by Shaun Hupp
She scooted backwards, trying to use the light from the window to see. Her head thumped against something and she realized she couldn’t move any further. She reached both her hands behind her and grabbed at what stopped her.
It’s just the tv, she thought.
Suddenly, the television turned on. Gwen screamed and jumped away from it. It showed nothing but static and the volume was turned all the way up. She looked around frantically as she thought she heard footsteps, but it was too hard to pinpoint where they were with the tv blasting.
Gwen crawled forward to turn it off when the static disappeared. The news story about the fire returned, except it wasn’t about that small apartment complex fire. It was about the abandoned apartment building fire six months ago. The television showed firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze as if it were happening right now.
This can’t be happening. How is this possible?
She remembered watching this very news report. She remembered seeing the pile of smoldering bricks. She had wanted to call the police, but she had started the fire that ultimately destroyed that building. She watched in horror, then and now, as firefighters sifted through the rubble. They had found six bodies. Apparently, it was shelter for a few homeless people. She knew she couldn’t go to the police. She felt like she was a murderer.
Static.
The television came back on and showed another news report from a few weeks after the fire. Fingerprints were of no use. Dental records were taken of the six people, but only two matches were found. One was known to be homeless when his family was interviewed. The other was Hank. It was verified that he was missing by his family. Gwen broke down, crying uncontrollably when she saw and heard, for the second time, his wife and twelve year old son being interviewed.
Nobody knew why Hank was in the building that day. Police and the family were stumped. The only explanation possible was that Hank was an architect so maybe, he was checking out the building as a possible investment property.
There was no connection to me, she thought. I was scared every time I heard footsteps outside my apartment door. I would silently plead with whoever was out there to leave. No police ever came knocking. Hank had kept me a total secret.
Static.
Gwen couldn’t take her eyes off the screen, even though she could hear the footsteps getting closer.
A news anchor said that they had found a gas stovetop and determined that it was the cause of the fire. There were no signs of foul play. The investigators assumed one of the homeless victims had accidently left it on after cooking something. It was not uncommon for homeless people to set up some type of cooking area inside a building, only to have it ignite the already unsafe building. All those deaths were now just accidental.
Static.
Blackness. The television went off.
The lights clicked back on. When Gwen’s eyes adjusted, she saw her blood-covered hands. Before she could scream, her head was grabbed from behind and smashed against the television screen. She could feel shards of glass embedded in her face, but only for a moment. She thought the lights were going out again until she realized that her eyelids were closing and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
“Wake up.”
Gwen groaned. She had a major headache. Her face hurt.
“Wake up.”
No, she thought. I thought I was over this.
“Wake up, Gwen.”
It’s okay. I can sleep with the tv on a few more weeks and try again.
“Bitch, open your fucking eyes!”
Gwen’s eyes opened and she sat up in bed. That wasn’t in my head, she thought. Then, it came rushing back at her: the power outage, the television, the man in the window, the blood.
“I let you go and you tried to kill me. Naughty girl. Did you think moving would keep me away? Guess what? I found you.”
Gwen couldn’t see anything. The room was completely dark, but she could tell by the footsteps and where his voice was that he was pacing around the room. She just couldn’t get a fix on him. Gwen quickly slid the drawer open and grabbed her carving knife. The television wasn’t the only thing she needed to sleep.
“I’ve been watching you for awhile now. I was waiting to make my move, but you always had movers in your old apartment. I figured I’d wait and give you a proper housewarming present.”
Not being able to tell where Adam was, Gwen felt helpless like she was back in that dirty, abandoned apartment. She didn’t have Hank next to her, but she had an idea. . .
“Now, I have you all to myself. I do have to admit, I might look a little different since the last time you saw me.”
Gwen took the knife and made a slice down the inside of her thigh. She felt the warm blood flow down her leg. She pushed her hand down onto the wound and flicked blood out into the darkness hoping to hit Adam.
“Thinking back, it’s quite funny. This whole time I was waiting for God to answer me. Turns out, someone else did.”
She flung more and more blood in every direction. Suddenly, those footsteps stopped. Then, there was laughter.
“That’s not going to work, Gwen. I should thank you. You see, my phobia of blood touching my skin was really holding me back. Now. . .”
The lights flipped on. Standing across the room by the switch was something that was beyond any nightmares she had ever had. What stood before her could barely be described as a person. It wore no clothes. Brown and black burns covered its entire body. It was hairless with flaky, cracked skin.
As it struggled to walk towards her, she could see bones poking out and its muscles moving as if there was nothing covering them. Burnt scabs cracked as it walked, blood and pus filling the gaps. She screamed at her body to move, but it wouldn’t listen. The knife in her hand fell from her useless hand and clattered onto the floor. This corpse-like thing crawled into bed with her and showed her a blackened scalpel it had hidden in its palm. Its fingers were nothing but blackened bones.
“Now, I have no skin to worry about.”
Gwen screamed as Adam stabbed her in the stomach repeatedly with the scalpel. Blood flew from her gut and splattered all over him. During his frenzy, he even opened his mouth, trying to catch some of it. When he was pleased with what he had done, he sat up and stared at the small knife with a look of glee. Then, he licked the blood off the burnt knife and crawled back on top of Gwen. As her life was quickly fading, the last thing she saw was Adam’s hideous burned face inches from hers. He no longer had any skin around his mouth or lips covering his black teeth to stop the saliva from dripping onto her. His nose and ears were gaping holes where the blackness inside seemed to go on forever. But it wasn’t the face that got to her, it was those unmistakable eyes; those bright blue eyes full of madness, but they had changed. Now, his eyelids were completely gone. His stare was unblinking. His eyes dried out and red. She shut her own eyes, trying in a feeble attempt to wish him away. She could sense him lower his mouth next to her ear. She could smell peppermint and sulfur.
“You’ll have to speak up, girlie. I’m a little hard of hearing now.” Gwen could feel the coarse, burnt flesh press up against her cheek as Adam put his ear hole next to her mouth.
“Any last words?”
The End?
Or a new beginning?
“This better be good.”
Detective Sergeant Thomas Turner had worked the last three weeks straight. The bags under his eyes showed it. If he had a wife, she’d be pretty angry. Still, being called into work on his day off was beyond infuriating. Can’t one of the other detectives handle this? he thought. I need my beauty sleep.
Tom snorted at the thought. Me? A beauty? There’s a joke.
“We just figured you’d need to see this,” Detective Andrew Sanford said, nervously. “It’s big.”
Detective Sanford was the new hotshot in the department. He was young, in good shape, and still had all his hair, all things Tom couldn’t say about himself. Despite that, Sanford had an irritating habit.
He thought every little thing had the potential to be a major breakthrough in a case. One time, he was determined to have every fingerprint lifted off a gas pump to catch a suspect. Nobody had the heart to tell him that those nozzles have had about the same number of hands on them as Tom’s ex-wife. That, and it had rained that morning.
Sanford led Turner through to the back of the station and into the police garage. Sitting inside, surrounded by other detectives and forensic technicians, was a taxi cab. Something looked a little off about it. It looked like it was covered by a thin layer of black soot.
“So, what’s the story here, Sanford?”
“A while back, a cab driver reported that he was assaulted and carjacked. Well, we finally found it.”
“I fail to see why I need to be here,” Tom said, annoyed.
“It was near the old Mitchum Apartment building that burned down.”
“So? Lots of scumbags dump stolen things off in that area when they get bored. No prying eyes. Get to the point, Sanford.”
“Well, to help identify the perp that attacked that cabbie, we had the taxi dusted for prints. What we found was quite shocking.”
Tom noticed that all the other detectives and the technicians had turned and were watching the two of them. Some looked excited. Others wore worried expressions. What the hell is going on? He thought.
“There were four different sets of prints,” continued Sanford. “Naturally, the cabbie’s were in there. After him, things get weird. We found the prints of one, Hank Mathews.”
Thomas felt his jaw slightly drop. “The same Hank Mathews that died in the Mitchum fire?”
Sanford nodded. “The second set of prints belongs to a Gwen Baker.”
Thomas made an effort to keep his mouth closed. “As in the Gwen Baker we found the other day massacred in her apartment?”
Sanford nodded again. “Yes. They matched the prints we took off her body. All of their fingerprints were found in the backseat of the cab. As far as we know, they had no connection to each other. We’re going to have to look into how or if they knew each other.”
“And the fourth set?” asked Thomas.
“They belong to a man named Adam Booth. We couldn’t find out much about him. He has no current address so he might be a vagrant. His prints were found throughout the cab. We pulled up an old picture of him from a prior DUI arrest and showed it to the cabdriver. He verified that Adam stole his taxi.”
Before Tom could speak, the head of forensics, a weasel;y little man in thick, black glasses, came up to them. He couldn’t remember his name. He didn’t really care.
“We have the results back from the half-empty water bottle that was recovered. There were traces of Flunitrazepam inside. We also found three sets of fingerprints on the bottle: Hank’s, Gwen’s, and Adam’s. DNA evidence confirmed that only Hank and Gwen drank from the bottle.”
Sanford nodded to the tech and motioned to leave them alone. “Looks like this Adam stole the cab, drugged those two, and took them back to the apartment building. Gwen and Adam must have escaped the inferno. Perhaps she got away from him and he, just now, found her and killed her.”
Tom had a bad feeling about this. Something wasn’t quite right. Sanford’s theory fit and somehow, it didn’t. He wished he could just go home and take the rest of his day off. He knew he couldn’t. Sanford really did find his big breakthrough and they had to act on it.
“We need to find Adam.”
To be continued…….
The woman’s eyes unfocused from cane. She looked up at Emrys with tears in her eyes. Emrys knew they weren’t from the story. They were from realizing she had dredged up old memories she had tried so hard to bury. Those tears streamed down her face and fell across the cover of her book. Before she could speak, Emrys handed her the same type of box he had given the other two passengers.
“Don’t cry now, young reader. You’re about to be part of something wondrous shortly. I’m sure your pretty face will be all over the news. Perhaps your mother will even see it. Won’t that be great?”
She was quiet. Emrys had done what he needed to do so he stood up and made his way to the door. As he passed by her, she reached out and grabbed him by the sleeve.
“What happened to Adam? Did they stop him?”
Emrys smiled. She was a dedicated reader, always wanting to know what happened next, reading on through the night. “That, my dear, is a tale for another time. But trust me. . . It’s not going to end well for anyone in that story.”
Or you, he thought.
She let go and went back to reading her book. The wooden box sat on the seat next to her. She didn’t even notice Emrys leave the train car. She was too busy trying to lose herself in her book.
CHAPTER FOUR
Son
Emrys was worried. The next of couple of train cars he entered were empty. He didn’t have all that he needed yet. There had to be one more person riding the rails this late at night. His knees buckled several times and he was forced to use the seats along with his cane to walk.
Finally, he went through a door and found himself in another car full of teenagers. His eyesight had blurred. He tried to focus on who was there. There was a group of four in front of him: two boys and two girls. Several rows in front of them was a lone boy. The group was taunting and throwing things at the back of his head. The boy just sat there.
He’s the one.
Emrys tried to take control of the environment, but he was too weak. He stumbled forward, getting hit by flying pieces of food. The boy didn’t acknowledge him when he sat down in front of him. Much like the last girl, he was trying to escape reality.
The boy was obese, taking up two of the small subway seats. Clearly, this was the reason the others were making fun of him. Emrys thought it was quite sad. People are different. If these kids gave him a chance, perhaps they would enjoy each other’s company. This boy just needed a chance to shine. Emrys would give him that.
“Don’t let them get you down, son. They don’t realize just how special you are.”
Again, he didn’t even acknowledge the man in front of him. An M & M bounced off the back of his head.
“Please, tell me your name. I want to officially meet the person that’s going to save my life.”
He looked up at Emrys. “Save your life?”
“Yes. I have faith in you, but you need to have faith in yourself,” Emrys said before a fit of coughing. He pulled his hand away and saw blood on his palm.
I’m running out of time.
“My name is Luke. I don’t understand how I can save your life. It looks like you need a doctor.”
Emrys smiled and brought up his cane, almost dropping it. His fingers didn’t seem to listen to what he wanted them to do. Regardless, the globe did its thing and Luke was hooked.
“I don’t need a doctor, Young Luke. There’s no hospital in the world that could help me. But you, you can help me. You just need to listen to my story. Hopefully, I can finish it.”
Pound
An Extreme Horror Tale
of
Sex, Blood, & Fast Food
Chapter One
“Honey? Hell-ooooo? Terry, are you home?” Trish called out before walking into her house. She listened. When she heard nothing but silence and birds chirping, she looked over her shoulder at Grant. “Coast is clear, lover boy.”
Grant closed the door behind him and within seconds, Trish was on him, their bodies and mouths intertwined. Flesh and fabric fought in a war of friction as hands blindly groped and grabbed at anything gratifying. They crashed onto the leather couch, Trish on top. Grant’s hands held firmly onto her ass, pressing the swell of his crotch against her. His erection strained against his slacks and had been ever since they left the office. He reached down, trying to free it, but Trish knocked his hand away and sat up, straddling him, showing him who was in charge.
“Not so fast,” she said, slyly. “My husband has a very important meeting out of town and he said he was go
ing to be home very late tomorrow. We’ve got plenty of time. Let’s slow down and enjoy it.”
She got off him. He went to stand up as well, but she playfully pushed him back down. “You stay here. I’m going to get us some champagne to celebrate a long day of work and what will be a long night of play.”
As she walked away, she unbuttoned her silk blouse and threw it back at him. Then, she slowly unzipped the back of her black skirt and let it drop to her ankles. She let him admire the back of her perfectly toned and tanned body. She had purchased this outfit just for him: black nylon stockings, attached to a lace garter belt with matching bra and thong, that complimented her dark, curly hair. She smiled seductively over her shoulder and closed the door to the kitchen.