WARPED: A Collection of Short Horror, Thriller, and Suspense Fiction

by Jeff Menapace

  He turns and walks down the small stairs, the manuscript rolled tight in his hand. He reaches the entrance and his child jumps into his arms like a chimpanzee. He kisses it on the cheek and looks back in my direction.

  “Take some time off before getting back to it, Adam.” He smirks after speaking my pseudonym. And then with a gesture that is pure theatrics, He pretends to cover his child’s ears, grins and says: “Go get laid.”

  II

  NOW

  1

  My stuff’s packed up and I’m heading to the auditorium exit.

  I was certain that once my story was told I would want many, many drinks, but now I’m not so sure.

  His arrival felt cathartic.

  I’m not especially proud of the way I broke down and cried like a little girl, but hell, twenty years of intense fear was finally confronted. I’m surprised, and delighted, tears were the only thing my body leaked.

  Cathartic.

  As in: I don’t need to numb myself anymore.

  Still, a drink—celebratory or medicinal—would be nice right about now. Just don’t get hammered. Everything in moderation from now on.

  And your precious benzos, Alex? Your Xanax? Your Klonopin? Will they be moderated too?

  I pull a Xanax bottle from my coat pocket and pop one out of spite.

  You stop showing me Emma’s corpse in my sleep every fucking night, and I’ll lay off the benzos, dick.

  The pill is crazy bitter, but I chew it anyway. Placebo effect, no doubt, but I can feel it working instantly.

  I get to the exit and someone is waiting for me. It’s a man, and he appears slovenly: faded t-shirt (image of an alien giving the peace sign); the gym-virgin combo of a big belly and skinny arms; heavy five o’clock shadow; thinning, greasy hair; and frayed jeans hanging down far enough below his tire to give the occasional glimpse of crack to any unfortunates.

  I’m praying this guy didn’t stay behind to show me a manuscript.

  “Hi,” I say. “Can I help you with something?” I give my watch a glance on purpose and hoist my briefcase as though it’s cumbersome, even though there’s fuck-all in there except more pills and a turkey sandwich that’s been in there since yesterday.

  The guy does hand me something, but it’s not a manuscript—it’s a business card.

  “Some of us do believe,” he says.

  I look at the card. It’s all black save for a phone number in white lettering across the middle.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Others have seen Him,” the guy says. “I know the truth about your story.”

  I glance at the card again, then back at him. “Were you at my reading?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you see this Him you’re talking about?”

  The man’s face comes alive. “No—why? Was He here?”

  Oh, He was here, pal.

  I shrug. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry.” I go to move past him, but he blocks my way.

  “When you’re ready, call that number,” he says, scruffy fat face gravely serious. The only thing that keeps me from laughing—the catalyst being his comical appearance blatantly contradicting his assertive and serious manner—is the content of what he’s pitching. Apparently my late friends and I weren’t the only ones who’d encountered Him.

  My friends and the women back on Elmwood of course.

  I wonder if those women are still there, giving birth and feeding poor schmucks to His kids? It’s been twenty years. That would make most of them 50 or 60 by now, I guess. Still, who knows? After seeing what I’ve seen, my expectations of life and reason are up there with winning Powerball. Not to mention; He didn’t necessarily impregnate those women back on Elmwood via standard method: a foot-long penis, pointed sharp at the tip like some kind of flesh-sword, plunging then pumping His seed into the belly button?

  I’ll be very dead before I forget that image.

  Still, this guy in front of me believes, despite his apparent inability to see Him at my reading. Huh.

  I brush him off all the same. “You got it, pal,” I say. “Thanks for coming.”

  I stuff the card in my pocket and move past him. There’s some unavoidable anxiety in my gait, and I only hope he’s not spotting it as I hurry towards my car.

  * * *

  I slide into my Lexus and toss my briefcase on the passenger seat. It lands on His lap.

  “I see you had a visitor.”

  I nearly shit myself. “Jesus Christ.”

  He makes the sound of a game show buzzer. “Wrong.” His eyes are yellow.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “I wanted in.”

  “Just what the hell are you, anyway? A demon?”

  “No.”

  “Ghost?”

  “No.”

  “Vampire?”

  “Please.”

  “Well, then what?”

  His eyes change colors rapidly now, too fast to keep track. “Let’s go with that. What.”

  I sigh. “I thought you told me to go get laid.”

  “I did.”

  “You coming with me?”

  He smirks. “Perhaps I will. You’re out of practice, and I can be very persuasive with the fairer sex.”

  I give him a look. “Yes, I’m well aware of your charm.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Wasn’t a compliment.” I shift in my seat. “Besides, I may be out of practice, but the idea of putting my sex life into the hands of someone like you…you’ll forgive me if I respectfully decline.”

  “Spoken like a boy who stamps his disgust on a culinary unknown before sampling.”

  “Clever, but I think I’ll just soldier on with my head in the sand if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Well, then I’ll just leave my offer on the table, shall I?”

  “Whatever.”

  He places my briefcase on the floor. “Your turkey sandwich smells a bit off.”

  “You can smell it?”

  He grins at me—endless rows of what I’ll always liken to sharks teeth in a man’s mouth. His eyes are ink black. No pupils, no whites. All black. As if He knows I flashed on a shark and is trying His damnedest to emulate one.

  I struggle to keep my face from coming apart, glance over at my briefcase and decide to address said turkey sandwich. “Yeah—I thought it might be a little ripe by now. You can have it if you want.”

  “Thank you, no.”

  “Oh right,” I say, “you prefer naked people soaked in marinade. I was supposed to be teriyaki, if I recall.”

  “Very witty,” He says before repeating: “You had a visitor.”

  “Yeah, so…?”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Something tells me you already know.”

  He steeples long white fingers beneath His chin as though looking for the right response. “I have an idea,” He eventually says. “Would you mind sharing all the same?”

  I’m hesitant. If He does know what the guy told me, perhaps He’ll now see me as a liability, that my story wasn’t so harmless after all.

  I tell the truth, consequences be damned.

  “He said he knows about you,” I say. “Says people know about you.”

  “People do.”

  “No, not the women you…work with—other people.”

  “Yes—I know.”

  I lean forward and plunk my forehead onto the steering wheel. I keep it there as I say, “Well, if you know, then why are you here? I thought you said you were done with me.”

  “I thought I was.”

  My head still on the wheel, I say: “You decided to kill me after all?”

  “Not you,” He says. “Your mother.”

  I sit bolt-upright. “What?”

  “Your mother.”

  “I heard what you said. Why the hell would you include my mother in this? What the hell did she ever do to you?”

  “Nothing that I can recall,” He says matter-of
-factly.

  I begin to panic. “I was right—you were fucking with me inside the auditorium. You didn’t just want the story…”

  He makes the game show buzzer sound again. “Wrong. I did just want the story. I did intend on leaving you alone. But then I spotted your friend. I’m surprised I missed him at your reading. Either he was hiding quite well, or I’m losing my touch.”

  “What friend? The fat guy who handed me a card?”

  He nods.

  “I don’t even know the guy!”

  “But he knows me.”

  “He couldn’t even see you!”

  “I’m sorry—I should say he knows about me.”

  “Well, so what? Let him tell the world. Who’s going to believe him?”

  His eyes change to a pleasant blue for some reason.

  “There are those who can see me,” He says. “Those that have. Ordinarily, I can choose when I do and do not want to be seen. However, there are a select few that possess the ability, despite my choosing.”

  “But this guy couldn’t see you.”

  Eyes still blue, He says, “No—he couldn’t. But his affiliates…”

  “Affiliates?”

  “Four in total. One that can see; three that take him at his word.”

  My brain feels like a water balloon being filled. Every word that comes out of His mouth stretches it a bit more. A part of me is hoping the damn thing would just pop already so I could finally transcend sanity and just flat-out not give a fuck about anything anymore. Especially if He is planning to kill my mother—the only person I still care about in this world.

  “I’ll say it again,” I start. “If there’s only one who can see you, then who fucking cares who these guys tell? Nobody will believe them.”

  He smirks. Thank God no teeth. “They don’t aim to tell,” He says. “They aim to kill.”

  “Kill you?” I bark out a laugh. “How the hell would they do that? Did you see that guy? The only things he’s killing are some kittens followed by a crate of Hot Pockets in his parents’ basement.”

  He seems amused by my quip. “Kittens?”

  “It’s just an expression,” I say. “Every time you uh…touch it, God kills a kitten?”

  He stares at me.

  I then elaborate by trying: “Uh…a guy like this would say something like: ‘Dude, I totally killed a few kittens thinking about Scully from ‘X-Files’ last night.’”

  He still just stares.

  “It means jerking off,” I blurt. “You know—” I mime the gesture on myself.

  He laughs, and my mime slows to an embarrassing stop.

  Asshole.

  I straighten my posture, clear my throat. “Anyway…all I was saying is that a guy like that posing a threat to you is downright laughable.”

  “That’s true—the ones who cannot see are incapable of harming me. But the ones who can…”

  Wait, does that mean…?

  I blink and He’s gone.

  I blink and He’s back.

  “I choose to let you see me, Alex,” He says.

  I swallow what feels like sand. “I wasn’t thinking…”

  “Of course you weren’t.”

  The inside of my left forearm starts to burn. I immediately roll up my sleeve. The tattoo of Emma’s name is no longer inked in black: it’s a blistering red, the lettering raised as though I’ve been scorched by a branding iron.

  The pain grows instantly, horribly intense.

  I clamp my right hand down over the tattoo in a desperate bid to stem the hurt, yet it only seems to heighten it.

  I turn and cast Him a desperate look, His eyes now a blazing red, glowing like embers.

  I can hear sizzling, actually smell my flesh cooking. The smell is smoky sweet, like a barbecue, and the sudden correlation makes it impossibly worse.

  “Stop!” I yell, gripping my forearm tighter. “Please, I’m sorry!”

  The pain grows deeper still. I haven’t felt anything this excruciating since…

  (my hand)

  (my shoulders)

  (Emma)

  (because of Him)

  “MOTHERFUCKER, I SAID STOP!!!”

  And he does.

  And the pain is instantly gone.

  Emma’s tattoo is back to its original black, the lettering no longer raised like a branding. For a split second there’s a part of me, the part of my mind that feels like the water balloon being filled, that wonders if I’d imagined it all, if the balloon had mercifully popped and I had well and truly lost my shit.

  But I only need turn and look at Him again to know that line of thinking holds no merit. Unless of course it’s all been imagined. All of it. I’d been bat-shit crazy this whole time, the last twenty-plus years a warped dream. I am still a ripe twenty-four; Emma and my friends are alive and well, perhaps watching me in a padded cell through one-way glass, Emma crying, my mother consoling her. Wait…my mother—

  “Tell me what any of this has to do with my mother,” I say, trying to control my breathing, my pulse, everything. “Why do you want to kill her?”

  His eyes are no longer a fire-red. They’re orange, as if the fire inside had mellowed, but was far from dead.

  “I don’t want to kill her,” He says. “But my hand may be forced.”

  “How’s that?”

  “If you fail to do what I ask of you.”

  “And that is?”

  He gives me a quizzical look, as if the answer is self-evident. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No.”

  “I want you to kill the one.”

  “What?”

  “The one who can see me. The one who is capable of killing—”

  “I know what you meant, but…I mean…are you fucking kidding me?”

  A harsh rap on my car window turns my head fast enough to wrench it. It’s one of Villanova’s professors who attended my reading. I roll down the window.

  “You okay in there, Mr. Kale?” he asks.

  I nod, perhaps too eagerly. “Yes, I’m fine. Why?”

  “Looked like you were talking to yourself in there.”

  Before I even glance over at the passenger seat, I can feel the fucker grinning at me. Of course I look anyway. And of course, He is. Eyes changing color by the second, every razor tooth baring, the works.

  I am suddenly very aware of my face. It feels like it’s cracking. I want to touch it, smooth out the cracks with both hands.

  I think I’m smiling when I turn back to the professor and say: “Just reciting a few notes out loud; that’s all.”

  The professor nods and says, “I see. Well, everyone seemed to love the reading. I wonder if you would ever consider taking the time to look over my—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” I say, “but I’d like to get these notes onto my recorder while they’re fresh in my head.”

  The professor looks around inside my car for a recorder that isn’t there. I don’t explain myself, only smile

  (I think)

  again.

  “I see,” he says again, although much more wary this time, perhaps aware that I’m basically telling him to piss off; no I don’t want to read your manuscript. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  I say goodbye and roll up my window.

  “You loved that, didn’t you?” I say to Him.

  He says nothing in return, but He’s still grinning, eyes now locked on gray.

  “What makes you think I’m capable of killing anyone?” I ask.

  The grin fades and He shrugs. “Your mother. She’s dead if you don’t. And I’ll take my time with her. I’ll make you watch.”

  Whatever nerve I had summoned moments ago feels as if it’s going down a dark drain. In just over a whisper I say, “I’m not capable of killing anyone.”

  “You’d kill me, if you had the chance.”

  “You’re not just anyone.”

  He shrugs. “True—but I believe you are capable of the act itself. You’ve managed to escape me once before;
and just moments ago you summoned the strength to challenge me.”

  “Number one: I didn’t escape you; I escaped the crazy bitch who was keeping me locked up for you. And number two: I stood up to you because my forearm felt like it was roasting over a fucking spit.”

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  I say nothing.

  “Think of it as a sequel to your story,” he says.

  “Sequels suck.”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Would you stop with this bullshit banter like you’re only asking me to look after your dog for the weekend?” I say.

  “I rather enjoy our banter.”

  The dark drain begins to slow its rapid swirl of diminishing nerve, frustration producing a small clog that allows me to scoop a handful of spirit.

  “Dude—fuck you. You’re incapable of any camaraderie. You can barely see beyond the tip of your own exceptionally disturbing dick.”

  He smiles. “Ouch.”

  “Why can’t you just kill him?” I ask. “You don’t think I remember how effortlessly you obliterated my friends? Why would you risk it and use a nobody like me?”

  “A fair question,” He says. “And believe me, I’ve thought about it…” He sighs. “But I just can’t bring myself to kill my own child.”

  2

  He’s gone. Or maybe He’s not—who knows? For all I know He’s still sitting next to me in the car as I sit here listening to my stomach acid churn.

  I go into my coat pocket and pop another Xanax. The crazy bitter taste is almost welcome now—like a buddy you can only tolerate when you’re wasted.

  I lean back in my car seat, close my eyes, and play the rest of our conversation back in my head…

  * * *

  “Child?” I said. “You mean like one of those fucked-up little white monkey things?”

  He did not look amused. And I guess I didn’t blame Him. As crazy as it may sound, I suppose those are His kids, and standard rules felt like they still applied; you don’t talk shit on someone’s kids, no matter who or what they happened to be.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just meant…is the kid you’re referring to just like the ones I saw twenty years ago? Like the one that jumped into your arms at the end of my reading today?”