by Frazer Lee
An animal hiss erupted in his ears as he stepped into the hallway. Tom searched the gloom for the source of the din, dropping to his knees to peer under the sideboard. Wild eyes suddenly glared at him from the shadows there, along with more violent hissing. It was Fudge, the family cat. Whispering as loud as he dared, Tom told Fudge to be quiet. The animal shrank back beneath the sideboard with a final exasperated meow. The cat had almost been his undoing, but failure was not an option. He had to go and squeeze and prod at all the parcels bearing his name.
Downstairs was even chillier than his bedroom, cold seeping into the hallway through hidden nooks and crannies. Tom pulled his dressing gown tighter and snuck into the living room. It was pitch black inside, owing to Mum’s annoying habit of switching everything off and unplugging it every night, “to be on the safe side.” This often drove Dad to distraction; especially if he’d set the tellybox to record late night sports shows. An acrid metallic smell filled the room. What had they been wrapping in here? ‘Only one way to find out,’ thought Tom as he edged his way around the perimeter of the room, feeling along the cabinet, then the wall. Finally, he felt the Christmas tree as he brushed against it. Baubles clinked icily as he located the power cord and followed it, crawling across the floor to the power socket in the corner. He felt the cold metal pins in his hand and turning the plug right side up, inserted it into the wall. Something wet dripped on his hand just as he pressed the switch. Something heavy and slick slid across his head.
Tom scrabbled backwards in shock. Looking up, he saw the fairy lights twinkling. But they were red, not clear, as they had been earlier today and all last week since they’d decorated the tree. He stared, mouth agape, as he realized the lights weren’t red after all. Rather, it was what hung around them that gave them their crimson glow.
The Christmas tree was slicked with blood and covered in strands of flesh and hair. Mum’s hair, and his sister’s. He could pick out his Dad’s tattoo on a piece of bloodied skin that dangled above a bauble like a handkerchief. Drooping branches struggled beneath the weight of the innards scattered across them like red tinsel. Ruined organs steamed like butcher’s offal at the hot kiss of the lights. Eyeballs hung there like baubles. He could recognize some of the pieces – he’d seen them in the big pop-up anatomy book at school - a section of intestine here, a tangle of veins there.
Tom scrambled to his feet. Nausea hit him and he vomited stomach bile onto the living room rug. Turning fearfully around, he saw his family lying lifeless on the sofa like grotesque dolls. Their bodies had been torn apart. Flesh ravaged and ribcages exposed like the hulls of broken ships.
The room span, and Tom sank to his knees, a dry scream dying in his throat.
Then, he saw them.
Cold eyes, watching him from the dark black of the fireplace.
Watching him touching his presents.
Hair of the Dog
The city awoke. Grey clouds split open and let the first fiery licks of sunrise through. The glow found the windows of tall buildings, reflecting the city in all its frenetic, garish glory. Orange light glinted off the windscreens of the first cabs of the day as they hurtled past doorways where homeless people clung to the last threads of sleep. The cabs joined the termite lines of traffic crossing bridges, beneath which the dispossessed sat drinking the first drop of the morning - or the last one of the evening. Wage slaves formed their own complex patterns; marching like armies of ants into the buffeting winds, ready to take on another day as best they could. On the outskirts of the city, the suburbs were awake too. Children were hurried into the backs of family cars by anxious parents intent on getting their offspring to classes on time. Dogs were being walked through banks of autumn leaves in chilly parks, while cats stayed at home and chose warm places to spend the best part of the day. In one of the suburban streets, one building in particular showed no sign of activity. It was a ground floor flat, a Victorian conversion that stood in the dominating shadow of a nearby church. The flat was not dissimilar to the neighboring properties, except for the curtains still being closed. But the light always finds a way of getting in, and sure enough it found a chink in those curtains.
Simone opened her eyes, and then regretted ever doing so. The shaft of sunlight coming through the gap in the curtains almost blinded her. She clenched her eyes tightly shut and draped her arm over her face to block out the unwelcome intrusion. Something boomed inside her head, then she realized the booming was her head. Swallowing dryly, she winced at the vile acid taste in her mouth and rolled over, facing away from the light that had so cruelly woken her. The effort of merely turning over was enough to make her dizzy and she spiraled back into a fitful slumber.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. The sound was deafening, piercing Simone’s brain like a hot needle. She pulled the duvet over her head to try and block out the noise. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. It was not going to stop, and the duvet wasn’t helping. She pulled the clammy duvet cover from her face and rolled over. The sunlight had gone, thankfully subdued by dark clouds, but its light had been replaced by the angry glow of Simone’s digital alarm clock. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. The clock was bleeping and flashing at her like a red-eyed devil, seemingly unconcerned by her physical plight. She had to destroy it. Summoning what little strength she had left in her, Simone fumbled for the snooze button and overshot the mark, knocking the clock to the floor. BEEP. The dreadful noise stopped and she breathed a sigh of relief. But the smell of her own breath nauseated her. BOOM. The pounding in her head returned and she put her hand to her brow, wishing she could pop open her skull and massage the pain from her brain and eyes.
Ouch. How on earth did I get home last night? Come to think of it, where the hell was I last night? Clever me. Sometimes I get drunk. Just drunk. But sometimes I drink for my county, and well... sometimes for entire countries. Something tells me I was trying for the vodka Olympics last night. Jesus, my head hurts.
Simone’s lips felt dry and parched as she made a futile attempt to wet them with an even drier tongue.
Water. Need water.
She peered over the side of the bed through squinty eyes and saw a glass lying on the floor next to the upturned alarm clock. Bingo. Reaching down and picking up the glass with a shaky hand, Simone took a swig, thirstily. The liquid burned the back of her throat and she spat it out all over the bed.
Disgusting! Last night’s vodka? That must have been some party.
Glancing around the room in hope of finding some real water, she noticed an ashtray on the shelf across the room. She could just make out a cigarette stub in the ashtray through her bleary vision.
Oh God, no. Gave up smoking months ago. No wonder my throat is so damn sore. Tastes like a monkey took a dump in the back of my throat while I was sleeping...
She coughed and retched and rubbed her throat with trembling fingers. This was truly the worst hangover she’d ever experienced. She got up and staggered towards the door in search of water, the life-giving water. Then, a rapidly flashing light surprised her from atop a pile of clothes on the floor, accompanied by a shrill tone almost as annoying as the beeping of the alarm clock. Her mobile phone. The thing was becoming vicious, blinking and whining at her like a neglected pet as she tried to remain focused on the door and fought the urge to collapse on the floor. Holding a hand over her eyes like a vampire trying to block out the sun, she approached the phone gingerly. With a great deal of effort, she reached out her shaky hand to pick it up. She missed. She tried again, missing her target by a couple of inches. She gritted her teeth reached out her hand once more, grabbing her wrist with her other hand to steady it.
Contact.
Her thumb found the key from pure muscle memory and she waited to be connected to her voicemail. The message had been left shortly after one in the AM. The voice on the phone was slurred, drunk sounding, and there was lots of background noise - someone had called her from a bar.
“Simone, where the hell are you? Didn’t even pay for your round, you total bitch... Probably boning th
at complete stranger you seduced, you tart. Well we’re not having any damned luck...”
It was Lindy. As Simone listened to her friend’s voice trailing off, she remembered being at Lindy’s party the night before. The memory felt as distant as her primary school days. She remembered the first couple of bars, the shots and drinking games, but then it all became a bit of a blur – a lot of a blur. BOOM. The image actually hurt Simone’s brain as it flashed before her eyes.
She was kissing someone. Last night, drunk as a skunk. They laughed and tumbled against a wall. She felt the wall’s cool hardness at her back. They kissed again, passionately. Her lover was against the wall now. Her fingers were entwined in someone’s hair.
Blinking the visceral images away, she coughed again. Dry throat. The mobile phone message had mutated into discomfiting static. She terminated the call, tossed the phone back onto its cradle of discarded clothes and lurched toward the door. Her toes made contact with something solid and heavy, sending her sprawling forward. She fell onto the dressing table next to the door and startled at a sudden cacophony of music. She’d managed to fall onto her digital radio, switching it on. The music was hard, loud, and fierce. It hurt her head so much she thought she might vomit. She grabbed at the radio and tried to remember where the off switch was. CLICK. The music stopped, such a blessed relief.
I really need to find some water. I might die if I don’t.
Remembering there might be some water in the kitchen, she stepped through the door with Herculean effort.
Simone lurched over to the sink with all the grace of a B-movie zombie. She turned on the tap and marveled at it for a moment as though she had never seen such a miracle as running water before. Grabbing a glass from the drainer, she filled it to the brim with cool, clear water. Leaving the tap on she gulped down the entire glassful, then refilled it, ready to down some more.
BOOM. There was a flash of pain behind her eye and a piercing pain above her ribcage. She clutched at her chest, trying to contain a barrage of dry coughs. She turned off the tap, trying to distract her throat, but only coughed more and more. Retching violently, she coughed something up into the sink.
Simone recoiled at the sight of so much hair and blood. How could that much hair come out of my throat? she thought perversely. Yet there it was, the blood making a shocking frame of red around it; startling against the white enamel surface of the sink. Gross. She turned the tap on again and watched the blood become a crimson snake as it spiraled round and round. The clump of hair tried to follow, but became ensnared on the plughole.
Simone reached into the sink and slowly pulled the hair out of the plughole. Some strands were tangled around the spokes of the plughole and she had to pull hard. The stretching and snapping of the hair made her feel acutely nauseous. Pursing her lips, she raised the hair to eye-level and studied it, at once horrified and puzzled. She recognized the colour from her flash memory of the night before.
I was kissing a girl.
Her brain burned with the sudden sensation of movement, of a struggle. She could feel the girl’s hair wrapped around her fingers, soft and lustrous, not cold and slicked with blood and tap water as it was now. A shrill scream echoed in her memory.
Blinking away the images, Simone dropped the hair back into the sink and staggered out of the kitchen, feeling sick and confused. She’d kissed girls before of course, especially when drunk, but had never before yacked up their hair the next morning.
What the hell did I do last night?
Tumbling back into her room, her eyes alighted on the ashtray once again.
And why the hell was I smoking? Quit that months ago, or so I thought…
The incriminating cigarette stub was still there. Was that red lipstick on the tip? Simone approached the ashtray guiltily and reached for the evidence. She pulled it out of the ashtray and held it up to the shaft of light coming through the curtains.
Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmyg…
It was not a cigarette stub. It was a girl’s finger. What she had mistaken for lipstick was in fact slicks of gore where the finger had been severed at the bone. Simone gasped in horror and dropped the finger. It bounced sickly onto the rug. Trembling now, she grabbed her mobile phone from the pile of crumpled clothes. Her thumb skittered over the keys and her teeth chattered with dread as she accessed the phone’s photo gallery. Sure enough, there was a blurred phone-camera image of the girl she was kissing, smiling with a drink in her hand. Simone couldn’t remember her name.
Her hair looked lovely.
Simone rushed into the hallway and opened the front door. The girl was lying dead on the doorstep, her hair all bloody and slicked with gore. She had been mutilated, what was left of her innards unspooled around her like a frayed blanket. Simone knelt down slowly, trembling with shock. She ran her fingers through the girl’s bloody hair, tracing routes she’d enjoyed before.
Before I ate her.
Simone began to sob. Then she saw them, down the steps and along the path, watching her from the street outside her flat. A small group of shocked onlookers were looking right at her. Looking at her like she was a monster. Perhaps she was.
The distant wail of police sirens became louder. The sound pierced her ears and warped inside her brain.
Like wolves, howling.
BONUS FLASH FICTION - ebook edition only
Half/Life
I don’t want to go out, I’m afraid of what’s out there. Last week a young guy was stabbed clean through with a samurai sword. Just a block away, with a sword, I’m not kidding. What is this world coming to?
But my stomach insists. Fridge is empty and I’ve no credit until next month. All I have left is the little I’ve been holding back for an emergency, and my empty belly is sounding the klaxon loud and clear.
I pull back the blinds. The sun still blazes down on the deserted streets but now its rays nurture only blooms of violence. Never used to be this way. When I first came here the vibe was warm, welcoming. Neighbours waved to each other from their front lawns, dogs yapping and children laughing. Now everyone looks over their shoulders, quietly moving subdued children along, afraid. And who can blame them, when death is at every doorstep?
A sharp rapping jolts me from my thoughts. I duck away from the blinds, sure that the debt collector has seen me. He knows I’m here, knows I’m overdue. Oh Christ, there are two of them. I can hear them now, bickering about who gets to kick the door in.
No time. I crouch, even though they’ve seen me, and head for the back door. I hear the splintering of doorframe as I duck out onto the fire escape. Heat on my back, raised voices in my ears, as I hurtle down the metal steps and into the yard. I scramble over the wall. Terror makes my movements instinctive, fluidly feral. The men follow, but I know the layout better. Hurtling across derelict waste ground, I crash through a wild green tangle of nettle and knotweed and reach a steep bank. Glancing back, I hear the muffled barks of my pursuers on the fried air. No way out but forward go. I start scrambling down the slope to the sidings, and lose my footing.
I hit sharp gravel, hot dirt. An engine roars in the distance. Looking up, I see the shapes of the men atop the bank. I stand and face the tracks. A ruptured fox lies there, a ruined form dissected on the rail. The tracks begin to sing their dread warning. Not quick, not crafty enough. The debt collectors have begun their descent. I run.
We make eye contact, the fox and I, moments before the train hits me. His black scrying mirror eyes reflect nothing, devouring all the light as the world around me ends.
Game over. I shut down, trembling. I will have to start the whole damn thing over again. Better still, move to Newtown. They don’t have weapons there yet. It even rains sometimes.
A sharp rapping jolts me from my thoughts. Don’t want to answer; I’m afraid of what’s out there. It knows I'm overdue. I remain at my desk, heart thudding. My fear the only living thing in this half-life.
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About the author
Frazer Lee is the writ
er/director of award-winning horror movies 'On Edge' and 'Red Lines', both starring Doug Bradley (best known as Pinhead from Hellraiser). His screenplay commissions/options and script doctor engagements include works for Vanquish Alliance Entertainment, Movie Mogul Films, Cylinder Production A/S, Marloo Media and 386 Films. Also a published author, Frazer's horror fiction is published by Bloody Books, Calvin House and others. Connect with Frazer via his official website: www.frazerlee.com