Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  My poor baby, my poor little baby. Please be okay... Please... God, please.

  Her only thoughts were with David now. He needed her. Tears continued to pour down her face, but Abby was barely aware of them. Her first instinct was to go to her son, but she couldn’t let him to see her like this, she would only scare him.

  Instead, she headed towards the exit sign and the glass doors that barred this place of nightmares from the real world.

  Abby flashed her visitor’s card at the guy sitting in the security booth and the doors slid open in front of her. The fresh air hit her wet face, cooling her hot skin. The last of the day’s sun had disappeared behind the horizon and the sky was a pale blue with a water-colour wash of pink. Tomorrow would be another hot day in the city.

  Not far from the front entrance was a small Perspex-covered smoker’s shelter. It looked like a bus stop, minus the timetables of course, and she headed over. She sat down heavily on one of the narrow plastic seats and put her handbag on her lap. Her hands still shook as she scrabbled around the contents of her large bag. She always carried around her life in that bag, but now she wished she had something smaller.

  Frustrated and bordering on more tears, her fingers touched packets of tissues, wet-wipes, her purse, an old lipstick. Where the hell was her phone? She was starting to think she had lost it or left it in David’s room, but then remembered she’d put the phone in the side pocket of her bag, hoping to prevent this exact thing from happening.

  She pulled open the zip and pulled out her small silver Nokia. Her fingers felt numb and she fumbled with the buttons, but finally managed to pull up Tom’s mobile number and press dial.

  Please pick up, please pick up.

  But the phone didn’t even have the chance to ring; her husband’s familiar voice filled her ear.

  “Hi, you’re through to Thomas Young. Please leave a message.”

  Damn you, Tom, she thought in frustration.

  Abby took a breath and spoke. “Hi, it’s me. I don’t know where you are, but we need you back here. The chemo hasn’t worked, Tom.” Her voice grew higher in pitch and finally broke. “If he doesn’t get the bone marrow transplant, he’s going to...”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  “Just come back,” she said finally and pressed the button to end the call.

  Abby took another deep, shaky breath, and wiped the tears from her face. She needed to go back to David. She got to her feet and made her way back into the hospital and to the nurse’s station. Two of David’s nurses were deep in conversation behind the station, but they fell silent as she approached. From the way they looked at her, she knew they already had been told about David’s poor prognosis.

  The plump, brunette nurse offered her a smile of sympathy. “How are you holding up?” she asked, and Abby once again found herself close to losing her self-control.

  She pressed her lips together and managed a shrug, not trusting herself to speak.

  “We’ll pray for him” the nurse said.

  “Thank you,” she managed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a small, pale figure standing in his transformer pyjamas.

  “Hey, honey,” she said. “What are you doing out of bed. I thought you were asleep.”

  “I had a bad dream. I dreamt…”

  Abby suddenly saw the look on his face. She rushed to her son’s side and crouched beside him. All the colour had drained from his skin and he wrapped his thin arms around her neck and clung to her.

  “I had a nightmare,” he said. “I dreamt you and Dad were fighting and Dad told me it was my fault you didn’t love each other anymore.” A terrible pain speared inside her chest; a deep visceral ache that made her catch her breath and clutch at her clothing. This is what it feels like when your heart is breaking, she thought. I’ll die if he does.

  It wasn’t a decision, but an observation. She wouldn’t want to live without her child.

  “Don’t ever think your father and I don’t love each other,” she told him, forcing down her pain. “Grownups fight sometimes, but it doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. And saying our fighting is your fault is plain silly. Your father and I love each other even more because we have you. Having you means we will always be connected, do you understand?”

  David sniffed and nodded. “I think so.”

  “You had a bad dream, honey. It wasn’t real. Now, let’s get you back to bed.”

  Abby tucked David back into bed and smoothed his hot forehead. “I love you so much, baby-boy,” she whispered fiercely, her lips pressed against the smooth skin of his forehead. “I love you more than anything else in this world.”

  But David didn’t hear her. He’d snuggled back down into his comfort blanket and the arms of sleep quickly claimed him. How was she supposed to tell him that the medicine hadn’t worked; that all of the pain and sickness had been for nothing and he was back at the beginning? She didn’t think she could do it again.

  Abby remembered the last time, how she’d watched the change of emotions on his face: disappointment, fear and misery. She thought of how she’d convinced David to come back in for another round, how she had been the one to promise it would work this time—that it had to work this time—and he had cried and fought against her. He’d been afraid of the hospital and the sickness, but he’d also been afraid of failure.

  Though exhausted, she didn’t want to leave her son’s side, even to sleep on the cot. Instead, she picked up the pillow and blanket and curled up on the chair beside his bed. What she really wanted to do was climb up on the bed beside him, press her face against his soft cheek, and wrap her arms around his bony frame. But she didn’t want to disturb him and was concerned about pulling out the tubes feeding into his arm, so she settled for the chair.

  She didn’t think she would be able to sleep; her mind was so full of a jumble of tormented thoughts. Evil demons sat on her shoulders whispering, “Your son is dying and your husband has left you.” But the emotional exhaustion was stronger than she thought and she plummeted into a deep, but troubled sleep.

  * * *

  A HAND GENTLY shaking her shoulder dragged Abby from sleep. Nauseous and disoriented, her attention instantly went to her son. David slept, his features relaxed, so she turned to the person who had woken her.

  “Mrs Young?” The small, plump nurse who had been at the station last night now stood beside her. “Your husband is on the phone.”

  “What?” Abby’s mind was still foggy with sleep and she didn’t quite believe what the nurse had said.

  “Your husband is on the phone for you,” she repeated.

  Quickly, Abby got to her feet and hurried after the nurse, who headed back to the station. The nurse walked behind the desk, picked up the handset, and handed it across the desk towards her.

  Suddenly, nerves coiled in her stomach. Stupid really—after all, Tom had been the one who left her in this mess. He should be the nervous one.

  With shaking fingers, she took the phone.

  “Tom?”

  “Abby?” He sounded distant, as though he were talking from another country on a bad line.

  “Oh, Tom,” she said. “Where the hell are you? I assume you got my message.”

  “Message? No, what’s happened?”

  She recognised the panic in his voice; an inflection so prevalent in her own these days. Her heart sank as she realised she was going to have to tell him once again about David. It had been hard enough getting the words out the first time.

  “The chemo hasn’t worked,” she said. She heard his sharp intake of breath. “The consultant told me last night. And he’s ill, Tom. He seems so much worse since you left. He’s so frail and I just don’t know what to do.”

  The tears returned, streaming hot down her face. How was it possible to cry so much without eventually running dry?

  “Oh, God.” His breathless whisper. “I had hoped it wasn’t true.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you didn’t get my me
ssage.”

  She thought she heard him falter; fall over his words a little. “I didn’t… I just had a feeling.”

  “Please come back.” She sobbed into the phone. “I can’t do this by myself. I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing, we just need you here.”

  Silence echoed from the other end.

  “Tom?” Her voice hardened, the tears drying a tight mask on her face, contorting her features. “I’m serious, Tom. You need to come home right now!”

  “I want to, Abby, I honestly do. I love you and David more than anything, but this could be his only chance.”

  “I can’t believe you are still going on about this crap!”

  Tom sounded even more distant, but now he also sounded desperate. “You must know me well enough by now to know that I am not doing this out of spite. I wouldn’t leave you both for no reason. I am trying to save his life, Goddamn it! Why can’t you just trust me?”

  “How?” She was shouting now and the young nurse disappeared into the office, embarrassed on her behalf. “How are you trying to save him? Have you gone to find a specialist? Have you gone to find some miracle cure? How?”

  Abby didn’t catch his mumbled answer.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Something like that.”

  She wanted to scream and throw the phone across the room. She shook with fury. What had she done to deserve this? What had David done to deserve this?

  As if he had read her mind he said, “Can I speak to him?”

  “He’s still sleeping, Tom. He needs his rest. Why don’t you call back a bit later in the day?” Deep down she felt a bitter pleasure at being able to hurt him, at still having that one piece of control, that one tiny ounce of power in her otherwise powerless life. She never thought she would be one of those twisted women who used their kids as weapons, but suddenly she could see how easily she could become one.

  “Please, Abby. I don’t know when I’ll be able to call again.”

  She felt herself cave, but it wasn’t for Tom. It was for her son. She imagined the disappointed look on David’s face when he learnt his father called and he had missed him. Whatever rage she felt against Tom, she knew she couldn’t hurt David like that.

  She sighed. “Fine, but you’ll need to hang on.”

  Abby called out to the nurse and her head popped around the corner like an inquisitive animal.

  “Can you please transfer this call to one of the portable phones?” Abby asked. “He wants to speak to David.”

  “Sure,” she said, nodding to the white box on wheels standing beside the desk. “Take that one.”

  “Thanks.”

  Abby got behind the phone and wheeled it down the corridor towards David’s room. Awkwardly, she pushed open the door with one hand and pushed the phone through the doorway. David was still asleep, curled up on his side. His hand lay beside his cheek, palm up, and his fingers twitched as though he were playing out the chords on a guitar in his sleep. She didn’t want to wake him, but she knew how much he loved his father.

  “Davey,” she said, lightly touching his shoulder. “Honey, your dad is on the phone.”

  His eyelids flickered and he raised his head slightly. His cheeks were still pink from sleep and pillow creases were imprinted in his skin. Abby’s heart swelled with her love for him, threatening to explode and consume her.

  David came fully out of sleep and pushed himself to sitting. “Dad?”

  Abby picked up the phone, half expecting to have lost the connection. “You still there, Tom?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” the reply came back, though the line was still bad.

  “Dad!” David’s eyes lit up as realisation that his father was on the phone finally sank in. Eagerly, he leant over the bed and took the phone from his mother.

  Abby perched on the edge of the bed and leaned in so she could hear what was being said.

  “Hey, kiddo,” came Tom’s faint voice. “I have missed you so, so much.”

  “Where are you, Daddy?” David asked. “You sound like you’re really far away. Are you in a different country?”

  “No, mate, same country—just a different world.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. I’m not as far away as I sound. I promise.”

  “Mum’s sad you’ve gone away,” David said. “She misses you. I do too.”

  Her son’s words bound around Abby’s heart and squeezed, catching her breath.

  Tom didn’t speak for a moment and when he did, it sounded like he was trying to stop himself from crying. “I’ve got an important job to do now, kiddo. The people I’m with need my help and I am hoping that in return they will know how to help you. I can’t promise anything, Davey, but I want you to have hope. I want you to know that even though I am not with you and Mummy, I am doing everything I can to make things right again. Okay?”

  “Okay, Dad.” He hesitated for a moment and his eyes flicked up to his mother. Abby gave him a smile and leaned away as if to give them privacy, though she remained within hearing distance in the otherwise quiet room.

  David cupped his hand around the phone. “Dad?”

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “I’ve been having bad dreams,” he whispered, his mouth close to the handset, his breath steaming up the plastic. “Real bad ones where I’m stuck in the dark. I was scared, Dad. And it’s not just the once. Almost every time I go to sleep I have these bad dreams about being in a strange place and I can’t get out.”

  On the other end of the line, Tom paused before saying, “There’s nothing to be afraid of, kiddo. You’re safe.”

  Chapter 11

  SIX PEOPLE READIED themselves to leave the cavern: Tom, Otto, Samantha, Sky, a wiry little man named Billy, and a thick-set woman called Jo. According to Otto, Billy was their technical guy, the one who could get them connected to the surface if need be, and Tom guessed Jo accompanied them for sheer brute force. She was about forty with springy hair that frizzed around her wide face. Her skin belayed a hard life; acne scars potholed her complexion and the same patchwork of broken red capillaries that had been so prominent on Mack’s face spread across her nose and cheeks. From size alone, Tom honestly thought she would give Otto a good run in an arm wrestling match. Of course, he was too polite to ask if her strength was the reason for her being part of the group.

  Sky, however, made him forget his manners. She kept giving him cold glares and wouldn’t speak to him. It was a bit like having a small child hate him for no apparent reason. Even though this young woman had no part in his life, he couldn’t help feeling hurt. When he broached the subject with Otto, the big man shrugged.

  “Don’t let her bother you,” he said. “The girl has no manners, but it’s not her fault. She never had a proper upbringing—doesn’t know anything about social etiquette.”

  “But she’s coming with us?” Tom asked, nodding to the bag she was packing.

  “Sure. She knows these tunnels better than anyone. She basically grew up down here.”

  “Oh good, so she’s the one I have to rely on to get me back out again.”

  Otto just grinned, revealing big, white teeth.

  Tom sighed and turned his attention back to his sleeping bag. He tried to roll the spongy material up tight, but it kept getting away on him and springing open again. He wished the phone call to the hospital had helped, but it hadn’t. Abby had no intention of forgiving him so easily and he didn’t blame her. He’d heard the desperation in her voice and he felt terrible for making her go through the worst time of her life on her own. She was right. He should be with them, but he couldn’t bring himself to just give up if he had any chance of helping David. The chance of David finding a bone-marrow match was slim. If there was any possibility being down in this underground world would help his boy, then he would rather be here than sitting helplessly beside David’s bed.

  Jo walked up and dropped several cans of food, a small saucepan, and a wicked-looking knife onto
the cavern floor in front of him. The metal clanged on the stone and the noise echoed around the vast cave.

  “Looks like we’re going to be gone awhile,” Tom said.

  “Best be prepared,” Jo replied.

  “Another boy scout, huh?” Tom joked through his nerves.

  Jo gave him a half-smile, her eyebrows arching, and turned away, leaving him to continue to wrestle with his newly acquired belongings.

  Tom struggled to keep his mind on the job. His heart physically ached—a sensation that made him understand where the term ‘heart-broken’ came from—and his thoughts kept running to that terrifying thought, my son is dying. He desperately tried not to think of it for fear of sinking to his knees and weeping.

  Yet, beneath the misery lay a small grain of hope. He was still cautious to believe the madness he’d been fed, but as he looked around at the serious faces as they prepared themselves for what lay ahead, he couldn’t help his heart skipping with hope. He would do whatever he could to save his son, even giving up his own life to the strange, living tar he’d seen before. He would die with a broken heart knowing he’d never see his wife and son again, but that would be his gift to Abby. The gift of being able to watch her son grow up.

  Otto clapped him on the back, making him jump. “Ready to go?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Bugs, the rat, was still perched on Otto’s shoulder and it stretched towards Tom, its snout quivering, nostrils flared. The animal’s eyes were like chips of black glass and it seemed to size him up like an opponent, or even more worryingly, like prey.

  Tom couldn’t help recoiling. The thing gave him the creeps. He hoped Otto planned on leaving the animal behind; he didn’t much fancy being stuck in the dark tunnels with that thing. He had images of falling asleep in his sleeping bag only to wake up to find Bugs chewing at the tips of his fingers or an ear.