Dark Deaths_Selected Horror Fiction

by William Cook

  I shiver as the faint sound graduates in pitch.

  My hand is vibrating now and the room has grown frigid as an ice-locker. The sharp monotone increases in volume and pitch, to the point where it is a needle of sound, pushing its sharp point deep into my brain, agonizing fraction by fraction . . . I pick up the hand-set and raise it to my ear.

  Somewhere, faintly, in the distance, a phone rings. Somewhere, someone dies. Someone is born, someone is murdered. Somewhere, something is happening, that cannot be explained by reality or words. Death creeps along the telephone line, searching for the right receiver – the sonic intercept, the relay switch that will channel its chilled message deep within the receptor’s mind. Searching for the pin-prick of light buried deep within the blackness of the soul – whereby it might escape into the lost minutia of the cosmic apocalypse . . .

  I drop the handset. It clatters to the concrete floor, the red plastic casing shatters into fragments only to liquefy, just as suddenly, into splattered pools of glistening maroon. The dim light from above now casts a leukemic glow, like an aura, down below on the phone fragments. The concave edge of the sickly light swells and slowly creeps across the floor, away from myself and the shattered phone. The edge of the light is inky black, like space. The blood glistens mercurially as the fluorescent above suddenly flickers erratically and then settles into a bright white light, once again.

  I listen to the electrical hum and let my eyes readjust to the brightness enveloping my mind.

  I blink until my eyes acclimate to the revealed scene before me. The cold concrete room is as it was before. My breath comes in frigid plumed clouds of condensation. The remnants of the red plastic phone casing, some fragments still solid amongst the bloody liquefied pools, vibrate and clatter on the cement floor like epileptic crabs before melting into bloody globule pools. I watch them accelerate towards each other, like plasma-filled marbles or blood-swollen eyeballs, melting into each other at my feet – condensing, morphing, into a shape. A human shape. First the bulbous torso, slick blood glazed plasticity, bubbling and swelling as first a limb and then another, then another and another and then, finally, another bursts from the main core.

  A head appears like a mannequin, smooth and slick with viscos fluid, as it erupts from the swollen torso; transforming, until features begin to define and mold themselves to its features as it begins to resemble something vaguely, but unmistakably, human. The misshapen torso and long thin limbs rearrange until it is an obviously female form.

  A phone begins to ring in the distance.

  I look up. The room stretches away from me. At the end of the room against the dirty white wall, now flecked and splattered with arcs of blood, on the small hard-wood table sits another phone. Black, shiny plastic – much-like the obsidian claw that extends out from the white arm of my lab-coat.

  The phone now rings incessantly.

  ddddddaaannnnngggg

  ddddddaaannnnngggg

  ddddddaaannnnngggg

  I walk towards it. Each trilling tone grows louder. More intense.

  ddddddaaannnnngggg

  Ddddddaaannnnngggg

  DDDDDDAAANNNNNGGGG

  As I approach, the noise ascends like a frenetic fire alarm.

  DDDDDDAAANNNNNGGGG

  DDDDDDAAANNNNNGGGG

  DDDDDDAAANNNNNGGGG

  I increase my speed as I walk towards the desk, my hearing collapsing beneath the sound again. My footsteps add to the cacophony of sound as my sense of urgency balloons. I. Must. Answer. The. Phone . . .

  DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, TAP, CLICK, TAP, DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, CLICK, TAP, THUD, DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, THUD, THUMP, DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, THUD, THUMP, DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, THUMP, BOOM, DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, THUMP, BOOM, DDDAAANNNNNGGGG, BOOM, BOOM . . . DDDAAANNNNNGGGG . . .

  I pick it up.

  “SSSSSSSSSSSSSSonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn . . .”

  It is my mother’s voice. The voice of a serpent.

  “Yyyooooooouuuuuu mmmmuuussssssttttttt dddddddiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . .”

  I drop the hand-set and it explodes into a shattered jig-saw of plastic and components across the concrete floor. I stumble back against the table, steadying myself with my blackened hands as I gulp air down deep into my icy lungs. I look back down the room in the opposite direction. The bloodied form is now moving, peeling itself from the ground. With each passing second its form gains density, definition, and now it walks with a lilting gait. Each step followed by a more definitive approach, more self-assured, as it lopes my way. A scream escapes from between my clenched teeth as I watch it evolve into its final form. I hold onto the table as the room tilts and my legs collapse beneath me. The corners of my vision fill with a brilliant phosphorescent light as the shape reaches out to me. Her form expands and fills my vision, the all-encompassing darkness of her evil pixelates with the intense white light. The stabbing pin of sound instantly intensifies inside my cranium to crescendo pitch, as I realize that I am the receiver.

  I am the pin-prick of light, buried deep within the blackness of the soul. My soul! And it is my mother, who now stands before me, gushing streams of light flowing from her abyssal eyes, twisting like tornadoes of electricity as the light merges and bursts forth into my consciousness. Penetrating every pore, every atom of my being as I become the darkness. The last sound I hear is the distant ringing of a telephone, fading into the distance with each subsiding trill – eternally calling, waiting for another receiver. Another means by which its message can be relayed.

  Anomalous Perigee

  He turned on his black polished heel, raised his well-dressed right arm – light dancing off his polished cuff link from the dull glow emanating from the naked lightbulb overhead – repositioned his curved left arm a little higher on the delicate back of his true love, and then slowly waltzed from the center of the room into the shadows.

  Over her shoulder he watched the light, drunk with love and wine, he could not contain the rogue tears that tumbled from his tired eyes. The smell of her perfume engulfed his senses.

  The silk touch of her soft skin on his cheek.

  The feel and smell of her fine hair against the tip of his nose, as they spun slowly in between the light and the dark.

  The empty chairs and tables in the hall resounded with applause; confetti fell like snow upon their twisting slow sonata as they danced.

  The adagio waned – began to fade – the click of a door echoed through the music and the lingering mumble of departing guests – the light flickered, swelled, then was full and bright again as it should be.

  The confetti was gone, the guests too – the table and chairs nowhere to be seen – the hall walls had shrunk, chandeliers disappeared, but still the music continued as he took one last semi-pirouette and stopped – his hand raised, fingers together as if holding the smallest of hands – the other hand spread just away from his mid-section as if to protect the daintiest of waists.

  He stood under the dim light, the yellow glow casting shadows on his face, his dapper suit now looking quite threadbare. The cuff links long ago disappeared over the grimy counter of a downtown pawn shop. His polished shoes, the seams along the soles split; the buttoned collar around his neck, loose. He tried to look away as the mirror rippled darkly around his form, transfixed. His hands went to his head, his shoulders collapsed, and he turned his back on his own pitiful image.

  The old man poured himself a glass of water from the kitchen tap and took the last bottle of his heart pills from the shelf, before making his way back to his small bedroom. He slowly unbuttoned his jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a chair. Sipping at the cold water he swallowed ten of his tablets. He unbuttoned his grimy collar and stepped from his old worn shoes and swallowed another ten pills with a sip of water. He removed his old gabardine trousers and tapped out the remaining pills, thirteen in all, and swallowed them with the rest of the water. He folded back the covers on his thin bed and pulled the cord above him, which extinguished the light. As he lay there in the dark, the ada
gio still tumbling through his mind, his chest tightened and he raised himself up to look through the gap in the blind.

  The moon was low and full and seemed to smile back at him drunkenly. He pulled the blind cord and rattled the Venetians open. The cold blue moonlight beamed across the room, trying to penetrate the black shadows of his austere home. The mellow luminosity of the light filled his mind with a soft blue hue, as the cold night air slowly penetrated his flesh and bones.

  He coughed and shivered involuntarily, but made no move to pull the covers over his naked form. As the minutes ticked slowly by his mind tumbled through memories and thoughts of his beloved. He knew there were angels, alive, somewhere. Some people called them Ghosts, Specters, or Spirits, but he preferred to think of them as angels. Now impervious to the cold, the heaviness in his heart began to subside as he lay on his side and watched the night outside his window. He could almost step onto the moon, he thought. It’s so low. So blue. So big.

  After a while longer his tired eyes closed, he stretched and rested his thin arms gently onto the mattress either side of his skeletal frame. He breathed deeply, his body shuddering, a thin smile on his face as the cold hands of death gathered his final breaths and he was with her once again.

  Creep

  The Creep adjusted the rear-view mirror and took a good long look at the young woman in the back of his cab. She fit the bill nicely, so to speak. Brunette, long hair parted in the middle, large breasts, mocha skin, full lips . . . perfect.

  "Where to miss?" he asked.

  "Airport please driver," she replied, without looking in his direction.

  "Business or pleasure?"

  "Business and it's really none of your business. Please just drive the cab, I don't feel like chatting," she indignantly replied.

  'Got a real prize bitch here,' he thought, licking his lips and savoring the urge building in his trousers.

  "Sure thing miss, you're the boss," he chuckled, as he slowly steered the cab through the morning traffic.

  Cassandra Morrighan couldn't wait to get to the airport and away from the perv cab driver. The backseat of the cab looked as though it hadn't been cleaned for at least a year and the driver's body odor forced her to have the window down for most of the drive. Cassandra looked a lot older than she actually was and naively resented the pervert's prying questions as sheer nosiness. Fresh from a holiday at home with her parents, Cassandra had just turned nineteen and was en-route to the airport and another year away at college. As the sedan droned through the suburbs and then onto the highway, she clutched her backpack to her chest and shifted in her sticky seat to avoid the driver's staring gaze. She looked out the window and realized that the driver was headed in the opposite direction to the airport.

  "Aren't we going in the wrong direction?" Cassandra questioned.

  "Yeah babe, sorry about that. I just have to pick up something from home. Don't worry, I won't charge you for the drive."

  He laughed and watched the hint of panic register in her eyes, as she considered his response.

  "Oh, ok - but please don't take too long, I don't want to miss my flight," she naively replied.

  Cassandra suddenly felt quite uncomfortable and afraid. She had a feeling that calling this particular cab this morning had been a very bad move. She looked at the stains on the back seat and tried to determine their origin. The dark mottled smears were partially covered with a wispy blanket of black short hair, presumably from a dog of some sort. She looked again at the rear-view mirror and quickly looked away again as the driver's black eyes bore deep into her own. She thought about getting out at the next set of lights but she didn't want to leave her suitcase in the boot of the cab. The case was filled with her clothes and study notes along with a batch of her mother's best home cooking that she couldn't wait to share with her dorm buddies. She checked her watch and as she looked up, the driver pulled sharply into a long driveway, overhung with trees, at the end of which stood an old shuttered house with a large attached garage. The driver pressed the remote clipped to his visor and the large garage door trundled open as he slowed the cab before rolling into the dark interior within. He pressed the remote and the door dropped behind the cab, settling with a metallic crunch as it closed against the concrete floor.

  Cassandra’s heart began to beat fast and she fought to control the anxiety that was starting to constrict her breathing.

  "Where are we? Where are we?" she whimpered, as she realized that she was in serious trouble as she sat in the darkness of the garage in the back of the rank cab. She tried to open the door but the central locking prevented her from popping the lock.

  "Where the fuck are we?" she yelled at the driver, who was now opening his door and climbing out into the darkness.

  Cassandra pounded on the window and frantically tried to push the rear doors open, first with her shoulders and then with her heels, to no avail. She peered into the dark confines of the garage and saw nothing except her frightened reflection looking back at her in the window, bathed in the dim yellow interior light of the cab. She cupped her neatly manicured hand across her brow and looked out the window again, her button nose touching the smeared glass as she did so.

  She thought she heard a deep growling noise somewhere nearby outside the cab and then her window was filled with bared teeth and the blackest, evil eyes, she'd ever seen. The huge head of the Rottweiler retreated into the shadows before launching itself back at the window, the razor sharp canines crunching against the window and sending a trail of cracks across the glass. Steaming froth and saliva dripped down the window as the dog began to bark and thud its massive head against the side of the cab. Cassandra scuttled across the back seat as she wet herself, waves of fear shrinking her into a ball, as the crazed dog leapt at the cab again making the vehicle sway and rock with the assault.

  He watched from the step, laughing hysterically as Caligula terrorized the girl in the cab. The dog was in a fury, baying for the young thing's blood as the Creep flipped the garage light on and flooded the large space with fluorescent glare. He whistled and the dog fell away from the cab, seemingly now uninterested in the quarry hunched on the backseat of the vehicle. The Creep slipped a chain around Caligula's neck and approached the cab before opening the rear door. Cassandra tumbled backwards in a faint onto the cold concrete floor, giving her head a nasty whack as she hit the ground. She tried to sit up but instead vomited all over her blouse and down the front of her wet jeans. The Creep slipped another chain around her neck and pulled it tight, choking her, until she passed out.

  Cassandra woke up gasping and clutching at her neck where the chain had choked her unconscious. Her perfect skin was now bruised and cut where the chain had dug into the flesh of her neck and the back of her head pulsed as she tried to sit up. It took a minute before she realized that she was naked and her leg was handcuffed to a steel pipe that protruded from the furnace and ran all the way to the ceiling before disappearing into the timber boards above her head. There was a small amount of light coming from a desk-lamp sitting on a workbench at the end of the narrow room. She looked up again and realized that she was beneath floorboards. She correctly assumed that she was locked in the creep's cellar.

  She remembered the driver of the cab and the huge Rottweiler that had tried to attack her and she began to sob helplessly. She wiped tears from her eyes and looked around the cellar again. Above the workbench at the end of the room, were many shelves lined with all manner of things. At first she thought the jars contained home preserves but the more she looked, the more Cassandra realized that the jars were filled with dead things. She spied what looked like a curled human fetus floating in a yellow fluid, another was stuffed with what looked like a bat, another a distorted shrunken head pressed hard against the inside of the glass jar, another held a small human hand floating in a clear liquid . . . Repulsed, she twisted her head and puked on the floor next to the inactive furnace, before furiously trying to kick her leg free of the shackles that bound her. She only s
ucceeded in cutting her shin as the steel cuffs clawed deep in her flesh as she vainly struggled before giving up because of the pain and the sheer hopelessness of her predicament.

  The Creep stepped from the shadows and coughed into his fist. She visibly jumped and her scared doe eyes looked up at him fearfully. Her eyes widened as they focused on his erect penis. He was as nude as she was and he made no attempt to hide his intentions from her as he walked slowly forward, making awful sucking noises with his pursed lips. Cassandra scampered backwards as far as she could before the steel cuff cut into her shin again, her bare back touching the cold damp concrete wall, as he reached down and grabbed her free ankle and roughly pulled her legs apart before starting the first of many violent assaults. All the while, Caligula the massive Rottweiler, sat on its haunches watching, tongue lolling from its mouth, cocking its head side to side as his master repeatedly raped and beat the naked girl. The last thing Cassandra saw, before being knocked unconsciousness, was the dog. Her bleeding face was squashed against concrete as the cab driver pushed her head into the floor as he pounded her from behind. She noted with disgust, as the world went black once again, that the dog's pink erection was larger than its owner's.

  When she woke, the Creep subjected her to the same rough treatment but this time she did not fight back. After each attack she would eventually fall asleep, exhausted and sore, only to be woken by the naked cab-driver groping her breasts and forcing himself upon her, again and again and again. He would give her the occasional sip of water from a drink bottle or take great delight in chucking her one of Caligula’s dog biscuits to eat. Cassandra couldn’t tell night from day but she figured it must’ve been at least two weeks that she had been held against her will. The visits thankfully tapered off as the Creep informed her that it was his ‘busy season,’ but Cassandra couldn’t help wonder if it was because he was tired of her as a plaything. She stank with body odor and dried blood and the small bucket next to the furnace that she filled with her waste was overflowing and in need of emptying. Cassandra tried to sleep but worried that he would soon tire of her and kill her. She thought of the weird jars filled with dead things and shook with fear as she imagined what he might do to her. She finally fell into a deep sleep but would find no respite in her nightmares from her hellish reality.