by Spike Black
That’s great, Garth thought, but what’s in it for me? He couldn’t help himself this time, and a laugh burst from his lips.
Mrs Serling frowned at him, but her eyebrow-knotted expression merely fueled the flames of his amusement, and he laughed harder. Rocking in his chair, he tugged on his restraints, and this time both hands came free.
A smile cracked her face, and she giggled with him. Garth upped the pitch of his laugh, leaning forward. She mirrored him.
He sprang from the chair with a furious roar and launched at her, knocking her backwards, onto the table. She stabbed wildly at the air, but he managed to grab her wrist. Her other hand shot out and clasped around his neck, squeezing tight. He flailed, trying to shrug her off, but she was remarkably strong. He grabbed the knife, but her grip on it was unyielding. He pried her fingers, one by one, from the handle as she wriggled beneath him, cursing and spitting.
Her small hand closed around his neck, choking him. Something twanged painfully beneath her fingers, as if she was plucking his tendons like harp strings. With one final effort he freed the knife from her hold and turned it around, plunging down. The blade skewered her through the shoulder with horrific ease, pinning her to the tabletop through the ouija board.
She screamed, releasing her grip on him. He climbed off her, escaping the room and her terrible high-pitched wail. He hesitated as he got his geographical bearings, then headed back the way he had come, through the kitchen and into the bar, where he jolted to a sudden stop.
A dark mass blocked his way.
Consumed with fear, Garth peered up at the abomination that Eddie had become. He had to be eight feet tall and half as wide, eyes like balls of boiling fury, blisters bursting on beetroot cheeks, teeth splintering and yawning outward as his jaws smashed together in a sneer of nightmarish anger.
Garth staggered backwards. Eddie charged him, arms outstretched, palms up. Garth was knocked off his feet by an incredible force before Eddie was even close enough to touch him. He sailed back into the kitchen, crashing to the floor with a sickening crack as his head hit the tiles. He clambered to his feet with dizzy determination, his head hot with pain, blood trickling through his hair. He ran past the pantry to the back door. It was bolted.
Mrs Serling appeared in the room behind him, brandishing the bloodied knife. She hollered, raising the weapon above her head as she charged.
Garth flicked the double bolts and yanked on the handle. The door stuck for one terrible moment, then swung wide. He escaped outside, slamming the door, only to find himself trapped in a narrow, high-walled back yard. He looked around frantically. A wire fence at the far end of the yard led to the main road. He bolted, the prospect of a knife-wielding maniac at his back infusing him with the extra energy he needed to leap onto first the trash can, then the dumpster, before vaulting the fence.
He landed with feet-crushing force on the concrete path at the front of the pub. He sucked the air through his teeth as he absorbed the pain in the soles of his feet. He made his way up the path, limping slightly, and stepped off the curb. Suddenly, an almighty force hurled him off his feet, thrusting him forward into the road. He lifted himself onto his elbows with a groan, spitting grit.
He opened his eyes and saw a vehicle bearing down on him.
He screamed, rolling twice, eyes screwed tight, praying he’d traveled far enough to clear the path of the wheels. He felt a rush of air on the back of his neck as the car missed him by inches.
Climbing to his feet, he limped to the pavement and looked back. He was on the other side of the road now, and Eddie was directly opposite, on the curb in front of the pub, black eyes glaring at him beneath a brow that bulged hideously. His temples pulsed, his jaw was locked shut. Tendons stood out like thick ropes on his neck.
Witnessing this monstrosity, Garth found he could barely breathe. But he had to do something. He stepped forward. “We need to discuss—”
Eddie lifted his hands in a dismissive gesture, and Garth was hit with an invisible force that drove him back until his body slammed into a wall. The wind knocked out of him, he slid down, the back of his head scraping against brick until he was a heap on the pavement.
He groaned, the pain consuming him. This was it. He was no match for this supernatural force. If he didn’t act now, he would place more townsfolk in danger, and that was something he simply couldn’t allow to —
“Are you all right?”
He looked up, his eyes adjusting. It was an old man, silhouetted against the bright white sky. His cane hand trembled.
Garth glanced over at Eddie, who looked ready to explode, then back to the old man. “Get out of here. I’m fine. Go on, go!”
The old man stood there, shaking his head.
“Go. Please, you’re in danger. Just go!”
Finally, the old fella turned and doddered off, muttering to himself. Garth clambered to his feet, brushing himself down. He looked back at the ghost of Eddie Serling. “Okay.” He inhaled and took a shaky breath out. He had no choice. This was the way it had to be. “Okay.”
He removed Keith’s business card from his pocket, took out his phone and punched in the number. His thumb hovered over the call button.
His imagination took over then, presenting its version of how the next few moments would play out:
“I’ll never confess,” I scream, throwing down the phone in a stand of defiance.
But then Mrs Serling rushes over, knife held high. “Let me have this one, Eddie,” she says. “You only ever left me the dismemberment and the disemboweling. I want to do more of the fun stuff.”
And just as the blade of the knife is about to pierce my flesh, I turn to the phone on the ground and say, “did you get all that, detective?”
Keith’s voice rings out from the speakerphone: “Loud and clear, buddy.”
With his wife revealed as his accomplice, Eddie despairs, rapidly decomposing. “Now be gone!” I scream. “I banish you from this world!”
And with that, Eddie tears apart, the sound of his moans giving way to the squeal of distant sirens as I restrain Mrs Serling until the police arrive…
He snapped back to reality. What he’d heard as distant sirens were in fact the chimes of church bells in the village. Earthy odors of the countryside drifted by - moss, mist, the faint whiff of manure.
Staring at the screen of his phone, his thumb still poised over the call button, he was reminded of the night he killed Eddie, the number for emergency services displayed on the rain-soaked screen: Call now. Just do it. Quickly. Quickly!
Garth flinched. Oh, to be the hero of his imagination. Looking up from the phone, his eyes went wide with shock.
Standing beside Eddie’s ghost, lined up along the roadside, were the sorry figures of those who had died as a result of his actions. And like Eddie, they were not transparent ghosts of the kind he’d seen in movies and video games, but actual beings - solid and gory and real: Juha, standing astride an unzipped body bag, one half of his head crushed; Boyd, a jigsaw of meat with several missing pieces; Father Padraig, his blood-drained flesh as pale as his outer vestments; the faceless drivers of the crashed Nissans; and the charred corpses of the family of four - mother, father, and two tiny children.
Garth’s face crumbled. He swayed on jellied legs. Blinking away tears, he steeled to the task at hand. He punched the call button. The number dialed. His heart lurched - there was no turning back now.
Keith picked up. “Hello? Garth?”
Garth stared directly at the ghost of Eddie Serling as he spoke. “If I do this - if I confess to being the Chalkstone Ripper - I want assurances that my family will be safe.”
Eddie’s head nodded once, slowly, then back to center.
“Of course, buddy,” Keith’s voice said down the phone. “I’ll take care of it personally. Witness protection, the works.”
Garth took a deep breath. “Then we have a deal.”
“I’ll send a car to pick you up,” Keith said. “Where are you?”
“No,” Garth said. “I’ll come to you.”
He ended the call, sliding the phone back into his pocket. A great wave of despair suddenly washed over him as realized what he’d done. My Beautiful Chloe, he thought.
You did it for her, a voice in his head replied. You did it for Chloe and Wendy and the townsfolk. You’re a hero.
When he looked up, all of the ghosts, including Eddie, were gone.
* * *
CHAPTER 22
Ominous clouds delivered the first spatters of rain as Garth drove along Eldham Road, cresting the hill that took him into the valley. Seeing the town of Chalkstone this way, potentially for the last time, he felt an oddly powerful surge of exhilaration. He was on his way to hand himself in, sure, but for the first time since the accident, he felt free.
The few raindrops sharply became a downpour. He turned on his headlights and windshield wipers. The intro to James Brown’s I Feel Good blasted from the radio, and he groaned, reaching over to change the station.
Wait. It was time to reclaim this song. He was going to spend a long time locked away without any good music. He turned up the volume dial instead.
The bus shelter was up ahead on his left. Eddie Serling’s old stomping ground, he thought, and chuckled. But there really was someone standing inside the shelter. A figure. Just someone waiting for a bus, of course, but it made his stomach roll, nonetheless.
He chuckled again. Shook his head. Still, his guts churned. He took a deep breath in an attempt to battle the nausea. Eddie Serling would be hard to forget, that was for sure. Coming up on the shelter now, he turned and looked. Through the rain-spattered window, he saw…
A girl. Just a girl. But wait - he recognized her. Wasn’t that…?
Yes, that’s right. Shannon. It was Chloe’s friend Shann—
Something hit, hard. He dived on the brakes. A black mass slammed into the windshield, splintering the glass. The vehicle screeched to a halt, throwing him forward. The body - yes, there was no mistaking it this time, it was a body - tumbled off the front of the car and landed in the road with a dull thud.
He fell back into his seat, his mind detaching from reality. A muffled silence cocooning him.
A high-pitched squeal brought him to his senses.
He flew out of the car. The noise was Shannon, screaming hysterically in the shelter. His legs carried him around, knelt him down beside the body, and all the while his mind was resisting, pulling back, not wanting to be there, not wanting to see what he had hit. He wanted to run.
A girl. He reached out an arm. Turned her.
The undiluted horror of the moment melted his mind, his soul, the very fabric of his being. He was, and forever would be, just a husk.
Shannon was on her knees now, repeating the word no, over and over and over.
He cradled the body in his arms. My beautiful Chloe. Her watery eyes, almost too large for her face, stared back at him.
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About the Author
SPIKE BLACK writes high concept horror novels and suspense thrillers. His books include Don’t Look Inside (a 2015 Kindle Book Awards finalist), Leave This Place, Ghost Ahead, and Blink Dread. He is currently working on several volumes of short stories for his Avert Your Eyes series.
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Don’t Look Inside
Leave This Place
Avert Your Eyes
Blink Dread
SPIKE BLACK’S
BLINK DREAD
It starts as a little white dot - a harmless pinprick of light on the backs of your eyelids. But the longer you keep your eyes closed, the larger it grows… until even blinking causes it to increase in size. And that’s when you discover that it’s not a dot at all.
It’s alive.
It has sharp teeth, snapping jaws, and it’s growing at an exponential rate. Keep your eyes open at all times and you’ll be safe. Just don’t ever sleep. Because it’s relentless, it’s hungry, and it’s coming for you, one blink at a time…
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Blurb
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
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About The Author
Also By Spike Black
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