Gleefully Macabre Tales

by Jeff Strand

  Abbey nodded slowly.

  "Good. You have a few more years left, Abbey, but then I’ll teach you exactly what to do. I’ll even bring you the girl."

  "I don’t want to do this," said Abbey.

  "You will pretty soon. Trust me."

  Abbey took a step away. "I’m never going to do that!"

  "Yes, you will. Someday."

  "NO!" Abbey lunged for the shelves, grabbing a porcelain doll. He flung it at Dad, striking him dead center in the face. The doll shattered and Dad fell to his knees, clutching at his nose.

  "Abbey! Stop it!"

  Abbey grabbed a fire engine with a knife poking out of its front hood. "You killed Mommy!" he screamed, throwing it. This one also struck dad in the face, and he fell backward, his head slamming against the floor. But he quickly sat up again.

  Abbey snatched two stuffed animals, throwing each of them, but only hitting with one. It struck Dad in the forehead, leaving gashes where the fangs bit into his flesh. Abbey had no idea he could throw so hard.

  "Abbey!"

  "I hate you! I hate you!" Abbey shrieked, throwing more toys at Dad, one after the other. Dad’s scream of pain scared him more than any shout of rage he’d ever heard.

  Abbey stood there, gasping for breath. Dad lay on his back, clutching at his throat, blood seeping through his fingers. He was still alive, but Abbey knew that he was no longer a threat.

  Not that he would get too close. Yet.

  The door leading to the attic swung open. "Daddy?" Stephanie’s voice called out. "What’s going on?"

  Abbey didn’t reply. He felt strange, tingly. His body didn’t hurt any more.

  He heard Stephanie take one step up the staircase. "Daddy?"

  "Don’t come up here!" Abbey called out.

  "Where’s Daddy?"

  "I said don’t come up here!"

  More footsteps. She was coming up anyway. Abbey glanced over at the dead lady, and then back at Dad. Dad had been right. It did feel good.

  Stephanie stepped into the basement and screamed at the top of her lungs. Abbey picked up the teddy bear with the fangs.

  Maybe it could feel even better.

  The Socket

  The day Quincy lost his left eye was the best day of his life.

  Oh, sure, it didn’t seem that way at first. Certainly not as he staggered home, hand clenched around the switchblade that jutted out of his face, blood trickling through his fingers. In fact, at this point the situation seemed to fall squarely into the category of "unpleasant."

  "Kiss my ass, you zit-ridden mommy-rammer!" had perhaps not been the wisest response to the demand that he hand over his wallet, but Quincy was never one to back down from a fight. Even after the mugger held the tip of a knife up to his iris, Quincy had stood firm. But then the mugger had made good on his threat, stabbing the blade an inch and a half into the orb. Quincy hadn’t stood quite so firm after that.

  So not only had he lost his eye, he’d lost his wallet. Sure, he didn’t have any cash or credit cards inside, but he did have his frequent diner card at Tanglen’s Deli, and he’d only been two stamps away from a free sandwich. That hurt.

  He burst into his apartment, having walked the entire fifteen blocks without anyone offering to help. Good. He didn’t want anybody’s help, anyway. He hated owing people. And he especially wasn’t going to a hospital…hospitals killed people for their internal organs. Nope, the only person Quincy was going to trust was Quincy, and he’d take care of this little problem lickety split.

  Lickety split? He’d never even thought the words "lickety split" before. Maybe the tip of the switchblade was poking his brain or something.

  He hurried into the bathroom and stared into the mirror with his good eye. Lots of blood. Enough that he couldn’t tell how bad the damage was. He took a deep breath, bit down on the sides of his mouth, and then wrenched the blade out of his eye. A gout of something clear and slimy sprayed onto the mirror, making him cringe.

  The eye was going to have to come out—that much was certain. Equally certain was the fact that it was probably going to be a rather uncomfortable experience. But, hey, he was just going to have to take a couple/three aspirin and tough it out.

  He could do it. He had willpower.

  He wet a towel under the faucet and then wiped his face as thoroughly as he could. The eye was still oozing, but not as badly as before. He wished he had a good set of surgical tools to perform this little operation, but a kitchen knife was going to have to suffice.

  Quincy went into the kitchen and opened the freezer door. He still had most of a tub of lime sherbet, so he pressed that to his eye and held it there for about ten minutes until he felt sufficiently numb. Then he went to the silverware drawer and selected the sharpest knife he owned, which really wasn’t all that sharp, and returned to the bathroom. He stuffed a washrag into his mouth to muffle the inevitable screams and blasphemies, then raised the knife to begin the surgery.

  ««—»»

  He had shrieked a great deal during the procedure, but felt no personal shame over this. After all, he had been severing the stalk that kept his own eye from falling out of its socket. Many people wouldn’t have been able to do that at all, much less in silence. He’d been brave, and now the job was done.

  The blood continued flowing and Quincy grew tired of constantly wiping it off, so he stuffed the washrag into the socket—just a little, not enough to do any damage—and let it dangle.

  After a while, all of the fluid leakage stopped. As there was no reason that Quincy could think of for keeping his ruined eye around, he flushed it down the toilet like a dead goldfish. Then he removed the washcloth and thoroughly cleaned out the socket with antiseptic. This should have hurt like hell, but for some reason it didn’t, possibly because he was getting used to pain.

  He glanced at himself in the mirror again and frowned. Well, he certainly could look worse, but he was still going to have to do something about his appearance if he wanted to keep his job waiting tables at Momma Helga’s Diner. Business would not be helped if rumors were spread about frequent customer regurgitation.

  He searched through his dresser drawers until he found his old black t-shirt with the grease stains. He took it into the living room, along with scissors and a needle and thread (well, fishing line), and made himself a sturdy eye patch. There. That would take care of any problems caused by his physical appearance, and he could entertain young children with pirate talk.

  Quincy slept well that night.

  ««—»»

  The next day, with a few hours before he had to be at work, Quincy went grocery shopping. His socket—the emptiness there—was beginning to bother him. It just felt too vacant. Not to mention the fact that his depth perception was all screwed up, causing him to knock over a display of gummi bears.

  He stopped at the produce section, and stared at the grapes for a very long time.

  Some of them looked big enough…

  No, that was ridiculous.

  Of course, he did like grapes, so if it didn’t work he wouldn’t have wasted his money, would he?

  ««—»»

  Since Quincy was a careful sort, he first cut out part of a gallon-sized milk container and wedged the plastic near the back of the socket, just to keep anything from rolling back where it shouldn’t. Then he inserted one of the grapes, after drawing an iris on it with white-out and a felt-tipped pen.

  It looked hilarious.

  He wished he could show somebody.

  Unfortunately, the grape still felt too light and off-balance compared to his real eye.

  But there were other options.

  ««—»»

  Tips had been stingy that night, and Quincy began to wonder if the eye patch was making people uncomfortable. Martin, his boss, hadn’t been treating him especially well, either, showing little concern for the "infection" Quincy claimed to have developed.

  "And how was everything?" Quincy asked the family of four: two parents, a boy, and a
girl.

  "I think the bread was stale," the father muttered. "And you never did bring me the extra mustard."

  Quincy noted with a bit of annoyance that the man hadn’t used up the mustard he had brought, but didn’t say anything.

  "My mom wants to know what happened to your eye," the boy said. His mother nudged him in the ribs, hard.

  Quincy smiled. "The Easter Bunny took it."

  "Really?" The boy seemed frightened by such a concept.

  "Uh-huh. He took it while I was asleep. Know what he left me?"

  The boy shook his head.

  Quincy lifted the eye patch, revealing the melting chocolate-covered cherry he’d inserted into the socket. The mother gasped, and the little girl covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a scream. Enjoying their horrified expressions, Quincy stuck out his thumb and jammed it into the socket, squirting white goo and sending melted chocolate dripping down his cheek. He pulled out his thumb with the cherry impaled on it.

  "What’s that nursery rhyme?" he asked, barely able to control his laughter. "You know, the one with the kid sticking his finger into a pie and getting a plum?"

  The father threw up all over his unused mustard. Quincy popped the cherry into his mouth and chewed happily. The mother screamed, and the boy and girl immediately joined in as concerned patrons turned from their meals to see what the ruckus was all about.

  ««—»»

  After cleaning the excess chocolate out of the socket, Quincy lay on his bed, pounding his fist against his pillow, his entire body shaking with laughter. That had been great! He couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard in his life.

  He wondered if there was money to be made from this.

  See Quincy and His Amazing Stuffed Socket!

  Maybe he could even get on television.

  But first he’d have to practice.

  ««—»»

  For the next week Quincy wandered the streets, surprising unsuspecting pedestrians with whatever object he’d currently wedged in his socket. Quarters went over well, and so did cherry tomatoes. He wanted to put a Mickey Mouse head in there but was afraid he might get sued. His favorite was the balloon, which he inflated as far as he could within the socket, then popped with a needle just as the victim began to gape at him.

  Quincy was having an absolutely wonderful time. He had no idea that freaking people out could be so much fun!

  Near the end of the week he walked all over the city with a celery stalk protruding from the socket. Not one person was willing to ride in an elevator with him for more than one floor.

  The reaction at the day care center was incredible.

  ««—»»

  "And were you ever enrolled in college?" the young woman at the employment office inquired.

  Quincy shook his head, and scratched at the eye patch. "Nope. High school was more than enough for me."

  "And all of your job experience has been waiting tables?"

  Quincy continued scratching. "Not exactly. I spent some time as a dishwasher, too. Say, do you mind if I make myself a little more comfortable?"

  The woman gave him a blank stare for a moment. "Uh, no, of course not."

  "Thanks." Quincy tore off the eye patch. The live beetles he’d packed into the socket spilled out and began racing around the woman’s desk. Her screams and the repeated thuds as she slammed a telephone book down upon the insects were well worth the fact that without a job, Quincy was probably going to be kicked out of his apartment at the beginning of the month.

  ««—»»

  He sat in his dark closet, laughing maniacally. The socket was beginning to show signs of rot, despite his frequent applications of the antiseptic, but he didn’t care. The gangrene made his appearance all the more effective.

  ««—»»

  Finally, the call came.

  "Excuse me," said the low, male voice on the other end, "I’d like to speak with…uh…the eye guy."

  Quincy set down the artificial rat he’d been trying to cut down to socket size. "That’s me!"

  "I’m from Seriously Disgusting, the television show…maybe you’ve seen it?"

  "Yes!" Quincy exclaimed. "I have! You guys do a great job! You want to do a segment on me, right?"

  "Well, we’d at least like to speak with you, get the back story. Are you going to be available tomorrow?"

  "Hell yeah! I’m ready right now, if you want!"

  "No, tomorrow will be fine. We’d like to conduct a short interview at your place of residence, and perhaps follow you around town for a while. Is this okay?"

  "It’s great!"

  "All right, how does tomorrow around noon sound?"

  "Perfect!"

  He gave the man his address and hung up. Yep, this was his big shot at stardom. He wondered how they’d found out who he was. Probably asked at Momma Helga’s Deli. Quincy danced around the apartment for a while, singing the Seriously Disgusting theme song at the top of his lungs.

  ««—»»

  But when he woke up the next morning, he was very disturbed.

  He was going into the big-time now. He couldn’t just show them the same old stuff. He didn’t want people yawning at the eye guy.

  He needed a new twist.

  ««—»»

  Quincy entered his apartment, holding a bag from the toy store. He emptied the contents onto his bed, and then went into the kitchen to retrieve the metal spoon he’d sharpened just before he left.

  ««—»»

  Darren Taylor gave his cameraman an annoyed look as he knocked on the door a third time. He hoped this guy Quincy was legit.

  "Come in!" said a voice from within the apartment. Christ, the guy sounded insane.

  Darren turned the knob and pushed the door inward. Quincy stood in the center of the room, naked save for a pair of boxer shorts. His entire body was slick with blood. He had gouged out chunks of flesh along his arms, legs, and chest, and wedged large plastic eyeballs in each of them, at least forty in all. A lit cigar protruded from his eye socket.

  "See?" Quincy said, making a wide, sweeping gesture toward himself. "I compensated for the empty socket!" He began to cackle with mad laughter as he fell to his knees, cracking two or three of the eyeballs in his legs as he did so.

  Darren backed away, appalled. Quincy’s smile disappeared. "Wait…where’re you going? This is my big chance!"

  He grabbed a toy pinwheel from the coffee table and plunged the stick end of it deep into his good eye. Something that looked like bloody gelatin splattered against his fist. "How about this? We can tell the viewers at home that I can see them with the eye gook on my hand!"

  As Darren and the cameraman broke into a run, Quincy giggled and slurped up the eyeball residue. "Now I’ll get to see the inside of my stomach! It’s Must See TV!"

  He gave the multicolored, metallic wheel a generous spin and staggered around the living room, laughing hysterically.

  One of Them

  "Come and see the freaks!" shouted the carnival barker, holding his wooden cane with a palsied hand. "For a mere fifty cents you can observe human oddities like nothing your innocent eyes have ever witnessed! See the most nightmarish and bizarre examples of human aberration and misery, right behind these very curtains! You will not soon forget the twisted and ghastly sights that will greet you upon admittance to this gallery of the macabre, for but fifty cents, a half-dollar, two quarters! Who has the courage, the constitution, to brave the horrors contained within? Anyone?"

  "I want to see them," said a young boy, holding out his palm.

  The barker looked at the quarters in his hand and sneered. "I’m afraid not, young man. How old are you?"

  "Eleven."

  "Eleven? An eleven-year-old mind is far too fragile to cope with the frights behind these curtains, I promise you that. Come back in about seven years and I’ll let you in." He chuckled. "Remind me that you were here today and I’ll let you in for half price."

  "But I want to see the freaks."

  "Ah, the
persistence of youth. Shouldn’t a young lad like you be in school?"

  The boy shrugged.

  "Do your parents know you’re here?"

  "No."

  The barker grinned, and then glanced to his left and to his right with exaggerated caution. He gestured for the boy to lean in close and spoke in a whisper. "Well, well, well, far be it from me to refuse admission to one who has risked so much to get here. Perhaps for seventy-five cents I’ll let you in. We’ll call it an extra quarter for insurance purposes."

  The boy hesitated, but dug into his pocket. "I don’t have another quarter."

  "An even dollar then."

  The boy reached into his other pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. "Excellent!" said the barker, snatching the money out of his hand. "Come with me, young man, and I’ll show you sights that will haunt you until your dying day!"