Razorblade Dreams: Horror Stories

by Mark Lukens

  On shaky legs, Jack got out of his truck and approached the trees, rushing into the thick brush.

  Oh God, no . . . please . . . God, no . . .

  The boy was dead, Jack could see that immediately. His body was crumpled up at the base of a tree. There was a dark splash on the trunk of that tree, and bark had been chipped away. The boy’s arms and legs looked bent at odd and painful angles. His face was a red smear of gore from where he had collided with the tree trunk. A glint of white skull peeked out from where the top of his head was coming apart. The bicycle was only ten feet away and it was obscenely undamaged, just a bent back rim from where Jack’s pickup truck had struck it.

  Jack stood there on trembling, weak legs. He wanted to puke, but somehow he held the vomit down. He was paralyzed with indecision for a moment . . . part of him wanted to crash forward through the forest brush and help the boy, try to revive him somehow. But the rational part took over. The boy was dead. Nothing could be done now.

  It was time to call the police.

  Jack walked out of the woods, down the grassy shoulder towards his waiting truck, the motor still rumbling.

  Thoughts bolted through his mind like lightning strikes, fragments of thoughts really: I’ll be ruined . . . prison for the rest of my life . . . I’m not ready for this . . .

  He still hadn’t seen another vehicle drive by, and it was nearly dark.

  Lonely road . . . no witnesses . . .

  He could just leave. No one would ever know.

  Jack looked back at the woods, then at the road. There was no sign that he’d hit the kid. There were black marks on the road from where he’d skidded to a stop, but there were a lot of black marks on this road. He walked to his truck, the taillights glowing bright red in the growing darkness. He walked around to the front of his truck. The grill and bumper weren’t even damaged that badly. It was such an insignificant injury to his truck compared to the damage the boy had suffered, such a contrast between metal and the frail flesh and bone of the human body.

  A moment later, not even realizing he’d gotten into his truck and put it in drive, he was speeding down the country road. The cell phone was still in the center console, the text message to his girlfriend unfinished.

  He would call the police . . . yeah, that’s what he’d do. He just needed some time first, some time to think, to prepare what to say, to pull himself together.

  Jack didn’t drive home. He drove to a gas station that had a carwash and parked his truck in a far corner of the parking lot. He bought some beef jerky, a bag of potato chips, and a twelve pack of sodas. He was so thirsty . . . so hungry even though he was still nauseous. He paid for the carwash with cash along with his groceries, and the bored cashier gave him the code for the carwash tunnel.

  He went through the carwash, putting his truck in neutral and letting the big machines and spray jets wash the little flecks of blood and dirt away from the front of his vehicle. It looked like most of the damage to the boy had come from when he’d struck the tree trunk in the woods. If the boy would’ve just missed that tree, maybe he would’ve lived. Maybe he would’ve had some broken bones or something, but he probably would’ve lived.

  Jack went to the ATM machine after the carwash and drew out as much money as he could. Tomorrow was Monday, he would come back to the bank when it first opened and withdraw exactly half of the money he and his girlfriend had in their account. He would stay somewhere tonight, a motel room, and then after he left the bank tomorrow morning he would run. There was no sense in lying to himself anymore; he knew now that he wasn’t going to call the police—he was going to run.

  It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t his fault. He’d only looked away from the road for a second. This was that boy’s fault. Why had he been riding his bicycle on that lonely road that late in the afternoon? He looked, what . . . eleven or twelve years old (Adam had been eleven years old—Jack would find that out later in the newspaper article). What kind of parents let their kid ride a bicycle by himself down a dangerous road like that, and practically at night? It was as much the parents’ fault as anyone else’s.

  Jack woke up early the next morning after sleeping fitfully through a string of nightmares about the boy sitting up in the woods and trying to speak to him through a jaw that was pushed way too far to one side, his shattered teeth gleaming among the red gory maw. One eye was staring out through that red mask; the other one was gone or popped like a grape. The boy was reaching for him in the dream, reaching with a twisted arm that was already turning black with rot, busted fingers stretching out towards him.

  He went to the bank right at nine o’clock and drew out one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine dollars. He could tell he was making the teller nervous as he leaned towards her at the counter. He knew he was on camera, and his dirty baseball cap wasn’t much of a disguise. He’d shaved his mustache and beard off last night in the motel room. He also shaved off all of his hair with a pair of electric clippers he’d bought at Wal-Mart. It wasn’t enough though. He was going to get caught. Eventually the police were going to come out of the shadows somewhere, guns drawn, and then they were going to arrest him. Of course they were going to beat the shit out of him somewhere between the cop car and the jail. He would eventually go to prison; maybe he would even get the death penalty.

  But the police never came. Adam’s body wasn’t found until late the next afternoon after extensive searching. The parents had no idea why Adam had been riding on that road so late at night—or so they said.

  By the time Adam’s body had been found, Jack had already stocked up some supplies in a duffel bag he’d bought, and he was already heading west.

  Jack didn’t know where he was going . . . he was just running. He couldn’t contact anyone that he knew. He destroyed his cell phone and threw the pieces off a bridge into a river. He knew he would have to ditch his pickup truck at some point and then proceed on foot.

  It was only two weeks later when he’d first seen Adam. The boy was just standing on a street corner, staring at him with that one good eye he had left that was set in that mask of caked gore. But Jack could see the expression in the boy’s eye . . . anger, rage, a burning need for vindication.

  Jack ran when he saw the boy. He headed farther west. He hitchhiked and then stayed in a small town for a while. He worked an odd job, but the boy found him again.

  And again in the next town.

  Every time Jack saw the boy, he was a little closer. Jack knew that he couldn’t let the boy get too close to him—he couldn’t let the boy touch him.

  “Leave me alone!” Jack had screamed at the boy one time.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack had wailed at the boy another time. “I’m so sorry.”

  No one else could see the boy—Jack realized that after the first few times—but the boy was real even though nobody else could see him.

  Now Jack was on the move again, already into Oregon, heading towards the Pacific Ocean. He’d gone from one coast to another in the last few months.

  After Jack got out of Ralph’s semi-truck, he stayed in Portland for a few days. But then he moved south, moving on down the coastline. He found some work in a small town. He met another woman in a bar, a lonely woman who was okay with Jack moving on eventually . . . but inside, she knew that she could change him, love him enough to make him want to stay.

  Jack stayed at the woman’s house. Her name wasn’t important. They drank together. Jack drank a lot now. She made love, but to Jack it was just sex, just a duty to perform, just a release for him. What used to be pleasures in life were just dull and gray things now. And there was always that dread in the back of his mind that the boy would show up again soon.

  After a few more drinks, Jack lay on the woman’s bed, nearly drifting off to sleep. The boy haunted Jack’s dreams as relentlessly as he haunted his waking moments.

  Jack woke up in the dark and saw the boy—he was so close now, standing right beside the bed, hovering over him. Jack backed away from the boy, scoo
ting back towards the headboard, rousing the woman next to him.

  “Mmmm,” she murmured. “You okay?”

  Jack glanced at the woman, and then back at the boy. His breath was caught in his throat as he stared at the boy, the gore on his face a dark and shiny mask in the moonlight. Jack’s heart hammered in his chest, the blood a drumbeat in his ears. His mouth was dry with fear. He was unable to say anything to the boy, unable to form words.

  Then the boy was across the room, standing in the doorway. He curled a finger. Come here, that gesture said: Follow me.

  What do you want? Jack almost whispered, but he still couldn’t get the words out.

  “I want to show you something,” the boy whispered, his askew jaw moving strangely.

  It would never end, Jack thought. The boy would just keep coming back and coming back. Eventually that boy was going to touch him, and then Jack might die of fright . . . or guilt. His heart would stop in his chest.

  He didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t run anymore. He got up and walked towards the boy. He needed to see what the boy wanted to show him.

  His name was Adam, Jack told himself. He was only eleven years old. He shouldn’t have been riding his bicycle on that lonely road at dusk . . . his parents should’ve been watching him more closely.

  You should’ve been watching the road instead of playing with your phone. You shouldn’t have downed all those beers at that birthday party. You shouldn’t have been speeding on that narrow road through the woods.

  “You okay?” the woman asked again, her words still slurred from the vodka. She was already going back to sleep.

  Jack didn’t bother answering her. He slipped his jeans on, keeping his eyes on the boy in the doorway the whole time. After he had his pants on, Jack shoved his socked feet into his sneakers. He put on a blue flannel shirt over his T-shirt. He was ready to follow the boy now. The boy slipped from the doorway deeper into the darkness of the house.

  Jack followed the boy through the house, to the front door, then outside to the street. They walked down the street towards the town, Jack keeping at least ten paces behind the boy. It was late, but there were still a few cars and trucks driving around—maybe even some cops on patrol. He might look like some kind of drunk walking around out here, and maybe he was still a little drunk. What would he tell a cop if one pulled up beside him, leaning out his window? Tell him that he was following this dead boy that only he could see?

  “I’m sorry,” Jack told the boy as they walked through the darkness. The air was cold, and the stars were bright in the night sky.

  The boy didn’t answer. He didn’t turn around.

  But Jack kept following. All this time he’d been running from the boy, and now he was following him.

  “What do you want?” Jack asked, crying now, his vision blurry with tears. “What do you want me to do? Turn myself in? Tell them where my truck is?”

  Still no answer from the boy.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” Jack cried, and he was telling the truth. He couldn’t take this anymore. He couldn’t take the running, the weight of the guilt. He would go to prison. He just wanted to tell the truth now.

  The boy stopped.

  Jack stopped.

  It was like the boy had heard Jack’s words. The boy turned around slowly and stared at Jack with the one good eye he had left. He lifted his arm up and curled his finger at him again: Come here.

  Jack hesitated.

  The boy curled his finger again. “Come closer,” the boy whispered even though his ruined mouth hadn’t even moved.

  Jack began walking forward. The boy was going to touch him now . . .

  “I’m ready,” Jack cried through sobs as he walked across the street towards the boy.

  There was a blinding flash of light and the blaring horn of a semi-truck. Jack stood there in the road, and in those last few seconds he saw the driver of the truck behind the windshield. It was Ralph, and he had a smile of satisfaction on his face now, a smile of revenge.

  I need to get back to my boy, Ralph had said in the semi-truck when he’d given Jack a ride. He needs me.

  Jack looked one last time at the boy standing at the side of the road before the truck slammed into him, and now he knew what Adam had wanted all along.

  This is another one of the newer stories in this collection. I had an idea of a man who wandered from town to town, never settling down, always running from a secret . . . he had killed someone . . . a kid.

  And from there the story kind of unfolded for me. Although the plot of this story is not exactly original (but what stories are truly original anymore—it seems anything can be compared to something else), it was still something I wanted to write, my take on this somewhat common ghostly idea in horror and suspense. Was the ghost of the boy ever really there, or was the man only seeing his guilt personified? Had Ralph been tracking Jack at the same time the boy was? Was the ghost of Adam helping his father find Jack? I like to believe the ghost of Adam was real, but that’s up to you.

  THE LIGHTHOUSE

  It takes . . . it takes and it doesn’t want to give back. You have to take it back.

  Richie remembered the old man’s words whispered from cracked lips, through rotting teeth.

  Just a whisper.

  “I’m only trying to help.” That’s what the old man had told Richie that night.

  Richie opened his eyes as he lay in bed. Marla wasn’t next to him. He wasn’t really sure where his wife was—somewhere else in the house, he guessed. He wasn’t really sure if he cared where she was right now.

  His only thoughts were of Lizzy, his dead daughter. Only nine years old and washed out to sea.

  The sea had taken her. She was out there deep down in that cold black darkness somewhere. And sometimes the sea doesn’t like to give back.

  “I can help you get her back,” the old man had whispered to Richie after he had pushed him away three nights ago. Richie had continued on with his drunken stagger after wallowing in pity at the Crook’s Den Bar up on the “Hill” in town.

  He only took a few more shuffling steps forward before the old man’s words hit him, before they’d really sunk into his alcohol-soaked brain.

  “Whaddidyousay?” Richie slurred as he turned back around towards the old man, nearly tipping over in the process.

  And now Richie remembered seeing the old man in a new light just then. The old man didn’t seem like a harmless and feeble old man anymore. Suddenly, he looked a little taller, a little stronger. There was a look of confidence in his eyes and a look of slight amusement.

  Even though Richie’s mind was numbed with the alcohol, he still felt a chill running through his body, and he felt the buzzing of electricity on his skin in the salty night air. Everything around him seemed to stop for a moment. The sound of the surf only a few blocks away was replaced with the blood rushing in his ears.

  He had wanted to rush at the old man that night and shake him for saying such a thing to him, for mocking his sweet little girl’s death, and worst of all, for giving him a split-second flicker of hope.

  But Richie hadn’t rushed at the man. He wouldn’t admit it to himself that night, but tonight, as he lay in bed in the darkness, he realized that he was somewhat afraid of the old man who was half his size and twice his age. A quiet power seemed to hum from the old man at such a low frequency that Richie couldn’t hear it—but he could feel it.

  In the next few moments the old man claimed to know long-forgotten ways of the dark arts. Whether used for good or evil, it didn’t matter; these skills were only tools, and tools themselves were neither good nor bad. Richie couldn’t remember everything the man had said that night . . . only bits and pieces.

  Richie walked along with the old man; they walked up to his shack tucked away in the woods up in the hills that overlooked the small coastal Maine town. The lighthouse dominated the rocky shore in the distance behind them, its light shining a beam out at the endless black ocean—the same ocean that had s
wallowed his daughter only a few days before.

  The rest of that night in the old man’s shack was now a blur in Richie’s memory, and he could only recall fragments of it. He remembered that the old man had asked for blood, and Richie had surrendered his arm and let the old man pierce something into his vein to drain some blood out. The old man had asked Richie to repeat phrases. He had repeated those phrases that he didn’t understand. The old man had asked for a photo of Lizzy, and Richie had given the old man the photo he carried in his wallet. The old man had killed some kind of bird, maybe a chicken, for a sacrifice of sorts. He made Richie drink something, but he was still reeling from all the bourbon he drank earlier in the evening. Richie remembered the old man staring at him with his coal-black eyes, smiling at him with a wide grin of rotted teeth.

  “What now?” Richie had asked the old man, feeling suddenly even drowsier. Had it been the liquor finally overwhelming him, or had it been the concoction that the old man had asked him to drink?

  “Now you wait,” the old man had whispered. “She will come back to you in three nights.”

  Two nights had passed. Tonight was the third night. He waited in his bedroom on the bed as the surf pounded against the rocks two hundred yards away from the house. The lighthouse’s beam of light washed over the bedroom window with a reliable rhythm every sixty-six seconds.

  He hated the lighthouse. He’d been looking for work and found an ad for a lighthouse keeper in his local newspaper. He had applied and sat through several interviews. He didn’t know anything about lighthouses or the duties a keeper performed. The interviewer assured him that his lack of knowledge really didn’t matter, they were just looking for a family that didn’t mind staying in the home next to the lighthouse in this small coastal town with nothing to do and eight months of harsh winter. All he had to do was live there, keep the place clean, and report anything that needed repaired.

  Richie was desperate—he took the job.

  He moved his family up here to this small Maine town at the top of the world. Their two girls, Alyssa and Lizzy, were excited about the beach. When they’d first arrived here, it was still warm enough to go to the beach and to go swimming in the ocean, but it wouldn’t last long. Soon, it would be so bitterly cold, just stepping outside would be a chore.