Horror d'Oeuvres - Bite-Sized Tales of Terror

by Jordan Accinelli

  Steven thanked me and we continued on. Though we had been silent through the desert portion, we chatted as we hiked through the cool reprieve from the sun. Maybe Steven and Shawn had sensed something weird back down the path, too.

  As our conversation moved from silliness to jobs and girls, I must have lost focus on my footing. I was at a fork in my career and the last six months had been consumed by a relationship with a close friend, now perched on an apex with continued friendship on one side, romance on the other, and a wasteland of heartbreak in between. The trail wasn’t particularly treacherous, but I’d rolled my ankle. I twisted as I fell, my pack taking most of the impact. As I sat up to take stock of myself, I heard the guttural slurping of air moving back inside an emptying jug. A sharp rock had punctured my water jug.

  “Christ,” Steven moaned. “Now you’re both going to want my water. Why don’t you have a real container, man?” He held out his steel jug, trying to pass his comments off as a joke. I knew, though, it wasn’t. He could be pissy sometimes.

  I purposely drank more than I needed to get back at him.

  By the time we reached the oddly specific line up the trail where cottonwoods and other leafy trees gave way to pines, the water was gone. My thighs burned from climbing, my mouth felt fluffy and swollen from inhaling the dry air. I needed a short break, but I knew we needed to power on to find the spring. It was somewhere off to the right in with the pine trees. Whether we continued on to the top or called the adventure off due to our packing follies, we needed to fill up. I didn’t want to be airlifted out in a helicopter, sick from heat stroke and dehydration like the people I scoffed at when I watched the nightly news.

  Shawn kept glancing over his shoulder and dragging his pace. I wondered if he was judging the distance back to the trailhead. He probably needed a break, too.

  He trotted up to me and touched my elbow. Leaning close, he whispered, “Some dude has been following us for a long ass time. When we stopped to finish off Steven’s water, he stopped, too. I’ve been slowing down to see if he passes us, but he just slows right along with me. Stays about 800 feet back.”

  I peered back for a moment before I could make out the slow movement of a maroon ball cap behind us.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well… Keep watching him. Maybe he’s just kind of socially awkward and doesn’t want to have to pass us.”

  Shawn nodded, but didn’t seem to buy it.

  We trekked on for another half hour, my throat sore, my teeth rough and gritty. The spring should have been close.

  And then a cough from ahead of us caused me to jump. A low chuckle wafted out of the trees.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” a silvery voice said as a maroon ball cap emerged from further up the mountain. They belonged to a skinny, middle-aged guy dressed in an old t-shirt and shorts. The emblem on the cap was an old ASU Sun Devils logo, probably mid-80s.

  “How’s your hike going?” he asked.

  “Good,” I answered, clearing my phlegmy throat. I glanced back down the path to see if he was the maroon cap Shawn had pointed out. How did he get ahead of us?

  “Did you see the spring up ahead?” I asked. “I was hoping to fill up a jug.”

  “Yeah, it’s coming up. You can’t miss it,” he replied, holding eye contact with me as he passed. I tried to look away but there was something intriguing about the bright yellowy-brown of his irises, the shape of his veins, the twinkle in his pupils. Like a magpie, I stared until he turned his head away.

  We continued silently on until Shawn decided we were out of earshot.

  “Dude! What the fuck? That’s the guy that was following us.”

  “I know,” I said. “He must have taken a shortcut around some switchbacks.”

  Shawn shrugged and opened his mouth to reply, but Steven’s gleeful shout cut him off.

  “Found it!”

  Steven stood at the edge of a circular clearing with a small cairn in the center. He laughed and raced to the cairn, where he drank deeply from the water bubbling forth. Shawn followed him and splashed cupped handfuls of water on his face.

  I was confused, though. Everything I had read said the spring was difficult to find and located on the hiking trail floor. In the pictures, trees grew right next to the rocky outlet. There had been no mention of this spring and yet the cairn appeared ages old. I realized a cairn constructed a day ago and one a century older might appear the same because they are both constructed of millennia-old rock, but something about the bubbling structure felt ancient. Older than time.

  When I crossed into the clearing, a troubled tension seized my chest. It felt like walking through someone else’s home, defiling a tomb, or breaking into a sacred house of worship. The pine branches aligned themselves to cast triangular shadows on the clearing floor. The trees at the edge of the clearing had their shorn branches propped against them in pyramidal shapes. The cairn, which had seemed cylindrical from afar, had been constructed as a pyramid, three triangular sides lifting to a three-sided stone bowl.

  Steven filled his container and moved off to sit in the shade. Shawn joined him and tore the wrapper from a Clif Bar. I stared into the bright, cool water jumping from the cairn. I pushed away the feeling I was doing something inappropriate, something irrevocable and immoral, and drank.

  I saw myself – felt myself – ascending to the peak with my friends, then laughing our way back down. I smelled the aroma of our cooking lunch back in town.

  And then I was back, drinking at the cairn. Steven and Shawn still sat in the shade, munching their snack.

  “What did you see?” the hiker with the ASU cap asked from the side of the clearing opposite my friends. A cry of fright caught in my throat, stifled by a mouthful of sweet water.

  How had he come back around without being seen?

  “What?” I asked.

  He lifted his hands in a shrug. “You saw something. I want to know what.”

  “You’re crazy, man. You need to stop following us.”

  “Just answer me.”

  “The hike. Cool? I saw the hike.” I glimpsed over at Steven and Shawn. I was talking loudly enough so they should have realized someone was with us, but they lazed in their comfortable corner of the clearing.

  “Don’t look to them. This is about you,” the hiker said with gleaming eyes. “Do you have other uncertainties? Hold them in your mind and drink.”

  He could tell I wasn’t buying it.

  “Try it. What is there to lose? You have fresh water to soothe your burning throat if I’m wrong.”

  I thought of the girl at work, the one I wanted to ask out, and pulled my hands to my lips.

  I saw her, smiling. We were at a fancy restaurant by my house. I spilled my water glass and she laughed, crinkling her nose.

  My heart ached as the sight, the feelings, faded. The hiker’s eyes appeared before me and I could feel the cold spring water on my hands again. I noticed, as I studied him, the veins in his eyes fell together in threes like the shadowed floor of the clearing.

  “It worked,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “What I’m offering you isn’t free. But try again.”

  What the hell did that mean, ‘not free’? I shook the thought away and focused on my job.

  I sat at my laptop, a scrawling spreadsheet open in front of me. I had taken the data analyst job. But I was miserable. The numbers never stopped. The subtraction columns and formulas were a bleak void into which my days fell. The vision disappeared in a mist, replaced by my ringing cell phone. I couldn’t see the caller ID, but when I answered, a frantic voice replied.

  “There was an accident—” it shrilled, but the scene faded back to the clearing before the voice could say what had happened.

  “What was that?” I asked. “At the end?”

  Ballcap shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t see what the spring shows you.”

  I leaned back toward the water, stopped by the hiker�
��s strong hand.

  “This is not free.”

  “Well, I’ve got money, man. I’ve got food.”

  “Those things have no value.” He moved closer to me, the heat of his nose palpable on my own. His eyes filled my field of vision. I saw nothing but bright amber protected by a triangular red lattice of flowing blood.

  “It is a debt to be paid later,” he whispered. “Each nourishing mouthful provides knowledge but also brings you closer to eternity. Drink, if you will, but do not expect your debts to go uncollected.”

  And then he left the clearing, hiking away down the mountain.

  I drank deep. The girl from my vision had been in a car accident, fallen into a coma. She would be removed from life support without waking. But I could save her.

  I just needed more information about the crash. Then I could stop it before it happened.

  I drank, and the pieces fell into place.

  I drank, and gathered knowledge.

  I drank.

  I lifted my head from the spring. The accident happened as she left my apartment the morning after the date. I could switch the day, or drive her home. I knew how to save her.

  I smiled, but felt no joy.

  Steven, Shawn, and I completed our hike. I laughed with them, but felt no sense of accomplishment. There was no anticipation for our special meal to come at the Brazilian steakhouse. I was drained. Empty.

  As we left the trail, walking back through the desert portion inside our corral of fallen vegetation, I caught sight of Ballcap standing on a low peak. He grinned wide, a smile of true joy, and waved to me.

  I wanted to hate him, but there was nothing inside to back it up. I was a husk of a person, an automaton playing a part. I felt myself smile back at him.

  Spirit of the Party

  Crimson Clubs

  As Sara tilts back her drink, mischief sparks behind her mascaraed eyes. “Hey, all of you have heard about the Party Ghost, right?” she asks, yet somehow answers with the plucked curve of her brow.

  Everyone gave shallow nods while trying to hide their ignorance behind silent swigs from beer cups. “Isn't it a cartoon character or something?” I say, straining my brain for any hint of a Party Ghost. Didn't one of those late night shows have “Ghost” in the name?

  The muffled wall reverberates from the pulsing beat of the dance floor on the other side. It's rare for clubs to have areas this private, for the obvious reason they tend to be magnets for unsavory activity by unsavory characters. However, this club apparently needs this emergency exit hallway for fire code compliance. Although, according to all the conspicuous signage, they have such a problem with drunks running out and setting off the alarm. They'll ban anyone who sets it off. Regardless, this quieter area is the only reason Sara managed to drag me out here in the first place. She's considerate like that.

  “Seriously, Becky? A cartoon? Gawd, don't be such a child,” she pointedly admonishes. “You're a big girl now at a big adult party. You saw the kegs they brought in earlier. Those weren't filled with Sunny-D and Kool-Aid.” Matt laughs from the back of his throat and embarrassment burns onto my cheeks. Hopefully no one can see with the dim lighting. If Sara sees – or cares – she shows no indication.

  “Well, what is the Party Ghost then?”

  “Just a dumb story,” Sara says as preemptive cover. “They say the Party Ghost will only show up at awesome parties. Or, maybe I should say parties only become awesome when the Party Ghost shows up. You see, at every party, there will be an extra someone. Someone who doesn't quite belong. For the most part, this someone will look like just another face in the crowd. But there will be something ever-so-slightly off about them. Something which makes them different from you and me. Maybe it's the way they move. Maybe it's the way they talk. But they won't seem right. No one will remember having invited them, and no one will be able to tell you their name. That's because this uninvited guest… is dead. And now they're a wandering spirit drawn to the party like a moth to the flame. And when even the dead think your party is the best thing this side of the afterlife, you know the party is great. Just don't talk to this Party Ghost, kiddos. Or else…” she swirls her cup, “you might never go home.”

  “Bu-” I started.

  “C'mon,” Sara drapes an arm back over her head and across the length of Matt's shoulders, pressing herself into his broad chest, “let's get back to the dance floor, I'm dying here.” A spring in her heels, she leads Matt and our other friends out like a herd of cattle.

  Sighing, I slide down, sinking into the small corner between the wall and floor. How is it so effortless for some people? Forget this stupid Party Ghost, I'm the one who feels out of place. Alone, muttering to myself, “I wish I never came out tonight.”

  “Now that would've been a shame,” speaks a plummy voice.

  With a start I jump up to see a man emerge from the shadows. Blond waves of hair and a half-moon grin, he wears a tuxedo far too fancy for this dingy club. “C-can I help you?” I say, rather unhelpfully.

  “Not really,” he replies, shrugging. “Care for a drink?” His hand offers me a glass. Not a plastic cup, an actual martini glass.

  A strange drink from a stranger? Definitely not. Who knows what he put in it? “Uhh, honestly? I don't drink.” Which is honest enough. I certainly haven't been drinking yet, and I'm definitely not about to start with a Mystery Martini.

  “To each their own.” He casually tosses the glass made of actual glass back over his shoulder where it shatters somewhere unseen.

  Okay… this guy is… weird.

  The tell-tale glint of curiosity sparks behind his eyes. “Why are you hiding back here anyway? Shouldn't you be enjoying yourself with everyone else?”

  “I don't like parties, er- clubs I mean. Actually both, now that I think about.”

  “Oh?” Intrigue piques along his brow. “And what, pray tell, is wrong with parties?”

  Pray tell? What, did this guy escape from a Dickens novel? “Er… well, I guess it just seems so pointless, is all. I don't see what's so fun about getting plastered and dancing and sleeping around a bunch. There's more to life than… than instant gratification. Life is short, so people shouldn't waste time chasing the temporary buzz of, you know, parties and stuff. See, I understand wanting to forget about all the unpleasant things in life, like dying and all that, but it just seems like such a, as I said, waste when I could focus on the long term instead.” The words pour out with conviction, but as they reach my ears all I can hear is the sour note of doubt.

  “Perhaps,” his shoulders roll into a shrug, “but perhaps they enjoy parties not because they are wasting their lives trying to forget death, but because they wish to experience a perfect death. Allow me to posit: every moment is a moment that will die. Whenever we part with friends, that connection dies. All songs must end eventually, and when they do the music dies. Every time we blink, a portrait far more beautiful than any smear blotting on a canvas dies too,” his chest heaves and chuckles. “The French even call an orgasm: the little death, do they not? A death of desire and passion, I suppose.”

  Eyes shut, he confidently strokes his chin not unlike an all-knowing sage, smiling, altogether above the raucous shouts emanating from the dance floor. “So should it be any wonder why people crave the ecstasy of the temporary? They would rather feel the sublime touch of death in their last moment than spend their final moment simply waiting to die. And there is no other event which embraces and indeed celebrates this fundamental truth than a party. Indeed, a great party must be the greatest death of all.”

  This guy, he's not weird, he's…

  His eyes narrowly open, staring like two daggers in the dark. “So I ask you…”

  He's…

  He tilts his head in daring invitation. “Would you share this moment and…”

  He's…

  An open palm reaches out across unspoken distance. “Join me for a dance to celebrate the spirit of the party?”

  He's… a total loser. �
�Um… no thanks. I'll pass.”

  The corner of his lip curls with disappointment. “Really? This is your last chance.”

  “Yeah, no. I'm good.” Seriously, what kind of loser uses a bizarre philosophical rant as a pick-up line?

  “Hmm… just as well then.” He pulls back his sleeve, revealing a cheap plastic watch. “I probably ought to leave and get a head start on the police anyway.” With a clack of his scuffed shoes, he charges toward the emergency exit.

  Oh thank god. You're really starting to creep me ou- “Wait, what?”

  But the only reply is the piercing wail of the alarm as the tuxedo man bursts out through the emergency exit, fading into the naked night.

  Blinking, surrounded by shrill sirens, I'm left in a dazzling confusion of strobing warning lights. I wait. And I wait. Yet, nobody comes to check the door or shut off the alarm. Eventually, apprehensive steps take me back toward the dance floor. Slowly, I move to open the door. Maybe it's just the unanswered electronic screams, but the door feels empty to the touch, like the entrance to an abandoned house. Certainly seems quieter than I remember. It vibrates with the electronic bass, but there's no vibrancy or life, no percussive feet or chattering voices. As I finally swing it wide, a flash of intuition convinces me no one lies beyond and while I was distracted by the strange man in his strange, out-of-place tuxedo, everyone else simply disappeared. Vanished.

  Except I'm not that lucky.

  Skin puckered purple, eyes screaming in silent terror, torsos stacked and strewn about like crumpled twigs, gaping mouths gushing rivers of scarlet, a few twitching limbs grasping at overturned kegs, Matt's face planted in a pile of his vomited organs, Sara's cold fingers clutching the holes she tore through her own throat.

  Focus flees my vision. The moist air hardens in my lungs. Drained of all mass, my knees snap, and I collapse. I just barely brace my arm in time for the fall – when sharpness stabs deep into my palm.

  Broken shards of a wet martini glass puncture the skin.