slowly turned. His father was staring at him from the doorway of the house. He pulled off a pair of reading glasses and surveyed the garage. His eyes widened when he saw the blood.

  “Jackie,” he said, stepping down into the garage. “What the hell?”

  A tear rolled down Jack’s face as he dropped the axe and fell into his father’s arms.

  - - -

  His mother wrapped another blanket around him as he sipped on the mug of hot chocolate warming his hands. She kept asking him if he was all right, and he kept nodding and smiling to her, not feeling all right at all but knowing she needed to hear it.

  “The police will be here soon,” Jack’s father said, hanging up the phone and joining them at the table. “And your brother’s at basketball practice. I left a message with the coach to send him home.”

  Jack turned to look out the picture window at the basketball hoop mounted on a pole in the driveway. He and Brad played there almost every day, even in winter. It reminded him of how close he came to never doing anything ever again.

  His father studied him for a moment. “Jack,” he finally said. “Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of dog? Maybe even a coyote?”

  Jack looked up from the steaming mug, his eyes red and haggard against his pale face. “I told you,” he enunciated the words slowly. “It wasn’t a dog.”

  “I know, I know,” his father said, raising his hands. He studied the wall for a moment before turning back. “I was just thinking of the bite on Brad’s leg. They never found that damned dog.”

  “A dog didn’t kill that man down there.�
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  “But the police aren’t going to take you seriously. Maybe if you just think about it.”

  “Ed,” his mother said, without looking at him. His father put his hands up in the air and laced them behind his head.

  Jack shifted in his seat and pulled the blanket higher, exposing his feet. His mother moved in to cover them and asked him again if he was sure he was all right. He said he was.

  After a few minutes of silence, his father placed both of his hands palm down on the table, signaling that he was about to make his case again when the phone rang. He pushed himself away from the table and picked it up. He said hello, listened for a few moments, his brow furrowing, said “I see” and “okay” a few times and finally “thank you” and hung up.

  “What is it?” his mother asked.

  “That was Brad’s coach. He said he hasn’t been to practice all week.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  Something thumped upstairs. They all looked up.

  “He’s home?” his father said.

  His mother stood up, her features tightening. “Brad?” she called. “Are you home honey?”

  Another thump. Louder.

  “What the hell is that?” his father said.

  Jack looked over at his dad, who was focused on the ceiling. He watched his father’s eyes widen. He looked over at his mother, and saw she had the same expression.

  Jack looked up.

  A dark spot about the size of a quarter had bloomed on the white paint, spreading steadily as he watched. He knew that color. He had washed thick strings of it off his face less than ten minutes ago.

  His mother moaned and steadied herself against a wall. His father sprang to his feet, chair screeching on the linoleum. They rushed out of the kitchen and Jack heard their heavy footfalls on the stairs.

  In a daze he followed. He heard his father bashing against his brother’s bedroom door, shouting his brother’s name. He heard the crack of splintering wood, and there was an awful quiet moment before his mother screamed and his father shouted his brother’s name over and over and over again.

  Jack sank down on the stairs and buried his face in his hands. He thought of the bite on his brother’s leg, and how much blood there had been in the garage, and how nothing would ever be all right ever, ever again.

  The Ginger Men

  by Julie Jansen

  “What’s that?” Georgie held the jar close to his face. Thick, green liquid spun inside the glass like a miniature whirlpool.

  His mother paused before answering. “Ginger.” She snatched the jar from the boy and set it next to a glass bowl full of flour, sugar, and cinnamon.

  “Ginger’s green?”

  “This is a special kind of ginger.”

  “Where’d you get it?” Georgie was full of questions.

  “Mrs. Pelstok.” She searched for a measuring spoon.

  Georgie didn’t care much for Mrs. Pelstok, the annoying neighbor. She always convinced his mother to host one of those parties where a dozen ladies invaded the living room and oohed and aahed over cookie pans and turkey basters.

  “This is her secret ingredient. She gave me a free sample because I’m such a good customer. Said it’s so new it’s not even in the catalog yet.”

  “I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to sell that, Mom.” Georgie pointed at the jar. The liquid bubbled and tiny waves stretched toward the lid like it was trying to get out.

  “Like you know how to sell anything, Georgie,” his mother snapped. “I mean, really, selling 5 cent cups of lemonade on the corner does not a businessman make.”

  Georgie jingled the $1.05 in nickels weighing down his back pocket.

  “Money’s nice to a point. But after that it only attracts trouble.” She clucked her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “You’re just like your father.”

  At the mention of his dad, Georgie’s lip quivered.

  “Speaking of your father, it’s time to change the bag.” She wiped her hands on her apron, grabbed a plastic pouch from the refrigerator, not the kind with all the busy labels from the hospital, but the one with the flowery cursive from Mrs. Pelstok, and headed for the living room.

  Georgie peeked out from the doorway. His father lay in a bed, the kind they have in hospitals. Tubes trailed from his nose and from the crook of his arm.

  His mother took down an empty pouch from the metal stand next to the bed and replaced it with the full one.

  Georgie’s dad saw him staring and raised a finger to wave. Georgie waved back.

  The phone rang. Georgie moved to answer it, but his mother rushed back and got to it first.

  “Hello?” Her face reddened as she listened.

  The green stuff in the jar swirled faster.

  “Stop calling here! He doesn’t want to see you anymore. He has a wife and a son.” She slammed the phone down and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Was it her again, Mom?”

  Georgie’s mother put a hand up to stop him from going any further. She picked up the jar, carefully unscrewed the lid, and dumped the contents into the flour mixture in the bowl. She gripped a wooden spoon, ready to stir, but the green stuff mixed itself into the flour with no human help required.

  “It smells bad,” Georgie said and pinched his nose. “I don’t know if I want to eat that, Mom.”

  His mother glared at him, the way she did when he spilled fruit punch on the sofa or when his pet tarantula was loose somewhere in his room.

  “It’s not for you!”

  Her reaction scared him and he stepped back. He looked at his father for help, not that his father could do anything. Just seeing the man looking back at him would have given him some comfort, but his father’s eyes were shut now.

  “It’s for your father.” Her voice became calm and soft again. “I thought he deserved a treat.”

  “But you told me he could only get food from the tube.”

  She turned red again, but took a deep breath and calmed as she looked at the clock. “3 o’clock. Time for you to run those errands you promised.”

  A clinking sound came from the counter. Georgie’s eyes widened as he watched the bowl bounce to the edge. With one hand his mother struggled to hold it still so it wouldn’t crash to the floor. With her other hand she rummaged in her purse and pulled out a twenty dollar bill and a crumpled piece of paper. “Take this,” she said.

  Georgie looked at the list: milk, lettuce, a tomato, an avocado. Then he looked at the counter. In a colander, ready for tonight’s dinner, was freshly washed lettuce. Tomatoes, avocadoes, and another head of lettuce were in a bowl next to the fridge. Georgie peered inside the fridge and saw two full cartons of milk.

  His mother shut the door and it pinched his little finger.

  She spoke before he could. “Go. Now.”

  He watched the dough spill over the sides of the bowl. It broke into pieces and spun, like clay on a wheel, before the bits fell to the floor, and each one scurried, like escaped pet tarantulas, toward the living room.

  Georgie’s eyes were wide as saucers as his mother pushed him out the door and slammed it shut behind him.

  As Georgie walked he turned back toward the house. His mother lowered the shades and turned out the lights in the kitchen.

  Mr. Pelstok passed Georgie and headed toward the house. He turned and smiled a rehearsed grin. Something was wrong with Mr. Pelstok. He used to laugh and joke and quiz Georgie on his multiplication tables, but now he just wandered around the neighborhood like a zombie.

  A car pulled up alongside Georgie and stopped. The window rolled down.

  “You’re Georgie, aren’t you?” a woman’s voice asked. “I recognize you from your pictures.”

  Georgie knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers but the bad strangers he always envisioned were men with greasy hair and dirty t-shirts, not beautiful women with perfect teeth and hair and shiny pink lipstick. He couldn’t help but smile at this lady.

  “Yes,” Ge
orgie said.

  The woman seemed relieved. “I’m Martie, a friend of your dad’s. I’ve been trying to reach him on the phone.”

  At the sound of her name, Georgie frowned. He heard the name ‘Martie’ when his mom and dad fought, just before Mrs. Pelstok started coming over every night for dinner, and just before his dad got sick.

  “Could you tell me if your dad’s ok?”

  Georgie watched Mr. Pelstok turn around and walk back toward him.

  “He’s pretty sick,” Georgie said.

  Heels clicked on the sidewalk. Georgie saw the polished black tips of Mrs. Pelstok’s shoes and looked up to see her wild hair and crooked grin.

  “Hello Georgie,” Mrs. Pelstok rustled his hair. Then she looked at Martie. “You’re a friend of Georgie’s father?”

  Martie nodded.

  Mrs. Pelstok caught Mr. Pelstok by the arm. He slowed down but it took his feet a second to catch up to his body. He smiled at Martie, the same way he smiled at Georgie.

  “Why don’t you park your car in the driveway? We’ll take you to see him. We were heading to pay the family a visit.”

  “Yes, that would be wonderful. You see, there’s been a huge misunderstanding, and I-“

  “You don’t have to explain,” Mrs. Pelstok cut her off. “Just meet us in the driveway.”

  “Yes. Of course.” Martie wiped her nose, rolled up the window, and turned the car around.

  “Run along, Georgie,” Mrs. Pelstok said before she turned. She and Mr. Pelstok followed Martie’s car.

  He took a while in the supermarket, not because he had trouble finding what his mother asked him to buy, but because he had a feeling he should take his time, that if he came home too early, he’d have to sit through another of those parties.

  When an hour passed, Georgie made his way home. He approached the house and saw the shades still drawn. Martie’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

  Just in case Mrs. Pelstok was still there, Georgie decided to enter through the front door. When he stepped inside he wished he hadn’t.