“Brilliant,” Death chuckled.
“Or better yet,” Charlie gleefully continued, “how ‘bout that time I chopped up that old woman and buried most of her in her cats’ litter-boxes? That lady was crazy! What did she have, like thirty cats in her cramped apartment? I really thought it was fitting that I hollowed out her skull and used it as a serving bowl. Those greedy little bastards couldn’t care less that I just offed their master, just as long as they got to eat their Nine Lives.”
“A true masterpiece,” the Reaper said as he pushed back his sleeve and looked at the bare-bones near his wrist. “I hate to cut this short, believe me, I could talk about your accomplishments all day, but I need to make sure that a chicken bone gets lodged in the throat of a certain politician from Texas.
“So, Charlie, what I need to know is if you would like to become the new Grim Reaper. You seem to be a natural.”
“Hell yeah!” Charlie said. “I’d have to be insane to turn you down…er…well, I guess I’m a bit insane already, but fuck yeah, I want the job!”
“Excellent,” Death said as he rose from the chair and silently floated over to the giddy psychopath. “As is custom in this day and age, all it takes is a handshake and the deal is done. You could start as soon as you like, perhaps even come with me tonight and see how it’s done.”
The Harvester of Souls thrust out his skeletal hand and waited for Charlie’s acceptance.
Just as Charlie started to reach for the Reaper’s hand, he stopped.
“Hold on a second,” the killer said as he jerked back his hand, much to Death’s surprise. “When I become the new Reaper, do I have to look all skeletal and shit? You know, do I have to look like you?”
Death laughed. “No, my boy, you could look however you want. Keep your current look if you want. Hell, if you want to add two extra arms and shoot fire from your ass, that’s all right with me. I chose this look to instill fear into my victims, but times change. What was once horrifying in my youth is cliché nowadays.”
Feeling a bit relieved, but now even more excited at creating a new look for himself, Charlie grinned like the dog who ate the cat who ate the canary.
“Grim, my man, we got a deal!” Charlie stuck out his hand, grabbed Death’s cold, skeletal claw and dropped dead right on the spot.
The Dark Angel shook his head and laughed out loud, causing all the lights in the quiet neighborhood to flicker.
Don’t Go in the House!
(Because Being Indoors, No One Will Hear
You Scream!)
by Matt Kurtz
The 1980 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am barreled down the dirt road then whipped into the country store’s parking lot, skidding to a stop beside the single gas pump out front. The cloud of dust kicked up by the hotrod blew across the old man scavenging through the trashcans along the building.
Coughing up a glob of phlegm, Jasper popped out of the can clutching a half-empty whisky bottle and a partially devoured chicken drumstick. He studied the vehicle with his one good eye that wasn’t shot to shit by a cataract.
The car was too flashy to be local…which only meant one thing: interlopers.
City Folk.
By God, they had to be stopped.
The Firebird’s engine cut off and its two doors swung open. Meat, christened such by his friends because of his beefy (fat) stature, climbed from the driver’s seat and stretched his aching back. Amanda, his beautiful and buxom girlfriend, exited from the passenger’s side, grimacing from the pain of a full bladder. She flipped her seat forward to let Saul, Meat’s best friend and roommate, slide out from the cramped backseat. Jenny, Saul’s girl of only a month, climbed out behind him.
Jasper stumbled in front of the two couples, blocking their path to the store’s entrance. “Yer all gonna die!” he screamed, pointing at the group.
Saul hid behind the girls while Meat stepped in front of them, holding up his hand. “Whoa! Just take it easy, old timer.”
“Mister, death’s inevitable,” Jenny said. “That’s a given. But what are you talking about in this instance?”
“What I mean there, young lady, is that ya can’t go up there. It’ll get ya. And you’ll never be seen again!”
“What’ll get us?” Amanda said, giggling at the old man’s hysterics.
“Oh sure, laugh it up, toots. But ya won’t be thinking it’s so funny when Dookie Boy gets ya!”
Meat shook his head. “Dookie Boy?”
“Oh, ya’ll don’t fool me one bit. I know ya came to see if he’s real. Well, I’m here to tell ya Dookie Boy exists! I’ve even heard his calls in the middle of the night coming from that old Matheson house.”
Jenny did a double take at the old man after hearing the name of the place.
“And what’s this Dookie Boy say?” Saul asked.
Jasper grimaced. “Never ya mind that.” He shuddered and pointed to the house looming on the hill. “The only thing that matters is that ya keep away from that Matheson place! It’s haunted and all that roams in it is unholy!” He stepped closer, not for dramatic emphasis, but to get a better gander at the cleavage on the corn-fed chippie with the big hooters. “Ain’t nothin’ good gonna come out of y’all rootin’ around up there.”
“Wait-wait-wait-wait!” Meat said, pointing to the house in the distance. “You mean to tell us that the place up there is haunted?”
“Well…yeah…” Jasper said, dumbfounded.
“AWESOME!” Meat turned back to his friends. “We gotta go check it out.”
“I…I don’t know,” Saul said.
Jenny nodded. “We really should be getting back before—”
“Oh, c’mon on, guys,” Amanda said. “Meat’s driving. And if he wants to swing by and check out what this ol’ fart’s claiming to be—”
“Hold on just a damn second!” Jasper said. “You mean to tell me that y’all ain’t here to meddle in the supernatural? That ya didn’t come to expose the town’s black cloud?”
“Ah…no,” Meat answered. “We just pulled off the highway for gas and snacks.”
Jasper quickly glanced over his shoulder for any potential witnesses to his stupidity. He couldn’t believe he opened his fat trap again regarding the community’s private matters. “Y’all didn’t hear squat from me about Dookie Boy or that damn house. Ya hear? Nothin’!” He turned tail and ran, disappearing into the woods behind the store.
Amanda bounced up and down (and so did her ample bosoms). “Oh, forget him. I gotta tinkle.”
Meat wrapped his arm around her and kissed her. “C’mon, beautiful. Let’s go find you a crapper to tinkle in.” He and Amanda disappeared into the store.
Jenny noticed Saul staring at the house on the hill as the warm, orange sun slowly dipped behind it.
“You really think it’s haunted?” she said.
Saul swallowed hard. “Guess we’re about to find out, huh?”
***
The two-story house stood dark and foreboding against the night sky. The property’s vegetation was overgrown—or just plain dead—from years of neglect. A cool breeze sent the autumn leaves tumbling across the gravel driveway. An owl hooted from one of the branches of the surrounding trees—gnarly twisted oaks that looked as if they had once been dipped in tar and set ablaze.
The Firebird made its way up the winding path along the hill. Pulling into the driveway, the vehicle came to a stop, facing the house. Its headlights blasted the front door, which appeared to be ajar, daring the brave and beckoning the stupid to enter. Staring out the windshield, the group attempted to take in the scope of the manor which was much more formidable up close.
“Babe, are you sure you really wanna go in there?” Amanda said.
“Hell yeah. ‘Cause we’ve been warned not to.”
Amanda looked back at the house and gnawed at her lower lip.
Meat playfully poked her and clucked like a chicken. “Wassa matter? Is da wittle baby scared?”
“Oh my God!” Jenny said, in
haling sharply.
Meat jumped and hit the horn.
Saul slid to the floorboard. “What? What’s out there?”
“I just remembered where I heard the Matheson name before. It was in a story my Gammy always told me and my brother on Halloween when we were kids.” Jenny glanced back to the town at the bottom of the hill. “We’re in Hoffman County, right?”
Meat nodded.
“Well, Gammy always told us about this Matheson brood, a real weird bunch that kept to themselves out here in these parts. Apparently, back in the early twenties, Matthias Matheson made a fortune up north in the cannery business. I think Gammy said he made beans or something. Anyway, he later sold it for a handsome sum and retired at the young age of thirty-three, moving down here and taking himself a southern bride. Before their first wedding anniversary, Mildred Matheson gave birth to a boy. By their third anniversary, she was planted in the ground out back, having died during childbirth delivering a baby girl.”
“Awwww,” Amanda groaned. “This isn’t scary. It’s sad.”
Meat patted her thigh. “Just wait, babe. I’m sure it’ll get scary in a second.”
“Well,” Jenny continued, “that baby girl lived but was shunned by Matthias, who took the death of his wife extremely hard and never fully recovered from it. It was said that he blamed the little girl for killing his wife. So the burden of raising the baby girl fell upon her older brother. Older by only two years, remember. A baby taking care of a baby. Because both children were essentially orphans, with their mother’s death and father’s neglect, it forged a life long bond between brother and sister that eventually turned twisted.”
“Hold on,” Meat said. “How come in all these stories everyone knows about what went on inside the house? I mean, wasn’t the family supposed to be recluses?”
“Well…yeah, but—”
“So how do we know what they’re thinking and stuff?”
Jenny shrugged. “Because! It’s only a silly spook story, okay? Anyway, so the Matheson kids, they—”
“Wait! These kids. What were their names?” Saul asked.
“Adele and Hu—”
“Hubei Matheson!” Saul said. “Oh my God! I’ve heard this story before from a friend that knew a dude that grew up in this area.”
Jenny’s mouth gaped. “Did he tell you that the kids were—”
“Halfwits!” Saul said, nodding. “Yeah, neither was right in the head, the brother more so than the sister. Hell, the people of Hoffman County thought—”
“Wait!” Meat screamed. “The Halfwit Siblings of Hoffman County? I know this story! Only I heard it from a buddy of mine that heard it from a friend of a friend…of a friend…of a…” Confused, Meat paused to count on his fingers. Since he was never good at math, he brushed it off. “Anyway, my buddy told me that with the mother dead and the father eventually goin’ batshit crazy, the kids were forced to fend for themselves. Then once the old man croaked—a fresh grave out back being the only proof of his death—no one ever caught glimpse of the kids. People would see the flicker of candlelight coming from the house at night, but Adele and Hubei never once showed their faces in town, let alone outside.”
“Then, it was years later,” Saul continued, “after the lights stopped burning in the windows that some local kids broke into the house. They were all ready to claim squatter’s rights for a party pad until they heard weird noises that freaked ‘em out and scared ‘em off. Noises in the walls and stuff.”
“No, I heard it was a baby’s cry coming from somewhere below the floor,” Meat said.
Jenny nodded. “Yeah, Gammy told me it was a baby’s wail that they heard.”
“Hold on a minute,” Amanda said. “I’m confused. Where did the baby come from?”
“From Adele’s belly,” Saul said.
Amanda’s lip curled. “Well…if they was recluses and all, then how did she get pregnant?”
Meat, Jenny, and Saul all smiled. “Inbreeding,” they said in unison.
“Ewwwwwwwww, grody. They had sex with farm animals?”
Saul and Jenny blankly stared at Amanda then turned to Meat. He shook his head for them not to bother.
“After that,” Jenny continued, “the town turned a blind eye to the house. They wanted absolutely nothing to do with the new stock of family and left them to themselves, just the way they liked it. But occasionally, local kids would dare one another to come up here at night and spend an hour alone in the house. The few that thought they were brave enough didn’t last more than a couple minutes. And all of them said they witnessed signs of someone still living in the house. Stuff like bare footprints stamped across dusty floors. Broken cobwebs in the walkways. And the half-gnawed skeletal remains of varmints littering the ground.” Jenny couldn’t help but smile. “I guess the very stuff we’re about to look for to see whether the story’s true or not.”
All four peered through the windshield to the dark house.
“But the real question is: who’s this Dookie Boy that the old man mentioned?” Meat said. “And does he take kindly to trespassin’?”
***
The group gathered in front of the Firebird, each holding a flashlight.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Meat said. “We go in and, after we do some exploring, we steal something to prove that we were here. An old letter with the Matheson name on it. Or a picture. Something with the family crest. Whatever.”
All nodded. They clicked on their lights and stepped up onto the creaky porch. Meat led the way, pushing open the front door and shining his light inside.
Cobwebs hung from the wooden rafters. The silky filaments gently stirred from the breeze that blew through the open door. Crossing the entryway, the gang stopped in the gigantic living room. Their beams picked up the once beautiful furniture, now smashed, rotting, or infested. An enormous stone fireplace was embedded in the far wall.
Amanda scrunched her nose. “Smells like tinkle in here.”
“Probably from the local kids after drinking all that hooch,” Meat said, pointing to the fireplace littered with broken beer bottles.
As the group moved to the staircase leading to the second floor, Meat stumbled. He looked down to see what the culprit of his clumsiness was and found a rusted and empty bean can at his feet. He kicked it aside and joined the others at the bottom of the stairs.
Aiming their lights to the second floor landing, they spotted a child’s stuffed animal peeking down at them. They slowly ascended the creaky stairs to find the tattered toy torn apart, its stuffing scattered along the hallway floor. While Amanda, Saul, and Jenny stared at the child’s plaything, Meat crept down the dark hall.
“You think it belonged to someone that lived here?” Amanda said.
Jenny shrugged. “It could have been planted by one of the local kids to keep the mystique of the place alive.”
“Or maybe it was left as an offering,” Saul said. “To some…thing…in order to keep it occupied.”
“SHIT!” Meat cried from the darkness.
His buddies rushed in the direction of his call, finding him standing in the middle of the hall with his flashlight illuminating his feet.
“What? What’s the matter?” Jenny said.
“Nothing. I just stepped in some.” He scraped the sole of his shoe against the door trim. “Careful where ya step.”
Choking on the foul odor, they shone their lights at the huge pile of feces—half of it squashed across the carpet.
“I think that’s the biggest turd I’ve ever seen,” Saul whispered, awestruck.
Amanda guffawed. “You obviously haven’t seen what Meat can produce after eating at one of those Chinese buffets.” She held her hands a foot wide apart.
Meat proudly added, “And that wasn’t including what was hidin’ down the little porcelain hole. There must have been another—”
“Okay! Enough!” Jenny pointed at the feces. “What I want to know is what that could’ve possibly come from.”
Meat gave it the once over. “Well, if I was a bettin’ man, I’d say…something’s asshole.”
Saul snickered. Meat nodded at him, flashing a grin that read, “Good one, huh?”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”
They continued down the long, dark hallway until they came to the half-eaten rat lying in a pool of blood on the floor.
“That ain’t skeletal remains,” Saul said. “That’s a fresh kill.”
“Notice something weird?” Meat said. “How there ain’t no cobwebs up here?”
“Or dust on the floor,” Saul added.
Meat nodded. “Yeah, like someone’s been going up and down these halls.”
“Maybe it’s The Dookie Boy,” Amanda whispered.
Meat wrapped his arm around her for comfort. “He ain’t real. Just something the old man made up to keep us away.”
They pushed on toward the end of the hall, not noticing the lumbering shadow that slid across one of the walls then quickly disappeared.
***
The door to the master bedroom creaked open. Four beams of light shone into the room, illuminating the huge canopy bed that was practically encased in cobwebs.
A large rat scuttled across the floor toward a hole in one of the baseboards.
Amanda screamed and clung to Meat.
The rat got stuck halfway through the opening, leaving its furry ass exposed. It wiggled back and forth until finally disappearing.
“Oh my God,” Amanda said.
“It’s okay,” Jenny said, turning to her. “It’s gone now.”
But Amanda wasn’t looking in the rat’s direction. She was gazing deep into Meat’s eyes. “Is this…for me?” she purred.
Jenny glanced down and saw Amanda cupping Meat’s bulbous package.
He nodded. “The bed’s right there. Wanna fuck?”
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night... Page 22