Twist and Scream - Volume 6 (Horror Short Stories)

by Jayne Bartholomew

  It really was a tiny noise, easily missed; a gentle scurrying sound above her head somewhere in the gap between her ceiling and the floor upstairs. A clear indication that she needed to lay more mouse traps. She followed the noise across her room where it disappeared into the corridor beyond her doorway.

  The next day, when her head was clearer, she asked her neighbour to pick up some traps at the hardware store. She would have gone herself but she couldn’t risk leaving Sarah alone for a second. The neighbour was only too pleased to be helpful, just like everyone else.

  Sarah was on the strongest dose of pain killers that her slight body could handle and the nurses at the hospice had said it wouldn’t be long now. She had come home to die. Laura closed her eyes and tried desperately to focus on the day ahead and what she could do to bring some happiness to her daughter.

  She took a deep breath before going into Sarah’s bedroom; each time she left her side she worried that it would be for the last time. When the time came that it turned out she was right she didn’t know how she would manage to keep her sanity.

  Laura opened the door and found her daughter sitting up in bed, flicking through a book. Her face was pale but she was smiling to herself.

  “Good morning, sweetheart. How are you feeling today?” Laura forced her own smile to look cheerful.

  “Alright. I had a dream that Zippy was here last night!”

  Now Laura smiled easily. Zippy the guinea pig was one of many pets that her daughter had adopted from the local animal rescue. Old, infirm or incontinent it didn’t matter to Sarah; she loved anything with whiskers and they loved her right back. Over the years their garden had become something of a pet cemetery but no matter how many little creatures they buried Sarah knew where each one was and had planted flowers on each of their little graves.

  “And what was Zippy after?” Laura busied herself around the room, opening the curtains and picking up last night’s picked at salad dinner.

  “He ate my celery.” Sarah wrinkled her nose in disgust and closed her eyes to nap. Involuntarily Laura looked down at the plate she had just collected and noted that the celery had indeed gone. She wondered if Sarah had hidden it somewhere or actually managed to eat it.

  She fought hard to resist the urge to sit and watch her daughter and instead took the plate downstairs to the kitchen. While washing up she could look out at their little garden through the window, unkempt now and showing signs of neglect. In her memory she could see Sarah running on the grass with treats for her animals who would rush to the edge of their hutches to greet her. She wiped away a tear and wondered if she should pay someone to come in and cut the lawn.

  And so the day went on. Visitors came and went, cups of tea were made, silly stories told and hugs given freely. Laura was torn between wanting to keep as much of Sarah’s time to herself and feeling grateful for the distraction that the visitors brought.

  When she kissed Sarah good night she told her she would see her in the morning and as she closed the door she prayed that she could keep her word.

  This time, when the noises started, they came from the stairs. She could hear little feet pattering around and a low, insistent chirruping that stopped abruptly when she flung open her door.

  She looked into her daughters’ bedroom. The light from the hallway fell gently over her pale features, eyes closed but with a gentle smile. She looked so peaceful. Sarah’s hands moved restlessly over her covers in sharp contrast to the serenity in her face.

  Laura frowned; was this another side effect of the many drugs she was on or something new? As she approached the bed she saw indentations in the duvet over the places where her daughters’ hands moved. She reached out her own hand to touch one of the dents but there was a fizzing sensation at the tips of her fingers before the duvet smoothed out again and Sarah’s hands fell quiet. Her daughter slept on but her smile vanished with the indent.

  Laura hadn’t given religion much thought since leaving school and in her mind the supernatural was something to liven up Halloween, not something that had any practical value. When Sarah was diagnosed as terminally ill that merely seemed further proof that they lived in a world devoid of hope and angelic protectors.

  She sat in the armchair next to the bed and watched her sleeping daughter. Eventually sleep caught up with her too and she dreamed of herself in the garden.

  The sun was high in the sky on a beautiful July afternoon and Sarah was in the garden surrounded by her guinea pigs, laughing as they munched their way through a mound of cabbage bigger than they were. Laura was sitting at the garden table trying to brush the hair of her personal favourite, Harvey, but the guinea pig was impatient and kept nudging her hand with his nose.

  “Mum?”

  Laura looked over at Sarah and smiled. “Hmm?” It was good to see her so cheerful.

  “I like being here.” She picked up an animal and held it to her cheek. “It’s a happy place and I don’t feel icky anymore.”

  “I’m glad sweetheart.” She put the now-groomed Harvey on the ground and watched him scamper towards Sarah.

  “I want to stay. Please don’t be angry with me?”

  A cloud partly covered the sun and a shadow fell over Laura, it split the garden leaving Sarah still in the warmth of the light.

  “Why would I be angry?”

  “I love you Mum.”

  She woke up in the chair next to her daughter’s bed and knew that she was alone. Sarah’s pale face on the pillow had lost what little colour she’d gone to sleep with but a slight smile played over her lips.

  Laura dropped to her knees by the bed and wept until she was exhausted. Putting her hand on the floor she felt a nudge against her wrist, slight but determined - Harvey.

  In her aching sadness Laura embraced a different kind of faith that was tinged with a hope she dared not share with anyone.

  After the funeral there was no wake, no reason for people to gather at the house with their well-meant sentiments and empty gestures. If people thought her rude or neglectful of other people’s feelings then so be it. All she wanted to do was close the curtains against the outside world and wait.

  Laura sat in the darkness and lit a candle. It didn’t offer much light but the thin flame offered some comfort. The hours ticked by but Laura would not let sleep take her.

  The darkness grew deeper and from the silence of the night came a scratching, scurrying noise from all around her. She caught her breath when something brushed up against her leg but she didn’t leave the room. Laura forced herself to remain calm and still, even when it seemed something was nibbling the hem of her trousers. She had to keep faith.

  When the clock chimed midnight the candle flame flickered and went out. A dozen expressos couldn’t make her heart beat any faster, hands clenching the table in front of her until her knuckles were white as parchment. She kept her eyes closed and waited.

  The kitchen door quietly swung open and the smell of freshly turned over soil mingled with the stale coffee on the table.

  Laura smiled and held out her arms to welcome her daughter home.

  Best Man

  Last night had been amazing.

  No, scratch that; last night had been the best night out with his mates since he’d been old enough to sneak into pubs with fake I.D. Last night would go down in memory as epic, legend, awesome. Quite frankly you’d have to come up with another word to describe just how great last night had been.

  Of course Ian was suffering for it now with a thumping headache and a desperate thirst but all the pain was absolutely, totally worth it.

  He turned his head to the right to find a cooler side of his pillow and was rewarded with the soothing touch of satin, or was that silk? There was someone else in the bed with him that he couldn’t remember picking up.

  Keeping his eyes closed he tried to recall exactly where he had gone to bed but drew a confusing blank over anything that might have happened after midnight. No doubt the lads would be more than happy to fill him in; t
hey probably had the photos to prove it. Bastards, thought Ian with affection.

  Well, at least he was sure they would keep quiet about this little indiscretion since the main man at the stag do had been his fiancée’s brother, Harry. He hadn’t expected Harry to take the lead but his best friend from school had been involved in a random assault last week and was still recovering in hospital.

  Ian let his thoughts turn to his fiancée, Tina. He hadn’t been looking for a girlfriend when he’d met her; he’d enjoyed playing the field too much to be tied down to one woman but she’d caught him at a weak moment when his guard was down. Her parents owned the funeral parlour where his great-uncle had been laid to rest and she’d been one of the helpful background people when he’d gone to pay his respects. When she spotted him getting emotional she’d passed him a tissue and he’d fallen in love at first sight. Funny, he never thought that sort of thing would happen to someone like him.

  Of course, it had taken him a while to curb his nocturnal excursions but Tina had believed his lies, bless her. Sure she’d be upset if he didn’t come home or if he worked late without telling her but she was a lot less suspicious these days. He was pretty certain that as soon as they were married he’d lose interest in other women anyway.

  The woman next to him felt cold so he rummaged around for the sheet and pulled it higher. Out of habit he put his hand on her breast, she didn’t complain. They were both fully clothed so she must have been picked up late in the evening when they were both too drunk to think much.

  Unsurprisingly Tina’s brother had never seemed to like him much and it was a major shock when he’d offered to step in and be his best man. After all the trauma and pain he’d put Tina through he’d been pretty sure that Harry was more likely to rip his guts out than cheerfully hand over his little sister. Just goes to show that you never can tell.

  Ah, but last night! Wow. Harry had sprung the idea of a warm-up stag night on him as he left work; the guy had actually been waiting outside his office building. Harry had said that he couldn’t go too heavy on the drink because there was a big funeral the parlour was catering for the next day but since the wedding was imminent and Tina was set on it he wanted to get to know him better. Bond as brothers as it were.

  Ian found his left shoulder was a bit stiff and shuffled on the hard bed to find a more comfortable position. He was starting to feel the need for a piss but his head was thumping too much to move.

  The other guys from the parlour had been waiting at the pub for him and all of them seemed genuinely happy to be welcoming him into the family. Going on to the strip club had been a bit weird, especially since most of the party were related to his future wife in some way. That didn’t seem to bother the others though and when Harry bought him a lap dance he guessed that deep down he and Harry were on the same level.

  He was pretty sure Harry hadn’t spotted him taking the stripper’s number.

  Damn, he was starting to feel sick. The way the bed was swaying probably meant it was time to make his way to the toilet, if he could find it.

  Ian reluctantly opened his eyes to a room of darkness. He reached to his left to see if there was a bedside light but his hand hit a solid wall. Confused, he leaned over the woman and felt to his right. He traced the line of the wall there upwards to a ceiling ten inches above his nose; he was in a coffin.

  Bloody hell, he thought while checking his eyebrows were still intact. Well this made a change from being stripped naked and chained to a lamp post on the high street. The perfect end to a perfect stag night. He stretched out as much as possible, yawned widely and beat on the coffin lid.

  “Alright lads, I’m awake. Come on, let me out!”

  Despite the current inconvenience, Ian was deeply impressed at the amount of planning that Harry had put into the evening. After the strip club they’d all gone to the club around the corner and he had vague memories of getting very friendly in a corner with a petite blonde. If Harry had seen, and it was hard to imagine he hadn’t, he’d not said anything, just given him another drink and told another dirty joke.

  There was no acknowledgement from outside although the coffin rocked a little more. Ian frowned; he was being carried somewhere, but where? He wondered if the woman was in on the joke too and shook her shoulder to wake her up. She felt so cold.

  He touched her face and found her skin moist; then he noticed the smell. It was a cloying mixture of decomposition and embalming fluids and he was powerless to hold back the vomit that rose like a volcano in the narrow space. He tried to paddle backwards, away from the corpse but he couldn’t avoid touching the body.

  The coffin was put down and he could hear the faint sound of choral music outside. He banged again on the sides but the soft lining dulled the impact; it was like thumping a pillow.

  “Get me out of here!”

  He supposed the guys from the parlour were having a good laugh at his expense. Perhaps this was a rite of passage he had to go through before he was accepted into the family but he’d had enough. It wasn’t like he was marrying into the mafia!

  Ian tried to think clearly. Harry had stayed sober because he’d said he had a funeral to take care of so clearly this unusual torture would have to end soon. He lost control of his bladder when he realised he was actually sharing the coffin with the soon to be despatched person in question.

  Shaking in fear and mad with terror, Ian pummelled the walls with everything he had. Lying in a warm bed of his own urine and vomit he was not in a position to be proud.

  The volume of the music increased.

  “Harry, please let me out of here!” He screamed. “I swear I’ll leave your sister alone. You’ll never see me again!”

  The coffin moved slowly forward and stopped.

  “I’m sorry I cheated on her all those times, I’ll never do it again, please just let me out!”

  Heat grew around his ankles and he could make out a faint red light. Oh, sweet Jesus, he thought, it’s going to be a cremation!

  “I’ll do anything you want; I’ll even stay faithful to her, anything but get me out of here!”

  The heat increased. Ian screamed. The lid was removed.

  Ian hauled himself out of the coffin and fell three foot onto a plastic sheet covering a cream carpet. He lay, soiled and soggy, not understanding what was going on. Harry reached into the coffin and removed a mannequin whose lifeless cheeks glistened with oil and dripping vomit. Harry grimaced in disgust and carefully put it in a black dustbin bag along with a small, but intensely smelly, bag of fish guts.

  They were in one of the small back rooms at the funeral parlour. There wasn’t much there except what had been used to trick him. An industrial sized heating fan sat at the end of the coffin which had been resting on a solid table. Two of the lads from last night shone their red torches in his direction before leaving the room and closing the door behind them.

  The good humour of last night had well and truly left the building.

  Ian gingerly stood up and faced Harry. “Mate, you went too far. Look, last night was great and it’s not that I don’t appreciate all the effort you put in for my stag do but seriously, this was too much.”

  “You think I did all this for you?” Harry looked at him with total disdain. “Did you really believe that one day I’d wake up and think you were worthy of my sister?”

  “But, if you didn’t want to be my best man why would you go to all this trouble?”

  Harry nodded to someone behind Ian. “She wouldn’t believe me when I said you were a cheating piece of shit.”

  Ian swung around and saw Tina, furious, standing by the door. She was holding a gun, and it was pointed at him.

  “I do now.” She said before pulling the trigger.

  Alone Time

  Barbara ran her hand down the spine of the paperback she had just picked up and felt the same excitement rising within her as she always did when she found a book she wanted. There was something thrilling about discovering an item that would soon b
e hers mingled with the anticipation of reading it, snuggled up in bed with a cup of tea that gave meaning to her otherwise humdrum existence.

  The man behind the till watched her with an indulgent smile. The charity shop was located on the high street and attracted a lot of customers, but none as loyal as Barbara.

  Every lunch break she would quickly eat a sandwich at her desk before grabbing her coat and visiting the local charity shops in search of new reading material. Without fail she would return ten minutes before her break ended with a shopping bag of literature and a joyful sense of euphoria. The girls she worked with teased her gently for her addiction but they recognised that Barbara didn’t have much going for her so were careful not to go too far.

  Barbara was acutely aware of her shortcomings and in her own quiet little way, she revelled in them. When she looked in the mirror she didn’t see what the others did. Her mind blocked out the un-plucked eyebrows, the lank hair and the second hand clothes that hung badly on her lumpy frame. No, when she stood in front of the mirror her reflection was that of an independent woman who lived her own life and didn’t have to account to anyone; she was free.

  Her mother having passed away when she was little, Barbara had single-handedly cared for her obsessively neat father while he struggled with Alzheimer’s disease. She had been part of a two person package for so long that it had been a shock when he was suddenly knocked down by a car and she found herself alone. After the stress of carer duties the solitude was bliss. Granted, there were times when she came home from work and found the silence of the house a burden, but it was never quiet for long.

  It had taken a while, after her father’s death, before she started to treat the house like her own. Exhausted after a busy day at work, Barbara had guiltily left a dirty pan in the sink rather than wash it up. The pan sat in the sink for three whole days while she enjoyed the novelty of making her own cleaning decisions; it was only because a friend was due to visit that she washed it up at all.