by Matt Shaw
Feldman went downstairs. He gathered some musty towels and blankets from the laundry room and brought them into the living room. He sat on the sofa and pulled off his coat, shoes and socks. Grimacing at his pale shivering feet, he covered them in towels then slumped on the sofa with the blankets wrapped tight around his shoulders. It took a while for his extremities to warm and the shuddering in his torso to stop. Then he closed his eyes and listened to the wind-blown snow pattering against the windows.
*
There were dreams of walking through the house to follow the smell of chocolate into a room that hadn’t been there before. But when he entered the room there was nothing but a ragged, furred figure crouching in the corner, enshrouded by shadow, pawing carrots into its mouth. Then the figure finished eating, stood and turned around, but Feldman had already fled from the room.
*
Feldman woke sucking on air and swaddled in the blankets. His stomach gurgled with hunger.
The house was dark. Night had fallen outside. He rose on unsteady feet to look for some candles.
*
He found candles in a kitchen drawer. He lit them in the living room and drew the curtains. Then he sat down on the sofa and ate the two packets of crisps he’d taken with him from the car. He had half a bottle of Pepsi too, and took sips from it as he pondered what to do while the snowstorm seethed outside.
As the night wore on, the wind and snow flailing against the house, he slowly drifted into an exhausted sleep.
*
Feldman woke in the morning, desperate for a drink. He swigged from the Pepsi bottle until there were only dregs left, then decided to save what remained for later. A ravenous hunger burned in his gut. He craved chocolate and sweets. Longed for a decent sugar-rush.
He rubbed his face and scratched around his fleshy chin. He remembered fragments of a dream about a motionless figure with cone-shaped ears atop its head standing outside the front door, its bloated shape seen through the frosted glass, as though it was waiting for an invitation to enter the house. But he had the sense that the figure didn’t need an invitation, because it already lived and belonged here.
Shaking off the memories of the dream, he pulled back the curtains from the living room window and looked out at the falling snow. Deep on the ground, covering the fields beyond the overgrown garden. And a sudden feeling of isolation and loneliness overcame him until he was hugging the blankets tighter around his shoulders and arms for what little comfort it offered him.
He turned away from the window, shuffling on sockless feet clad in damp shoes, and walked about the downstairs rooms to encourage the blood into his extremities and warm his heart. A suspicion that the bloated figure from his dream would be standing outside the front door was dispelled when he ventured into the hallway. He sighed with relief, thought himself foolish, and then realised that the little door under the stairs was ajar even though he hadn’t opened it.
*
“It might just have come loose by itself,” he muttered, more as a vague comfort to himself than anything else. But it hadn’t worked, and he stood before the open door, hunched in his musty clothes and borrowed blankets, eyeing the darkness past the threshold under the stairs.
He returned to the living room and lit one of the candles, dripped wax onto a saucer and stood the candle in the wax until it held fast. Then he went back to the door under the stairs. He hesitated before he stepped through the doorway, the candle held out before him. He kept sniffling, and wiping his nose.
Past the threshold was a room no wider than the inside of a phone box. The smell of dust and rodent droppings. And, strangely, chocolate. That wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be possible. Saliva gathered at the back of his mouth.
There was an old wooden door to his left. It was stained black and would have been unseen in the dark if not for the candlelight. He pulled the door towards him then leaned forward, and the flickering flame near his face revealed a stone stairway descending into darkness.
Feldman swallowed. Took in a breath. Started down the steps.
*
He descended to a cramped basement and stood at the foot of the stairway, casting the candle about to light the scene before him. Stone walls cold to the touch. The dirt floor was cluttered with cardboard boxes filled with children’s toys from decades ago. Plastic figures and stuffed animals tatty from age and wear, board games from the Seventies and Eighties, yo-yos and wooden spinning tops. Old water stains dirtied the boxes. Fluff balls drifted on the floor.
Feldman almost jumped out of his shoes when the candlelight revealed a pink tattered figure slouched upon a chair by the far wall. His heart climbed into his throat. He gasped then let out a relieved breath as the light gave the seated figure definition and showed that it was merely some forgotten rabbit costume meant for a fancy dress party. It had been propped upon the seat, and its legs dangled to the floor. Tall floppy ears. A blue bowtie around the neck. A round hole where the face would have been. Scraggly and ruffled, stained with dirt and other dried fluids.
Feldman wrinkled his nose. On the floor next to the chair was a long handled wicker basket of brightly coloured Easter eggs.
The candlelight threw shadows that danced and writhed on the walls.
He approached the rabbit costume with little steps that slowed as he reached its slumped form. The costume smelled musty and ripe, yeasty and vaguely meaty. He reached out and touched its matted fur then quickly pulled back, frowning and muttering, irrationally fearful that the costume would suddenly come to life and lunge for him with flapping arms.
He crouched to the basket and picked up one of the eggs. It was wrapped in red foil. Raised it to his face and sniffed. His mouth watered. He found a seam in the wrapping and pulled it back and peeled the foil from the egg. It was chocolate. He cracked a section of the egg and put a piece into his mouth and let it dampen upon his tongue. He closed his eyes as his taste buds fizzled with the sweet taste of the chocolate. It was exquisite. He chewed.
Before he realised what he had done, he had devoured the egg and there was only scrunched up foil in his hands. He was breathing hard, his heart beating fast with abnormal beats. A vague feeling of shame overcame him, like he’d just finished masturbating to a photo of a friend’s wife.
He climbed the steps back to the room under the stairs, two Easter eggs cradled in the nook of one arm against his stomach.
*
Swaddled in the blankets on the sofa he gorged upon the two Easter eggs, and when he was finished his fingers were sticky with chocolate and his stomach ached with dull cramps.
He lay back on the sofa and closed his eyes, groaning softly. He smiled to himself and patted his rotund belly, listening to his guts gurgle and squirm.
*
He spent the rest of the day on the sofa, holding his stomach and licking smears of chocolate from around his mouth. The snowstorm continued and seemed like it would never end.
He fell asleep sometime before midday. A dream of hurrying through the snow towards a distant figure with its back turned to him. As he got closer he realised that the figure was wearing the tattered rabbit costume. The ears flapped in the wind. Feldman called out to the figure.
And the figure began to turn around.
*
Feldman opened his eyes and couldn’t remember where he was until he saw the discarded tinfoil wrappers on the floor. The stomach ache had faded and he was hungry again.
He returned to the basement, licking his lips in anticipation. He fell upon the basket of eggs, tearing at the wrappers with his hands, stuffing chocolate into his busy mouth. When he had finished eating, there were no eggs left, and he wavered on his knees as the realisation hit him. There were tears in his eyes.
“No more chocolate,” he whispered. “No more eggs. No more Easter.” And he put his hands to his face and sobbed quietly. He lay down on the cold floor, his chest hitching with shuddered breaths, lamenting the empty wicker basket and the scraps of tinfoil.
*
When he came to he found himself on his knees, grasping the rabbit costume in his trembling hands and holding it to his face as he inhaled deep breaths like he once did with women’s underwear when he was younger.
He dropped the costume and realised he had to leave the house.
*
Without a clue where to go, Feldman dressed hurriedly and went out into the storm to escape the house. And he wandered, hunched over against the snow that fell upon and against him, stumbling through the drifts that reached past his ankles. The wind bore teeth, pinching and swiping at him, roaring around him like the gathered voices of immense monsters.
He roamed and staggered for what seemed like hours, shivering in the terrible cold, hallucinating the faces of his parents and old friends. His vision down to no more than a yard past the furthest reach of his arms. He cried to the sky, sobbed to the ground, and implored the invisible gods of the fields to guide him to new shelter.
Close to collapse and on his knees, pulling his exhausted body through the snow, he emerged before a house. There was a moment of ecstatic relief and joy until he realised it was the house he’d fled hours ago.
The worst part for him was the renewed hunger for chocolate eggs.
He shouted and screamed, cursed every name he could pull from his mind. He experienced such a feeling of dread and futility that he broke down in tears. It took him quite a while to crawl to the house, rise to his coldness-numbed feet, and open the door to slip inside.
He dragged himself to the sofa in the living room and closed his eyes to the wailing of the wind outside.
*
In Feldman’s dream, the figure turned around to regard him, and it was his own face he looked upon.
*
There was a chocolate egg on the coffee table when he woke. He stared at the thing for a short while and after very little consideration tore away the wrapping and consumed the egg with both hands stuffing it into his mouth. Afterwards he felt happier than he could ever remember.
He went down to the basement, giggling and rubbing his hands together like an excited child. The wicker basket had been replenished with Easter eggs. This made him cackle into his hands and dance a little dance of rapture.
He laughed and grinned as he pulled on the rabbit costume, and it fitted perfectly over his doughy limbs and bulging stomach. It warmed him, swelled his heart, and made him dizzy with glee. And when he was finished he stood on the stone floor, joyous at the wonderful thing he had become.
*
The storm had passed and the sky cleared to perfect blue in its wake. There was bright winter sunlight upon the land, and the snow melted and the ground began to thaw, like spring had arrived early.
Resplendent in the tattered rabbit suit, Feldman flung the front door open and dashed outside, giggling as he swung the wicker basket of Easter eggs in his hands. He cavorted in the sunshine, kicking through the receding snow, his eyes glazed over with idiot joy and his mouth covered in chocolate. Scrambling and pawing, dancing on the road, having the time of his life. And he never wanted it to end.
He was too busy spinning in a circle and whooping to hear the approaching rumble of a large engine.
*
The twenty-six tonne lorry was travelling too fast around the bend to stop in time when the man in the raggedy rabbit suit appeared in the road, throwing brightly coloured eggs around. The driver had been drinking. There wasn’t time to brake.
The lorry hit the man with such force and speed that he was obliterated where he stood. He burst like a wet flesh-sack and showered the road with viscera, blood and tufty scraps of pink fur.
The lorry skidded to a halt. The driver climbed down from the cab. He looked around at what remained of the poor individual. He gasped at the round, wet object on the road.
The severed head of the man in the rabbit suit stared back at him, eyes open, ears floppy, with chocolate smeared around the manic grin of his mouth.
THE END
Bio
Rich Hawkins hails from deep in the West Country, where a childhood of science fiction and horror films set him on the path to writing his own stories. He credits his love of horror and all things weird to his first viewing of John Carpenter’s THE THING when, aged twelve, he crept downstairs late one night to watch it on ITV. He has a few short stories in various anthologies, and has written one novella, BLACK STAR, BLACK SUN. His debut novel THE LAST PLAGUE was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel. Its sequel, THE LAST OUTPOST, was released in September 2015.
He currently lives in Salisbury, Wiltshire, with his wife, their daughter and their pet dog Molly. They keep him sane. Mostly.
On the Third day
By
Graeme Reynolds
“Get a move on!” Barrabas hissed to Simon. “We gotta be there and back before sunrise.”
“I can’t see a bloody thing!” the small man complained. “I’ve already stubbed my toe on a rock and I stepped in something that’s gotten right into my sandal. I can feel it squishing around in there! Why can’t we use the lantern?”
The larger man slapped his companion across the head. “Because then the guards would see us and arrest us for grave robbing! Look – I only need you to help move the stone, so can you please try to keep quiet and keep up until we get there?”
“Alright – but I hope you realize that this is really unpleasant. I think I stood in goat…” Simon stopped abruptly as the moon appeared from behind a cloud and revealed Barrabas’s murderous expression.“I’ll be quiet now,” he muttered.
The moon bathed the landscape in a cool monochrome as the men slowly picked their way across the rocky slope. Occasionally one of them would lose their footing, and a small landslide of sandstone pebbles and fist sized rocks would cascade down the hillside.
Eventually they arrived at their destination. A large boulder leaned against the sheer wall of a small outcropping of rock, away from the path and shrouded in shadows.
“Right – we’re here then. Let’s get that boulder out of the way and get on with it” Barrabus said.
Simon’s mouth fell open “It’s bloody HUGE! How the hell are we going to move that?”
Barrabus leaned around to the side of the boulder and produced two large wooden poles, a grin spreading across his face.
“With these. Any more questions? No? Good.”
Simon and Barrabus wedged the ends of the poles into a gap began to push.
“So why exactly are we robbing this grave?” Simon asked. “Is he an Egyptian immigrant who was buried with all of his money?”
“Na!” replied Barrabus. “He was a prophet.”
Simon dropped his pole. “A prophet? A bloody prophet! I could go into town and find you a dead prophet in any backstreet between the fish market and the Thirsty Camel tavern.”
“You don’t get it do you – he had hundreds of followers. Rich followers. Do you have any idea how much money his sandals will be worth? Now shut up and push!”
The boulder began to move; slowly at first but then gaining momentum until it rolled free and bounced away down the hillside, gaining speed as it headed towards the town below.
“Shit!” said Barrabus, as the avalanche descended upon Jerusalem.
“Do you think that bastard Barnabus is guarding the east wall tonight?”
“I really hope so!”
The moon passed behind a cloud, and a wave of darkness swept across the hillside.
“Great – now I can’t see anything AGAIN!”
“Shut up – I can hear something. Let me just light this lantern.”
Simon’s eyes strained against the curtain of darkness, willing them to see what lay beyond its veil. He could hear the sound of Barrabus searching in his pack and something else. A slow scraping sound like a sack of wheat being dragged across a dusty stone floor, followed by a short, sharp sound that seemed like a footstep.
The sounds were definitely getting closer. The long dragging sound followed by
the lurching step.
“Can you hurry up with that lantern?”
“Almost got it…there!” Barrabas struck the flint and the lantern ignited.
Barrabas turned towards the cave and let out a small involuntary shriek. Standing right next to him was a tall, bearded man.
The man was around six feet in height, with long dark hair and was draped in a white funeral shroud. His eyes were milky, opaque orbs. A large centipede crawled out of his right nostril and fell to the floor. Blood stained the man’s shroud, and a loop of intestine was visible through a large wound on his side.
Barrabas looked in horror at the creature before him and started to back away. The thing’s arms shot out in front of him – searching and grasping the empty air until they connected with Barrabus’s tunic. Its hands gripped tightly and it pulled itself towards the terrified grave robber, then sank its teeth into the man’s neck.
Barrabas began to scream as he flailed wildly at his attacker. The creature responded by clenching its jaw and violently whipping its head from side to side. The skin on the grave robbers neck stretched and split – finally giving way as the creature tore its head back. A fine spray of arterial blood misted Simons face, staining his tunic a deep wet crimson and Barrabus fell to the ground – no longer screaming, but simply making a surprised gurgling sound as his essence drained away into the sand.