Freezer: The Complete Horror Series

by J. Joseph Wright

  Brent got all weird. “What? Gladys?”

  “Yeah, Gladys,” I repeated. “Gramma dragged her out of the trunk of her car,” I trembled, choking up and almost puking. I would have puked if my stomach wasn’t so tied up in knots. “I saw her…she had-had her eyes gouged out by a pair of cutting shears.”

  “Stop it!” Brent demanded. He glared at me like he all of the sudden wanted to kick my ass. He was bigger than me, so I should’ve stopped. I didn’t.

  “She was dead, I swear, and Gramma’s probably right now chopping her into little pieces and stuffing her into Ziploc freezer bags.”

  “Knock it off, Eddy!”

  “Seriously,” I ignored him. “Gladys is probably nothing but a bloody pile of…”

  “STOP IT!” Brent got my attention with that one. He backed me into a corner. “You just stop right there, dude. I’ve known Gladys all my life. She’s like a gramma to me. And your gramma…I know her, too. I know her a lot better’n you do,” he shook his head, his fourteen earrings flopping. “I’m starting to wish you’d never come back here. All this bad shit didn’t start happening until you showed up.”

  He stepped back and turned his shoulders, a clear gesture he wanted me to leave. I obliged, nodded to a frowning Shannon, and made my exit. It was late, but I had no intention on going back to Gramma’s house. Then I remembered the giant willow in her back yard, and the treehouse me and Brent built long ago. After years of neglect, it had been reduced to a few splintered, cracked boards. Still, it was a place to crash, and I needed sleep.

  The next morning, after I woke up all stiff and sore, I heard what sounded like someone in trouble inside Gramma’s house. Against all instincts of self-preservation, I jumped out of the weeping willow, ran up the back steps, and burst into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Edward,” Gramma stood by her stove and fetched the steaming teakettle off one of the burners. “How was sleeping in that old fort? You reliving some memories?”

  “Uh,” I was distracted by the cheerful noises coming from the other room. “Yeah…who’s here?”

  “It’s my Wednesday bridge club brunch,” she waddled with the kettle to the small table where a silver tray of shortbread biscuits waited. “I’ve made my special tea for them this morning,” she placed the teapot on the platter and took the whole thing into the dining room. Turning and backing into the door, she smiled at me. Her eyes were blazing.

  My stomach tied up again, a deep-seated feeling of dread washed over me. One quick look at the countertop confirmed my suspicions. Behind the Earl Gray and the Sweet’N Low, right next to the honey, I saw rat poison, with a spoon still sticking out like Gramma had been dipping into sugar.

  “No!” I screamed, and on impulse ran headlong into the dining room, where at least six elderly ladies sat around my gramma’s heirloom hickory table, all in fancy hats. I recognized many of them from the hundreds of times I’d been to Sunday school. Mrs. Bueller, Mrs. Ferry, Miss Gunther—all my gramma’s old friends were there, and they were all swallowing the poison.

  “Don’t drink the tea!” I lunged at Mrs. Bueller. She shook like a leaf, her eyes getting wider and wider as I tripped on the carpet and fell, hitting my head sideways on the edge of the tabletop. After that I don’t remember much, only confused, concerned voices, then nothingness.

  7.

  The throbbing in my cranium had to be the worst pain I’d ever felt. I had no idea how long I’d been out. The washcloth on my forehead, which I’d assumed was wet at one point, had dried and hardened. I was lying on Gramma’s davenport in her living room, the clicking and clacking of a grandfather clock, a cuckoo clock, and several other clocks in glass cases serenading me from my slumber. Aside from that, the house was still, dark, hollow.

  I stumbled into the dining room. Empty. The table was a mess, teacups strewn all over, tea stains on the silk tablecloth, chairs upended and tossed aside in haste. My pulse raced faster with each new sign of struggle, and what I saw next was the last straw. Purses. On the piano seat. All lined up with nowhere to go. Those women were still there, but they weren’t alive. I just knew it.

  Then I heard that same unsettling noise from the basement, echoing up the vent shafts. Grinding, sawing, and a deep, low growl, speaking the most hateful and hideous things, things my mind won’t even remember to this day. At that point my legs acted on their own. Like a missile, I was outside, running down Ash Street, no care where I was going.

  “Eddy!” I stopped cold from my dead rush when I heard Brent. He caught up to me and I spun around to meet him. “Eddy!” he was even more terrorized than me. “Have you seen Shannon?”

  “What?”

  “Shannon!” his teeth chattered. He clamped his fingers on my elbows. “She’s missing. Have you seen her?”

  “Uh…no…but—”

  “But what!” he clenched so tight it felt like my forearms were going to pop off. “What did you see?”

  “I—I think my gramma killed her bridge club. I think she poisoned them!”

  Brent took two steps back and his eyes got all crazy. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Your gramma is a murderer! She’s possessed by that freezer!” he straightened and took a deep breath. “I’m getting to the bottom of this shit right now!” he started running toward Gramma’s house, then stopped, looked over his shoulder, and turned down the street. “I’m gettin’ dad’s shotgun, first!”

  “Brent! Wait!” I screamed. Then I saw Deputy Jackson’s patrol car go by and bolted after him.

  After two blocks, I caught up to the cop car at Dairy Delish, the local drive-up burger joint. Jackson was already sipping on a strawberry milkshake and leaning against the takeout window.

  “Deputy Jackson! Help! My gramma’s a killer!” I screamed so loud, both the cashier and the burger flipper stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I didn’t care. I was desperate. Jackson, on the other hand, acted cool as a cucumber.

  “Kid, you’ve been spreading that nonsense around town these last couple days, and I think it’s just terrible. Slandering your sweet, little old innocent granny like that. It’s downright inexcusable.”

  “Please, Deputy! You don’t hafta’ believe me, just come over! Come over and see for yourself! She’s in the basement right now, butchering her whole bridge club!”

  “Bridge club?” he chuckled along with the cashier. “Boy, you have some imagination.”

  “It’s not my imagination!” I snagged his arm and tugged. “C’mon! Come to Gramma’s house! You’ll see!”

  Jackson didn’t budge. “I’m not going anywhere. Now leave me be. My shake’s melting and my burger’s almost ready. Can’t you see I’m about to eat my supper?”

  I stepped back and tried not to hyperventilate, staring at Jackson, the cashier, then Jackson again. Then I got an idea.

  “Hey!” Jackson shouted as I slipped into his squad car and turned over the ignition. Before I knew it, I had it in reverse and Jackson had ditched his milkshake, chasing me and his Gooding County Sheriff Ford Mustang down the street. I drove halfway to Gramma’s before allowing him to catch up. He ripped open the door, swearing he was going to put me in cuffs and throw the book at me. Then he calmed down and decided to just take me home instead. Home to Gramma’s.

  “Oh, goodness,” Gramma sat in the rocker on her front porch, knitting a sweater. “I hope my Edward isn’t in trouble.”

  “No, Missus Davis,” Jackson walked me to the steps. “He’s just being a little mischievous, that’s all. You know, kids being kids.”

  Gramma chuckled. “Yes, yes. Of course,” she quit laughing and gave me the evil eye. “Kids being kids.”

  I nudged Jackson and he cleared his throat. “Listen, ma’am, I really hate to ask you about this, but there has been talk circulating around town, and there have been people disappearing lately,” he took off his hat and held it in front of his chest, fiddling with the brim. “What I wanted to ask was—do you know anything about the disappearances?”

  Gram
ma laughed again. “Well sure I do,” she looked both ways down the street. “The whole town knows about them.”

  “No,” Jackson said. “What I mean is…ma’am, would you mind if I came in and had a look around?”

  Gramma crooked her head, her face frigid. She looked at me, then at the deputy. Then she smiled. “Of course you can come in,” she sounded sweeter than molasses. “Where are my manners, anyway?”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Jackson started up the steps. I followed, staying close to him.

  “Oh, you know what?” said Gramma. “For heaven’s sake, I forgot. I don’t have any milk for the tea. Edward, would you run to the market and fetch me some milk?”

  I stared at Jackson, shaking my head and clenching my teeth. Jackson gave me a stern look. “Mind your grandmother, Edward.”

  Gramma shoved three dollars in my hand, her clammy, crooked fingers scraping my palm. I didn’t want to go, but then I figured Jackson could handle himself, and I’d be able to run to the market and back pretty fast. That’s what I did. Only, on the way back to Gramma’s, I thought seriously about just running away, heading to the highway and hitching a ride to the nearest Greyhound station. For some stupid reason I didn’t. Instead, I called my mom again. She was pissed, and said she was on the road and couldn’t talk. That made me feel better. She was on her way.

  8.

  Back at Gramma’s, when I walked up the steps to the front porch, I knew something was wrong. The cop car was still there, but I neither saw nor did I hear any signs of Deputy Jackson. The front door sat ajar just a little, and when I stepped inside, I felt a chill. A deathly chill.

  “Deputy Jackson?” I called out to the chattering of a dozen clocks. I walked down the hallway, following a sudden, mouthwatering scent. “Gramma?”

  “In here, Edward, dear!”

  I followed the scrumptious smell into the kitchen, where Gramma, with her back turned, was pounding on what looked like pork with a giant meat tenderizer. Thwack! went the spiked metal club, bigger than her head. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

  “Sit down, Edward,” she turned. “You look too skinny. It’s my job as a grandmother to fatten you up, and come hell or high water, that’s what I’m gonna do, so sit. Have some of my famous ham chowder. That’ll plump you up.”

  She plopped a bowl of creamy stew on the table. “Sit,” then she turned around again. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

  Every alarm bell in the world was ringing inside my head. How could I even consider eating that stuff? It was probably poisoned. Or worse. But I hadn’t eaten all day, and my guts threatened to turn inside out. And that chowder smelled awesome. Then Gramma got her own bowl and sat at the table and started to eat. Screw it, I thought. I was starving.

  The chowder tasted even better than it smelled. I gobbled down spoonful after spoonful while Gramma watched proudly. When I was almost done, she asked, “Do you like Deputy Jackson?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess. He’s pretty nice.”

  “No,” half of her mouth curled upward in a partial grin. “That’s not what I meant,” her eyes drifted to my bowl of chowder. “I meant, do you like Deputy Jackson?”

  I had to swallow hard to keep the contents of my stomach down. With my spoon, I felt something solid. I scooped it out, letting a chunk of potato fall away, leaving only the fleshy remains of a…a finger!

  My gag reflex took over and I hurled chunks right into the bowl. At the same time, I jumped from my seat and backed into the dining room as Gramma came at me. I stumbled against the table, then tripped on a chair, but I got the hell outta there, sprinting to the only place I knew to go—Brent’s.

  I ran recklessly into Brent’s house, flying through the unlocked front door, going from room to room screaming his name. Nobody was home. From the first floor to the second, even up in Brent’s attic bungalow—nothing. Just cold, dead silence. Feeling claustrophobic all of the sudden, I got back out to the street, and thought about running to the market or the hair parlor or the Dairy Delish, anywhere with people. Then I saw Brent, opening the old slat door to Gramma’s basement, and slipping inside.

  “Hey, Cousin Eddy!” Tom Eubanks came out of nowhere. His football hit me in the gut pretty hard. “You wanna scrimmage with us? We’re havin’ a barnburner this afternoon!”

  I just looked at him, shaking like a leaf. “What? No, man. I don’t wanna play.”

  “C’mon, dude! It’ll be fun. We need one more guy—c’mon!”

  I grabbed his NASCAR t-shirt and shook him. “Tom, listen to me. Get outta here. Get away from my gramma’s house, and don’t come back!”

  “Dude,” he looked me up and down. “You’re buggin’!” he bent and picked up his ball, keeping his sights on me the whole time. Then he beat feet down the street, which is what I should have done, but I had to help Brent.

  Gramma’s basement sat mostly underground, so, naturally, when I opened the door, all I saw were spider webs and a dark, musty hole. It was like entering a dungeon, all of the sudden the bright, sunny summer afternoon consumed by a dark, dank midnight. I heard water dripping, and smelled the dampness and the dust and the old, moldy cardboard boxes full of family treasures. I also smelled something else. Coppery and sweet—the smell of death.

  A gentle whirring sound started up after a click and a clack, bringing my attention to the dark corner where the square, waist-high freezer sat, looking at me like I was to be the next victim. Then the whirring gave way to a bump and a knock. Then more knocking, thumping, thrashing—harder and louder until the thing started to rock as if someone was inside. Right away I thought Brent had been trapped in there, that Gramma had shoved him in and locked it. I rushed over and tugged at the lid. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Brent!” I screamed. The freezer shook even harder. “Brent, I’ll get you out! Hold on!” I tugged with all my strength, fighting for my friend’s life. The lid jerked open an inch, then another. Finally I forced it all the way, and instantly had to fight for my own life when a hand, attached to nothing more than a flap of bloody tendon, snatched my jacket.

  I tried to get it off me, but it had some kind of power, and it pulled me down. There I saw the most frightening thing I could ever imagine. The freezer, on the inside, didn’t have a bottom. It just went on and on and on. And lining the sides were all these different body parts—arms, legs, hands, fingers and toes—snapping like crabs, snatching at me, catching my collar and my waistband. It looked like the inside of a giant snake, with ribs made of human extremities, surging and inhaling and sucking me in with this massive gravitational pull.

  I clamped the edge of the freezer as the detached hands forced my face closer and closer. I smelled the stench of a thousand corpses, rotting for a thousand years, heard the anguished cries of tormented souls moaning, begging, starving. That’s the feeling I got—the thing, the monstrous chasm wanted food. That revelation filled me with a surge of fear, which fueled a superhuman feat of strength, and allowed me to push away from the freezer. I jumped so hard backward, my momentum sent me flat on my ass.

  Looking to my left, I saw two white slip-on loafers and my heart stopped. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Gramma stood over me, blood on her flowered apron, and adoration on her face. I’ll never forget how sweet and innocent she acted at that moment, holding a meat tenderizer that clearly had some kind of soft tissue stuck to it. She tilted her head and sighed.

  “You’re not mad at Gramma, are you, Edward?”

  “Uh…uh,” I had no idea what to say. She had a sharp, blunt instrument inches from my skull.

  “Because, honestly, it’s not Gramma’s fault,” as she spoke, the freezer vibrated like a badly balanced washing machine on spin cycle. She pointed at it with a bent, swollen finger. “It’s that…that thing,” her voice became a little less sugary, a little more forceful. “You see, it’s not a freezer. I know, I know. It looks like one, and I thought it was one, too, but it’s not. It’s the mouth of hell. And hell’s hungry. It wants flesh…
human flesh. It needs to eat. It must be fed,” she wielded the pointed club over her head, “And I must feed it!”

  I rolled and popped to my feet. Screaming, I ran behind the stairwell to the gloomiest part of the basement. I pushed through something soft hanging from the rafters. Then something else, soft and squishy and wet. I fought for breath when my eyes adjusted to the lack of light and I saw what it was—the torso of what used to be Mrs. Bueller. Then I ran into Mrs. Ferry, another armless stump, her jaw wide and her tongue protruding. Then I noticed the gauntlet of dangling bodies in front of me in the dusty dimness, and I wanted to run the other way. I couldn’t. Gramma was right behind me. So I pushed on, swinging the slabs like beef on hooks. I saw what was left of Deputy Jackson, knitting needles stabbed into his throat. There was Gladys, the haircutting sheers still jabbed in her eye sockets.