by Sam West
TALES OF A DEAD-END STREET
AN EXTREME HORROR NOVELLA
BY
SAM WEST
Tales Of A Dead-End Street
An Extreme Horror Novella
by
Sam West
Copyright Sam West 2017
Cover Image by Betibup33
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced or used in any way without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews. The characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
“Hello, kiddies. It’s hell out there tonight. Tonight, the fabric between worlds is thin. Tonight, the dead can walk among us and have some fun. Do you like to have fun, boys and girls? Then call the number on the bottom of the screen. It’s free, kiddies, and you don’t have to ask a grown-up first. So call that number. Seven, seven, three, four, and let the fun begin…”
Danny giggled. The man on the telly was so cool and dead creepy. He wore a green suit and his face was painted white. His hair was green, to match his suit, and stuck out at crazy angles all over his head. On a banner on the bottom of the screen was that number, ‘7734’, blinking in red.
His mum stuck her head around the living room door. “Danny, sweetie, it’s gone ten. Bedtime when you’ve finished your coco.”
“But Mum, I’m watching this.”
His gaze flickered back to the TV, where the man was doing a funny little dance. Danny giggled again, but he was scared, too. It was a good kind of scared, though; the kind of scared that made him feel all squirmy and happy inside.
“Don’t smart-mouth me, Danny. I’ll make allowances because you’re full of sugar and it’s late. I have to finish up in the kitchen, but when I’m done, it’s bedtime, okay?”
“Yes, Mum,” he said, but she was already gone, the sound of her heels click-clacking down the short hallway and into the kitchen.
His gaze was transfixed on the TV, on the funny man. He had stopped dancing now to the creepy, funny music – something about doing the time-warp again – and was staring intently at the camera. He walked right up to the camera so that his head filled the screen, his grinning face obscuring the view of the cosy, but decidedly creepy living-room behind him. Danny could no longer see the roaring, open fire, the high-backed, leather armchair and the wood-panelled walls.
Were his eyes red?
Cool.
Cool or not, now he wasn’t sure if that squirmy feeling in his tummy was pleasure or just plain fear. Either way, he couldn’t take his eyes off the man on the TV. His grinning mouth displayed two wonky rows of yellow teeth – teeth that looked distinctly pointy.
They have got to be fake.
But they didn’t look fake.
The man cocked his head to one side, still grinning. Now that he was this close to the camera, Danny decided that his red-tinged eyes or pointy teeth weren’t quite so cool anymore.
“Dial the number, kiddies, let’s have ourselves a fine old time tonight. Because tonight, there is evil on your street. Why my street, I hear you ask; well, why not, is how I reply. Everything has to start somewhere, right? It just so happens that your street got lucky. At this precise moment in time, there is profound evil happening on the road in which you live – there are also innocent souls and there is hedonism. We like that stuff down here. It’s quite the mix. The lucky mix.”
Danny shivered. This was weird – it almost felt like the clown-man was talking directly to him, and him alone.
What’s the matter, Danny? You’re not scared of some stupid clown-man on the telly, are you?
No. Of course he wasn’t.
Striding defiantly over to the windowsill, he plucked the phone out of its cradle where it rested. It beeped accusingly in his sweaty hand, as if upset at being disturbed.
As if warning him.
He thought of Brett Adams – the kid in the year above him at primary school – who like to kick him when the teacher wasn’t looking. He also stole his lunch money and pinched him, then accused him of being a cry-baby if he shed a tear.
Little Danny-wanny, cry-baby wants his mumsie-wumsie.
He hadn’t told Mum about Brett – she had enough on her plate bringing him up alone since his dad had walked out on them a few years ago.
“Do it, boys and girls. Make that call. You’re not a cry-baby are you?”
Danny gasped in shock, his heart racing in his chest. He stared at the TV in dismay – surely he hadn’t heard right? But the man on the screen was dancing again to that funny song, miming to it and waving his arms in the air.
“…in another dimension… with voyeuristic intention…”
And that number continued to flash on the bottom of the screen.
So what if he had said cry-baby? Danny thought. Lots of people were cry-babies – he couldn’t be the only person in the world to ever be called such a thing.
Do it, a little voice whispered in his mind.
With trembling fingers, Danny punched in the number, seven, seven, three, four, and held the receiver to his ear. At the other end, it began to ring. His gaze was irretrievably drawn to the TV screen, to the man in the green suit. He had stopped dancing now, and was grinning manically at the camera.
“Well kiddies, I do believe we have our first call for the night. And who can this lucky person be?”
With the phone pressed to his ear, Danny’s eyes widened in his head as the man on the telly produced a smartphone from out of the front pocket of his green trousers.
Danny let out a little shriek, and dropped the landline.
“Hello? Hello? Is there anybody there? What a shame, they’ve hung up. Never mind, they called, and they will get a visit from the other side.”
The man let out a manic sounding laugh, like a true, cartoon villain. To his dismay, Danny discovered that he was crying.
Stupid cry-baby, he chided himself. So what if your call did go through to the man on the telly? It’s his advert now, isn’t it? It makes sense that he would take the calls…
“Little Danny-wanny. Cry-baby wants his mumsie-wumsie.”
This time, Danny shrieked. He turned away from the television, lunging towards the sofa for the remote-control. Where the hell was it, he knew it was there somewhere. Whimpering to himself, he frantically began to pull the cushions off the sofa.
“Danny? What’s going on in here?”
The sound of his mum’s voice made him jump and spin round guiltily, still no nearer to locating the remote-control. Sobbing, he wiped his eyes on the cloak of his Dracula costume.
“I was just trying to turn off the telly,” he wailed, “but I can’t find the remote.”
His mum frowned at him, her arms crossed over her chest. “But the TV is turned off.”
A ripple of fear coursed through him, and his gaze snapped round to the TV. It wasn’t turned off. That horrible, white face with the sticky-uppy green hair was still on the screen.
And it was looking right at him, grinning.
“Mummy! Pleease! The bad man is on the telly, I don’t like him, please turn it off.”
He knew he was sounding like a total cry-baby, and much younger than his nine years, but right then he didn’t care.
“Danny? What the hell’s gotten into you? Are you trying to prank me? It’s late, and I’ve had enough. I let you go to that party, we’ve been out trick or treating and you’ve eaten your own body weight in sweets. It’s like, the more you get, the more you want. Well, I am tired, baby, I’ve had enough, I am in no mood for one for your tantrums. It’s bedt
ime.”
Danny stared up at his mum in disbelief, painfully aware of that terrifying, red-eyed, white-skinned, scrawny, grinning face on the TV.
And then the obvious occurred to him; his mum was playing a trick on him. She was just pretending not to see the horrible man on the telly. In fact, this was probably a DVD she was playing. The relief he felt was immense, and he let out a half-laugh, half-sob.
“Jesus, Danny, what’s the phone doing on the floor? The back’s come off it.” She bent down to pick it up and pushed the plastic pieces back together, before walking over to the phone cradle and shoving it back in. “Thank God it still works. I’m not made of money, you know. It doesn’t grow on trees.”
Normally, he would roll his eyes when his mum went off on the ‘we’re not made of money’ lecture, because he knew that was blatantly untrue. His mum was a doctor, and even at the relatively tender age of nine, Danny understood that they were well off by anyone’s standards.
But that was normally. Tonight, all he cared about was the mean trick she was playing on him. Couldn’t she see how scared he was?
“But Mum, you knew I would call that number. I got scared when the horrible man picked up his phone.”
And he answered it, didn’t he? So it can’t be a DVD, can it?
He did his best to ignore that little voice in his head, because what it was saying made way too much sense for comfort.
“Danny,” she said slowly and in her best ‘reasonable’ voice that invariably spelled trouble. “This is your last chance. Go and put your pyjamas on, brush your teeth, and wash your face.”
“But Mum…”
She held up a hand and pushed the other one through her glossy, shoulder-length blonde hair, sighing heavily. She closed her eyes for a moment, and Danny gazed up at her in bewilderment. He recognised the signs; she was close to losing it.
“I don’t want to hear it. Last chance, Danny. Go and put your pyjamas on, now. And when you’ve done that, go and wash the make-up off your face. If you can’t do it all by yourself, I’ll come and help. Now, Danny,” she said when he didn’t move.
Fresh tears stung his eyes. He glanced towards the TV, and that horrible man was still on it. He wasn’t doing anything, just standing there and staring at the camera, grinning.
He’s not a man, he’s a devil.
“I am scared, Mum,” he said slowly, doing his best to keep it together. “Can you see the man on the telly, yes or no?”
Even before she answered, he knew what she was going to say. And he also knew that her answer was the truth. This was no Halloween trick that she was playing on him.
“There is nothing on the telly, Danny. And this is your absolute last chance.”
He opened his mouth to speak when the doorbell rang out. His mum said a bad word under her breath, and turned away from him, calling over her shoulder as she did so:
“Upstairs. Now. I can’t believe the trick or treaters are still going, it’s so late.”
The worst feeling curdled in his guts. “Don’t answer the door, Mum.”
Ignoring him, she stalked out of the room. For a moment Danny remained rooted to the spot, his heart hammering. His paralysis broke, and with a strangled sob, he lunged for the TV and whipped out the plug from the socket… But the horrible man remained, just as he knew he would. He wasn’t speaking at all, just grinning at the camera.
They’re coming for my mum.
The horrible thought slammed into his mind, unbidden and terrifying. He didn’t know who ‘they’ were, but someone, or something bad was at the door. Instinctively, he knew this to be true, and he staggered towards the living-room door. He got there just in time to see him mum with her hand wrapped around the door-knob, poised to open it.
“No,” he gasped, but if she heard, she made no sign.
As if in a nightmare, he watched her open the door in slow motion. She stood there, silhouetted by the porch light, the light streaming around her slim frame. In that second, Danny thought that she looked like an angel.
“Trick or treat,” chorused the children.
But there was nothing childish or sweet about their voices. Their voices sounded raspy and phlegm filled, like old men riddled with lung disease.
In fact, there was nothing sweet about them at all. All four of them were dressed as goblins, or at least, Danny assumed they were supposed to be goblins. Their little bodies were covered by black cloaks, and they wore full head masks. The masks were hideous – Danny had certainly never seen anything like them amongst the fancy-dress costumes in the Halloween section in the supermarket. Each face had a bulging forehead, a hooked nose and an unnaturally wide grin that revealed pointy, yellow teeth. The skin of the masks shone under the porch light, like they had been smeared with Vaseline.
But it was the eyes that were the worst. They were too close set, and didn’t look like the eyeholes of a mask at all. Their eyes glinted behind the eyeholes, like their eyes were positioned directly behind those holes, which, of course, was impossible because no one could have eyes that close-set.
It’s their real faces.
The thought slammed into his brain, rocking him on his feet, and wet heat soaked the front of his trousers, cooling as it trickled down his legs.
“Mum,” he gasped. “Shut the door.”
She didn’t turn around. As he was behind her, he couldn’t see her expression, but he could hear the tremor in her voice when she spoke:
“Hang on, I’ll get your candy.”
“We want it now…”
“Yes, we want it now…”
“Now or never…”
The voices overlapped each other, hissing and rasping. The sound of it made the skin of his scalp tighten and his heart slam erratically against his sternum.
“Mum?”
She turned away from the goblins at the door, her gaze locking with Danny’s. “Go and use the bathroom, Danny, you have to…”
She never got to finish her sentence. Her eyes went wide in her head, and her mouth opened in a perfectly round ‘O’. Her body went suddenly stiff, her back arching slightly.
“Mum?” Danny said.
Behind her, the goblin children chuckled.
From that perfect ‘O’ of her lips, blood welled. It collected in her mouth, spilling out over her black top and splattering onto her jeans.
She stayed like that for a moment, before crashing forward like a felled tree.
CHAPTER TWO
Lauren Richards was sulking. Neil had gone next-door to that pathetic drip, Jen Whoever-The-Fuck-She-Was, and had completely ignored her. It wasn’t even yet ten p.m., and the Neil-less night stretched out before her.
What the fuck does he even see in that fucking loser, anyway? And didn’t he know how lucky he was to be invited to this party?
Her Halloween party was exclusively for third year students, and only the ‘in’ crowd at that. By rights, Neil, as a first-year student shouldn’t be here; he was so privileged. But Neil was one on his own – she had never met a guy quite like him. He was effortlessly charming, easy-going, and devastatingly good-looking which he seemed genuinely unaware of. He hung out a lot with Rob, some guy in her ‘Youth and Crime’ seminar, because they were both members of the University football team, and, as a result, Rob had got an invite too, provided he bring Neil with him.
Yes, Lauren had had her predatory eye on him all term, and Lauren always got what she wanted. Christ, she could have any guy in this room, especially Neil’s friend, Rob. Currently, he was sniffing round her like a dog on heat.
“Come and dance,” he laughed, tugging on her arm to join the others in the middle of the room dancing to ‘The Time Warp’.
Objectively, she assessed him, wondering if he was good enough for her. He was bright enough – one didn’t get to the third year of University without some modicum of brains – and he was certainly fit, being on the football team. He had quick, brown eyes, short, dark hair and a good, square jaw. Tonight, he had come dressed as
a mob boss, or maybe a pimp, complete with a drawn-on pencil moustache, and a black and white, pin-striped suit which was heavy on the white.
Lauren had to admit, he did look kind of cute. But still. He wasn’t Neil.
“Not right now,” she said, not even bothering to soften her refusal with a smile.
Ignoring his momentarily crestfallen expression, she turned her attention back to Becky, her partner in crime and flatmate; a gorgeous, raven-haired, mixed-race girl.
“Suit yourself,” Rob said, getting in line with the dancers.
“You still mooning over that Neil?” Becky asked.
She was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, or at least, the porn version of Little Red Riding Hood, with her generous cleavage and endless legs on display.
“I’m not mooning over him,” she said, none too convincingly.
“Sure you’re not. You’ve had a face like a slapped arse all evening.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Sweetie, you could have anyone in this room, why are you getting all uptight about some dumb fresher?”
“I’m not getting uptight.”
“Sure you’re not. You’re like all, ooh, I love you Neil.”
Lauren rolled her eyes; Becky was really beginning to get on her tits. Tonight was not going to plan, it was definitely time to get things back on track.
“You know what, Becks? Maybe I do have a thing for Neil. And I’m going to teach that dumb bitch he’s sniffing around a lesson.”
Becky grinned, her dark eyes narrowing into two bitchy little slits. “A lesson, huh? Do tell me more.”
“It is Halloween, isn’t it? And what’s the one thing that you shouldn’t do on Halloween?”
“I don’t know.”
“Babysit. I mean, have you never seen When A Stranger Calls? Or Halloween?”
“What’s When A Stranger Calls?”
Again, Lauren rolled her eyes. Sometimes, Becks could be so ignorant; not for the first time she wondered how she had even manged to get into University.
“It’s the film about the babysitter who gets a phone-call from the psycho stalker… And the phone-call is coming from inside the house. You know, like the urban legend.”
