Shock Totem: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted 2011

by Jennifer Pelland

  Bethany whimpered.

  He took out the knife and pressed it gently against her breastbone. The cutting edge drew blood, and the girl was thrown into another lashing spasm. Dragging the knife downward, he opened a tiny mouth in her flesh. With every breath, with every thrash, the mouth opened, spitting her life’s fluids. It dribbled over her ribs, pooling on the flannel sheets.

  “Quiet now,” Dorian whispered. “It hurts more if you fight it.”

  He went to work, cutting off her clothes and opening tiny mouths all over her body, allowing them to air out the darkness within. Unlike most of his subjects, Bethany’s struggles increased. She became harder to hold still. Her muffled screams pierced his eardrums. I must have hit the mother lode, he thought, and couldn’t help but smile.

  He labored for more than an hour, until his beard, suit, and the entire surface of the bed was soaked with the child’s blood. She finally stopped fighting. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, blinking only occasionally. Satisfied, Dorian opened his bag. From it he removed a small, steel bone-saw. He needed it to cut through her ribcage and access the organs beneath.

  “The hard part is over,” he whispered into her ear. Bethany’s sweat-coated hair smelled salty and sour, making him sneeze.

  He placed the saw on the bed beside her, lifted his knife, and drove it into her stomach. It punched through her skin, and he slowly moved it upward, opening a much bigger mouth to match the tiny ones covering her. Her back arched and a pitiful moan echoed in her throat. Her intestines glistened in the moonlight, writhing as she did, like a pile of worms. More blood poured out as he worked. He always misjudged how much of it the human body held. He picked up the saw and got ready to cut in, to fill his sack with the source of little Bethany’s evil.

  Light suddenly filled his world. It emanated from behind him. In a moment of confusion he paused and dropped the saw. Fingers of cold steel wrapped around his shoulders before he could turn around, yanking him off the bed. He careened through the air and smacked into the wall. His head bounced off the plaster, cracking it. Blood—Bethany’s blood—leapt from his clothes in a mist upon impact. Stars danced in his vision while the urge to vomit rose in his gut.

  He craned his neck. Two figures stood above him, staring down with hatred in their eyes. Off to the side, standing in the doorway, was yet another, albeit smaller profile.

  Dorian’s eyes widened as his vision came into focus. It was Grace who stood in the doorway, looking pale and wearing a scarf, her dark hair pulled back, her eyes squinting. She held a phone in her hand, waving it at him, taunting him.

  “What the hell…” whispered Dorian.

  Paul Baker reached down and grabbed Dorian by the furry lapel. The guy was so strong, lifting him to his feet with ease. His fists were large and meaty, his jaw firm. Spit flew from his lips as he bared his teeth. He ripped off Dorian’s fake beard with one tug.

  “What were you doing to my daughter, you sick fuck?”

  Dorian didn’t respond. He wished he had his knife.

  Paul tossed him aside as if he weighed nothing. He fell again, once more smacked the back of his skull, and yelped. The pain was so great that when he tried to think of how to get out of this mess, he drew a complete blank.

  Margaret Baker joined her husband. They hovered over Dorian, their facial muscles twitching. The wife stepped forward and got on one knee before him. She shook her head.

  “They won’t leave us alone,” she said.

  “Of course, they can’t,” replied Paul.

  “But we’ve been trying.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  Dorian’s eyes danced back and forth, following the chatting couple. He watched Grace sneak up, moving like a jungle cat. Upon seeing her again, his brain froze. He’d sliced her from ear to ear. There was no way she could be alive.

  “He needs to pay,” the girl hissed. She removed the scarf from around her neck, revealing a festering, open sore that belched blood and pus when she tilted her chin back.

  “Oh, he will,” replied her father.

  The three of them formed a line, and Dorian watched in horror as the air around them shuddered. Their faces twisted, gyrating like putty. Their brows crumpled and their noses scrunched, becoming almost batlike. Teeth exploded from their mouths, rows of razor-sharp tusks that jutted from now-ruined lips. Their eyes became yellow, glowing in the darkness. They opened their jaws wider than humanly possible, and from their maws slithered long, snake-like black tongues.

  “Yes,” said the creature who had once been Paul. “For centuries we have tried to be good, have tried to behave. But people like you keep dragging us back in. Tell me, do you like what you’ve unleashed?”

  Dorian screamed, and the three monsters charged.

  Pain filled him as jagged teeth pierced through his thick Santa suit and his flesh. Chunks were ripped out of him, and his blood poured onto the carpet. He tried to yell out for help, but more teeth punched into his jugular, severing it from his neck. He gurgled and choked on his own life’s essence. It flowed from his nose, his mouth, from every gaping wound.

  “Wait,” a voice stated.

  Paul looked normal again, though his lips were frayed. The man stood up and backed away from the frenzy. He considered Dorian with a cockeyed glance and then leaned over the bed. Dorian watched as he tore the binds from Bethany’s wrists and ankles. He didn’t have to remove the tape from her mouth, however. The girl had grown tusks, just like the rest of her family, ripping through the tape. She clicked her oversized teeth together and crept across the bed. The remnants of the tape flapped on either side of her mouth. The cavernous hole in her stomach opened and closed along with her jaws. She held in her intestines with one hand.

  Paul grabbed the knife off the bed and tossed it to his wife. Margaret held it in front of Dorian’s eyes. His vision was going hazy on him as he bled out, but the fear was still very, very real.

  “One good turn deserves another,” the mother said, the corners of her tattered lips curling in a smile.

  She plunged the knife into Dorian’s stomach, echoing the wound he’d given her daughter. Then the family stepped aside, allowing little Bethany to enter the fray. Her glowing yellow eyes glared at him, her massive teeth clacked together, her long tongue slithered in and out.

  Bethany sank her face into the gash her mother had opened up. Her head thrashed like a shark, ripping at his entrails, puncturing his kidney, severing his spine. Blood cascaded around her.

  “Just take enough to heal yourself,” said Paul as Dorian’s world went black. “We still need something to decorate the tree with, after all.”

  —//—

  Robert J. Duperre, who lives in Connecticut with his wife, the artist Jessica Torrant, his three wonderful children, and an insatiable one-eyed yellow lab named Leo, is the founder of TRO Publishing. As an author, he penned the post-apocalyptic series The Rift, of which the first two books, The Fall and Dead of Winter, are now available. The third book in the series, Death Springs Eternal, is due out this January. He has also written the standalone novel Silas, the story of a man and his dog as they travel across hellish dimensions, and many of his short stories can be found in the anthology The Gate: 13 Dark and Odd Tales. He is also editing the second Gate book, which will include stories by ten established and up-and-coming authors, due to be released in February 2012. In his free time away from writing, Robert reviews books and (occasionally) films for both Shock Totem and his blog, www.journalofalways.blogspot.com.

  To learn more about Robert and his creations and quirks, visit www.theriftonline.com.

  What is your best, funniest, or darkest holiday-season memory?

  The year was 1969. My mother had gone to bed early, leaving a friend and I to handle decorating the tree—and we were profoundly stoned. For what it's worth, I wrote a poem about it.

  CHRISTMAS DAY, 1969

  Finally Christmas was all right

  and I think it was because of the tree
<
br />   which was all plastic needles

  and coiled wire limbs with

  just the very tips painted different colors

  so you knew where to stick them

  and it was something on the whole

  with Band-Aids dangling from white threads

  and a bottle of downs potato chips chesspawns

  a chew-stick and hash pipe all hanging from back loops and red

  connecting tree to

  watermelon rind cookie

  decongestant toothbrush

  fork and Day-Glo fangs

  pantyhose clothespins Nytol

  and in the center

  up top

  to the left of one ugly duckling dangling limb misplaced

  (electric blue tip notwithstanding)

  a photo of me in beard and glasses

  looking up and tired but up

  telling somebody or other I wasn't having any

  my mother gasped and said what

  and the rest was pure joy.

  —Jack Ketchum

  www.jackketchum.net

  What is your best, funniest, or darkest holiday-season memory?

  IRONY IS A CRUEL MISTRESS

  Bad luck has been a staple in my life. From the day I was born till this very moment as I write this holiday-inspired memory. Bad luck clings to me like a dingleberry to a bear’s ass. And this Christmas Memory is no exception.

  I was eight and already a latchkey kid. I carried a house key in my sock, which always ended up beneath my foot, nestled under its arch. Figured I’d never lose it this way.

  This Christmas, in particular, was going to be the best. I knew this because I was already given a puppy—that my mom named Missy—a few weeks prior. A Rottweiler mix. And it was my duty to walk it and clean up after it when it messed in the house or yard, which it did often.

  Seemed like I was always picking up shit.

  On a December night I took Missy outside to do her business. Like a good boy I shut the door behind me and like a good boy I had left all the lights on in the place. Without a care I plopped Missy down onto the small patch of grass that sat before the duplex I lived in. The house was split down the middle. One side the landlord, the other side, us.

  The only one home was me.

  Missy sniffed and rolled around in the grass. She wouldn’t go, and I was shivering. I wore nothing more than a T-shirt, pants, and socks. It was the kind of December that didn’t receive snow until after Christmas, the kind that gave many starry nights and continuous days of ice cold temps. Besides, I was a kid and standing mere feet from the porch and front door. Shoes and a jacket? Didn’t need them.

  As I coaxed the pup into using the yard as her toilet, something coaxed my stomach into doing the same. At first this didn’t bother me. No worries. I could hold it.

  Since Missy didn’t care to attempt to release herself, I picked her up and tried to open the front door. Locked. Crap! Again, no worries. I sat on the porch steps and took off my shoe, my sock, and emptied my sock into my hand. Out of it came two pieces of metal. My key was broken in half.

  Now, to this day I can’t explain how this happened, how a house key that was snuggled beneath my foot came out in halves. I can only surmise that the stench of an eight-year-old boy’s foot ate right through the metal like acid burning holes into iron beams.

  While putting my sock and shoe back on I panicked. My tummy tightened. My bowels churned. It was a cold night in December, and I was locked out. I stood on my porch with a puppy in my arms and crap pressing at the gates. Do I find a bush and go behind it? I wondered. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? Only problem is that, at that moment in time, I didn’t think of it. The same thing goes for knocking on anyone else’s door around me. I was shy kid then and I didn’t talk to anyone except to friends or family.

  Nonetheless, my solution to this problem was much better.

  The bulbous moon shone silver across the yard and street, casting long shadows from the bare maple trees. Christmas lights twinkled in windows. I sank back onto the porch and merged into the shadow. Even though I had left the majority of the lights on in the house I had never turned the porch light on. And right then I was glad of it.

  This eight-year-old boy went into survival mode. No, I didn’t eat Missy and use her stomach as mittens. I did something better, I released my bowels—squeezed, pushed, and out came something that felt like a rock—while standing right there on the front porch. With the stars above watching every detail.

  And I still had my pants on.

  I remember looking around, watching to see if anyone was watching me. Paranoid that someone knew what I was doing. Missy didn’t care. She chewed on my hand as I held her. Once I finished that business and I drew a sigh of relief, the second act followed, quickly.

  I peed myself.

  At first the warmth felt nice but soon after it became freezing. I put Missy down and while holding on to her leash I pulled my soaked pants and underwear away from my legs and butt. Missy began licking from the pool that surrounded my feet and I pushed her away. She returned again but I did nothing. Instead, I began shaking my right leg, trying to get it to roll down and out. After a few moments, it tumbled out. A marble in size. I then kicked it off the porch into the grass.

  But bad luck wasn’t done with me yet.

  Literally, not more than five minutes later—it seemed at the time—my mom pulled into the gravel driveway. I stayed on the porch, in the shadows.

  As she made her way up onto the porch, she said, “Whaddya doing?”

  “Locked myself out,” I said.

  “How long have you been out here?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Jesus, are you okay? You look cold.”

  “I’m…I’m fine,” I said, holding Missy against my chest for warmth.

  With her car keys still in her hand she said, “Didn’t I tell you that there was an extra key up on the porch light?”

  The porch light was next to the door. Cylindrical with a flat top. High enough for people not to see the key—including me of course.

  She pushed the door open.

  “No,” I said.

  I hurried past her, releasing Missy onto the living room floor, and rushing up the creaky stairs to my room to change into dry clothes. I buried my wet clothes into the bottom of the hamper, which turned out not to be a wise move for obvious reasons.

  A few minutes later my mom scolded Missy for pooping on the floor. Seriously.

  Two or three days later I got yelled at for not picking up Missy’s poop out in the yard. My mom gave me a sandwich baggy and pointed out the small piece in the grass by the porch...

  About the size of a marble.

  —Sheldon Higdon

  www.sheldonhigdon.com

  CHRISTMAS WISH

  by Sarah Gomes

  ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Billy was as miserable as a kid could be.

  It was approaching midnight, and he held the phone to his ear, only half-listening as Mark prattled on about the “epic party” Billy had missed.

  Like pouring salt into the wound, Mark said again, “You should have been there, man.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said, “I should have been there. But I also should have kept my mouth shut.” Arguing with his father was never a wise decision, but doing so while the man was piss-drunk was a guaranteed ass-whoopin’.

  And not only had Billy picked a fight with his drunk father, in a rare moment of defiance he had gotten in his face and shouted, “I hate you! I wish I’d left with Mom!” That had gotten him ten whacks to the backside as well as an express pass to his bedroom and the promise of a Christmas morning without a single gift.

  “Well, your father’s a dick,” Mark said, launching Billy back to the present. “You missed an awesome time. The chicks—they were hot, man. Really hot. Heather was there. She was asking about you...”

  Billy could have cried.

  “...she had this short skirt on, and when she bent ove
r you could totally see her ass. And that could have been ALL YOURS—if only you’d been there, bro.”

  Billy sighed. “Yeah, I know. My father’s work hours, you know.” He hated to lie, especially to his best friend, but revealing the truth would make everything worse. “And I always have to babysit the brat.” Which was indeed part of the problem.

  Ever since his mother disappeared two years ago, Billy had been in charge of watching his little sister when their father worked. The problem was, he worked all the time, and when he wasn’t working he was pickling his liver down at Lou’s Tavern. It was no wonder Billy’s mother had left them.

  “Yo, I gotta go,” Mark said. “My mother’s yelling at me about something. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  After he hung up, Billy knew sleep would elude him for at least a few hours. He was too wired, and the backs of his thighs throbbed painfully. His pride didn’t feel much better.

  There was nothing on TV except infomercials and lame-ass Christmas shows featuring perfect families living in houses full of love and laughter. It made him want to puke. And he sure as hell didn’t want to go on the computer because it would be full of status updates about how awesome the party had been. So he decided to read.

  From the nightstand, he snatched up the latest issue of Shock Totem, unlucky number 13. The dark tales within promised to match his mood. With a bag of Doritos and a couple cans of Mountain Dew by his bedside, he settled down, got as comfy as possible given his injuries, and started reading.

  He was about halfway through Andy Cairns’s “The Head That Tried to Strangle Itself”—which was either extremely pee-your-pants scary or Billy had drank too much Mountain Dew—when he heard the strange noise coming from the down the hall. You have got to be shitting me! he thought.