After Darkness Falls - 10 Tales of Terror - Volume one

by Matt Drabble

  “You shut your filthy mouth you little whore,” Mother said rounding on her. “And get out of here.”

  “Perhaps I’ll wait downstairs for you Randall,” she said backing out of the room slowly.

  “You just get out of here harlot,” Mother said following her out into the hallway.

  Jennifer kept backing away as Mother followed her. The crazy bitch was only wearing a thin lace nightdress and Jennifer could see far more than she wanted to through it.

  “You come sniffing around my boy with your wet panties looking to lead him astray,” Mother barked. “Don’t think that I don’t know what you are,” she said jabbing a bony at Jennifer’s chest. “Whore, jezebel, tramp.”

  Jennifer tried hard to maintain her own temper. Normally she would have clawed the crazy bitch’s eyes out by now, but she had to stay in character. She could feel Randall’s unease at her treatment and she needed to drive that wedge in further between mother and son. “But I love your son Mrs. Chase,” she pleaded.

  “Liar,” Mother snapped as she kept moving forward.

  Jennifer found herself pressed up against the banister railings. “It’s true.”

  “Lying whore,” Mother spat.

  “Stop it,” Randall whispered.

  “Lying filthy whore,” Mother hissed.

  “Stop it” Randall said a little louder.

  “You will never touch my son again, do you hear me? Never!” She screamed.

  “Stop it,” Randall said strongly.

  “He will never leave my side and he will never see you again, never, ever EVER!”

  Jennifer cringed as the crazy broad raised a skeletal hand to strike her.

  “STOP IT!” Randall roared as he stepped forward, still holding Mother’s cane. The stick was suddenly raised and brought down hard on his mother’s skull with 54 years of buried hatred and swallowed bile.

  Jennifer could see it happening but she was powerless to stop it. Randall lifted the cane and brought it down harder and harder again and again. Mother’s face shattered under the blows and her thin skin split. Jennifer looked on in horror as the wooden stick struck frail bone and the old woman’s skull caved in on one side. Blood ran into her steely grey eyes and she staggered backwards, striking the banister hard. The poorly maintained wooden spindles splintered and collapsed even under her meager weight. One second Mother was staring at her with her flint eyes and raw aggression, and the next she was through the railings and airborne. She plummeted about 20 feet without a sound down to the ceramic tiled floor. Jennifer heard the wet splat on the ground and the shatter of frail bones.

  Randall stood with an open mouthed silent scream. His eyes were wide and full of shock. He looked down at his own hands in disbelief at the violence they had caused. “Mother? Mother?” He whispered hoarsely.

  “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Jennifer repeated over and over again in shock.

  Randall suddenly broke and ran down the stairs.

  His movement snapped Jennifer into action and she chased after him. “Don’t touch her Randall,” she shouted after him. “Don’t touch the body.”

  He wasn’t listening and she reached him quickly. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled hard as they reached Mother. Jennifer was no doctor, but there was no way that the old bat could have still been kicking with her head twisted at such a grotesque angle.

  Mother was lying face down but her head was twisted to one side. It wasn’t the first dead body that she had seen, but it was the first that she couldn’t simply run away from.

  “What have I done?” Randall sobbed. “What are we going to do?” He asked as he turned to her.

  Jennifer felt in that moment how Randall was transferring his need to be controlled and ordered around onto her. She felt a stab of anger towards him for being so useless. He had caused this mess and now he wanted her to clean it up for him. “Let me think, let me think for a minute,” she snapped. “Does she have any friends? Any visitors?”

  “No,” Randall replied distantly.

  “No-one at all? No relatives, no doctor, no mailmen that she speaks to on a regular basis?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ok, ok, we might still be alright,” Jennifer said trying to calm herself. “We just have to sort the body out. She can’t be found here, the police will be able to tell what happened. What you did,” she said pointedly.

  “Is she going to be alright?” Randall asked hopefully.

  “Alright? ALRIGHT!” You fucking killed her you moron,” Jennifer yelled. She regretted her tone immediately as Randall’s face crumpled into tears. What ever happened, she still needed him and needed his compliance. “I’m sorry baby,” she cooed as she stroked his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Randall said quietly.

  “It’s ok, it’s all going to be ok,” she said softly. “I’m going to take care of her and of us. Nothing and no-one is going to hurt you again while I’m here, ok?”

  “Ok,” he sniffed.

  “We have got our whole lives ahead of us Randall. We’re going to get married and have children and live somewhere hot and sandy. It’s going to be the good life from now on Randall baby, the good life all the way.”

  He nodded slowly in reply.

  “We can have everything Randall, everything that you’ve ever dreamed of. You just have to be strong for me now. Can you do that? Can you be strong for me, for us?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly.

  “Right, now help me drag her out to the car.”

  Jennifer drove slowly. The last thing she wanted was to attract any undue attention. The car was luxurious and expensive and Jennifer hated the thought of having to get rid of it. She made a mental note to get another model after the wedding.

  It would have made more sense for Randall to have driven the car, but there was no way that she could trust him. He was whole bucket of useless and she had left him blubbing back at the house. He had assured her that despite Mother’s advanced years her driving license was still current and that the car, like everything else, was in her name. If the old bat had just have fallen down the stairs then they could have called the police and reported a simple accident. But Randall had ruined that by caving the bitch’s head in with her walking stick.

  She drove the car out past the edges of town. Fortunately the Chase house was already largely on its own and not overlooked by potential witnesses. There was a beauty spot only a couple of miles away that was high above town and with a handy high drop that was perfect for an accident.

  She headed up the hill and prayed for the spot to be deserted. Her prayers were answered as the parking area was empty. She was pleased with her coolness under pressure and while her plan wasn’t perfect, it was the best that she could manage.

  The area had been more adopted as a beauty spot than landscaped as one. As such there weren’t any crash barriers surround the edges of the drop. She pulled up to the edge and parked. Mother was shoved into the back seat with a carrier bag wrapped around her head wound to stop any bloodstains getting on the rear seating that would raise a cop’s red flag.

  She pulled the corpse across to the driver’s seat and remembered to adjust the seat to fit Mother’s frame. She wedged the bloody cane against the gas pedal and the idling engine gave a throaty roar. She lowered the window and shut the driver’s door. She stood there and tried to think of anything that she might have missed. The drop was steep and the car should be destroyed under the fall. She hoped that it was not only in movies where crashed cars burst into flames on impact.

  She decided that it was now or never and reached in through the window. The stretch was farther than she had hoped and she had to lean in to reach. Her fingers gripped the lever and she readied herself to jump back and out before the car went over. Suddenly everything went into slow motion.

  Just as she pushed the lever up a vice like grip took hold of her wrist. She stared in disbelief as Mother’s broken neck rolled li
ke it was on ball bearings and her head fell towards Jennifer. Inexplicably she was still somehow clinging to life despite her horrific injuries, and whatever vestige of life was left in the old woman was used to exact her bitter revenge. The blood was crusty around her caved in skull and her skin was ivory white.

  The car started to lurch forward and Jennifer screamed as she was dragged with it. She was staring into Mother’s steely grey eyes as the old woman’s death grip held her wrist in an unbreakable hold. The car went over the edge and they plummeted forever downwards.

  ----------

  Randall was waiting in the dark when a car approached. He looked up in puzzlement as Jennifer had told him the plan to stage the accident which included the car going over the cliff. He heard footsteps crunching up the gravel drive until heavy fists pounded on the front door.

  He stood and walked still in dazed shock. He opened the door to blue flashing lights and two men in uniform.

  “Mr. Chase?” One of them asked and Randall nodded. “I’m afraid that there’s been an accident.”

  ----------

  TWO MONTHS LATER

  Randall danced around like a cat on a hot tin roof. His clothes were clean and pressed and he wanted to look his best for her, today was the day.

  8 weeks ago the police had informed him that his mother and another woman had been involved in a car accident. His mother had perished in the crash but there had been another woman with her who had miraculously been thrown clear on the way down. The young woman had suffered multiple injuries, but by the grace of God she was had survived. The police had informed him that there was nothing suspicious about the accident, just an unfortunate case of an elderly woman who really shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. Randall’s tears at the news had been all too real, especially once he’d learned of Jennifer’s fate.

  Amongst her numerous relatively minor injuries, there was a far more serious issue. Apparently when she had been thrown clear as the car went over, she had landed against a tree and the branches had struck her full in the face. Jennifer had lost both eyes in the accident and Randall had wept for her.

  He knew that she had planned for their future together, but he had been further shocked to learn through the family solicitor that the Chase fortune was gone. Mother had been living in the house on a meager existence. His father’s empire had crumbled and been bankrupted years ago. They were broke and now all he had was the house that was falling down around his ears. He knew that Jennifer was going to be disappointed about the money, but they had each other and he knew that would be enough.

  He clasped the flowers that he’d bought from the hospital’s gift shop hard. He smoothed down his hair and prepared himself outside of her room. Today was the day when the bandages came off.

  It seemed oddly appropriate that Mother had turned out to have saved Jennifer. The doctors had explained to him that due to recent changes in the health care system, it now operated an “opt out” system for organ donations. Mother was an optical match and would allow Jennifer to see again from beyond the grave and Randall took this as a sign of her overdue blessing. His heart had been nearly broken whenever he tried to remember what had happened that night. His coping mechanism was simply to lock the event away somewhere down deep where he couldn’t pick at the scab.

  He pushed open the hospital room door and walked in. Dr Singh was already starting to unwind the white bandages from around Jennifer’s head. She had been quiet since the accident and the doctors had assured him that she would get better once they found out if the transplant had been a success.

  Randall danced from foot to foot as the bandages came off. Jennifer’s eyelids were clamped shut and Dr Singh told her to open them carefully as he dimmed the lights.

  “Darling?” Randall whispered quietly.

  Slowly Jennifer opened her eyes and Randall sucked in his breath as the steely grey eyes staring back at him seemed to fix and hold him. “Darling, has it worked?” He asked nervously. “Can you see?”

  “Oh yes,” Jennifer said strangely in a voice that wasn’t quite her own. “I see you, I see Mommy’s little soldier,” Mother answered and Randall started to scream.

  tale 9.

  “trick or trick”

  Donald Segel twitched his curtains irritably as the hoards gathered apace in the street outside. His mouth curled in anger at the freeloaders masquerading under the cover of innocence. He wasn’t fooled by the outward appearance or guiltless faces, he knew exactly what they were up to. He’d fought in the big war and he knew evil when he saw it, but he had a surprise for them tonight; oh yes he had a surprise in store alright.

  He stepped away from the window and rubbed his hands gleefully. He had waited a whole year for this night to come around again. Last year he had been subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of these monsters and his pleas for justice had fallen on deaf ears. They’d even had the temerity to laugh at his demands for arrests and punishments. He was a war hero who had fought for this country that now no longer resembled the one that he had sacrificed so much for. His neighborhood had once been a paragon of virtue but now the hearts and the faces were darker. He didn’t care how many crime statistics they presented him that showed crime was down. He didn’t care how many of his neighbors had welcomed the changes to the street with open arms, he knew deep down that he was right. He knew that they would be the ones to suffer in the end. He would keep his guard up and never surrender.

  He was an old man of 79 and bitterness had long since taken root and rotted his insides away. He was estranged from his only son and by proxy his grandchildren, but he didn’t care. His son had married someone outside of his gene pool and that had been enough for Donald to cut the child free from his life. His wife had left him several years ago, stating that he was paranoid and becoming scary, but as far as he was concerned it was goodbye to bad rubbish. He didn’t need her or his worthless son, they could all go hang.

  It was an increasingly isolated life as he withdrew from his surroundings. His army pension was sufficient and he owned his own home. As far as he was concerned it was the only thing stopping “Them” from walking in and throwing him out in the street. There were a lot of “Them” in his life. Whether it was the girl at the post office or the bag boy at the supermarket, he knew that they were all laughing at him behind his back.

  Last Halloween he had been targeted by “Them”. They had sent their children of all the low down dirty tricks, and the monsters had hounded him all night long. Tiny fists had hammered away at his door with their begging bowls. When he had quite rightly ignored their demands he had heard the thuds of eggs smashing into his windows and his garbage cans being strewn about the road. He had tried to grab his service revolver from the bureau and justifiably defend his property, but “They” had been long gone. He had called the police and foolishly placed his trust in their hands, only to find their attitude dismissive and patronizing. He didn’t care that there was only one egg on his window, it just meant that the brats had poor aim. He had approached the neighborhood council to have “Trick or Treating” banned, but he had been met with contemptuous scorn and derision. They hadn’t come out and directly said it, they were too clever for that, but he knew that they were hiding behind their politeness and feigned concern for his state of mind.

  This year things were going to be different. He knew that he was going to be targeted like never before. His first thought had been to sit on his porch, cocked and loaded for the first sign of trouble. This was still his country and a man had the right to defend his home. But a flash of sly intelligence had told him that was exactly what “They” wanted; a way to lock him away in some loony bin and throw away the key. No he was too smart for that to happen. Instead he had played them at their own game. He had sourced the most popular candy at all of the local stores. He had smiled and chatted with the clerks, playing the part of the doddery old man. Once he had brought the giant sacks of candy home, he had made some improvements to his bounty. He had sp
ent hour after hour carefully unwrapping the candy so as not to damage the sweets. He had pushed tiny shards of broken glass and jagged metal into the candy and then delicately re-wrapped them. He knew that once the brats had their buckets filled with the candy that most people were handing out there would be no way to tell just who had supplied the ones with the special prizes.

  He rocked back and forth on his well worn armchair that he had moved into the hallway facing the front door. His bag of treats was sitting in his lap and the smile felt permanently tattooed to his face. All he had to do was wait; wait for their greedy grubby hands and sticky fingers to seal their own fate.

  He started to laugh as he rocked, low chuckles that rolled into great guffaws. At some point a small corner of his mind tugged at him wondering just what the hell he was doing. But he shut that off quickly, it was only “Them” talking after all.

  His ears pricked at the sound of small tapping footsteps drawing near. He clutched his bag in eager anticipation waiting for the knock, but the footsteps passed by and his door lay untouched. He frowned in puzzlement as the giggling young voices skipped by. A second group followed suit and then a third. He couldn’t believe it. Instead of feeling pleased that his house was going to be unmolested, he felt cheated, cheated of his vengeance and that was just what “They” wanted.

  He stood and walked to the door. He opened it out into the night and stood on his porch clutching his sack of special treats.

  The street was filled with laughing, screaming children running and playing as their natural exuberance was augmented by their sugary intake. Tiny pirates leapt and fought with plastic swords as princesses danced and twirled. Adults held tenuous grips on their wards as excitement levels outweighed parental control.

  Donald could see that his house on the block was the only one being given a wide berth as parents shooed their kids past his lawn. His special candy was all going to go to waste at this rate.