In Your Face Horror (Chamber Of Horror Series)

by Billy Wells

  Reaching through the broken window to make a cursory check of the woman’s vitals, the stranger couldn’t detect a heartbeat, a pulse, or any sign of life. Suddenly, the lifeless corpse’s hand opened like a claw, sending the man recoiling backwards. Her dead bulbous eyes widened and fixed on him. The enlarged black pupils covering both sockets glared at him with unmitigated hatred so intense, he thought it could bore a hole through his skull. Closing her creepy eyes, and rechecking her vitals, he reconfirmed she was still as dead as dead can be. Another spasm sent him skittering backwards around the trunk of the car.

  Upon reaching the driver’s side, something else caught him by surprise. With his mouth agape, he observed the sporadic twitching of the female copse from several angles with growing trepidation. The final shock came when he backpedaled up the hill toward the highway and saw her creepy eyes pop open, still staring in his direction.

  The rescue squad arrived shortly thereafter, placed Jasper on a stretcher, and hoisted into the ambulance. Through the side window, he could see two policemen and two firemen attempting to remove the deer and Nancy’s body from the wreckage as the ambulance sped away with sirens blaring.

  Minutes later, the ambulance pulled into the driveway of the local clinic. Doc Stephens, a middle-aged doctor with a stethoscope hanging from his neck followed the EMT’s into the small office building. A young lady in nurse’s garb held the door open and joined the others inside.

  Jasper continued to sob while the doctor set his broken arm, and the nurse attended to the cuts on his face.

  “After evaluating your injuries, I don’t think you need to be taken to the General Hospital in Harrisonburg,” the doctor replied.

  Jasper ignored his comment and continued staring into space. “Nancy is dead, and life will never be the same. What can I tell my son? He’s getting married next month, and his mother won’t be there.” His words trailed off as the tears continued to flow.

  The doctor paused and looked at the nurse. She picked up a tray and left the room.

  Inspecting his cast, the doctor looked at Jasper and said, “The man who rescued you from the car is in the waiting room, and he’d like to speak with you. He says it’s important.”

  The request surprised Jasper, but he gathered his composure to meet with the man. “Send him in, Doc. He probably saved my life. Did the car finally explode?”

  “No, the fire department put out the fire in time.”

  The doctor left the room. Shortly after, the elderly man in the flannel shirt, now wearing a baseball cap, appeared at the door. Behind him, Jasper saw a gurney with a body covered with a sheet pass in the hallway followed by the two EMT’s that had brought him to the clinic. He overheard one of them say to the man, “You were right. It wasn’t your imagination after all.”

  The old man turned toward the small procession looking strangely apprehensive. He seemed relieved upon hearing the door close down the hall, but continued his vigil in the doorway.

  “You wanted to see me?” Jasper said breaking the ice.

  The man turned and entered the room. “Yes. I noticed several things at the scene of the accident that were weird. I was in the rescue squad for years, and I’ve seen my share of mutilated bodies, but I’ve never seen open wounds like your wife had that didn’t bleed. It’s not normal. There should have been a lot of blood, but there wasn’t a drop coming from her body.”

  “No blood…?” Jasper muttered, stunned by what the old man was saying. He remembered all too well the torn flesh and the huge hole in Nancy’s chest, and knew the stranger was right; there was no blood. It was impossible, but true.

  The old man continued, “I tried to warn the doc and the EMT’s, but they just laughed at me at first. They said I had a vivid imagination. Now I think they understand what I was trying to tell them.”

  “And what was that?” Jasper asked dumbfounded.

  “The bloodless corpse on the gurney in the back room with a gaping hole in her chest where her heart should be is not human.”

  “Do you expect me to believe this bullshit?” Jasper screamed. “You must be ready for the loony bin. A real nut case.”

  “Look, I’m sorry if I’m making a bad situation worse, but I had to tell you,” the man said apologetically. “You don’t need to take my word for it. Talk to the Doc and the EMT’s. God knows what they’re gonna discover about your wife before the night is over.”

  Jasper tried to sit up. Was this some kind of bad dream? The idea that the woman he had lived with and loved for more than twenty years wasn’t human was beyond comprehension. If his wife wasn’t human, what about the son he had raised as his own from Nancy’s first marriage. As he thought back, he couldn’t remember Bobby ever being really sick. And for that matter, he couldn’t remember him skinning his knee or cutting his finger or any injury where there would have been bleeding. He also realized he had never seen Nancy bleed, and couldn’t recall her ever being under the care of a physician. In fact, he couldn’t think of the name of her primary physician. He didn’t remember her ever having one.

  The old man stood in the doorway fingering his baseball cap and finally said, “Oh, I saved the best for last. By all medical standards, your wife’s vitals say she’s dead, but her black eyeballs followed me from one side of the car to the other. There’s no doubt she’s alive, at least she was then, and I’ve got a bad feeling she’s not happy we’ve discovered her secret.”

  “My wife is alive!” Jasper screamed with delight.

  “That may not be a good thing,” the stranger replied warily. “Look, I’d best be going before the shit really hits the fan. God bless us all.” He disappeared into the corridor.

  Jasper sat on the bed thinking about the incredible story the old man had told. He needed to speak with the doctor and the EMT’s. He heard a scream down the hall and the sound of scuffling.

  Struggling from the bed to his feet, he moved toward the lights in the hall. The first door he came to was ajar. He pushed it open and began screaming when he saw the doctor and the nurse lying in a pool of blood with gaping holes in their chests. Their hearts were dangling from their chest cavities.

  Breathless from the horrific state of the two bodies, he backtracked into the corridor in the direction of the lobby. Turning the corner, he stumbled over the bloody remains of the elderly man who’d rescued him.

  Steadying himself on the door handle of a nearby examination room, he regained his footing. Was he losing his mind? How could this be happening? His mind was spinning as he lurched toward the lobby like a man in a drunken stupor.

  Reaching the lobby, he stood motionless in the dead silence, paralyzed in fear by the sight of the ravaged bodies of the policemen, the EMT’s, and the firemen that had been at the scene of the accident. The light coming through the picture window from the parking lot cast a wall-to-wall liquid shine on the lobby floor. It looked like a shallow swimming pool of blood with six bodies floating in it.

  Shuttering violently, he heard what sounded like someone dragging a foot across the floor behind him. He realized, except for him, all the witnesses of the accident were dead. In the window’s reflection, he saw the skeletal grin of his wife’s exposed teeth and the deep, black hole in her chest. Cringing in horror, he closed his eyes, hoping the end would be quick.

  And then like a breath of fresh air, he was relieved by the familiar sound of his wife’s thunderous cannonball fart, which had been a source of levity in their household for twenty years. Despite the carnage before him, he started to giggle hysterically as he always did, and then the two of them burst into a fit of riotous, sidesplitting laughter that continued for several minutes.

  After Nancy caught her breath, she finally said in her unmistakably pissy tone, “Jasper, we need to talk.”

  * * *

  Masquerade

  My name is Fenwick Warner. I am the master of ceremonies for this year’s ghoulish festivities of the Madeira Club’s Halloween gala. No expense has been spared for tonight’s j
ourney into the abyss of unspeakable terror. The exquisite cuisine has been provided by some of Europe’s most celebrated chefs. Brad Simmons, a distinguished member of the entertainment committee, hired a travel agent to provide us a castle in Transylvania to hold the party and requested all the bells and whistles he could provide to make this affair as authentic and unforgettable as possible.

  At about ten o’clock, the travel agent had provided more than anyone had expected in terms of gourmet delights, spirits, and unmitigated horror. The gala, without question, was the best party that we had ever conceived in our history. We were finishing a fabulous serving of crème brûlée and opening another bottle of blood red wine when I surveyed the guests at my table. The ambiance was perfect. The candles were dim and flickering eerily, and the cadence of the music was spine tingling as I took note of the bevy of horrific heads that encircled my table of twelve. The Devil sat on my right and the fiendish Frankenstein monster to my left. I placed the goblet that stood before me to my lips and let the scarlet liquid run down my throat.

  Suddenly, my eyes beheld the menacing sight of a vampire directly across the table from me. Before the toast, I was sure that a werewolf had occupied that seat. His eyes glared at me, and a smile caressed his lips as two fangs protruded past his bottom lip.

  Suddenly, there came a knock on the oaken door and another horrific figure entered the room. The light of the full moon washed over the interior through the open door, and a mysterious burst of fog flooded the room. A fiendish voice on the intercom announced it was the witch from beyond the marshes. She cackled loudly as her mole-infested hand swept a goblet from a serving tray to propose another toast. This was one of many monsters that had made a spectacular entrance during the evening. Each was incredibly authentic and awe-inspiring, but of all the monsters that attended the party, the vampire, who sat at the table across from me, was the most frightening.

  The evening of mayhem and monsters went on and on until the hour of midnight. Then after a countdown, just as the second hand reached twelve, all arose and a tremendous roar of laughter filled the room. The cloaks dropped, the masks were removed, and all the lights were turned on. Everyone was finally free to reveal their identity, and most were astonished at who had played the role of the famous movie monsters.

  Everyone was pouring another glass of wine when a sudden hush fell over the crowd. In all the confusion and merriment, no one had noticed until now that the person who came to the party as a vampire had not unmasked and was standing alone at the far side of the room. His penetrating eyes swept over the crowd as he stood in a menacing stance with blood trickling from both sides of his mouth. A cruel smile curled around his pointed incisors.

  My heartbeat began to accelerate as the room fell deathly silent. Every eye was fixed on the vampire.

  “Enough is enough, my good man,” I said in my role as the master of ceremonies. “Please remove your mask and let us see who you are.”

  Suddenly, a tremendous gust of wind burst through the open door. The lights began to flicker violently to the point of being extinguished. The cloak of the vampire fell to the floor as his body faded into a cloud of smoke and the wings of a bat materialized in its place. All stood aghast as the ebony form fluttered over the dining room table and departed through the front door that had blown open. The howling wind outside subsided to a whisper, and the lights returned to normal. Someone turned on the large chandelier, which illuminated every corner of the room.

  I heard a scream and turned to see Henry McIver pointing to the floor beneath a corner table. It was then that that we all saw the protruding hand of the masquerader disguised as a werewolf. Upon further inspection, with his werewolf mask removed, we saw that Brad Simmons’s jugular was adorned with two bite marks that were still dripping blood.

  Our annual Halloween party had been crashed by a real vampire, and Brad Simmons was dead under the dining room table.

  Suddenly the night was filled with the howling of wolves and the incessant flutter of bat wings that cast disturbing shadows upon the landscape in the moonlight. The crystal chandelier began to flicker as large bats flew into the room through the gaping open door and one by one materialized into a vampire.

  Above the bestial cacophony of shrieks and snarls that prevailed outside in the courtyard, the voice of the travel agent that we had hired to arrange our trip to Transylvania came on the loud speaker.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have enjoyed the festivities so far. Brad Simmons, who indicated that he had always wanted to meet a real vampire, has gotten his wish, as you have seen. In accordance with Brad’s strict instructions for authenticity and our guarantee to host a Halloween party to end all Halloween parties, rest assured that before the sun comes up tomorrow morning, each one of you will meet a real vampire. I am confident this will be something you will remember for the rest of your lives.”

  I discarded my Cuban cigar in a goblet of brandy and dashed into the coatroom to hide among the coats and scarves. I cowered in the shadows and watched as each vampire sought out a companion for the evening.

  Moments later, the coats parted suddenly, and a pale corpse-like face appeared from the gloom. His cold bloodshot eyes looked over me as if he were evaluating a choice steak at the market. His lips parted, and I saw the long pronounced incisors and heard the slurp of his red bloody tongue as he extended a pale hand and said, “Would you care to dance?”

  * * *

  The Vampire Club

  When Mike entered the kitchen for breakfast, he noticed the basement door was open. Peering into the darkness below, he called out for his wife, Debbie, and Kyle and Amber, his son and daughter. There was no answer.

  “What are you doing, honey?” Debbie asked entering the kitchen and seeing Mike looking down the stairs.

  “The door was open, and I thought you might have gone to the basement for something.”

  “I rarely ever go down there anymore. It’s just a storage room since we converted part of the garage into a laundry room.”

  Kyle and Amber sat down at the table and started filling bowls with Raisin Bran.

  “Do you still play games on the card table in the basement?” Mike asked, pouring milk on his cereal.

  “No, Dad.” Amber replied. “There are too many boxes piled everywhere. It’s too creepy. Since Mom doesn’t wash clothes down there anymore, there’s a spider web on every column.”

  “Hey, that sounds like a good job for the two of you. Take a vacuum cleaner down there and spruce up the place. Let those spiders know whose boss.”

  Without responding, Amber sprang from her chair, followed by Kyle, and raced outside to catch the bus to the middle school.

  Mike looked at Debbie, still perplexed about the open door to the basement.

  “If you and the kids didn’t go down there, who opened the door? It was closed when I went to bed.”

  “Do you think you might be sleepwalking again?” Debbie asked, slicing a banana.

  “I haven’t done that one time since we moved here three years ago. I think I’m over that, don’t you?” Mike responded defensively.

  “I hope so, but I can’t think of another explanation. In any case, let’s say we give up on the mystery of the open door and get on with our lives. Maybe the door wasn’t completely closed, and it popped open when the furnace kicked on.”

  Smiling, she added, “You don’t suspect the paranormal, do you?” Mike also smiled and continued with his half-eaten bowl of cereal.

  After breakfast, they cleaned up the dishes and left for work.

  * * *

  At 3 a.m., the following night, Mike, unable to sleep, heard a strange rustling in the ductwork. He proceeded down the stairs to the kitchen and found the sound was coming from the basement. Opening the door, he turned on the light and descended the stairs.

  Reaching the bottom, he traced the rustling sound to the sliding doors facing the backyard. Through the glass, he observed an abnormally strong wind causing the branches of a
shrub to scrape the sliders at ground level. He made a mental note to trim the bush back in the morning. Turning toward the stairs, he noticed something dart across the floor and disappear behind a stack of boxes piled in the corner.

  “Was that a mouse?” he thought. “He’d never had a mouse in any house he’d owned and didn’t know what to do about it, but again, it could wait for morning.”

  After breakfast, while trimming the shrub back from the sliders, he saw his next-door neighbor picking up the morning paper in his driveway.

  “Hey, George, last night, I saw something run across the basement floor. I guess it was a mouse. Have you had any trouble with mice at your house lately?”

  George chuckled and smiled broadly, “You forget, good neighbor, I have Shaharazod. I pity the poor rodent that makes a home in my house.”

  “That’s right,” Mike remembered. “George owns a big Persian cat.”

  “You’re welcome to borrow her for a day if you like. She loves to hunt.”

  “I sure would appreciate it. I was going to call an exterminator, but perhaps Shaharazod will get the job done faster.”

  “I’ll bring her over when you get home from work.”

  They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then Mike left in his car for work.

  * * *

  When Mike pulled into his driveway that evening, George brought his large orange cat to his house. Together they placed it in the basement with a litter box and a bowl of water and closed the door.

  While Debbie and Mike were watching TV that evening, they heard a commotion below and hoped Shaharazod had been successful in ridding the basement of the mouse.

  The next morning, after Debbie and the kids had left the house, Mike turned on the light and descended the stairs to check on the cat’s progress.

  On the left side of the enormous space in front of the stack of boxes, he saw a bloody pile of orange fur. The feline’s underbelly had been torn out, and both eyes were hollow sockets.