by Create50
Twisted’s Evil Little Sister Volume 1
www.Twisted50.com
Written by
Dee Chilton, Lewis Rice, Philip Trickett, Kathleen Bryson, Gareth Eynon, JT Billeter, David Young, Scott Merrow, Toby Norways, Rachael Howard, Nick Jackson, Kim Wheeler, Paul Wharton, Mat Sunderland, Alistair Canlin, Milethia Thomas, Jonah Jones, Gerald Kells, Geoff Bagwell, Merlin Ward, Steven Stockford, Matt Lewis, Charles Maciejewski, Mary Stone, Phil Town, Fredrick Ochami, Simon Cluett, Troll Dahl, Chris Jeal, John Read, Hillier Townsend and Maggie Innes
Edited by Elinor Perry Smith
Produced by Cristina Palmer-Romero
Create50 Team Leader: Chris Jones
Twisted’s Evil Little Sister is the second book to arise from the Create50 community and initiative. Can you write a short story? If you can, join our growing community of supportive writers at Create50. It’s free to join at www.Create50.com
Join the writing community here… www.Create50.com
Check out the book series website here… www.Twisted50.com
Follow Create50 on Twitter here… @Create50
Join the Facebook page for updates here… https://www.facebook.com/MyCreate50
Twisted’s Evil Little Sister was first published in Great Britain by Create50 Limited.
ISBN 978-0-9956538-2-5
Copyright © 2016 Create50 Ltd and respective authors.
Thanks and Acknowledgements
Create50 is powered by people who want to help create something extraordinary. Aside from the writers whose work is included in this volume, we must also thank everyone involved.
Cristina and Elinor, thank you for working so hard in putting this book together. Lucy, Emma, Judy, Lucia, Vicky, Hattie, Julian and the whole team, thank you for pulling it out of the bag. To the Create50 community, the writers, the readers, the proof readers, far too many to list, thank you. And Danny for building and maintaining the site, thank you.
Chris Jones
Founder of Create50
http://www.Create50.com
Follow me on Twitter @LivingSpiritPix
Raising an Evil Little Sister
By Elinor Perry-Smith, Producer
What I love about horror is the sense that it lies just below the surface. It can be danger in the home; being manipulated by those who say they love you; stepping off the beaten track, literally or metaphorically; finding the monster without, or within. The sheer breadth of imagination displayed by the writers I had the privilege to work with was a revelation. Just when I thought, ‘that’s it, I’ve seen it all!’ Along would come another twisted tale.
It is with sadistic pleasure that I present Twisted50’s Evil Little Sister. She’s smaller than her older sibling but is intent on disturbing you with her sick ideas, unforgettable images and gory prose. Dynamite also comes in small packages, lest we forget. Enjoy.
I write horror and dystopian sci fi. Check out my author page at Amazon HERE.
I am passionate about writing, film, walking and London. I live-tweet events at the London Screenwriters’ Festival and for Lucy Hay, AKA Bang2Write. What I love about reading and editing other people’s stories is that it raises my own game, as a writer, a reader and collaborator. My special and heartfelt thanks go to Cristina Palmer-Romero, Chris Jones and especially to all the writers. Long may you continue to thrill me with your words.
Table of Contents
Mrs Shrimpton’s Ever Growing Flowerbeds and Her Filleting Knife By Steven Stockford
She Will Never Die By Dee Chilton
The Devil is in the Detail By Nick Jackson
The Little Shop of Revenge By Chris Jeal
The Book of Stan By Scott Merrow
The House of Our Dreams By Geoff Bagwell
Seeing Red By Philip Trickett
The Auto-Cannibal By Kathleen Bryson
The Swing By G P Eynon
Jewboy Morrie and the Freakshow Angel By JT Billeter
Clear Air Turbulence By David Young
Muntjac By Toby Norways
Velvet Mary By Rachael Howard
Deep Conviction By Kim L Wheeler
No Chain By Paul W Franklin
The Turned By Mat Sunderland
The Middle Class Zombie By Alistair Canlin
Mirror Image By Alistair Canlin
Pig By Chris Jeal
Busy Izzie By Milethia Thomas
Chocolate to Die For By Jonah Jones
A Guide To Acting The Gentleman In Any Given Scenario By Lewis Rice
Something to His Left By Gerald Kells
Playgod.com By Simon Cluett
Killing Her Little Darling By Merlin Ward
A Christmas Story By Matt Lewis
The Naughty Room By Charles Maciejewski
A Deadly Countdown By Mary Stone
Hands By Phil Town
The Stink Monster By Fredrick Ochami
The Nasties By Troll Dahl
The French Dresser By John Read
Dear Son By Hillier Townsend
Shopping By Maggie Innes
Mrs Shrimpton’s Ever Growing Flowerbeds and Her Filleting Knife
By Steven Stockford
Mrs Shrimpton sat in her cluttered kitchen, the long filleting knife beneath her cushion. She had to keep it close to hand before Jade and her tattoos arrived, just in case she forgot to kill her. Forgetting was one of Mrs Shrimpton’s problems.
The distorted doorbell clanged from the speaker they had fitted above the stairs to counter her fading hearing. With effort and grunts, she manoeuvred her creaking body around the table in the tight dining area of her kitchen.
Jade’s plump figure was hazy through the front door’s opaque glass, though Mrs Shrimpton could make out the bright blues and yellows of her dress with the ghastly dark leggings.
The doorbell crackled again. “I’m coming.”
The door stuck as Mrs Shrimpton dragged it open with her fading strength. Jade leaned slightly to one side with her usual, idiotic beaming face. “Hope I didn’t wake yer?”
“No.” As if she’d be sleeping at ten in the morning!
Leaving the door ajar, Mrs Shrimpton hobbled back through her precision-ordered front room towards the kitchen.
As the door slammed shut, two fierce attempts later, Jade said, “Oh! Look at all this plastic over your living room carpet.”
“Eh?” Mrs Shrimpton paused at her kitchen door to stare nonplussed at the polythene covering the floor and drifting up her furniture like frozen waves over rocks.
“You thinking of decorating?”
“Ah, yes. Yes. I am. Would you like a nice cup of tea?”
“Please.”
The polythene was used by one serial killer in an episode of Murder Investigator, a wonderful afternoon series. The extra-long filleting knife was an idea from Sargent Kolowski. As one murderer in a recent episode pointed out, “Killing is easy, hiding the body is damned hard.”
She filled the kettle and stared blankly at it.
“So, Mrs Shrimpton, how are you today?”
Ah yes. That dumb cow Jade was here. All smiles. Platitudes decorated with those distastefully coloured tattoos.
“A nice cup of tea?” Mrs Shrimpton inquired again.
“Just what I need.”
“I have some nice biscuits from the supermarket. The Christmas ones.”
“One won’t hurt, will it?”
Alw
ays on a diet. Or was that the previous one? What was her name?
Mrs Shrimpton switched on the kettle, watching it rattle to life.
“How is Mrs Payton doing?” Jade asked, her eyes eagerly wide, as if desperate to hear the reply.
“Who?”
“Your new cleaner.”
The old lady shook her head. “Alright, I suppose.”
“Not as good as Mrs Greening?”
Mrs Greening? The name was familiar. Was that the woman over the road who was spying on her? The one who would come into her house to rearrange her picture frames whilst she was out shopping?
“Your previous cleaner,” Jade said. “She went missing a couple of months back.”
“Oh yes.” Mrs Shrimpton gazed at the flower beds in the garden and thought Mrs Greening was doing well. The flowers had already sprouted over her and the gardener had started the next hole.
“And you are coping with your shopping?”
“What?”
Jade raised her voice. “I said you’re coping with your shopping?”
“Course I am.” From the cupboard she pulled two tall china mugs with pictures of the Princes and set them down next to the bubbling kettle.
“Nice cup of tea?”
“I’m parched.”
“Good. I have some nice biscuits.”
“Lovely. They fixed your satellite dish then?”
Glancing back, the old lady noticed the girl’s stubby fingers prodding at one of those iPad thingees.
“Oh yes.” Did they fix it?
“I’ll get it sorted. That’s what I am here for.”
As if she couldn’t sort stuff for herself. “Sugar?”
“Oh dear. I know I shouldn’t. But three.” The girl giggled.
Mrs Shrimpton made her own tea first and then brought both cups to the table where she groaned back into her seat.
“Oh!”
In shock, she pulled the lethal knife from beneath her cushion and gazed at it.
“Oh dear, Mrs Shrimpton. Let me take that.” Jade pranced around the table, surprisingly light for someone so overweight. Plucking the knife from the puzzled elderly lady she slid it into the knife rack.
“I’ll just put it in here so you know where it is.”
Must she be so patronising?
When Jade settled back into her chair she hauled in a deep, troubled breath. “Now then, Mrs Shrimpton. The hearing aid?”
“The what? Oh, that.”
“You remember to turn it on when you have guests?”
Fumbling in her wiry grey hair, Mrs Shrimpton found the idiotically small switch and, following a click, noises crashed into her peaceful world. The fridge buzzed, the lights hummed and, in the street, bratty kids shouted as a football thumped off a wall. The traffic growled past as if it were circling her home.
“Bet that’s better, Mrs Shrimpton.”
“It’s alright.”
“Yes. So. The police would like a word with you.”
“That nosey neighbour being phoning them?”
“Who? No. It’s about Mrs Greening. You know? She went missing. A few months back? She cleaned for you.”
And doing a much better job where she is, Mrs Shrimpton thought.
“Ah, you’re smiling. You remember her?”
“Never put things back where they should go.”
“She went missing the morning she was supposed to see you.”
“Who?”
The stout girl closed her eyes, breathed deeply, until she found a smile, “Mrs Greening. She is missing. You were her last call.”
The old lady nodded but seemed distracted by something in her garden. Birds, maybe?
Jade had to tick this particular box for her records so pressed on. “You need someone here when they come round to chat to you.”
“Who?”
“The police!” Jade shouted. “Sorry, the police. About Mrs Greening.”
“Oh silly woman. Never put things back. I had to spend the best part of the day sorting everything.”
“I’ll let them know.” Jade patted her finger against her red lips before tapping out a few more words. “There. You’ve another eye exam tomorrow. At eleven. Cataracts are a pain in the arse, aren’t they?”
“Can barely see the television sometimes.”
“Aw.”
The silly girl didn’t understand how necessary it was to get the full details of any TV murder. Apparently it was no good just sticking a knife in someone. Oh, no. That would cause lasting damage but rarely death. To be certain of slaying the victim, you had to thump the knife into the stomach just below the rib cage then drive it upwards.
In thought, Mrs Shrimpton held her steaming cup to her lips. Odd how they both looked the same when the knife sliced through their hearts. Mrs Greening and the other one, the one with the horrible red hair. They looked shocked, but not in a hateful way, more curious. They had both stared at her with uncomprehending eyes, like her old poodle, Mufty, when it didn’t understand an instruction. Mufty had been the first in a hole and the petunias grew beautifully thereafter.
“You happy with Mrs Payton?”
The old lady stared at Jade, slightly distracted.
“The new cleaner,” Jade said with closed eyes.
“She’s ok.”
“Good.”
Damn. Mrs Shrimpton felt a needling thought. She intended doing something while that idiotic lump was here. What was it?
“Need to dash. People to see. Forms to be filled. It’s endless.”
Oh yes, the knife! Under her seat. She had placed it there so as not to forget it. Her hand reached down. Nothing. She looked around the chair; had it fallen to the floor?
“Now then, if there’s anything you need you have my number. It’s stuck to your computer screen upstairs.”
The old lady wondered what was stuck to her computer screen and how Jade would know such a thing.
“Your garden is looking ever so nice. All those bright flowers.”
“Need another flower bed dug.”
“Well you have one out there right now, waiting to be filled.”
Gazing through the kitchen window, Mrs Shrimpton seemed shaken to see it there. “Oh yes. That one’s ready, yes. I’ll need a couple more.”
“Well, have to run. Nice to see you.”
Cheeky bitch didn’t thank her for the tea. The old lady tutted. Ill-mannered brat with the horrible tattoos. No wonder she was going to kill her. Oh no. Today! It was to happen today.
“You want a hand in cleaning up all this polythene? You’ll need to take it off the TV, so you can see the programs.”
Patronising cow. If only she knew how hard it was to clean blood off everything when you can barely see around the cataract. Where was that damnable knife?
Once the stupid Jade was lying, choking on the floor she could wrap the clear plastic around her, before dragging her body into the kitchen. After a long doze it would be sufficiently dark to lug the corpse onto the patio and over to the new hole. It took an age hauling such a weight, so in between drags she would go inside to watch Strictly Come Dancing. Just to cheer herself up.
“Oh, this door of yours. Sticking all the time. I’ll see if I can get someone round to fix it. Bye for now and don’t forget, if you need anything just give us a call.” Jade laughed at nothing in particular, before waddling out to her neat car, one wheel of which, Mrs Shrimpton noticed, was embedded in her lovely front lawn.
With a toot and crunching gears the car rolled away to the main road, indicating one way but turning the other.
With effort Mrs Shrimpton closed her front door and cursed.
Back in the kitchen she cleared up the cup of tea for which the rude sod had not thanked her. Mrs Shrimpton stared down into the cup where a tea bag swam in a small portion of milk. Odd.
She placed the cups on the draining board; she always did the washing up after the lunch time court series, Fateful Hearings.
Waste of a morning, she cursed
herself. Perhaps she could cheer herself up with a nice salmon sandwich.
Oh, the knife! She had completely forgotten. She returned to her chair but there was nothing beneath the cushion. Had that nosey neighbour from over the road been in again? Where would she have hidden the knife?
The doorbell vibrated though her entire being. What? Of course! She had turned up her hearing aid so the bell was a like a ship’s foghorn.
There it was! The new, long-bladed filleting knife was in the knife rack. Where else? She slid it out and wedged it safely beneath the cushion of her chair.
The doorbell clanged through her head again.
It took a couple of tugs before the front door staggered open.
The police officer was around six foot, grinning with a wide-eyed expression of ‘good to see you’ on his face, but his uniform was tatty at the shoulders and frayed on one of the cuffs. What was the world coming to?
“Mrs Shrimpton?”
You had to be careful with police officers, in some films they were criminals in disguise. Still, she had the knife in the kitchen.
“I am Office Morgan. From Newton station.” He spoke with a slight lift at the end of sentences, as if asking questions. Here was another who should be fertilising the flowers.
Seeing the old lady eyeing him doubtfully, he tried a warm grin. “Why don’t I come in for a moment? Just a quick chat with you. About a Mrs Greening.”
Mrs Shrimpton nodded and relaxed. Here was the ideal candidate for the new flower bed. “Yes, come in. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”
“Excellent. I’m parched.”
“I’ve some nice biscuits from the supermarket. The new Christmas ones.”
“The day’s looking up all ready.”
The door closed with effort. “You need to get that sorted,” he froze mid step, like a puppet hanging from strings. “Er, all this plastic sheeting. You decorating?”
“Why don’t you undo your jacket so you can relax? I’ll get the knife.”
The copper laughed. “Oh I won’t be needing a knife. These buttons undo by hand.”
It was the last joke he ever made in this existence but the gladiolus blossomed beautifully that summer.
She Will Never Die
By Dee Chilton
