In Your Face Horror (Chamber Of Horror Series)

by Billy Wells

  “If it weren’t for the moon, we’d a never seen him.”

  “But we still woulda heard that woman screamin’ in that sack,” Hank remembered.

  “Sergeant Wilkes didn’t believe a word we said.” Jeb sucked on the scab and spit.

  “Sergeant Wilkes and his morons! They never did find who murdered those old maids that lived out near Possum Corners.”

  “Nope, they never did, but I think we mighta seen their killer that night. He certainly was up to no good.”

  Jeb rolled a cigarette from a tobacco pouch, lit it, and took a long drag. Sticking out his tongue, he blew several smoke rings, which magically spun in circles, one through another, as he recalled that hellish night one year ago. “I can still hear that poor woman screaming. She knew she’d never see the light of day agin.”

  “I can’t believe Wilkes paid us no mind when we spilled our guts on what we saw. Just because we lied about tearing the stop sign down at Columbia Furnace is no reason to think we’d be lyin’ about a murder.”

  Jeb flicked an ash on the porch and said jokingly, “You still say that old house is not haunted?”

  “Yep, I never seen anything bumpin’ in the night over there so far.”

  “What about the Johnsons? They disappeared in the dead of night.”

  “It don’t matter if they disappeared; there’s no doubt they were murdered. The coroner said that their blood was splattered all over the house. Some maniac like the man on the black horse probably done it. Not ghosts,” Hank said as he watched a bat fly across the face of the moon.

  “Nobody will ever live in that house agin’ after that. The county can’t give the place away, and we live right next door.”

  “Well, Jeb, I’m gonna turn in before you give me the willies and I have to sleep with one eye open all night.”

  Jeb smiled and pulled out his crusty wallet. “Since you don’t believe in ghosts, I’ll give you a dollar to go into that old house and stay ‘til morning.”

  “No way,” Hank said as he flicked his cigarette onto the road and went for his wallet, “But I’ll raise the stakes to three dollars if you think you’ve got the balls to spend the night over there.”

  “I don’t need money that bad,” Jeb conceded.

  The two laughed and went to bed, but visions of ghosts and ax murderers lay heavy on their minds.

  The night was uncommonly still as the two teens lay there rolling the things they’d seen last year around in their minds. The moon sailed across the sky and disappeared behind a cloud, and the land was swallowed in pitch-black darkness.

  Hank couldn’t sleep. All he could think of was the masked rider in black with the flowing vampire cape, the blood, and the house next door. He thought he heard Jeb snoring in the next room, but he wasn’t sure.

  Jeb was tossing and turning and humming “Faith of our Fathers” into the pillow in a low drone. A cool breeze found the crack at the base of the window and blew a musty curtain across the back of his neck. Jeb’s hair stood straight up, and a chill ran down his spine like icy fingers.

  He sat up and looked about the room and listened for the slightest sound. The moon had reappeared in the sky, and its light shining through the limbs of the trees outside cast eerie phantoms on the bedroom wall. The open closet door gaped at him in the silence.

  Several hours passed, and both brothers were restless in their beds. A sound pricked Hank’s ear. Hoof beats. He knew right away that no Mennonite carriage would be out at this time of night. It was just one horse coming down the road. It sounded like thunder coming from far off. He looked at his watch—midnight, Halloween.

  Jeb whispered in Hank’s ear, “It’s him,” scaring his brother right off his bed.

  “What are you doing in my room?”

  “Whadda you think? Are we gonna let him get away again?”

  “Let’s call Sergeant Wilkes!” Hank suggested as a better alternative. “Let him take care of it.”

  “You know he won’t believe us.”

  Hank paused to weigh the alternatives and whined, “Let’s wake up, Pa!”

  “You know what Pa said last time.”

  “The same thing he says every time.” Hank rattled off a few Pa-isms in a stern voice impersonating his father: “Mind you own business. Don’t catch a bullet that was meant for somebody else. Don’t go hunting wolves unless the wolf is hunting you. Let’s face it, Pa’s not gonna get involved unless the man in black comes knocking on our door, and maybe we shouldn’t either.”

  “If we don’t take the bull by the horns, he’s gonna get away,” Jeb said with a long face.

  “Look, birdbrain, I wanna live. I’m too young to die.”

  Jeb knew his brother well enough to know that Hank was not going to put his life on the line for a total stranger. He didn’t want to take any chances either, but he couldn’t stand the thought of letting the murderer get away two years in a row. His family could be victims next year. He grabbed his slingshot and some rock pellets from a drawer and reasoned with Hank: “Hey, let’s just see what he’s gonna do. We don’t have to handcuff him or anything. Let’s just see where he goes.”

  Hank reluctantly joined Jeb, and they sneaked out through the back door and crawled behind some shrubs that faced the old Pickens house.

  The autumn wind blew through the old tattered curtains that hung in the windows of the battered house. The full moon was still high in the sky as they watched the rider in black dismount his ebony steed. Hank and Jeb’s hearts were pounding in their chests, and they were so excited they could barely catch their breaths.

  The figure in black crept into the shadows and disappeared behind the dark house. After what seemed like an eternity, he reappeared with a burlap sack in his arms the same as he had last Halloween. The teens heard the sound of a woman screaming emanating from the sack.

  “Time for the police,” Hank whispered.

  “Hey, by the time they get here this pervert will be gone with the wind. Another poor lady murdered.”

  The rider in black tied the sack on the back of his mighty steed, mounted, and rode off into the night heading away from the state road and deeper into the country. The teenagers mounted their bicycles and followed as close behind the rider as they could without being seen or heard.

  “Where can he be going?” Jeb said blankly. “This road is gonna end in about a mile. There’s nothin’ out here but the old abandoned—”

  “Cemetery! Damn, that’s where he’s headed all right,” Hank answered.

  With each section of the road, they were ready to give up the chase and make a run for it into the underbrush that they hunted in with their pa for most of their lives. In spite of the unknown that lay ahead in the black night, they continued to follow the masked rider from a distance on the lonely road.

  The boys hid their bikes in the bushes a little before they reached the abandoned graveyard. They continued on foot as silently as they could and were careful not to make the slightest sound. The graveyard hadn’t been used as a burial ground for many years. Most of the graves had collapsed, and the old stones were leaning. The grass was long and the trees gnarled and leafless. The wind stirred in the trees and crawled up the back of their necks as they lay still near the entrance to the cemetery.

  The man in black dismounted, and lifting the sack from across his saddle, pitched it into a grave that had already been dug. The pitiful screams of the helpless female filled their senses with horror.

  “He’s going to bury her alive. What kind of monster could do such a thing?” Jeb whispered in disbelief.

  “I don’t want to find out, so stay quiet or I’m out of here.”

  Hank and Jeb were too terrified to lift their heads to look at the monster piling the suffocating earth on top of his helpless victim. Her futile screams diminished as each shovelful of dirt filled the grave and sealed her doom.

  Finally, the deed was done and the screaming ceased entirely when the woman was finally enveloped in the damp, wormy earth.
The rider placed the shovel neatly in its place on his saddlebag and swiftly mounted the bellowing, hellish steed. Without the slightest reservation, he rode off into the night from which he had come.

  After the hoof beats disappeared entirely, Hank and Jeb ran to the grave in hopes that they could still save the helpless woman from the horrible fate of being buried alive.

  Hank found a piece of stump and Jeb a flat rock with which to dig. It seemed like an eternity before they finally reached the burlap. The worms were blanketing the earthen tomb. Their skin crawled with disgust as they untied the sack.

  The whimpering sound of the woman within lifted their spirits as they pulled the burlap away from her head and shoulders. The full moon shone down through her golden tresses. Her neck and shoulders looked like ivory in the moonlight. Her sheer nightgown felt like silk to the touch, and the sight of her breasts heaving under the gauzy negligee was the most erotic sight that Hank and Jeb had ever seen.

  Hank felt like a hero as he lifted her into his arms and turned the shadow of her face toward the moonlight, saying, “Jeb, I might have just died and gone to heaven.”

  “Not yet, dearie,” the she-beast cackled as she tossed Hank into the grave like a toy soldier. He heard the sound of bones breaking and looked up to see Jeb’s headless body, with arms flailing and blood spewing from the cavern that was his neck. Hank tried to scale the slippery wall, but he was again caught in the vise of her icy fingers. He writhed in agony as the monster playfully harvested his left eye with a long fingernail and popped it into her mouth.

  Hank remembered that his pa had once told him ”Good guys don’t always wear white hats” as the world started to spin.

  The last thing Hank saw with his good eye was the horror of her face in the moonlight.

  * * *

  Under New Management

  Police Officer Bill Harriman entered Big Mama’s Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor during his lunch break. He took the only empty stool at the counter next to a young boy with a mop of red hair and a face full of freckles sitting next to the wall.

  Handing him a menu, a middle-aged waitress with severe acne asked in a drawl as thick as peanut butter, “Would you like some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

  He nodded and watched the old timer to his right grimace as he struggled to his feet and shuffled to the cashier to pay his bill.

  The waitress returned, put a cup and saucer in front of Harriman, and poured some coffee. “You know what you want, honey, or do you need more time?”

  “How are the liver and onions?” he said, placing a wad of gum in a napkin on the counter.

  “The best in town. The liver’s fresh as can be and comes with two sides.”

  “Sounds good. Let me have mashed potatoes, green beans, and an extra roll, if you don’t mind.”

  “The waitress jotted the order down on her pad and placed it on a revolving lazy susan with the others.

  Turning to the left, Harriman noticed a Sears catalogue on the counter and pictures of toys the youngster had marked with a crayon. Since Christmas was only a few days away, he looked at the boy and said with a friendly smile, “What’s Santa bringing you for Christmas, son?”

  “There’s no such thing as Santa Claus,” the boy said solemnly.

  Shocked by this reply, the policeman wondered if the children at the table in front of the counter had heard this. He moved closer to the boy and whispered, ”Most kids your age do believe in Santa, and they’re gonna be very disappointed on Christmas Day if you’re right. I believed in Santa when I was your age. Who told you there’s no Santa?”

  “My mother told me,” the boy replied, turning a page of the catalog.

  “Haven’t you seen Santa at the mall and all the kids who sit on his knee and tell him what they want for Christmas?”

  “My mother says they’re just men in Santa suits.”

  “Do you get presents on Christmas morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t think Santa brings them.”

  “Nope. My mother brings them.”

  “What about the Easter Bunny?”

  “There’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny.”

  The two little girls at the table behind them heard this and started to cry. Their parents glared at Harriman and the boy and placed some cash on the table. Gathering their things, they hauled the wailing girls out the front door.

  The officer regretted starting the conversation about Santa with the boy. The restaurant had re-opened under new management only a week before. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate new customers. He could see in the mirror behind the counter the lunch crowd was thinning out.

  The waitress placed a plate with an enormous portion of liver and onions, mashed potatoes, and green beans on the counter and refilled his coffee cup. She forgot the extra roll. Cutting off a generous helping of liver, he saw to his dismay that it was blood red. It was a lot more rare than he had bargained for, but he decided not to make an issue of it or the roll.

  While chewing his third piece of liver, he bit into a chunk of gristle. He felt his throat spasm as he extracted the inedible piece of cartilage from his mouth without the waitress seeing and placed it in a napkin beside the plate. On the next slice, he bit into a small bone, which caused his misaligned jaw to gnaw off a piece of the inside of his cheek. He didn’t understand the gristle and bone in calf’s liver, but decided to quit while he was ahead. He didn’t finish the remainder of the raw, mystery meat and pledged never to order liver and onions from Big Mama in the future.

  Harriman caught a glimpse of what appeared to be an emaciated woman flitting across the corner of the pass-through behind the counter. Since no one alive could be as thin as the figure he thought he saw, he wondered if last night’s scary zombie movie had caused his eyes to play tricks on him. After all, if Big Mamma was the cook, she couldn’t be thin.

  Looking around at the empty tables, he noticed he and the boy were the last two customers in the restaurant.

  Picking up his plate with the unfinished liver, the waitress said with a toothy grin, “You look like you still have room for a dessert. How about a root beer float? They’re on special this week for $3.00.”

  “Now that you mention it,” he said. “I’m dying for one. In fact, that’s why I stopped here in the first place.” He hesitated and looking at the boy asked, “Do you think it would be all right if I bought him one?”

  “I think it would be all right. His mother owns the restaurant and ice cream parlor. She’s also the cook.”

  Harriman stuck out two fingers and smiled broadly. “I’d like an extra scoop in mine.”

  Looking down at the boy, he asked, “Your mother is the owner?”

  The boy seemed puzzled by the question and said, “My mother is a ghoul.”

  Startled by the reply and knowing they were having a communication gap, Harriman whispered, “Ghoul? You mean girl?”

  The boy looked more puzzled.

  To clarify, the policeman asked, “What’s a girl?”

  Without hesitation, the youngster said, “It’s a boy with no penis.”

  “Did you say your mother is a girl?”

  “No. I said my mother is a ghoul.” Someone dropped a pan on the floor in the kitchen.

  Harriman said, “What’s a ghoul?”

  “A person who’s always hungry,” the little boy answered with no hesitation.

  The policeman decided the conversation was going nowhere and finished his coffee without further questions. The little boy continued looking through the Sears catalogue.

  The waitress brought two root-beer floats, and the policeman and the boy devoured the contents of the large glasses to the last drop.

  When the waitress brought the check, the officer placed a twenty on the counter and said, “Keep the change.” He looked at the boy and said, “It was nice talking with you. I‘ll probably see you again soon. I need to get back to catching the bad guys.”

  Before returning to
his cruiser, Harriman decided to visit the men’s room. He saw a door at the end of the hall with a sign “employees only.” Through the six-inch crack, he saw the kitchen and smelled the aroma of food wafting into the hallway.

  Deciding it appropriate to introduce himself to the new owner and to get a better look at the person he’d seen at the pass-through, he tapped lightly on the door and entered.

  On the large stove, numerous pots and pans were steaming. He didn’t see the boy’s mother and shouted, “Hello. I’m the local police officer, and I’d like to introduce myself.”

  Stopping at the first pot on the stove, he peeked inside and did a double take when he saw a mixture of human fingers and toes swimming in a clear broth coming to a boil.

  As he quickly grabbed his sidearm, the ghoul’s sledgehammer struck him in the back of the neck. He crumpled to the tile floor, unable to move his arms or legs.

  He heard a giggle. Then the little boy who didn’t believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny knelt down beside him and took a bite out of his nose.

  The waitress with acne had a ravenous look on her face as she smacked her bloody lips and shuffled by with a sign that read, “Closed for Repairs.”

  Moments later, she returned and dragged Harriman into a meat locker in the back corner of the kitchen. He saw five human carcasses hanging from meat hooks and knew he would be joining them soon. The lips of the ashen corpses were blue with icicles of blood hanging from their frozen fingers and toes.

  Finally, the emaciated thing called “Mother” started hacking away at him with her meat cleaver.

  * * *

  Christmas Eve

  At 3 a.m. on the night before Christmas, Mark and Nancy Jessup were fast asleep after a hard night of decorating. Their children, Cindy and Aidan, were snuggled in their beds in the next bedroom with visions of video games and Barbie dolls dancing in their heads when something struck the house with a thunderous boom.