by Jason Tucker
Uneasy Reading
4 Short Horror Stories by
Jason M. Tucker
Copyright 2011 by Jason M. Tucker
Smashwords Edition
Uneasy Reading and all the stories contained within is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, places and groups either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locations is entirely coincidental.
For more information about the author, please visit www.jasonmtucker.com.
Table of Contents
Dead Favors
Rorschach's Vampires
Worst Thing I Ever Did
God's Food (a Twisted Fairytale) based on the Brothers Grimm
Excerpt of Wetwork
About the Author
Upcoming Books
Dead Favors
1.
"I hate him," Martin said, partly to himself and partly to the road that stretched and curved ahead of him before disappearing into the green of the Adirondacks. Once he hit that line of trees he would be closer to his old hometown of Silver Point than he'd been in fifteen years. His stomach churned and the steering wheel of the stolen Accord felt suddenly slippery beneath his palms. He took a deep breath and found that he had trouble letting it out.
"He can't hurt you. Not anymore," Cassie said. "We've talked about this. You are stronger now. You are committed to doing this."
"I know," Martin said. Her touch had brought him back to reality, away from memories best left hidden and buried at least for now. He was glad she was with him now.
He exited Route 9 onto Miller's Road and rolled down the window. The rush of air was heavy with the scent of evergreen and freshly fallen leaves, two scents from his childhood that threatened to unleash a torrent of painful memories. After a moment he rolled the window back up and tried to focus on the road. He couldn’t let them cloud his mind.
Miller's Road wove through forests and fields for another half hour or so until it spit Martin and Cassie out into the small town of Silver Point. The town was just as he remembered. Shade trees lined each groomed street, children played in piles of dead leaves while smiling parents watched. Silver Lake glistened along the north side of town. Nothing much had changed in a place this small, except for the addition of a new gas station and a McDonald's. To Martin, it was like stepping out of a time machine and into a world best left forgotten.
Martin turned into the crushed gravel driveway of Cooper's Mortuary and started to get out of the car just as an elderly man wearing half-moon spectacles emerged from the large brick building. Mr. Cooper hadn’t aged well. His body appeared bent and he walked with a limp, and the thin wisps of white hair on his balding head looked as though a sharp breeze might tear them free. He looked much older than his true age.
"We're closed," the man said. He busied himself with locking the door.
"I know, Mr. Cooper. But I'm supposed to come here to pick up the keys to the White place. I'm Martin White."
Cooper looked over his shoulder and examined Martin. "Well so you are. When I sent that letter, I didn't figure you'd actually come. I figured it would be too much of an inconvenience for you."
"It really is," Martin said. No point in hiding the way he felt.
"You know you can only stay on at the house until the burial day after tomorrow, right? After that the house becomes town property just like your daddy specified in his will."
"I'm not even staying for the funeral. I'm just here to kill demons and free some skeletons," Martin said. He felt Cassie's hand on his back this time. It helped him to stay calm.
"You know a lot of people around here don't like you much," Cooper said. Spittle leaked from the crusted corners of his mouth. "You abandoned your daddy. You're a thankless son of a bitch and the sooner you're gone, the better."
"I don't really like the town much either," Martin said. "All I want are the keys to the house so I can take care of some things. I'll only be here a few days. Then I'll be out of what's left of your hair for good." He heard Cassie giggle.
"You are a rotten piece of work, ain't you?" Cooper said. "There ain't much difference between you and that tramp sister of yours."
Martin grabbed the old man by the front of his shirt and pushed him roughly against the door. He leaned close to Cooper and whispered, "Don't ever talk about my sister."
The old man's eyes didn't go wide with fear as Martin had anticipated. Instead, Cooper grinned, revealing a mouth without teeth. "You are a lot like your daddy. Except that he was a fine man, and you ain't amounted to much from what I heard."
"Get the keys," Martin said, fighting the urge to smash the old man's head against the bricks. He held onto Cooper for another few seconds, weighing the merits of doing so. He finally released Cooper so the old man could retrieve the keys.
2.
It was near dark when Martin and Cassie turned onto the long dirt driveway that led to the old homestead. The once-white paint on the two-story house was peeling and yellowing. The grey weathered steps that led up to the porch had cracks in them from the beatings of fierce upstate winters. The little work shed on the other side of the driveway looked ready to fall apart. Long, thick grass covered the front yard: Martin suspected that no one had cut it in years.
Everything about the property looked beaten and tired, as though it had endured the same abuse at its inhabitants.
"Looks bad, doesn't it?" Martin asked.
"Was it ever good?"
"I'm sorry about Mr. Cooper," he said. He leaned against the side of the car and stared up at the house. He didn't want to go inside; not yet. "He shouldn't have said what he did. You were standing right there."
"We've gone over this before," Cassie said. "He can't see me. You're the only one who can."
"He still shouldn't have said it."
"You have to be able to control yourself if we're going to do this," she said. "You have to listen to me."
"I know. It's just… he was one of them."
Wind whipped across the field, bending the grasses almost flat. Neither Cassie's long blond hair nor her blue dress moved in the breeze. She still didn't look a day over sixteen. She smiled at him. "Don't worry, little brother. Tonight's the night we start to make it all better."
"I'm tired. It feels like I've been up for days."
"I can let you sleep for a little while," Cassie said. "But we have a lot to do."
3.
Martin dreamed of dark times.
He was twelve again, cowering in his cramped room beneath the attic. He lay in his bed under a quilt Cassie had made, clutching his stuffed tiger and trying to shut out the sounds that came from downstairs. His father's voice boomed and seemed to shake the walls. He was demanding that Cassie come out of her room.
Two loud slaps. Martin's mother began to cry and then she fell suddenly silent. Martin knew what that was like. He knew what it was to feel pain and not be able to show that it hurt. If he ever did, his father would just dish out more of it.
The sound of two men's laughter and talking came from somewhere outside his open window. Martin knew their voices. Why didn't they try to help his mother? He wanted to go and tell his father to leave, but he was too small, too frightened.
Then he heard Cassie's voice above the commotion. She was yelling at Dad. She was always so much braver. Maybe she would be able to make him stop.
"Not again, you bastard!"
"You do what I fucking tell you to do. You are my child," he said.
"That's right, you sick fuck. I am your child," Cassie said.
The voices of the men outside grew more agitated. Maybe they would do something now. Marti
n hoped they would.
His sister screamed.
The porch door opened and slammed shut. Cassie was outside with Dad now.
The men outside began to whoop, holler and laugh, and beneath their sounds were the cries of his sister.
4.
Bertram Vick's oversized body seemed to ooze flesh across his tattered leather recliner, which squeaked and groaned at his slightest movement. He put his swollen feet up and clicked on the television, turning it up so he could hear it over the sound of the rain pinging on his tin roof.
He began flipping through channels until he came to a rerun of Gilligan's Island. He'd always liked that show. Not the humor, of course. That was just appalling. He liked Ginger. He liked Maryann, too. Hell, if he were stuck on that island he figured he might as well diddle Mrs. Howell while he was at it.
They probably wouldn't like it, but that didn't matter to him. He'd never much cared whether someone wanted it or not. He was Bertram goddamn Vick. He got what he wanted, like it or not.
Bertram shoved a handful of greasy chips into his mouth from the half-eaten bag that rested on his gut. He burped and felt a bit of bile rise. Too many damned chips. He took a swig of soda to push the vomit down, but it didn't help. He sighed and pulled his bulk out of the recliner. The Pepto-Bismol in the kitchen would do the trick – even if it did taste like a spoonful of hell.
After a second swig of the pink stuff, the sound from the television in the other room abruptly disappeared. He set the bottle down and wiped his mouth with a meaty forearm. Through the kitchen window, he could see that the porch light was still shining, so the power wasn't out. Maybe the television finally gave up the ghost. It was an old tube model, but it had served him well for nearly ten years. He sighed. A new television wasn't in the budget of a fifty-five-year-old deputy sheriff. A couple of good smacks might get it to working again.
When he returned to the living room, replacing the television was suddenly the last thing on his mind.
A masked man dripping rainwater onto the scratched and scuffed hardwood floor stood in the center of the room. Bertram reached instinctively to where his holster should be and then realized he was in his underwear.
"Looking for your gun belt?" the man asked.
"What do you want?" Bertram asked. He couldn't make out any of the man's features beneath the balaclava he wore. If this was someone in the department's idea of a joke, Bertram didn't find it funny.
"I want you, Deputy Vick. I took the liberty of removing this from your gun belt for you." The man held up Bertram's service revolver. "Kind of old-fashioned, isn't it? I figured a big man like you would want something with a little more stopping power than a .38."
Bertram didn't recognize the man's voice, yet the intruder knew his name. Silver Point was a little town and when Vick found out who had the balls to break into his house and pull this crap, there would be a whole lot of hell to dish onto someone. Provided the man holding the gun didn't shoot him first.
"I don't have money if that's what you're after," Bertram said. He started to take mental notes on the intruder. He wasn't overly tall – less than Bertram's six feet by about three or four inches. He wore a sweater. Not overly muscled, but compact – and probably stronger than his size would indicate. He was probably insane too, and Bertram knew that made even the little ones fight like cornered dogs. Bertram figured he could probably take the guy.
Of course, there was the matter of the man having his revolver, and that complicated things.
"You are not a nice man," the intruder said.
Something about the voice seemed familiar to Bertram, but he couldn’t place it yet. It flitted just outside of where his brain could grasp.
"You come here to scold me? You don't know me, son," Bertram said.
"I do know you," the man said. "I know the things you've done. Now I can fix those things."
"Who are you?"
"You were friends with my father. You knew my sister too."
5.
Kidnapping a three-hundred plus pound man was hard work, and getting Deputy Vick to cooperate wasn't as simple as Martin had hoped. He tried to make Bertram put on his own handcuffs – which was no easy feat since the man's width wouldn't allow him to place his hands behind his back. Martin had to settle for the cuffs in front. Then he had to knock Bertram unconscious once he got him into the car. It took three strikes with the butt of the revolver. On the third blow, Martin heard something crack, and he thought it was Bertram's skull. It wouldn't do to have him dead before he got him to the house. Fortunately, the revolver's wooden handle had snapped: not Bertram's head.
Once he got home, Cassie started giving him instructions on the best way to haul the unconscious man's body from the car… as if she'd done it a thousand times. Martin listened, although he thought it would’ve been a lot easier if she'd been able to help. She was dead, so he couldn't gripe too much.
"Take him to the shed," Cassie said. "That's where it happened. That's where they did it." She leaned down to get a better look at the cop. Martin noted that the rain didn't touch her at all. It didn't pass through her as he assumed it would. It seemed to avoid her somehow, as though it couldn’t or didn’t want to be near her.
"I know," Martin said. He slipped in the mud twice as he dragged Bertram's unconscious form through the rain. "That's where I'm trying to go."
It took some time, but he was able to get Bertram into the old shack and tied up properly. When he was finished, he leaned against the door before stepping back out into the rain.
"You did well," she said. "The next one will be easier."
"Yeah, that's why I chose the big one first. I figure that the other one isn't going to be much trouble."
Bertram groaned from the corner. He was waking up.
"The hell… where is this?"
"This is your grave," Martin said. "Well, actually, that's a lie. I dug your grave before it started raining. I suppose this is just the place you're going to die. I'm surprised you don't recognize it."
"Who were you talking with?" Bertram asked.
"Not yet," Cassie whispered to Martin.
"I was speaking with Jiminy Cricket," Martin said.
"You're fucking crazy," Bertram said.
"Sure," Martin said. What's so crazy about taking instructions from your sister's ghost? It wasn't as if he were the Son of Sam listening to a dog. At least the voices in Martin's head came from a person, even if she was long dead. It all seemed nice and normal now.
"People are going to be looking for me," Bertram said.
From the sound in the man's voice, Martin knew that was a lie. No one cared for Bertram and no one would miss the deputy until his next shift, which wouldn't be for another two days according to the work schedule Martin found pinned to a corkboard in Bertram's kitchen. By then Bertram would be in the ground.
6.
Dead Cassie had come calling on Martin three days earlier, and as strange as it was to see his dead sister, he couldn’t say that he was entirely shocked.
He'd just gotten off work and returned home to his empty apartment, where he was considering the pros and cons of cereal or microwave lasagna for dinner. She had been on his mind. She was always on his mind. Cassie was more than a sister; she was his protector and the one who always believed in him. She never shunned him because he was younger or because of his tendencies. And then she had vanished. Everyone said she must've run away. Martin knew better.
Something horrible had happened to her. His father was part of it no doubt, but no one would believe the words of a child over one of the town's good ole boys. His mother didn't say anything. She died a year later from an overdose, leaving Martin alone with his father. Martin could only take it for a few years before he, too, did what everyone claimed his sister had done. He left. He tried to make his way in the world as best he could. It was hard, but he was free and he was never going to go back.
He sat at his kitchen table, a bowl of Fruity Pebbles sitting before him,
when the room got cold and his sister showed up. She sat across from him, smiling and looking just like he remembered. He was sure he'd gone insane, and that wasn't an entirely uncomfortable thought.
"Hey, little brother," she said. "It took me a while to get back and find you."
Martin chewed a mouthful of cereal slowly, wondering if this was the onset of a brain tumor or if there was a gas leak in the house causing him to hallucinate. He was trying to remember if gas even caused hallucinations when his sister spoke again.
"Dad's dead. He died a couple of nights ago," she said. "You'll be receiving a letter informing you."
"How do you know that?"
"I'm dead," she said. "I know all sorts of things."
That made about as much sense as anything. "You came here to tell me that?"
"I came here to ask for your help," she said.
"What kind of help?"
"I need you to help me make things right. Since I'm dead, I can't really do much to the people who made me that way."
Martin set his spoon back into the bowl. Fruity Pebbles, tasty as they might be, suddenly didn't seem very appealing. "What do you need me to do?"
"I need you to kill two men for me."
"Oh," Martin said. He sighed. Kill two people. That was all he had to do. "Okay, but you should know I don't have a car."
Transportation seemed like it would be very important if he hoped to get away with murder.
7.
Cooper was tougher than Martin had anticipated. He was wiry and fast, and he could swing a frying pan with the best of them. Cooper had a mad look in his eyes when he whirled and came at Martin with the sizzling pan full of bacon and grease. From the toothless smile that split the old man's face, Martin gathered that the old man was enjoying the fight.
Martin barely ducked out of the way from a second and then a third swing of the pan. When he ducked the last attack, he slipped on the hot bacon grease that coated the linoleum floor and nearly fell. Cooper's eyes flashed when he saw the opening. He lunged and tackled Martin.