Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction

by Maria Grazia Cavicchioli

  “Father,” he stuttered. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to come down here. Beulah told me to go play and I’d n-never seen this room and…” His words died on his lips, the excuse sounding thin and pathetic. Nothing would stop the punishment that awaited him for interfering. The look on his father’s face changed from one of severity to one of confusion; Mark realized that what he saw was the reflection of his father’s face captured in the ethereal sheen of the car’s side mirror.

  “Whatever are you stuttering on about, Mark? I already asked you what you are doing out on Algonquian Road in the middle of the night, and you’ll answer quick if you know what’s good for you.”

  His father’s face looked pinched. The man glanced about himself. A trickle of wet shone against one temple and the pulse in his throat picked up in a quick rhythm. Mark recognized that his father was frightened, something Mark had never seen. Unreality washed over Mark again as he tried to make sense of this disorientation.

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but honestly I swear I’ve not left our home. I decided to go down to the basement to play. You can ask Beulah. I was curious to see what was in the basement. I don’t understand what’s been happening. I got lost and then saw some small lights, which turned out to be the taillights to your car and—”

  Donovan Fortune cut his son off. “I’ll have no more of such nonsense. You get in the back seat this instant. You are in a heap of trouble, young man, and we both know this will require a trip to a closet; actually, it will be the closet in the basement. You’re curious? You’ll find out — you can consider the consequences on the ride home.”

  “Father, please…”

  A fine mist picked up about them, soupy and eerily green. It smelled rank, reminiscent of swamp, decay, the miasma of night woods and feral things.

  They entered Donovan’s car, wary, and sat down, both staring through the car’s windows at the strange pulsating haze that thickened as seconds ticked past. Dark things flitted just beyond the scope of vision.

  “Damn!” Donovan smashed his right fist onto his steering wheel hard enough to crack the wood and plastic, causing Mark to cry out in alarm. “I’m not certain exactly where I pulled over and now I can’t see a blasted thing. I believe I had another half mile to go on this infernal road.”

  Algonquian Road, the main route leading through the woods to their house, always dark and brooding with its parallel lines of black pine.

  “B-but, Dad…” Mark was unable to hold back the tears, despite knowing how much his father detested such signs of weakness. “…I’ve b-been t-trying t-to tell you, as crazy as it sounds, we aren’t on any road that I know of — we’re in our b-basement. I got l-lost and, Dad l-l-look… see… the fog’s coming from t-the cistern in our b-basement there, off to the—”

  “That’s it!” his father snarled, furious beyond all reason. He hurtled out of his seat and grabbed his petrified son by his shirt, pulling him up and over the driver’s side headrest into the front seat. “I’ve had it with your lies and disobedience. I warned you. I might not have a closet handy, but I’ve got the next best thing.” Donovan Fortune dragged the screaming boy out of the car and opened the trunk, the lid bouncing on its hinges from his fury. He hurled Mark into the trunk as if he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and then, before the shocked and distraught boy could try and get up, slammed the lid back down hard enough to set the big car rocking. “You can spend the rest of the trip home considering what punishment I’ll be giving you in the basement once we arrive.”

  Donovan ignored the sobs emanating from the trunk. He plunged behind the steering wheel, savagely twisting the key in the ignition. He was met with silence. The car’s ignition did not grind or whir as he tried to get it to start; just silence at the front of the car, and the barest whisper of cries from the rear. Then, Donovan Fortune was pierced by an unearthly wail that threatened to shatter glass and, contrary to all laws of physics, continued to increase in timbre and resonance until the senior Fortune clapped his hands to each ear. Horror as acute as winter frost crawled along his skin. Whatever his substantial faults, no one who knew him could accuse Donovan Fortune of being a coward. To the contrary, those who knew him counted him an extremely brave, even foolhardy man who often chose to gamble with risk; certainly a dangerous man — a man to be feared. Thus it was that Donovan Fortune drew upon reserves of inner strength, inner hate, and fought against the paralyzing terror that would have already overcome any normal human. Slowly, agonizingly, he managed to gain sufficient control to struggle out of his car and stand outside, using the hood to support his recalcitrant body, and to keep him from curling into a fetal ball on the ground. It was then that he noticed the virescent fog rising from the cistern — my God, he thought, that does actually look like the old cistern in our basement.

  It had been one of the points of caution brought to their attention before purchasing the house, especially a house that would contain a child — that the well should remain covered and the door leading into the stony natural depths of a house built into a hillside with underground tunnels, always closed… loose dirt, long, unlit chasms, places where darkness, stagnant pools of water, and sudden plunges promised injury or death. The very thing that the realtor had warned Donovan Fortune about regarding acquiring this piece of property had been the unspoken selling feature to the senior Donovan. It had piqued his sadistic interests and urged him towards a darker motive that he’d been harboring for a while. The cistern and its accompanying basement were the ultimate closets: places of darkness, quietude, and well-hidden secrets.

  The cistern was, he’d learned, one of many old such wells dug by Native Americans long before the White Man had ever set foot on the North American continent, and formed part of the basis of the main structure of the house. It reeked of mildew, and when its cover had been hauled off with a tire iron, its depths had gone down so far that sound ceased to exist… even when he’d hurled several stones into the yawning mouth, then had leaned over to listen. He’d replaced the cover, but had not fastened it securely. He had plans.

  He stepped towards the cistern, convinced that it must be another of the same ilk along this road. To his right he saw the ominous shadows of the black pine of Algonquian Road and to his left, a cistern… and then, with a slap of shock as he went to steady himself, his hand reached out and felt the familiar, grainy texture of wood and steel. And he knew. As the crying wimp in the trunk had stated, he stood in the doorway of his own basement, his car behind him still on the road, and somehow, the two merged together like toxic steam.

  “What is happening here?”

  The wooden top covering the cistern exploded into thousands of tiny splinters, throwing him hard into the side of the car. Inside the trunk, Mark shrieked in terror.

  “It’s all right, Mark. I’m here now.” A woman’s voice.

  Her laughter modulated from a low bass to a high and clear soprano. Yet, there was something familiar in the voice, something that Donovan knew just could not be. For the first and only time in his life, Donovan Fortune lost control of his bladder. This was followed, another first for the adult Fortune, by his falling to his knees before the woman he recognized as his wife, Evelyn.

  ”I know what you’ve done with our son. And what did you plan further?”

  “Mother, is that you?” Mark’s muted voice was filled with a mixture of wonder and confusion.

  “Yes, dear one, it is me. Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”

  The trunk lid popped open of its own accord. Mark crawled out and ran towards his mother’s voice.

  “Daddy said that you were gone and would not be home for at least three weeks. I don’t understand…”

  Evelyn softly chuckled. “That’s what he told you, did he? Well—”

  Donovan Fortune groveled in the light. “Evy? No, this can’t be you .You know what? It doesn’t even matter. Whoever you are; whatever you want, all that’s going to happen now is that you are going be sealed in
to that room along with my good-for-nothing excuse for a son.”

  Evelyn laughed as she reached out and drew her son to her.

  “Mother, your hands are cold and wet…”

  “Yes, darling, but always loving to you.” Then to Donovan, she directed her gaze, and her eyes, once a clear, sea blue now glowed the color of emeralds. “This place you chose, Donovan… this cistern… have you any idea the power that engulfs it? The burial sites beneath this house, of great Chiefs and their belief systems. As the Manitou creates all things, so can it demolish them! An arrogant man should not have meddled with that of which he held no knowledge. Money isn’t everything, as you will soon see.”

  “Evy, we can work t-things out…” Donovan Fortune’s hands — hard, slapping hands — reached out to her.

  “Oh, indeed we will,” she agreed. As she moved, she seeped rainwater, dark and filled with wriggling things. Mark felt frozen, but clung to her, the only person who had ever looked after him. “Mark, my darling, remember all those talks we’d had about how you need to be a brave little boy, and how some day I might have to leave you?

  “Yes, Mother, but you’re here…”

  “I’m here, but not the same. Daddy tried to force me to sign papers that would have made your life miserable, and I refused. Mother’s papers are in her bedroom, locked in a safe behind that nice little painting of the dogs you always liked so much. Will you remember all that for me, Mark, please?”

  “Yes. B-but, I d-don’t understand why you feel and look so different…” Mark, overwhelmed, gripped his mother’s frigid, wet hand. He squeezed her fingers and felt something slip in his hand. When he looked, he saw that it was skin. Her skin, pale and sodden, slipping from the bone like wet paper from the spine of a book. He’d never fainted in his life before, but now he did, his knees buckling, the basement floor coming up to greet him. The last thing he saw before blacking out was the nightmarish tenets of Algonquian Road, his father’s ruined car casting a dark shadow against the moon, his father on his knees, begging as his mother, Evelyn Fortune, brushed past her son to approach her husband.

  “Sleep, Mark. Know that Mother will always be with you.”

  His eyes shut and darkness took over around the same time he heard his father shriek.

  ○

  Time passed. Dreamscapes of fog, dust, the smell of old water, gentle chanting, a brush fire burning, the comings and goings of animals, a bird cast against a dark sky. Mark Fortune was shaken awake. He came to with a scream, to find himself cradled in the strong, loving arms of Beulah.

  “Boy, what you doing down here in this basement? Don’t you listen? How come you all scraped up like this?” Beulah’s dark, gentle eyes looked directly into his and her stature, at first strict, softened now. “What is it, Mark? You can tell Beulah. What’s wrong, boy?”

  “Where’s Mother?” Mark asked her.

  Beulah studied him, genuinely concerned. “Your mama’s gone visiting relatives for the next little while, son. I’m to look after you until she returns.”

  “Daddy killed her.”

  He felt Beulah’s arms weaken. “What you say?”

  “She’s in the basement, Beulah. I saw it all. She’s both alive and dead and she’s in the well.”

  “Son, you having nightmares is what you having. You took a fall and hit your head or something.” But he saw her regard the cistern and basement door with repugnance. She touched the crucifix she wore around her neck. “Lord, I don’t like this house or this basement. It’s a bad place. I can feel it.”

  “Look in the closet, Beulah. He’s in there.”

  “Who in there?”

  “Daddy.”

  He watched Beulah’s face as she regarded the cistern and closet. “I’m calling the police,” she said. She opened the basement door and it revealed a deep, but discernible closet with distinct sides. Inside, Donovan Fortune’s body slumped, bleeding, his car keys still in one hand. Beulah shielded his eyes and helped him upstairs. “Don’t look, boy. You come with Beulah.”

  ○

  “He locked you into closets on a regular basis?” the lawyer asked Mark. Beulah had insisted they both dress up for the occasion, the reading of Evelyn Fortune’s will: her money, inherited from her father’s estate, and the backbone that had sustained Donovan Fortune’s capitalistic escapades, now went in trust to her only son.

  “Both of us. Mother and I. I’d hear her crying.”

  “Jesus,” said the lawyer. “I’d say the best justice was served to the senior Fortune, would you not, Mrs.…?” He peered at Beulah.

  “Jackson,” Beulah stated. “My husband’s been gone a decade now, sweet man that he always was. Not like this. Never like this.”

  “Mrs. Fortune has asked that you help facilitate Mark’s care. Will you do this?

  “Yes, sir,” Beulah agreed. “This boy will be taken proper care of, I promise.”

  The lawyer, a man with windswept hair and brooding eyes, studied them both. “What kind of a man does this to someone? He had every intention of—” Here, he cut off, not wanting to finish the words.

  “Greed is an ugly thing,” Beulah intoned. “Ugliness invites ugliness. Hate breeds hate, and evil breeds evil. He got his comin’s, he did. She didn’t. Rest her soul.” She held Mark’s thin, pale hand.

  “There will be no more closets, ever,” the lawyer promised him.

  Except, Mark knew: they’d sealed Daddy’s remains into a plain pine box — a forever closet. He’d overheard Beulah talking with other adults. Mama’s remains had been taken back to her family’s estate, but Daddy’s had been buried without much ado in a small cemetery out on Algonquian Road. A cemetery they’d passed often in his car, Mark huddled into the back seat under the watchful gaze of his father. A cemetery enclosed by the arms of dusty pines and dustier secrets.

  Carol Weekes has written and published fiction, primarily horror, since 1995. A first novel, Walter's Crossing was released in 2007 from Naked Snake Press. This was followed by a 2nd novel, Ouroboros, co-written with Michael Kelly, that saw a 2009 hardcover release from Bloodletting Press, and is currently available as a trade paperback through Dark Regions Press. A short story collection Dead Reflections was released from Journalstone publishing in 2013. Carol continues to write fiction and screenplays. She lives in Eastern Ontario, in a 130-year-old red brick farmhouse, where the construction of more gruesome tales will undoubtedly take place over the years.

  Norm Rubenstein has co-produced ten stage plays including a thriller, Murder By Misadventure, that enjoyed an extended run upon London’s famed West End, and a world premiere of an A. R. Gurney play, The Fourth Wall, starring George Segal and Betty Buckley, in Chicago. As an author, Norm has had extensive work, including essays, articles, interviews, and book and film reviews appearing in numerous publications, including Cemetery Dance, Dark Scribe, Dark Discoveries, and Shroud Magazines, has written regular columns for Fear Zone and Shroud, and has been a regular reviewer for Horror World, Hellnotes, and the Pod Of Horror podcast.

  Finders Keepers

  by Michael F. Fudali

  “One more step!” Eddy yelled down. He swung his right leg over the top of the brick wall and onto the single-story building’s roof. His foot slipped on the graveled surface. Small stones wedged into his beefy side as he landed with a thud. Down below and across the street, Willie and Kurt cheered on and finished their beer.

  “Made it,” Eddy called down as he stood up and flexed both of his muscular arms in triumph. His roommates looked at each other and laughed.

  “My hero,” Kurt said, clasping his hands in front of his chest and shaking them forward and back. “What will Champaign/Urbana do without you when you graduate?”

  “You pansies should join me. Bring a carton of eggs up here to throw at passing cars — let’s celebrate the last night of our junior year in style!” Eddy responded.

  “You threw all the left-over food out. Should I check the ga
rbage?” Willie asked Kurt, removing the silver wrapping off the top of a new box of Marlboro Ultra Lights and starting back towards their apartment building’s main entrance.

  “No, don’t listen to him. I think he’s a little too drunk,” Kurt said. “The way he’s carrying on up there, someone might call the police soon.”

  The fat under Willie’s chin jiggled like a plastic sandwich bag full of water as he shook his head and chuckled. “You’re the one who talked him into going up there. But I guess you’re right; maybe we should get him down. He might fall off or something.” Willie lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  “Watch out below,” Eddy called out. He picked up a handful of gravel and threw it down at his friends, intentionally just off mark. The rocks clacked against the side of the apartment complex and ricocheted off in unpredictable zigzags. Willie ducked, covering his face and head with chubby arms.

  Kurt looked up at Eddy and pressed the fingers from one hand into the palm of the other, making a “time out” signal.

  “If you’re finished up there, you can come on down.”

  “Alright, alright,” Eddy said. As he grabbed the ledge to start his descent, he heard an odd sound, like fingernails scratching against a rough cloth. It came from the round metal chimney a few feet away from where he stood. He approached the chimney and noticed a small object leaning against it.

  “Wait a minute. There’s something up here!”

  “What is it?” Willie shouted back.

  A black leather bag with red drawstrings lay at Eddy’s feet. He picked it up, yanked it open, and looked inside. The faint light from a nearby street lamp allowed for Eddy to see the bag’s contents. “Shit, there’s money in here.”