Dark Words
Collected Short Fiction: Vol.III
by
Craig Saunders
Copyright © 2014 Craig Saunders
All characters in this collection are fictitious and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover or format other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.
2nd Edition
Cover Art Copyright © 2016 Craig Saunders
Table of Contents
A Short Introduction
Mr. Wobble
Doubloons
Pour your Beer Slow
People need People...to Eat
Red
The Last Cold Day
Rubble
Playing Favourites
The Dead Have Feelings, Too
The Dream
The Giant Inside
Edgar Dawn
Playing Blackjack with Mr. Paws
The Dancing Car
Also by Craig Saunders
About the Author
A Short Introduction
This is my third short story collection. Plenty of these stories are previously published. Where I can remember, I've accredited the publication. Some great editors have been over these stories. I'm not messing with them.
Why am I putting them up here, for cheap? Because the rights have reverted, yes, but the beauty (and, perhaps, the downfall...) of Amazon's KDP program is that you can breathe new life into old tales. You can edit, update...but most of all; a story doesn't need to die. Not anymore.
Once upon a time, a story would go out of print and...POOF! Gone.
Sometimes it might have been a good thing. After all, at some point, there will be more stories than people, if there aren't already. We'll be crushed under the weight of words.
But these here stories are there, now, squishing you. Think of England, eh?
Unlike my other collections ('The Cold Inside', 'Dead in the Trunk', and 'Angels in Black and White') which were a mixed bag, this collection is almost entirely pure horror. Lighter moments, of course, but this is what I do, really.
Since my first story on KDP and my first novel sale (RAIN - I sold it to an outfit called Twisted Library Press, and since sold the reprint to Crowded Quarantine Publications, and on the third edition issued it myself), I've done...all right.
I'm not rich, or famous, but doing all right's good enough for now.
Hope you enjoy the collection.
Craig,
The Shed
2014
The following story was in Albedo One. I think they published my first paying story, too, a few years ago. I've always liked them, and they've been doing good work for a long time now, in publishing terms.
Anyway, without further ado, let's get things rolling with...
Mr. Wobble
The rainbow curved perfectly from the church spire to West Lake, where it seemed to sink into the water.
Dean Archer checked his rear view mirror for traffic and pulled to a gentle stop by the side of the road. He stared at the rainbow, trying to count the colours. Richard of York gained battles in vain, he remembered. Images from way back popped into his head, of his old school, of the wire haired teacher that had taught him the mnemonic. He could picture her face, her thick glasses and the frizzy grey halo of her hair. For the life of him he couldn’t remember her name.
The colours of the rainbow were unbelievably crisp. He couldn’t think of a rainbow this stunning, this sharp, in all his years. Black clouds massed behind the rainbow and the sun set amidst towering white clouds behind him.
He resolved to tell Yvonne when he got home. She’d have loved this. He wished they’d shared the rainbow. A quiet moment, sitting in the countryside, enjoying one of nature’s greatest spectacles.
He counted the colours again.
Eight. Under the violet, a kind of greenish, yellowish band he’d never seen before. She’d love that, too. But then would she have seen it? Was he really seeing it? There were only supposed to be seven colours in the rainbow. But it was there.
Still watching the rainbow, he pulled back onto the road and drove the last mile to pick up essentials – a tub of ice cream, two litres of skimmed milk, and a couple of beers for him.
He passed a young girl on the way home. She was talking on a mobile. Her back was to him and she stood by the side of the road. It was a tight bend, and a pretty dangerous place to stand. There wasn’t a house within at least two miles.
Her hood was pulled up, so he didn’t see her face until he was past, in his rear view mirror.
Too damn young to be out on her own, he thought. Certainly too young to be all the way out here.
He drove another mile, thinking about the girl. Thought back. She’d looked soaked to the bone.
He thought about the rainbow. The extra colour in the rainbow. Like it was a sign.
He pulled into a dirt lay by on the side of the road, created by decades of traffic pulling over to let other drivers by on the narrow country lane. Swinging the wheel hard to the right he managed to bump up the opposite verge and turn the car.
When he got back to the corner the girl was still there. He reassessed his initial evaluation. She wasn’t that young. Probably fourteen, fifteen, maybe.
Her hair was plastered to her head underneath her hood, like she’d forgotten to put her hood up in the rain. Her hair was a shock of green and yellow. Obviously a dye job. It was really hideous. Some kind of statement. Outlaw chic, more puke than punk, though. The right side was green, the left yellow.
It was a damn shame, thought Dean, because she could’ve been a looker. If she sorted her hair out, she’d be a heartbreaker in a few years time, for sure.
He wound down his window. Smiled.
‘You alright, love?’
She looked wary, ready to bolt. He stayed in the car. Didn’t make any threatening moves. You had to be careful. A single man, middle aged. A teenage girl.
What the hell was he thinking?
But then it looked like it might rain again. She was soaked, in the middle of nowhere, and she just looked so damn lost.
There might not be any people about but him and the girl, but even so, you had to be careful.
He kept his hands on the wheel.
‘Are you lost? There aren’t any houses around here, but there’s a little village about two miles that way.’
He didn’t remove his hands from the wheel. Just kind of nodded his head toward the town of Red Mile, where the church was. That and the lake were the only landmarks around for miles.
‘You can see the church spire. It’s a pretty good marker.’
‘I’m not lost,’ she said. He noticed she didn’t look wet anymore. Bone dry, in fact. Of course she wouldn’t be wet. She’d had her hood up when the rain came. Her hair struck him afresh. Shocked him, almost. It was jarring to look at. So bright it was almost hard to see.
He nodded. ‘OK. Just checking. You know. A young lady, out on her own. Just worried.’
‘I lost Mr. Wobble.’
With her hair dry, like that, she looked familiar. He didn’t like to say, though. Just smiled and tried to place her. It was no good though. He had a terrible memory for faces.
Christ, Dean, seriously?
You’d recognise the hair, surely?
He almost laughed, but he didn’t. Just nodded again. Friendly, easy.
‘Mr. Wobble?’
‘My friend. I’ll find him, though. It’s OK.’ She shrugged. Relaxed.
That was good. He wasn’t freaking her out. That was the last thing he wanted to do.
He looked down. She looked down. Mirroring, it was called. Get people to fall into your mood. Calm them, then, after a while, they start to ape your movements. Like when you’re in a pub, you cross your legs. Maybe the guy opposite you crosses his legs. Or if you’re in an argument and both of you are shouting, you gradually lower your voice. Soon after, they lower theirs. Eventually you’re not arguing anymore. You’re having a conversation.
He looked down. She looked down. As she leant forward to see what he was looking at he opened his car door fast and hard. The metal frame around the window caught her in the middle of the forehead. She stumbled back, still bent at the waist. Then her legs crumbled underneath her.
Now, he thought, it’s a matter of speed.
She started to get up, obviously groggy and not really expecting anything, in so much as she would be thinking. It didn’t take much to subdue her. Not really.
He got her in the car and drove on. Checked his hands and his forearms for scratches. He didn’t find any.
One person saw him on the way to his garage. They didn’t worry him. They wouldn’t think anything of it. A successful guy, driving a Ford Mondeo. He was wearing a dark suit with a bright red tie. He looked every inch the salesman, or maybe a moderately high flyer, in some kind of business. Probably something to do with computers. Straight from work to pick up his daughter. His daughter tired from a late club at school. Something like that.
Bright green and yellow hair, but what the hell. Her hood was up. It was probably OK.
He took a long circuit to the small town that neighboured his own village. He pressed a button on his key fob and the lock up door heaved itself open.
He pulled inside.
Some time later he pulled out, in a white van. He drove back the way he came, passed the point where he’d stopped earlier, although at this point he could no more have remembered stopping than remembered what it was he was dumping, wrapped in thick rolls of plastic.
It was pretty big. Carpet off-cuts, or something, he reasoned. Always ended up with crap left over from work. It wasn’t like anyone used the lake.
The sun began its final curtain call behind him as he hauled the long roll of plastic with the off-cuts into the lake. There was a splash.
Twilight passed over into full dark.
When he pulled away again he wasn’t Dean Archer anymore. He was Deano. Always Deano to his mates. His van was full of paint. He had some dried paint in his hair and a rainbow’s worth of old paint stains on his overall. He smoked a thin roll up because Deano smoked roll ups. He smoked four in quick succession, until he smelled like he had been smoking all day. He rubbed a little bit of mustard into the thick hair on the back of his hand, from the sandwich Daisy had made him for lunch.
He eased his jaw with some stretches, just like a comedian or impressionist, loosening their muscles.
It wasn’t a long drive to his home, an unremarkable semi-detached box house. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. They’d have to move soon, but it had been a good house, thought Deano with a smile, as he pulled into his drive.
He checked the back of the van before getting out. He was surprised to see he had company.
‘Fuck.’
His heart raced for just an instant, fight or flight response, kicking in, until he realised it was just a toy.
It seemed he’d found Mr. Wobble.
The thought troubled him for a fleeting second, because he didn’t know who Mr. Wobble was.
Mr. Wobble wobbled long after the van had rocked to a stop on old rusty springs, slightly behind the times. Bells in his belly tinkled merrily. His fat bottom wouldn’t let him fall over.
The toy finally stopped rocking, and with it, the sound of tiny bells stilled. Deano took some deep calming breaths and wondered just how he had managed to forget the fact that he’d bought his son a toy.
It was a sorry looking thing, too. Fat and cute, but the colours were so bold they were almost sickening. And the thing’s hair – Jesus, he thought. Green and bloody yellow. What idiot thought that’d look good on a toy?
He shook his head and got out of the van with Mr. Wobble in tow.
He didn’t wonder anymore where it came from. It wouldn’t have done any good. He had no idea now, he would have no idea tomorrow, too, because everything that happened to Dean was forgotten when he was Deano, and vice versa, and the things that happened in the twilight in between never did happen at all.
*
‘Alright, sunshine?’ said Deano. He ruffled Miles’ hair. The boy giggled.
‘Daddy, yucky. Got muddard in my hair!’
‘Muddard, eh?’ he said. He gave his son a big sloppy kiss on the cheek with added raspberry, which just brought more giggles.
‘It’s nearly bedtime,’ Daisy told him, with a raised eyebrow.
Contrite, but not really, he kissed his wife on the side of her mouth and put his hand on her bump.
‘How’s the little lady behaving herself today?’
‘Kicking like mad. Oh! There she goes. I swear she kicks harder when she hears you.’
‘Way with the ladies,’ he said, with a wink.
Daisy shook her head. ‘You wish.’
‘Got you knocked up, didn’t I?’
Daisy bashed him.
‘What’s that?’ she said with a nod at the plastic bag he’d brought in with him.
‘Shh,’ he said.
Miles thought about things for a short while. Words arranged themselves in his young ears until he felt he could contribute adequately to his parents’ conversation.
‘Gnock pupped. Gnock pupped,’ he said, very pleased with himself.
‘Miles...I think maybe it’s time for bed now.’
‘Aw!’
‘Miles.’
Tone won over content.
‘’Kay mummy. Daddy.’ Little Miles held his arms out. Deano picked him up with a flourish and a whoosh into the air.
‘Daddy, calm,’ said Daisy, but she couldn’t help smiling.
‘Sorry, mummy,’ he said. ‘Make it up to you later.’
‘We’ll see,’ she said, shaking her head.
Deano carried Miles up the stairs, tucked under one arm like he was a rugby ball. Miles giggled all the way to bed.
Safely in bed, Miles snuggled down into his pillow. ‘Good day, Daddy?’
‘The best. You been good?’
‘The best, Daddy, course.’
‘Then I think you deserve a little bed time present.’
‘Peasant?’
‘Yeah. A peasant.’
‘S’not my birthday.’
‘It’s someone’s birthday.’
‘Who’s someone?’
‘Kid, used to go to my school. You don’t know him.’
‘Oh,’ said Miles. Deano laughed, a little. ‘Tada!’ he said, and whipped Mr. Wobble from the plastic bag.
‘Wow!’ said Miles. ‘Wow.’
‘Yeah, wow is right.’
‘For me?’
‘Course for you.’
‘Can I name him?’
‘Sure. What do you reckon? Christopher Big Buns? Fat Toy Slim?’
Miles just looked confused at this.
‘Never mind. Anyway, you name him.’
‘Kay.’
‘Well?’
‘I want to think. Got to be a good name.’
‘That’s my boy,’ said Deano, giving his son another kiss. ‘Always the thinker. Always a stinker.’ It was a fatherly kiss. Nothing more. But Deano’s eyes misted. Darkened. For a moment they looked like deep pools where the sun doesn’t reach the bottom and the big fish lurk.
Then he was back.
‘Daddy!’
Deano shook himself. This was Deano time. Come on. Get yourself together.
He smiled and laughed, just a little. Just...so...
Like everything else he did, it was entirely natural not because he practised, but because he believed it.
‘Nite, pooper.’
‘Nite, duper.’
‘Nite, trooper.’
‘Er, gooper.’
‘Okay,’ said Deano, with a sigh. ‘You beat me. Dunno how you do it. Every night.’
Miles smiled as his Dad turned out the light, Mr. Wobble tucked under his arm. When his weight shifted tiny bells in Mr. Wobble’s belly tinkled.
‘Shh, Mr. Wobble,’ said Miles as he drifted off to sleep.
*
Deano didn’t have to practise his deception. It wasn’t a matter of being tripped up in a lie. He believed in his life totally. When he came home from work he had spent the day working hard keeping a roof over his family’s head. Painting and decorating was tiring work, but rewarding. He didn’t have any ambitions other than to love his wife and child. The pay wasn’t brilliant. Most days, he would leave the house at six, be back home around seven. It was long hours, but it was a job.
When he got home, he didn’t think about his day job, just as he didn’t think about Daisy when he was at work, on the road in his Mondeo, travelling from one meeting to the next. The people at work knew he was married, but they thought his wife’s name was Yvonne. Dean and Yvonne. He had a picture of her on his desk in his little office. It was just a picture he’d taken off the internet, some amateur photography website. Probably someone’s wife, somewhere. But not his.
Dean didn’t pretend his wife’s name was Yvonne. He knew it was. He remembered marrying her. He remembered their honeymoon in the south of France, remembered the heat and the sand between his toes, the lovemaking and the meals, the walks in the evening air and the storm that had hit on the third night. None of it had ever happened, but it was just as real as Daisy and Miles and his daughter in waiting.
One life during the day. One life at night and on weekends.
Dark Words (Horror Short Stories): Collected Short Fiction Page 1