Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Page 19

  But she knew it hadn’t.

  Eric could only be in the basement.

  The police would be several minutes in coming. Unless a cruiser happened to be patrolling this part of the boonies when her call came, it would take a policeman ten minutes to arrive. Maybe longer.

  She could go to Daniel now, gather him in her arms and make a run for the car, but if Eric really was in the basement, he’d emerge and run them down before they got halfway across the yard.

  Sarah compressed her lips.

  It was up to her.

  She made her way through the kitchen and stepped through the basement doorway. The lights were off down there, but that didn’t mean anything. Eric preferred the dark.

  Sure at any moment a hand would dart between the stair slats, batten onto one of her ankles, Sarah descended into the tomb. The stench had grown worse than ever, a fulsome, repellant cloud that thinned her breathing, nauseated her to the point of dizziness. The handle of the chopping knife was slick in her palms. She kept the tip tilted down just in case she tripped and skewered herself. The thought brought on an insane urge to laugh. Here she was, facing death, and she was on teetering on the verge of laughter. Maybe she really was going insane. Maybe—

  The sound of laughter, real laughter, made her freeze.

  She whimpered aloud. Oh, Christ, what the hell was it? If it was Eric down there, what was wrong with his voice? The laughter was meaty, wet. A throaty gurgle, so different than his normal voice. Was he hopelessly drunk, too impaired to realize what his breaking in here had forced her into doing? Sarah supposed she could scamper up the stairs, throw shut the door, somehow bar it and hold on for dear life until the police arrived, but it had still only been how long? Two, three minutes since she called 911?

  She only had one step to go before she reached the landing. Then it would be three more steps to the basement floor and her confrontation with Eric.

  The laughter swelled, drifted up the steps to her, filled the basement with its ghastly echoes.

  Goddamn you, Eric. Goddamn you for scaring me this way. For wrecking my life, for giving my son nightmares. You son of a bitch.

  Sarah rounded the corner and trod the final few steps to the basement floor. She strained to penetrate the darkness, but her eyes weren’t fully adjusted yet. There was a pullstring bulb a few feet away, above the washing machine. She’d believed she’d be safer in the dark, where her familiarity with the layout of the basement would work to her advantage. But now she longed to see the look on Eric’s face just before she plunged the chopping knife into his throat. She sidled over to the pullstring, reached out.

  Grinning savagely, Sarah yanked the string.

  And screamed.

  In the corner of the basement, where the light from the dim yellow bulb hardly reached, Eric’s remains lay in pool of blood. His ribs had been spread apart and left jutting in all directions. She saw a glistening rope of intestines strung out like something run over on the highway and a trail of blood that disappeared behind the furnace. It was from that direction Sarah heard the smacking sounds, the hungry laughter.

  From above she heard someone hammering on the door, a man’s voice calling out Daniel’s name. It was Tom, she realized, Tom who’d gotten here before the police. He’d probably been worried sick since last night’s call and had driven over to check on them.

  Maybe Tom would save her, maybe he’d forget what she’d—

  A bestial roar shook the basement.

  Sarah clapped a hand over her mouth, too horrified by the sound to move. Then the wall beyond the furnace darkened, shifted. The shadows gathered there and swam along the wall toward her, and as she turned and watched the hulking black shadows pass behind the water heater, the boxes of Daniel’s infant clothes, she realized the thing wasn’t shapeless at all, was a larger version of Eric. It had his muscular body, his strong jaw.

  But when it rounded the corner and scuttled along the wall, defying gravity and chortling maniacally, she discovered it was more than Eric’s features that comprised the creature’s face.

  It had Sarah’s eyes. And not only were the blue eyes hers, but the straight white teeth gleaming out of that bloody black face looked like hers as well.

  Except for the fangs.

  Sarah shrieked as it bounded toward her. A suffocating, sickly sweet odor enveloped her as the creature lunged.

  From above she heard the front door bang open, both Tom’s and the policeman’s voices calling out their names, and in the moment before impact she heard Daniel’s footsteps scamper down the hallway toward the front door. Then the creature was on her, ripping her apart, its pulpy body slamming her to the musty concrete floor and pinning her like a lover. She opened her mouth to scream, but its mouth closed over hers, its fangs shredding her cheeks, chewing, slurping.

  Sarah plunged the knife deep into the creature’s side, but its laughter merely grew louder. The edges of her vision blurred, the pain exquisite as the claws plunged into her torso, punctured her flesh. Blood sprayed around the creature’s razor talons. Sarah bucked beneath it, but it wormed its fingers deeper inside her and with a sudden wrenching motion, pried open her ribs. The life gushed out of her as the creature buried its face in her organs and fed. The last thing she glimpsed before the world went black was the sight of Daniel’s little legs passing the basement window, side by side with Tom’s legs. Moving away from the house and leaving the monsters behind.

  — | — | —

  THE FIERCE STABBING AND SUBSEQUENT

  POST-DEATH VENGEANCE OF SCOOTER BROWN

  JEFF STRAND

  “So, Mr. Galen, how many times did you stab Mr. Brown?”

  “I don't recall.”

  “Really? Surely you’d recall such a thing.”

  “It’s not like I was counting every single stab.”

  “Of course not, of course not, but I think you can at least give me a ballpark figure.”

  “I dunno. Twenty?”

  “Try forty-three.”

  “Forty-three? Really?”

  “Yes, Mr. Galen. You stabbed the victim forty-three times.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of times to stab a person.”

  “It certainly is. So would you mind explaining to me why you felt it was necessary to stab him that many times?”

  “Well, I was trying to kill him.”

  “That much is obvious, Mr. Galen.”

  “I thought it was obvious, too, but you're the one who asked. I wouldn’t have asked, myself. Seems like common sense.”

  “My question was not about whether you wished for Mr. Brown to live or die. My question was about quantity. If you stab a man once, twice, or perhaps even three times, then your motive may have been murder. But when you stab him forty-three times, one must surmise that there’s a deeper issue.”

  “No, I just wanted to make sure he was dead.”

  “Where did your second stab occur, Mr. Galen?”

  “In the van.”

  “Do not try to turn this into a madcap comedy routine, Mr. Galen. You know perfectly well that I was asking about which part of his body received that particular stab wound.”

  “Oh. I forget.”

  “Do you, Mr. Galen? Do you?”

  “His neck?”

  “His throat. You plunged the knife directly into his throat.”

  “Ah, yeah, that's right. Got him right in the Adam’s apple.”

  “Are you proud of that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So tell me, Mr. Galen, how many people do you think can survive having the eight-inch serrated blade of a hunting knife slam into their throat?”

  “I’d think that somebody has, at some point. It's inevitable.”

  “Perhaps so, perhaps so. But do you agree that delivering another forty-one stabbings after that could be considered excessive?”

  “They weren’t all in his neck.”

  “No, they weren’t.”

  “I know at least one got his finger. You aren'
t going to die from that.”

  “Of the forty-three stab wounds that were received by Mr. Scooter Brown, exactly two of them were on his fingers. What do you think about that?”

  “He should have held up his hands more to defend himself.”

  “Are you taking this seriously, Mr. Galen?”

  “Very much, sir.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you are.”

  “I'm just saying that if somebody is stabbing you repeatedly with a hunting knife, that you should maybe put your hands up a bit more. That's all.”

  “Are you suggesting that Mr. Brown had suicidal tendencies?”

  “No, not necessarily. All I’m saying is that if I were being stabbed, I’d make more of an effort to block the knife. That’s all I’m saying."

  “Is it possible, Mr. Galen, that once the blade entered his throat, that his mental faculties may have been compromised, making it difficult for him to determine the proper method of defending himself?”

  “Yes, that’s possible.”

  “Because I consider myself well above average in the art of self-defense, and yet if I am truly honest with myself, I have to admit that arterial spurting would create difficulty for me in making the best judgment calls.”

  “I already agreed that it was possible! You don’t have to keep bitching about it!”

  “Why are you being antagonistic, Mr. Galen?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Do you mean to say that you used the b-word in a non-antagonistic manner?”

  “I’m just trying to explain what happened, and you keep judging me!”

  “Give me an example of where I judged you.”

  “You accused me of saying he was suicidal just because I said that I’d put up my hands more if I were being stabbed."

  “You’re right. I did. And for that I apologize.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where were we before that?”

  “I forget.”

  “I remember now. You stabbed him forty-three times, but, as we’ve discussed, even somebody with no formal training in medicine and/or anatomy would know that the second stab was going to be fatal to Mr. Brown. And yet you continued to stab him over and over and over. Why?”

  “I guess I have a bit of a rage problem.”

  “A bit?”

  “Yes, a bit.”

  “Come now, Mr. Galen, certainly we can both agree that such a high quantity of stab wounds counts as more than ‘a bit’ of a rage problem?”

  “Why do you keep bringing that up? Aren't one stab wound and forty-three stab wounds the same amount of rage? Let it drop, for God’s sake.”

  “No, I don’t believe I will. Because you know where I’m headed with this, don’t you?”

  “Nope.”

  “I think you do.”

  “I really don't.”

  “How much time elapsed between the first stab and the final stab?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I didn’t look at the clock.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Do you always look at the clock before you start doing something and when you finish doing something? How long did it take you to shop for that pair of pants?”

  “Stop trying to change the subject. My pants are irrelevant and you know it.”

  “I'm just saying.”

  “What are you just saying?”

  “That you don’t know the time of every single thing you do in every single day.”

  “Fair enough. I suppose I will accept your challenge, Mr. Galen. It took me approximately fifteen minutes to shop for this pair of pants, if you count the time spent in the fitting room and the time spent in the checkout line. During that time I believe I also purchased two or three shirts. So, fifteen minutes is my answer. What’s yours?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess it might have been about fifteen minutes.”

  “Are you seriously trying to convince me that you believe it was fifteen minutes?”

  “About that.”

  “Please do not lie to me, Mr. Galen.”

  “It might have been longer.”

  “How about two hours and thirty-six minutes?”

  “Was it that long?”

  “It was indeed.”

  “Wow.”

  “And how long did it take him to die?”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “Two minutes, Mr. Galen.”

  “Oh.”

  “Two short minutes for Mr. Brown to bleed out. And yet you continued to stab his corpse for quite some time after that. Do you believe that’s indicative of a healthy psyche?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Is it not, in fact, appropriate to say that you are a sick and deranged human being?”

  “It depends on your definition of ‘sick.’”

  “Are you making light of the situation?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you truly believe that I was using the definition of ‘sick’ used by today’s youth, the one where it means ‘awesome’ or ‘really cool?’”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mr. Galen…”

  “Okay, no, I didn’t truly believe that.”

  “There is nothing ‘awesome’ or ‘really cool’ or ‘groovy’ about your recent behavior. It was, in fact, quite disgusting. It was not admirable, nor noble, nor even particularly clever. It did not make you seem macho. If you’d killed him with your bare hands, then perhaps I’d admire it—not from a moral standpoint, of course, but purely in terms of skill. But what you did made you seem like nothing more than a drooling psychopath.”

  “I didn’t drool.”

  “Still lying, Mr. Galen?”

  “I only drooled a little.”

  “You wiped your mouth on seven different occasions.”

  “That doesn’t mean I was drooling!”

  “You also made slurping noises.”

  “Some blood got in my mouth!”

  “One does not slurp when blood from one's victim sprays into one's mouth. One slurps when the drool of excitement spews from their salivary glands. You repulse me, Mr. Galen. You repulse me to the very core of my being. In fact, I wish that you were not in my office, because your presence causes my skin to feel like it’s covered with dirt and insects.”

  “Should I leave?”

  “No, you’re already here. We might as well get this over with.”

  “Are you sure? You seem irritable.”

  “No, no, it’s all right. The ability to gaze into people’s memories does make me cranky, but I’ll be fine. So you want me to bring Mr. Brown back to life?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “To apologize.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t stab him some more?”

  “No, sir. I’m done with that. It was wrong to do it in the first place, and I’ve learned from my mistake.”

  “I’d like to believe you, Mr. Galen. I really would. But I find it rather disturbing that you didn’t even know Mr. Brown before you went on your stabbing spree.”

  “I understand your concern.”

  “If he had wronged you in some way, even a minor way, like cutting you off in traffic, I might think to myself, ‘Well, that was a disproportionately violent reaction, but at least I can pinpoint the motive.’ But when you lure a gentleman into your van under the guise of needing medical assistance for a non-existent wife who is having a heart attack, and then proceed to stab him to death, and then continue to stab him for more than two hours after he is dead, I am forced to conclude that you are mentally ill.”

  “That's fair.”

  “I’m not trying to be rude. I simply believe, based on the information I have retrieved both from our conversation and directly from your brain, that you mean this man further harm.”

&n
bsp; “No. I just want to apologize.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Can’t you read my mind?”

  “Yes, but my psychic abilities are more about memories. Specific images. Not emotions. I know, for example, that you vigorously masturbated on Tuesday evening but not how you felt about it.”

  “Oh. Uh, sorry about the image.”

  “No need to apologize. I’ve seen worse. Now, I do have the ability to probe deeper with my abilities, to know if you are telling the truth, but it requires that I caress your eyeballs.”

  “Caress my eyeballs?”

  “Yes.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “It is.”

  “Okay, do it. Go ahead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, then. Keep them open wide.”

  “Ow!”

  “You knew that it would hurt, right? That couldn’t have been a surprise.”

  “I didn’t know it would hurt that much!”

  “Well, now you do. Hmmm. Okay, I now have to apologize for expressing doubts about your intentions, because I can see that you truly do wish to tell Mr. Brown that you’re sorry. For some bizarre, demented, unfathomable reason, his acceptance of your apology is important to you. Very, very odd.”

  “I told you!”

  “Don’t act like my suspicion wasn’t justified, Mr. Galen. You are a savage beast.”

  “But you can bring him back to life?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “He’s already alive again. I don’t care to waste time.”

  “Scooter…?”

  “You!”

  “I just want to say I'm sorry.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “And he’s dead again. Sorry. My power to reanimate the dead is not long-lasting.”

  “He…he…he rejected my apology!”

  “Yes, he certainly did. Nothing wishy-washy about his response.”

  “But…I paid five thousand dollars so he could accept my apology!”

  “You might have mentioned the expenditure while he was still alive. Personally, I would have opened with that, but since I’ve never stabbed a man to death, I can't honestly say that I know how I’d behave.”