Easter Eggs and Bunny Boilers: A Horror Anthology

by Matt Shaw

  “Well he can’t have just disappeared, can he?” Guy grumbled, rummaging through another bin bag. He recoiled as his thumb sank into the decomposing body of a rat, “This is gross.”

  “Look, last I saw, he was going off with that fit bird in the pub, just saying that if he got murdered and hacked into pieces, it stands to reason he’ll be out back, won’t he?” Harry said matter of factly. He was in his element, supervising his mate, “They bloody love their oak casks huh? I bet they store human blood in ‘em.”

  “Shut up you nobber, have you gone through the dumpsters yet?” Guy asked, wiping rotting entrails over his trousers.

  Harry shook his head and walked to the nearest one, he clambered on top of a barrel, and opened the lid, “Fucking hell, smells like your mum in here.”

  “Are you going to take it seriously? Our mate has vanished, probably been forced to have sex with that bird until he died or his knob fell off. It’s our duty to find him, he’s still got my iPod the little bastard,” Guy argued.

  Harry dragged a black bin bag aside, “Shit, Guy, think I’ve just found Ed, or what’s left of him.” Nestled in amongst rotting vegetables and mouldy fruit, Ed’s pallid, blood soaked face looked back.

  “What are we gonna do? Call the filth? Gotta do something haven’t we Guy?” The pair had dragged Ed’s body to a nearby garage. The three of them had been there before, smoking joints and swapping scraps of porn mags they had found by railway sidings.

  Guy stood over Ed, his fists were balled in rage, “No man, we’re going to fuck them up. It is not okay for them to offer our mate sex and then murder him like a bunch of sickos.”

  Harry laughed nervously, “Are you joking, there’s only the two of us, if they did that to Ed, I’m pretty sure, that all we’d accomplish is being turned into dumpster buddies. Fuck it, let’s call the filth, they’ll sort them out.”

  “NO,” Guy screamed. “Not a chance, I’ve got an idea.”

  “What?”

  “We’re gonna use voodoo and bring Ed back, then we’ll get him into the pub and he can have his revenge.”

  “Voodoo? Are you retarded? You got the Ladybird book of Voodoo rituals or summat?”

  Guy shot Harry a look, “Look, it’s Easter, ole zombie Jesus came back didn’t he? Ed was sort of like Jesus.”

  “Only cos you told Scabby Pete to put his name down as that.”

  “That was for a laugh weren’t it? Look, are you gonna help me or what?”

  Harry shrugged, “Guess so, nothing else to do eh? I lent Ed FIFA, won’t be getting that back in a hurry will I?”

  Guy smiled and slapped Harry on the arm, “Good man. First, we need to beef Ed up a bit, they’ve done a right number on him. I’ve got an idea, come on…”

  “Cheers mate,” the delivery man pulled off the top copy and passed the invoice to the barman. With a toot of his horn, the driver pulled away and headed home, the last delivery of the day complete. The barman folded up the invoice and shoved it in his pocket. Pulling on his thick leather gloves, he tipped the first barrel onto its side and rolled it into the open warehouse.

  “Now you knobber,” Guy hissed. Creeping out from behind the bins, the pair rolled their barrel towards the fresh delivery. They managed to stand it up just as the barman made his way outside again.

  “Can I help you lads?” the barman asked, squeezing his gloved fist with his free hand.

  “Nah, you’re alright mate,” Guy muttered, before they slunk off down the alley.

  “Chancers, looking to take advantage of some free booze,” the barman watched the pair turn a corner, before turning back to the collection of barrels. He sighed, this was part of the job he hated, no matter how many he took through to the warehouse, the number never seemed to go down. He huffed and tipped the next one on its side.

  *

  With the barrels indoors, the barman pulled the doors to, locked them, and then wrestled a thick wooden bar to hold them into place, “You want a hand?” the manager asked, pulling his robe off and hanging it on a hook behind a door which led to the bar upstairs, he was joined by a lady, who also disrobed.

  “Yeah, please,” the barman answered, “get this done then. Any sign of…you know who?”

  The lady shook her head disappointedly, “No, not yet, though it can’t be too long now. I reckon he’s been out, seeing what has changed with the world. A lot to take in has old Judas.”

  BANG BANG

  The trio breathed in sharply, looking at one of the barrels.

  BANG BANG BANG

  “Praise be! Our prayers have been answered, he has been delivered to us,” the lady cried aloud.

  “I wasn’t quite expecting him to be in a barrel,” the barman added, with a slight air of disbelief.

  “Our sacrifice has been heard, he is amongst us once more, I have yearned for this d-”

  The top of the barrel creaked open, the wooden disc clattered to the stone floor, the trio prostrated themselves on the cold stone floor, “PRAISE BE,” they called as one.

  “MMAAAAAAAA,” the barrel moaned.

  The barman looked up, puzzled, “Mmaaaaaa? What does that mean?”

  “Perhaps it’s the language of the ancients?” the woman offered.

  Metal clacked against the edge of the wooden barrel, fingers ending in six inch blades, fashioned from shoplifted kitchen knives, gripped hold of the wood.

  The three acolytes stood up uneasily, trying to peer into the void of the barrel. The metal ending fingers gripped and hauled Ed free from his temporary home, smelling of stale beer. His blue face, with purple eyes and drooping gums looked at his killers.

  “Judas?” the woman asked blankly, unable to compute what she saw.

  Ed stumbled out of the barrel and stood on awkward legs, his chest was puffed out, something stashed beneath his tracksuit top. The manager snapped off the staff from a broom and charged the intruder, clocking him around the head. Ed’s head cracked to one side, before slowly looking back to the front, crusty flakes of blood fell off his forehead.

  “Shit,” the manager mumbled.

  Ed slashed his right hand across the manager’s throat, who collapsed to the ground, hands pressed to the wound. Blood poured through his fingers, turned white through the pressure of trying to hold the inner workings of his throat inside. He looked up at the dead kid and tried to ask ‘why’, managing nothing but a series of gurgles and blood bubbles.

  A hand stabbed the manager through the face, lancing the eyeballs, Ed picked the man up with no effort at all. Hands slapped against his side, blood from his ruined throat squirted over Ed’s face, who didn’t so much as blink. He lashed out with his free hand, and severed the head clean off. The lifeless body hit Ed’s legs before falling to one side, blood was pumped out of the ragged stump. Ed discarded the head and turned his attention to the survivors.

  The woman went to run, but Ed was on her quickly. He dived to tackle her, and took her left leg off at the knee. She screamed as she rolled around the cold stone floor in agony, fingers tried to pinch the sliced arteries and veins closed, trying desperately not to bleed out. As she howled with pain as her long fingernails scraping against the inside of her leg, Ed crawled beside her. He raised his hand in the air and brought it down on the base of her spine.

  This made the woman try to feebly fend him off, but it was no use. Ed slammed his other hand into the base of her neck, and then pulled apart, separating the woman into three pieces.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” the barman yelled. He ran at Ed as he tore the woman apart and kicked him on the back of the head. Ed slid across the floor, coming to a rest on his back. Try as he might, he couldn’t right himself, the blades were screwed into his fingers and he couldn’t push himself up.

  The barman cackled, picking up a fire extinguisher, he walked slowly over to the stricken revenant, “I’m gonna have to kill you again Jesus, ruin your second coming,” he promised.

  He stood over Ed and raised the extinguisher, Ed
spun to one side and executed a near perfect leg sweep. The barman landed on Ed’s chest, the extinguisher hit the floor and rolled away. “Huh?” he could feel something biting into his chest, he looked down into Ed’s dead eyes.

  “MMAAA MAAA MAAAA,” Ed cackled, and pressed a button sewn onto his tracksuit top. The circular saw whirred into life and chewed through the barman, sending chunks of raw meat into the air. It easily sliced through his ribcage, and soon was spinning in thin air, the barman rent in two.

  The door from the bar opened, Guy and Harry crept out, “Fucking hell mate, it actually worked!” Harry shouted.

  The pair pulled the chewed up remains of the barman from Ed, and helped him to his feet, “What do we do with him now Guy?” Harry asked, picking stringy bits of chewed up lung from Ed’s tracksuit top.

  Guy smiled, “Well, I say we get Ed here back to the garage and clean him up a bit, we are going to make a killing at Halloween.”

  THE END

  Bio

  Fie! That rapscallion Duncan P. Bradshaw has slain me once more. From yonder Wiltshire, where he lay his codpiece down, to the sundering moors of Somerset, where he did track me to my doom. His beastly cats did corner me unto this place of solace, only for his mighty strength to render the door to matchsticks. As I lay here dying, he speaks to me still. Strange stories of things which scratch away inside his skull. Be they monsters? Nay, they are the thoughts of a loon, I wouldst have done well to appraise them whilst I was alive. How can thou make good on my mistake? Visit his website at http://www.duncanpbradshaw.co.uk or regard his ghastly form at http://www.facebook.com/duncanpbradshaw. He is one of the Sinister Horror Company, and you can uncover their tomes of mystery at http://www.sinisterhorrorcompany.com .

  FELDMAN’S RABBIT

  RICH HAWKINS

  The car broke down as the rain turned to sleet, and Feldman smoked his last cigarette in a fit of expletives spat over the steering wheel. And after all that there was laughter rising from his throat and bursting from his mouth, but it didn’t last long and he ended up punching the top of the dashboard in frustration. Then he fell silent and watched the cigarette burn down between his fingers. He wound down the window and threw the butt onto the snow.

  He looked outside. The snow covered the fields and the road, the trees and the hedgerows. Gathered atop fences like spiked ramparts. As it fell, the wind spat it in all directions, and soon the car would be blanketed and he would eventually freeze to death. Someone would find him once the snow had thawed: a frozen effigy in a glass and metal tomb. And his elderly parents would say it was his own fault, because he was weak and careless, and forgetful and foolish. They would gather for tea with the rest of the family and nod their heads and say what a nice man he had been, while lamenting his mental issues. Poor chap, they would say. Never stood a chance in life. Bad genes from his mother’s side. She had three insane uncles, don’t you know?

  His fate would be remembered for years, as a cautionary tale for the children.

  Feldman shook his head. No, it wouldn’t happen, because he was not going to die in the squalid interior of a rusting Vauxhall Vectra while listening to Neil Diamond’s greatest hits. So he gathered what belongings he could carry and abandoned the car. Before he left, he locked the car. And he set out into the white fields, keys jangling in one deep pocket. He glanced back once to look at the car, but it was already lost in the falling snow. He mouthed a silent goodbye then moved on.

  *

  The snow was up to his ankles, and each step pulled at his leg muscles and drained the strength from his bones. His feet were numb with cold. His shins ached. Shivering in the orange coat, Feldman grimaced at the sky and the fields around him. No houses in sight. No buildings to punctuate the land. Not even a barn or a stable. A nagging voice inside his head told him he would die; it scratched at the inside of his skull until he was shouting for it to go away. He thought he was already half-mad.

  You are half-mad, Feldman. The doctor told you, remember?

  He shook his head and spat. Wiped his mouth. Carried on, grunting and wincing as he struggled.

  He found some meagre shelter under the boughs of oak trees, but he was always too cold to stop moving for long, so he blundered back into the falling snow and kicked his way through rising drifts and up shallow hills. He lost track of time. The light waning in the sky and all about him. The air turning colder, biting at his pudgy cheeks and around the soft flesh of his mouth. His teeth chattered. When he opened his mouth, the cold air stung the back of his throat and made his gums ache.

  He was hopelessly lost, stumbling and tripping, his exhaled breaths like fog. Mouth trembling with the cold. His body winding down like a broken clockwork toy. He longed for heat and comfort, a hot drink and apple crumble. A fire to warm his hands upon. But there was nothing; just him and the snow, ever falling, and the great coldness killing him by plunging degrees.

  Feldman only realised he was crying when his vision blurred and the snow formed watery shapes to harry him from all sides.

  And that was when he caught sight of the house far ahead.

  He had to wipe his eyes to be sure.

  *

  He stood hunched like a vagrant in the overgrown garden before the house, his breath shuddering in his chest. Snow gathered upon his thick shoulders. The house gave no shadow and loomed above him. Dead ivy vines strangled the broken guttering and scarred brickwork. Upon the roof of black slate, the chimney sat squat and stubborn against the weather.

  The four windows – two on the ground floor, two upstairs – were clouded with grime and too dark to see beyond.

  He limped to the front door, passing the shapes of garden gnomes concealed under the snow. The pond was green ice and frozen weeds. Utter silence around him. All he could hear was his frantic heart. The paint on the door was flaking away, revealing the dark wood underneath. A brass handle and a rusted knocker. Feldman breathed out, glanced around, then rapped three times on the door and waited. When no one answered he knocked again, a little harder, and cleared his throat.

  He knocked several more times before he lost patience, opened the door and pushed it inwards. He stood in the doorway, waiting for someone to emerge from inside the house, but no one came, even when he called out with a frail voice that didn’t sound like his own. And he stepped inside, glad to be out of the snow and wind, then shut the door behind him.

  Standing in the dark of the hallway, Feldman called out again, but his voice disappeared into lightless rooms and passages to leave him alone, shivering and half-frozen.

  *

  A throat of stairs led up to deep shadow. Little daylight entered the house. Everything was ill-defined and blotchy with darkness. He thought it might be his eyes.

  “Hello?” he said. “Is anyone here? I’m sorry to intrude, but I had to get out of the snowstorm. I abandoned my car somewhere back there. It’s the worst snow I’ve seen for quite a while…” He waited, breathing too loud. “Hello?”

  No one answered. The house was silent.

  Feldman brushed the snow from his shoulders and hood, and it fell around his feet. Shuddering, he slumped on a stool by the stairway and rested his legs. Gusts of wind slipped through cracks in the walls to whistle and moan. A cold draught swept across the hallway.

  “Fuck you, Mother,” he muttered. “Feldman’s tougher than you think. Feldman’s going to be just fine.”

  *

  He flicked the light switches, but remained in darkness. With the small flame of his cigarette lighter held out before him, he searched the downstairs rooms for signs of life. The kitchen was full of shadows when he stepped inside, glancing around furtively. He pulled back the curtains on the window over the sink. The grey daylight revealed dust-covered surfaces, a rusted iron sink, and a dining table that looked like it’d been carved by hand. Smell of damp and neglect all about him. A feathery corruption somewhere under the floor.

  He turned the taps in the sink and waited. Water pipes rattling in the walls. A scra
ping, like something was trying to claw its way out of house’s innards. He looked down at the taps, but didn’t expect to see any water rushing out, and he was proved right.

  He opened wall units to find plates, bowls and cloudy wine glasses. No food in the cupboards. A desiccated beetle lying on its back. He pulled open a drawer full of rusting cutlery. Grimy teacups on a mug-tree painted a dull shade of green.

  Everything was covered in dust. Dead insects on the windowsill. His feet scuffed on the dirty linoleum floor. Dust balls gathered along the skirting boards.

  Cracks in the walls. Flaking paint and peeling wallpaper. Crumbling plaster scattered on bare floorboards.

  There was a rabbit’s skull on the dining table. It looked to have been bleached. Skinless. As frail as old paper and furred with dust. Two enlarged teeth in the middle of the upper jaw. Around it were grey hairs and fur and more dust balls. His mind suggested it’d been left as an offering for him.

  Feldman left it alone.

  He stepped into the living room. The brown carpet matted with grime, clinging to the soles of his shoes. A sofa and two armchairs. The air was thick with dust, and he felt it stick to the inside of his throat when he took a breath. There was no television. The stone fireplace was cluttered with old pieces of coal and blackened wood. Porcelain figurines of rabbits lined the mantelpiece.

  Feldman looked around at the paintings on the walls. Pastoral scenes of green hills and curving rivers, lush meadows and fields of wheat. One was of a flower in the first warmth of spring.

  There was a laundry room at the back of the house. Piles of old towels and blankets. He looked out at the back garden, which was bristling with tall weeds and knotted bramble thickets.

  When he returned to the front of the house, he tried the door under the stairs, but it didn’t give, so he left it alone and then climbed the wooden steps to the landing. He searched the rooms and found nothing but the possessions of someone who’d left the house a long time ago. Dead flies upon a layer of thick dust on a small bed. Reeking blankets. He entered the bathroom and reeled from the stench of backed up pipes and stale urine soaked into rugs and rags.