Angels in Black and White (Horror Short Stories)

by Saunders, Craig

  Of course, no one else had seen it. His body lay under the train. A terrible accident, said the therapists, the inquests, the insurance payouts, the newspapers.

  But had it been?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Mark watched the train make its juddering way around the small track, and when it completed the circle he stepped aboard.

  He was far too big to sit in the seat. He crouched, kind of in a half squat, uncomfortable, scared, and joined the ride.

  Ordinarily, there would have been room for two small children in each car. But on that day, back when his little brother Johnny had died, Mark had been too scared to ride the train.

  On this day, he was terrified, too, even though now he could just step off any time he wanted. The Frightener didn’t even move that fast.

  But he wouldn’t step off, because Johnny was there with him, right there in the car. Mark could feel his little brother’s leg pushing against his own.

  He hadn’t grown. His face was awful.

  Unmarked. Never had been. The Frightener had crushed his chest, leaving his face fresh and clean and innocent. But now terror was in his little brother’s eyes, a look far too old for his young, chubby face.

  Mark cried, looking at Johnny, handsome still, because Johnny’s face was frozen in a scream, and his face looked just like that one painted on the front car, the car in which they sat. He looked terrified, even though he had never grown up, and should never know fear like this.

  But not for eternity, because Mark was here, here now, as he should have been all those years ago. Here to save his little baby brother, who he’d loved so much in life, and onward through death.

  The diesel chugged on, the train ran around and around. Mark put his arm around Johnny’s shoulder and the little boy, his little brother, sobbed, so hard.

  Mark’s heart, long hardened through the sleepless nights of his manhood, cried, too.

  ‘Shh, Johnny. Shh. I’m here. I’m here.’ Mark held his brother tight and spoke soothingly. The train bounced as it ran over the rusted tracks, but Mark didn’t notice. It was just him and Johnny and the Frightener, and the Frightener was just a train.

  ‘It won’t let me go,’ said Johnny, wiping snot on his sleeve. ‘I as’t. I as’t all the time. He’s a mean train, Marky.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mark. ‘Believe me, I know. It won’t let me go, either. But it doesn’t matter, baby brother. It doesn’t matter anymore.’

  ‘I don’t want to be on the stupid train no more, Marky. Help me get off.’

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ said Mark. ‘I don’t think...’

  He felt dizzy and weak. His eyes wavered, and he thought he might have fallen asleep for a little while.

  ‘Marky?’

  ‘Right here, baby brother. Right here.’

  ‘It got you, didn’t it?’

  Mark looked down at the jagged cut on his wrist. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but the skin around the cut was puckered and blue. His whole arm, too. Puckered and blue.

  Just like Johnny’s skin, with the blue hint of the old dead, Mark’s skin was the same hue.

  ‘It got me,’ said Mark. ‘But now it’s me and you, and this is going to be a fun ride, alright?’

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘Fun,’ said Mark. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing out the caravans, and the other children, waiting their turns on the rides. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing at their mum and dad. ‘Wave, Johnny. Wave.’

  They both waved, even though the caravans and the other rides and all the people looked thin, like ghosts lost in the past.

  The train went on, and the engine chugged away. Mark held Johnny tight. The boy grinned.

  And the little train, that kids’ train that just went around and around in a tireless circle, it grinned, too.

  The End

  The follow is a delightful tale, first published by Blood Bound Books. It's a sweet icky tale about the neighbourly love. Sort of.

  The Hole in the Fence

  It was thirteen minutes past twelve by Sam Jefferson’s watch. The glow faded and the numerals slid into darkness.

  He pulled on his cigar, relishing the smoke as he drew it into his lungs. He wasn’t supposed to be smoking. An early stroke had seen to most of his pleasures. No more fry-ups on a weekend. No more beer. No more cigarettes. Not that he’d had much of an opportunity to smoke these last three years. He couldn’t even smoke in his own home nowdays. His new wife had all but taken over the home. Pink settee, foot stools, lurid throws that clashed with his duck picture that hung over the fireplace under sufferance of his beloved.

  It wasn’t that he regretted giving up on some of his freedoms. She only had his best interests at heart. Especially since the stroke. She looked out for him. She did.

  The tip of his illicit cigar glowed in the still midnight air. It was chilly, but he daren’t wear his bathrobe over his pyjamas. The smoke stink would linger. As it was he was reduced to sitting in the dark, like some fugitive from justice. But then, if he was a fugitive hiding out he wouldn’t be sitting around smoking, the orange tip of his cigar a beacon to those who hunted him…perhaps a sniper, even, hiding in the bushes at the end of the garden, or peering over the brick wall, a blanket thrown down to keep the glass embedded in the concrete atop the wall from slicing into their steady forearms.

  Yes, a sniper…he was a Jew, it was wartime Poland and he was running for border. He could just make out a puff of air in the night, the sniper’s breath misting…

  Don’t be daft.

  He puffed luxuriant smoke, trying to make a smoke circle. It didn’t work. He hit the light button on his watch. Twelve twenty precisely. The witching hour plus twenty.

  He stood on his awol leg and dragged himself into the shadowy underbrush of the laburnum tree. Perfect night for a surreptitious piss in garden. If he was caught smoking he’d be for the high jump, might as well go the whole hog.

  He pulled himself out of the slit in his pyjama bottoms and let a stream of steaming piss flow into the too-long grass. He sighed with relief and not a little pleasure.

  ‘Hey!’

  He turned, dribbling on his leg as he hastily tried to stuff himself back in his trousers.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Over here.’

  He looked around, but there was nobody there. His heart was beating too fast in his chest.

  ‘Here, by the fence. See me?’

  The fence was too dark. The hole in fence was covered.

  He thought about getting a knife from the kitchen. Someone was prowling next door. Hang on…did prowlers say ‘hey’? He looked around slowly, seeing if he could find the owner of the mysterious voice.

  He walked toward the voice, blood thundering.

  ‘Hi,’ said the voice as he neared the six foot high fence.

  Now he was closer he could just make out an eye peaking at him through a hole in the fence that split his property from the neighbour’s back garden.

  ‘Evening,’ said the disembodied eye. ‘Fine night for a piss in the garden.’

  ‘You saw that?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m your next door neighbour. Jeff. I’d shake your hand, but I can’t reach over this fence. Pretty big fence. You put this up?’

  ‘Yeah. Didn’t know anyone had moved in next door. Pleased to meet you. I’m Sam.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve got the introductions out of the way. I’ve already seen your penis. Seems only polite.’

  Sam laughed. ‘Interesting introduction. You’ll forgive me if I don’t ask you to reciprocate.’

  ‘Perhaps when we get to know each other better.’

  Sam ignored this in the spirit it was intended.

  ‘How are you settling in?’ he said instead.

  ‘Fine, just fine. You know how it is, though…moving and everything. It’s never as easy as they make out in the movies.’

  ‘Do it yourself?’

>   ‘Yeah, just me and a van. Haven’t got a wife. She passed away this last year.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Must be tough.’

  ‘Nah, she was a bitch. Never got to enjoy myself. Wouldn’t let me smoke in the house. Wouldn’t let me drink. Not that I’m a big drinker. Enjoy sinking a few with the football and my feet up, you know?’

  ‘All too well,’ said Sam, nodding conspiratorially at the hole and the eye. ‘It’s pretty much the same for me here. I don’t get to smoke in my own home. I’m reduced to sneaking a few puffs in when the missus has gone to bed.’

  ‘I bet you miss the old days?’

  Sam didn’t know why, but he felt himself warming to the eye. ‘You know, Jeff. You know. Sometimes I wish…’

  ‘I know, Sam. Sometimes you wish. Sometimes it’s best not to voice those wishes though. Especially not in the midnight hour. You never know who might be listening.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if it was a genie.’

  ‘No such thing as genies, Sam.’

  Suddenly the conversation had turned, and Sam found himself wondering why he was discussing his inner most thoughts with a complete stranger through the fence.

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting back inside. She’ll give me hell if I wait up too long.’

  ‘Funny, isn’t it, how we forgo our freedoms for a sure thing…’

  Sam just nodded. ‘Good night. It was nice to meet you.’

  He paused for a moment, feeling something more was expected of him. The eye was still peering at him from the safety and anonymity of its hideaway on the other side of the fence. He didn’t know why, but he felt he should ask it…him…over for dinner.

  ‘You’ll have to come over for dinner one night. When you’ve settled in, of course.’

  ‘I’d love to. Be nice to meet your wife, too. Well, I’d best get on with the unpacking.’

  The eye disappeared. Sam went to bed, mulling over the strange meeting with the disembodied eye and comfortable voice.

  *

  It was twelve fifty by Sam’s watch’s reckoning. The glow on his watch faded and he rose with his ever-present limp and carried his reluctant legs toward the border at the bottom of the garden to bury the evidence of his smoke.

  ‘Hi,’ said a voice behind the fence.

  He smiled. It seemed his neighbour was nocturnal too.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose you’re an early sleeper, then.’

  ‘No, since my wife died I’ve little reason to go to bed early.’

  ‘I suppose not. How’s the unpacking going?’

  ‘Slowly,’ said the eye. ‘It’s surprising how much crap you accumulate over the years. I should throw some of my wife’s things away, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.’

  Sam nodded in what he hoped was a commiserating manner. He didn’t really know what it was like.

  ‘It must be hard on you.’

  ‘Not so much. There are benefits to being single. I can smoke in the house now. I can leave the toilet seat up. Sometimes,’ he whispered, ‘I even drink in the mornings.’

  Sam sighed at the thought. ‘Even on a weekday?’

  ‘Anytime I want. It’s my house again. I don’t know if you’ll understand, but I feel like a man again…’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘It’s surprising. Most people forget that feeling. That perfect freedom…’

  Sam was silent for a moment. Imagining it.

  ‘Anyway,’ the voice said softly. ‘I’m off.’

  Sam fantasised for a time, sitting on his deck chair on the decking. Then he rose and went in to his wife.

  *

  The weeks passed and Sam still hadn’t seen his neighbour. But he talked to him every night as he smoked his night time cigar. He took to sneaking a few whiskeys as he smoked. He took to brushing his teeth twice before getting into bed, rolling away from his wife and thinking on what Jeff told him about his life as a bachelor through the hole in the fence.

  He began to wish he could have his neighbour’s life. All day, doing whatever he wanted. Watching sports on the television, eating microwave meals with no nutritional value. He could eat hotdogs, drink beer for lunch, hell, he could even piss in the sink if he wanted to.

  Not that he really wanted to. But, still, it was the principle of the thing. He was like a prisoner in his own life. His wants, his needs, had all been put on hold while his wife tried to keep him in check. Sure, she said it was for his own good, but was it? Really?

  She just wanted to take his fun away. Telling him what to do all the time. Hoovering, god damn it, when he wanted to watch the TV. She knew he couldn’t work, not with a bum leg. What else did he have to do during the day?

  Why, it would be so simple, so easy to do it…he could just get a divorce…but that wasn’t what the voice that belonged to the eye that belonged to the hole in the fence thought.

  There would be money to lose. His house would be split in two. He’d end up living in some dank one bedroom flat in the middle of town. It was a good street he lived on.

  No, Jeff hinted but never came right out and said.

  There was a better way.

  *

  ‘Have you thought any more about what we talked about?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘You don’t sound too sure.’

  ‘I am…it’s just…’

  ‘That’s not the sound of a man who’s got his thoughts straight. A man’s got to get his mind right,’ said the ever-present voice. ‘It took me all day to pluck up the courage when I did it. Take the day. Reason it out. I think you’ll see it’s the right thing to do…but don’t rush it. It’s not every man who’s brave enough to take that final step. You think on it.’

  Sam puffed some air into the chill night.

  ‘I will.’

  The eye behind the hole went away, for a time. The orange light of the street filled the hole.

  Sam watched the hole for a while. Thinking, but not really thinking. Drifting, was more like it. Drifting into that hole, through the wood and out into the artificial light of the suburbian garden at night.

  He sat on his deckchair until his watch showed two. Then he went to bed.

  *

  A day passed and night fell and come midnight Sam stood before the hole in the fence again, his shoulders shaking.

  ‘Where are you? Jeff?!’

  His voice cracked. In his hand he held a Philips screwdriver. In the dim light of a half moon his hand seemed black. His other was still pale in the silver light.

  ‘I’m here, Sam. I’m always here. I see you did it.’

  Sam hated the eye and the voice. He hated the hole in the fence.

  All this started with the hole in the fence. The hole in the fence had made him do it.

  He saw the eye through his fence. It seemed to be laughing at him. There was humour in that eye, sometimes blinking, sometimes just staring at him.

  ‘You lied to me.’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Sam. You wanted it. You wanted to be free.’

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this!’

  ‘Shut up, Sam. Don’t be such a baby. Be a man. You’re a man now. This is the way it’s supposed to be. Freedom, Sam. Can you taste it?’

  Sam looked away from the eye, down at his hand. He could taste it. He could smell it. Acrid and foul, dripping from his hands.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  He drove the screwdriver into the eye and at last the hole in the fence fell silent.

  *

  Sam Jefferson lay in his pyjamas in the long grass of his garden, a screwdriver driven firmly into his own brain.

  The police stood on the back lawn, shaking their collective heads and staring down at the body.

  ‘ID’d him yet?’

  ‘He’s the owner. Sam Jefferson. Positive ID from his Driver’s Licence. Same with his wife upstairs.’

  ‘Neighbour’s hear anything?’

  ‘Next door’s empty,’ said the PC. ‘T
he woman two doors down heard him talking to someone late last night, shouting, like he was having a fight.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re canvassing the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Probably talking to himself,’ said the Detective Sergeant.

  He lit a cigarette and waited for forensics to arrive. Open and shut case, he figured. The why of it might have interested some people, but not the DS.

  If you stab yourself in the eye with a screwdriver, motive is irrelevant. Crazy is all it is.

  He flipped his notebook shut and flicked his stub into the border along with the cigars that rested there.

  The End

  Caterpillars change into butterflies...you know the score. Read into the next story what you will. I'll be taking questions at the end.

  Caterpillar

  Jack pulled the cord tight around Mr. Davis’ neck. Veins bulged in his forehead. He could barely hear the screams coming from around the office. The prim women, the tight arsed men strutting; each and every one of them was screaming for him to stop, but he was the one holding the gun. He could hear the blip-blip-blip of the dial tone from the receiver dangling against Mr. Davis’ heaving chest. Must have dialled nine for an outside line, he thought, and laughed. The laugh just made them scream worse.

  Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

  Davis dropped to the ground, and Jack kicked the dead man in the temple. Then he turned the gun on them. Fuckers, the lot of them. Meeting in car parks, prim bitches giving head to their spiky haired colleagues…he would show them. How’s this for a cock? Put your lips around this. Watch me blow.

  ‘Jack! Jesus Christ, Jack, would you pay attention?’ His boss was red in the face. Jack blinked. For a moment there he had wigged out. He shook his head clear and tried to concentrate on Mr. Davis’ droning, soul-destroying voice.

  ‘Sorry, Mr. Davis. You were saying?’