Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4

by Cheryl Mullenax

  Lickety-split, the killer was standing, scythe in hand. Far slower, the scarecrow climbed to his feet and lumbered forward, hands outthrust, opening and closing, prelude to grasping.

  Hefting his weapon over his shoulder, the Hallowfiend exhaled, then swung downward. Between the scarecrow’s open palms his blade passed, parting clothing and flesh, traveling from chest to navel, spilling innards to the soil.

  Upon a steaming pile of his own intestines the corpse toppled, offering a soft squelching sound in lieu of last words. One down, three to go, thought the Hallowfiend. Sure, the crosses were a bad idea, but perhaps I’ll make use of a quartet of corpses before the night’s finished.

  * * *

  Hardly distinguishable from wind-rustled leaves, a whimpering then met the Hallowfiend’s ears. Trailing it, the killer encountered a slim, undoubtedly feminine scarecrow: his intended’s yoga instructor.

  Rocking from her heels to her toes, tugging her mask down by its eyeholes so as to be temporarily blinded, she moved her free fist as if to punch her own temple, again and again, as if such an action might reboot her intelligence. Always, she stopped short of impact.

  Sweet Jolly Jane…oh, she’s perfect, thought the Hallowfiend, recognizing the broken-souled resignation he sought to inspire in every victim. If only I had enough time for proper torture.

  Through one well-toned, supple breast he pushed his curved blade. Gracefully, the scarecrow died, doing a sort of ballerina’s plie that carried her to her rump, then into a reclining eternal repose.

  Two left, thought the Hallowfiend. My intended’s best friend and her boy toy. Where oh where might they be? Open-eared, the killer listened. Wide-eyed, he searched the soil for telltale indentations, tracks he might follow.

  Frustration! For all that his senses revealed, he might as well have been alone in the cornfield. Pitch-black night was impending; soon, he’d require a flashlight.

  * * *

  The corn smut is all-pervasive, he realized, wandering. Strange that it should appear all at once, so close to the harvest. I certainly noticed nothing awry at dawn, while erecting the crosses.

  Minutes escaped him; night swallowed the scenery. Dispirited, the Hallowfiend decided to make his way homeward, where battery-spawned radiance was attainable. Perhaps I should abandon my search altogether, he thought, to collect my intended before the night’s over.

  Surely, in their condition, the scarecrows won’t be escaping my property anytime soon. I’ll call my helpers in the morning, and we’ll find them together. So thinking, he nearly tripped over the missing pair.

  * * *

  Over the course of prior days, while stalking his intended—wearing his insipid, ordinary human guise—the Hallowfiend had observed her at lunch with her bestie and sometime lover. Wise to human nature, he’d detected a surreptitious sort of flirting between the latter two when his intended wasn’t watching them: clandestine glances, lingering touches.

  Ergo, the killer shouldn’t have been surprised to find the pair succumbing to a sad sort of romance. Writhing upon the soil in a tight embrace, they dry-humped, fully costumed, the Hallowfiend learned with one wandering hand.

  Both at once! thought the killer. Fortunate indeed! Lifting his scythe overhead, and driving it down with every ounce of strength he possessed, the Hallowfiend drove his blade through the female’s back, into her ersatz paramour. Grunting and moaning, falling subaudible then silent, they stilled.

  There’s still time, the Hallowfiend realized. I’ll drag the corpse quartet to my house, and leave them dismembered on the porch so that my intended might discover them. It was touch and go for a while there, but it seems that this night shall be salvaged.

  Grabbing the female by the ankle, he began to drag her betwixt maize rows. Absentmindedly humming along with the unseen, droning cicadas, he grinned beneath his orange skull mask. Unbeknownst to the Hallowfiend, however, a certain mentally crippled boy toy wasn’t quite dead.Unsteadily, that scarecrow climbed to his feet.

  Heroically, as his life slipped away through his slit abdomen and stars went black overhead, the staggering fellow put every last bit of his vitality into a final grand gesture. Lacing his fingers together, he swung both hands like a baseball bat, into the Hallowfiend’s head, his last living act.

  Blasted unconscious, the Hallowfiend toppled beneath his assaulter.

  * * *

  When again his eyes opened, the killer found himself sandwiched between corpses, in the luster of a flourishing dawn. His entire body ached, his noggin especially, both within and without.

  Halloween’s over! he realized. My intended yet lives, unscathed.

  What an eye-opener this has been, he thought, sitting then standing. No longer shall I go it alone when committing baroque murders. If I’d had somebody watching the scarecrows, this could have all been avoided.

  From now on, I’ll include my helpers every step of the way, from planning to climax, he resolved. I’m not as young as I used to be, after all, and can’t be everywhere at once.

  The Hallowfiend reached a decision: I’ll chop the scarecrows into bits and leave them in the clearing, along with that jack-o’-lantern-headed mailman. I’ll dig a pit for them first, so that they can be buried beneath the masks of future victims.

  Before that, however, I’ll draw myself a bath.

  Trudging back to his residence, the House of Eternal October, the Hallowfiend shook his masked head in dazed exasperation. All of his meticulous planning, yet his intended still breathed. Sure, I could invade her bungalow at any time and abduct her for quick murder, he thought, as I’ll undoubtedly do with others soon enough…but that’ll seem so anticlimactic after all of my fantasizing.

  “Well, there’s always next Halloween,” he whispered to an indifferent dawn.

  <<====>>

  Author’s Story Note

  You returning readers of the Year’s Best Hardcore Horror series might well recognize the Hallowfiend from Volume 2, in which his debut tale, “The Hallowfiend Remembers,” was reprinted. In the story notes of that anthology, I mentioned that I was writing a story in which I was sending the Hallowfiend on a grand adventure. Though that narrative, Outreverse, is now complete (and being considered for publication as of today, January 8, 2019), this is something different.

  “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve” takes place many years after “The Hallowfiend Remembers,” and a comparatively shorter time prior to Outreverse. I wrote it out of a desire to follow up on a sentence from my story “Escape From Mad Castle”: “I exited the House of Eternal October with all my limbs intact.”

  For those who read that story (available in my book Let’s Destroy Investutech, if y’all will excuse a bit more shameless self-promotion), the implication was that at some point, somewhere or another, the body-jumping star of The Diabolical Designs of Professor Pandora paid a visit to an autumnal realm wherein his arms and legs might have been hacked away. Well, who better to occupy such a realm than the Hallowfiend?

  Unlike “Escape From Mad Castle” (a sort of Freddy vs. Jasonesque clash within a surreal, Cronenbergian fringeland), I wanted Professor Pandora’s appearance in “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve” to be more subtle. Ergo, by the end of the story, even the skeleton-masked serial killer is unsure what really happened.

  To get the tone right for this one, I revisited my The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Tourist Trap Blu-rays. I also reread some classic Ray Bradbury to get my nostalgia levels at their highest. A worthy way to spend one’s time (even for non-authors), if you ask me.

  MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

  By Alicia Hilton

  From Fri-SciFi

  Akashic Books

  The chimpanzee with a bandaged forehead grabbed a hypodermic needle.

  Michelle smiled and watched Cynthia stab a syringe into the laboratory director’s kneecap. The chimp appeared to be making a flower design. The other twelve needles she’d jabbed were arranged around the knee like daisy peta
ls.

  Michelle had planned to do the cutting, but the animals that she’d freed wanted to punish the man who’d used them for experiments.

  “So…sorry,” Michelle’s boss sobbed. Harold Wade’s pleas for mercy were muffled by the torn sleeve of his tweed jacket that was tied across his mouth in a gag.

  A Norwegian rat that was the size of a large cat skittered across the stainless steel table where Harold was trussed. The rat bared his razor sharp teeth and said, “Sugar, we can’t hear you. Can you speak up?”

  The biomedical scientist screamed and flailed against the ropes that were tied from his ankles and wrists to the table legs.

  The rat glanced at Michelle. She nodded and Ralph locked his jaws over Harold’s bare right foot. With one snip, he severed the big toe and the little toe next to it.

  The tiny bones made a crunching noise from being pulverized by the rat’s molars.

  Ralph jumped from the table to a utility shelf when his victim pissed himself, the gush of yellow fluid soaking the scientist’s white boxers and spreading across the table, mixing with scarlet in a swirly pattern that reminded Michelle of a Rorschach inkblot. She wondered what her psychiatrist would say about the gory tableau. Dr. Taylor had encouraged her to express her feelings, but the therapist’s advice hadn’t worked.

  She’d told Harold that his provocative comments about her breasts were offensive, but instead of apologizing, he’d threatened to have her fired. When she’d filed a complaint with HR, her supervisor wasn’t reprimanded.

  Michelle had come into the lab on a Saturday so she could clean out her desk before she quit. No one was supposed to be working. She’d been putting her behavioral science books in her bag when Harold came up behind her and grabbed her throat. Remembering what he’d done, Michelle felt a wave of nausea. She swallowed the bile and tried to regain control of her emotions.

  She felt a tug on her pants leg and glanced down.

  A baby chimp danced with excitement, a syringe in his fist.

  She lifted Rico. His little teeth jabbered in glee when he sank the needle into Harold’s rotund belly.

  The scientist’s thrashing increased, and his face and chest turned a florid shade that reminded Michelle of sautéed tomatoes.

  A gorilla standing by the heart monitor said, “The subject’s heart rate has risen to 141 beats per minute.”

  Michelle set Rico on the floor and addressed the gorilla, “Do you want a turn?”

  Amos shook his head and gripped a pencil in his fist, writing in the lab notebook.

  Michelle watched tears streaming down her boss’s face. She touched her own neck. It was swollen and sore, and she knew she’d be bruised tomorrow. “You shouldn’t have raped me.”

  “Please,” he sobbed.

  His fear fueled her hate. She held a Bunsen burner to Harold’s cheek. The blistering skin made a popping noise and smelled sweet, like grilled pork sausage. Flames engulfed his dyed brown hair, greasy pomade sizzling. The halo of fire spread down his sideburns to the gag.

  She stepped back and tossed a beaker of alcohol at his chest.

  Now a human torch, his heels beat timpani against the table. By the time fire burned through the ropes, he’d stopped moving.

  The chimps scampered after the gorilla, knocking over a shelf of chemicals as they fled the smoke. She grabbed her purse and followed the rat.

  Ralph leapt into the back of her minivan and curled up under a blanket. As she sped down the driveway, away from the conflagration, Michelle glanced in the rearview mirror and saw three figures crossing the pasture that led to the woods. The gorilla’s stoop shouldered silhouette reminded her of her dead grandfather.

  <<====>>

  Author’s Story Note

  “Monkey See, Monkey Do” started as a writing exercise. I was inspired to craft a tale about survivors of abuse and laboratory experimentation and wanted the story to feature unlikely alliances between different species who have a common enemy. Given adequate motivation, everyone has the capacity for violence. Cruelty and love can take many forms.

  AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

  SCATH BEORH is the author of the novel Haunted By Benevolence and the story collections Dreams of Flying and Hollow Boy (which features 'Lord of the Mesa'). He also helms the periodical Fear & Trembling Magazine. He may be reached via beorh.house@gmail.com

  DOUGLAS FORD lives and works on the west coast of Florida, just off an exit made famous by a Jack Ketchum short story. His weird, dark fiction has appeared in Dark Moon Digest, Infernal Ink, Weird City, as well as other small press publications. Recent publications include work in The Best Hardcore Horror, Vol 3 and Great Jones Street. His 2017 contribution to Mrs. Rochester's Attic, "Count Von Cosel's Great Love," received an honorable mention nod from Ellen Datlow in her "best of" selections for that year. He lives with a Hovawart who fiercely protects him from night creatures, along with four cats who merely tolerate him.

  DOUNGJAI GAM’s short fiction has appeared in LampLight, Distant Dying Ember, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, Wicked Haunted, and the Necon E-Books Best of Flash Fiction Anthology series since 2011. her debut collection, glass slipper dreams, shattered, came out in August 2018. She is a member of the New England Horror Writers. Born in Thailand, she currently resides in Connecticut.

  LYMAN GRAVES Hailing from the pine country of East Texas, Lyman Graves is an amateur scholar of occult principles best viewed through lenses of stark mundanity and ecological perversion. He will have more work appearing soon in Swamp Ape Review. He lives alone, coexisting with the odd urban pest.

  SEAN PATRICK HAZLETT is a technology analyst and Army veteran living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he considers writing fiction as therapy that pays for itself. His fiction has appeared in Terraform, Galaxy’s Edge, Writers of the Future: Volume 33, Abyss & Apex, Grimdark Magazine, Unnerving Magazine, and Weirdbook, among others.

  R.E. HELLINGER Hailing from the kudzu-smothered south, R.E Hellinger has long been a fan of all things spooky and ooky. They produce free zines with their fiance through their joint project Two Dead Queers. This is their first publication outside of the Two Dead Queers franchise.

  ALICIA HILTON is a writer, law professor, actress and former FBI Special Agent. She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her JD and MA from the University of Chicago. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Akashic Books, Breakwater Review, ChiZine Publications, and elsewhere.

  BRIAN HODGE Called “a writer of spectacularly unflinching gifts” by Peter Straub, Brian Hodge is one of those people who always has to be making something. So far, he’s made thirteen novels, around 130 shorter works, five full-length collections, and one soundtrack album. His most recent books are the novel The Immaculate Void and the collection Skidding Into Oblivion, companion volumes of cosmic horror.

  His crime novel Mad Dogs and Lovecraftian novella “The Same Deep Waters As You” were recently optioned for a film and TV series, respectively.

  He lives in Colorado, where he also likes to make music and photographs; loves everything about organic gardening except the thieving squirrels; and trains in Krav Maga and kickboxing, which are of no use at all against the squirrels.

  Connect through his web site (www.brianhodge.net), Twitter (@BHodgeAuthor), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/brianhodgewriter).

  ED KURTZ is the author of The Rib from Which I Remake the World, Bleed, Nausea, and other novels. Ed’s short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies and has been honored in both Best American Mystery Stories and Best Gay Stories. He lives in Connecticut.

  CHAD LUTZKE lives in Michigan with his wife and children. For over two decades, he has been a contributor to several different outlets in the independent music and film scene, offering articles, reviews, and artwork. He has written for Famous Monsters of Filmland, Rue Morgue, Cemetery Dance, and Scream magazine. He's had a few dozen stories published, and some of his books include: OF FOSTER HOMES & FLIES, WALLFLOWER, STIRRING TH
E SHEETS, SKULLFACE BOY, and OUT BEHIND THE BARN co-written with John Boden. Lutzke's work as been praised by authors Jack Ketchum, James Newman, Stephen Graham Jones and his own mother. He can be found lurking the internet at www.chadlutzke.com.

  ALESSANDRO MANZETTI (Rome, Italy) is a Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, and translator of horror fiction and dark poetry whose work has been published extensively in Italian, including novels, short and long fiction, poetry, essays, and collections. English publications include his novel Naraka - The Ultimate Human Breeding, the collections The Garden of Delight, The Massacre of the Mermaids, The Monster, the Bad and the Ugly (with Paolo Di Orazio) and the poetry collections No Mercy, Eden Underground, War (with Marge Simon) Sacrificial Nights (with Bruce Boston) and Venus Intervention (with Corrine de Winter). In 2019 his new novel in English, Shanti, will be released by Necro Publications, leader in modern hardcore horror since 1993.

  He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death, The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (with Daniele Bonfanti).

  SERAS NIKITA is a writer of horror and science fiction. Many of her stories are set in the American South, where she spent much of her life. She currently lives in Oakland, California where she works in visual effects and contributes to podcasts such as Pseudopod and NoSleep. She also fosters and volunteers with rescue rabbits, many of whom have been freed from laboratories and research facilities. You can find her at serasnikita.writerfolio.com. You can learn more about rescue bunnies as pets at rabbit.org!

  ANNIE NEUGEBAUER: “ I’m a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author with work appearing and forthcoming in more than a hundred publications, including magazines like Cemetery Dance, Apex, and Black Static. I’m an active member of the Horror Writers Association and a columnist for two Writer’s Digestaward-winning websites: Writer Unboxed and LitReactor. I’m represented by Alec Shane of Writers House.”