13 Night Terrors

by D A Roach et al.

  Corey hadn't heard anyone on the property yet, hadn't seen anyone. He knew they were going to make their appearance soon. He knew this the same way that he knew there had been more than one person on his property the night of the snowman incident. His head ached as he sat waiting patiently for them.

  There would be more than one.

  “We’ll take care of them,” he said softly, caressing the handgun. “Then I can be with Sam and Jonothan.”

  The day had turned to night. Corey sucked in a breath as bright LED headlights flashed and swam around the living room. He regretted moving his family into a house on a corner. He stood to stretch out his back, and as he did so, he saw another pair of headlights coming. He picked up the handgun, tucked it into the back of his jeans, and went to the bathroom. He stood in front of the sink and looked at his face reflected back in the harsh lights his wife insisted on having.

  “Fuck, you got ugly.” He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of pain relievers.

  He relieved himself and headed back into the living room. He thought briefly of watching something on Netflix, but when he entered the living room, the thought escaped him as quickly as it had entered his mind. Behind Sam's SUV, he could make out the shape of another vehicle. Not his sedan, this one a small pick-up truck. Corey crouched and slowly maneuvered his way to the window, gently pulling the sheer curtain aside so he wouldn't draw any attention to himself. He couldn't see anybody around or in the truck. It looked as though the passenger side door was open, but he couldn't tell for sure.

  Corey looked around the front lawn and as far up and down the street as he could from where he was situated. Behind the truck, it looked like there was another vehicle. A Jeep.

  Two cars, he thought, dread filling the pit of his stomach.

  The dull ache in his head steadily worsened as he strained his eyes, looking around for anyone. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered.

  He let the curtain fall back into place and turned around, looking toward the back door of the house. He could see it plainly through the dark room. He crept his way toward the door, stopping every few feet to look behind him. He made it to the door and pried open some of the lower blinds that covered the glass, peering out into the stillness of the cold night. Still, nothing could be seen.

  He stood and padded his way into the kitchen and continued through it into the hallway. The way his house was laid out, one could walk into the front door, and if they took an immediate right, they would enter the living room. If you followed the pathway, you would walk right into the dining area where the back door was located and then take a left into the kitchen. From there, you continued through the kitchen and into the one hallway, where on the right hand side were two rooms—Jonothan's bedroom and Corey's office. The only room on the left was the bathroom, and straight ahead was the master bedroom. If you continued down the hall and didn't enter a room, you would end up right back at the front door. They layout was like a track, and Corey followed it from the kitchen.

  He pushed the door to his son's room open and peered in, keeping most of his body out of the open doorway. No one. He continued down the hall in this same way, searching his office and then the master bedroom. He followed the hallway back to the front door and to the dining room. The sound of voices came to him, broken by the barrier of the walls that separated him from them. From the sound, he could tell there were at least three people. One male and two higher-pitched voices.

  The voices drifted through to him, allowing him to only catch bits of what was being said. Corey could tell they were on the side of the house, along the wall running the length of the right side of the building. He crept to the window and put his ear close to the wall.

  “....stuff out of the truck.” A deep male voice.

  “...lights out...even home?” A female voice. “Front door or back?”

  “Front.” A different male voice.

  They intended on coming in through the front door. Corey put his ear to the door and could hear them outside. One was asking the other if they had everything. He reached up and slowly locked the door using the chain fixed to the frame. He entered the living room and draped a blanket from the couch gently onto the bear trap, retrieved the loaded magazine he had placed on the dining room table, and headed back into the kitchen, carefully avoiding his own trap.

  He set the handgun down on the counter next to the fridge. He stood and began working the fridge out of its cubby and into the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room, cutting off entry from this side. He dashed down the hallway, stopping in the bathroom to pull a bath towel from the hanging rack. He crept to the second trap and softly covered this one the same way. If they came down the hall, one would get caught. He remained crouched, heading back into the kitchen.

  Corey picked up the handgun and pulled the slide back gently. In the moonlight, he could see the chambered round. He shoved the second magazine back into his pocket and had begun heading toward Jonothan's bedroom when he heard the door open with a loud crash when the chain caught the door.

  “What the hell?” The male voice. “I thought you said it would be unlocked.”

  The door opened again, the chain catching the door. “His car is parked out on the street, and that door shouldn't be latched.” The female.

  “You want me to shove it open?”

  “Yeah, we need to get in there. He is a heavy sleeper. He won't wake up to us,” the female voice said flatly. No sooner had she finished speaking than Corey could hear the front door being slammed against the chain. Using the noise as cover, he sprinted from the kitchen and into Jonothan's bedroom. He gently pulled the door closed, keeping it open an inch to watch for them. The door chain gave, and they were inside.

  The minutes slowed to a crawl. It felt like hours before he heard any sign of them. Corey was about to step out and get a better look down the hall when he heard the metallic clap of the first bear trap. The screaming was deafening. It sounded feminine.

  “Get it off!” More screams.

  “Oh, fuck. Let me find a light!” the man yelled.

  Got one, Corey thought.

  He could hear them fumbling, looking for the light switch but not finding it. The man was coming closer to him, his hand sliding along the wall. He was close to the master bedroom.

  Corey crept slowly from the room, using the darkness of the hallway to his advantage. He went back into the kitchen, where he could hear things a bit clearer. He heard the unmistakable release of the second trap, as well as the dry cracking of what sounded like a stick, followed by yet even more screaming.

  Must be a bone.

  The house was filled with noise. Screaming mostly, but he could hear the murmur of others as well. Corey couldn't tell exactly how many voices there were, but he knew he had the jump on them. He tightened his grip on the handgun and crept back into the hallway. In the darkness, he could see the silhouettes of two of them, backlit by the moonlight streaming in from the open front door, could feel the chill of the cold air. The man who was caught in the trap was flailing like a dying fish; another was there trying to release his leg. Corey could see that the leg was indeed broken; the angle it jutted out from the body was more than enough of an indicator.

  He raised the gun and fired three times. One round struck the second guy in his right shoulder, knocking him into the door to the master bedroom. The second round caught him in the chest, and he struck the door with enough force to break it open. The third round went into the neck of the man caught in the trap. The man flew back, causing the awkward angle of the broken leg to become more defined.

  At the sound of the gunshots, the other people in the house went quiet except for the squealing shriek of the one caught in the trap in the living room. With a warm sense of contentment, Corey slowly moved forward but stopped when he saw the shadow of another intruder creep into his field of vision. He quickly rounded the corner and fired point blank into the face of another one of them. As they fell, they reached wildly,
grabbing hold of Corey. He managed to pull away, and the body hit the floor. He stepped over it and into the living room, firing two rounds at the silhouette caught in the trap, silencing the screams. In the flash from the gun, he saw two more intruders on either side of the trap and fired the remaining nine rounds at them.

  In the wake of the deafening gunshots, the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood stung his nostrils. There was no movement. Not a sound. The darkened forms of six people lay scattered around his hallway and living room. He reached up and tightened the bulb in the fixture of the hallway. The light blinded him momentarily, and when he turned to walk into the living room, something hit his face and made him pull the weapon. A balloon.

  As his vision cleared, he could make out the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY floating in front of his face in a flowing font on a silver balloon.

  With his vision back completely, he took a look at the carnage. He looked from body to body, his heart shattering with the realization of seeing his brother in law lying at his feet, his face half torn away from being shot at point-blank range. A feeling of rage and sadness rocked the pit of his stomach, choking him. He looked at each body. His two brothers were dead in the hallway, the walls painted with their blood. He found the other three bodies in the living room and knew immediately who they were. His mother was to the left of the little boy whose left leg was almost severed by the bear trap. He ran on shaking legs to them, dropping to his knees, their blood soaking into his jeans as he knelt beside his son.

  Corey couldn't stand the sight, his eyes burning as tear after tear escaped him. He could barely breathe. His mother's jaw had been blown halfway off, and she lay face down in a pool of her own blood. Sam was lying with Jonothan in her arms, most of her fingers missing. She must have tried to pry open the trap, and it closed back onto her. The back of her head was a hollowed bowl of gore. He pulled Jonothan to him, weeping, holding his limp little boy in his arms.

  “No, no, no, please!” Corey wept.

  He rocked back and forth, squeezing his son, wishing to hear his son breathe, knowing that would never happen. He had killed everyone that meant anything to him. Corey laid his son gently on the floor in front of him and picked up the gun. He stared at it, his eyes shifting from the gun to the bodies before him. He raised the gun and pressed it against his temple. Tears streaming down his cheeks, he looked around again, noticing the gifts.

  They had planned a party for me, he thought.

  He saw the brightly wrapped gifts which were now splattered with blood scattered over the living room floor. There were cards and a cake as well. The cake had been smashed when Jonothan stepped in the trap; he must have been carrying it. He could clearly imagine the look of pure joy and excitement on his boy's face.

  Corey pulled the trigger but heard a dry click as the emptied gun refused to send another round down its barrel. He reloaded the weapon and chambered a round, placing the gun to his head again. His finger slowly pulling the trigger, he looked from his wife to his son.

  He would end it. End everything and join them. He would tell Sam the truth about everything and beg for her forgiveness. First, though, he would hold his son and ruffle his hair one more time.

  “Freeze!” a voice screamed from the doorway.

  Officer Miller was standing in the doorway looking at the scattered bodies and gifts. Half of the officer's face was obscured by the balloon, but Corey knew exactly who it was.

  “Don't you move, asshole,” Miller said in a shaky voice.

  All Corey could do was look back at his wife and son. He looked at them surrounded by gifts and cake for what felt like an eternity, the image burning into his mind's eye. It was all he could see; he didn't register anything else until he heard the dry clicking of the officer's cuffs on his wrists. Corey sat on his haunches, reading one of the cards that had fallen open:

  Gotcha! I told you we were going to have one hell of a time!

  I love you, baby!

  Forever, and always,

  Sam.

  About the Author

  Joshua Macmillan is a lifelong horror fan. He grew up in Texas but currently resides with his wife Audree in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Joshua has published articles on the award-winning horror website Dread Central while writing his fiction. Joshua is currently writing his first novel and is also working on a couple of screenplays and a graphic novel with his twin brother, Jeremy. When he is not writing or at his day job, he can be found at home relaxing or at the local movie theater taking in as much horror as humanly possible.

  Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/joshua.macmillan1

  Twitter:

  https://twitter.com/joshmacmillan88

  Film Review Blog:

  https://deviantfilmreviews.wordpress.com/

  The Body Farm

  By Marissa Farrar

  Part One

  Doctor Eleanor Armitage bent over her latest project, a cadaver she’d come to think of somewhat affectionately as Janet.

  She was under no illusions that people found her job to be macabre. That she spent her days surrounded by the dead would have been understood had she been a funeral director or even a pathologist, but as soon as the words “forensic entomologist” left her lips, people’s eyes glazed over. They might take the time to ask what the job involved, but by the time she explained she studied the life cycles of insects on bodies in various states of decomposition, she knew she’d lost them.

  Her profession wasn’t something well received at dinner parties.

  Eleanor turned away for a bite of her sandwich and then went back to her work. Using a set of fine-pointed tweezers, she lifted almost microscopic eggs from the dead flesh, depositing them in a Petri dish.

  Janet was unusual because she’d been young when she died, only twenty-eight, and female. Most of the bodies donated to the Forensic Anthropology Center where she worked were old, often having been in the medical profession themselves their entire lives. When people spent the whole of their lives in science, they didn’t want to give it up, even in death.

  “Hey, Eleanor,” a male voice said from behind. “You sure got strange dinner company.”

  With a smile, Eleanor glanced back over her shoulder. Her colleague Robert Dane stood in the doorway, his hands shoved in the pockets of his white medical coat. His dark hair curled around his forehead as he cocked his head like a curious animal.

  “I like that she listens.” She tucked some of the strands of the blonde hair escaping from her braid behind her ear. “Some of my dates these days won’t let me get a word in.”

  Robert laughed, but the sound contained little enthusiasm. His expression grew serious, and he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses higher up his face. “Look, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a social visit. I needed to let you know about something.”

  She raised her eyebrows expectantly. While she’d hoped he was there purely to visit, his tone made her stomach tighten in a knot.

  “It seems we’ve had some kind of disturbance with Oliver and Tom,” he said, referring to two cadavers, one buried in a shallow grave, the other wrapped in tarpaulin and covered with foliage.

  The whole grounds of the center were filled with such corpses, bodies kept in various states to study how the variety of conditions affected how the bodies decomposed. The centers were kept quiet from the general public since no one liked to think they were living close to a facility filled with decomposing bodies.

  A frown furrowed lines in her normally smooth brow. “What sort of disturbance?”

  “I just did a round of the grounds, and both bodies have been exposed.”

  “How the hell would that happen?” Anger heated her voice. Any changes in the way the bodies were buried or stored would ruin the experiments. They didn’t have enough corpses to allow them to go to waste because of sloppy workmanship.

  “I’ve no idea, but they’re both completely exposed to the air.”

  “Shit.” She pushed back her chair and stood. Studying insect activity on dec
omposing corpses was one of the main parts of her job, and the bodies being exposed to air and light would disrupt the life cycles of numerous creatures. In many cases, an almost exact time of death could be given based purely at which stage a particular pupae or larvae were in their development.

  While many of the other scientists in the center studied the remains to discover the body’s identity and analyze any trauma found on the bones, Eleanor specialized solely in insects.

  “Have you informed security?” she asked, walking toward him.

  “Of course, but they said there’d been no sign of any unreported persons on the premises. They’re going through the security cameras now to see if they can spot anything.”

  “Okay. Let’s go see what damage has been done.”

  They walked out of the lab and down the corridor. Using the identity card attached to her belt, she swiped through the security doors.

  The last of the day’s sun bled into the horizon, painting the sky a dusty red. On either side of the path, bodies at different stages of decomposition had been placed in various positions and situations to allow nature to take its course. One was dumped in a trashcan, another wrapped in tarpaulin and lain in a shallow grave, another merely covered with leaves and other foliage.

  “How come you’re here so late, Robert?” Eleanor asked her companion while they walked. “Don’t tell me you didn’t have a date on a Saturday night?”

  He grinned. “Sure I do. Only my date is a bit like yours. She died seven months ago.”

  Eleanor laughed. “You want to be careful who you say things like that to. People might get the wrong idea.”

  “Who cares?” He shrugged. “As long as the right person gets the right idea.”