Twist and Scream - Volume 5 (Horror Short Stories)

by Jayne Bartholomew

  Distractions

  As the blank page presented itself to Penny she felt the same thrill building up inside her as she always did this early in a project. She sat back in her chair and sipped a glass of blood red rioja, savouring the moment.

  In this moment, in this space between first work and damning rejection from a publisher, she was an artist. The clean sheet of paper was her canvas, an empty stage waiting for actors for her to direct, an orchestra waiting for her to pick up the baton; and she loved it.

  She was sure that this novel would be the one to catapult her to the international acclaim she craved. The other twelve had been good but this one would be better.

  A new pen waited by the side of the note pad next to her laptop. Penny bought the same luxury brand that her favourite author used, although frankly she couldn’t tell that there was much of a difference between the expensive ones and the cheap offerings from her local supermarket. It didn’t matter though; it was the essence of the act that mattered. Classical music played in the background, it was a minor distraction but she felt it added a theatrical tone to proceedings so she tried to enjoy it.

  The relative peace was shattered by the sound of drilling coming from upstairs.

  Her first husband, Thomas, used to help her write, either by talking things through or by bringing her a welcome flow of cups of tea into the conservatory where she wrote. A short man but tall in personality and what he lacked in the looks department he more than made up for in usefulness. His best quality was that he knew when to leave her in peace and as the drilling noise continued she found herself really missing him.

  Her eye was drawn to the page; the first few lines were critical. Perhaps this book could be partly autobiographical? Her life had been rich and peppered with a decent dose of love, lust and intrigue; people might find it interesting.

  Her second husband, Archie, had been the one for intrigue. Whereas Thomas had passed away peacefully in his bed after a long illness, Archie had simply disappeared. She was aware that the neighbourhood suspected he’d run away with the butcher’s wife but not even her friends knew the truth. It didn’t bother her that she was talked about in quiet whispers; let them talk. When she was famous all this history would add to her marketability.

  From her chair she had an unbroken view of the calm expanse of lawn that tapered elegantly towards the potting shed. Behind the shed were three large compost bins, two were full and the third was empty; she had plans for the third.

  The drilling paused for a moment before resuming with increased vigour.

  Billy had moved in with her before the marriage was formally dissolved with Archie and he had proved a pleasant distraction for a while, seven months to be exact, and then Penny grew bored. It’s a dreadful thing to grow weary of someone’s face so quickly but that was life.

  At around that time Penny had started watching home improvement programmes on TV and became an avid watcher of anything related to cleaning and household management. She had never been a slouch around the home but her friends began to notice that she was making more of an effort than before. Billy tried to help, bless him, but he got in the way and in the end she asked him to put in a new bathroom just to keep him occupied. The drilling noise from upstairs should hopefully be a sign that he was finishing off the door hinges.

  Penny had found herself setting the alarm earlier and earlier so she could clean previously untouched areas around the house. The space behind the radiator was pristine, lampshades were taken down and dusted to within an inch of their lives and neighbours could see her in the front garden bleaching down the front path at regular intervals between first light and dusk.

  It was the smell of bleach that became the problem to Billy. In an uncharacteristic show of masculinity he put his foot down and insisted she saw someone about her obsessive compulsive cleaning tendencies; in an uncharacteristic show of submission, she agreed.

  Her attention was caught by a movement outside, a bird landing on the feeding table and pecking at peanuts. She couldn’t stand any distractions at such an important time in her writing. The feeding table would have to go.

  Her therapist had been very encouraging about her writing; she felt it would take her mind off cleaning. Penny smiled, in a way she was right but also very, very wrong.

  Billy called down from upstairs to let her know the bathroom was finished.

  Penny took another sip of wine. He really had been attentive recently. To help her move on from her addiction he had bought her a swab testing kit so she could go around the home and see exactly how clean things were and had even made her a UV light so she could check for dirt spots without cleaning a whole room. In a way she was going to miss him.

  Billy called to her again, louder and more insistent.

  She sighed and resentfully put her pen down and switched her laptop off. Was it too much to ask for a bit of peace and quiet?

  This would be one day that she wouldn’t be sharing with the therapist.

  Slowly she made her way up the stairs to find Billy lying, fully clothed and smug, in the bath tub. The new tiles and décor were beautifully set out and he had followed her instructions regarding the grouting carefully. Penny looked around the pretty white room and smiled with satisfaction.

  Seeing his dirty tools next to the bath she kneeled down next to Billy and kissed him gently on the mouth. As he responded she leaned over to his Stanley knife and ran it swiftly and deeply across his throat.

  He looked at her in surprise, and then shock, his hands groping at the gaping wound that was pumping blood out into the white bathtub like a burst hosepipe.

  Penny moved behind him and leaned down on his shoulders, keeping him in the tub until his final jerks quietened and all that was left of her partner was a mess that needed cleaning. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and went downstairs to her laptop.

  The idea that writing was a distraction for her OCD was laughable. The OCD had been a carefully thought out plan to hide what she knew would need to be a lot of cleaning after she’d moved Billy from the bathroom.

  In the morning, when she was sure he wouldn’t bleed so much, she would strip the body, wrap it in a plastic sheet and put it in the empty compost bin. She would pour lye and water on the body and just wait until it slowly dissolved into mulch. Lye was an ingredient in soap making and her ever helpful OCD story had given her an excuse to buy large doses of it recently.

  Once the body was disposed of she could use her bleach to clean the blood stains and Billy’s UV light would be invaluable to make sure she hadn’t missed a bit.

  As Penny poured herself another glass of wine she wondered why murder was so sensationalised when it was so easy. As long as you had a plan and imagination she really didn’t understand why so many people were caught. Perhaps she’d just been lucky that no one had searched her property after she’d murdered her second husband and his tart. Either way, all’s well that ends well.

  She did enjoy company though, it didn’t do to be alone all the time and as long as they didn’t overstay their welcome she would be happy to meet someone new.

  Just in case her next partner did start annoying her Penny thought it best to make plans early; on the pad next to her she made a little note to buy another compost bin.

  A Fighting chance

  All Josh had ever wanted in life was a fighting chance, but it wasn’t until he died that he actually got what he wanted.

  In their frequent meetings, Social Services used to describe him as a ‘Child in Need’; in need of a good meal, in need of some affection and deeply in need of being separated from his evangelically religious mother. Josh’s mother believed in the Lord, the scriptures and tough love. If life wasn’t hard then it was frivolous; and Josh’s mother was not a frivolous woman. He used to lie in bed at night, after prayers, hungry and shivering with a cold that his thin sheet was no protection against and dream of a better life; a life of kindness and soft touches.

  We dance between the light and t
he darkness, his mother used to drill into him as she dealt out her frequent punishments. Her hand would rise up as she told him that the way of light leads to fulfilment, and her hand would swiftly smack down on his exposed skin before adding that the way of darkness leads into Hell. There was a long cane behind the kitchen door that she would use on him to banish his evil side if she thought that merely using her hand on him was being weak; which in her eyes was most days.

  Josh tried to be a good boy but it often felt that he was living in Hell anyway and there seemed little profit in being good if he was going to be whipped irrespective of his actions.

  In the way that children do, his peers at school recognised that he was different to them and attacked using a pack mentality. Indoctrinated into the idea that as a child he should suffer to go unto the Lord, Josh did not complain to his teachers and knew better than to mention it to his mother. It was one of the priests at his local church that he eventually confided in.

  Father Stephen was a cheerful soul that Josh’s mother had taken an instant dislike to, dismissing him as not being deep enough into his dog collar. Father Stephen tried to teach Josh that a dog collar wasn’t a leash and it wasn’t a sin to enjoy life. “Do you want the avenging Angel to point his sword of righteousness at you for being a misery guts?” he’d said once, flippantly, trying to bring the boy out of himself.

  Unfortunately by that point Josh was too indoctrinated by his mother not to take his words literally. The idea of a sword wielding angel lit a fire of hope in the child that not even his mother’s madness could extinguish. That avenging angels were more likely to be found in Hollywood than religion was a petty matter that didn’t concern him – from that moment he decided to devote himself into becoming an avenging angel.

  Stand up for the weak; said his mother, the Lord loves those that love the meek.

  The day after making his decision to become an avenging angel he was hit by a careless driver on his way to school. As he lay in the road he grasped at the bent metal jutting out of his chest and twisted it, motivated as much by the promise of a better after-life as escape from his current one. He died in a hot pool of blood before an ambulance could reach him.

  His soul did not move on from this Earth. Josh stood, uncomprehending on the roadside, waiting for a beam of light or a door or something that would take him to his next stage. He waited while his mortal body was moved and the light grew dark before boredom forced him to go home. He didn’t know where else to go.

  There were no candles set in memorial by his bed, no mark of respect by the front door, in fact nothing to signify that a change had occurred at all. He watched Father Stephen sit down to offer comfort to his mother and then recoiled as his mother told the priest that God had struck him down for his evil ways. The priest argued with her but her mind was set. She had not punished him enough, she’d spared the rod and spoilt the child; this was partly her fault and she would atone for her sin.

  As night set in Josh watched his mother take out the special whip she kept for self-flagellation and set about scourging herself of the sin she had caused by not beating her son enough. He felt only pity for her. He wished he could tell her that there was no God, no afterlife, that the whole thing was a sham and really she could do whatever she wanted on Earth, but of course he couldn’t.

  Josh left his home that night and never went back. There may be no afterlife but there was him and if he wanted to be an avenging angel then clearly no-one was going to stop him.

  He learned what he was capable of slowly and without help. Occasionally he’d come across others that were undead but he couldn’t communicate with them and in the end he gave up entirely. He began to move small objects, like a poltergeist, and found some pleasure in helping people find things. Starting small with keys and lost handbags he graduated to watching over babies when their parents had lapses of concentration. They were so fragile and somehow so easily left in bath water or supermarkets. Josh began to enjoy himself.

  There was a woman called Stacy who had often gone to the same church as him. A quiet lady with an easy smile who Josh had liked instantly. He began to see her around the neighbourhood he hung around in and made it his business to discover where she lived.

  Josh tried to respect others privacy but as soon as he saw her new boyfriend he knew that the nice lady was in trouble. Martin wasn’t a big man but he had a way of reducing Stacy into a tiny ball of nervousness that concerned Josh. He was mean to her and though he might not have a sword, Josh was intent on protecting her.

  It was Martin and Stacy’s second anniversary and he had taken her out to a restaurant that stretched his budget to the limit. Stacy looked radiant in a new black dress and Martin was wearing a tie. As Martin helped her with the top button of her dress he kissed her shoulder and she put her hand up to caress his cheek. The evening was going well.

  Three hours later though and he was shouting, again, apparently lost in his rage and oblivious to anyone and anything around him. Stacy hung her head in embarrassment and tried to pull on his sleeve to encourage him to get back into the car. From the corner of her vision she could see the amount of attention her boyfriend was attracting and the looks of pity and concern that were directed at her only served to increase the familiar gut-wrenching sense of shame.

  “Please Martin.” A whispered entreaty muttered under her breath and regretted as soon as it was spoken.

  “Please? Please? After what you’ve just put me through? Jesus Christ, Stacy, you would try the patience of a saint, you know that don’t you?” Martin paused for breath and glared at a short man with glasses who was staring at them. “What are you looking at four-eyes?”

  The man with glasses raised his hands, a gesture of peace, and Martin yanked open the car door, gesturing Stacy to get in the other side.

  Not yet in tears but beginning to tremble, Stacy meekly opened her door and jumped as Martin slammed his door hard enough to dislodge a dancing Elvis statuette on the dashboard. Martin caught it as the figurine fell and threw it behind him; the head fell off as it smashed against the back window.

  Stacy secured her seatbelt just before Martin put foot to metal, the wheels squealed on the tarmac and she wondered if he enjoyed it when people watched them when he shouted at her. Certainly there was a good size crowd talking excitedly in the restaurant.

  Her crime today? Over dinner she had casually mentioned that she was considering changing her regular hair colour to a couple of shades darker, or maybe trying highlights.

  That was all it took; Martin didn’t like change.

  She had been enjoying acting like a regular couple so much that she’d missed the subtle signs that his anger was bubbling over. It wasn’t until the desert course that he’d let her know she had ruined the meal and wasted the small fortune it had cost him to take her out. Not that she deserved to be taken out, clearly it didn’t matter to her that he liked the colour of her hair, oh no, it must mean she wanted to attract another man.

  And it went on.

  Wasn’t Martin good enough for her? Was she such a cheap whore that she needed men lining up around the block for a quickie? But that was right though wasn’t it for such a prick-tease as Stacy because let’s face it she didn’t exactly put out to him these days did she?

  As his rage and anger grew Stacy tried to be reasonable. She had suffered a miscarriage only a few months earlier and intimacy was quite painful, though when under pressure she had tried, hadn’t she?

  Eventually they were asked to leave the restaurant as Martin was disturbing the other diners, a request that nearly resulted in a fight between him and a waiter who had a problem with men that didn’t respect women.

  Stacy had sat, crimson in horror but deep down she knew her boyfriend wouldn’t raise his fist to another man. No, he would wait until they got home later and he had time and privacy to really let himself go.

  And now, as they pulled up to the driveway of their semi-detached house, her stomach began to knot in fear and the col
d, but familiar, flood of anticipation rushed through her.

  “Are you going to get out of the car or what?” Martin lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before stepping out of the car and moving around to her side.

  Please Lord, not the burning, please don’t let him burn me tonight

  Stacy could tell that the uncontrolled rage of earlier had sharpened into something manageable. Tomorrow he’d say he was sorry but often when he was beating her she caught him grinning wolfishly, eyes alight with pleasure. At those moments, she thought that if she ever found herself close enough to a knife or weapon she wouldn’t think twice about killing him. There would be no wounding to give herself time to run away, she had run once and what he’d done to her when he found her she would never be able to voice; no, she would aim for a major organ and do as much damage as possible. Then stand over him to make sure he bled to death.

  “Oi, Dozy. Get out of the sodding car; you and me are going to have a talk about your behaviour tonight.” He flicked the cigarette into the bushes, opened her door and hauled her out by her arm. She lost her footing as she got out but he slammed her door, grabbed a handful of hair and dragged her inside.

  The evening had begun. Josh could feel his own fury building as he watched the drama unfurl.

  The blows started as soon as the front door closed and as they rained down all Stacy wanted was a fighting chance; and Josh gave it to her.

  A particularly violent push sent her spiralling towards the dining table, she grabbed at the tablecloth as she went over and the contents of the table went onto the floor with her. Mike’s tool kit had been on there and as it fell a long screwdriver dropped by her hand. You couldn’t slice with it but you could stab. Instinctively she grabbed it, scrambled to her feet and stood, panting, with her back against the wall, holding it outstretched for protection.