A Haunting of Horrors, Volume 2: A Twenty-Book eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Brian Hodge

  "I'll make it right again, Jack. What we're going to have is another kind of revolution in this country. And it starts right here."

  "Let it go, man," said Martin gently. His throat was dry. He swallowed with pain. "Life's too short."

  "Yeah." Sherman jerked his pale hand to indicate a neat stack of books next to the toy soldiers. "That's why I'm ready."

  Martin sat forward, eager for an excuse to shift his weight from the punishing seat. He shielded his eyes. The titles on the nearest spines shimmered into legibility. Crime and Punishment in America. A New Handbook of Hanging. History of the Guillotine. Executions USA.

  "They'll be out in a few years," said Sherman, "if they aren't already. I know they'll find me. They always have. And when they come for me this time, I'll be waiting."

  The nearest light bulb sang with current, electrifying the air.

  Martin became aware of a feeling he had suppressed all night. It was that tingling you begin to register when you know something is terribly wrong but you don't quite know what it is yet. It was here, not only inside him but all around him, prickling his legs like pins and needles. That he could not name it made it no less real. He could ignore it no longer.

  He saw the other man as if for the first time.

  Martin flexed his legs and started out of the chair.

  The pale man was on his feet. In one quick step he was standing over Martin.

  He reached around the chair.

  Martin looked down.

  A strap dropped from under the armrest and buckled over his wrist, cinching it to the chair. First one wrist, then the other. He watched. It might have been happening to someone else.

  Sherman swayed over him, his breath sour, light coruscating through the filaments of his hair. Then he doubled over in a bowing motion. Martin heard the ringing of another buckle, another as straps closed over his ankles.

  "What…?" he began.

  "You want to know what this is, Jack? Look over there."

  The framed face of the sullen young man wavered on the wall alongside the other posters. The thick bifocals, the defiant sneer, the 'fifties haircut…

  "That," said Sherman, "is the Bantam Red Head himself. Old Dead Eye, they called him. One of the worst bastards who ever lived. He blew away eleven people before they got him. But they got him good, didn't they? June twenty-fifth, nineteen-fifty-nine, the basement of the Nebraska State Penitentiary. It was painted white. Just for him. Charlie Starkweather. You've heard the name?"

  Martin listened to Sherman's flat, expressionless voice as the blood pounded in his ears.

  "And this is what they used. That buddy of mine, he let me know when they retired it. Had it shipped out piece by piece, just for me." Sherman patted the high backrest proudly. "Charlie Starkweather's chair. The same one, by God. And now it's mine."

  Martin felt himself trapped in a nightmare from which he could not awaken.

  "Why?"

  Sherman's face split in a tortured smile. "Twenty-two hundred volts, that's why. I had to wire this room special. Still, if I don't turn off these lights, every fuse in the building will blow."

  He wagged his head with satisfaction.

  "I read everything there is to know about it. First the body turns red, then black. If you leave it on long enough. The brain cooks hard as an egg and the blood burns down to charcoal. Never fails. It never has yet, and they used it twelve times. Fast and clean, you know. It does the job right—takes care of a lot of paying back. In less than sixty seconds."

  With a casual motion Sherman turned off the first light.

  "But why?" said Martin. "Why are you doing this?"

  Sherman shuffled to the next light.

  "Who knows why anything ends up the way it does, Jack? If I'd never met you. If I'd never met Chris. If I'd never gone to work where I did. A whole lot of ifs. If you hadn't treated her like you did.”

  He switched off another lamp.

  "If you hadn't let me marry her."

  Click.

  Martin strained against the straps. The leather cut into his wrists.

  Click.

  "You might say those are the mystery parts, I guess. But I know one thing. I'm going to start living in my own house justified. And that's a fact."

  Click.

  A growing darkness spread as Sherman spoke from the shrinking, impenetrable depths of the room. Martin was nearly blind, the ghosts of the lamps burned into the backs of his eyes. He arched his body and slammed his head into the backboard. But the straps held.

  Sherman hesitated by the last lamp. His silhouette blazed in bas-relief.

  Then he reached into a fuse box by the door.

  Martin's heart was ready to burst out of his chest.

  Sherman lowered his hand. He relaxed and slumped against the white wall. His eyes twinkled out of the shadows.

  "Anyway. You get the picture. That's the way it'll happen. When it happens."

  He wheezed, his body rocking with compressed laughter.

  "See how easy it is? No matter what time of the day or night they come for me, I won't have anything to worry about. Will I, Jack?"

  He lumbered back toward Martin.

  With a flick of his fingers he released Martin's arms. As he knelt before the chair and unstrapped the legs, he raised his chalky face.

  "Well," he asked, "what did you think of my little demonstration?"

  Slowly, very slowly Martin raised himself. Though his legs would not work properly, he dragged himself to the door. He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  One by one Sherman switched the lights back on. The bulbs shivered to life with a faint high-frequency whine.

  Martin swung one foot over the threshold behind him, into the waiting blackness of the hallway.

  Sherman collapsed wearily into the big chair. It was larger than Martin had realized, made of heavy boards bolted together in a grotesque, inhuman design. The weight of it, the edges and the extreme angles gave it the appearance of a malevolent throne.

  Sherman rested easily in it. As if his body had molded itself to the rigid contours, the unyielding angles with years of practice. As if he belonged there.

  "Anyway," he said. "It was nice to see you. Jack."

  Already his voice was withdrawing, slipping away.

  "Stop by again. Anytime. Bring a friend. I don't go out much anymore. Inside, outside. What's the difference? It's all the same. Isn't it."

  He sighed, his cracking voice barely audible.

  "They should have finished me off," he added, "when they had the chance."

  On the wall, close to the door jamb, was the power box. The cover was open, a gleaming switch inside waiting to be thrown. Martin measured its proximity to his hand.

  Maybe I'd be doing him a favor, he thought. Maybe I'd be doing us all a favor. I couldn't have known that until I saw. For one shining moment I actually thought that I could forgive him and everything would be right. But now that's asking too much. How can there be forgiveness for the unforgiving? His judgment will have to come from someone stronger than myself.

  There was a movement behind him.

  “You can do it.”

  The words were whispered directly into his ear by a voice at least as detached and bloodless as Sherman's.

  "You know you can!" she hissed. "You've always hated him. Admit it! It will make you free. It will make us both free. You'll see! It will—"

  Her tone was seductive, excessively reasonable. The sound of it was almost cruel. The words were almost kind.

  Martin met her eyes.

  Her face was no more than an inch away. It glimmered there, half in darkness and half in the synthetic light, a film of excitation giving off an unnatural redolence. Her breath was hot, passionate at last. A rising pulse raced through the vein at her throat.

  It was, he decided, a face he no longer knew.

  "I—I can't do it myself. I'm not strong enough. But you! You can. You know you can. And then—"

  He lurched past
her and plunged into total darkness.

  As Martin stepped out of the cab, an enclosed boarding ramp pointed the way up to the Queen Mary’s foredecks and tiered rooms like a tunnel leading him back into the heart of a sleeping juggernaut.

  Despite the hour, the parking lot contained the cars of several hundred late visitors, scattered in irregular rows beneath the mercury vapor security lamps. Surely at least some of the cars belonged to diehard members of the reunion party.

  He mounted the ramp and headed for the escalators.

  The Windsor Room was deserted, the celebration's tattered paper decorations fluttering in the updraft of an unseen air conditioner. The foyer was still furnished with a makeshift horseshoe of card tables draped in white linen and marked by hand-drawn arrows and directions for registration. On the table labeled “J thru N,” a stack of unclaimed name badges reclined among pencils and straight pins, already gathering dust.

  A reflection of the bay outside rippled across the ornate ceiling, creating an impression that the entire deck lay submerged beneath the waters of the harbor. At the end of one of the connecting corridors an electric floor polisher whirred on through the night; the sound seemed to be coming from more than one direction at once.

  Martin walked through the hall to the damp Promenade Deck, but there was no one in sight.

  He turned up his collar and left the area.

  He searched long passageways of locked staterooms from which no sound could be heard. An occasional room service tray blocked his path, littered with half-eaten snacks or the remains of party set-ups. Once he saw a cart loaded with dirty glasses and buckets of drained champagne bottles. He hesitated by the door. There was a DO NOT DISTURB warning hung on the knob and no light or movement was detectable within, only the low drone of a fitful snoring.

  He moved on.

  As he approached the lounge at the end of the ship, he heard the cacophony of cheap disco music overlaid with raucous voices and the chiming of glasses raised in desperate celebration.

  He rounded the last corner and stood watching. Inside, men in wrinkle-proof suits and women in stiff gowns and uncomfortable shoes lifted a last round under the patient eyes of a half-dozen weary cocktail waitresses.

  He came to the carpeted entrance.

  "I'm sorry, sir," said a young woman, "but we've already had last call. The coffee shop is still open if you'd care to—"

  "Hey, Macklin!"

  "That's fine," said Martin. "It's all right. I'm looking for someone."

  "Jim Macklin!" A man with a loose tie tipped his glass from a table by the window.

  "Excuse me," Martin told the waitress. "I think I see him now."

  He dodged barstools. As he neared the window, a hand from an adjoining table clamped over his wrist.

  "Where you goin', Jer?" It was Crabbe, the baseball star. "Take a load off and pull up a chair."

  "Thanks, I…"

  "Bill, I think you've had one too many," said the woman with a beehive hairdo. "This here's Dave McClay. I'd know him anywhere."

  The man at the window table leaned close. "Aren't you Jim Macklin? I could've sworn—"

  "What are you talking about?" said a man with thinning hair. "I’d know my old friend Marston anywhere! Remember how we used to go toolin' around at night, up by the graveyard where—"

  "Hello," said Martin. "I don't mean to intrude on your party."

  A waitress appeared carrying the bar tab on a platter.

  "What are you drinkin'?" asked Crabbe.

  "Sorry, folks, the bar's closed."

  "Boo…!"

  "What time is it? It can't be that—"

  "Come up to my room," said the man at the window table. "I got a suite for the weekend. Had to fly all the way from Salt Lake City and—"

  "And boy are your arms tired!" said the woman with the beehive hairdo.

  They all had a good laugh over that.

  On the way out, Martin said to the baseball player, "Do you remember a guy in our class named Sherman?"

  "Sherman," said Crabbe. He navigated the barstools uncertainly. "Oh, sure! That jack-off? Everybody on the team hated his guts. Aw, is he here tonight?"

  "Not exactly," said Martin.

  They arrived at the elevator.

  "Let's have a real party," said one of the women. She tried to punch the call button and missed.

  "Old Sherman," said Crabbe thoughtfully. "Christ, the only party he ever got invited to was on April Fool's Day." He shook his head. "What a dork!"

  "Where?" said the woman.

  "He couldn't make it tonight," said Martin.

  The elevator opened and the others maneuvered to find places inside. Martin took Crabbe's arm and held him aside.

  "He wanted to come," said Martin, "but he's got a bit of a problem. At home. You know? I was thinking. You might be able to do something for him. Kind of lend him a hand, so to speak."

  "That creep." Crabbe spat on the floor. "I always wanted to kick that son of a bitch's ass around the corner."

  "Believe me," said Martin, "I know what you mean."

  The elevator door was closing.

  "Are you guys coming with us or not?" asked the drunken woman.

  "We'll be up later," said Martin, "to celebrate."

  "Don't start without me!" yelled Crabbe.

  He was too far gone to resist. Martin steered him toward the lobby, measuring his words.

  "It's not far," he said. "I stopped by myself a little while ago."

  They were coming up on the main exit, the ramp to the parking lot and the profound darkness outside.

  "He's just the same as he used to be," Martin was saying, "only worse. If you know what I mean."

  They stood together on the doormat and the panels slid away before them onto the waiting night.

  "Say, listen, Bill. I really think you might be able to do him a big favor. Not to mention me. And yourself. If you've got a few minutes. I can show you the way."

  A line of cabs hovered at the curb.

  "I was wondering. Do you feel like driving? Or," suggested Martin, "would it be quicker to take a cab?"

  Crabbe regained his footing and weaved forward, allowing Martin to let him continue.

  A moment later they were speeding away, red taillights disappearing in the mist, and the fog settled like rain all around where they had been, closing over the lot and the ship and the rest of the world.

  NOT FROM AROUND HERE

  ON

  (Black)

  (Sound: Clatter)

  10

  9

  8

  7

  6…

  There was a restless passage of footsteps on the other side of the wall as Joe Ivy peeled off his white gloves and leaned forward over the console—expectantly, even after so long. They actually pay me for this? Then he remembered: They don't, really. Still. It was worth it, wasn't it? All he needed to make the moment perfect was a tub of popcorn and some Junior Mints. Did they even make Junior Mints anymore?

  5

  4

  3

  2

  1…

  The old tingle started. I hope I never lose that, he thought. Then what would be the point? Without the tingle you might as well lie down and begin clawing the dirt in on top of you.

  The first frames steadied in the ground glass: the old UA logo, scratched but unbroken. Could this be the film he'd been looking for? If he could find the scene…

  The image was nostalgic, warm—and getting warmer. Too warm. Orange and puce with an overlay of magenta. He groaned.

  Well, what else could you expect? It was nearly all Eastman negative film back then, whether they called it Warner or Metro or Pathe or "blazing" or "gorgeous" or "fiery" color: dye-coupled stock, the cheapest way for the studios to go, from the mid-fifties through the sixties and seventies, even most of the way through the eighties. Prints and negatives alike guaranteed to fade before you could see a kid through grade school, and what of it? Color was color, right? That was wha
t they thought.

  The clatter of the Moviola seemed to recede as the opening measures of a waltz tilted out of the tiny speaker.

  FADE IN:

  Robert Mitchum

  in…

  The door opened behind him.

  "Joe," said Roger. Joe did not look up. "Guess what the old Jumping Bean's 'gramming for lunch? All the nachos you can stomach for nine ninety-nine! Is that radical? 'Course, if Rose Marie's coming by……What's this one?"

  Roger leaned over Joe's shoulder as the title came up.

  THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY

  "Never heard of it," said Roger.

  Joe laughed shortly. "What does that prove? You ought to—

  "How old is this flick, anyway?"

  "Here comes the copyright. You ought to check—"

  Roger squinted into the viewer. “‘M-C-M-L-V-I-X.' That really tells me a lot. Hmm, let's see…"

  "Hear that score? It's by Alex North."

  "Who?"

  "Ask Tom and Denny," Joe snapped. "They're selling a used copy of the soundtrack album. For six hundred dollars."

  Give the guy a break, Joe reminded himself. He's your friend. More than that. Without him you wouldn't be able to do any of this, and we'd all be stuck sucking the Big Tube night and day. And then you'd never find your precious scene. You'd have to give it up. Anyway. Not everybody grew up in a movie theater. Maybe he's better off, who knows?

  Joe kicked back from the machine, eased his neck muscles. "I was seventeen when I saw it. Drove my Ford Fairlane down to Long Beach, caught it on a triple bill at the old Art Theater. Remember the Art, Rog? It was on Cherry, I think, just south of—"

  "Looks older," said Roger with the authority of the casually informed. "What'd they shoot it on, infrared film?"

  "Yeah, well, I have to take what I can get. It's from another private collection. Where else? This one's seen some heat and humidity, all right. But it's the only thirty-five millimeter I can find. For Larry's Mitchum festival."

  "Don't tell me. It was Yaeger. You got this one from Yaeger, didn't you? The guy who stores his prints in the back of a Laundromat?"