by Shock Totem
“Nothing,” he rasped, his voice sounding thin and insubstantial in the suddenly heavy and oppressive silence. “Nothing there.”
After a ten count, he swallowed and opened his eyes, looking into the emptiness of the basement doorway...
Nothing.
Except impenetrable darkness. But the ice still rippled across his shoulders and down his back. His heart still pounded away. Slowly, he knelt and picked up his Nikon, without taking his eyes off the black doorway. He stood, thought about turning and striding out of that back room, but opted instead for backpedaling, slowly, as if afraid of giving his back to that doorway, as if afraid of...waking something up.
Which was stupid and ridiculous.
There was likely nothing in that basement or root cellar or whatever except mold and cobwebs and spiders, maybe a few garter snakes or rats. No ghostly face—which he thought he’d seen sitting in that rocking chair, peeking around the edge of the frame—was going to float out of that dark basement doorway any time soon.
so long as you keep an eye on it and don’t turn your back on it
Stupid.
But he didn’t look back down at the picture of the drawing room, just toggled ahead to the next picture, some distant part of his brain yammering, Why are you still here?
Hands shaking, he raised the Nikon, glancing from the Nikon’s screen to the empty basement doorway and back again, still back-pedaling, until his back thumped against the door-frame to the room, causing him to jump. He shifted, stepped backward out of the room, and suddenly (to his slight shame) he spun around, scrambling for the door like a man fleeing a live hand grenade. His fingers grasped the soft, rotten edge of the door and he slammed it shut.
He stepped away, telling himself that no, he hadn’t seen an indistinct darkness rushing from the black well of the basement across the room after him, and no, the doorknob of the door did not jiggle for an instant, that was just a residual vibration of him slamming it shut.
Even so, he felt much better with that door between him and the yawning black basement doorway. Because shadows couldn’t grasp and turn doorknobs could they?
but they can seep under doors
He shook off the foolish thought. Dammit, he was finally, after a year of frustration and dead ends, taking damn good pictures. He wasn’t about to let a stupid case of the willies ruin that. And, as if in defiance of this, he ignored the bottom of that door...
which shadows very well could seep under
...held up the Nikon and looked at the next picture.
A trembling sigh of relief escaped his lips. This was a picture of the kitchen, what remained of it. He’d framed what looked like the sink area, everything covered in a thick layer of dirt and grime. As he examined the photo, his fears subsided, a running narration in his head (for his project) detailing about how much of everyday life had most likely centered around this now abandoned and desolate kitchen sink: washing hands before dinner, washing dishes after dinner, getting a cool drink of water on a hot summer day...
His gaze slipped to the bottom left-hand corner of the image. He squinted and, feeling none of the fear he’d felt only moments ago, zoomed in on the bottom-left hand corner.
Looked like something triangular and metal—an ax? He couldn’t tell, but it looked as if someone had, with a mighty swing, lodged an ax in the counter-top’s edge...
an ax someone had once used to do horrible, horrible things
He shook his head, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jeez. I’m goin buggy. I gotta get out of here and get home.”
When he opened his eyes and turned to do just that, he noticed two things that brought his gooseflesh rippling back.
One: it was getting dark, harder to see. How late was it?
Two: he didn’t recognize the room he stood in at all. Empty, floor littered and gritty, wallpaper moldy, doorways stood to his left, right, and before him. The door to the backroom and the basement directly behind him.
And, maybe it was a trick of the fading light, but he couldn’t see very far down either of the halls. Which was crazy, of course. How big could the house be?
He swallowed down a cresting hysteria, cracking his neck. It was only a big old rambling farmhouse. Didn’t matter which hall he took, it would eventually lead back to the front door, right?
But still, he couldn’t make himself step toward either of the three halls. Grunting in what felt like vain, childish defiance, he raised the Nikon and toggled to the next picture. Maybe there’d be a landmark he’d recognize, some image that might jog his memory about which hallway he should take...
out of frame, you’re out of frame and never coming back
“Fuck that shit,” he said, more of a whine than growl. He held up the Nikon and looked at the image.
The bathroom.
He’d centered this shot on the toilet. The sink next to it and the mirror above the sink just peeked into view, cut off at the frame’s edge...
He opened his mouth. To swear, to gasp, he wasn’t sure, except he suddenly struggled for the breath to do any of those things. In the mirror, slipping off the frame’s edge...
A shadow.
Like the one in the outside window.
what lies cut off by the frame still continues off the frame in a reality created by the photographic device
He cleared his throat and said in a voice more quavery than defiant, “That’s it. I gotta get the fuck outta this place.”
But which direction? Which hallway? He could keep paging through the rest of these photos...
but he didn’t want to because he thought maybe in each one the shadow of the thing hiding just past the frame would get closer and closer
...but he didn’t think looking at those pictures would help him one damn bit in remembering the way out. And then, it hit him with the force of lightning: the back room. Where that empty basement door was...
and the shadow rushing across the room
He’d seen trees outside the one window. Past that room was the outside. Maybe he could jimmy the window open, crawl through it, get out that way?
Maybe. Just maybe. Problem was...he’d have to face that basement door, again...and whatever was waiting in the darkness below...
click
click-click-clickity-click
Icy fear flushed down his spine. The doorknob. In the door leading to the backroom. Something was jiggling the doorknob on the other side.
Bullshit. It was something else, had to be...
But as he forced himself to look over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the doorknob turning all the way with a final-sounding click...
And the door cracked open.
Fuck this!
Brian plunged forward, sprinting down the hall directly ahead. His feet pounded on the old wooden floors, sounding strangely hollow and dull, seeming to underscore how alone he was, and that there was no one to hear or to help him...
something crackled across the floor after him, like crisp autumn leaves skittering on concrete
He pumped his arms and ran harder than he ever had, and yet, impossibly, the end of the hall never came. As if he were running on a treadmill, the room ahead never seemed to get closer, and countless, innumerable open doors to infinite rooms flashed by, and he couldn’t help seeing from the corner of his eye...
shadows rushing toward him
lying on beds
dangling in nooses from crossbeams
swinging axes
dancing, flitting, cavorting
rocking on wooden horses and sitting in chairs
lying in bathtubs
Shadows spun and twisted in those rooms while Brian pounded down that never-ending hallway, his breath roaring in his ears, his lungs aching as a stitch burned in his side. God, he wasn’t going to make it and the cold behind him was rushing closer...
With an explosion of breath, like a drowning swimmer finally bursting to the surface, Brian launched through the doorway at the end. He whi
rled, grabbing frantically at the door. In his desperation, his sweaty hands slipped on the old brass knob as something skittered and hissed down the hall...
His fingers closed on the knob.
He glimpsed something like wide black eyes and a wrinkled, snarling mouth rushing toward him.
And he slammed the door shut.
Silence.
Save his panting and wheezing and a high-pitched keening sound which, as he backed away from the door, he realized came from him.
He breathed air in giant, sobbing gulps, backing away from the door. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit, whatthefuckisthis. Gotta get outta here.”
He spun, eyes frantically tracking the room. It looked like a den. Old, unused fireplace against the far wall. Three sagging couches facing the fireplace, what was probably an ornamental rug on the floor between them. In the far left corner, a door. To his immediate right, a staircase curving away to a second landing. To his immediate left...
Yes.
The foyer.
He recognized this room now. He’d started here, though that didn’t make any sense at all, because he distinctly remembered a hall leading to many rooms, not a den like this, but he didn’t care because there was the foyer and past that the front door...
His relief morphed instantly to panic as his shoulder thumped against a door that wouldn’t open. The doorknob clicked uselessly in his hand. No matter how hard he twisted or turned it, laid his shoulder against the door, it remained closed.
Locked?
No, idiot. Stuck. Old house warped by rain and cold and sun. It’s jammed, is all.
But the window. The front window. The very first picture he’d taken was of the front door and the window next to it. He rounded the corner of the foyer to the window, grabbed at its latches with trembling fingers, yanked upward....
Nothing.
He saw the catch, saw it was still locked. Cursing his stupidity, he fumbled with the catch, trying to flip it over...
Frozen. With rust and time. The window-frame was also probably warped out of true, just like the door.
“No problem, right?” he muttered. “It’s glass. We can break that shit.”
He glanced around. There, on the floor near one of the couches, unbelievably enough an old flashlight, one of the heavy, metal ones. Proof others folks had been in here besides him, right?
but why is it still here why leave the flashlight here?
He ignored the shaking voice clamoring in his brain. Scrambled over to the flashlight and scooped it up. For some reason, the cool, metal tube felt reassuring in his hand. He leaped toward the window, winding the flashlight up...
A bright flash stabbed his eyes. The sun? Coming through the glass at just the right moment, blinding him?
“Jeez! Shit!” Brian’s aborted swing fell short as he clapped his other hand on his eyes, rubbing them. His vision wavered and blurred, out of focus. He rubbed them harder. Stepped closer to the window, looked down the drive...
And for a minute, his heart skipped.
Like an engine run too hard for too long, his mind threw several gears as a black emptiness yawned beneath his feet.
The old flashlight fell with a hollow thud from nerveless fingers.
Outside.
Someone standing down the drive toward Bassler Road, their...his...back to him. Seeming to be considering something in his hands.
Brian gaped. A fish on land, drowning in air, as he raked trembling fingers through his hair, pulling on tufts, pulling hard, trying to make himself wake up...
The person at the end of the drive turned suddenly, appraising the house with what looked like intense interest and excitement...
Holding in his hands a NIKON 351.
Brian rasped shallow, hitching breaths. He sagged against the window, hands pressed flat against the cold glass. The figure at the end of the drive held up his Nikon, presumably examining pictures they’d just taken...of the front door and window in juxtaposition, of course.
Brian slowly backed away from the window, legs quivering, made of boneless jelly. All his will and energy leaked out of him and it took every ounce of reserve left in him not to collapse into a huddled pile on the dusty floor.
The shadow.
The shadow in the window. The shadow he’d seen in his picture. That shadow was...
It was...
The door to his left—the one he’d slammed shut on that rushing dark—rocked in its frame. The door knob jiggled once. The door creaked.
Fell still.
And slammed open. Something dark and vaporous with cold teeth rushed into the room. There was nowhere left to run and Brian threw up his arms and screamed as an ice cold filled him...
• • •
Brian Palmer shivered.
“This is it,” he muttered, staring at the picture he’d just taken. “Holy shit...I think this is it. This is going to change my fucking life.”
Kevin Lucia is an Associate Fiction Editor for The Horror Channel. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies, and he’s the author of Things Slip Through and Devourer of Souls. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University. He teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York, with his wife and children.
TRICKS AND TREATS
by Rose Blackthorn
“Wouldn’t you rather just find a party? Or we could get a scary movie, and watch it at my house.” Samantha, who went by Sam, pulled on the dangling laces of her sweatpants nervously. Something to keep her hands busy.
“Hey, they got the candy for free by begging door to door. It’s not like it’s really stealing.” Cash went through another box in the cluttered garage, looking for something. His long hair was dark and kind of greasy, which went well with his oil-stained jeans and faded rock t-shirt. “Ah ha!” With a flourish, he pulled a dirty battered hockey mask from a pile of junk. “Perfect.”
Sam sighed, fingers fumbling with her drawstring. Hijacking little kids for their candy was not the way she’d hoped to spend this Halloween.
“You still have any of your old costumes? Best bet is to cover your face, just to be safe.” Cash put the hockey mask in place, and tied the string behind his head that would keep it there. His eyes, a vivid shade of blue like a clear sky in autumn, showed through the holes of the mask. With the rest of his expression hidden, he could have been anyone. “Come on, Sam. It’ll be dark in half an hour. Then we can start harvesting our own haul of candy.”
“Maybe you should just go trick-or-treating yourself.” She had been looking forward to tonight for a month, but her imaginings had included going through the local haunted house attraction, maybe holding hands in the dark while she pretended to be scared. She’d even gone so far as to imagine a bit of making out in some secluded corner.
“All the people handing out handfuls of swag to every little snot-nosed kid for a square mile gets uptight and offended if someone over the age of twelve tries to get in on the act. No, this will be better.”
An hour later found them skulking in the shadows, waiting for stragglers to go by who weren’t chaperoned by their parents. A group of three, aged maybe seven to nine, came down the root-buckled sidewalk with their bags already half filled with loot.
Cash jumped out of the darkness in front of them, mask in place and a baseball bat in one hand. With the other hand, he gestured for Sam to get behind them and block their escape. The kids shrieked, one boy dropping to the ground with his legs stuck out straight like one of those fainting goats that were all over the Internet. The other two, Batman and the chick from Frozen, clutched each other.
“Shut up,” Cash barked at them, and the chunky pirate on the ground covered his head with his arms. “Just a bit of tribute, kiddies. Give me a handful of candy each, and you can head on out to replenish.”
Sam stood holding the old rusted butcher knife Cash had given her to carry, her hood pulled low to obscure her face. She watched while the kids submitted to Cash rifling
through their goody bags, shaking her head slightly when the pirate started to sob. Cash dropped the stolen sweets into a canvas bag tied to his belt, then stepped aside with a flourish.
“That’s it, you can go,” he said gruffly, and laughed when they scampered down the sidewalk to the next streetlight. He headed back into the deeper dark beneath a maple tree, and waited for Sam to join him. “This is awesome—we pull the trick, and get the treat.”
Sam leaned against the trunk beside him. “Those kids are going to tell an adult they got robbed. You know it’s only a matter of time before some pissed-off parent comes looking for us.”
Cash thought about that for a minute, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s move over to Greenwood Avenue. There’s a great hedge in the Mackley’s front yard where we can hide.”
Sam rolled her eyes, but followed him to the next street over. What was it she had seen in him again? Oh yeah, right; he was a loner slash bad boy who made up for lack of friends with a hokey put-on mystique. Mostly, she’d been drawn to his striking blue eyes. She glanced sideways at him, only able to make out the flat profile of the hockey mask in the darkness. She’d already come this far, she might as well keep on. Maybe the night would improve.
Cash robbed several more small groups of trick-or-treaters with Sam’s reluctant back-up, moving from street to street through the neighborhood after each heist to avoid getting caught. It was after eleven when he finally checked his bag of booty and proclaimed, “Guess we should call it a night, huh? Got enough candy here to give diabetes to a hippo.”
“Great,” Sam said, smiling. “There’s a marathon of horror flicks on the tube until six in the morning, so we can still catch a movie.”
A small figure approached from down the street, and Cash ducked low, shushing Sam. The lone trick-or-treater, small enough to only be five or six years old, walked along the sidewalk fearlessly. He was dressed in a skeleton costume with a thin black cape trailing behind him, and a large plastic bag filled with goodies dragged at one arm.