“Nine one one, what is your emergency?” The dispatcher answered.
“He is here,” Mary said.
“Who is there Ma’am?” The dispatcher asked.
“The Carver. He is on the kitchen floor. I think he is dead,” Mary said, but she still watched him like a hawk and held the knife out in front of her with her free hand.
“What’s your name?”
“Mary……Mary McCready,” she replied.
“Okay Mary, what happened?”
“He got in the house. He attacked me. I threw boiling water in his face and stabbed him,” Mary said, her voice sounded almost robotic.
“Okay, what is the address of the residence?” The dispatcher asked.
“Fourteen twenty eight, Haddonfield Run Road,” Mary replied.
“Alright, I need you to hang tight Mary. I’m going to send one of our units from the asylum over because they are closer but it still might take some time because of the storm and the roads okay?”
“Yes,” Mary replied.
Then the impossible happened right before her eyes. He sat straight up and looked right at her, a smile slowly spreading across his burnt and blistered face. Now he really did look like some kind of monster.
“Oh my God. He’s not dead. He’s getting up,” she said into the phone, her voice cracking.
“Listen to me Mary. Get out….get out of the house now,” the dispatcher said.
She dropped the phone and ran for the front door. Lead him away from the house, lead him away from Scott. She thought.
She unlocked the front door and threw it open. She ran outside without looking back. When she hit the last porch step she was moving too fast for her feet to keep up. She tripped and fell. The wind was knocked from her lungs as she landed face down. She lost her grip on the knife and it slid away into the snow. Gasping for air, she pulled herself to her feet and started moving again. She wanted to stop and look for the knife but she knew she didn’t have that kind of time. She looked back to confirm her suspicions and she was right, he was already on the porch. She ran to the end of the driveway and stopped to catch her breath. There was only one place she could think to go. Mr. Connors’ house and that was a mile down the road. She didn’t
know if she could outrun him that long but she knew she had to try, and so she ran like her life depended on it because it actually did.
Mary took Mr. Connors’ porch steps two at a time until she reached the top. By some miracle she had been able to out distance him but he was still coming, she had no doubt about that in her mind. She took a moment to catch her breath and she needed it. Her heart was beating in her ears. With every deep breath she took the cold night air stabbed her lungs like a knife. She didn’t think her chest had ever hurt this much in her life and her mouth tasted like it was full of pennies. She looked down the street and could see him coming. She turned and started pounding on the door with both hands.
“Mr. Connors are you there? Help me!!! Help me, he is coming!!!.” She screamed.
After what seemed like an eternity the light came on and he opened the door.
“What’s wrong Mary? What is going on?” He asked.
She didn’t answer. She pushed him inside and ran in behind him. She slammed the door shut behind her, locked every lock it had and shut the light off.
“Mary, what the hell is going on?” He asked again.
“He is out there, he is coming,” was all that she could say.
“Who is out there?” He asked.
“That man that escaped from the asylum….The Carver,” Mary replied.
“Where is Scott?” Connors asked.
“He is fine. I lead the psycho away from the house,” she replied.
“Okay, we need to call the police,” he said.
“I did that already. They are sending someone but they are being delayed by the storm. They just told me to get out of the house,” she told him.
There were creaking and thudding sounds coming from outside now as he came up the porch steps.
“I know you are in there girly,” his voice came from the other side of the door.
“I’m coming in,” he continued.
The door was sturdy, made of solid oak. He wasn’t coming in that way, but on each side of the door there was a skinny window that went from the floor to the ceiling. There was a crash of shattering glass as he kicked through the one on the left. Connors picked up the phone and started calling the police.
“I told you I already did that. Do you have anything we could use as a weapon?” She asked him.
She turned back towards the door. He was reaching through the broken window now, trying to unlock the door. Mary ran forward and grabbed a shard of glass off the floor. She went to the door and started slashing at his hand with it. He pulled his hand back, howling in pain. She let her guard down for a moment and in that instant he reached back through and grabbed her by the hair. He pulled her backwards and she heard the window frame crack as she hit it. She started
cutting his hand with the glass again, but this time he wasn’t letting go. She gripped the glass so tight that it started cutting into her own hand as she cut his, even when she felt the glass scraping against his bone he did not let go. Connors dropped the phone and came to the door. He grabbed the man’s hand and tried to pry his finger open. Mary kept cutting and fighting. She didn’t know how he was still holding on. Just when she thought he would never let go he was gone. She fell forward and hit the floor with a thud. She heard Connors struggling now and rolled over. The Carver’s bloody hand was around his throat. She had completely mangled it with her shard of glass. It looked like it had been put through a meat grinder but still he didn’t stop. He pulled hard once and the cracked window frame gave away and Mr. Connors went with it out onto the porch. Mary struggled to her feet, every part of her screaming. She walked to the broken window, still clutching the shard of glass in her hand. Her hand was screaming louder than the rest of her body. She looked down at it. The glass was red, completely covered in blood. She looked at all the blood now and couldn’t tell where hers started and his ended. She looked through the broken window and saw them struggling on the porch. He had a hold of Connors’ head with both hands and he jammed his thumbs into his eyes. There was a squishing sound and then a pop. Connors screamed as blood flowed from his ruptured eye sockets down his cheeks. His screams were silenced, when with a quick flip of his hands, The Carver snapped his neck and threw him over the porch banister. He turned back towards the window and a smile spread across his face.
“Oh girly,” he said giggling.
“You hurt me good, you hurt me real good. I’m coming in now,” he continued.
“And when I do –“
He stuck his head in now, all signs of laughter gone.
“I’m going to split you in two,” he said, as serious as a heart attack.
He stepped through the now empty window frame and into the foyer. Mary had no idea what to do now, where was she going to run now. The closest neighbor for ten miles was now lying in his own front yard. Eyeless and with his head facing the wrong direction. That didn’t change the fact that she had to do something. If she stayed here she would share his fate, she might anyway before the night was through, but it didn’t have to happen right now. She thought as she turned tail and ran for the back door.
He was on her as she grabbed her doorknob with her free hand. He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her backwards. She pin wheeled across the kitchen and slammed against the wall. Her head hit with a solid thud and the world swam in front of her. He came at her and she saw two of him as her eyes tried to refocus. She gasped as one of his big, strong hands closed around her throat. His face was inches from hers.
“Look at what you did to me,” he said.
His face was burned and blistered. He looked like early stages Freddy Krueger. She felt vomit rising in her throat as her eyes started to water. She didn’t know how much longer she was going to be conscious. Her visi
on was starting to dim and all of her muscles were starting to relax. She started to welcome it. Right now everything hurt, but once it was over there would be no pain. Pain, her mind locked onto that. She was faintly aware of a stabbing pain in her right hand as she clung to the precipice of her life. What was causing the pain, and then she remembered, the shard of glass she was clutching. Mary didn’t have much left, but she used every ounce of what she did have to raise her hand up. She felt the glass encounter something spongy and then slide in. He let go as he made a choking sound. Without him to hold her up she fell to her knees coughing. In between coughs she took deep breaths, trying to get as much air as she could. She watched him stumble across the kitchen and hit the wall. He leaned against it and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. She saw where she got him now, some of the glass was still visible, it was sticking out of the left side of his neck. She stood up but she didn’t take her eyes off of him. He wasn’t moving and he looked dead. She didn’t think someone could survive a shard of glass to the throat but she had made the mistake of assuming he was dead once already tonight, and she wasn’t about to do that again. It was time to finish it. There was a can of WD-40 on the table. She smiled, Connors must have finally got around to greasing the squeak on his back door. She picked it up.
“This is for you old man,” she said.
She reached into her front pocket and pulled out a lighter. She hadn’t smoked in a year but she still carried a lighter around out of habit. She thought she might start smoking again after tonight. She staggered over and stood over him. She lit the lighter and stared at the flame for a moment. She aimed the WD-40 at him and sprayed it through the flame. The kitchen was illuminated in an orange glow as it became a mini flamethrower and engulfed him in flames. She dropped the can and headed for the foyer. Her hand was killing her and it was still losing blood. She grabbed the tablecloth off of one of the end tables, rolled it up and tied it around her hand. Her throat felt dry and scratchy. She reached up and touched it gently, it was nice and tender. She was going to have some nasty bruises. She didn’t bother opening up the door, she just went out through the empty window frame, glass crunching beneath her feet. She gave one last look over her shoulder at the kitchen. He still sat there, a wall of flame.
She staggered back up the road. The snow was falling again. It was cold but she could barely feel it. She didn’t know how she was still alive, as a matter of fact she couldn’t believe that she was. For a moment she was afraid that she really was back in that kitchen, dead as a door nail while he did whatever he wanted to her. Everything on her hurt. She felt dizzy and lightheaded. She looked down at her hand, the cloth she had tied around it was already soaked completely through. Now that her life wasn’t in mortal danger and she had time to process, the pain in her hand was intense. She also had some intense pain in her right leg too. She tried to flex her fingers and couldn’t do it. She noticed the night had taken on an orange glow. She stopped and turned around. Mr. Connors’ whole house was ablaze now, flames jutting from everywhere, reaching up towards the sky. She turned her attention ahead and focused on putting one foot in front of the other, she was almost back to the Ritter’s. She could see the house up ahead. All she had to do was get there and then she could relax until the police showed.
An inhuman scream pierced the night.
Mary froze in her tracks. There was no way this was possible.
“Who else could it be?” She asked herself.
She turned around and there he was. He was still a good ways off, staggering and weaving up the road. She turned around and kept walking. She didn’t bother running, she didn’t think she could at this point, even if she wanted to. She didn’t think he was in any condition to run either. So it didn’t matter.
She limped into the driveway. The light from the house was spilling out onto the yard. The front door was wide open just as she left it. She walked towards the house and something caught her eye ten feet from the porch steps. It was the knife she dropped.
She picked up the knife and started up the steps. She looked up to see Scott standing in the living room. He was looking at her.
“I woke up and couldn’t find you. Why are you bleeding?” He asked.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about honey,” she lied.
“Who is that?” He asked, pointing.
She turned around to see where he was pointing. He was standing at the end of the driveway now and coming towards the house.
“Okay, listen to me Scott. I want you to run up to your room and find a place to hide. Don’t make a sound and don’t come out until I come for you. Understand?” She said.
He nodded and ran upstairs. Mary limped into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. She didn’t bother closing the door. The end was close one way or another, so it was time to get on with it.
Now
Mary sat in the chair at the table, facing the front door and watched him come. She looked at the clock on the wall. It had been an hour since she talked to the police, would they ever get here? It didn’t matter now anyway, she probably wouldn’t be alive when they did and she was ok with that as long as Scott survived. She didn’t know if it was possible to die from a hand wound but she wasn’t feeling too good. She had two cuts on her hand from where she had clutched the glass. They weren’t shallow cuts, they were two very deep gashes. She had clutched it so tight that it had damn near cut clean through her hand in both spots and the blood just kept flowing. Her hand was like a blood fountain. Even with the cloth soaking it up, blood kept pooling in her palm. She still felt dizzy and lightheaded. She was barely hanging on to consciousness. Her vision was starting to dim again, she shook her head back and forth to fight it off. She couldn’t give up yet. If she was going to die, she was going to take this son of a bitch with her.
He stepped through the front door and smiled. This was the first look she had got of him since she sat him on fire. He was grotesque. Most of his hair was burned off, both of his eyes looked like they were bulging out of his head because all of the tissue around them had burned away. He had no lips. The only reason she could tell he was smiling was because what was left of the muscles around his mouth were tugging upwards. He was still smoldering lightly and the smell of burning flesh permeated her nose and made her gag. She pulled herself to her feet one last time as he staggered into the kitchen. He came towards her, his arms outstretched. He paid no attention to the knife she was clutching in her good hand as he closed his hands around her throat. His eyes were completely empty. She didn’t know what was keeping him running, maybe it was the same thing that was keeping her running at this point. Holding on to ensure the death of the other one. She brought the knife up and planted it handle deep into his chest. He gasped and took a step back. She swayed on her feet, waiting to see if he would finally lay down and die. He reached up and grabbed the piece of glass that still stuck out from his throat. There was a spray of blood as he pulled it out and thrust it at her. She wanted to stop him but she didn’t have anything left. She barely made a sound when he pushed it into her stomach and it ripped through her abdomen.
“Please run away with me to hell?” He sang and actually managed a sound that sounded like giggling. Her legs gave out and she landed in the chair. She looked down at the glass sticking out of her stomach and the last thing she heard before everything went black were gunshots.
1 year later
It was eleven in the evening and Mary was dead tired. She limped into her bedroom and started getting ready for bed. She had a permanent limp now. When she fell down the Ritter’s porch steps she had broken her leg and with the running for her life and the glass in her hand she didn’t notice. The doctors were barely able to save her hand. It took six hundred and thirty two stitches in all to close both gashes. She stopped for a moment to look at the scar on her abdomen as she put on her nightgown, that wound had taken another twenty stitches to close. When she was done she checked her closet and under the bed. When she was satisfied that the
re was nothing there she climbed into bed, making sure she was exactly in the middle and covered up. She didn’t turn out the light. She couldn’t sleep in the dark anymore, in the dark she could see his face. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. It took forever on the nights that it even came at all. Before she finally drifted off to sleep his voice was always the last thing she heard.
Night Terrors Vol. 1 Page 7