The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers)

by Perkins, Cathy

  My phone rang and it was Kate, telling me that she couldn’t find Teresa’s number, but would keep on looking for it. For some reason I couldn’t remember where it was that Teresa lived or even her last name; it was online where I had originally found her but when I went in this time, I couldn’t find Teresa’s name anywhere.

  Kate called again later in the day to say that she still could not find Teresa’s number.

  * * *

  I was back into writing my piece while discussing with Kevin what he was photographing, and if he was tying it to anything yet. As I expected, he was leaps and bounds ahead of me. This was very helpful because his work gave me a path to what had to be expressed clear enough in words to accomplish my mission of description. I didn’t want the Teresa apparition interfering with our work flow.

  That night we three went out on cautious foot to explore the desert night under the brilliance of the full moon. Kevin was working with three cameras and I had my trusty laptop blazing away as I tried to capture the visuals and turn them into words to support the process; Anthony had a shotgun, just in case we ran into a bad-natured rattlesnake. We paused at the foot of a mesa that provided excellent framing for some photos and a good place to rest a bit.

  “You still seeing signs all over the place?” I asked Kevin.

  “Signs are always with us… the trick is to be aware that they’re there,” he answered.

  “Anthony asked, “What are you two talking about?”

  “Some things that occur and seem to stand out, can be counted as signs or omens,” I said.

  “Like the Farmer’s Almanac?” Anthony asked, with a smirk.

  “Haven’t heard those words in a while,” mumbled Kevin.

  “I’m serious, Anthony. Lots of things can be considered signs and I think that they happen with a lot more frequency than omens. Sometimes with me, it’s the things that just constantly pop into my head which make me think that I could be getting a sign,” I said.

  “Like?” asked Anthony.

  “Names… friends… phone numbers.”

  “Phone numbers? Really?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I keep thinking of the first phone number we had when I was a kid in Brooklyn,” I mused.

  “I didn’t think they had phones back in those days,” Kevin said like a wiseass.

  “You remember that number?” Anthony asked.

  “Sure do. Do you remember your service serial number?” I asked him.

  “Of course, but that was recen—” He stopped himself.

  “Recently? Are you calling me an old man?” I laughed.

  “No, no… that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m certainly old enough to be called that. Nothing wrong with being old, last time I looked.” I was trying to make a point without making a point.

  “What would happen if you called that number, Tell? I mean, today. You ever think of that?” Kevin asked.

  “You know, that’s something I’ve actually wondered about. If I took and just dialed it with the area code I wonder too. Hey Anthony, my friend, back in those days we barely had area codes,” I said smiling.

  “Go ahead and call,” Kevin said with an encouraging expression on his face. “Go ahead, Tell.”

  I looked at the phone and thought for a moment about just how foolish what I was about to do was, but I went ahead and dialed my old number, which I hadn’t done for at least thirty or so years. On the phone I heard a click and the click gave way to a ring-signal and that gave way to another ring-signal. It seemed to be a working line and rang on but there was no answer. Strange, I thought. It must be a working number; but then, why wouldn’t it be?

  “No one home, Tell?” asked Kevin.

  “Apparently,” I responded.

  “You guys are really weird. You know that?” Anthony said with a head shake of disbelief. “Did you really think that number would still have a connection to you?”

  “Sure, and why not?” I kidded him. “Now let’s get back to the real world… and our work.” I said, folding the phone closed. “I have great words to put on paper.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After reviewing Kevin’s photos I continued my writing. Anthony began the task of packing up our mobile camp and Kevin went off on another of his short hikes into the quietude of the desert. But while reviewing Kevin’s latest series of photos I noticed something strange in one of the pictures of the moon looking as though it were balanced atop one of the Superstitions. With it appearing as if it had risen from the mountain it caused a brightness not usually seen at night. There was a contrast causing a clear separation of dark and light, almost as stark as day and night. In the middle of this contrast was a black mass that was very similar to the one I had seen on Teresa’s wall. At first I thought I was imagining things, but after studying it further, it seemed to disappear and was as if it had never been there at all. “Here we go again,” I muttered to myself.

  Suddenly, Kevin became engaged in a conversation – or rather, an interrogation — with someone on his mobile phone who was apparently asking him a lot of yes or no questions, as he was responding in terse one syllable answers. It was sobering to see him so upset.

  Then Kevin said to whomever it was he was speaking to, “I don’t really give a shit, what you think. You know, by now I’m wondering why I’ve been answering any of your questions or why I am even having this conversation with you. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?” He disconnected the call and slammed the phone into his pocket saying, “Asshole.”

  “Kevin?”

  He didn’t answer me at first, then he said “yeah,” as he plopped down in the chair across from me letting out a wisp of air. “That was someone who I should not know.”

  “Someone, who has made you very angry, my friend,” I said studying him.

  He didn’t say anything more on the subject. He didn’t need to.

  We readied for our early morning flight to Phoenix as Anthony came back into the rig and announced that he was ready to roll as soon as we were. I packed my laptop and checked the rest of my gear to make certain that I had it all. Since Anthony had been so kind as to pack it up for us. He was an asset in many ways and I was beginning to feel like we three had the makings of a great team with each having his own field of value and expertise.

  My phone rang and it took me a bit to get it out of my front pocket. I answered it on the fourth ring but as I did the line was dead. Looking at the caller ID told me nothing – odd, since there had always been something showing there, be it a full number, or a name.

  “You got phone problems?” asked Anthony, as I put it back in my pocket with a shake of my head.

  “I don’t know. I guess we might be in and out of service zones due to the mountains.”

  “Mine’s working,” said Kevin.

  “Mine too,” added Anthony.

  “Maybe it’s because my battery needs charging.”

  “Just your battery?” Kevin chuckled, obviously very pleased with his comment.

  “Wiseass,” I responded, as I finished checking my gear and made ready for the journey back to what I thought was the real world. I spent the next twenty minutes on the phone with the project director and upon hanging up I heard Anthony announce that something was wrong with the rig and that we would be delayed a bit. “It looks like we’ll be spending another night out here. I just had to order a radiator hose. I don’t know how a brand new vehicle has this kind of problem.” Anthony announced the status of the rig with dismay. “I asked to have the new one delivered first thing in the morning so we can get an early start. They said that the auto parts store runner will be here by 0800 hours. It won’t take long to swap it out and then we’ll be off.”

  My phone worked okay when I called the airline and rebooked our flights for early afternoon the next day.

  The setting sun was washing the desert with a color that I was sure was common to this area but to someone like me it was magic and I couldn’t take my ey
es off of the color explosion I was witnessing. It went on for about an hour until the shadows began to lengthen and the color show ended as quickly as it had begun. Out at the end of the light and the beginning of the shadows I could swear that I saw people standing motionless, looking at our rig. I closed and opened my eyes trying to refocus then I realized that maybe they were just saguaro cacti looking like lonely souls wanting to rejoin the living.

  “Honey, guess what?” I said to my wife over the phone. “Something is wrong with our RV and that means I won’t be able to get back to you until later in the day… and night. I feel like shit.” I was very disappointed and missing her. “I’m sorry, Kate.”

  “Not your fault, Sweetie. Just get home safe and mama will make you glad you did,” she said with a smile in her voice.

  “We have enough food and beer and I have no place I have to be before next week, so let’s build a fire and hang out.” Kevin was okay with one more night.

  We started a fire under the grill that sat over the hole in the ground where we had built our fires for the entire week that we had been there. The sun going down and the moon coming up made the transition to dark very easy.

  “Hot dogs, beer, all we need now are some dancing girls,” Anthony said with a laugh.

  “Speak for yourself, sir. My dancing girl is sitting up just outside of Albany, New York waiting for me,” I said as I grabbed a handful of dogs and buns.

  We decided on two each and started with one beer. Anthony knew how to build a great fire and before long we were roasting franks like Boy Scouts at a jamboree. Kevin passed his camera over to me saying I should look at the picture that had Teresa in it. I was startled to see that I was now alone in the picture.

  “Kev? Is this the picture with the woman who wasn’t there in it?” I said with a start.

  “Yeah. It’s the only one I took of you in the chair in the rig.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Anthony said, looking from Kevin to me and back again. “How does someone come in and out of a picture without being photo shopped?”

  “She’s not of this world,” Kevin said intently. “Something about this is making me, well, very uneasy.”

  “Welcome to my world, my friends,” I said with resignation. “This has been going on since I ‘died’ and I wonder when and if it’ll ever end.”

  “It can’t… it has no end for you.” The words came out of Kevin’s mouth, but they seemed mechanical, almost robotic.

  “I don’t understand how you could know that, Kevin.”

  “I don’t either… I just do,” he said with some confusion evident in his voice.

  “Beer?” offered Anthony. It was an obvious effort to change the course of the conversation.

  We ate the hot dogs and drank the beer and talked about the project and the phases of the moon, and as the night passed we relaxed into a sense of accomplishment of at least getting through this project. There was more to be done by the rest of the team, but our part was almost complete. At length, we all turned in.

  Soon after falling asleep I was awakened by a loud banging on the door. At first I thought it might be Kevin – until Kevin himself asked what was going on as he came from the back of the rig, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  “Hey, Kevin. I thought that banging was you hitting the door,” I said to him.

  “Don’t open that, Teller,” Anthony cautioned, sitting on his bed. “Don’t you think it might be a good thing if we found out who it is first?” He got off the bed and walked toward me, his eyes a bit strange. “I opened a door on a rig in Iraq and there were insurgents waiting outside for anyone of us to come out. My buddies who did go out were both killed instantly. Don’t open that door,” he demanded.

  The banging was becoming more violent, and Anthony produced a gun which he aimed at the door with eyes fixed. He racked a round into the chamber and let out a slow breath.

  “I don’t know if a bullet can stop whatever that is,” said Kevin. “Just stay put!” he yelled, staring at the door.

  The rig shook. Anthony took a deep breath and called loudly to whomever, or whatever was out there, “Knock it off! We’re not coming out and you’re not coming in… so just go away before someone gets hurt… bad.”

  Other than the banging there was no other sound. I felt my heart pounding in my chest; there was something in the moment that made me very afraid. Was it the unknown or the potential for this being the real end of the trail, out here in the desert with ghosts of all who had come before, the real Indians, the actual cowboys? What was out there? My curiosity was starting to get the better of me. What the hell was trying to get in? The pounding was so hard that the rig was rattling and I was wonder if the door would hold.

  Kevin peered out of the window, but he could see nothing. He had turned on the outside light, but the angle of sight was not good enough. He shook his head and said, “I really don’t like this. We’re like ducks in a barrel. Teller, try your phone to call the police.”

  I didn’t expect it to, for some reason, but the call went through. I told the operator we needed more than one officer IMMEDIATELY.

  “What is your location?” asked the operator.

  “Good question,” I said. “Jesus, I don’t know. Anthony! Can you tell her where we are exactly?” I asked as I handed him the phone. His voice shaking, he replied to the question. Then he said, “Okay… just get someone here quick… real quick!”

  Now the rig was rocking harder from the pounding, and I said in a whisper, “What happens if they start hitting the windows?”

  “They won’t… they can’t go near glass,” Kevin said quickly.

  “How do you know that, Kevin?” I asked, sensing that he knew more than he was saying.

  “Trust me.”

  The banging stopped as suddenly as it had started. We sat looking at the door and one another.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “0130 hours,” Anthony said, keeping his gun aimed at the door. “This is scary shit, guys.”

  “There’s no way that was a wild animal,” I added. “Did anybody hear car motors pulling up before the banging began?”

  “I thought maybe I heard something right before I fell asleep,” Anthony said looking like he was trying to remember exactly what he’d heard.

  “I didn’t hear anything, but I noticed how quiet everything was. Real quiet and it bothered me,” Kevin commented, obviously deep in thought as he sat, staring at nothing.

  The sound of several cars broke the noiseless night as the police arrived.

  Hello! Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office! You can open the door.”

  It was a relief to see the two friendly faces of the responding Sheriff’s deputies standing there with their flashlights blazing into the blackness of the night. They climbed into the rig.

  We gave a quick account of what had occurred and why we were there in the first place.

  After listening to our story they looked around the immediate area and then, sidearms drawn, disappeared into the darkness of the Arizona desert, trying to find the who, or what, that had assaulted our rig.

  I must have looked like I was heading for the door when I heard, “Don’t go out there, Teller.” It was Anthony. “Please don’t go out there.” He was very agitated and had a wild look in his eyes that I thought might be a flashing back to his time in combat.

  “Don’t worry Anthony. I’m in for the night,” I reassured him.

  “But I’m not,” said Kevin as he went out the door and quickly disappeared into the night.

  “I can’t believe he did that.” Anthony was shaking his head in disbelief. “What the hell is he thinking?”

  “Kevin’s probably trying to get a picture of who was pounding on the door,” I said. But what I was thinking was, ‘he knows more about this than he’s letting on.’ His comment ‘they won’t go near glass’, really disturbed me because he had said it with such authority. Like he knew who was doing the pounding, and what it was.

 
My phone rang as we sat waiting for the sheriff’s deputies or Kevin to return. I wondered who would be calling me at this time of night. “Hello,” I said, and what I heard in response was static… and what sounded like a crowd of people talking and yelling far in the background. “Hello,” I said again. No answer, just obscure noise and static. There was something familiar about part of the sounds I was hearing but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.

  “Who was that?” Anthony asked, looking puzzled.

  “Probably a pocket call.”

  “That happens a lot to you Teller. Don’t you think you live a strange life?” Anthony’s comment seemed to be a bit naïve, considering what had transpired.

  Anthony sat looking out the door into the darkness obviously watching for someone to come back and tell us something. “What the hell is that?” He pointed at something outside as he spoke.

  I looked but saw nothing at first; then as my eyes adjusted I witnessed something that made my blood run cold… There not twenty feet from us was someone or something standing motionless, facing our way, covered in a netlike veil.

  “Holy shit, Anthony, are we in a nightmare?” I closed and locked the door abruptly as Anthony went to the window and stared out at what was out there probably waiting for us.

  “The last time I saw one of those was in Iraq and it took two of my buddies who went to check it out.”

  “What the hell is it, Anthony?!” I was freaking out. Fear grabbed me in a place I had felt fear before, a long time ago. This eerie vision looked like something that had chased me in my dreams when I was a child. It never caught me but the chase was terrifying. One night I dreamed that I had awakened to that creature standing next to my bed and I tried to scream for my parents but nothing came out; it had stolen my voice, and was about to grab me when I actually awakened, screaming.

  Man they’re throwing everything at me, I thought. Heart attacks, near death experiences, people who aren’t there, ghosts of ghosts, and now this. I was pissed and scared out of my mind at the same time. Was this ever going to stop? Did I do something to cause all this? Why had a normal average life taken an abrupt turn and almost instantly bolted off into Bizarro-land? I was the most normal of people in the most normal of lives and what happened? I was careening off to the absurd, touched by all the weirdness that was in existence at this time, on this planet and beyond.