by Create50
Her cottage on the edge of the small town of Red Hill was just like those idyllic picture postcards. A white washed stone building with red pan tiles. She lived at the end of Cherry Tree Lane although there wasn’t a cherry tree to be had in the lane.
Her garden was as spotless as the interior of her home. A fantastic display of colour and texture and not a weed in sight. A young woman of means she was free to spend as much time as she wanted tending to her flowers.
But Dotty, as Michael her boyfriend liked to call her, had one big phobia. The Nasties! The Nasties were those creatures with six or more legs, that flew, hopped and scuttled around her precious flower beds. Or in fact those without legs that squirmed through the soil and left slimy trails on her stone path. Eurgh!
Dotty covered her face with a handkerchief as she chased a bothersome fly around her living room with a fly spray. The beast, which had dared invade her home on this fine summer morning, just wouldn’t stay still long enough for her to give it a good dose.
She was just about to give up for now when the bothersome creature settled on a window sill, its small translucent wings juddering as it ran across the crisp paint.
“Stay still just a few more seconds,” Dotty whispered as she slowly brought the spray can nearer so as not to frighten it away. Psssssshhhhhh… The tiny insect was coated in the aerosol rain shower.
Florence had been looking for a nice pile of rotting food to lay her eggs on when she’d seen this inviting opening into this new environment. Being curious she just couldn’t resist. Now she was gasping for breath, poisoned by some large predator she’d never come across before. Her mother never warned her of this kind of monster. Her entire life flashed before her several eyes. All two days of it.
The dead mouse she’d fed on when she’d hatched; Tom, her husband, who had made her his in one crazy afternoon; and the wind this morning which nearly blew her into the local duck pond. Now this. Was this how it was to end? Florence breathed the deadly toxin. Her head spun. She was losing all feeling in her legs. She tried to fly away but her wings were held fast against her body in the sticky liquid.
She buzzed and writhed, batted against the net curtains, her only thought that she’d never get to see her babies hatch. She rebounded across the shiny surface of the sill in a death throe worthy of any ham thespian and came to rest near the edge.
A tiny leg spasmed one final time, before Florence’s tiny life was extinguished.
Dotty removed the handkerchief from her face and smiled. “Got you, you little Nasty,” she hissed and gathered it up in a paper tissue for disposal, carrying it between thumb and forefinger at arms’ length. “Urgh!” she uttered with a shiver.
Now, one has to understand, as phobia’s go, Dotty’s wasn’t just an aversion to creepy crawlies. It was a real terror of even coming into contact with such vile and disgusting creatures. Doing the garden was like a NASA mission and indeed she looked just like an astronaut.
First, Dotty put on her gardening overalls, the legs tucked securely into her heavy-duty hiking socks to prevent anything crawling up her legs. Sturdy, steel-capped boots laced tightly prevented something unwanted dropping down inside; as did the heavy-duty leather gloves that came nearly up to her elbows, covering the sleeves of her overalls, with Duct Tape wound around each glove for good measure. Nothing was getting into contact with her skin, no matter what. Lastly, a bee keeper’s hat, complete with net covering her face.
Michael knew of her phobia but could never resist any chance to rib her about it. Once he placed a handful of rubber flies on the dinner table and she’d locked herself in the bedroom for an hour until finally he’d been able to persuade her it was all a joke.
The memory of that day sent a shiver up her spine as, suited and booted, she opened the heavy wooden door of the tiny cottage. “To battle,” she thought, braced herself, took a deep breath and stepped foot outside, just like that intrepid explorer, Neil Armstrong, stepping onto the Moon’s surface for the first time.
Her breathing deepened as she made her way down the garden path, her brow growing a little moist at the thought of what lay ahead. Why had she been given such an affliction when her greatest passion was to tend to her beloved flowers? Why couldn’t the Nasties just leave her and her garden alone? There were many other gardens they could invade. Many other places to visit far away from her. But that wasn’t going to happen. Suiting up like this was just the price she had to pay.
With secateurs in hand she snipped deftly the heads off any flower which dared to blight her pristine garden, placing them in a plastic bucket by her feet. She couldn’t have any mess, not even a single petal of a dead rose was allowed to soil this perfect picture.
A bee buzzed too close for comfort and Dotty took a sharp step backwards, swatting at it as she did. The bee buzzed about her for a few seconds then landed on a flower across the path, not interested in this alien with strange skin. Dotty made sure it wasn’t going to take flight again and, keeping one eye on it, resumed dead-heading the flowers.
Several minutes passed before another encounter of the Nasty kind occurred. A black beetle landed on her face net, right in front of her eyes. Dotty shrieked and twirled around to try and dislodge it.
Bertie the beetle held fast to the netting. His strong legs had a vice-like grip. He chuckled as he spun. This was fun and he didn’t have to exert any muscles doing it. He could do this more often, he thought, and made a mental note of it.
In her panicked state, Dotty planted one boot in the bucket, lost her balance and crash landed against the picket fence, dislodging several regimental wooden stakes which held several sunflowers in place, snapping two of the stalks of the golden-headed flowers, landing unceremoniously face down in a patch of soil.
Norman the worm came face to face with this sky scrapper of a terror. His mouth gaped, saliva ran down his face and his eyes bulged. What is that? He thought in his panicked state. He tried to escape but the soil was hard here and he couldn’t pierce it. What was that awful noise?
Dotty had seen the tiny snake-like creature and let out an enormous shriek, causing a nearby crow to take flight. She struck out at it with her secateurs and snipped it in half in one swift movement.
Norman writhed on the soil in agony. His friend, Will, who was languishing nearby, saw what happened and, fleeing in terror, darted beneath the surface of the loose dark soil to escape being the next victim.
Dazed but okay, Dotty jumped to her feet and brushed her clothing down in a hurry, looking over every inch to make sure none of the Nasties were about her person. Then she saw it. She gasped in horror and had to steady herself against the fence she’d nearly just destroyed. A rip in her overall sleeve exposing bare skin!
At first she didn’t know what to do. She checked herself over, her breath coming faster than ever. She was exposed. Naked to the Nasties. She had to get to the safety of her cottage. She dropped the secateurs, turned and fled for the door, kicking aside the plastic bucket, scattering dead heads everywhere.
Once inside, she slipped the bolt across the door with a giant clunk and proceeded to unsuit as fast as possible, making sure she at all times stood on the doormat. No time must be wasted. Off came the bee keeper’s hat, boots, hiking socks, the Duct Tape around her wrists, the gloves, and finally the overalls. All she had on now was her underwear.
Her pale skin had turned red and a layer of perspiration coated her. She examined her body for any foreign bodies. Her eyes widened and she let out a horrific scream. A large, slimy, hairy, grey thing had attached itself to the delicate epidermis of her upper arm.
Cecil looked up from his meal as a large limb came crashing down on him. He barely had time to register it before his insides were outside. His brains for what they were, shot out through the top of his head and across the lily white surface he had attached to. At the same time, the big fat shit he was about to dump was forcefully ejected out the other end.
Dotty fainted and everything went black.
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nbsp; When Dotty finally came round she felt a severe pain in her arm where she’d slapped away that Nasty. There was a black mark like a small bruise. Scratching it hurt. She felt dirty.
A shower didn’t make her feel any cleaner. Now her head was aching. Over the next few hours the headache got gradually worse. Maybe it would help to have a lie down. Michael was due in four hours and she wanted to be her best for him. Dotty slipped under the bed covers and instantly fell into a deep sleep.
When she awoke she felt strange. Like she couldn’t feel her arms and legs. She wriggled from under the sheets and had to stare for several minutes before she could fathom what she was seeing. Her arms and legs were missing from her body. In their place were small bumps. Further inspection revealed her back was covered in fine bristle like hairs.
She tried to scream but a “Glug” sound was all that emitted from her mouth. Was this a dream? A nightmare? This felt real alright. She slipped from the bed and wriggled her way to a free-standing mirror to see more. What looked back at her was not the reflection of the pretty woman she had been 24 hours earlier. It was a thing. A slimy, slug-like thing. Her face was missing. In its place was just a small pair of eyes and a huge mouth. The nastiest of all Nasties!
She heard Michael knock then enter using his key. Heard his sweet voice in the living room calling to her. He would help her. Get her to a hospital. The love of her life was her only hope. She wriggled towards his voice.
Michael called out, “Dotty, where are you?” as he made his way to the bedroom. When he entered, the giant slug was lying on the floor before him. Seemed to be looking up at him with those tiny eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he bellowed.
She wanted to scream, “Michael, help me! It’s me, Dotty, your future wife,” but no sound came from her throat now. Dotty saw Michael’s foot coming down on top of her. She tried calling out again. To tell him it was her.
“Nooooooo!” Dotty’s head exploded in a green puss which covered the bed sheets, the mirror and everything else.
Michael looked down on the slimy mess and wiped his shoe on the carpet. “Dotty, there’s something nasty in your bedroom. Don’t worry, I got it for you.”
The French Dresser
By John Read
“What a lovely dressing table.” Sophie ran her hand lovingly around the time-worn curves of the old mirrored dressing table. “It would be perfect in our new bedroom.”
“How old is this?” asked Trevor, turning to the man behind the counter of the antique shop.
“Turn of the century, sir. It’s French. From a little workshop on the outskirts of Paris. It is a superb example of the style of that period.”
“Oh, darling, let’s buy it. It’s gorgeous.” Sophie hugged Trevor’s arm as though she were preventing him from escaping.
“OK, we’ll take it. When can you deliver?”
The van arrived at their picturesque country cottage the following afternoon. The cottage stood alone on the side of a hill with a magnificent view across the rolling Devon countryside. Sophie ran to the door and supervised the delivery men around the jumble of unpacked tea chests. They had moved for a quieter life after years of working in London. The men left with a generous tip and Sophie raced back upstairs like a child on her birthday.
“It’s perfect,” she thought, as she paced up and down in front of the dresser, opening and closing the doors and running the drawers in and out. Stencilled on the inside of each drawer and faded with time was a name: Hotel de Marne.
This added to Sophie’s pleasure in the dresser. Its sense of history. Its unknown past. All those ladies with a hundred stories to tell, who’d sat at this very dressing table and prepared for an evening at the theatre, or a ball, or something more intimate.
The afternoon was spent digging through tea chests for clothes and toiletries to put in the drawers. She arranged her favourite perfumes neatly around the elegant surface, leaving her more garish modern designs inside a drawer. She spent fifteen minutes brushing her hair just so she could sit and use the mirror with its pretty flower engravings around the edge.
The mirror had a slight flaw at one point that made her face look crooked from a certain angle. Far from bothering Sophie, she thought this added to the character of the piece.
Trevor liked it as much as his wife. “It could have been made for this room.” he said, after being dragged upstairs to admire it as soon as he got home. He was even pleased with the French connection. His German grandfather had been based in Paris during the war. Despite the circumstances, somewhere in the back of his mind, Trevor felt a vague affinity with the country.
As she prepared for bed that evening, Sophie sat at the dresser, taking extra time in her normal routine. Her make-up was removed with extra care. Her hair was brushed for longer than necessary. Her nightdress was adjusted, just so. A little more daring than usual.
Trevor lay on the bed, half-reading a book but more amused by Sophie’s pleasure in her new toy. “Come to bed, darling. It’ll still be there in the morning,” he laughed.
She looked at him through the mirror. “I just love using it. It makes me feel so, so – ”
“Pretty?” said Trevor.
Sophie stood to face her husband. She had a look that left him in no doubt how she felt. As she approached the bed, Trevor put his book on the bedside table and threw back the sheets invitingly.
It was four in the morning when Trevor opened his eyes. He’d been sleeping the deep sleep of tired contentment, but something had woken him. He looked around the room and saw Sophie at the dresser, combing her hair in the moonlight.
Surprised, he raised his head from the pillow and checked the bedside clock. “Sophie, it’s four in the morning. Come to bed.”
There was a sleepy murmur from beside him. He turned to see Sophie fast asleep. He quickly turned to face the dresser. There was nobody there. He sat up sharply, his skin tingling as he looked around the room. Nothing. Everything was perfectly normal.
In the morning, it all seemed unreal and not worth mentioning. In the light of day, Trevor wasn’t even sure if he’d even woken up at all. The next few days passed uneventfully and the experience was forgotten.
“Drive carefully,” said Trevor as he closed the car door for Sophie. He stood and watched as she disappeared down the winding lane. Her mother was coming to stay for a few days to look over the new cottage. Sophie had arranged to go and collect her from her childhood home in Yorkshire. This meant staying over for the night and returning the next day.
Trevor returned to the empty house and looked at the mountain of paperwork he had to get through. He worked straight through until after nine, before his rumbling stomach alerted him to how hungry he was. The paperwork was put to one side and he went to see what scraps he could find in the kitchen. He hadn’t given any thought about getting anything in to eat.
He opened the fridge door and laughed. Sophie had made him a plate of sandwiches, cellophane wrapped and ready to go. She knew him well. He opened a beer and settled in front of the TV.
After channel-hopping for a while, he settled on an old documentary about some long-dead opera diva he’d never even heard of. Before long, his eyes got heavy and the empty bed he’d been avoiding didn’t seem so bad after all.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. It was the light that woke him. The first thing he saw was the bedside clock reading four a.m. For a few groggy seconds, he tried to think why it was light at that time of morning. He looked at the bedside lamp. It was off.
A movement in the corner of his vision made him turn to look. His stomach tightened as a bolt of fear shot through his body.
In the dressing table mirror was the reflection of a woman combing her hair. There was no one sitting at the dresser. The mirror was lighting the bedroom with a flickering orange glow. It seemed to be coming from behind the woman, like an open fire in the room behind her. This was no ghostly image, she looked completely real. She was pretty, yet seemed past her
prime. Somehow used.
She looked straight at Trevor and smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile. More patronising and cold. Trevor lay rigid, frozen to the bed. Not daring to move.
The woman stood up. Her head and shoulders appeared above the mirror, no longer just inside its frame. She had a black feather boa draped around her neck and halfway down her gaudy red nightdress.
The woman moved towards the bed, walking smoothly out of the mirror as though it were an open window. Her body was solid, yet she walked through the wooden dresser towards the bed where Trevor lay, paralysed with fear. Perspiration poured out of every pore in his body. He wanted to close his eyes, yet he daren’t. He couldn’t.
As she reached the bed, his head swam, his eyes defocused and he blacked out.
It was past eleven the next morning when Trevor finally woke. He lay with his eyes closed, feeling very uneasy but not quite knowing why. When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was the dresser. The horror of the night returned. Trevor leaped out of bed and reached the door in one swift movement.
The safety of the open door gave him the courage to stop and look back. Everything was perfectly normal. Another dream? Surely not. It had all been too real. And yet… Thank heaven Sophie would be home tonight.
His unplanned lie in had upset his plans, and he spent the rest of the day trying to finish off yesterday’s paperwork. His mind, though, was not on the job.
When the phone rang, Trevor jumped out of his chair with fright. Sophie’s voice immediately lifted his spirits, like hearing the cavalry approaching over the hill. The news however, was bad. There was thick fog and they were going to be late. “Don’t wait up,” she insisted.
As if to twist the knife, she also had ‘good’ news about the dresser. “Mother says the Hotel de Marne was an infamous Parisian Brothel in the war,” Sophie sounded excited. “It was pillaged and burnt to the ground in the middle of the night because the girls were accused of collaborating with the German soldiers. One of the poor women was trapped and burnt to death. But it turned out that they hadn’t been collaborating at all. They lured the German soldiers to their beds before strangling them. Some of them even used their feather boas. Just imagine if that thing could speak.”