Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction

by Maria Grazia Cavicchioli

  To see my neighbour turning a page in her book and shaking her head in amusement. Her eyes were on the page, not me.

  I took a deep breath and turned back to the house, wondering how the hell she could read in the gloom. I didn’t think about that for too long. The sheets were rustling, coming to life, and I had to stop that.

  Be sure your sin will find you out. Fearful is night to the guilty.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed noisily, clutching the edge of the steel drainer as I hunched over the sink with my burden. That way I couldn’t feel the kitchen spinning around me, or see the floor rear up to swallow me. My trembling fingernails made rattling noises on the drainer.

  “It’s okay, Soph,” I held a hand out to stop her taking the sheets away. “I’ll deal with it.”

  “And who’ll deal with you?” She stared in bewilderment at the damp linen in my arms. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  I squeezed the bed linen tighter. Warm, soapy water dribbled through my fingers like the blood I had spilled.

  I looked up, through the kitchen window. I could see the sun sinking rapidly behind the trees on the riverbank. I held the bed sheets tighter. Pools of water were forming on the tiled floor.

  “For God’s sake, give them here—”

  “No!” My reaction surprised her as much as it dismayed me. I turned my back on her and hunched over the soaking laundry, and then began to cry.

  I heard her storm out of the kitchen and slam the door. Her feet thudded up the stairs. I looked up from the bed sheets and sniffed.

  But the laundry was inside. That was the important thing. There would be no repeat of that other time, six months ago, when I’d left the laundry outside in the night.

  But even so, I had to be sure. I heard the slamming of a door upstairs and the shifting of the bed, the sound made when a woman flings herself onto the mattress and buries her head in the pillows, crying uncontrollably.

  That was good. She wouldn’t see what I had to do next. I reached to the knife block and pulled out the bread knife. The black plastic handle was greasy and the blade smeared with fat from the lamb I had carved yesterday. Washing up was not my greatest skill. Ironic, considering that as a surgeon, hygiene and cleanliness of my cutting instruments was the first priority. Different when it was cutting up dead meat for consumption, though.

  A quick slash on the palm, just underneath the scar from my last cut. I winced at the brief, bright pain and gritted my teeth. Then I pushed my bloody hand into the sheets.

  It’s what I did the last time. An offering, my blood given up in return for the other’s blood I’d spilled. And it seemed to have worked then, because they hadn’t come back. Until now.

  The blood soaked the sheets effortlessly, spreading out into dark brown patches that lightened, faded, and vanished. I squeezed some more of the precious fluid onto the sheets, hoping that this would be enough.

  Time would tell. And then I’d have to explain away another scar on my hand to Sophie. The lie would be even less convincing this time.

  I slept on the sofa that night. Not just because Sophie wouldn’t let me in the bedroom, but I had to stay downstairs. I had to make sure the laundry stayed where it was, on the drainer in the kitchen. If it went outside...

  Before I drifted off to sleep, images of Mrs Kritikos seeped into my mind. Mrs Kritikos doing her laundry, of all things. But not in the modern way of shoving everything in a washing machine. Instead, she was washing what looked like bed sheets in a large copper basin, up to her tiny, walnut-like elbows in steaming hot soapy water that was slowly turning a pale pink foam. Her claw-like hands moved slowly up and down, scrubbing the linen on an old wooden washboard.

  She looked up, as if aware that her actions were being observed. Milky-white, opaque eyes — dead eyes — turned in my direction. The corners of her thin mouth went up, raising the leathery, wrinkled skin of her cheeks into a smile that looked more like a sneer.

  Be sure your sin will find you out, she mouthed silently and went back to her work, humming a strange tune. The water was completely scarlet now. The harder she scrubbed the more blood came out.

  We were not alone. To either side of me I could hear shuffling noises of advancing figures, humming the same strange tune. Mrs Kritikos raised her head and smiled.

  Welcome, my sisters. Daughters of the night.

  Broken, ragged fingernails dug into my biceps, the arms of the two sisters pulling me towards the washtub with a strength that belied their age. I was pushed to my knees, my head forced down to the scarlet water and the thing hiding within.

  I woke up with a cry to a strip of silvery moonlight bathing my sweat-drenched face. My tee shirt and jeans were sodden with sweat, and made a sticky ripping sound as I pulled myself away from the leather sofa. I sat on the edge, running my fingers through my hair and making an effort to control my shaking. I leaned over and pulled the curtain shut. The moonlight vanished.

  My mouth was dry. The thought of drinking something after the memory of blood slipping down my throat wasn’t welcome, but I had to get rid of the thirst. I went to the kitchen and flicked the light switch. I blinked in the sudden glare, then with eyes half-squeezed shut I pulled a plastic beaker from the cupboard and filled it to the brim with water from the cold tap. I drank greedily. As I refilled the mug my eyes fell on the drainer and saw that the laundry had gone.

  The beaker fell from my hand and spilled water down my already damp jeans. It bounced, rolling on the tiled floor and coming to rest by the jamb of the door that led to the garden.

  The door was ajar. It shouldn’t have been. I remembered locking it before crashing on the sofa. Unless Sophie...

  I inched the door open and peered into the garden. The heat of the evening had gone, replaced with a chill breeze. The moon had disappeared behind a bank of thick cloud and the garden was in darkness. I could just make out silhouettes of the brick barbeque, the dividing wall between our house and Mrs Kritikos’, and the rotary...

  I blinked. The rotary was covered with damp bed sheets. The assembly was creaking with the weight of the wet linen, turning slowly in the post hole, and the creaking was accompanied by the steady dripping sound of water falling to the grass. They weren’t pegged out in the neat, orderly manner that Sophie always used. Instead, they’d been dumped on the top of the dryer, clumped and soaked material bulging through the rails and trailing in the dry grass. This was not my wife’s work.

  A break in the scudding clouds allowed moonlight to cast a faint glow to the laundry. The breeze grew stronger, and the linen billowed like the shrouds on a sailing vessel.

  The other definition of the word shroud came to mind. The breeze whistled mournfully through the folds of the sheets, the wind twisting them on the rotary into strange shapes. I could see that there were no clothes pegs holding the laundry to the clothes drier, and thought that it was only the weight from the dampness that was keeping them in place.

  The wind picked up and the rotary shifted, turning again with a screech of rusted metal. The shrouds were given new life, and new shapes were formed by this sudden movement.

  It took me a moment to realise what form the bed linen was taking. My attention was focussed on the spreading red stains that appeared on the sheets.

  Small, teardrop patterns of scarlet provided a grim contrast to the luminescent white cotton of the duvet and pillow covers. Teardrop patterns that increased in size and number, becoming spreading pools of the same liquid that my nightmare visitors had tried to drown me in.

  The smell of honeysuckle and roses from the garden gave way to the unmistakeable scent of freshly spilled blood. Blood that was no longer confined to stains on the laundry, but now dripped steadily onto the grass. The breeze soughed through the bleeding laundry, carrying Greek-accented words to my ears.

  Be sure your sin will find you out. Fearful is night to the guilty.

  The breeze changed direction, spinning the rotary in th
e opposite direction and sending small droplets of blood flying, spattering on the bricks of the gas barbeque. The linen ruffled again, and the form the blood-washed laundry was taking was unmistakeable. Hoods, voluminous sleeves and billowing robes. Three sets of them.

  They looked similar to monk-like habits — just like that worn by the cowled figure on the book Mrs Kritikos had lent Sophie.

  The rotary emitted a chorus of shrieks again, but this time it wasn’t in protest at the wind. It was the noise made by something within the animated laundry.

  The topmost parts of the bed sheets rose in unison. Shifting, rippling folds of linen formed into hoods that pointed in my direction. The moon was masked by another bank of thick cloud but the luminescent quality of the sheets remained, making the darkness at the centre of the hoods even blacker. A darkness that saw me.

  A darkness that imparted a terrible life-force to the material that surrounded it. The rotary drier screeched once more before crashing to the ground. The three sets of shrouds stayed upright, freed from their prison.

  Free to move. Armless sleeves raised and pointed invisible fingers at me. The wind was stronger, whipping the sheets against the things within and outlining their invisible bodies. Bodies that had a vaguely female form.

  They might have been beautiful once. But the breasts outlined were shrivelled and sagging, the arms skeletal, the female curves hollowed scoops in wasted flesh.

  The blood had stopped flowing. It was now nothing but dry, copper-coloured stains on the sheets, sheets that were still glowing from the moonlight.

  Moonlight that was no longer shining. The rest of the garden was in blackness.

  I could no longer see the fence posts, the gate or the brick barbeque. Just an all-enveloping curtain of blackness, pierced by the illumination from the horrific figures in its centre.

  I turned quickly, my breath catching in my dry throat, heading for the other source of illumination. The light from the kitchen; harsh electric illumination, but oh so welcoming. It was man-made. It was artificial, yet but it was real, and it offered shelter from those things of the night.

  Or so I thought. The door closed easily enough. The lock turned smoothly. Those things were out there in the dark, and I was in here, safe in the light.

  I sank to the floor, breathing rapidly, knowing I was close to hyperventilating. Kneeling on the still-warm kitchen tiles I let my head sink and fought to gain control of my breathing. Retinal images of the harsh ceiling light streaked across my closed eyelids like shooting stars. I pleaded mutely for them to stop, opened my eyes and choked back a sob when the retinal images stabilised. Still vague, opaque white shapes but now no longer spinning. Now I could see them approaching through the fluted glass of the kitchen door.

  Even brighter now because with a soft ‘ping’ the bulb in the kitchen light blew. I couldn’t see the green glow of the digital clock on the microwave — had that gone as well? A power cut? Even the humming of the refrigerator had gone.

  Just as in the garden, the only illumination came from the three white shrouded figures. The three shrouds that were coming through the door.

  Passing through the glass panel as though it wasn’t there. The sheets ruffled soundlessly as they entered the kitchen, looming over my crouched and cowering figure. Three arm-like segments of the white linen rose above my head, fingerless hands pointing accusingly through the blood drenched linen.

  I heard a hissing noise, like air escaping through a leaky tyre valve. I looked up into the faceless hoods. A drop of blood ran down the end of one of the folds and fell onto my upturned face. Slid into my panting mouth.

  It was warm and coppery. Freshly spilled.

  The taste triggered a reaction in me. I stood up and screamed, tearing through the nearest of the bed sheets, trying to get to the hallway. As I did so I had a sensation of immense coldness passing right through me, a slimy wall of freezing damp fog that took my warm breath away. I gagged on the stench of putrefying flesh and rotting offal, and heard the humming of feasting blowflies. The stench of death and the grave.

  A moment that lasted an eternity. A moment that was illuminated by a faint grey light that barely showed the mouldering bones and empty eye sockets that wept blood incessantly, dribbling down the fleshless cheekbones and around the lipless cavity of a mouth. The humming gave way to that hissing sound, scores of leaking air valves and now I knew what caused that sound.

  The sheets parted like curtains rotted with damp and mildew. I felt sharp claws clutching at my tee shirt, and a louder hissing from the nest of snakes that crowned the thing within the bed sheets, a reptilian chorus of anger and hatred as I made my escape.

  Be sure your sin will find you out. Fearful is night to the guilty.

  I staggered up the stairs, my shoulders bleeding from the scratches made by the thing’s invisible, skeletal fingertips, crying uncontrollably. My mouth was filled with the taste of blood and I was shaking violently, not just with terror but that bone-seeping cold that had barred my path. A cold that I knew would never leave me.

  Nothing would leave me. That’s why I knew it was pointless trying to escape. Instead of heading out of the house and away from the daughters of the night I had to go and face my crime.

  The bedroom light was on even though no other lights in the house were. They wanted me to see my sin fully, untouched by darkness.

  I heard them pause on the bottom of the stairs. The bed sheets fluttered on the newel post of the banister, ready to move upwards.

  Sophie was naked and motionless on the double bed. The mattress was bare, the bed sheets Sophie put on this morning had gone. I don’t remember taking them off.

  The knife protruded at a downward angle in between her breasts. I cried out, realising now that she had felt the guilt just as much as I had.

  The new slashes to her already scarred belly and her vagina proved that. The belly in which our baby grew, the lips of her sex that would have brought the child into the world had I not insisted on the abortion. Had I not performed it myself.

  The fear left me, replaced with an overwhelming sadness and utter exhaustion. All this time, she had hated herself for going through with it. And she couldn’t open up to me, we couldn’t discuss it. We were murderers, but that crime had pushed us apart rather than brought us together.

  The baby was too far gone for termination. But knowing what it was going to be born as, I knew we had no choice. As the child grew in her womb Sophie had had a gradual change of heart, her emotional bond with it increasing with each day that passed.

  The physical bond had been easy to cut, but the emotional one was harder. She had often remarked on my coldness when I discussed the operations I had performed, but as a surgeon you have to be detached. Even when I cut the foetus from her body I was completely distanced from what was in front of me. I hadn’t considered the swollen belly as part of my wife; I just saw it as a job to be performed clinically, efficiently and professionally. As was the disposal. Wrapping the foetus in the marital bed sheets, smuggling it to the hospital incinerator. If I had allowed my feelings to intrude...

  I heard them approaching. I heard something that sounded like female laughter. I stood up and pulled the curtains to one side to look at the garden. The moonlight had returned, and I could see clearly the empty rotary clothes drier lying on the moon-silvered lawn like some ancient beast that had long since died and rotted away.

  I could see into Mrs Kritikos’ garden as well. The book was face-down on the patio table, the glass of lemonade still half full. Her black clad body lay slumped and lifeless in the garden seat, her arms dangling by her sides, her head back and looking up to me, her mouth open as though snoring.

  But even from this distance there was no mistaking the glazed eyes that stared lifelessly into mine. I felt no surprise, or fear. Completely detached. I wondered what time she had died, and had the strange feeling that it was the same time that Sophie had killed herself.

  Tha
t’s why three of them were here to haunt me, when before it had been only two. Her sisters hadn’t gone back to Greece. They had passed on, waiting for their last sister to make up the trinity before returning to me.

  I remember the title of the book now. Keith Roberts, The Furies. A strange title, a story about giant wasps, but the theme was cosmic retribution. Mankind suffering for its crimes against nature.

  And the book she had given Sophie, with the quote Fearful is night to the guilty.

  I understood then. The Furies — the Daughters of the Night — will ensure no sin goes unpunished. As true today as it was in ancient times. Matricide and patricide were the most heinous crimes in the classical world, but our age and culture now has a different perspective on what is the worst crime, the worst murder you can perform. The crime may have changed, but the punishment hasn’t.

  They will torment you to madness, and they’ll never leave you. This is what I attempted to explain at my trial when the prosecution tried to get me to admit to killing my wife. They argued that the only fingerprints on the knife were my own.

  I had offered blood to wash away my sins. I thought that’s what they wanted — and they did. But not my blood.

  The bed sheets of my cell are soaked with my self-offerings. Offerings that are rejected, because the blood remains the next day.

  They’ve had the blood they wanted. Now they just want me. And they have me — for all eternity.

  Night is falling, and the sheets are coming to life.

  They caress me and stroke me. They suffocate me in that freezing cold miasma of death, making me aware that this is only a foretaste of what will come when I finally kill myself.

  Night is eternal. That is why we, the guilty, fear it so much.

  Adrian Chamberlin’s works have appeared in Guy N Smith’s Graveyard Rendezvous, Spinetinglers.co.uk, the British Horror Novels Forum and the DF Underground, where he’s a contributing author to the Underground Rising fiction collaboration. His story “Warpigs” was published in John Prescott’s M is for Monster, and Winter Sun appears in Tasmaniac Publication’s sell-out Festive Fear 2: Global Edition. He is a founding member of Dark Continents Publishing and his first novel The Caretakers, a supernatural thriller set in a fictional Cambridge College, was released in 2011.