The knock came at the door just as I'd finished plopping the spaghetti noodles into the water. I brushed my hands off on the kitchen towel hanging on the oven handle and made my way to the front door.
I opened it without looking through the peephole. The smile on my face melted away and it felt as though fear had punched me in the gut.
It wasn't Brian standing at the front door. It was goth creeper.
"Violet." He said in a soft whisper. "Violet, you have to get out of here. You need to run."
I tried to slam the door, but his arm shot out and held it open. “I'm a friend, Vi. We knew each other once when we were very little. Please don't tell them who I am. I can't help you if they get to me, but you have to get out. You can't stay in this house. There are sirens all around you. The summoning is at the full moon then you'll..."
"Hey!" I heard Brian's voice and looked over the creeper's shoulder. Brian sprinted up the sidewalk and grabbed the creeper by the shoulder. "Close the door!"
As I slammed the door shut, I heard the creeper call out. "Violet no! Help me!"
I threw the deadbolt and went back into the kitchen. The water was about to boil over, so I tended the spaghetti. I didn't know what else to do. I would have given anything at that point to just have a few hours of normalcy.
The doorbell rang again. This time I looked out the peephole before I opened the door. It was Brian. He looked perfectly put together as if he hadn't dragged a weirdo off my porch just minutes before.
"I wish I'd known it was that guy." Brian said as he stepped into the entryway. "He's harmless, Violet. Nick has some mental issues, but he's not dangerous. I took him home. His uncle is his guardian, he'll make sure Nick doesn't bother you again." I was surprised when Brian pulled me into a hug, but I let him. "What did he say to you? You were so pale when I walked up."
"I'm not sure. I was so scared. It was something about sirens and a summoning?"
"See, that's what I mean." Brian broke the embrace, but he held me at arm's length and looked me over. "Crazy talk. Are you okay?"
"I'm shaken, but I'll be fine. I feel so bad for him. He said something else about us knowing each other. I'm trying to remember from where. He seemed familiar, but I can't place it."
"Let's not worry about that right now." Brian said. "I brought this."
I hadn't even noticed that he had a bottle of Jameson in his hand. It wasn't the regular stuff you buy in the store, either. He'd brought a bottle of the Twelve Year Special Reserve. I'd always wanted to try it, but it was way above my means.
"You shouldn't have." I said shyly. "How did you know that's what I like?"
"I usually drink Jameson. Not the Twelve Year, but I had a bottle and it seems like it would taste better if I had someone to share it with."
Chapter Eighteen
Dinner was about as good as boxed spaghetti and sauce from a jar can be. I'd added ground beef to the sauce, but without any spices on hand, it was a little plain.
Brian didn't complain. In fact, he wolfed it down like it was the first hot meal he'd had in ages. Since he was a bachelor, it might have been a while since he'd eaten a home-cooked meal. I imagined him coming home at night and throwing a TV dinner in the microwave.
"What do you do?" I asked once I'd finished my food.
"Oh, ha ha. I work construction." He said with a blush that told me he was embarrassed by his job.
"I bet that's a good workout." I said and stood up to clear the plates.
"Can you do that later?" Brian asked me, but I wasn't sure why.
When I turned around to see what he was talking about, that's when he pulled me into his arms. Brian wrapped an arm around my waist and grasped my neck with the other hand.
He looked into my eyes for a moment. "Is this okay?"
"Yeah." I answered with a breathy whisper.
"Good." He said. "Where can we go?"
I didn't want to go upstairs, and I was afraid the smell from the bathroom would linger in the guest bedroom. I hoped that the parlor would be far enough away.
"There's a fainting sofa in the parlor." I said.
Brian picked me up and carried me into the parlor. He set me down softly in front of the fainting couch and grasped the bottom of my dress. He pulled the thin fabric up over my head and dropped the garment on the floor. I stood before him nearly naked, but not feeling exposed. Warmth seemed to radiate from him.
Brian pulled off his shirt and stood there. I wanted to reach out and trace his muscular chest with my fingers, but I didn't. We just stood there looking at each other like teenagers who were doing anything sexual for the first time.
"Are you okay with this?" He asked. Instead of answering him with words, I reached back and unclasped my bra. It fell to the floor just before I pulled off my panties.
What had been slow and observant became a frenzy. My mind spun, and I found myself on my back with Brian impaling me. I couldn't focus on anything but the feeling of him and the soft grunts he made as he moved in and out.
I realized as his noises grew more and more insistent that I had my eyes screwed tightly shut. When I opened them, all I could do was scream.
Chapter Nineteen
Brian must have thought that my cry was a sign of his prowess because he didn't stop. I clawed at his back, but that didn't break his thrusts.
"Brian!" I called out trying to reach him.
I closed my eyes again and turned my head to the side so that I couldn't see the dead woman hovering just above him. He buried his face in my neck and called out my name. With one last grunt, Brian finished and then rolled off of me.
Once he was off, I scrambled off the couch and backed halfway across the room before I realized that the woman was gone. Whether it was a trick of my imagination or I'd seen a ghost, I didn't know. I was panting heavily and trying to hold back tears. It was humiliating.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Brian asked and stood up quickly.
"I saw a spider." I said the first thing that popped into my head. "I thought I saw a spider. I think it's gone."
"Then get back over here. We're just getting started." Brian said and took his place back on the sofa. He patted it, and I debated whether I should join him or not.
What I wanted to do, and what I would have done if I'd been thinking straight, was get on a bus and go back to my old apartment right then and there. The money Vivian had left me for the house taxes would get me square with my landlord. I probably could've easily gotten my shitty old apartment back. God, how much I loved that place right then. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes, click my heels, and be back there again. But, fleeing would have been rude. I had a guest. I had a naked man in my bed. Well, I had a naked man on an antique sofa.
"Violet?" The sound of Brian's voice was questioning and unsure. He seemed so vulnerable and eager to please. How could I ruin that with talk of ghosts or by fleeing into the night?
I walked back to where he lay on his side waiting for me. I'm sure under any other circumstances, this would have been the best sex of my life. Brian was certainly the sexiest man I'd ever seen naked in real life. He was well endowed and not full of himself.
Why did their have to be a rotting corpse watching us fuck?
After a long, deep breath, I laid down on my back next to him. Brian moved with the grace and stealth of a cat. I did the only thing that made sense at the time. As he buried his face between my legs, I closed my eyes and kept them that way. I threaded my fingers through his hair as he played my body like an instrument. I pretended I didn't hear the water running in the shower upstairs.
Chapter Twenty
When we were both spent, Brian opened the bottle of whiskey. We sat in the family room and had a couple of drinks while watching the end of some shark movie on HBO.
"I don't want to say this, but I have to go." Brian said after our third drink. "I need to be up in a few hours. I had a good time, though."
"Me too. I'll walk you to the door." I finished my whiskey and stood u
p. The room shifted a little when I did, but not enough to make me sick. I had just the right amount of buzz to get a good night's sleep.
Brian took my hand as we walked to the front door. He kissed me on the lips and then on the forehead. "Can I see you again?"
"I'd like that." I said. "If you're free this weekend, I could make you dinner again. Perhaps something a little fancier."
"The spaghetti was awesome, Violet. Thank you for a lovely evening. I'll see you on Saturday, then?"
"That sounds great." I said, but secretly I thought it sucked. I'd wanted him to come back the next day, but the last thing I needed to do was come off as clingy and desperate. It was better to make him wait even if it meant I had to wait.
I'd sworn to myself that I was going to get back to work the next day, but it wasn't even eleven o'clock yet. I figured I could let myself have one more shot of the whiskey that Brian had left behind. I'd have to keep myself from drinking it all before he came back on the weekend, but it was the best liquor I'd ever had. I knew I'd have to hide it from myself to make sure there was any left by Saturday.
Still, I poured one more shot glass and took a sip. I kept the little glass in my hand as I walked over to one of the family room windows. I hadn't noticed until just then that the curtain was open. I reached my hand up to pull the drape closed when I saw her.
Just on the other side of the glass was the dead woman I'd seen in the parlor. I stood frozen like a statue trying not to look at her but completely unable to peel my eyes away.
She had to be about my age with long auburn hair that had fallen out in clumps. The woman had probably been very beautiful at one time, but now she was a decayed wraith.
One of her breasts had been amputated, and her body was covered in large cuts. The skin had rolled back a little from the incisions revealing the brown rot underneath. I was repulsed, and yet I couldn't stop looking at her.
She pressed one hand against the glass. I shook my head no as the corpse opened her mouth to reveal a gaping maw of total blackness.
My heart thundered in my chest so hard that I could feel it in my temples. I tried to turn around and run, but my body wouldn't obey. Instead, I lifted up one of my hands and pressed it against the glass.
The blackness reached out of her mouth like tentacles. It passed right through the glass and snaked up my arm. It was so cold that it burned and I tried to cry out as it neared my face. One fat stream of it filled my mouth and I couldn't breathe. Two more of the tentacles went into my eyes.
The world went completely black.
Chapter Twenty-One
At first, I thought I was still blind, but I wasn’t. I was in the dark. The stone floor beneath me was cold and the air around me was damp and clammy.
I was in the basement. I had no recollection of how I'd gotten there, but as I tried to scramble to my feet, I felt the duct tape I'd stuck to the floor under my left hand.
The equivalent of four shots of whiskey had gotten me blackout drunk? But, why would I have come to the basement?
It was so dark and I could swear that I heard something skittering around in the dark behind me. A full-on panic brewed right beneath the surface. I could not let a panic attack take me.
My hand went to my pocket. After sex with Brian, I'd put on pants and a t-shirt. I'd also put my cellphone in my pocket. Thankfully, it was still there. Not only was there light, but stuck to the back of the phone like a beacon of hope was the sticky note with Jareth's phone number on it.
I'd thought briefly about calling Brian, but I didn't want him to see me this way. He'd have either thought I was an alcoholic or crazy. Crazy probably wasn't too far from the truth. I didn't have time to figure out what was happening to me right then. I could hear whatever was in the dark getting closer. I didn't want to shine my light in that direction. So, I moved away from it. I hoped I was moving toward the basement stairs.
Once I felt a little safer, I shined the light on the paper and said the number to myself.
"555-2713." A voice in the dark mimicked me.
Without thinking, I started to run. I had no idea where I was going. When I shined the light in front of me, I didn't recognize where I was in the basement. I searched the floor for the duct tape and couldn't find it.
"Viiioooolllletttt." The voice cooed just feet behind me.
Before I could turn and face whatever was after me, I lost my footing. My ankle turned sharply and made a loud pop. I screamed in pain as I lost my legs underneath me. I'd found the sub-basement staircase. First my hip hit the concrete stairs, then my shoulder, and finally my temple cracked against the edge of a concrete step. My vision swam as blood ran into my eyes and down my cheek into my mouth.
I tried to pull myself into a sitting position, but my arm throbbed with hot pain and refused to obey. My cell phone was still in the hand of the arm I hadn't landed on. Jareth's number clung to the outskirts of my mind. The adrenaline coursing through my veins kept my mind sharp enough to dial his number and hit send.
"Hello, Violet." His pleasant voice sounded so distant.
"I've had an accident." I said, but I wasn't quite sure that I was actually saying the words. "I'm in the basement and I can't get out."
"Violet? Violet, what's that about the basement. Violet, what's going on?" He sounded frantic, but I just couldn't pull myself out of the warm haze that had taken over my mind.
"Help me, please." I said.
I dropped the phone. My eyes began to close, but before they did, I saw a dark figure lean over me."
"Help me, please." It mocked.
Not even adrenaline could keep me awake. Knowing that I was probably about to die, I closed my eyes and let unconsciousness take me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was the sound of beeping that brought me back. My mouth was dry, and pain radiated across half my body. I tried to open my eyes, but I almost vomited.
"Whoa. Take it easy." A woman said, but I couldn't open my eyes to look at her. The sound of sneakers shuffling across the floor followed. "Take this." She said and thrust something plastic in my hand.
I recognized what I was holding as one of those vomit basins they give you at the doctor's office or the hospital. Judging by the sounds around me, the antiseptic smell, and the scratchy sheets under my bare ass, I guessed I was in the hospital.
"How long have I been out?" I asked as I fought back another roiling wave of nausea.
"Two days, sweetie. You have orders for nausea meds if you need them. Would you like some?"
"Yes, please." I said.
A little while later, I heard someone come back in the room. "I've got those nausea meds, sweetie. It's a shot. Doc didn't figure you'd want to swallow them."
Even the thought of swallowing made me gag.
"Hold tight." She said. "Little pinch."
I felt the stick, but it was nothing compared to the vertigo and sickness I was experiencing. A short time later, I felt the grip on my stomach release. I took a deep breath.
"Do you want to try and open your eyes?" I heard the woman's voice ask. "I'll turn out the lights if you do."
"I think I should try."
"Take it slow. Okay? You've got your emesis basin if you need it." She said. "By the way, I'm Molly. I'm your day shift nurse."
"I'd like to say it's nice to meet you Molly." I said and tried to smile.
"We'll do formal introductions when you can see my face. Deal?"
"Deal."
The light stung like someone was pouring acid into my eyes when I slowly opened my lids, but at least the wave of nausea was nowhere to be found. At first it looked as if there were two of everything in my room, but as the pain faded, my vision narrowed into one.
"Now that's better." The nurse’s voice kept me grounded. I turned to look at her and saw that she was a large black woman with a sweet smile and perfectly coifed hair. "It's good to meet you." She said and helped me raise the bed to a semi-sitting position. "You've got some pretty good bruising and a s
light concussion, but you're very lucky." Molly adjusted the blankets and I got a glimpse of my legs. They were covered in thin scratches.
"What happened to my legs?"
"Not sure, sweetie. I'd guess that you scratched them on those concrete steps when you fell."
"They don't look like that kind of scratches." I said. In fact, they looked like the kind of scratches you get from fingernails. My legs were covered in them. Some of them were deeper than others and had scabbed over. I lifted the blanket to look again. A few of the marks were an angry red like they were either infected or close to it.
"Some of them look like they're infected."
"There are antibiotics in the IV." Molly said and that prompted her to check something on the IV stand.
"Those really can't be from the stairs." I said quietly.
"Well, I don't want to insult you, so please don't take it that way, okay?" She asked and then waited for me to reply.
"Okay."
"You were found in a basement. It could be from rats." Molly the nurse whispered the word rats as if she was saying something vile not fit for human ears. "In an old house like Stonebridge Manor, who knows what's in that basement. If there are rats, those little jerks could have attacked you as soon as you passed out."
I didn't think it was rats either, but I didn’t want to tell Molly how right she was about not knowing what was in the basement of Stonebridge Manor. If I'd told her what I really thought it was, I'd have probably been moved to the psych ward. As it were, they probably already thought I was a drunk.
"Rats, huh?"
"Yeah, but you can call an exterminator while you're still in here. We're going to keep you overnight because of the concussion. You're so lucky that Jareth, I mean Officer Reynolds, found you when he did. Who knows what those rats would have done if you'd been down there longer."
Dark Ends: A Horror Collection Page 4