Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror)

by William Markly O'Neal

  Adam looked up from her neck and saw the sign above the stove which read, GOD BLESS THIS KITCHEN.

  Beneath that sign was another which read, AND GOD HELP THE COOK!

  Beneath that was a silver crucifix.

  Rachel told Adam she was raised a Catholic but she’d also told him she hadn’t been to church in a decade. He never dreamed she would have a religious icon in her home!

  He realized the sign was meant as a joke but he also knew Rachel did believe in the power of the cross.

  Adam’s pupils flared up bright red. He recoiled, throwing up his arms, turning away from the repellent talisman, howling in pain. This wasn’t a hiss or a human cry. The wail that erupted from his throat was that of a wounded wolf.

  He turned left, his hands raised by the right side of his face, blocking his view. He shuddered violently and, in an instant, all his fingernails become three-inch talons.

  That was when Rachel screamed.

  He located her by her shriek. Without chancing a look, he seized her by the arm and drug her from the kitchen, back into the safety of the living room, away from that cursed crucifix.

  Adam finally looked at her and saw exactly what he hoped he wouldn’t.

  Rachel was terrified of him.

  Everything had been going so smoothly.

  Now, it was all going to hell.

  “No,” he moaned, terribly disappointed. “It’s too early for that. You were supposed to look at me with love first, then fear.”

  Rachel tried hard to pull free of him, couldn’t even budge him, and screamed again.

  “Damn.”

  Adam pulled her close to him, grabbing her by the sides of her head. She screamed even louder and he did enjoy the sound and scent of her terror. “Don’t worry,” he assured both himself and her. “We may have gotten off to a bad start, but it’s not too late to salvage the evening.”

  He opened his mouth and caused his fangs to grow. As he did, all his zeal, all his desire for her, all his bloodlust burst free. And then he did lose control, surrendering to the terrible hunger.

  Adam plunged his fangs into Rachel’s neck.

  The blood brought euphoria. For him, this was ecstasy. Her red juices didn’t just sate his physical appetite; it also nurtured his wicked soul. It instilled in him a blasphemous pleasure undreamt of by mortals.

  It also allowed him to read her mind.

  Adam plunged into her memories and sucked them up.

  He was shocked to his core by what he discovered.

  Yes, Rachel’s first husband beat her, but she lied about how often. It wasn’t three times, it was more like thirty. Finally, she reached a breaking point after her drunken sweetheart broke her nose, again, for the third time, and then he raped her. After he fell asleep, Rachel went and loaded his gun, a 9 mm pistol. Then she woke him up. Still drunk, he became immediately angry at her when he saw she had his gun. He tried to take the pistol away from her.

  That’s when she shot him in the face.

  Later she claimed he said he was going to kill her. She said she believed he was going to kill her and, without thinking, she acted in self-defense.

  The truth, however, was she thought about it for nearly an hour before she consciously woke her husband up and waited specifically until he was lunging at her so she could blow his brains out.

  Adam couldn’t believe it!

  Rachel— sweet, domestic, innocent Rachel— she got away with murder!

  No wonder her poetry was so dark!

  He had only barely begun to drink, he hadn’t even taken a half pint of her blood yet, but he suddenly pulled his fangs out of her neck.

  Holding her head in his hands, he looked at her like she was a traitor. He couldn’t believe this!

  This was disaster!

  He couldn’t corrupt her! He couldn’t turn her into a killer! She had already taken human life!

  He raged, “YOU’RE NOT A VIRGIN!”

  Tears spilled down her face. Blood oozed down her neck. Rachel looked at him with terrified eyes and muttered, “You’re a vampire.”

  That was how the Blood worked. The Nosferatu and his victim shared minds.

  She knew he had no picture to offer online because he couldn’t be photographed.

  She knew he couldn’t talk to her on the phone because his voice couldn’t be electronically reproduced.

  She knew he wouldn’t be here, right now, if she hadn’t willingly invited him (repeatedly) into her home.

  Rachel knew Adam meant to make her his consort, to bring her into the Blood, to make her a vampire if he found her deserving.

  She also knew she had been found unworthy.

  Her head still in his hands, Rachel glared at him. Knowing she was going to die suddenly made her furious. Rachel shouted, “DO IT!”

  Adam’s rage exploded. Roaring like the inhuman monster he was, he acted without thinking, squeezing his hands together.

  Rachel’s head shattered between his crashing palms like an overripe gourd. Blood, brains, and bone flew in every direction, drenching him, spraying the walls, splattering the ceiling, raining to the floor. Part of blonde’s scalp dangled from one of Adam’s talons.

  The vampire plopped some of the mortal’s brains into his mouth, sucked the blood off them, and then spat them out.

  He then picked up Rachel’s corpse and drank from the top, flipping her body upside down, the way a man would turn up a beer bottle.

  When his fury was spent and his thirst was slaked, he cast her remains aside.

  Adam wept.

  He wandered into the living room, where he stopped to gaze at the pictures of Rachel’s little girl.

  Thinking about the grief he had just caused the child brightened his mood a little.

  He wiped away his blood tears.

  Looking at Deborah’s birthday picture, seeing the child laughing, he wondered how much she was like her mother.

  He wondered if Deborah had the soul of a poet.

  If so, and if she could maintain her innocence, perhaps Adam would visit her in twenty or thirty years.

  Despite that hope for the future, he still felt very much alone.

  When he left Rachel’s house and got into the back of his limousine, he was covered with gore. Byron looked back at him and said, “I’m so sorry it didn’t go well.”

  Looking down at his drenched clothes, Adam sighed.

  Byron asked, “Shall we hit the streets, sir? Ball State University is in this town, you know. It’s where David Letterman went to school.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “You and your late night TV.”

  Byron cheerfully suggested, “Stalking some college girls might do you some good.”

  “No.” Adam slipped off his shoes and kicked back, sucking some of Rachel’s blood off the cuff of his sleeve. “I think I’ll just head home and see who’s online.”

  THE END

  zzz System Failure zzz

  The younglings looked at the automabot with saucer-sized eyes filled with horror and fear. The robozoid that they knew as Ralph was an old-time pre-apocalypse model of servopure government technology. This servo was a classic, famous for its manufacturer’s warranty good for a cool two million years. The children in the daycare pod had just watched with growing unease as Ralph spent the last fifteen minutes crossing ten feet of space. The humanoid automabot was using a vacubroom to lean on, giving its shuffle-feet hobble a third leg to be awkward with.

  “Where are you going?” asked Kaleesha Kaye.

  “What!?” Ralph barked back.

  “Where are you going?” asked Kaleesha again.

  “To the bathroom,” said Ralph, totally freaking out the children.

  Even six-year-olds had been around long enough to know that robozoids didn’t use bathrooms.

  Ralph hobbled on toward the boy’s restroom, instead of properly retreating to one of the mecha-docks at the back of the pod.

  “Why are you walking so slow?” asked little Janus James.

 
; Ralph stopped and yelled, “What!?”

  “Why are you walking like that?” asked Kaleesha when Janus fell silent.

  “Oh, Rover!” Ralph shook his head and spoke in a high-pitched voice. “I’m not walking slow! I’m fine!”

  “Who is Rover?” asked a confused little girl.

  “I think that’s a dog,” offered a confident little boy, confusing the matter more.

  “What!?” shouted Ralph.

  “You should go to the mecha-dock,” said a worried little Kaylor Joe.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” said Ralph. “You’re not the boss of me! I’m going to the bathroom!”

  Several little girls screamed when the robozoid wet himself, spraying oil down the front of his baggy white pants. Sludge dripped down the inner thigh of Ralph’s right leg.

  The children were young but not stupid. Said one to another, loud enough for them all to overhear, “Something is wrong with him! Servos aren’t supposed to go to the bathroom!”

  The word ‘bathroom’ caused another squirt of oil down Ralph’s legs. A child squealed, “Eww!” The automabot’s white pants were now soggy black down his entire right leg.

  “It’s broken,” said a little girl.

  “Servos can’t break!” countered a little boy.

  “Then why does it want to go to the bathroom?”

  “And why is it walking funny?”

  “And why is it yelling at us?”

  “What!?” yelled Ralph. “Are you kids talking about me?”

  “No, Ralph,” lied Lucy, who was looking at their primary teacher with dark contempt.

  “What time does Bonanza come on?” asked Ralph, again moving forward at a speed of ten-yards-an-hour.

  “What’s Bonanza?” asked Lando.

  “It’s on Channel 106,” said Ralph, quite confidently. And then he chuckled his good-natured chortle, his You’re-So-Precious chuckle.

  “What’s ‘Channel 106'?” asked a bewildered boy.

  “I think he’s talking about audio-visuals,” said a bright little girl.

  “What?” asked the boy.

  “Antiques,” explained the girl.

  Another child nodded knowingly, saying, “My grandmam collects ‘em too!”

  Ralph the robozoid suddenly stopped with an abrupt jerk, his fingers flying apart. He dropped the vacubroom, his makeshift cane. He then bent over very, very slowly, appearing immediately as if he was going to go off kilter and fall on his golden face.

  Kimtroya Sue suddenly shrieked, “What’s wrong with him?!”

  “He’s going to fall!”

  Several younglings gasped. A few began to cry.

  A little girl suddenly shouted, “I feel sorry for him!” That caused all the girls around her to cry even harder.

  Kaleesha Kaye ran over and grabbed up the vacubroom, handing it to Ralph. “I can do it!” insisted the indignant automabot. “I’m not an invalid, you know!” He yelled so loudly at Kaleesha, she began to cry.

  Wailing begat more wailing, spreading like some prehistoric disease.

  Ralph stood up and didn’t move. He wobbled, went rigid, and then stood perfectly still for a solid two minutes. During this time of mute immobility, the children’s sobbing tapered off into sniffles. The younglings were fascinated by the way their tutor had become a statue.

  Then, suddenly, Ralph laughed and said, “I forgot where I was going!”

  All the children simultaneously burst into tears. Even a baby knew that ‘forgot’ was a dirty word. Knowledge was as permanent as perfect health. The only time people forgot something was when their minds were purposely cognoscaped by awareness architects.

  The combined wailings of one-hundred-twenty-seven younglings was loud enough to bring human supervisors, who were shocked to discover the robozoid was malfunctioning.

  They gunned Ralph down just outside the boy’s bathroom, slagging him.

  His final word was, “What?!”

  ******

  An entire class of older robozoids were infected by what was dubbed ‘synthetic Alzheimer’s’. It was similar to a pre-apocalyptic condition called ‘Mad Cow’s Disease’ that affected both memory and motor functions.

  When the Child Welfare Rehabilitators assessed the damage done to the younglings who witnessed Ralph’s breakdown, they had awareness architects instigate total mind-wipes of all the children, causing them to forget that entire, awful day in their care-pod. One-hundred-twenty-seven children had their memories erased by caring government agents, but none of the one-hundred-twenty-seven ever fully trusted old servos ever again.

  THE END

  I Was a Teenage Beehive

  It was a chilly, gloomy day in late October and seventeen-year-old Howard Hawthorne was walking to school. He kept his head down; his black hoody was up; and his acne-speckled face was aimed at the ground. The concrete sidewalk had a latticework of cracks—no way not to ‘break his mother’s back’ if he tried (and he wouldn’t try if there was). The quiet residential neighborhood that Howard was marching through seemed alternately too bright or too gray beneath the intermittent sunlight. Even when the sun was out, it didn’t seem to have any heat. Howard brushed his long black bangs out of his eyes and then hiked up his baggy pants. A cold breeze blew dead red leaves across his path.

  There was a sense of impending doom in the air. The world was dying. The end was near.

  Suddenly, without any warning, the day turned dark. This wasn’t just another cloud blocking the sun—this was worse.

  Howard looked behind him and saw an angry tornado gathering above his quiet little American hometown.

  The sky was falling.

  At first, he thought it was a flock of distant birds but then he heard the droning buzz and understood it was a swarm.

  All sense of well-being fled from Howard’s heart. He didn’t need to look back to know that thousands and thousands of insects were gathering above the trees and rooftops. There were so many millions of little wings whirring, the collective noise grew so fat and large it reminded Howard of the din made by a squadron of airplanes, the old-fashioned kind: the ones with propellers. It sounded like a flock of buzz-saws.

  Howie decided to run to school today.

  He saw other students ahead of him on the sidewalk, a boy and a girl holding hands, another tall guy in a striped yellow-and-black T-shirt. Howard shouted, "Spellings!" as he dashed past the three of them. For just an instant, the rattling fury of great swarm took on the quality of laughter.

  Howard’s backpack suddenly felt like gravity just grabbed it. His school books became heavier than bowling balls. He was slowed down by the weight at first, but then he shrugged his load off his shoulders and abandoned it.

  When he heard the screams behind him, Howie ran faster.

  He ran for his life.

  The wails of the two teenage boys and the teenage girl became shriller and louder, and then, one by one, the shrieks ended in gargles.

  Howard knew all three of them were dead.

  He ran as fast as he could and seemed to be getting away; the sound of the swarm was receding behind him. Howie was a Goth and a geek, not a runner or any other kind of athlete, so he was soon huffing and puffing. He had the sensation of running in place, as if the world was a treadmill rolling beneath his frantic feet.

  Just as he thought, I’m going to get away, the buzzing caught up to him with frightening speed.

  The swarm overtook him.

  Unable to run any faster, Howard Hawthorne winced and flinched, anticipating being stung a thousand times over.

  Instead, he awoke from the nightmare.

  ******

  Sopping wet, drenched in perspiration, Howard pushed the soaked sheets and thin comforter off his body. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of hands, as he climbed out of bed.

  For some reason, he had a sore throat. It stung when he swallowed.

  Howard’s speeding heartbeat and labored breathing seemed especially loud in the quiet Hawthorne househol
d. The central air conditioning system did its cooling magic totally without sound. It wasn’t autumn, like in his dream; in reality it was a hot muggy night in late August, but inside his family home it remained a crisp sixty-eight degrees.

  Howard looked to his digital alarm clock and saw it was 3:03 am. He groaned. Tomorrow was Friday, a school day, the end (finally!) of the first miserable week of the fall semester.

  The image of that titanic swarm plunging out of the sky was still vivid in his mind. That was unusual. He rarely remembered his dreams and couldn’t ever remember having a nightmare.

  Howard padded out of his dark bedroom, down a dark hallway, into the dark bathroom, where he turned on the light as he shut the door and locked it. He stripped and climbed into a hot shower.

  The sound of the falling water reminded him vaguely of buzzing bees.

  The steamy heat made him sleepy.

  Eventually, Howard got out of the shower and toweled off. Tossing his black sweat pants in the laundry basket, he went back to his bedroom and put on another pair of black sweat pants. He then changed his silk sheets, switching his sweat-moistened bedclothes for clean, dry ones.

  Howard climbed back into bed, ready to forget all about the bad dream. He was exhausted. Yawning, he turned off his lamp and settled down to sleep.

  When he heard the buzzing, he thought it was his imagination— the memory of the nightmare or the onset of a new one. Then he realized the sound was both real and alive.

  Sitting up, Howard turned on his lamp and immediately spotted the culprit.

  It was a huge honeybee.

  "How the hell did that get in here?"

  The bee did a buzzing dive at him, swooping close to his face. Howard scrambled out of bed and dashed out of his room, quickly closing the door behind him.

  With a sigh, he headed downstairs to the kitchen to retrieve a broom. He paused at the refrigerator long enough to drink a couple of guzzles of cold milk (straight from the carton), in hopes of soothing his sore throat.

  When he went back upstairs, Howard ran into his mother in the hall. "What are you doing up?" she immediately wanted to know.

  He told her, "There’s a bee in my room."