by H G Lynch
ringing thE devil’s bell
A Horror Short Story
H.G. Lynch
Ringing the Devil’s Bell
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Text Copyright ©2015
All rights reserved
Published by
Vamptasy Publishing, an imprint CHBB Publishing, LLC.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Edited by CLS Editing Services
Cover Art by Nicola Ormerod
Part 1
Ingrid snuck out of the house, leaving behind the sanctity of her quiet bedroom. As she walked along the dark, wet street, passing under the beams of illumination from the streetlamps, she continuously asked herself why. Why had she crept out this late in the night? Oh, yeah, because she was clearly out of her freaking mind. She should’ve just told Kerry she couldn’t come out, but Kerry had phoned her half an hour ago, begging her to meet her on Baxter Street. She’d sounded drunk and upset, and Ingrid figured she couldn’t let her friend wander around the streets at night like that.
You and your damn loyalty, Ingrid thought ruefully. It will get you killed someday. Unfortunately, she had the nasty creeping feeling that it could be today.
She turned the corner onto Victoria Road from Abbey Place and shivered in the blast of the cold wind sweeping down the street. She shoved her hands roughly into the pockets of her baggy hoodie and kept her head down, wishing she had something more dangerous than a tiny can of pepper spray with her. An old man walking his Scottie dog brushed past her, and Ingrid smiled inwardly at the cute tartan jacket the dog was wearing. The sight of something so cute relieved a smidgeon of her fear.
On the other side of the dimly lit street, a couple of boys about her age stumbled along, hollering indistinctly. Every other word was an expletive, she understood that much. She rolled her eyes and tugged her hoodie closer around her face, shielding her ears from the biting cold. Living so close to the sea had its disadvantages, mostly bad weather. The North Sea was just a fifteen-minute walk from her house, and at this time of year, the wind could be brutal.
The turn onto Baxter Street was just ahead, and Ingrid sighed, shaking her head. She should’ve just stayed home. Kerry had probably forgotten where she was meant to be meeting her and wouldn’t even be there. Maybe she should just turn around. Her nerves were tingling uncomfortably, and her shoulder blades were itching as if there were eyes on her. She had a really bad feeling, and it only grew more intense as she came closer and closer to the corner of Baxter Street. The old houses, some of the nicest in town, lined the opposite side of the road, their blank windows like eyeless sockets in the stone. They loomed oppressively against the dark navy-blue sky, and the steely grey clouds chugged across the velvet darkness, blotting out the glimmer of the stars. On her side of the street, unruly bushes cordoned off the neat little public garden that had long ago been vandalised, the flowers uprooted and the trees graffitied. The little skinny arms of the bushes reached for her, trying to snag her hair as she passed, and she slapped the leafy twigs away.
A swift, savage shiver raked its way up her spine as she rounded the corner onto Baxter Street and another lashing of autumn wind hit her. The first thing she noticed as she skidded to a halt on that corner, nearly tumbling over her own feet in her urgent need to stop where she was, was that one of the streetlamps was out. Just one. A lonely pillar of darkness, a glinting beam of cold metal in the watery moonlight. The next thing she noticed was the couple in the shadow of that broken streetlamp. There was something very wrong with the way they were standing, something Ingrid couldn’t see from there.
Pushed by a terrified urge to know what was happening, her feet carried her forward, her trainers barely making more than a faint scuffing noise on the wet concrete ground. Her long, black hair whipped at her cheeks in the bitter wind, and she felt the light spatter of drops on her face that meant it was about to rain. Her hands twitched, her fingers numb with the cold.
Oh God. She felt so sick. She couldn’t go any closer, but her feet didn’t want to stop. She was nearing the darkened streetlamp, and the couple didn’t even look up.
Then she heard it, the noise the girl was making—it was a scream. The girl was screaming, but it was muffled under the man’s hand. He was leaning over the girl, pressing her back against the lamppost, so she had nowhere to run. Something glinted at her throat, and Ingrid felt terror jolt through her hard enough to knock her breathless. The man was holding a knife to that girl’s neck, and worse, the girl was Kerry.
Ingrid could see her friend’s dark hair and wide eyes, and the line of blood running down her neck from where the blade of the knife touched her skin. Ingrid froze. She didn’t know what to do. It was like a nightmare, one where she wanted to scream, run, or fight, but all she could do was stand and watch silently.
Kerry continued screaming, but it was only a high whistling through the man’s gloved fingers. He growled something at her, but to Ingrid’s ears, it just sounded like a blurry echo. It wasn’t words so much as noise.
The wind’s howling was more distinct, as was her pulse beating a rapid rhythm in her ears. She could see everything as clear as day because the moon had come out from behind the clouds to allow her to watch this. The terror on Kerry’s face was obvious, even from where Ingrid was standing, thirty feet away. The man was wearing a hood, so she couldn’t see his face, but a dark, scared voice whispered urgently in her mind that she needed to run, to get away before he saw her.
It was the same voice that told her to stay in at night, to lock her door and windows, to keep her back to a wall when she had to stand alone. That voice had been talking to her since she was eight. Normally she listened to it, but tonight she couldn’t. Her feet refused to take her away, her neck refused to let her turn her head—as the man, in one swift motion, sliced open Kerry’s throat. Blood, dark and viscous, spurted over him, but he barely seemed to notice. At last, he released his grip on Kerry’s neck, and she collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes, hitting the wet concrete with a sickening thud.
Ingrid gasped, her stomach turning over, her eyes stinging. She was sure she was going to puke, but just then, the man looked up at her. A feeling as horrible and sinister as anything she’d ever imagined crept over her, and Ingrid knew. She knew who this man was, and she knew he was going to kill her too. He was a murderer, a serial killer even, but his target preferences had changed. Nine years before, he’d been hunting kids. Now he was hunting teens. And she could guess why, too.
He’d been looking for her.
With her heart just about leaping out of her mouth, Ingrid did the one thing she could do. She ran. She ran as fast as she could, her trainers slapping the wet ground, her breath sawing in her throat. This can’t be happening! She’d worked so hard to escape it, and now her past was coming back to bite her. The frigid air whipped blood into her face, made her ears and eyes sting as she ran. The empty, dark street offered no protection, no help or safety, so she bolted across the slick road without pausing to check for cars. She didn’t dare glance over her shoulder to see if the killer was following. She knew he was.
Once she hit the other side of the street, instead of following the pavement, she darted between the tal
l buildings. Desperately, her feet slipping on the wet grass, she swerved around corners, not caring or knowing where she was going. She just needed to get far enough ahead that she could get lost in the maze of shadows. Her pulse hammered in the base of her throat, and her legs burned, but she kept running—running for her life. The dark sky gave her no light to see by, and by then, she was far from the streetlamps. While the risk of running headlong into a building or tripping over a rock hidden in the darkness was a bad thing, it also meant that she had more chance of escaping because her hunter couldn’t see her. At least, that’s what she hoped. She had the awful feeling she was wrong because she could feel the killer behind her somewhere. She sensed it in the icy chill in her bones and the prickling of her shoulder blades, and heard it in the little, instinctual voice in the back of her head yelling at her to keep running.
Darting around another corner, her foot slid on the grass, and she fell awkwardly against the gritty wall of the building, painfully smacking her shoulder. Swallowing her whimper of pain, she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the twinge of her shoulder as she ran. Distantly, she could hear the blare of music drifting from the upper window of one of the flats nearby and the honk of a car horn somewhere down the street, but loudest of all was her heartbeat thumping in her ears. The wind blew her hair into her eyes, and she scraped it back desperately, accidentally scratching her face as she did so.
Then, she took a wrong turn and found herself out on the open street again, exposed on all sides and lit up like a beacon under the glowing streetlamp. She screeched to a halt, breathing hard, looking around frantically for somewhere to go, someone to help her. On either side of her, the street stretched away, a glittering stream of black tar broken by pools of golden light. Down to her right, the charcoal waves of the North Sea crashed onto the shore in the distance, the bitter wind rolling in and flattening the long grass around the concrete jungle of the skate park nestled near the buildings behind her. The only building on the other side of the street was the abandoned house drug addicts used for parties. The low walls around it were crumbling, the gates locked and rusty, the boarded up windows and recklessly overgrown garden seemed intimidating.
But there was no other choice. She glanced behind her once, and didn’t see her stalker, but she knew he wasn’t far behind. There was no time to hesitate any longer. With fear pounding in her gut, she sprinted across the street and flung herself over the gate, wincing when it clanged unhappily as she climbed. Throwing herself over the top, a spike on the ornate gate caught her leg and tore a gash down her jeans. She didn’t give it a thought as she hit the ground on the other side, twisting her ankle. Pain shot up her leg, but she limped on toward the side of the house where she could disappear into the unruly bushes and clamber round to the back door.
The thorns and tangled branches of the wild bushes clawed at her hair and clothes, pricking her cheeks and hands as she tore through them, stumbling into the weed-clotted back garden. She could see the rusty old backdoor hidden in the shadows and hoped to hell someone had remembered to leave it propped open with the brick everyone wedged between against the frame to keep it open for the next party of teenagers. As she crept toward it, barely breathing, she saw it was indeed propped open by three or four inches. With a silent sigh of relief, Ingrid lunged for it, kicked the brick out of the way, scurried inside, and closed the door as quietly as possible behind her. It shut with a definitive click, meaning it wasn’t opening again from the outside. Thank God.
With shaking hands, she backed away from the door and looked around her. There was some litter and a couple of smashed beer bottles on the dusty floor. And it was dark. So dark she could only just see the rusting sink and broken cupboards on the walls. The doorway loomed like a gaping mouth, the hallway beyond like a black tunnel into the heart of the dilapidated old house. Ingrid stepped around the brown glass shards on the floor and paused in the doorway, wishing her heart would stop trying to burst out of her chest. She strained her ears, listening for any indication the killer had followed her there. But all she could hear was the quiet groans of the grumpy house and the whistle of the wind chewing at the corners of the building.
There was still the chance he’d find a way in, so her best option was to find a place to hide. The only three rooms downstairs offered no good spots unless she decided to curl up behind the ratty old curtains in the other room. She was pretty sure that a five year old would find her there though. But if she went upstairs, it meant she’d have no escape if she was found, aside from a leap out a second-storey window. That didn’t sound fun. But, if worst came to worst, she could always climb down the drainpipe, if she really had to. So, she thought, swallowing her panic, upstairs it is.
Ingrid grimaced as she cautiously climbed the rickety staircase to the second floor. She held onto the banister, her fingers gathering dust and cobwebs, but she really didn’t want to put any more weight on her sore ankle than she had to. The wooden stairs creaked, and she winced every time, each sound as loud to her ears as a whale calling. If anyone were hanging about outside the front door, they’d surely hear it. Then she’d be totally screwed. So it was relief when she reached the top of the stairs and nobody had yet bashed down the door to get at her. Upstairs looked a lot like downstairs—dusty, holes in the walls, dirty floorboards, cities of spider webs, However, there were four doors lining the hallway.
Hesitantly, Ingrid reached for the handle of the nearest door and turned it, surprised when it didn’t squeak at her. Beyond the door was a room with a sheet-less double bed, which had obviously been hauled there for the express purpose for which it was usually used—and that wasn’t for sleeping. Mould was crawling over the dull green wallpaper, and there was large scorch mark on the floorboards in the centre of the room, as if someone had tried to have a bonfire. Aside from a toppled-over, three-legged nightstand, the bed was the only furniture in the room. Nowhere to hide in there, except under the bed. She wasn’t playing some game of hide-and-seek with her younger cousins. She needed a real hiding place.
Exiting the room, she shut the door behind her and crossed the hall to take a peek in the next room. Much like the first, it was furnished only with a bed, but there were various stains and items of litter she really didn’t want to identify. With a shudder, Ingrid closed that door, scrunching her nose in disgust.
Avoiding a rotten floorboard that looked as if it would give if she put any weight on it, Ingrid continued down the hall, brushing a tangled vine of cobwebs out of the way. The room behind the third door was tiny, with only the remains of a smashed toilet and a scattering of stained ceramic tile shards. Ingrid put a hand over her nose at the horrible stench. Grime coated the whole room, and she didn’t want to know what puddled on the floor in the corner. Hastily, she evacuated the room, pulling the door closed behind her. There was only one more door in the hallway, and Ingrid had to hope there was somewhere to hide in there, or she’d have to get really creative.
Carefully, she opened the last door, gritting her teeth as it grinded open, scraping the floorboards. Behind the door, the room was a decent size, and amazingly well maintained. It looked almost as if it hadn’t been touched since the last occupants of the house. The wallpaper was water-stained and torn in a few places, and the floorboards were gouged. The curtains were as dirty as the blue sheets on the bed.
Aside from that, it could’ve been any young boy’s room. There was a dresser, a wardrobe, and a faded poster of the periodic table on one wall. Ingrid thought of the ghost story about the poor boy who’d lived there, who’d wanted to go to school but hadn’t been allowed, and shivered. Standing in the room, she could almost believe it was true. Don’t be stupid, she thought, hugging her elbows. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
Just then, the sound of a car door slamming outside made her jump, and she remembered why she was there. There was a killer outside, looking for her. A killer who’d just murdered her best friend. Oh God. Ingrid felt her eyes sting and her stomach convulse. Closing the
bedroom door, she leaned back against it and slid to the floor. She put her head between her knees, clutching her arms and attempting not to make a sound as she cried, trying not to throw up as her stomach threatened to push its contents out. She trembled, rocking back and forth, her eyes fixed blindly on the opposite wall.
Breathing hard, she closed her eyes, and leaned her head on her knees, trying to calm down. She had to think of a way to get out of there. Then she remembered her mobile phone in her pocket, and her heart gave a jerk of optimism. If she could call her dad, he could come get her. No, she should call the police first. Yes, that would be the smart thing to do, call the cops.
Okay.
Uncurling, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and blinked as the screen lit up. Her fingers shook as she hit 999, and then the call button. She put the phone to her ear and waited, chewing her lip. But there was nothing. No dial tone, no ringing. Pulling the phone from her ear and holding it in front of her, she saw why. There were no little bars on the corner of her screen. She had no signal. How is that possible? She’d had signal there just a few nights before.
With a frustrated yelp, she threw her phone across the floor, and jerked her fingers violently through her tangled hair, ripping out stands by the roots. More tears threatened to dissolve her into a helpless, sobbing wreck, but she fought them back. She needed to relax and come up with a plan. But every time she blinked, she saw the knife glinting in the darkness and slashing into Kerry’s throat. She saw the spray of blood and heard the awful sound as Kerry hit the ground, lifeless. And she’d just stood here, hadn’t even twitched until it had been too late. She hadn’t even attempted to save her best friend, simply because she’d been more terrified than she’d been in years. And that was saying something. She’d lived in fear since she was eight, in fear of exactly this, in fear that the man would come back for her.