The newspaper the next morning said it so clearly, “Yes, the husband did it. Detective Rabb Hudson was arrested on October 31st the anniversary of his wife’s murder along with his accomplice Mallory Chestnut. His daughter Brie Hudson-Macon set a hidden camera and was able to get a full confession.”
I wish I could thank my daughter for what she did for me. I was resting comfortably and when I saw Brie set flowers on my grave was my curse lifted. I was no longer a lost cause.
*
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Chapter 21
“Spider Face”
Mel L. Kinder
Livonia, Michigan, USA
Did I wake before the scream or was it the scream that woke me? I must have knocked everything off of the nightstand scrambling to turn the lamp on. When I realized I was gasping for air I held my breath. If they were crawling on me I didn't want to inhale them. Just the thought made me shutter.
"Jim!" my wife, tired of the new habit scolded me. "There are no spiders. Go back to sleep. Gees, I'm on day shift tomorrow." She turned over and muttered, "Damn those little heathens!"
I splashed water on my tired aging face. "I'm not crazy," I said to myself. A few days ago I overheard the neighbor boy messing with his sister. With her fingers stuffed in her ears she begged him to shut up. But he kept repeating it: In your mouth and out your nose that's where the spiders go! I chuckled and thought of my sister. The rhyme reminded me of a tale about spiders, how they live inside of our lungs and stomach. At night while we're asleep they come out to dance on our faces. The boy's voice repeated in my head so many times I was beginning to sympathize with his sister. The day was a blur even as I watched the clock.
"I made you some sleepy tea. It's soothing," she said setting the over-sized mug in my hand. "Oh and don't worry, I won't tell your friends if you like it." There was humor in her voice. What a wonderfully patient woman. I hadn't even bothered to ask her about her day. What a schmuck.
As I set the empty mug on the nightstand I thought, "Maybe that's not the best place for it." With that I scooped everything but the lamp into the drawer of the nightstand. I don't know how long I sat at the bed's edge before giving in. I had to sleep some time.
Sleep came fast. Maybe vanilla tea was the answer. Who would have thought tea without caffeine served a purpose? The moment didn't last. The crawling sensation tickled around one nostril and traveled across my face. I wanted to brush it away but sleep paralysis prevented it. Was my mouth open? I couldn't remember. The crawling was on both sides of my face now. I could feel this happening on a layer above dream. This was real. Unable to move or make a sound drove me mad. All I could do was focus on the prickly legs as they went. What were they doing? It felt like they were marching down my face. There had to be dozens of them.
Finally, I launched from the bed, as usual but this time without the clattering. Ah, good thinking Jim. But the anxiety was gone and I felt disconnected. "Jim! No! Jim!" I had done it again and Jewel was screaming at me. There was something wrong with her voice. This time was different. I tried to talk to her but she didn't listen. It was just like being frozen with the urge to brush away the spiders.
My perspective changed and I was beside her as she yelled, not at me but a man kicking, screaming and clawing at himself. Jewel arm wrestled the man for something he was holding. I wanted to help her but all I could do was stand there. I saw it as if in slow motion, her fingers slipped from the man's wrist. I recognized the scar on his arm. I could see the immense force he used to pry it free. It was too late to stop myself. All I could do was watch as I drove the writing utensil into my own eye until no longer visible. I saw nothing after that. The spiders may have been real or it could have been blood running down my face from the clawing. I guess I'll never know.
*
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Chapter 22
“The Coffin-Cage”
Sherrill Willis
Rhinelander, Wisconsin, USA 2-24
Darkness. I lifted the lid, a useless enterprise since I knew I couldn’t reach the lock, even with my mind, damn them! But this night was different, because I could smell people approaching, getting closer, I could hear their axes clinking against the chains they carry with them to do their dark deed. They do not know what they are releasing, thinking only of the money my limbs, my organs will bring them. Smiling, I welcome their hushed reminders to do this quietly and quickly.
“I think I got the lock off, here, take one side and we can lift it off. Did you bring the other lock?”
“Of course I did! On three – one, two, THREE!” the man grunted, and the sound of metal screeching rent the air as the iron cage was lifted and scraped across the lid of my coffin.
I threw the lid off, catching the two men by surprise. I launched out, catching the first man and tore his throat out with my teeth, his warm blood spraying his companion. The first man was not my evening meal. His friend, however, would do nicely.
“Thank you for releasing me, I have missed human…companionship,” I said, entrancing the other man as he reclined, still, on the grass before me. I reached down, and grabbing a fistful of his jacket, pulled him to eye level. I licked my fangs and his fear was intoxicating, it made his heart beat faster, and the smell of him was as delectable as the finest Swiss chocolate. “You didn’t expect a woman, now did you?” I asked, glancing at the faded headstone. “They never did get my name right. Hear my name before you die, for it will be the last sound on this earth you shall hear. I am Vladamira Dracul,” I said, closing my eyes as I bit his neck, almost delicately, and sucked him dry.
Wiping the back of my hand across my face as I dropped his desiccated body to the ground, I took in my surroundings. An older graveyard, with few new bodies – the smell of decay was light – but where? I searched my memories and couldn’t place why I was here, wherever here was. Then I took stock of my clothes, or rather, what was left of them. Apparently I had put up a grand struggle from the sight of the rips and tears in my bodice and skirt. Right, clothes first, terror later.
*
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Chapter 23
“First Day on the Job: The Hunter”
Gerald D. Johnston
Corunna, Ontario, Canada
It's 3am and several mounds of half devoured tacos and take-out wrappers litter the pavement in a trail leading up to the cardboard box she calls home. From within you hear a series of feral grunts punctuated by a blend of belches and groans. You want to throw back the scrap of threadbare carpet covering what you assume is a door, but once you've seen what lies beyond, it can never be unseen and you can only pray for death or early Alzheimer's.
Throwing caution to the wind, you tear the door flap back and peer inside. At first, your eyes war with your brain - This can't be! It has its naked legs wrapped tightly around the head of a barrel-bellied bald man, who, for his part, is attempting to untangle his arms and remove his head from the gaping gash that seems bent on performing a birthing in reverse. His attempts are futile. And soon his only movements will be the twitching of his extremities as his brain backfires in the final seconds before death.
Suddenly, its head lolls to the side and one glazed eye finds you. From a slit beneath its fuzzy upper lip, it issue
s a moan, then it speaks: "'ang on an wait your turn, luv, an oi'll letcha bounce a few polliwogs off the back of me troat."
You turn to run, but as you rise an arm snakes out and snags your leg. You scream but no one hears. You beg but your tearful pleas fall upon only one set of ears (or ear, actually, since one was lopped off during a fight with seven Danish Sailors), and they don't care for your tone...
*
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Chapter 24
“Chaos Theory and the Clown”
Neil Leckman
Denver, Colorado, USA
Jason Albright had always wanted to be a clown as long as he could remember. In grade school he was the class clown, which ultimately meant he was hated by most teachers as a disruption to the learning process. Girls loved to laugh at his antics but would never go out with him on a date because he was a bit of a fool and they didn’t want to be made fun of. Jason was oblivious to all of this though as his one thought was to leave everyone he met with a smile on their faces. At first his jokes fell flat since he didn’t know the first thing about humor and timing, people laughed at him, instead of with him. Over the years he learned to fine tune the humor so that he got the timing and punch lines down to a fine art, the future looked bright.
Jason’s other passion was physics, which would seem to be at odds with a sense of humor on all levels. Jason believed there was a basic theory that could tie the two together, teachers tried to discourage him from trying to link two things that were so dissimilar. Late at nights when he sat in silence and the loneliness ate at him like cancer he would totter on the brink of comprehension and panic. At those moments he would get up and turn the stereo or television up real loud to push the panic back before it engulfed him. After the moments passed he would laugh at his own failings and fall asleep exhausted by the effort it took to once again escape the madness that hungered for him as much as he hungered for laughter.
Nobody realized what lay behind the constant smile and jokes. The only one who came close to the truth was his physics teacher, the one who committed suicide in his garage by sucking on exhaust fumes. His eyes were wide open with a look of terror, yet he had a smile on his face. The detectives that took the case came to the conclusion there was no foul play involved since the teacher left a letter explaining how he lusted after several students both boys and girls. He knew that his passions would eventually disgrace his family and hurt his wife of twenty years so he took the ‘noble’ way out, with a smile. The ligature marks on his neck looked to be from a failed attempt to hang himself earlier that same day. The frayed rope lay beside the driver’s side door on the oil stained garage floor.
Jason went home bruised and sore and laughed himself to sleep the day it happened. He stayed home sick for four days and hoped the hand shaped bruises on his arms would fade before he went back to school. The teacher had fought back fiercely in the final moments as the subtle poison, not exhaust fumes, took the last of his life. It wasn’t the first life Jason took; in fact it wasn’t even one of the first one hundred lives he took. Each one of those deaths ate at his humanity a little. Now that humanity had been stretched so thin all he had was lifeless eyes and a big smile. So when he graduated he decided to enroll in clown school thinking he could find himself there. Instead what he found was a school about chaos and the people who dealt it out a little at a time. His first lesson was the tiny car that clowns pile out of. If ten clowns piled out that meant that twelve went in, two paid the price so ten could come back out. Chaos would let you bend the laws of physics, but only at a price. The first time they piled into the car he heard blood curdling screams as the first two clowns went in and a fountain of blood erupted covering the other clowns in red. It all faded except for their noses and lips. Chaos had a price for happiness and it was souls, lots of souls. Tonight was a special performance that would feed chaos for a long, long time, at least Jason hoped so. At random spots under the portable bleachers he had planted cylinders of poisonous gas that were odorless and almost instantly fatal. Each one was set with a timer that would open up the valve twenty minutes into the big show. That would be right after Christine came out and did the stunts on the back of her horse Wilbur. Just long enough for the “Flying Wilanskis” to come out and climb up to the high wire. Once there the clowns would roll out in their little car and pile out to entertain the crowd while the Wilanskis prepared for their act. Juliette Wilanski had laughed at him when he told her that he was in love with her. Well now he was going to have the last laugh.
He had taken one of those cans of oxygen you could buy for trips into the mountains and jury rigged a small facemask. It would only last long enough for him to watch his handiwork, but that was all he wanted. As the Wilanskis were climbing up the rope ladders to their perches people in the audience began to slump in their seats, dead. Soon panic ensued, but that only hastened the deaths as people breathed quicker. Jason sat in his tiny car, mask strapped to his face as people all around him fell down, gasped and died. He could feel the chaos reaching out and plucking their souls away. He waited until Jake Wilanski fell from the high wire and snapped he head at an impossible angle. He climbed out of his car and looked up at the remaining members of the Flying Wilanskis and waited. In panic they crawled around looking for an exit, but there was only thick tent fabric everywhere they looked. Tim fell next, his leg snapping when he hit a platform part way down, the bone sticking out as he hit the ground unmoving. Tony reached out for Juliette, his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell forward, bouncing off the tight rope, spinning as he plummeted to the ground. Juliette held her breath, but it was silly to think that would stop the inevitable from happening. She slumped across the tight rope and slid off, arms limp at her sides. Hitting the edge of the net placed below her in case she fell, it bounced her over next to the dead horse Wilbur.
Jason ran over and laid down next to her, removing the tiny mask he wore and throwing it into the crowd.
When the detectives got there one of them looked down at Jason and said, “Leave to a freaking clown to think this was funny!!”
Chaos was happy too, and for one day random deaths didn’t happen, but only for one day.
*
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Chapter 25
“Dead for Good”
Rosemary Lynch
Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom
“Get your butt off my desk,” a voice ordered sharply as he walked through the door into the dimly lit office.
“Sorry Sir,” Eric replied, giving a cheeky smile but immediately jumping off.
“I have a mission for you, it’s worth eight hundred credits,” Sir announced. An approving smile spread across Eric’s face.
“You are to watch a young woman tonight. You will have to transport fast, Toracs are after her.”
“Toracs, why the hell are Toracs after her?” he asked shocked.
“We believe she’s the last known descendent of the Martorgorn. They want to use her to….”
“Open the slip-stream,” Eric finished, thoughtfully.
“Yes. You know what night it is?”
“Halloween,” Eric replied grimly. “The one night the gate is open and the Toracs can get through.”
“You are the only one who can stop them.” Eric nodded, he needed the credits badly.
Jessie’s head spun as she hurried on wobbly legs down the back alley. She knew she shouldn’t have come this way, but it was late and she had drunk too much, drowning the sorrows of her lonely single life at her mate’s Halloween party. An icy shiver suddenly flooded her body, her heart beating fearfully, she glanced over her shoulder her eyes locking onto a huge black shadow darting towards her. She screamed raising her hands de
fensively. A silhouette of a man jumped between them, and Jessie’s very soul trembled.
She woke up in bed still wearing her witch’s outfit, not entirely sure how she had got back, her mind vaguely remembering some man helping her. Glancing at the clock, she yawned, it was four in the morning. Her throat dry from too much alcohol she went downstairs and switched the kettle on. Her heart stopped, he was behind her she could feel him. Spotting a knife poking out of the washing up bowl and panic taking hold, she grabbed it. Spinning around she screamed.
“Get out of my house!” The man nearly fell over with shock almost as if he thought she couldn’t see him. Her eyes widening with fear she lifted the knife pointing with it, but she was not looking at the man, it was what was behind him. A huge, two armed, drool snarling creature came out of the shadows, lashing out the creature sent the man flying backwards and he fell hard against Jessie.
Launching himself to his feet and snatching the knife from her hand he swiped the creature through its belly. Grabbing its throat, he said something and in an explosion magical light it was gone.
He stood leaning against her fridge-freezer breathing heavy, glancing over to her he caught her eyes; Jessie’s heart shook, he was gorgeous.
“Who are you, what was that ‘thing’?” Strangely she wasn’t afraid of him.
“A Torac,” he replied. His dark eyes settling on her, he felt his heart begin beating for the first time in years. He smiled.
“What are you doing in my house,” she whispered. “Was it you in the alley?” He nodded. They both jumped at the hammering on the kitchen window. It was her neighbour, Richard.
“I’ll get rid of him.” She tried the door. “I can’t open it, it’s stuck.” Richard peered through the kitchen window, looking down to the floor horror flooded his face, and he was gone.
“Why didn’t he see you?” she whispered fearfully. He walked towards her.
“Because I am dead,” he replied. Her eyes wandered all over him.
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