by Rob Shepherd
“So your mum isn’t a killer. Mary Worth’s a bit different. She killed those kids in cold blood. She popped their retinas and gouged out their eyes with a fucking ice-cream scoop. She was actually arrested for chrissakes!”
“Okay, I actually feel like I’m gonna hurl now…” Katie groaned. Cassie glanced at her from the corner of her eye – Katie, did in fact, look peaky.
“That’s not the worst though,” Gavin said, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. “Did you know she kept the kids eyes in the fridge freezer? She planned to actually eat them, like… I dunno! Meatballs in spaghetti.”
Cassie’s own eyes grew wide in panic.
“Where the fuck do you find these sort of things, you sick bastard?” she asked, reaching for her Stella. Shuddering, she downed what was left, nearly choking on the dregs.
She killed those kids in cold blood… She popped their retinas and gouged out the eyes with an ice-cream scoop… She kept the eyes in the fridge freezer… She planned to actually eat them…
“Internet,” Gavin grinned.
Katie slid from the sofa. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, shrinking further into her oversized Batman hoody.
“You alright, Katie?”
“I’m gonna throw,” she said weakly, scurrying across the room. Her footsteps echoed along the hallway to the bathroom.
“You really don’t believe, do you?” Gavin softly asked Cassie.
“You know I don’t,” she scoffed.
Gavin lent forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The moonlight that filtered through the curtains fell upon his pale face and Cassie could almost see the old Gavin, underneath that new Gothic exterior he so favoured recently.
“Call her here then.”
Cassie stared at him blankly.
“What?”
“You heard me. Call her.”
“Call who? Gavin you are not making any sense here!”
He rolled his eyes. “Call Mary Worth here. If you don’t believe the stories, you’ll be perfectly fine. Won’t you?”
Cassie could feel her lips drawing into a pout. An angry pout. No, she didn’t believe the legends. Mary Worth did not kill her children and keep their eyes.
She would show him. Oh yes, she would.
Cassie rose from the floor, her baggy Metallica shirt flapping about her body. Brushing the stray strands of black hair from her eyes, her bare feet took her to the hearth. She curled her toes in the rug, revelling in the warmth that it spread, and she nudged Pepper gently.
Above the hearth, hung a wooden framed mirror. The wood had a golden sheen to it and she almost recoiled at what awaited her. Her skin looked pallid, while her hair hung in lank tendrils around her chin.
She sucked in a deep breath.
“I believe in Mary Worth,” she said confidently to her reflection.
The overhead light flickered and Cassie flinched. She twisted to the chair, where Gavin was still sat. His mouth hung open slightly.
“I didn’t do anything,” Gavin said, raising his hands in protest.
“It’s… it’s just superstition.”
Cautiously, Cassie turned back to the mirror. There was nothing there, apart from the reflection of her living room. The same old fashioned wallpaper, the same leather furniture, the same photograph frames that hung on the walls.
She shivered, breathing deeply through her nose.
“This. Is. Just. Superstition,” she said, more to reassure herself more than anything.
A high pitched gut wrenching scream pierced the air, rendering Cassie and Gavin silent. Before a coherent thought could pass through her mind, Cassie was throwing open the hallway door and hitting the light switch. Barely a minute later, she slammed into the bathroom door.
It was locked.
Cassie pounded on the wood.
“Katie! Katie! Katie, open the door!” She paused and pressed her ear against to the door. She couldn’t hear a thing.
“It’s not fucking funny all right? Come on, open the door!” she screamed, kicking and punching the door. A sharp pain ran through her knuckle and she breathed deeply through her nostrils.
“Cass… Is she okay?” Gavin called nervously.
Cassie didn’t reply. She wrestled with the lock once again, and with a grunt, it finally budged. The handle moved down slowly, and as Cassie took her hand away, the door creaked open. She took a step inside, and stopped. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed tightly in a fist.
The light from inside the bathroom was a warm glow, softening the gruesome scene that awaited inside. Cassie backpedalled into the hallway, her back slamming into the old fashioned bureau. She grasped the drawer handles, attempting to stop the shakes. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat.
“Katie…” she whispered.
Sprawled on the monochrome tiled floor, was Katie. She was a ghostly white, apart from the razor sharp incisions on her cheeks. They streaked her flesh a dirty red. Blood was seeping from her eye-sockets.
Her eyes were missing. Completely missing. Almost like they’d been gouged out… with an ice cream scoop…
The shakes were coming thick and fast now, and Cassie could feel the ornaments atop the bureau jostling for position. She watched on tenterhooks as her grandmother’s china jug slipped from the side and shattered into a tiny thousand pieces.
Mary Worth, she thought.
Her first footstep gained her a wide cut. She hissed through her teeth, as the pain started to spread. Bending carefully, she pinched the shard between forefinger and thumb, and eased it out. Standing and flexing her foot, she hobbled down the hallway.
When she reached the sitting room, she swayed in horror, her mouth agape.
Gavin’s body was covered in thin scratches along every visible part of his flesh, from his forehead to his arms. His mouth was split in a wide Chelsea smile.
And, just like Katie, his eyes were missing.
Cassie’s chest was tight and painful. Bile stung her throat and her head spun.
“Mary Worth…” she whispered.
Peeking from underneath a veil of hair, she could see the mirror, gleaming like nothing had ever happened. Taking hesitant and painful steps, she moved across the floor, leaving a thin blooded trail behind her. She glanced down at Pepper, who meowed softly. A faint handprint marred her white fur.
Shaking, she finally stood before the mirror; she raised her eyes, meeting her reflection.
“Where are you, Mary?” she whispered, raising a hand to the mirror.
Blood dripped from her fingertips, splattering the rug. She turned her hand first one way, then the other in disbelief. It stuck her fingers together and she was ninety-nine percent sure, there hadn’t been that much blood from her foot.
A loud clunk resounded in the room. Looking down, there on the stone hearth, was a steel ice cream scoop, smothered in blood.
Her bottom lip shook as she raised her own bleeding eyes to the mirror.
Mary Worth grinned.
Cassie couldn’t believe it. She was here in the mirror. And what a sight she was to behold. Limp, bedraggled hair, with a sunken face. Her teeth were cracked, broken, some even missing. Her gums were caked in dried blood.
It was terrifying.
Cassie slid her foot backwards, but it was too little, too late.
Mary reached a hand out, through the mirror, as if it were a translucent sheet. She started to swipe furiously, like a wildcat.
Cassie didn’t have time to scream. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and waited for the cold sting of death.
It never came.
A howling wind swept through the room, making the hair on Cassie’s arms stand on end. Tentatively, she opened one eye. It stung, almost as if the cat had attacked her. As she opened the other, she screamed.
The mirror was solid once more, but across the glass, and on Cassie’s pale face, were three thin, identical, blood red scratches.
Zoe Adams is a third year Professional Writing student at The
Grimsby Institute, through the University of Hull, United Kingdom. She has always had an interest in fantasy since she was a child, and she has a huge love of horror, science fiction and paranormal fiction, and other media. She has been writing professionally since 2010. This is her first short story for Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Press.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zoe-Adams-Author/238105912892455
Twitter: @ZeeZeeDreaming
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Separation
By Stefan Ellery
Susan and Samantha, what a pair, bright blue eyed twins who could never stand to be apart. They were as close as any identical twins could be and more. It’s not that they finished sentences for one another, nor could they read their thoughts like you often hear of identical twins. They weren’t like that at all. However, if they were not together they felt a loss, a gaping hole in their hearts. They were born through a C-section and brought out of their mother’s womb at the same time. They had no age difference not even a second apart. There was no dominance in their relationship and they both behaved very much the same. When they hit high school, they were put into separate classes. The principal who ran the school decided it was for the best. It was so the twins could explore their individuality while they remained apart. Samantha and Susan were of a differing opinion, but as often happens in the world of adults, they would not listen to the youth, no matter if they make sense or not. They hated being apart and could find just one way to stitch the wound created by their separation. Samantha and Susan each cut a lock of white-blond hair from their long tresses and weaved them with thread into separate ornaments that they hung around each other’s necks with thin silver thread. The contact of the hair jewelry on their skin helped them feel closer to one another when they were apart. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped. If it were perfect, they would not have attempted to go out on an excursion while they were supposed to be heading to class.
They could not help but giggle while hiding under the stairwell as the five-minute bell rang, watching hordes of students hurrying to class. They never saw the ridiculousness of the situation before. Not being part of the student body and the pulse of the school they saw things with a different set of eyes. Each student was intent on getting inside the classrooms before the teachers locked their doors and denied them access to learning. They covered their mouths when they Mr. Piddly walking through the hall. He was a mean one and grabbed any student who faced a locked door and brought them to his office. They sighed in relief when he left the hall with some disgruntled students trailing in his wake. With the hall emptied the twins took the freedom of the space to bolt out of school, careful to go in the opposite direction of Mr. Piddly and his entourage. They did not want to be locked up doing some meaningless paper work in the Vice Principles office. They didn’t dare to look back when they left the schoolyard, if they did they were sure to be caught, a kind of superstition among students who played hooky. There was no plan with what they were going to do with the time they procured for themselves. Susan and Samantha were just happy being together.
They hit the main street downtown and wandered along the sidewalk and peered into the windows of the boutique shops, admiring what the stores had to offer. They had money to do some shopping but dared not go in. They didn’t want to be caught skipping class. If they were in a larger city instead of the town, they lived in they would get away with it. However, Lindsay having a much smaller population meant most of the storeowners knew who you were and their parents often frequented the stores they now passed with them in tow. At least the people on the street had no interest in them. Most were retired and travelled with walkers, canes or electric wheel chairs. They left the big city for some of the quieter life the town had to offer.
Samantha and Susan kept on following the path downtown and veered off the sidewalk to a park littered with Canada geese and ducks that bathed themselves in the river. They spotted an ice cream truck parked on a lot next to the river. It was hot, and the idea of something cool sliding down their throats was appealing. The vendor didn’t bother questioning them about being away from school. He was all about profit and didn’t care whom he sold his goods to. Samantha and Susan were glad for that.
They sat on a bench back to back with their bare feet up, there shoes kicked off and resting in the grass. They enjoyed the contact of their feet touching the rough sun dried wood of the bench, the summers wind tousled their hair, they listened to the buzz of cicadas calling to each other in the heat while they sucked on their orange sherbet Popsicle. A sparkle under a nearby bridge caught Susan’s eye, nudging her sister she pointed in the direction of the sparkle. Drawn like crows to a shiny bauble they could not help but get up and see what reflected the days light to them.
Under the bridge, they beheld one of the strangest sights; a woman sat on a stool surrounded by shelves, cupboards and piles of goods. It had seemed that this old woman had set up shop under the bridge.
The woman looked at twins and gave them a toothless grin that startled them. Her face was darkened by the sun and her skin weathered like the bark of an oak tree. Grey eyes stared at them. She seemed blind, but she focused on Samantha and Susan like a viper staring at its prey. Her tong flicked out, and she licked her lips. “Girls, girls is there something here you would wish to trade for.” Her voice was raspy like the scraping of dead skin on a rock.
Samantha, had her hand in a bowl of polished pebbles, she picked up a fistful and let them pour back into the bowl, the sound of clicking as the pebbles struck each other was satisfying to her. Susan who was more focused on the woman answered. “Why is there a shop under the bridge? I’ve never seen it here before.”
The Old woman got off her stool and leaned on a polished oak cane she held in her hand. “Oh this store, it pops up where it wants to. I’m merely its caretaker and follows its will.”
Samantha stopped playing with the pebbles and looked at the elderly woman “You act as if this store is alive.”
The old woman moved closer to the pair and looked at them up and down. “Oh but it is, the trinkets, books and other things contained in its menagerie is its blood without it will cease to be alive. A store that has no goods is not a store, A Story teller without stories is no more than a blank page and a Bard without songs and an instrument is less than a jester. Of course, everything is still available at a trade. There is no use for money here. And I see something around your necks the store would want.”
Instinctively, Samantha and Susan grabbed the hair ornaments that hung around them. They had no interest in parting with their necklaces. It kept them close, and they would feel the loss if they were to trade them away.
The old woman laughed. “Not ready for that kind of trade? Can’t blame you though, it is a steep price to pay.” Still look around and see what the store has to offer. I’m sure you’ll find something you’d want. The cost could be as little as a stitch from your blouses, a teardrop or even the spine of a dog-chewed book.
Both Samantha and Susan were little nervous about looking around the store. They kept on touching and stroking their necklaces with worry. Their concern was soon replaced with curiosity when they wandered through the piles and piles of stuff in the shop.
A broken spinning wheel sat along the wall surrounded by balls of yarn with colours so mixed up in its thread that it would be useless to make anything nice from it. There were piles of sand, cords of wood, jars of water and containers of mud. Not everything was so bad. They found a bust of Caesar`s head and some Shakespearean books, the pages gilded with gold. There was a tin wind chime that clattered in the breeze and a hollow tube of copper that made a wondrous sound when played by the wind. A glass cabinet contained golden frogs, iron faeries, copper angels and partly chewed gum. The store was strange, and many items were things one would put in the garbage. It also abounded with smells that were not from the muddy river. Vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg mingled with the smells o
f sweat, skunk and rot. The twins paused when they came across a black lacquered box, On top of the lid white wooden inlay formed a picture of a pair of girls holding hands amongst a background of stars. The girls were twins just like them. The picture appealed to them, tugged at their hearts. They wanted the box very much.
“How much is the box?” Susan asked of the strange woman.
The woman closed a ledger; she had been running her fingers along its pages. “More than you can afford my girls, more than many could, I am sure it is something you would wish not to have.”
Susan furled her eyebrows. “But it’s just a box, and it looks rather new, not an antique. I am sure we have enough to pay for it.”
The Old woman sighed and clicked her tong “Yes it is a recent acquisition, but still I am sure it’s a price neither of you can pay. Keep on looking, there must be something suitable to your needs.” She left the girls alone and took a small wooden boat across the river to the other side of the bridge where cement statues of things that could only be described as people’s nightmares stood.
Both Susan and Samantha were determined to have that box, still they did wish to pay. Of course, the woman did not know they had a hundred between them, and they thought that more than enough. So they took the box and left money in it’s place and ran away. However, they did not see the old woman turn her head and watch them depart.
When the old woman returned to where the box had been she saw the money that was left behind in its place. She shook her head, grabbed the money and threw the bills to the ground. “Worthless, worthless, what does a store such as this need money for.”
Samantha and Susan ran home with the box, once inside they threw themselves onto the couch in the living room. The twins felt like little kids stealing candy from a convenience store for the first time, they felt a little guilty, but still laughed at the excitement of having a new toy. Not worrying about their parents coming home too soon they crowded the box and opened the lid to see if there was anything inside. To their disappointment, they found nothing but feathers and sand. They looked at each other, thinking that the money they spent was a little too much. They set the open box on the glass coffee table and sat on the floor and leaned their backs against the base of the couch.