Ten Open Graves: A Collection of Supernatural Horror

by David Wood

  She felt a wall in front of her and used it to pull herself up. The joints in her knees cracked. Her fingers flitted over the window sill and quickly she lifted her hand higher to feel the coolness of the window pane. Why is there no light spilling in from outside? she thought. She managed to stand. Stared into the blackness. And immediately she began to see, not what stood outside, but rather the inside of the flat, all of it reflected back to her like a mirror.

  Slowly, like a download on a dial-up computer, her own image appeared dead center in the window. As she lifted her eyes, her reflection did, too. But her hair was much darker than when she’d last seen it, her eyes now blacker than coal. Her face was haggard as she turned to one side. Then to the other.

  She shuddered. Because that was when she first saw the burns.

  Chapter 38

  With Craig still asleep, curled up in a corner against the bedroom door, Amy turned from her reflection—not mine!—in the window and moved toward the table. She sat and opened Craig’s computer in the blackness. Immediately the screen glowed.

  Everything was blurry and she could barely see the keys. She moved the mouse with the palm of her hand, gliding it over Craig’s virtual folders. She paused a short while over Libations & Infatuations, then shook her dizzy head and moved on to Letters from Lisbon. She double-clicked on the folder, which opened to several documents, most reading “notes” along with a date. She ran the cursor over a file marked “First and Final Draft” and double-clicked again.

  The Word document opened.

  She had lived with Craig long enough to know his writing habits. So she knew right off the bat to change the weird-looking font from Greek Courier to Times New Roman. The program performed the action and the words on the page snapped into legibility as if by magic.

  Letters from Lisbon

  a memoir

  By Craig Devlin

  She stared at the screen, her eyes burning as though she had just opened them in the sea. A memoir? But she was sure Craig was writing a novel. A fictional story set in Portugal. Hell, that was the entire reason for this trip.

  Maybe he used the same title page from Libations & Infatuations and forgot to change “memoir” to “novel,” she thought. But Craig was so anal; that would be strange.

  She scrolled down to the first chapter, titled Arrivals.

  It started about three and a half hours into the flight. It was a painless sensation, a heavy rhythmic thumping like a heartbeat through a stethoscope. A throbbing in my right ear. At first I ignored it, dismissed it as a trick of the altitude, a minor disturbance resulting from a change in air pressure. It started to dull then faded altogether. But minutes later it returned as loud and unremitting as ever. I pinched my nose and swallowed hard. Stretched my jaw in a yawn but it had no effect. My ears seemed to pop. But the pulsating continued.

  Mouth agape, Amy perused the paragraph below, her stomach tightening with every sentence she read.

  ...Amy slept like the dead...

  He was writing about their flight over from Newark.

  Another four hours and we would touch down in Lisbon, claim our luggage, hop a taxi and travel through the city to our flat.

  She read the following paragraph twice, focusing on a single word each time.

  One year in Portugal, which would serve as the setting for my next book, a memoir tentatively titled Letters from Lisbon. A love story, a love tragedy I hoped would set the literary world afire...

  “Memoir?” she said aloud, her own voice chilling her to the bone. “Fucking memoir?”

  She glanced up at the paragraph again.

  ...a love tragedy...

  “What the hell was he planning?”

  Still sitting pressed up against the bedroom door, Craig slowly opened his eyes. There was a faint glow coming from the living room and he wondered why. Had he left the fucking computer running? How long now before the battery died?

  He tried to push himself up but couldn’t. There was no strength left in him. He was weaker than he had ever been in his life, as though he had just woken from a general anesthetic.

  Forget the battery, he mused. How long now before I die?

  (You mean, how long before you kill Amy and then take your own life.)

  He pressed his ear against the door. From the flat next door he could hear the fado. He could feel the heat sealed up in the bedroom. Bile began rising in his throat. Then it was in his mouth and he tried to swallow it down. Instead the bile spilled over his bottom lip, dripped down his chin and onto his bare chest. He touched it, smeared it with his hand.

  Not bile, he thought as he glimpsed the sample on the fingers of his left hand. The glow from the computer was just bright enough for him to see that the liquid wasn’t pastel yellow or neon green. It was a deep, dark red.

  Not bile, but blood.

  Amy scrolled down, chewing her bottom lip all the while. Chapter Two was titled The Taxi.

  Chapter Three was titled The Flat.

  Faster now: Chapter Four , The Tavern. Five, The Gypsies. Her stomach churned as she read and then reread the following paragraph.

  And then one of their hands was fondling my crotch, slowly stroking me through my pants. A scarf slithered across my eyes; a warm tongue, the length of my lips. Whispers in the ear, followed by sensuous licks.

  “The Gypsies,” she said, and then she was reading about their reluctant return to the Alfama in the cab.

  “We have to go back to the flat,” I said.

  And before Amy could mouth her objection, I leaned forward and told the driver there was a change in plans. I gave him our address in the Alfama.

  Tears welled up in her eyes, but she continued to scroll down. Chapter Six was simply titled Fado. Chapter Seven, The Pulse. She read more about the fucking thumping in his ear, the research he did on the Internet. She read how he thought he had a tumor.

  (Or an aneurism.)

  She began shaking, trembling as she witnessed on the page Craig’s slow, painful descent into madness.

  (With an aneurism you go like that!)

  Heart in her throat, she continued scrolling. Chapter Eight was The Dog.

  Carefully, she read about his kitten Duke, about how his mother snatched the poor animal and banished it from their home. How Craig, oh poor Craig, found the kitten’s body six days later on Market Street, less than a mile from their home.

  His skull was crushed down the middle, his eyes pouring out from either side. His furry white belly was split open, his insides scattered around him on the street.

  “Oh Jesus fucking Christ,” she mumbled, moving on to Chapter Nine. The Movers. She read about his incident on the lift, his years stuck in that godawful sports memorabilia store…

  “Oh Jesus fucking Christ,” Craig heard.

  Amy’s voice. The sound was coming from the living room. She was awake. Alive.

  (Playing on your computer.)

  She couldn’t be, he thought. She knew better than that. Knew better than to use his laptop without his permission. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time the cunt had defied him. Wouldn’t be the first time she had broken a promise or lied. Now she was doing it again, playing around on his computer, wasting the battery, maybe even snooping around in his folders.

  (Maybe even reading your manuscript!)

  “Holy shit,” he muttered, scrambling to his feet, pushing away the pain and exhaustion.

  “Amy!” he cried.

  Her head shot up at the sound of his voice. Then she saw Craig’s form rounding the corner and she froze, her fingertips hovering above the mouse. Blood dripped from his lips, down his chest.

  And for the first time since she’d met him, he looked as though he could kill her.

  Chapter 39

  In the faint light given off by the laptop computer, Craig saw Amy’s face. Saw the sexy, cool fear in her eyes. And it made him hard. He clenched his fists as he strode across the living room toward the table. She didn’t move. Trembled but otherwise stayed as
still as a Roman statue.

  He lifted the chair opposite her and hurled it across the room, where it splintered into pieces. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  His voice wasn’t his own. But there was no time to debate minutia like that. Without further warning he reached for the edge of the table, palms up, clenching the corner with his nine fingers and flipped it right in front of her.

  She spilled from the chair and fell onto the rug to her right, bawling like a newborn baby.

  The computer lay open on its side, still feeding the room with bleak artificial light, and he savored the horrified look on her face. He stared into her pitch black eyes and smiled.

  “You filthy slut,” he hissed.

  “Craig,” she cried, “what are you doing? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  She tried to sit up but fell backward, yelping in pain as she fumbled toward the couch.

  He reached down and grabbed her by the waist, lifted her, flung her back in the direction of the kitchen. He could scarcely believe his own strength as she struck the wall just a few feet from the peeling linoleum. “What’s wrong with me?” he shouted. “Eu tenho cancer.” He pointed to his right temple. “A tumor right here in my head.”

  “No,” she shouted. “That’s not true, Craig. You’re fine. We just need to get you the hell out of here!”

  “Es toucontente aqui,” he hollered back. “I’m happy here. Isto é um paraiso. This is paradise.”

  The bitch was shaking her fucking head. Trying to tell him what the fuck he wanted, just as she had been doing for the past three years. But not anymore. She wasn’t going to force him to leave Portugal like she forced him to leave Hawaii. He was not going to leave Lisbon. Was not going to lose this flat. He fucking loved it here! What else did he need?

  “Vivimos aqui,” he said, his arms spread wide as though he were a realtor showing the flat for the first time. “We live here.”

  “No,” she cried, her voice cracking. “We don’t live here. We live in

  New York. Don’t you remember, Craig?”

  He stopped his advance and grinned. “Ah, the Beeeeg Apple?”

  “Don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Please don’t.”

  But he started coming again, moving toward her like an injured animal closing in on a meal it instinctively knew it could not afford to lose.

  “You just had to fuck him, didn’t you?” he said. “You just had to fuck that bastardo downstairs.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Craig! What bastardo?”

  With his left hand he grabbed her by her tank top, lifted her up, pushed her against the wall, and moved his fingers around her throat. With his right, still wrapped in a tee shirt to ebb the blood oozing from his severed finger, he drew back and punched her in the face with all his might.

  Her nose burst open, blood spewing down the sides of her face, her screams drowned out by her choking.

  “You want to leave me?” he said. “Well, let’s see you leave without your pretty fucking head.”

  With both hands he grabbed her by the ears and slammed her skull hard as he could against the wall.

  “These walls are fucking thicker than we thought,” he said, smiling, lifting her up and slamming her head against the cracking sheetrock again.

  She slumped in his arms but hadn’t lost consciousness yet.

  “What do you say we call your fucking mother,” he said into her face, “invite her over for some earl grey tea and pound cake? Maybe some candy fucking corn?”

  He lifted his knee and drove it up between her legs. Groaning, she fell in a heap to the floor.

  “Que se passa?” he whispered, tilting his head. “What’s the matter, puta?” He hunched over, leaned in toward her, listened to her quick shallow breaths. “Do you love me, puta?” Blood still dripping from his lips, he moved in, planted a kiss on her neck. “Do you love me?” he said again.

  No response. Slowly he stood.

  “Fine,” he said. “Vamosser so amigos.” He lifted his foot and kicked her as hard as he could in the head. “Let’s just be friends.”

  Chapter 40

  Amy curled herself into a ball, hoping Craig thought she was dead. As she lay on the floor, barely conscious, she tried to wrap her chaotic mind around the happenings of the past six days. Nothing seemed to make sense. She had been brutally attacked in the bedroom only forty- eight hours ago. By Craig? It couldn’t have been. The room had been dark but not so dark that she wouldn’t have seen some part of him. An arm, a leg, some shadow. The kind of shapes one saw immediately upon waking in the middle of the night, even in the blackest of rooms. Surely she would have smelled him, felt his breath. Heard him growl in anger as he snatched her back by the hair.

  No, it couldn’t have been Craig.

  But the memoir. In the memoir he’d admitted his complicity. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t he admitted his role simply by introducing his story as a memoir, as a tragedy? She was so confused, so goddamn bewildered.

  Craig had saved her life by performing CPR when she was electrocuted. And he had sliced off one of his fingers merely to prove to her that they were still alive. Still flesh and blood and bone. Would he really have put himself through all that for a story?

  No. And there were things he simply couldn’t have done. Her image on the far hallway wall, the sight of herself through the peephole. Impossible. Was it really just a hallucination? A trick of her starving mind? That might explain what she had been seeing in the mirror the past few days, the dark hair, the black eyes, the wrinkles where before there were none. The terrible burns now on the right side of her face. But it couldn’t explain how she felt from the very first full day at the flat. Her legs had been exhausted, her knees popped. She could no longer carry her own weight. All this even before she had been ravaged by the unseen beast in the bedroom.

  She quite literally wasn’t herself.

  And if she were not herself at times, she reasoned, then Craig wasn’t either.

  Not when his bright blue eyes dimmed to black, when his head tilted to one side. Not when he attacked.

  We’re living someone else’s lives, she thought. Then, No. We’re dying someone else’s deaths.

  Yes, that made more sense, if any sense could be made of this.

  With that thought, that breakthrough, Amy finally allowed her mind to rest. She drifted like a cloud over Oahu’s Sunset Beach on a breezy day. And then, as though no transition were needed at all, she was again there with Craig in Hawaii, strolling hand-in-hand in the evening along Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki, with only the stars and glowing tiki torches guiding the way. The usually bustling street was otherwise empty. No tourists or street performers cluttered the sidewalks. No music emanated from the dozens of bars along the way. All was quiet, the only sounds being made by their footfalls, Craig in his flip flops, Amy in the new Prada sandals Craig bought for her right before they left.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “What is?”

  “That we live here.” His bright blue eyes shined in the light from the torch fires.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We. Live. Here,” he said, his voice echoing in the vast emptiness, the sound barely fading as it wafted out to sea.

  Amy heard the words play out over and over again in her mind, an echo like an old favorite record spinning for the trillionth time. “We live here.” The three most perfect words Craig uttered during the year they spent in paradise. “We. Live. Here.”

  And the echo continued, those three words riding like a surfer on her brain waves for minutes after Amy’s tired heart finally ceased beating.

  Chapter 41

  Craig scrolled down as fast as he could toward the end of the document. He didn’t recognize any of the words, any of the chapter headings. He had never even used chapter headings before.

  “This isn’t mine,” he spit out. “This isn’t mine.”

  He scrolled to the bottom of one of the last chapters. The chapter was titled Departure
s.

  Her nose burst open, blood spewing down the sides of her face, her screams drowned out by her choking.

  “You want to leave me?” I said. “Well, let’s see you leave without your pretty fucking head.”

  With both hands I grabbed her by the ears and slammed her skull hard as I could against the wall.

  “The walls are fucking thicker than we thought,” I said, smiling, lifting her up and slamming her head against the cracking sheetrock again.

  She slumped in my arms but hadn’t lost consciousness yet.

  “What do you say we call your fucking mother,” I said into her face, “invite her over for some earl grey tea and pound cake? Maybe some candy fucking corn?”

  I lifted my knee and drove it up between her legs. Groaning, she fell in a heap to the floor.

  “Que se passa?” I whispered, tilting my head. “What’s the matter, puta?” I hunched over, leaned in toward her, listened to her quick shallow breaths. “Do you love me, puta?” Blood still dripping from my lips, I moved in, planted a kiss on her neck. “Do you love me?” I said again.

  No response. Slowly I stood.

  “Fine,” I said. “Vamosser so amigos.” I lifted my foot and kicked her as hard as I could in the head. “Let’s just be friends.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Craig rasped. I killed her. But, no. He couldn’t have. His fingers reached for the mouse and scrolled down further in the manuscript, as far as he could go. To the very end.