The BIG Horror Pack 2

by Iain Rob Wright

  He drove home on autopilot, parking on the driveway without even realising it. When he headed inside with the pizzas, the kitchen was dark, so he went on through to the family room. He found Liz, laying back on the recliner and watching TV with a glass of red in her hand.

  “Hey, I got the pizzas. Where’s Ricky?”

  “He was upset so I put him to bed. He’s been asleep for half-an-hour. What took you so long?”

  Blake placed the two pizzas on the bar and measured himself two fingers of Scotch. He plonked down on the recliner beside Liz and sighed. “I didn’t realise I was that long. The pizzas took a while to cook, but I was quick as I could be. You hungry?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me either. They’ll keep. Cold pizza is as good as warm.”

  “I can’t believe what happened,” said Liz. “How did she get out?”

  “I think…maybe I left the door open.”

  Liz looked at him like she was about to go off, fireworks fizzing in her eyes. Instead she took a sip from her wine glass and sniffed. “Don’t tell Ricky that. He’ll never forgive you.”

  “That’s a bit extreme. I should admit what I did. He’ll understand.”

  “He’s a ten-year-old boy who just lost his dog. Lying to him is kinder.”

  Blake thought about it, but couldn’t make up his mind. He didn’t like lying to his son, but perhaps Liz was right. She usually was. “Okay,” he relented. “I’ll keep it to myself. How is he?”

  “He’ll be okay. Something all boys have to go through, I suppose. I still remember when my rabbit died as a little girl. Mum had to sit with me all night while I cried. Still makes me sad.”

  Blake stroked her arm. “I’m really sorry. I screwed up.”

  Liz didn’t say anything. She polished off what was left in her glass and headed to the bar. “You want another Scotch?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks. Haven’t made a start on this one, yet.”

  Liz poured herself another large helping of red, then shivered.

  “You cold?”

  “Yeah, it’s a bit chilly.”

  Blake nodded. “Maybe it’s time to start putting on the heating again.”

  “Maybe. I’ll get the fire going in the other room and we can watch some TV.” She picked up the pizza boxes from the bar. “I’ll go put these in the kitchen for later.”

  Blake rolled the Scotch around in his glass and smiled. “Okay. I’m just going to sit for a while. I’ll join you in a bit.”

  Liz half-bent towards him, as if she were going in for a kiss, but seemed to change her mind and just left instead.

  Blake took a sip of whisky and stared into space for a while.

  When he finally got up to leave the room, he went over to the side table and placed the picture of Bailey face down. “Goodbye, girl,” he said, before switching off the light.

  4

  Surprisingly, Blake slept well. He’d thought he would lie awake until the early hours, but instead he was gone the moment his head hit the pillow. He’d assumed Liz would do the same, but when she awoke beside him the next morning, she looked like she’d barely slept a wink. There was a pint of water on the bedside table and she downed it in one.

  “You okay?” asked Blake, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before sitting up. He felt worried, but couldn’t pinpoint what about. Sometimes he just woke up feeling bad, afraid and anxious. It was part of who he was. Sometimes a worrier worried for no reason. Sometimes, if there really was nothing at all to feel bad about, a worrier would worry about worrying.

  Liz swallowed audibly and spoke with a voice made of ash. “I’m fine. Just got a bit of a headache.”

  Blake thought about how much wine Liz had drunk last night, but didn’t bring it up. “Okay, maybe there’s some Ibuprofen in the bathroom.”

  Liz winced and rubbed at her temples. “Yeah, or maybe some Codeine.”

  “I thought I might work in the office today.” Blake made the decision as he said it. “I know it’s Sunday, but my anxiety is playing up and it might help if I get started on a new book.”

  Liz gave him a look partway between irritation and understanding. “Whatever you want. Did you take your pill last night?”

  Blake cursed. “No, I forgot! No wonder my head feels so fuzzy.”

  Every night, Blake took an SSRI to help control his Generalised Anxiety Disorder. He’d been diagnosed with it in his early twenties, which had finally made some sense of the emotional rollercoaster that had comprised his teenage years. His constant worry and flip-flopping emotions had been due to a chronically low threshold for stress. The normal parts of growing up had sent him spiralling into drinking binges and irresponsible sex—both ways to self-medicate his unhappiness. His brother, Stevie, had a similar temperament but had turned to booze instead of a doctor.

  Blake’s therapist once told him people were like buckets and stress like drops of water. Too many drops in the bucket would make it overflow, and that was when people panicked. Anxious souls like Blake had smaller buckets than people who coped with stress well.

  The fact that Blake had missed his pill explained why he’d woken feeling so worried. He would be anxious today, there was no way around it, but it would pass. There would also be a healthy dose of dizziness once the withdrawal began, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to.

  “You want to take your pill now?” asked Liz.

  “No, I’m not supposed to do that. I’ll just have it tonight. I’ll be okay. Won’t be the first time I’ve missed one. It just makes me a bit anxious and fuzzy-headed.”

  “Perhaps you’d better work, then.”

  “That’s the plan. I need to get started on something soon, anyway. It’s been a while.” It had been six months to be exact. While Blake had no current commitments — he made it a rule not to sign contracts for books he’d not yet written — he knew that writing more novels was what kept his career going. Readers wanted to fall in love with an author’s library, knowing that there would be more to come. Reader and author could be a lifelong love affair and, like a marriage, it needed tending to.

  Blake and Liz got out of bed and changed. Neither of them felt like a shower so they brushed their teeth and headed downstairs together. They found Ricky in the dining room, staring at his picture frame with hands on his hips. He was still wearing his pyjama bottoms but was bare-chested. “Where’s the photo of Bailey?” he demanded. “Who changed it?”

  Blake glanced at the picture frame in his son’s hands and saw that the photo of Bailey had been replaced with a family photo: a day out in Torquay that featured all three of them, as well as Liz’s mother, Val. Modest trips to the English Riviera suited Blake better than the lavish international vacations they’d used to take.

  “I changed it before I went to bed,” said Liz softly, moving towards Ricky.

  Ricky shrugged away from her. “I want the photo of Bailey back.”

  Liz nodded. “Okay, no problem, sweetheart. The photo is in the drawer. You can put it back if you want. I just didn’t want it to upset you. You said you didn’t want to bury Bailey here because it would upset you, so I thought…”

  Ricky ignored her. He delved into the drawer beneath the side table and snatched at the photo of Bailey. He grabbed the wooden picture frame and fiddled with the top edge. A few moments passed. Ricky went red in the face. “I can’t…get it…out!”

  “Here, give it to me,” said Blake.

  Ricky didn’t so much pass the frame to his father as shove it at him. Blake wondered if he should scold him, but decided not to. Blake tried to open up the frame and replace the picture, but couldn’t manage to pry it open. He looked at Liz and raised a curious eyebrow. “How did you change it last night?”

  “I just pulled it out the top. Give it here.” Blake passed the frame to her. “I just pulled it from behind, like…I…I can’t get at it.”

  “Give it back!” Ricky snatched the frame from his mother and raked his fingers along the edge. He was furious, chee
ks bulging as he strained.

  Blake tried to take the picture frame away from him. “Ricky, calm down.”

  “Fuck it!” Ricky dropped the frame on the ground like it had stung him.

  Liz’s eyeballs bulged in their sockets. “What did you just say?”

  Ricky had his finger in his mouth and was sucking it. He realised what he’d said and shrivelled up and backed away.

  Liz stepped towards Ricky, but Blake put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. He decided he should be the one to address what had just happened. Calmer heads prevailed.

  “Ricky, you are never to use that word, do you understand me?”

  Ricky pulled his finger from his mouth long enough to say, “You use it all the time.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do. In your books. You always use it.”

  Beneath his hand, Blake felt Liz trembling with rage. “My books are for adults,” he said. “You shouldn’t be reading them, Ricky.”

  Ricky looked at the floor. “I just wanted to know what you wrote like. You spend ages in your office sometimes, so I just wanted to know...”

  Blake frowned. “I haven’t been at work for months. I’ve been home with you and Mummy.”

  Ricky kept his eyes on the floor and shrugged. “I guess.”

  Blake sighed and Liz softened. She no longer looked like she was ready to explode. Blake noticed blood coming from Ricky’s finger. “What did you do to yourself?”

  “I cut it on the glass.”

  Blake picked the picture frame up off the carpet. There were no sharp edges or broken glass, not even from the fall it’d just taken. He ran his own fingertips along the edges and felt nothing. “Hmm, perhaps we should just throw it away.”

  Ricky stamped his feet. “No! We found it together. It’s ours and I want to keep it. I just want the picture of Bailey back in it.”

  Blake set the frame down on the side table. He studied the photograph inside and smiled. “I like the picture that’s in here now, but we can decide whether to change it or not later. We’re going out for the day.”

  Liz glanced at Blake, confused. “I thought you were working. Your anxiety?”

  “Isn’t getting any better, but perhaps some fresh air would help. We’ll go to Stratford for the day, pick up Grandma Val along the way. Two birds, one stone.”

  Ricky stopped sucking on his injured finger long enough to give a wide grin. “Yay, Grandma.”

  Liz smiled. She still looked a little grey, but better than when she’d first woken up. “You sure you don’t mind taking us all out?”

  “Of course not. I think we could all do with some fun. Go get changed, Ricky. Liz, you want to give your mum a call?”

  Liz kissed him on the cheek. “Okay, but first I’m going to put a plaster on Ricky’s finger. Come on, terror.”

  Ricky went obligingly with his mother, who only two minutes ago had looked ready to kill him. Blake found himself alone in the room, so he decided to take another look at the new photograph in the frame. Blood from Ricky’s finger had spattered the glass, covering Grandma Val’s face. Blake chuckled. “Always knew the old bat was a vampire.”

  He licked his thumb and wiped the stain away before putting the picture frame back and heading out to start the car.

  5

  The mood in the car was better than it had been at home, and by the time they picked up Grandma Val from her bungalow in Wilmcote, they were all giggling and chatting away. Ricky was telling them how he was going to go treasure hunting again to find more picture frames. He’d decided there was a set of them and that the rest were buried in the area. The idea sounded naive to Blake, but the worst that could happen was they had a bit of fun.

  The collective good mood turned south when Val heard about what’d happened to Bailey. “No…no, I don’t believe it,” she said. “That poor, sweet little dog? How did it happen? Oh, Ricky, you must be feeling awful, my love. How did she get out?”

  What annoyed Blake most was that Val absolutely detested Bailey. She hated dogs and had kept a vicious cat named Bobby for almost twenty years. It’d clawed anyone who ever came near it, other than Val, and lived like feline royalty. Blake used to wonder if Val loved that cat more than she did Liz. She’d certainly treated the thing better.

  “She got out into the road,” said Ricky sadly. “She got hit by a van.”

  Val tutted. “I’m always saying you need to get a gate, living in the wilderness right next to a busy road. Insanity.”

  Blake gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “It’s not a busy road. It hardly gets any traffic.”

  “Well, how did Bailey get run over, then? I won’t even mention how easy it is for someone to just turn up and rob you. There isn’t a single neighbour nearby that could help you.”

  “We have a security alarm. The police will come within five minutes if we need them.”

  “That’s if you can even get to the panic button by the time someone turns up and knifes you.”

  Liz was looking ill at the subject of intruders. “Mother, can you not talk like that in front of Ricky, please?”

  “He’s a man now, he should know whether or not he’s in danger. Have you told him about what happened when you lived in the city?”

  “What happened in the city?” asked Ricky.

  “Nothing,” snapped Liz. “Mother, be quiet. Bailey got run over because of plain bad luck. She didn’t suffer and we’ll miss her. End of story.”

  In the rear view mirror, Blake saw Val fold her arms and pout.

  “I found a picture frame, Grandma,” said Ricky, changing the subject and releasing the tension. He’d already told her about it once, but he was so proud of the thing that he obviously needed to tell her again.

  Val beamed. “Did you, now? A picture frame, you say? What an odd thing to find.”

  “It was buried in the ground. Me and Dad found it with the metal detector. It went Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  “Really? Been years since I seen a metal detector. Pity I wasn’t around, I could have come treasure hunting with you.”

  “I’m going to do it again soon, Grandma. You can come then.”

  Blake cut in, but he knew it would already be too late. “Ricky, your grandmother is too busy to walk around a muddy field with us in winter.”

  “I’m never too busy to spend time with my wonderful grandson. I won’t be around forever.” She grasped Ricky’s hand and looked into his eyes. “You just let me know when, sweetheart, and I’ll be there. Your dad won’t mind picking me up.”

  Blake and Liz exchanged glances, both gritting their teeth.

  When they finally reached Stratford-Upon-Avon, the October air had lost most of its chill. Blake parked on a tree-lined street beside the river. It was a stroke of fortune to find such a great spot; even Val approved.

  Everyone got out and grabbed their jackets from the boot. There was a football inside, too, which Blake gave to his son. There was a large playing field further down the river. Ricky saw himself as the next Lionel Messi, and Blake had to admit the kid was pretty good. Better than he had ever been as a kid, which in fairness, was not particularly skilful.

  “Can we get a whippy?” asked Ricky as they crossed the road towards an ice cream truck.

  Blake nodded. “Go on, then. We can all have one.”

  “Yay, me and Grandma will order. Can I have some money?”

  “Grandma and I,” corrected Val. She glanced at Blake. “Don’t you teach the boy English? I thought you were a writer?”

  “I am a writer. You may have heard of me from the New York Times or the Guardian, or maybe you might have caught me last year on Bright Morning Britain?”

  Val grunted. “No need to get a big head with me, Blake. And don’t worry about the ice creams, they’re on me.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mum,” said Liz. “We’ll get them.”

  “Why? Because you don’t think my pension will stretch far enough? Don’t you worry about me. I might not be a big
time writer, but I can afford to buy my family ice cream.” With that she stomped away, dragging Ricky behind her.

  Liz shook her head at Blake and groaned.

  Blake waved a hand. “I know, I know. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  “She’ll be a nightmare now, and since when do you act all cocky like that? It usually kills you to admit that you’re a writer. It embarrasses you.”

  He shrugged. “I missed my pill, didn’t I? My fuse is a little short today.”

  Liz surprised him by giving him a quick hug. “Well, you got your shots in for today, so play nice. I thought you brought us here to relax.”

  “I did. I won’t say anything else, I promise. She just seems like she’s out to annoy me today.”

  “You and me both, but what else is new? Like you said last night, fuck her. She’ll relax after a while and start acting human.”

  Blake nodded. They both knew that Val usually became more bearable as the day went on. It was like she tried to resist having a good time for as long as possible first.

  “So, are you going to start that new book tomorrow?” Liz asked Blake.

  “I think so. It’s been a while since I wrote a Caz Bailey mystery novel. I had an idea about a murder on a plane that needs to be solved by the time it lands.”

  Liz nudged him with an elbow. “Ooh, that sounds great. Better than that book you wrote about those vampires chatting up a bunch of schoolgirls.”

  Blake shook his head. “Yeah, the less said about Twinkle, the better.”

  The young adult book he’d written was just another reason he was done with his editors in the city. Write a novel with vampires and werewolves, they begged him. It’s what’s selling. With your name attached, it’ll make millions. With Blake’s name attached, all it had done was damage his career. For almost twelve months he was the butt of all the jokes in the literary world, and branded a ‘sell out’ by his long-time mystery fans. His brief foray into young adult fiction had been a disaster, mitigated only by the fifteen years of hard work that had preceded it.