by Pete Kahle
Now all was left was the heart, tiny and black, like a beating chunk of coal. Mrs. Peals sat again, stuck her hand into the fetid cavity and grasped it. The heart struggled like a tiny animal in a trap, beating quicker and quicker but then sagging and almost liquefying as it came away in her hand. She dropped it in one of the empty jars, a black smear streaking the side of the clear glass, and rinsed her hand in the steaming basin. Then she plucked the fresh one from the jar and inserted it in the former’s place. But the new heart didn’t beat, it just hung from the arteries like an over ripe fruit, and the old woman slumped sideways in the chair and went still.
Suddenly the heart twitched, began to beat irregularly, shuddering at first, then becoming stronger until it was throbbing steadily in a perfect cadence of beats. Things began to change. The snake-like blood vessels swayed as the blood flowed, turning everything grey-black but pulsing and vibrant, a dark forest coming alive with a terrible magic. Mrs. Peals’ outer appearance was changing as well, her drooping jowls lifting, the crooked teeth settling back into the gums, the black splotches on her skin fading and then altogether disappearing. She snapped awake, drew a long gurgling breath and closed the ribcage. Then she took up the black spool and sewed the skin back together, the needle finding the old holes without any trouble. Afterwards, she dressed and pulled her hair back, silver and lustrous again with an oily sheen in the firelight, and began the task of disposing of the dead organs, tossing them in the flames and rinsing the jars in the basin before replacing the lids and returning them to the small trunk. The smell of the rotten meat burning made Lucy wretch, and the tiniest involuntary cry escaped her. Mrs. Peals looked at the door like a cat about to strike. She put the glasses back on and stealthily slid around the table, her movements now eerily smooth and fluid.
Lucy ran, her footsteps reverberating through the hall like a drum. She turned around only once as she rounding the corner. Mrs. Peals was standing in the doorway, watching her with a malignant grin.
Lucy went straight to Harold’s room and pounded on the door until he let her in. His eyes were puffy from crying and Lucy noticed he’d changed his shirt.
“What do you want, Lucy?”
“Let me in. Quick!”
Harold frowned hard and his eyes drifted down the hall. He moved aside just enough for her to enter the room before shutting the door and locking it.
“What did she make you do, Harold?”
Harold looked at her, his eyes widening slightly, but he didn’t answer.
“I saw you in the hall. I saw the blood.”
A long pause. “It doesn’t matter. He was already dead.”
“How do you know that? Is that what she told you?”
“He had a heart attack, Lucy,” said Harold. “He died in his bed.”
“Maybe he did, or maybe she killed him. Either way, she made you cut him up!”
“Since when were you so fond of Caster?” said Harold. He’d tried to put some edge to his words but his voice cracked.
“Harold, she’s a monster!”
“What are you talking about?”
In a low voice, Lucy told him what she’d seen.
‘You’re mad,” Harold whispered, looking away.
“I am not! I saw her do it with my own eyes and -”
Lucy broke off, not wanting to say it, not wanting to admit she’d been caught. Harold angled his head slightly and frowned.
“What?”
“She saw me.”
Harold swallowed.
“We have to leave,” said Lucy. “Even if just for the night. We’ll come back when mother and father return tomorrow evening.”
“And where will we go, Lucy? The woods? The village? Where would we stay?”
“There’s a cave on the other side of the creek - remember the one we found last summer? We can sneak out the back in the morning before the servants rise.”
“How will we know when mother and father have returned?”
“There’s a good view of the northern road from that spot of the woods.”
Lucy got up and started toward the door. Harold grabbed her arm. He looked terrified. “Where are you going?”
“To gather food. We’ll need something to eat if we’re to be gone all day.”
“I’ll come with you,” he offered weakly.
“No, you stay here. I’ll only be gone a minute or two - just to the pantry and then to my room for a cloak. I think we should sleep in the same room tonight.”
“Yes,” said Harold, exhaling with relief. “I was thinking that as well.”
As she went to leave again, Harold called out after her.
“I’m sorry I pulled your hair,” he said.
“It’s alright. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Harold gave her an awkward smile. Lucy smiled back, then slipped out of the room and silently hurried down the back steps toward the pantry. There, she filled a wicker basket with bread and jam and fruit and a pair of mince meat pies along with some linens and a bread knife and then went back upstairs and gathered her cloak and boots before returning to Harold’s room. Harold propped a chair under the door and then the two of them got under the covers. They didn’t put out the candle.
Lucy woke just as the windows were beginning to grey with the first hint of dawn. Rolling over, she stared at the empty pillow beside her for a second or two before she realized.
Harold was gone.
Lucy shot up in bed and scanned the room, her heart beating an allegro. The chair was cast aside, the door ajar. She got up and cautiously peeked into the hall, an acute terror seizing her as she stared into the blackness.
She’s snatched him.
Lucy took the bread knife from the basket and crept up the stairs to the fourth floor. The door to the governess’ room was opened slightly, and a soft light penetrated the otherwise black hall. She listened for a full minute before continuing, inching along the wall. When she reached the door she paused again and listened, this time longer, and then peeked through the gap.
The room was neat and silent, without a trace of Mrs. Peals, save the pair of trunks; the small one on the table and longer one on the floor. A newly lit taper stood on the candle holder in the center of the table like an eerie sentinel. She pushed the door open and a little further and took a couple steps inside. A smell hit her at once - a fuel scent like lamp oil or kerosene. Harold wasn’t there. A desperate feeling took her over as she stood in the center of the room, the knife shaking in her hand.
“Harold?” she whispered.
“Lucy!”
The sound of her own name spoken in the empty room made her jump as if a ghost had said it.
“Harold! Where are you?”
“I’m in the trunk!”
Lucy set the knife on the table and went to the trunk. The key was still in the lid. She turned it and Harold popped up like a Jack-in-the-Box. Lucy threw her arms around him.
“What happened? Why did you let her in?”
“She made her voice sound like mother’s. When I opened the door she held a cloth with ether to my face. I woke up here.”
“Where is she? Where did she go?”
“Who cares? Let’s just get -”
A sound in the corridor - wooden clogs coming down the hall. Lucy looked around in utter panic. It was too late to run.
“Quick, Lucy, get in!”
Lucy climbed in and Harold brought the lid down just as she came around the corner. They heard the footsteps enter the room and stop. The bread knife was picked up and set down, and then the footsteps started again, heavy and deliberate, toward the trunk. The key turned in the lock, followed by a wild, piercing laugh that gave Lucy a cold sensation in her chest. There was a small tick, followed by a whoosh, and then the sound of the jars jingling, first in the room and then down the hall accompanied by more feral laughter.
Lucy understood the smell of kerosene now. Harold was shouting, slamming at the lid. Lucy began shouting too, for help, for the servants, for
their parents, for anyone. But no one came. And as the flames rose around them, Harold and Lucy held each other and cried.
Joshua Rex writes scary stories. His work can also be found in Fresh Meat: 2015 from Sinister Grin Press.
He lives in an old house in Cleveland, Ohio with his girlfriend, the poet Mary Robles
TUNNEL VISION
by Jeremy Hepler
Ten minutes before sunset. One minute before the wreck. Austin, Texas. Two days ago.
Traffic on the Missouri-Pacific Highway (MoPac) was bumper to bumper as usual, moving at a steady fifty miles per hour pace. Driving the northwest library’s bookmobile van, I entered the two lane tunnel Austinites call The Pac-Man in the right lane, seven cars behind the now infamous solid white armored truck. My girlfriend Kim and our five year old son Chase were five cars behind me in her Taurus. We were on our way to look at a three bedroom house I’d put a down payment on the day before, but I’d led them to believe they were following me to a new Chinese restaurant on the south side of town for a buffet dinner.
We’d lived in a small apartment for five years struggling to make ends meet, Kim and I working two jobs each at times, but unbeknownst to her I’d been saving the little chunks of money I’d made from selling my paintings online. After three years, I’d saved enough for the down payment, a new bike for Chase, and a nice ring for Kim. The red and blue bike was parked on the back porch. The ring was sitting next to Chinese takeout on the kitchen counter, hidden under the proposal poem I’d written.
Normally, when Kim and I ventured to the south side of town, we traveled via I-35 rather than MoPac to avoid going through the Pac-Man. The tunnel’s nickname originated in the mid 80’s not only because of its curved roof and bright yellow underbelly, brightened even more by fluorescent lights, but more notably because of its seemingly insatiable desire to chomp through cars and lives much like the little round arcade hero did to pellets and ghosts. It had been named one of the most dangerous stretches of highway in Texas for three consecutive years and is now scheduled for redesign in 2015. But excitement had gotten the better of me that day. I couldn’t wait to reveal my surprise, which was located two exits south of the Pac-Man.
I was about halfway through the mile-long tunnel when I heard a loud pop. I looked up, and the next ten seconds—at least in recollection—passed in slow motion.
Bits of rubber flew from the front right tire of an RV about ten cars ahead of me in the left lane. It seesawed back and forth, scraped off of the cement wall to its left, and then crashed onto its side. Sparks flew as it skidded toward the tunnel exit and stopped with a violent jerk, blocking off the entire left lane and most of the right. The two vehicles behind the RV crashed into it, and then two more—one a motorcycle—ran into those, creating a lumpy tangle of metal that looked like some abstract sculpture.
The armored truck ramped up the motorcycle, skipped off the fender of an Escort with its front left tire, and was about to slam into the right side of the tunnel when my van hit the back of a Geo Storm and I lost consciousness. (The bookmobile only has a lap belt; my face and head whipped forward and kissed the large steering wheel, hard.)
I don’t know how long I was out, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds. When I came to, the chain reaction running through the tunnel like a pencil across a simple connect-the-dots hadn’t ended. In the distance, I could hear blaring horns and the screeches of skidding tires and the hollow bang of metal crimping metal as I struggled to unbuckle my seat belt and stumbled out of the van.
My entire head was throbbing. My lower stomach burned where the seatbelt had dug into it. The skin on my left cheek had unzipped from chin to ear in a long arc, and I could feel warm blood dribbling down my neck. Dazed, I leaned against the side of the van and looked toward the tunnel exit.
The armored truck was angled up against the tunnel wall at about fifteen degrees. Its right side was dented in and its back doors ajar. Five other vehicles–some on all four tires, some not–had joined the huge mass of hissing metal. The heap blocked all but the top quarter of the exit where the setting sun streamed in. I saw a few people writhing inside their cars just before the row of fluorescent yellow lights lining the ceiling flickered a few times, flared, and popped out.
I’d seen news clips and pictures of more than a dozen major pile-ups in the Pac-Man over the years, and had been on the tail end of one when I was eighteen, but I hadn’t seen anything like this. As the reality and the magnitude of what had happened sunk in, dreadful thoughts about Kim and Chase kick-started my legs and I took off running.
With intersecting headlight beams lighting my way, I passed an overturned Scout, climbed over the hood of a Mustang, and then weaved around five or six other vehicles before I saw Kim’s Taurus. The driver’s side was wedged up against a suburban. The interior light was on, and I could see Kim’s black ponytail whipping around in the front seat. I ran around to the back passenger door, crawled in next to Chase and unbuckled his seat belt.
“Are you all right?” I asked Kim.
“My left leg is stuck,” she answered in a strained voice. “Is he okay?”
I sat Chase on my lap and scanned his body. His giant brown eyes were dazed, but he wasn’t crying. “Does anything hurt?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
“He seems fine,” I said, “Just dazed.”
I held Chase for a moment, then placed him back in his booster seat. “Sit right here for a minute, Bud. I need to help Mommy.”
Kim had raised her right leg up onto the seat for leverage, twisted her body, and was trying to free her left leg with violent jerks. Pain was etched across her small, clenched face.
“Hold on,” I told her. “Let me check it out.”
I leaned over the seat and felt her leg. It was slick with blood and obviously broken below the knee, pinned between the caved-in door and the seat.
“It’s not trapped too bad,” I said, “but I don’t think we should move it.”
She snapped her head toward me, her canted eyes desperate for help. “I have to get out of here. I can’t stay in here like this. You know I’m claustrophobic.”
“But I don’t think –”
“Aaron! Please!”
“Okay. If you turn back around, I think we can slip it out.”
She twisted back around, facing the steering wheel. Lying down in the back floorboard, I wiggled my arm into position and placed my hand on the back of her calf.
“Now when I push, you pull up and then forward, okay?”
“Okay.”
“On three. Ready? One…two…three.”
I gave her calf a firm shove, and with a grunt, she jerked her leg free.
She immediately climbed into the back seat. I wrapped my arms around her, slid her out onto the road, and sat her up against the cement wall. The interior light fell across the left side of her body. A deep gash had ripped open from her calf to her mid-thigh along the outside of her left leg. Chase crawled out and she gave him a quick once-over, spinning him around and running her fingers through his thick black hair.
“Are you all right?” she asked, looking up at me.
“My head hurts a little, but I’m fine.” I knelt down to examine her leg. “We have to do something about this cut. It goes all the way down to the bone around the knee.”
I reached into the back seat and grabbed Kim’s Whole Foods apron and one of Chase’s spare T-shirts off of the floorboard. I lay the T-shirt across her open wound and tied the apron tight around her upper thigh.
“That should slow the bleeding,” I said. “But you need to keep pressure on it.”
Kim took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pushed down on the T-shirt with both hands.
“The front of the tunnel is blocked, and I don’t how long it’ll be until they can get paramedics in here,” I said. “I’m going to run to my van and get the first aid kit. It’ll only take a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
I dug through
the van for what seemed like hours. The books I toted around to various orphanages (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and retirement homes (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) were scattered all across the back of the van, and the first aid kit had fallen off its hook on the back door and was hiding somewhere within the mess. I finally found the white tin underneath a large-print copy of Huckleberry Finn, but when I lifted it, it felt light—too light. Inside I found only three Band-Aids, a few packets of Tylenol, and two cotton swabs. I pocketed those and crawled out of the back of the van.
On my way back to Kim’s car I glanced down at the overturned scout (the headlights of another car spotlighted into it), and in the back window, next to a shimmering machete, I noticed a bold red cross on the center of a bright white box.
I stopped and ducked into the open passenger side window. An elderly man hung upside down in the driver’s seat, held afloat by his seatbelt. His arms dangled like two limp noodles, his knees were angled up under the wheel. His mouth hung slightly open. His eyes stared straight ahead, as if gazing at something magical in the darkness ahead of him.
“Sir? Sir? Are you all right?” I called out, but there was no response.
Knowing that Kim’s leg needed immediate attention and thinking that this man, who was wearing a wedding ring, would surely understand, I squirmed through the passenger side window on my belly, reached into the back and snatched the kit.
I was standing up when a horrific scream echoed down the tunnel. It carried a contagious fear with it that prodded me to dive back into the scout and grab the machete before I ran.
I found Kim and Chase in the same position as when I’d left. One of Kim’s arms was looped tightly around Chase’s shoulders, and her wide, paranoid eyes were darting left to right, left to right, scanning the road and wreckage. They relaxed when she saw me approaching.
