Horrorbook

by A. R. Braun

  Silence answered him, and as he looked out his window while he went back to bed, Samuel saw the tree branches eerily grabbing at his window casing, endeavoring to scratch their long, moss-covered nails on the windowpane.

  Samuel felt for the earplugs, but they’d disappeared. What the hell? As he lay there shaking while trying to get back to sleep, the specters began their colloquy again, keeping him awake. Samuel was too terrified to confront them. Apparently, the bathroom spirit had buddies.

  “Bitch!” a male spirit snapped right in his face and Samuel bounded out of bed, throwing on the soiled pants and a shirt. He ran out of the apartment and into the hallway, locking Lucifer in but not thinking about it. Samuel ran down the stairs and came to a commissary that featured stacked bookshelves and a soda machine. He grabbed a chair at one of the tables and lay his head down. He couldn’t sleep because his mind felt as if it squirmed with bugs. Samuel rose and paced for God knew how long. When too exhausted to wear out the floor anymore, he finally fell asleep.

  When an old woman woke him at in the morning by touching his shoulder gingerly, Samuel jumped and then rubbed the sand out of his eyelids. Her touch was soothing and she smelled like baby powder. Samuel looked up to see an amiable crone with gray hair, an obese body, and a wrinkled face, which frowned down upon him.

  “Ugh . . . Good morning,” he mumbled, cotton-mouthed.

  “Good morning. Why on earth are sleeping down here, young man?”

  “Uh, I . . .” Don’t say it. I’ll sound insane.

  She smiled. “Well, my name’s Sybil, and if you need anything, just let me know.” Sybil patted his back. “We have church service in the community room at five thirty on Wednesday nights if you’re interested.”

  Samuel frowned and rose from the table, stretching his arms and yawning. “I’m not much for church.” I hate God for giving me a mental illness, poverty and loneliness.

  “Well, that’s too bad. I live right across the hall from you.”

  How about that? “You do? I don’t know any of my neighbors yet.”

  “Well, now you do. Just rap on the door if you get lonely, and we’ll be glad to help.”

  Samuel smiled. “Sure.”

  With that, she fluttered off to whatever bizarre religious interior she called home.

  She’s getting on my nerves. If you were here in the flesh, God, I’d flip you off. I never asked to be born.

  As Samuel ambled to his mailbox, it hit him.

  Apartment six, on the sixth floor, on Sixth Street.

  666.

  No f’ing way. It’s just a coincidence.

  Then the memory of the poltergeists he was striving against came back to him and the idea didn’t seem so far-fetched.

  What am I gonna do?

  Samuel was scared shitless. Then he thought about his cat’s name, Lucifer. That wasn’t so funny anymore.

  What have I become? Maybe that lady’s right.

  Samuel snapped out of his “strain of thought” and hopped the elevator, then clomped to his apartment. As he unlocked the door, Samuel trudged through his flat thinking he almost had things sorted out . . . until he saw his cat, hung with his belt, swinging from the ceiling fan and stinking up the bedroom.

  Oh no.

  Samuel lost last night’s dinner as he ran to the toilet. Regurgitating led to dry heaving. When finished, he crawled into the bedroom, crying in misery. Samuel pulled himself up to the bed.

  “Lucifer! My precious kitty! No! Why?”

  Samuel’s warm tears soaked his cheeks and then the bed sheets. He got up and took the cat down from the fan. Solemnly, he buried the cat in the garden in the apartment’s backyard, not caring if anyone saw it. When he got back upstairs, Samuel was furious as well as crushed.

  “Damn bastards and bitches! I’m gonna get you spirit freaks for killing my cat!”

  “That’s one way to nail the pussy,” a guttural voice boomed, making Samuel’s chest rumble.

  He turned tail and ran out of the apartment.

  Samuel spent the day mourning the death of his cat while sitting at the picnic table in back of the apartment building, hating God even more for taking Lucifer. Samuel shed many tears that day. A couple of old people came out and tried to talk to him, but he ignored them. They eventually went away.

  When the time came to retire, Samuel trudged into the elevator and then took baby steps into the flat. Shaking like a palm tree in a hurricane, he didn’t see or hear anything, so Samuel went to bed.

  It wasn’t long before the spooks began to converse in the shadows. Samuel looked for the earplugs but couldn’t find them.

  “Welcome back!” a voice spoke in his face said at midnight—the witching hour. The covers had come down to his feet somehow. Samuel was covered with cold sweat, scared almost to death.

  He rose and paced while his mind raced with torment. When Samuel couldn’t scrape the carpet anymore, he went back to bed. The clock said it was 3:00 a.m.

  When Samuel woke late the next morning, he had the strange feeling that people in deep grief have when there’s some horrible tragedy to make your heart sink, but for a few seconds you’ve forgotten what that is and you feel all right . . . until you remember. Then your heart droops, and so does your mental health as you fail the stress test.

  He remembered Lucifer’s murder.

  Samuel got up, a sickening feeling of desolation following him as he dragged himself into the bathroom. He was about to shut the door when he noticed a black blur running up to his feet that looked like a large cat.

  You’ve got to be kidding.

  Samuel looked downward. It was a dark animal form, but as it reached his feet, it morphed into a ball of energy and disappeared.

  “Lucifer?”

  “Eeerowwwwl,” the spirit cried.

  Samuel sank to the floor, the recent events too much to bear. The thought of being without Lucifer caused tears to flow freely and his blurry eyes scanned the room until they fell upon the barber’s razor. Just one cut and the nightmare would be over. He could be with his precious cat once more.

  Samuel just stood there. I’ve hit my bottom. He decided to shut the door and bathe but still considered draining his wrists into the tub along with his filth.

  The old woman popped out of the suds right by his head as he lay in the bathtub. Her bleached skin was pulled tautly on her bones, and her sagging breasts bounced against her belly button. She grinned eerily again and Samuel let out a girlish cry when his eyes locked on the serrated fangs up close, so big and sharp—all the better to tear the skin off your face, my dear.

  He cried out and ran out of the tub, soaking wet, water splashing the floor. Samuel slipped and fell on the tile before he could get through the door’s threshold, knocking his face on the floor and dislocating a buck tooth. It felt like someone shoving a knife in his mouth. He screamed in horror and pain until he felt the woman’s head try to force its way up his anal canal. Then he shrieked, swatting at her head, grabbing a towel and slinging it over his wet frame as he sprinted out into the hallway.

  He banged on Sybil’s door.

  Samuel sat on a white suede couch with Sybil’s husband Ben’s white bathrobe on, shivering while holding a blue ice pack to his gums, which weren’t quite numb yet. Sybil’s husband seemed kind-hearted also; an old, obese man confined to an electric wheelchair. Ben stared Samuel down.

  Sybil locked eyes with him. “You’ve got the apartment of the devil,” she blurted. “That’s why I said you could come here for help any time.”

  Ben said, “I’m sorry about your cat . . . and your tooth.”

  “Thank you,” Samuel answered, sounding backward, his high front gums now numb. “I appreciate that. You know what? I’ve been thinking. Maybe you’re right about God.”

  They nodded.

  “I’m supposed to feel like it’s such a great apartment, but I don’t. It’s the right price, there are no bugs and it’s got a great view, but it’s the lair of Satan and I just don
’t know what to do anymore. I’ve lost my cat, along with the right to rest and bathe. I feel like I should’ve stayed where I was.”

  “No,” Ben instructed, “you need to get rid of the malignant spirits.”

  Sybil looked at her husband and then looked Samuel over. “Why don’t you come to the church service tonight? Maybe the pastor will come upstairs and cast the devil and the other spirits out of there so you can enjoy the place.”

  “Is it Wednesday?” Samuel asked.

  Sybil pinned Samuel with her eyes. “You don’t even know what day it is? Yes, it’s Wednesday.”

  Samuel nodded. “Sure. It’s time I did the right thing.”

  Ben said, “We’ve got to get you feeling safe in your own home. It’s only fair.”

  “Are you sure it’ll work?”

  Sybil smiled. “Nothing’s too big for my awesome God.”

  “All right, let’s do this. Is it all right if I hang out here until the service?”

  Ben furrowed his brow. “Well, don’t you need to grab some clothes or—”

  Sybil elbowed him. “Of course, honey. I’m sure Ben’s got a pair of pants and a shirt that might fit you, although they may be a little short.”

  Samuel removed the ice pack. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Later, Samuel took eight aspirins and calmed down, feeling like there might be some hope for him after all. After Ben handed him the clothes, Samuel stood in their bathroom. He checked his look in the mirror; wincing at the sight of his missing tooth and finding the dress shirt and slacks too short. He usually dressed like the metal-head he was. Samuel frowned at his shaved head. I’m the ugliest guy in the world.

  Samuel sat on the “throne” and pulled the dress socks and dress shoes on, which strangely fit. Then he came out of the bathroom and stood before the couple. Ben wore a black suit and Sybil had donned a white dress that sported green flowers.

  “I’m ready.”

  Samuel attended the Bible study and church service, fighting the boredom, which wasn’t easy. Before long, the service concluded and he conversed with the pastor along with Ben and Sybil.

  “It’s a strange request,” Pastor Vanderbilt said, a thin, gray-haired man wearing glasses and a business suit to match his hair. “I’ve never had anyone ask that. You want me to perform an exorcism, right?”

  Sybil said, “Yes, Pastor. This man is troubled, and if you’ll find it in your heart to help him,” she turned to Samuel, “he’ll find peace.” She winked at him.

  “Well, I don’t see the harm in that. Would you like to do this now, Samuel?”

  Samuel smiled. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”

  “Well, as you all are more familiar with this building than I am, lead the way.”

  They did, walking into the hallway and stepping into the elevator. Before long, they stood at Samuel’s door. He turned the key in the lock and they followed Samuel in, Sybil poking her head around, looking for signs of afterlife.

  Samuel also looked around with great trepidation. It was cold in here and there was an acrid smell.

  Pastor Vanderbilt gripped his Bible, shaking it at the invisible entities. “Satan and any malignant spirits, I command you to leave this apartment in the name of the Lord Jesus! This is final, for His good word says let His enemies be scattered, so be scattered now!”

  They continued to look around and everything seemed well, so Samuel shook with the pastor and thanked him, along with Sybil and Ben. “Thank you so much for all you’ve done. I think I’ll sleep easier knowing I’ll go to heaven if I die.”

  “Best decision you ever made,” the pastor said, pointing at him.

  They said their goodbyes and told Samuel they hoped he’d worship with them again. When they left, Samuel felt confident enough to retire, feeling exhausted.

  As he lay in bed, he didn’t hear the usual voices. Samuel smiled and shut his eyes, preparing to enter the land of dreams.

  After fifteen minutes, Samuel was in the process of drifting off when shouting ensued. As he opened his eyes, the entities appeared with skin as white as sugar and sunken eyes with red irises. Like the woman from the bathroom, their rotting, twisted skin was wrapped tautly around bones twisted out of place. They walked toward him and then crawled upon his bed.

  Samuel could see them because they glowed.

  The ghost of his cat hopped up beside his head, also having the red eyes of possession, along with matted fur. Lucifer lowered his ears and hissed at Samuel, then howled inhumanly, drool secreting from the feline’s mouth.

  “Hypocrites can’t cast us out,” the old woman from the bathroom breathed with a raspy voice right into his ear.

  Samuel screamed and bounded off the bed. “It didn’t work! Oh God help me, nobody can stop them!”

  He bolted out into the hallway, too afraid to turn back, not bothering to shut his door. His legs were like jelly.

  Samuel lurched for the elevator wearing nothing but a black bedcover. He pushed the button frantically and then looked over his shoulder.

  Oh, my God.

  The ghosts shot out of the apartment into the hallway. They ran toward him faster than a living person because they were of a different dimension. Some of them, including the blonde woman from the bathroom, climbed the walls, crawling after him like spiders.

  “No!” Samuel pounded the elevator button over and over.

  The sprites were inches from him when the elevator door opened. Samuel leaped in, pounding the elevator button again and again so it would close before the wraiths could jump on.

  They appeared in the hallway before him, their feet sliding to a stop while their eyes bored a hole in his brain.

  “Welcome to hell. Come back and live with us,” the woman from the bathroom pleaded with a whispering voice, the others echoing that sentiment. Samuel pounded the button more.

  They leapt for the door soon after it shut.

  Then the elevator dropped. Samuel knew both elevator cords had snapped so that one couldn’t take over for the other. He’d heard another tenant talk about the back-up cord. Samuel screamed and fell to the floor. Oh, my God it’s time to die, but I’m too young! As the elevator raced to the ground all he could think of was that he’d made it right with the Lord because Samuel had read somewhere that one could only survive an elevator drop from five floors. He covered his head as he lay on the floor feeling the centrifugal force and asking himself Am I really going to die like this?

  The elevator crashed on the ground floor and Samuel felt the hardest thud of his life as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his heart and head. He was aware of the coppery taste of his own blood. Then the apparatus from above spiked down upon Samuel, impaling him through the heart and his last thought was I wish I’d never moved into this portal to hell, and if God couldn’t cast the ghosts out of my apartment, does that mean I’m going to hell?

  The new tenant who lived in 666 was a thin, handsome, brown-haired young man named Bobby. He fixed his tie in the mirror while gabbing with his mother on his cell phone.

  “Yeah, Mom, it’s great! It’s only two hundred dollars a month, there’s free cable, an excellent view and there’s a bell tower playing church songs in the afternoon and evening.”

  Picking up his cologne and spraying himself while his mother spoke, his eyebrows raised. “Oh, I almost forgot my jacket. Hold the line for a few seconds.”

  Bobby opened the closet door. Hanging upside down with his legs wrapped around the rod supporting clothes hangers, Samuel’s ghost handed the dress jacket to him while grinning eerily with serrated teeth, his glowing white skin wrapped tautly around his skull and bones.

  “Bobby?” his mother asked. “Are you still there? Bobby! Answer me!”

  The Unwanted Visitors

  I’m so glad I got rid of them.

  Terry knew what it was like to live with cockroaches. He’d been out on his own and poor since age seventeen. Shivering at the memories of the unwelcome visitors, he threw his black, dandruff-fill
ed hair out of his eyes and rubbed a multitude of flakes from his beard, thinking I’m out of dandruff shampoo again.

  Tomorrow was payday, and a meager payday at that. Terry was thirty and going nowhere. He smiled while surveying his new apartment, though. Subsidized housing had saved him from the grisly fate of sharing his flat with a bunch of critters. Working part-time at the deli and drawing social security while going to acting auditions became the routine. His parents had shunned him because he’d refused to go to medical school.

  Being a New Yorker, he was lucky to be free of the bugs. They sprayed and baited here.

  I’ve lived with the worst of the worst. Cockroaches as big as mice, armies of black water bugs pouring in when the neighbor lady died, mice that stared me in the face and the flying wood roaches I couldn’t even smash or step on.

  Terry’s ex-wife, Helen, had left him for a wealthy executive . . . and because of arachnophobia. The spiders had been too much for her, and at their old apartment, they’d been everywhere. She couldn’t even walk through a doorway without getting entangled in a web.

  Terry opened the blinds and closed his eyelids tight as the sun tried to blind him. Gingerly opening his eyes and placing his hand over them, he gazed down at the sad city scene: hobos bothering people for money, rich snobs power-walking around the crazies and cabbies blaring their horns. They argued so loudly Terry could hear them.

  No insects lurked in the window sill—not even one fly.

  Like I’ve died and gone to heaven.

  Terry brushed the snowy dandruff off the latest script as he sipped his lukewarm, bitter coffee. He had the day off, so he took a seat at his computer desk. Terry flicked on his computer, deciding to check his e-mail while studying.

  Terry found his mind wandered to the vermin.

  I’ve heard a person swallows eight spiders a year. Cockroaches lay eggs in sleeping people’s ears or work their way up their anuses. Why, I’d even seen them eat sperm after I’d . . .