by Harry Glum
HORROR TALES
Harry Glum
Translated by Micaela Andrea Grbac
“HORROR TALES”
Written By Harry Glum
Copyright © 2014 Harry Glum
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Micaela Andrea Grbac
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
THE FATHER´S INHERITANCE
THE DOLL
THE FORGOTTEN HOUSE
THANK YOU
THE FATHER´S INHERITANCE
She had been wishing to get pregnant for three years, and at last Sharon had achieved her objective. She was really happy.
Peter was an adorable man, and her life at his side was full, in all the aspects, including the sexual; but the fertilization, probably by a quirk of fate, had been keeping them waiting.
Now that she had stopped for a while her work at the lawyer´s office (a generous agreement allowed her to take three years of voluntary leave), she could spend her full time taking care of her pregnancy, arranging little Pete´s bedroom, (yes, it was going to be a boy!) and buying all the outfits she wanted for her baby. The paradise...
But something was disturbing the world of fantasy in which Sharon was immersed: in the last sonogram, in the seventh month of pregnancy, the doctors had detected some anomalies in little Pete. Nothing to worry about used to tell her the gynaecologist, but enough to keep track of the evolution of the pregnancy.
Peter was there to give her support, and she felt protected in his arms. In fact, for many days she didn´t wish other thing than being trapped in her husband´s arms.
Finally, her son came to the world with no problems, and Sharon could enjoy her motherhood just as she had dreamt. Little Pete was adorable, with his big blue eyes and his scarce blond hair, which stretched on his little head to end curled on his nape. He was a whim of a child.
Sharon was sleeping next to her son, so that her husband could rest and go to work in full conditions. She didn´t mind staying awake at night, besides the following day she could make up for the lost sleep hours. In fact, she thought it would be wonderful to continue forever with that nice routine, instead of having to come back, sooner or later, to her position as an attorney.
One of those nights little Pete started breathing in a very strange way, very abrupt. Sharon got scared and turned on the light. Her son appeared to be sleeping peacefully, as if nothing had happened. Horrified, she could observe that the body of her adorable baby was covered by a kind of dark hair. She gasped and tried to calm down. It had to be a nightmare, surely. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She had already read and listened to stories of hysterical mothers who guided by fear imagined all kinds of outrages. The fear that anything could happen to their little ones drove their nerves to despair.
The next day, Sharon could confirm that Pete was as usual. Relieved, she felt stupid for having mistaken a nightmare with reality. She didn´t say anything to her husband, so as not to alarm him.
Four delightful weeks passed by in which the joy of living made up her whole existence. She never thought she could be that happy, nor that such a tiny and defenseless being could bring into her life that huge happiness. But that night again, the heavy labored breathing of her child woke her up. This time it was deeper, more resounding. It was unusual for a baby. Again, Pete´s white skin as milk was covered by thick dark hair, horrible! This time she was incapable of getting to sleep, and she waited until sunrise looking at the ceiling, restraining her tears. When the sunlight spread across the room she turned to her little boy with the hope that once more, everything would be in order. And that was the way it was! There was Pete, smiling, waving his little hands, with his huge blue eyes and his white skin, smooth and gorgeous.
A few days passed by and her husband brought the worst of the news: he had to be out in Europe for two months for business matters. He could visit her every two weeks, but she would have to cope with the child on her own. It was a tight, unavoidable spot. Sharon understood that she had to accept the situation, but she felt devastated. She didn´t tell Peter, so as not to overwhelm him, but she did invite her best friend Liz into her home, to avoid being alone, and to give vent to her. Liz was an independent woman, bright, a little bit strange according to the standards of their society, but she was all heart. And, of course, she knew how to listen.
- Do you think this is insane? - inquired Sharon after confessing to her best friend everything that had happened to little Pete.
- No! This does not happen frequently, but I don´t think you´re crazy. It could be a lot of things. You know that I´m acquainted with a lot of people everywhere. I´ll ask around and we will see what they tell me. But you, in the meantime, stay calm. Here´s your friend Liz to fix everything!
Sharon and Liz went to see different doctors and experts. Dozens of tests were carried out on the baby, but the happy conclusion was that the baby had a rigid health, enviable. Maybe he was a little bit more developed than the usual, but not so much. There was nothing which could explain the guttural sounds or the strange fur. And a lot less that they appeared just some nights...
But again, exactly four weeks after the last episode, Pete began to breathe like a dangerous animal, and once more his soft thin skin was covered by an even denser coat of what now looked like, without any doubt, the fur of a beast.
This time it was Liz who was at home to witness the dreadful transformation. At last she was starting to comprehend that all that wasn´t just her imagination.
- Now you see- murmured Sharon sobbing- , my baby is like possessed!
Liz stared at Pete, or at what until that very afternoon had been Pete, who was agitated in his little crib in front of the window. Suddenly, she felt as if an idea was shaking in her head. She had a look out of the window and spoke to herself, convinced, that maybe she had a crazy answer to this.
- Take it easy. I´ve got a strange intuition. I know who we should go to see- replied Liz, sure of herself, as it was her habit.
That very morning, Liz didn´t guide Sharon to a hospital or to an appointment to see a doctor, she took her directly to the University which was located in the outskirts of the city. In a study jammed with books, where mess was the rule, there was an elderly man with a kind face, with hardly any hair left and a completely grey beard, waiting for them.
- It´s been a long time without seeing my best student! – the old professor exclaimed, stretching his arms towards Liz. No sooner had I received your call that I wanted to clean this office, but you know me...
- Tom, you´re adorable as always.
- But, what is your visit about? - inquired the professor, making a gentle bow at Sharon and little Pete.
Liz explained to Tom what had been happening to the baby, and about the peculiar intuition she had had that early morning, before going to visit him.
- It´s been a long time since I haven´t seen one, but maybe you could be right. May I examine the baby? - the professor inquired, turning to Sharon.
She gave Pete to that strange man, worried, but trusting in her good friend Liz. The man looked closely at him. He blew through an inaudible whistle, which seemed to unsettle the little one, who broke into tears. Then, in presence of Sharon´s horrified look, he made a small cut with a scalpel at the bottom of his foot.
- What are you doing to my baby?
- Stay calm Sharon, he knows what he´s doing...- Liz immediately intervened, trying to comfort her friend.
The elderly professor mixed the child´s blood with some products that he took from a cupboard next to the window in his offi
ce, and he waited. A couple of minutes later that melting- pot started to give off a greenish vapour and it continued compressing until it formed a little irregular stone with silver colour.
- I´m sorry Ma´am, there´s no doubt: your son is a lycanthrope.
Sharon didn´t understand what that strange name meant, and continued looking perplexed in the presence of that show which almost looked like magic.
- A lycanthrope?
- A werewolf.
Liz hugged her friend; but she did it with naturalness, as if she had been taking into account that possibility as plausible long before her old professor uttered his diagnosis.
- Easy, Sharon. He knows how to help you.
- I don´t understand anything! This is absolute nonsense!
- It definitely is, Ma´am. This nonsense is like any other. A complete madness: just as the one that your son changes every full moon. Do you comprehend?
Sharon fell heavily in a near sofa and tried to recover her breath. Maybe the whole situation was just a huge and terrible nightmare.
- And how can you help me?
- You´re not going to like this...- the professor answered with utmost caution-. The lycanthropy cannot be passed on as any normal disease. It is passed down from parents to children.
- But that´s impossible, my husband´s completely normal! – Sharon exclaimed, bugged.
- I know I know... In very exceptional occasions, someone is a carrier of the gene, but does not develop it... However, his descendants...
Sharon pressed herself close to her friend Liz´s body, who showed calm, although she also showed a deep concern.
- And what can we do for Pete?
Tom walked around the table in his office, considering how he should handle that situation. He was an expert in ancestral, singular beings, beings which most of the people who populated the earth thought didn´t exist. But the old professor well knew they did exist, and he had helped to exterminate them in countless occasions.
The only salvation for your child is that you finish with the life of your husband. You will have to stick a silver knife in his heart during a full moon night – the man made a pause and took a volume out of his huge library, and he showed a marked page to Sharon-. Even though he isn´t transformed in a werewolf yet, you will be able to behold in the light of that full moon the mark of the lycanthrope: the fang of a wolf.
After that reunion, even more encounters followed. Sharon was trying to save some time: there had to be another way out. But Tom had warned her very seriously: if the little child reached his first year old, there would be no other solution than killing him. She would have to choose between either her son´s damnation... or her husband´s murder! Only Liz could calm her down in those tragic days of unease. The worst of the nightmares, of all the dementia imaginable, had settled up in her life of fantasy.
When her husband finally arrived from his long journey, she did not comment anything, although she looked strange, withdrawn and especially quiet. And so the days passed by, waiting for that full moon which had turned into the worst of the tortures for Sharon. Maybe little Pete wouldn´t show any kind of symptom this time...
The very morning of the day when the first full moon would appear, with her husband at home, she received Liz as a guest.
I have brought you this, because you may need it tonight.
Her friend handed in a beautiful and sharp silver knife, with mysterious filigree in its handle. Sharon, horrified, accepted that weapon of strange beauty, with which she would, supposedly in a few more hours, put an end to Peter´s life, the man of her life.
The night came. She offered her husband a succulent dinner and, following the old professor´s advice, she dissolved some crumbled diazepam pills in the wine. Everything that was happening was atrocious, but she continued with the plan originally drawn up, as if there was no other choice.
She waited until her husband fell completely asleep and went to the crib, next to her child. No sooner had the moon appeared than the transformation began... But this time it was more dreadful than ever: the body was completely covered in a coat of dark thick fur, the nails turned into powerful claws, some sharp fangs protruding from among his lips and underneath his eyelids, instead of the blue iris, some sort of yellowish shining... What the hell was that thing!?
Determined, with no hesitation, she looked for the silver knife that Liz had given her, and which she had hidden in a wardrobe. She headed to her double bed, without looking at her husband, but knowing intuitively his position. With her left hand, she fumbled in his chest, and soon she found her victim´s heart. She raised her right hand violently, and the reflection of the moon in the knife – blade made her turn her sight towards him.
Sharon, shocked, drowned a scream of horror. The knife slipped through her fingers and fell gently on the blanket. The full moonlight had hit in her right wrist... And there, shining brightly was the unmistakable mark of a fang: the mark of the lycanthrope!
THE DOLL
She found it lying on the ground. It looked like as if another girl had forgotten her in that corner. She knew that it was not right to pick up something that didn´t belong to her, because someone had to be the owner of such a wonderful porcelain doll, with that laced black and blue dress; but in reality she wasn´t stealing it... The doll was abandoned, and anyone could take her equally, or it could get ruined by the rain and the wind...
She arrived home and her mother logically asked her. She regretted not having an answer prepared, and she immediately knew that her cheeks would betray her if she lied.
Where have you found this doll?
I´ve found her at the crossroads of M Street and 10. It was abandoned...
But this doll must be some other girl´s. It is a porcelain doll, it´s wearing a nice dress, and it seems really expensive...
Penny made that face with which she knew could convince her mother, and as usual, it didn´t fail this time.
Alright, you can keep her. But if someone comes asking for her, or if we hear that in the neighborhood they are looking for her, we will give her back to her owner immediately.
Cathy thought that she, once more, was spoiling her child. But she didn´t feel strong enough to contradict her. Since the divorce, she had been very sensitive. It had been a very complicated trauma to assimilate for a little nine- year- old girl. In any case, if someone came by asking for that wonderful doll, they would give it back to its legitimate owner and case closed.
The days went by and the doll had become Penny´s best friend. She took it with her everywhere: to school, to the park, to the excursions... The best part of it was that nobody had asked for her, and therefore, the fright of having to tell her good - bye had been gone almost completely.
And this doll? - asked Paul, her father, the first time he saw it.
I´ve found her on the street. Mum let me keep her – answered quickly Penny, fearful that his father could object.
I don´t like her. She seems to be angry. Besides, it doesn´t fit you, it´s too... cheesy.
Penny stared at her doll´s face and discovered that it had changed. It was true, now she seemed angry. But until then she appeared to be happy and smiley. She didn´t pay attention, because she wished to be with her doll anyway.
That night, Cathy believed to hear voices coming from her daughter´s room. She was too tired to get up, and this wasn´t the first time that Penny stayed awake playing until late hours. But that night... She seemed to hear a voice... strange, different...
Who were you talking to last night that late? – Cathy asked her daughter the following morning, while they were having breakfast.
To Pat – answered Penny without giving it too much importance.
To Pat? Who on earth is Pat?
My doll – replied the little girl, showing her mother the doll that she carried everywhere.
Have you named her like that?
No. That´s her name. She told me so.
Cathy approached the doll and took her in her
arms. She stared at her closely: she seemed to be changed, different. She felt an immediate strange sensation.
- Well, I´d rather prefer you don´t talk with her. And a lot less that you do so until that late.
But that very weekend, she heard again her daughter talking to someone in her bedroom. This time, she couldn´t get to sleep. The other voice was very peculiar, too different to Penny´s as to be an imitation. What the hell was going on?
Not being able to restrain her curiosity, she got up of the bed, barefoot, and walking very slowly approached her daughter´s room, sticking her ear behind the door. Yes, her little girl was talking to someone, but it was impossible that that other voice was Penny´s! Could some school friend have ventured to come to the house that late and talk to Penny through the open window...? Hard to believe, but not impossible. Of course, if that was the case, both of them would take notice. Suddenly, she heard something that made her shiver:
- We have to stop talking: your mother is spying us from the other side of the door!
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- Penny, what´s going on here? – she exclaimed, out of her mind.
