Razorblade Dreams: Horror Stories

by Mark Lukens

  The man had on black pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, and black boots. A leather hood was over his head, tied up in back, a crisscrossing of leather strings.

  He was turning around with the bloodstained knife in his gloved hand . . .

  Cassie jolted awake, sitting bolt-upright in bed. Her cats were as startled as she was. The TV was still on, the sound turned down low, the rest of the lights in the bedroom off.

  It was just a dream. Just a dream, that’s all.

  For a moment Cassie wasn’t sure if she was still in the dream or not. Was this reality? For a sickening moment, she wasn’t sure. She was afraid she might hear that man in black humming a tune in her kitchen, getting his knives and dishes ready for his surprise.

  “It was just a dream,” she told herself, her voice sounding loud to her own ears. But she needed to speak, she needed to do something to show that she was in control of her own body, something to prove to herself that this was real and not a dream.

  “It was just a dream,” she told herself again in her shaky voice. Her cats were okay—they were staring at her from the foot of the bed, they weren’t slaughtered on her countertop in the kitchen. Everything was okay.

  Cassie jumped when her cell phone beside her bed rang. She stared at the phone, watching it light up as it rang again. She didn’t need to get closer to the screen of the phone to see that there wasn’t a phone number there, only a word in capital letters: RESTRICTED.

  The phone rang again.

  It was him. The man from her nightmares was calling, the man who wore the mask.

  She wasn’t going to answer it. No way was she going to answer it.

  The phone finally stopped ringing, and she knew it was going to voicemail now. He was probably listening to her cheerful request to leave a message.

  After a few minutes the phone emitted a soft beep, letting her know that she had a new voicemail.

  She didn’t want to touch the phone. She didn’t even want to look at it.

  The person calling her and leaving these messages wasn’t the man from her dream. She had to be rational about this. This man had begun harassing her, and she’d just applied him to her nightmares, masking him and dressing him in black—making him even scarier in her dreams. Yeah, that made sense . . .

  . . . except that she’d begun dreaming about the man in black before this guy started calling her and leaving these messages.

  But maybe not. Maybe her memory—which was usually very trustworthy—was a little screwed up, and she was falsely remembering him being in the dreams before he called. It could be possible.

  She picked up the phone and checked the message, listening. But there was no message, just the hint of someone breathing on the phone. Then the message ended.

  Cassie was relieved that the man hadn’t left a message. But she also felt unnerved, like she could feel his patient anger through his heavy breaths on the phone, an anger that was slowly building.

  She nearly dropped the phone as she was setting it back down on the table because it began ringing in her hand. She set it down and stared at the screen. RESTRICTED. He was calling again. She sat on the side of her bed, staring at the phone as it rang again and again. She was almost tempted to answer it, tempted to scream into the phone, scream at him to leave her alone.

  Turn the phone off—that’s what she would do. It wouldn’t stop him from leaving voice messages, but at least she wouldn’t have to listen to it ring all night. And she would unplug her home phone, too. She didn’t think he had her home phone number, but right now if anyone called she was afraid she might scream.

  Her cats were still curled up at the foot of her bed, staring at her through half-closed eyes like they were waiting for her drama to end so they could go back to sleep.

  Cassie thought about getting up and checking the rest of the house, checking the doors again even though she knew damn well that they were locked. Maybe she would check the windows again, too.

  A ding from her phone got her attention—it wasn’t the voicemail sound; this was the sound of a text message.

  She felt almost like another person, like she was watching someone else’s arm reach for her cell phone. She picked it up and opened the text message. There was no text, only a photo of the front of her house taken in the early afternoon light.

  *

  Cassie didn’t sleep the rest of the night. She got up and checked the doors and windows. Minky and Slinky followed her, both of them thinking she might be opening the sliding glass door that led out to the screened-in porch, but no way was she opening that door right now; she didn’t care how many tantrums the cats pulled, she didn’t care if they shredded up her sofa right now.

  She made coffee, drank half a pot of it. And at exactly seven o’clock a.m. she called her boss and told him that she would be running a little late. He didn’t ask why, or show any concern, just annoyance, and then there was a click as he hung up.

  The next call she made was to the police.

  The officer took his time getting to her house, probably because she hadn’t dialed 911, but the police station itself. The cop was middle-aged, a little heavyset, and he moved with a cocky slowness. But his eyes were sharp. He seemed friendly, but that friendliness also seemed false, and she could sense a suspiciousness coming from him that a lot of cops seemed to develop after years on the job.

  After Cassie explained the harassing phone calls, she let him listen to the two voicemails (one was only the heavy breathing). She showed him the photo of her house in the text. She sat back and waited for the cop to jump on the horn and call for backup, put out an APB on this stalker.

  But he didn’t do that. Instead, he told her that there wasn’t really much he could do.

  “What do you mean?” she asked him.

  He told her he couldn’t trace a restricted number, and he couldn’t tap into cell phone records without a warrant. Odds were, he told her, that this guy was using a pay-by-the-month phone, sometimes called a throwaway phone or a burner phone. He might even be some kind of hacker who was bouncing the phone number all around the world.

  “But he took a photo of my house and sent it to me.”

  Nothing really illegal about that, he informed her. Until this man actually threatened her, or she could ID him, there wasn’t much to be done about it.

  So, she would have to wait until this maniac broke into her home and tried to kill her?

  The officer was apologetic and seemed antsy to get on to some “real” police work. At the front door, he said two things: he reiterated that there wasn’t anything he could do, and he told her to call 911 if anything else happened.

  *

  Cassie’s day got worse. Her boss was still pissed off that she was even later than she had planned. She’d made an error with a client’s numbers yesterday, and he chewed her out about that. She was groggy and preoccupied, making mistakes.

  She bought two bottles of wine on the way home along with a few other groceries, walking the aisles on autopilot, avoiding going back home for as long as she could. She didn’t make any dinner when she got home . . . she opened one of the bottles of wine and began drinking. She was going to sleep tonight, damn it.

  Hours later Cassie was buzzed. She had finished one bottle of wine and started on the other one. She had picked at some snacks for dinner and turned on the TV in her bedroom. And before she knew it she was asleep, and then she was . . .

  . . . dreaming.

  In her dream, she was trapped inside a dark building, like some kind of abandoned factory . . . something from a horror movie. There were strange multi-colored lights everywhere and steam hissing from gigantic pipes that were attached to the walls, those massive metal pipes disappearing deeper into the darkness.

  The man was following her—he was dressed all in black, like a living shadow. He’d been right behind her, chasing her, shouting at her: “Cassie, I’ve been trying to call you . . .”

  Cassie turned a corner, but this nightmare maze seemed to go
on forever. She chanced a look behind her, but he wasn’t there. She turned back around and slid to a stop.

  He was right in front of her with a large opened straight razor in his gloved hand. “I’ve been trying to call you, but you won’t answer.”

  Cassie snapped awake, sitting up like a piston in the darkness . . . but not complete darkness because she’d left the bathroom light on. The bathroom door was almost closed but still allowing enough light for her to see the bedroom all around her.

  Her heart was beating fast again, like she’d been running (just like she had been in her dream). Her skin had that clammy, tingly feeling of fear that she’d come to know so well these last few days.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself.

  Her cats were at the foot of her king-sized bed, but they were both up, their ears perked. But they weren’t staring at her—they were both staring at the bathroom door. There were noises coming from her bathroom; it was like someone was moving around in there.

  Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember leaving the bathroom light on before she went to bed. Had she left it on?

  More noises came from the bathroom.

  Cassie was about to reach for her cell phone on the table next to her bed, but then her cats jumped. Slinky hissed at the foot of the bed, her fur standing up, her tail puffed up like a bottlebrush. There was something below the bed on the floor that was scaring both of her cats.

  And then her stalker rose up from beyond the foot of the bed . . . dressed all in black just like he’d been in the dream, that leather mask tied tightly around his head, holes for his mouth, nostrils, and eyes . . . eyes that were shining brightly and insanely in the meager light coming from the bathroom. A smile of sadistic glee formed as he seemed not to stand up but to levitate from the darkness below the bed, like the shadows had been swirling below her bed and forming into a solid thing . . . into him.

  He had a straight razor opened up in his hand, the blade sharp and shining in the light from the bathroom.

  “Cassieeee,” he whispered, dragging out the end her name.

  And then he was flying through the air at her, that lunatic smile still spread across his face even though the corners of his wide mouth were hidden by the edges of the mouth hole of his mask.

  He swiped at her with the straight razor.

  Cassie was too petrified to move. She just watched the razorblade coming, everything seeming to move in slow-motion.

  “Goodbye,” the man told her as he swung the blade at her throat.

  Cassie jumped awake with the sound of the man’s word echoing in her ears, thrumming in her bones. With quick, panicky movements she clawed at the lamp next to the bed. The bathroom light wasn’t on like it had been in the dream (but oh God, she was going to leave that light on from now on—she couldn’t wake up in the darkness like this again).

  Now that the blessed light illuminated her bedroom, she saw that no one was in the bedroom with her. The cats were at the foot of the bed just like they’d been in the dream, only now they were looking at her with wide eyes of surprise, jolted awake just now when she’d sat bolt-upright in bed.

  Cassie finally got her breathing under control and looked at the alarm clock. It was only two o’clock in the morning. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to go back to sleep now, but she needed sleep so badly. She was exhausted, her muscles felt weak and she was getting some small tremors in her calf and forearm muscles. Her eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand in them; she massaged them with her knuckles.

  And then she burst out crying.

  Her sobs were unexpected. She hadn’t even known she was about to cry. But she was so tired, and worse, she didn’t even feel like herself anymore. It was both an odd and terribly frightening feeling. She didn’t usually cry much, and she wasn’t usually scared by much. But this person stalking her was really getting to her, nagging at her subconscious.

  *

  The next two nights Cassie barely got any sleep. Every time she fell asleep the man in black would be there waiting for her, waiting to terrorize her until she snapped awake again. On the third night she took a sleep aid, but the pills only knocked her out for a few hours, and during that time she was trapped inside the nightmare before she could finally jolt herself awake.

  She was so tired. She felt like a zombie, like she was just drifting along through her day. Her feet felt like they were floating a few inches above the floor, her head as light as a balloon. It was difficult to concentrate, and she was beginning to see quick flashes of movement out of the corners of her eyes (Him! it’s him! He found me at work!). But when she turned to look, there was no one there.

  The man called again, and this time she picked up the phone and screamed into it. “What do you want with me?”

  “Sweet dreams?” the man asked in his raspy voice.

  “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  “How are your kitties doing?” the man asked.

  “I’ve called the police,” Cassie told the man as she paced from her bedroom to the kitchen, then to the family room, watching all of the windows as she walked, her eyes darting constantly. “I told them all about you.”

  The threat didn’t seem to bother the man. “Your cats—what are their names? Slinky and Minky, I think? Right?”

  She stopped walking, her heart freezing for a moment in her chest. “How do you know that?”

  “Remember when you saw me in the kitchen with your cats?” the man asked, his voice just a raspy whisper now.

  “What . . . how do you know . . .?”

  “I know what you dream because I’m there in your dreams.”

  “No . . .” she whispered. “That’s not true.” Her voice sounded so far away to her own ears . . . weak, defeated.

  “You know it’s true,” the man said in a conversational tone. “You saw me in your kitchen with your dead cats on the countertop. I was making something for you. A surprise. You never gave me a chance to finish it and show it to you.”

  Cassie hurried over to the sliding glass door and pushed the vertical blinds aside a little, staring out at her backyard.

  “You saw me in your bedroom a few nights ago,” he said, his voice even lower. “At the foot of your bed. I had a straight razor in my hand.”

  Cassie didn’t say anything; her voice was lost for a moment. She remembered the dream, the masked man at the foot of her bed, rising up from the darkness in the glow of light from her bathroom, the straight razor clutched in one gloved hand. Those eyes . . . that cruel smile . . .

  “I’ve been in your dreams, and I’ll keep coming back. I’ll keep bringing sharp things with me.”

  “Why?” Cassie asked, the word cracking in her throat. She almost broke into a sob. “Why are you doing this?”

  He hung up.

  She looked at the phone like she couldn’t believe he’d hung up on her. She was about to redial, her thumb moving to the buttons, but then she remembered that his number was restricted. She couldn’t dial him back.

  What did he want?

  *

  Cassie drifted through Monday at work. Her workload was a lot lighter now because her boss had rescheduled many of her clients after she refused to take some time off even though he had practically begged her to do so. What was she going to do? Go home and sleep? At least here at work she could keep her mind off of the man terrorizing her dreams for a little while.

  At lunch Cassie took the elevator down to the ground floor. She’d brought her own lunch, and she wanted to eat outside, sit in the sunshine at the side of the building. She chose a spot on the wide, knee-high curb of a gigantic planter of trees and shrubs, her drink and sandwich next to her. But she didn’t feel like eating. She didn’t feel like doing anything except sitting here in the sun for a while.

  She wondered if her stalker might be out here. Was he watching her right now? Would he try to approach her? Not here. Too many people around. And if he really wanted to get to her, he knew where she lived. He
knew the inside of her home. He knew the names of her cats. He knew her dreams.

  Changing her thoughts, she wondered how long her boss was going to put up with this. How long before she was forced to take some time off? How long before she was finally let go? This was a competitive business, and every year there was a group of brand new college graduate hotshots vying for a job in this crowded market.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Cassie nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t even heard Zoe walk up to her on her aqua-colored spiked heels that she was wearing today. She sat down on the plant ledge next to her with a jangling of jewelry and strings of brightly-colored beads. But her heavily made up eyes were full of concern.

  “I . . . I just wanted to eat out here,” Cassie answered. She tried to force a smile. “It’s such a nice day . . .”

  “What’s wrong?” Zoe asked again, her face set, but that compassion was still in her dark eyes.

  Cassie felt like crying, and she looked away from Zoe, not able to hold her stare any longer. She tried to hold the tears back, but she couldn’t. She pressed the edge of her fingers under her nose like that might stop the tears, but then she started crying.

  Zoe hugged her, pulling her closer to her. She didn’t coo or offer words of sympathy, she just held her until she was done crying.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie said, taking a tissue out of her purse and carefully drying her eyes.

  Zoe pulled away and stared at her. “Tell me.”

  So Cassie did. By God, she told Zoe everything even as crazy as it all sounded: the dreams, the phone calls, the text with the photo of her house, the sleepless nights, the paranoia, the thought that she was losing her mind. It took nearly fifteen minutes of spilling her guts . . . and now it was all out in the open.

  “You’re being psychically attacked,” Zoe told her matter-of-factly.

  Maybe a week ago, definitely a month ago, Cassie would’ve laughed at her friend, or perhaps even been offended that Zoe expected her to believe some of her voodoo/hoodoo crap. Bur right now, at this moment, she was open to any insights Zoe might have.