Mad Stacks: Story Collection Box Set

by Scott Nicholson

  He tried to whistle as he walked, but his throat was dry, as if he had swallowed a spider web. He thought about running, but that was no good. In every stupid movie where dead things come back, they always get you if you run.

  So he took long, slow steps. His head bent forward because he thought he could hear better that way. Halfway home. The lights were on in the kitchen, and he headed for the rectangle of light that stretched from the back door across the lawn.

  He was twenty feet away from the safety of light when he heard it. Clickety-sloosh. But that wasn't all. The gargle was also mixed in, along with the tortured meow and the rustle of leaves. The noise was coming from behind a forsythia bush near the back steps. The thing was under the porch. In the place where Turd Factory had napped during sunny afternoons.

  Dexter stopped.

  Run for it? They always get you if you run. But, now that he thought about it, they always get you anyway. Especially if you were the bad guy. And Dexter was the bad guy. Maybe not as bad as Riley. But at least Riley knew about love, which probably protected him from bad things.

  Yell for Mom? She was probably dead drunk on the couch. If she did step out on the porch, the thing would disappear. He was sure of that, because the thing was his and only his.

  And if he yelled, he knew what would happen. Mom would turn on the porch light and see nothing, not even a stray hair, just a scooped-out dirt place behind the forsythia. And she'd say, "What the hell do you mean, waking up half the neighborhood because you heard something under the porch? They ain't nothing there."

  And she'd probably slap him across the face. She'd wait until they were inside, so the neighbors wouldn't call Social Services. Maybe she'd use the buckle-end of the belt, if she was drinking liquor tonight instead of beer.

  He took an uncertain step backward. Back to the curb, to the streetlights? Then what? You had to go home sometime. The thing gargled, a raspy mewling. It was waiting.

  A monster that could disappear could do anything. Even if he ran to the road, the thing could clickety-sloosh out of the sewer grate, or pop out from behind one of the junk cars that skulked in the roadside weeds. The thing could drop from the limbs of that big red maple at the edge of the lawn. You can't fight blood magic when it builds a monster on Halloween.

  He had a third choice. Walk right on up. Keep trying to whistle. Not scared at all. No-sirree. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

  And that was really the only choice. The thing wasn't going away. Dexter stepped into the rectangle of light and pursed his lips. He was still trying to whistle as he put his foot on the bottom step. Monsters weren’t real, were they?

  The bush shook, shedding a few of its late yellow flowers. The gargle lengthened into a soughing purr. Dexter tried to keep his eyes on the door, the door that was splintered at the bottom where the puppy and cats had scratched to get inside. The door with its dented brass handle, the door with its duct-taped pane of glass, the door that opened onto the love and safety promised by the white light of home. The door became a blur, a shimmering wedge lost in his tears as the thing moved out from the shadows.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the bite, the tearing of his blue jeans and shin meat, the rattle of tooth on bone. He stiffened in anticipation of cold claws to belly, hot saliva on rib cage, rough tongue to that soft place just underneath the chin.

  Clickety-sloosh.

  His heart skipped a beat and restarted. He was still alive. No pain yet. He tried to breathe. The air tasted like rusty meat.

  Maybe it had disappeared. But he could hear it, panting through moist nostrils. Just beneath him. Close enough so that he could feel the wind of its mewling against his leg.

  Savoring the kill? Just as Dexter had done, all those afternoons and Saturday mornings spent kneeling in the forest, with his pocket knife and his pets and his frightened lonely tears? He knew that fear was the worst part, the part that made your belly all puke-shivery.

  He had to show his fear. That was only fair. He owed them that much. And if he looked scared enough, maybe the thing would have mercy, just rip open that big vein in his neck so he could die fast. Then the thing could clickety-sloosh on back into the woods, drag its pieces to the grave and bury its own bones.

  Dexter tried to open his eyes but couldn't. Still the thing mewled and gargled. Waiting was the worst part. You could hold your breath, pray, scream, run. They always get you anyway.

  Still he waited.

  He blinked. The world was nothing but streaks, a gash of light, a fuzz of gray that was the house, a bigger fuzz of black night. Something nudged against his kneecap. He looked down, his chest hot as a brick oven.

  It hadn't disappeared.

  Two eyes met his. One round and dark, without a white, hooded by an exotic flap of skin. The other eye was heavy-lidded, yellow and reptilian.

  Behind the eyes, lumps of meat sloping into a forehead. Ragged pink where the pieces met, leaking a thin jelly. Part fur, part feather, part scale, part exposed bone. A raw rooster comb dangled behind one misshapen ear.

  Beneath the crushed persimmon of a nose were whiskers and wide lips, the lips parted to show teeth of all kinds. Puppy teeth, kitty fangs, fishy nubs of cartilage, orange bits of beak like candy corn.

  Hulking out behind the massive dripping head were more slabs of tenderloin, breast and wing, fin and shell. The horrible coalition rippled with maggots and rot and magic.

  The lump of head nuzzled against his leg. The juice soaked through his jeans.

  Oh God.

  He wanted the end to come quickly now, because he had given the thing his fear and that was all he had. He had paid what he owed. But he knew in the dark hutch of his heart that the thing wasn't finished. He opened his eyes again.

  The strange eyes stared up into his. Twin beggars.

  You had to let them feed. On fear or whatever else they needed.

  Again the thing nuzzled, mewling wetly. Behind the shape, something slithered rhythmically against the leaves.

  A rope of gray and black and tan fur. A broken tail.

  Wagging.

  Wagging.

  Waiting and wanting.

  Forgiving.

  Dexter wept without shame. When the thing nuzzled the third time, he reached down with a trembling hand and stroked between the putrid arching ears.

  Riley's voice came to him, unbidden, as if from some burning bush or darkening cloud: "Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em."

  Dexter knelt, trembling. The thing licked under the soft part of his chin. It didn't matter that the tongue was scaly and flecked with forest dirt. And cold, grave cold, long winter cold.

  When you let them love you, you owe them something in return.

  He hugged the beast, even as it shuddered toward him, clickety-sloosh with chunks dribbling down. And still the tail whipped the ground, faster now, drumming out its affection.

  Suddenly the yard exploded with light.

  The back door opened. Mom stood on the porch, one hand on the light switch, the other holding her worn flannel robe closed across her chest. "What the hell's going on out here?"

  Dexter looked up from where he was kneeling at the bottom of the steps. His arms were empty and dry.

  "Don't just stand there with your jaw hanging down. You was supposed to be here an hour ago." Her voice went up a notch, both louder and higher. "Why, I've got a good mind to—"

  She stopped herself, looking across the lawn at the houses down the street. Dexter glanced under the porch. He saw nothing in the thick shadows.

  Mom continued, lower, with more menace. "I've got a good mind to take the belt to you."

  Dexter stood and rubbed the dirt off his pants.

  "Now get your ass in here, and don't make me have to tell you twice."

  Dexter looked around quickly at the perimeter of forest, at the black thickets where the thing would hide until Mom was gone. He went up the steps and through the door, past her hot drunken glare and stale breath. He shuffled straight to his room and closed t
he door. The beating would come or it wouldn't. It didn't matter.

  That night, when he heard the scratching at the windowsill and the bump against the glass, he opened the window. The thing crawled inside and onto the bed. It had brought him a gift. Riley’s bloody boot. When you loved something, it owed you in return. Maybe it had carried the other one to Tammy Lynn’s house, where it might have delivered her lost shoe on Halloween, the night of its birth. To thank her for the gift of blood.

  The nightmare creature curled at Dexter’s feet, licking at the boot. The thing’s stench filled the room, bits of its rotted flesh staining the blankets. Dexter didn’t sleep that night, listening to the mewling rasp of the creature’s breathing, wondering where the mouth was, knowing that he’d found a friend for life.

  And tomorrow, when he got off the bus, the thing would greet him. It would wait until the bus rolled out of sight, then drag itself from the woods and rub against his leg, begging to be stroked. It would lick his face and wait for his hug.

  And together they would run deep between the trees, Dexter at one end of the leash, struggling to keep up while the thing clickety-slooshed about and buried its dripping nose in the dirt, first here, then there. Once in a while into the creek, to wet its dangling gills. Stopping only to gaze lovingly at its master, showing those teeth that had done something bad to Riley and could probably do it again.

  Maybe if Dexter fed its hunger for affection, it wouldn’t have a hunger for other things.

  Dexter would give it what it needed, he would feed it all he had. Through autumn’s fog and into the December snows, through long spring evenings and into summer's flies. A master and its pet.

  You owe them that much.

  That’s just the way love is.

  They always get you anyway.

  THE END

  Gateway Drug Table of Contents

  Master Table of Contents

  ###

  ONE SICK PUPPY

  By Scott Nicholson

  Over the course of my career, I've always winced a little when people refer to me as a "horror writer."

  I don't feel like a horror writer, and all the unwholesome associations with the label don't fit my self-image of a playful parent, a serious organic gardener, a devoted spiritual explorer, and a compassionate, loyal husband.

  Sometimes I launch into my spiel of "Well, I write about supernatural legends based in the Appalachian Mountains," or "I write mysteries that explore the spiritual side of the human experience," or, if I'm feeling lazy, I say, "I write thrillers."

  I don't like gore and I avoid movies featuring senseless brutality, though of course it can serve as dramatic punctuation in art—whether in film, painting, or literature. Many of the classics employ violence, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs.

  So avoiding violence in literature is about as fake as having an entire book full of characters go 400 pages with none of them muttering so much as a "dang." The key, as with all ingredients, is in moderation.

  Sometimes when I offer my defense, a friend will say, "What about those man-eating goats? Or Richard Coldiron killing his father?" Or I'll say my comic books are family-friendly and then open to a page where a pregnant woman is getting kicked by her drunken boyfriend.

  Really, sometimes I surprise myself. I write things I don't think about, or that I "don't write." Because sometimes the story goes that way. Sometimes the character jumps up and engages in unexpected acts of depravity. And all I can do is grit my teeth and type.

  There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I am not sure what it is. One of my most successful novels, Disintegration, features an ending so bleak that I went about 100 pages from the end and marked a point at which I'd cut it out and rewrite. But friends talked me into leaving it the way it was and keeping the original message, even if it wasn't happy ever after.

  I don't relish the harming of innocents. I am appalled that James Patterson and Dean Koontz are so widely celebrated when their villains routinely take great glee in torturing and dismembering. When movies like the "Saw" franchise become hits, it makes me wonder about the desensitization of our culture.

  And then there I go, with a young boy mutilating animals, or a family engaging in secret perversions, or a guy finding creativity through his sharp implements.

  Sometimes, I laugh out loud when I write that stuff.

  I know it’s not real, and I know who controls it.

  That doesn't make the horrors of the real world any less gruesome. But it works for me, it gets me through the day, and it keeps me sane.

  I am probably the most well-adjusted sick puppy you will ever meet.

  Pet me.

  Maybe I won't bite.

  THE END

  Gateway Drug Table of Contents

  Master Table of Contents

  ###

  A collection of psychological thrillers and mind-bending horror stories, with bonus material.

  HEAD CASES

  By Scott Nicholson

  Copyright ©2010 by Scott Nicholson

  Published by Haunted Computer Books

  Master Table of Contents

  For my former counselors, may you rest in peace…or at least in pieces.

  HEAD CASES

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Fear Goggles

  A man sees thing as they are…and wants to fix that.

  2. Beggar’s Velvet

  Cynthia wonders about the man growing beneath the bed.

  3. The White House by John Everson

  An old woman has a chilling secret.

  4. Heal Thyself

  A man pays the price for the sins of a past life.

  5. Metabolism

  The cit is a menacing organic presence in one woman’s mind.

  6. Letters and Lies

  Charlie is a postal carrier with a special gift.

  7. The Weight of Silence

  Parenthood can change your life in more ways than one.

  8. Wee Robbie by William Meikle

  A couple’s rural vacation takes a turn for the worst.

  9. Do You Know Me Yet?

  The world’s most paranoid horror writers suspects everyone is stealing his ideas.

  About the Author

  Other Scott Nicholson books

  Scott’s U.S. Kindle links

  Scott’s U.K. Kindle links

  Master Table of Contents

  FEAR GOGGLES

  By Scott Nicholson

  “God, please help me see things as they are.”

  A simple prayer, one that Elvin Meister thought even God could understand. Of course, God was also the same perverted architect who had built Overton from the ground up, with its threatening spires and plenty of shadowed, teeming alleys. Such a God could not be trusted, but Elvin had been taught that prayers never hurt, even if they often fell on deaf ears.

  Elvin’s eyes had been bothering him for some time. He’d first noticed a month ago, when the talking head on the television screen grew ears that were slightly elongated and pointy, like those of a marsupial.

  “Gretta,” he’d said to his wife of seven years. “Does the picture look strange to you?”

  Gretta, busy in the kitchen with clattering dishes and a gurgling coffee pot, gave her usual impatient sigh and said, “The Tylers down the hall just got a flat screen and we’re still stuck with an antenna,” she said. “Of course the picture’s strange.”

  She’d passed judgment without bothering to glance at the screen, and when the man’s eyes narrowed and his pupils turned a deep shade of red, Elvin decided the color aspect was shot and hurriedly flipped off the set before the image disintegrated further.

  But he couldn’t chalk off last week’s incident to scrambled electrons or burned-out picture tubes. He’d been walking to his job at the corner deli, where he spent his days elbow-deep in sauerkraut and shredded corned beef, when the thing fluttered past his feet. H
e thought at first it was a pigeon, one of the thousands that strafed the city with fecal fusillades. But this one had been darker, more leathery, and vastly less feathery than its flying kin, and Elvin could have sworn, just before it disappeared into the rusted gap in an eave, that it had a long, decidedly non-avian tail. In fact, it had resembled a strip of shoe leather, coiled and quivering.

  He hurried on down the sidewalk. The faces around him, those dots of eyes and gash mouths that marked the millions, seemed even more blank and washed-out than usual. Elvin fought an urge to grab a passerby, peer closely into a face, and demand acknowledgement. In Overton, you wanted to be invisible and ignored. That was the way, and the sooner you accepted it, the longer you lived.

  If you could call this “living.”

  He’d made it through that day, convinced he was merely going through one of the phases Gretta had always ascribed to him. Moody, paranoid, given to long hours by the window, scarcely talking. These selfish fugues didn’t happen as often as she claimed, but Elvin had to admit a certain truth in her words. But he couldn’t discuss such things with her. There were certain matters of which one didn’t speak.

  Until last night.

  After separate showers, him going last so she could have as much hot water as she desired, he was brushing his teeth when he stared into the grimy mirror and saw his ears exhibiting the same distorted growth as the television announcer’s.

  “Honey?” he’d said.

  She was already under blankets, propped up on three pillows, a celebrity gossip magazine on her austere lap. Of course, she wouldn’t budge from such a position and resented any suggestion that she might. “What is it now?”

  He touched one ear, his inquisitive fingers rubbing the tip. It was rounded, defying the reflected image. But in the mirror, his fingers were tipped with long, yellowed, and cracked nails.