by Amy Cross
I can't stay here.
I have to go and find other people, and then I have to figure out what's really happening here, and then I have to work out what I can do to help. After all, I'm technically a public servant, so I have a duty to serve in whatever way I can manage. Reaching into my pocket to get my keys, I suddenly realize that my hands are trembling, and I stop for a moment as I try yet again to get my nerves under control. I swear, it's as if my whole body is starting to shake, and although I eventually manage to find my keys, I quickly drop them and have to crouch down, picking them up from the snow.
When I stand, I momentarily feel dizzy. I close my eyes, taking another deep breath. When I open my eyes again, I'm suddenly struck by a feeling of indescribable loneliness.
I'm out here, at a deserted diner in the middle of the night, with no means of contacting anyone. I don't even know if there's anyone out there to contact. Heck, maybe that emergency broadcast is the last human voice I'll ever hear, and now it's just me all alone under the stars. I want to call home and speak to my family, but I have no idea what's happening to them right now, and it'd take me days to drive back to New York. For a few seconds, I feel as if the entire world has been stripped away and I might never see another living soul again.
“Pull yourself together!” I hiss, forcing myself to march over to the truck. “You can do this. You're not gonna fall apart now.”
I unlock the door and pull it open.
“I'm not -”
Suddenly something tumbles out of the car, slamming into my chest and snarling as I step back.
Looking down, I'm horrified to see a figure slumped on the ground. He's moving, and after a moment I realize he's wearing a torn and bloodied park ranger uniform, almost as if...
“You'll be fine, Lucy,” he gurgles, slowly looking up at me.
“Pickles?” I stammer, taking another step back. “What -”
“You'll be fine, Lucy.”
“No, you're...”
My voice trails off as I stare down at him. I want more than anything in the world to believe that he's somehow come back, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that he was dead when I got out of the car.
“You'll be fine, Lucy,” he says again, as if he's stuck in a loop, constantly repeating the last words he said before he died. “You'll be fine, Lucy.”
“Pickles -”
Suddenly he lunges at me, grabbing my arm before I quickly pull away. I hurry around the truck, desperate to get away from him, and then I watch as he slowly, unsteadily starts getting to his feet. He's letting out a slow, rasping snarl, and I can still see the wounds he suffered when Doctor Cole attacked him.
“Lucy,” he whispers. “You'll be fine, Lucy. You'll be -”
Before he can finish, he turns and lunges at me again, although this time he simply slams against the hood of the truck and slithers off, crashing back down against the ground.
“You're not Pickles,” I reply, my voice trembling with fear as I take another step back. “I know you're not! You're just -”
Suddenly I spot movement in the distance. Looking toward the diner, I spot a silhouetted figure at the door, and a fraction of a second later I hear a clicking sound, as if the figure just locked the door.
“Hey!” I call out, starting to hurry over to him. “Help!”
The figure turns and runs back into the rear of the diner.
“Stop!” I shout, waving frantically as I get to the door. When I pull the handle, however, I find that the door won't budge, so I bang on the window. “I need a little help out here!” I yell. “Can you let me in? Please, you can't leave me out here!”
“You'll be fine, Lucy,” Pickles gurgles nearby.
I look over my shoulder and see that he's stumbling this way. He's unsteady on his feet, as if he can barely remember how to walk, and he almost slips a couple of times as I watch him with a mounting sense of horror. Finally, unable to keep from panicking a moment longer, I turn and bang my fists on the diner's door again.
“Help!” I shout. “I'm not infected! Whatever this is, I haven't got it, okay? If you let me inside, we can figure something out together!”
I hurry to the window and bang again, hoping against hope that the person will have a change of heart.
“Please, let me in! You -”
“You'll be fine, Lucy,” Pickles says suddenly, right behind me.
I turn to him, but he's already leaning closer. I try to push him away, but he grabs me by the shoulders and bites down hard on my neck, and I feel blood bursting against the side of my face as Pickles digs his teeth through my carotid artery.
“Let me in!” I scream, turning and banging against on the window, as Pickles starts pulling me down to the ground. “Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!”
Also by Amy Cross
PERFECT LITTLE MONSTERS
AND OTHER STORIES
A husband waits until his wife and children are in bed, before inviting a dangerous man into their home...
A girl keeps hold of her mother's necklace, as bloodied hands try to tear it from her grasp...
A gun jams, even as its intended victim begs the universe to let her die...
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Amy Cross. Some of the stories take place in seemingly ordinary towns, whose inhabitants soon discover something truly shocking lurking beneath the veneer of peace and calm. Others show glimpses of vast, barbaric worlds where deadly forces gather to toy with humanity. All the stories in this collection peel back the face of a nightmare, revealing the horror that awaits. And in every one of the stories, some kind of monster lurks...
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories contains the new stories Perfect Little Monsters, I Hate You, Meat, Fifty Fifty and Stay Up Late, as well as a revised version of the previously-released story The Scream. This book contains scenes of violence, as well as strong language.
Also by Amy Cross
THE BRIDE OF ASHBYRN HOUSE
“I have waited so long for your return.”
In the English countryside, miles from the nearest town, there stands an old stone house. Nobody has set foot in the house for years. Nobody has dared. For it is said that even though the lady of the house is long dead, a face can sometimes be seen at one of the windows. A pale, dead face that waits patiently behind a silk wedding veil.
Seeking an escape from his life in London, Owen Stone purchases Ashbyrn House without waiting to find out about its history. As far as Owen is concerned, ghosts aren't real and his only company in the house will be the thin-legged spiders that lurk on the walls. Even after he moves in, and after he starts hearing strange noises in the night, Owen insists that Ashbyrn House can't possibly be haunted.
But Owen knows nothing about the ghostly figure that is said to haunt the house. Or about the mysterious church bells that ring out across the lawn at night. Or about the terrible fate that befell the house's previous inhabitants when they dared defy the bride. Even as Owen starts to understand the horrific truth about Ashbyrn House's past, he might be too late to escape the clutches of the presence that watches his every move.
The Bride of Ashbyrn House is a ghost story about a man who believes the past can't hurt him, and about a woman whose search for a husband has survived even her own tragic death.
Also by Amy Cross
THE BODY AT AUERCLIFF
“We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!”
When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms.
A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from.
The truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of
a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die.
Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms? Why have successive generations of the family been plagued by a persistent scratching sound? And what really happened to Rebecca many years ago, when she found herself locked inside the Auercliff mausoleum?
The Body at Auercliff is a horror story about a family and a house, and about the refusal of the past to stay buried.
Also by Amy Cross
THE GHOST OF SHAPLEY HALL
“Georgette Shapley died outside this house. Her ghost has spent the past century trying to get back inside so she can be reunited with her child.”
James Spence doesn't believe in ghosts, so he has no worries about going with his girlfriend Rachel to visit an old, abandoned country home.
Rachel, meanwhile, is convinced that a weekend at Shapley Hall will make James change his mind. After all, she knows from bitter experience that the the house is haunted by a woman who once died in the most horrific manner possible, and who now waits to be reunited with her long-lost child.
As the weekend continues, however, James starts to realize that maybe ghosts are the least of his problems. Rachel's behavior is becoming increasingly erratic, and it soon becomes clear that she'll stop at nothing to fulfill a promise she once made to a dead woman. Did Rachel imagine a terrifying experience during her childhood, or are the hallways of Shapley Hall really haunted by a terrifying, vengeful creature?
The Ghost of Shapley Hall is a horror story about two people who venture into a dark, abandoned house, and about the echo of a terrible crime that still haunts the Shapley family to this day.
OTHER BOOKS
BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE
Horror
The Curse of Wetherley House
Haunted
The Bride of Ashbyrn House
The Body at Auercliff
B&B
The Disappearance of Katie Wren
The Horror of Devil's Root Lake
The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel
The Haunting of Blackwych Grange
The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal book 1)
The Printer From Hell
The Farm
The Nurse
American Coven
Annie's Room
Eli's Town
Asylum
Meds (Asylum 2)
The Night Girl
Devil's Briar
The Cabin
After the Cabin
Last Wrong Turn
At the Edge of the Forest
The Devil's Hand
The Ghost of Shapley Hall
The Death of Addie Gray
A House in London
The Blood House
The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1)
Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)
The Border
The Lighthouse
3AM
Tenderling
The Girl Clay
The Prison
Ward Z
The Devil's Photographer
Thriller
The Girl Who Never Came Back
The Murder at Skellin Cottage (Mason book 1)
The Return of Rachel Stone (Mason book 2)
Other People's Bodies
Dystopia / Science Fiction
The Dog
The Island (The Island book 1)
Persona (The Island book 2)
Short Story Collections
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories
Twisted Little Things and Other Stories
The Ghost of Longthorn Manor and Other Stories