Horror Library, Volume 4

by Bentley Little

  "Deal."

  The man opened the door and climbed in. Elijah noticed a small beat-up backpack, the patches of a handful of heavy metal bands sewn to its surface.

  "Got a name?" Elijah said.

  "Call me Miguel."

  "Elijah." The guy didn't look Hispanic but he let it go. "Where you coming from?"

  "Does it matter?" Miguel was older, probably pushing fifty, and his voice sounded worn and recycled.

  "No." Elijah shifted into drive and accelerated. "Do you always hitchhike?"

  "Wouldn't travel any other way."

  "To each their own." Elijah couldn't see Miguel's face in the darkness of the car but imagined a smirk planted there. "Been traveling long?"

  "Since I left home. Never settled down. You?"

  "The same."

  "You a salesman?"

  "Yep. What about you?"

  Miguel chuckled. "Shit, I'm just a bum on a quest."

  Elijah looked into the dark where he thought Miguel's face was then back to the road. "Quest, huh?"

  "Mind if I smoke?"

  "Nah, go ahead."

  Miguel rustled in his jacket, and a moment later the front of the car lit up. Miguel's face materialized behind his flickering Zippo. Then he snapped it shut and the car plunged back into darkness. For a good while they travelled with the lone purr of the engine.

  Miguel broke the silence. "You're a shitty liar, you know that?"

  "How's that?"

  "You're no salesman."

  Elijah's hands tightened around the wheel. "I'm not?"

  "Nope. You're a bum, just like me. Travel from place to place. Work odd jobs; probably steal when you have to."

  "I'm not like you."

  "How's that?"

  "I have a car."

  "That you do." Miguel laughed and patted the dashboard. "That you do."

  Elijah reached down with his left hand to his side. He tried to move slow and not make noise on the seat. If he could get to his knife without drawing attention, he could slip it to his right if Miguel tried anything.

  "So how long have you had the visions?"

  Elijah's hand froze on his hip. The voice. "What?"

  "The visions, man. How long?"

  "I don't know—"

  "Bullshit. You see the ghosts of people who aren't dead yet. That's what you told your momma when you were eleven, right? 'Momma, I see ghosts but the people aren't dead' or something like that. Visions, man. Things that are gonna happen."

  Elijah's hands shook. The voice. "How do you know?"

  "I dream about it."

  Elijah looked at Miguel and saw only the glowing orange tip of his cigarette. The voice. He'd known as soon as he'd heard it, but just hadn't placed it. The stranger. The man from his recurring dream, right here next to him.

  "I've been having dreams about you for a long time," Miguel said. "I go to sleep and see you choking some pimp in an alley in Seattle. Or see you cracking a mom's skull right before she tosses her infant in a dumpster in Sacramento. Last night, I saw you knife some trucker outside Dallas."

  It was hard for Elijah to breathe. "Who are you?"

  "Who are you?" Miguel chuckled and took a deep drag, the orange tip glowing brighter. "Figured there was a connection between us. Something deep, you know, because it was always you and there was something, I don't know, familiar. Took me a while to figure it out. When I did, it made all the sense in the world."

  Elijah wiped sweat from his upper lip. "How'd you find me?"

  "The date. I knew where to be because that's where I had been. Like I said, when I figured it out, it all made sense."

  "So tell me what you figured out."

  "You'll see soon enough." Miguel took another puff and blew smoke at Elijah.

  "First you got to see Mom. Don't have much time."

  Vertigo swirled about Elijah's head, and he swerved toward the shoulder before righting the car. "You don't know shit about my mother."

  "Oh, yes I do. I know all about dear Mom. How your daddy used to beat her, and you. How she cracked Dad's skull with a bat and watched him bleed out. How you got orphaned when she went to prison. Oh, I know quite a bit."

  Elijah's lower lip trembled. There was silence between them for a few seconds.

  "I see things, too, you know," Miguel said. "Visions, like you. But I also see things that have already happened. Past and future, I see it all. Best of both worlds, so to speak. You will, too."

  "You're insane."

  "We're the same, you know. You just don't see it yet."

  "You're Death."

  "And you're Loneliness." Another drag. "You're Vision."

  "I dream about you, too," Elijah said. "Seen you kill women. Innocents. So don't compare me to you."

  "Why'd you kill that trucker?"

  "To save that girl."

  "You didn't have to kill him, though. But you slit his throat without a second thought. Doesn't sound like the action of a good man to me. I think you like it. In fact, I know you do."

  "I use my gift for good."

  "You use it as an excuse to kill and it's a curse, not a gift. I almost went insane when I was fifteen, hearing all their voices. How old were you when it became too much? When you realized you had to run away to silence them?"

  Elijah didn't answer. He was instead plotting ways to get Miguel out of the car.

  "I guess it doesn't really matter," Miguel said. "You ran away just like me. And then you started killing just like me. So you see, we are the same."

  "I don't kill innocent people."

  "You want a medal or something? We'll see how you do when you're completely alone with nothing else in your life. Because when you've got nothing, when you don't have an anchor for all that hate, you stop pretending to care about strangers. All you care about then is feeling alive, like you matter. I matter to those women because I decide if they live or die. You'll learn soon enough, wait and see. You're not special. And before I'm done with you, I'll show you how you die."

  Elijah moved his left hand for his knife.

  "Pull over," Miguel said. "I want to show you something."

  Elijah pulled the knife from his back pocket. Switching hands on the wheel, he grabbed the knife from his lap with his right.

  "I want you to see." A gun cocked in the dark. "Pull over and I'll show you." Miguel jammed the barrel into Elijah's ribs. "Now."

  "Okay, okay." Elijah took his foot off the accelerator and pulled over onto the shoulder. "Just take it easy."

  The barrel moved from his ribs but Elijah could still feel it pointing at him.

  Miguel rifled through his backpack. Elijah tried to see better in the dark, staring, willing his night vision to sharpen so he could locate the gun.

  "Turn on the map light," Miguel said.

  "What?"

  "Turn on the map light. I said I wanted to show you."

  Elijah reached up to the rearview mirror and flicked on the map light.

  Sitting across from him, Miguel held the gun in his left hand and the severed head of a woman in the other. Elijah jumped back and hit his spine on the driver's side door.

  "I'm not alone," Miguel said.

  Elijah closed his eyes, waiting for the gunshot.

  Nothing happened.

  Elijah opened his eyes a millimeter at a time until the passenger seat came into focus.

  Empty. The only thing occupying it was the light from the rearview.

  He turned and looked forward. The mist still hung heavy on the road. The car, still parked on the shoulder.

  A ghost, Elijah thought and exhaled slow and long. It had felt more real than any other. And it had lasted longer than any of his previous experiences.

  "Which means he's up the road." Elijah flicked the map light off. "I am Vision."

  The accelerator pinned to the floor, the back wheels spun and then bit the asphalt. The car rocketed from zero to sixty in about seven seconds. The eight cylinders of the engine roared as the RPMs flirted with the red
line. By the time he topped out in speed, the lights did little more than illuminate a gray wall.

  The headlights reflected off something small.

  Then Miguel was there, bathed in the glow of angry headlights, backpack slung over his shoulder. Elijah swerved and there was a sickening thud as Miguel was sucked under the right front tire and then the rear one. The car bounced almost out of control, but Elijah slammed on the brakes. The car skidded about fifteen feet. Breathing hard, he glanced in the rearview but saw only mist.

  Just drive, Elijah thought. Get to Mom and wash the car off while it's still dark.

  But he needed to know Miguel was dead. Then the dreams would end and maybe the part of him connected to Miguel would finally have peace.

  Elijah shifted into reverse and backed slowly until a lump of twisted flesh appeared in the rearview, the brake lights blanketing the lump in red. He grabbed his knife, opened the door and approached the body slowly, just in case Miguel pulled the gun.

  Something moved. Miguel rolled over, gurgled blood and wheezed for air. Elijah knelt next to him, the knife held to his chest, ready to stab.

  Most of Miguel's body was crushed. The right side of his head was caved in and only his left eye remained. It stared at Elijah.

  "Who are you?" Elijah said.

  Miguel appeared to be grinning, a mouthful of broken and chipped teeth pointing out at Elijah. A long breath escaped his mouth. Elijah watched Miguel's life sputtering out in the red brake lights.

  "This is how you die." Miguel gurgled blood.

  Elijah blinked and found himself kneeling over the empty pavement. Miguel had vanished. He ran around and looked at the front end of the car. It was undamaged.

  "What the hell?" He'd never experienced anything like it. A vision followed by a vision?

  A semi raced by and honked. Snapping out of his disbelief, Elijah climbed back aboard and drove on, determined more than ever to get to Mom.

  ***

  The guards were expecting him and called for an escort from the infirmary when Elijah arrived. A thin, gaunt man met him and took him to his mother.

  She was a sack of bones with sunken eyes and birdlike arms. He walked over to her and kissed her on the forehead. Her skin was clammy. She smelled of wet-wipes and urine.

  "I'm here, Mom." He leaned over her, and saw a glint of recognition in her milky eyes.

  "Knowing you were alone and unloved here in prison has been the only comfort in my life. You murdered Dad, and left a broken kid to roam the broken world. My only hope is that you don't die. That you continue to rot away, alive and in misery, forever, and ever."

  A single monotone sound emanated from the heart monitor. A flat line drifted across the screen. A doctor and a nurse raced in and pushed Elijah aside and started CPR. Rather than watch, he moved toward the door feeling empty and defeated. Ten minutes later, a doctor found him in the hallway and told him she was gone.

  "I am Loneliness," he said when he was by himself.

  Elijah stood there a long time, thinking about her, and his life. Thought about Miguel, the stranger of his dreams. Thought about the people he'd killed before they could do bad things, the images of them replaying in his head all at once like a surreal movie. And now the one thing he'd always had in his life, his focus of rage, the woman who had ruined him, was gone.

  His hands trembled as he rubbed the back of his neck, thinking, wishing he could make sense of everything and feeling more alone now than he ever had.

  Just get out of here, he thought. Find a motel, sleep, and then bury Mom tomorrow.

  After signing out with the guard at the front, Elijah walked to his car and climbed in. When he tried to start it, nothing happened.

  "Come on."

  He turned the key again. Nothing. Not even a click.

  Deal with it tomorrow, he thought and got out.

  Elijah grabbed his backpack from the backseat. Looking at the solitary patch sewn on the front reminded him of when Mom had first given it to him. His favorite band for her favorite son.

  Fuck her, he thought, shaking the memory off and slinging the pack over his shoulder. He slammed the door and walked from the car down the road away from the prison.

  I am Loneliness, he thought as he pulled his jacket tighter against a chill wind. I am Vision.

  The headlights of an approaching car rounded the bend up ahead. As it neared, Elijah stuck out his fist and cocked his thumb up.

  The car slowed and pulled over just past him. "Need a ride?" a woman said.

  Elijah stared at the car a moment before walking toward it. "Yes, I do."

  "I can take you as far as town."

  "Sounds good." Elijah climbed in the passenger seat and set his pack on the floor between his feet. "I appreciate it."

  "Got a name?" Her accent was soft, maybe Georgia. Elijah looked at her. He couldn't make out much but could tell she was thin. Her breasts were nice and round. Her hair, auburn and long. She looked like Mom when she had been younger.

  "Miguel," he said.

  I am Vision, he thought. I am Death.

  Erik Williams is pretty much a nobody in the world of fiction. But he's working real hard to change that. At least he says he is. Then again, he's only been writing since 2005 so he's not really doing too badly, right? At least don't tell him he is. He's a bit sensitive.

  His short stories have appeared in Apex Digest, Greatest Uncommon Denominator, and Necrotic Tissue magazines as well as this here anthology. His novella "Blood Spring" is available from Bad Moon Books. His novelette "The Reverend's Powder" is available from Sideshow Press. His first novel, DEMON, will be published in 2011 by Bad Moon Books.

  See, he is working hard.

  —SANTA MARIA

  by Jeff Cercone

  "Can you believe these people? What the hell's the matter with them?"

  Rob ignored his friend and pushed his way through the crowd, bumping an elderly Hispanic woman in the shoulder. He started to apologize, but she was too preoccupied to notice.

  "Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. . ." She whispered the prayer, tears soaking her grizzled cheeks and her arms clutching what Rob assumed were her two grandchildren, who stared wide-eyed at the spectacle.

  Dozens of people, the devout and the curious, had gathered at the underpass of the Kennedy freeway, positioning for a glimpse of the stain on the wall. A certain civility had taken hold despite the stifling Chicago heat and the decidedly unholy stench of exhaust fumes, sweat and urine.

  Most kept a respectful distance, queuing up and allowing a few at a time, usually a family or a group of friends, to move up to get a closer look. Rob noticed, then felt guilty for pushing his way to the front.

  "They're nuts!" Mitch said, not caring who he offended. "It doesn't look anything like her. It's a freakin' stain!"

  "I dunno, if you stare at it long enough, it could look like her," Rob answered.

  Behind them, people held their camera phones up to capture the image on the wall.

  "So how do you explain the one that appeared in rust on the water tower in Des Moines?" Rob asked. "And then there was the other one that was supposedly just a random case of brown patch on that football field in Texas. . ."

  "I had a rash once that looked like Danny Devito if you saw it in the right light, but nobody was asking me for autographs," Mitch said, shaking his head.

  "You're all class, Mitch," Rob said, chuckling inappropriately loud.

  It was Mitch's idea to come here, not because either of them was religious; he just thought it would be worth a laugh, and he suggested that Rob could get some footage for his film class. They had been friends all through high school and Mitch hadn't changed a bit, Rob thought. He wished he could say the same about himself. Iraq had done a number on him. But it was good to be home and among friends. And nice to be able to laugh again.

  A small, middle-aged man in front of them turned and frowned.

  "Show some r
espect, boys. The virgin came to see us and all you can do is make jokes?" He shook his head, the brim of his fishing hat stained with sweat.

  "Sorry sir," Rob said sheepishly while Mitch rolled his eyes.

  A young woman was hugging the stain on the wall as her three little girls watched, the youngest holding a beat-up plastic doll that was missing an arm and the oldest holding the leash of a large black lab who had plopped down in a mud puddle to cool off.

  "Come up here and tell the Virgin your sins!" the woman barked at the girls, who approached the wall cautiously. "Ask for forgiveness."

  They waited another 20 minutes for their turn, Rob only having to shush Mitch a few times. The man in the fishing hat was on his knees at the wall now, holding rosary beads in one hand, his other touching the stain. After a few moments, he struggled to his feet and put the beads in his pocket. He looked at Rob and Mitch and tipped his hat, then turned and walked toward the sidewalk.

  As they moved closer, Rob took out his video camera and began filming the crowd, then swung around to follow their gaze. In front of the wall, an impromptu shrine had emerged, with a couple dozen or so glass candles, the kind they sold at the discount store on the corner, some with pictures of the Virgin, others with Jesus. People had left bouquets of flowers, cards, rosary beads, Bibles and teddy bears. Rob noticed that the little girl had left behind the one-armed doll, probably at her mother's urging.

  "Unbelievable," Mitch whispered. "Isn't it scary to think about how many desperate people live around you?"

  "Come on, now. If they want to believe in something, who's it hurting?" Rob retorted, panning and tilting the camera on the stain. "It does look a little bit like her."

  "You've been overseas too long, dude," Mitch said.

  Rob zoomed in on it. If you stared at it long enough, it certainly looked like the outline of a woman wearing a robe, her head tilted slightly. He could sort of make out a feminine face at the top right and hands clasped in prayer above her chest. On the news, city officials were claiming salt runoff from the highway above caused the stain.

  "Come on, dude. I gotta get back. I'm meeting Melissa for dinner," Mitch said, tapping Rob's shoulder.