Head Case

by Kendra Moreno

  Blurb

  Welcome to Whisperwood Sanitorium…

  * * *

  Kenzie has lived in Whisperwood since she was a child. She’d fallen into a strange but happy routine that included her best friend and boyfriend, but when he’s fired for inappropriate conduct, Kenzie begins to spiral. Her fixation on the newest resident becomes a welcome distraction but as Halloween approaches, she starts to wonder where Crane’s delusions end and a strange reality begins.

  * * *

  …where the petting zoo gets a little insane.

  * * *

  Crane has always avoided the living at all costs, his job in the morgue only helping his desires. When he runs into a mysterious stranger at a bar one night, his life takes a sudden turn into hell. Now, he’s hearing a mysterious voice and the proper jerk has a fascination with heads. Willingly checking himself into Whisperwood should have been the answer to his problems. Instead, the feisty blonde with a taste for trouble only seems to make his own yearning for blood stronger.

  * * *

  When All Hallows Eve crashes down upon Kenzie and Crane, will they be strong enough to survive the massacre, or will they remain locked within the suffocating walls of Whisperwood Sanitorium?

  * * *

  **Head Case contains depictions of gore, blood, and a sexy Horseman. Don't forget to mind your head...**

  Head Case

  Kendra Moreno

  Poppy Woods

  Copyright

  PLEASE DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN PIRACY

  * * *

  Copyright © 2019 by Poppy Woods

  Copyright © 2019 by Kendra Moreno

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Trigger Warning:

  Prologue

  1. Crane

  2. Kenzie

  3. Crane

  4. Kenzie

  5. Crane

  6. Kenzie

  7. Crane

  8. Kenzie

  9. Crane

  10. Kenzie

  11. Crane

  12. Kenzie

  13. Crane

  14. Kenzie

  15. Crane

  16. Kenzie

  17. Crane

  18. Kenzie

  19. Crane

  20. Kenzie

  21. H

  22. Kenzie

  23. H

  24. Kenzie

  25. H

  26. Kenzie

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About Poppy

  About Kendra

  Also by Kendra:

  Also by Poppy:

  For all the ladies who like their men a little dangerous

  * * *

  Trigger Warning:

  Head Case contains violence, blood, gore, and a sexy Horseman. We want you to read our story, but we always want you to take care of yourself first. The violence is NOT directed at the leading lady. If you’re ready to ride with the Horsemen, flip the page and start the journey. But remember, be sure to mind your head. . .

  Trigger Warning:

  Head Case contains violence, blood, gore, and a sexy Horseman. We want you to read our story, but we always want you to take care of yourself first. The violence is NOT directed at the leading lady. If you’re ready to ride with the Horsemen, flip the page and start the journey. But remember, be sure to mind your head. . .

  Prologue

  Fire. Blood. Destruction. Screams. All fuel for my soul as I slice head after head from their shoulders. The body I am in is growing too old for such things, his bones cracking and creaking with each movement, the joints far weaker than what I need. It will be time to find another soon, though I have grown to like this one. He has been a kind partner, a bit hesitant to complete the job, but willing to accept that it needs done.

  “It is time,” I groan, letting the powers bleed from our body, the dawn of a new year upon us.

  “Thank you,” John says, relief in his voice. “Thank you.”

  Now, the hunt for another begins . . .

  Chapter 1

  Crane

  The sign above the run-down bar is nothing to nod your head at, so many letters missing, what once said “Headless Hollow” now reads “Hdles Hol.” The bar itself is nothing special, either, nothing that any sane man should be frequenting, but I find myself drawn to the dingy place again and again in the late hours of the night, long after I’ve finished my work in the morgue. Working in the ice-cold basement of the hospital has its perks and its downfalls. I’m able to spend some quality alone time, which is great for an antisocial guy like me, but it also means I’ve made myself a loner. While my job may sound cool—working on dead bodies would make the normal Goth giddy—it isn’t the best thing to tell the ladies.

  Surprise! Saying you work in a morgue and do autopsies freaks out most women, and the ones who aren’t freaked out frequent the goth bars downtown.

  I walk inside the bar and nod my head toward the bartender. The poor sod looks just as miserable as always, barely acknowledging me except for a pull of a glass and the splash of whiskey he starts to pour. Normally, the bar is empty, save for a few lonely souls. Tonight, there’s another man at the bar, doubled over his glass as if it holds all the answers. I take my usual seat, two stools away from the weathered old man, and cradle the glass the bartender puts in front of me.

  “You come here often?”

  I turn toward the husky voice of the older man, confused. Something about the way he words his introduction reminds me more of a pick-up line than friendly chatter, and it rubs me the wrong way. Bar etiquette usually means we completely ignore each other’s existence, so we can wallow in our misery; it does not mean we talk. Still, I answer him, anyway.

  “Too often,” I grumble, staring into my own whiskey glass. “Rough night?”

  I’ve never seen the man before and those that end up at a bar this close to midnight usually have something to drink away.

  “Rough life, more like it.” His head twitches with his answer, but I ignore it. The man is old enough to be my grandfather and he’s obviously lived a hard life. I can see the callouses coating his hands, the wrinkles in his face formed from hard work rather than laughter.

  “I’ll drink to that.” I salute him with my glass and take a drink of the amber-colored liquid, savoring the woodsmoke flavor as it burns its way down my throat. There’s something soothing and exhilarating about the firewater as it goes down. Even though it burns, the smooth twinge of pain also relaxes me.

  “You’ve had a hard life, too, huh?”

  “Probably not as hard as you, I’ll give you that. My profession makes it difficult to keep acquaintances, let alone a woman. Sometimes, I purposely do things to drive them away.” I blink, glancing down at my glass. One of the side effects of social anxiety is over speaking once you finally start.

  “Women are the devil, anyway, son. Probably for the best. My ex-wife took off with my kids and all my money, after she slept with the neighbor. Real bitch, that one.”

  “Sorry, man.” I’m not really sure what else to say. Condolences don’t seem necessary, so I settle for saying something else fucked up so maybe we can wallow in our miserable stories together. “I fucked over a girlfriend once. At the time, it felt
like a joke, but looking back, I was a real asshole. She was terrified of what I do. I work in the morgue at the hospital, you see, and dead bodies freak most people out. As a joke, when she came looking for me, I turned off the lights and laid on the table. Sat up and freaked her out so bad she fainted. I think she had to go to three years of therapy for the ordeal, honestly. I felt like a real shit head.”

  The old man chuckles into his glass before taking a drink. “That is pretty fucked up. You had a woman since?”

  “Not a serious one.” Faces flip through my mind like pages in a magazine. One woman’s face bleeds into another; they were all insignificant, short-lived flings. I shrug, swishing the ice around in my now empty glass. The truth is, no one had been important to me since Paige broke things off. It’s not that I’m the kind of guy who goes from woman to woman; I’ve just always had trouble attaching to people. I usually end up either borderline obsessed or not feeling anything at all. It’s a strange problem, one that the few friends I have at times tend to point out mercilessly.

  The bartender hears the clink of ice and turns, pouring another round without having to ask me. He knows what I need when I come in here like this; it’s an unspoken understanding between the two of us.

  I swallow the shot, slamming the glass down on the counter harder than necessary. It’s a strange age, I think as I glance at the old man out of the corner of my eye. He’s still staring at me. My skin crawls under his attention as I muse through the skittering thoughts in my head. At twenty-seven, half of my friends are married, and the other half can’t hold a job, much less a serious relationship. And that doesn’t include how badly I distance myself from them in the first place. I call them friends. They probably call me an acquaintance.

  The glass leaves a wet trail of condensation on the bar as I slide it away from me, shaking my head at my self-pitying thoughts.

  The barstool beside me creaks under a new weight and I glance at the newcomer out of the corner of my eye. Much to my surprise, it’s not some new soul breaking bar etiquette by sitting right beside me. Instead, it’s the same, worn-down, old man moving closer. I stiffen, trying to ignore the stale scent of cigarette smoke clinging to him.

  What is this guy doing?

  I swipe my hand across my mouth, turning to face the old man who clearly wants my attention.

  “That the worst thing you’ve ever done?” he asks, his mouth twitching up into a smile. His eyes seem to glow in the soft bar light, a green tinge I hadn’t noticed before dancing in his eyes.

  That’s an odd thing to ask a man at midnight in a rundown bar, but it’s one that makes me start to think hard. Was that the worst thing I’ve done? Probably not, but it’s probably the one I regret the most. Even as I think the thought, I realize it isn’t true at all. No, there’s something I regret much more. For some reason, I start to tell him.

  “When I was a kid, probably no older than thirteen, I became a little shithead. Honestly, I gave my parents a real run for their money. That age, we’re all trying to find ourselves and fit in. Me, I was trying to be one of the cool kids, to hang with them. They convinced me to go prank old man Hester down the street. He was a drunkard, real asshole. If you accidently kicked your ball into his yard, he’d come out with a knife and deflate it right in front of you. It wasn’t hard to convince me to prank the fucker.

  The idea was to switch his liquor out with water, a harmless prank, really. The other kids did all the switching. My job was to sneak in and change out the bottles. I trusted the other kids, grabbed the bottles without question, and then I snuck inside. It was easy to do. At night, Old Man Hester was always passed out cold, his bottle of vodka already downed for the night. I was in and out in under five minutes, no harm done. I couldn’t wait to hear him cursing the next day when he took a swig of the bottle and realized it was water.

  I had trusted too easily. One of the other kid’s fathers who was a contractor, had some chemicals on hand, and one of them looked as clear as water. They poured that in the bottle, instead. I didn’t know it at the time, of course.”

  “What did they put in the bottle?” The Old Man leans closer to me, intent on my story.

  “Gamma hydroxybutyrate,” I repeat the word easily from memory. The guilt from what I’d done had ridden me for years. I’d researched the chemical endlessly, trying to understand what I’d put Hester through. “They used to use it to strip floors. No odor, as clear as water. He took a large swig of it. Passed out. Never woke up.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I watched him drink it. We were all watching through the window. When he passed out, I asked them what happened. Everyone was pretty freaked out. I don’t think they realized it would kill him. But that’s what happened. We never told a soul and I watched from my porch as the ambulance came and wheeled his body away. It took them a week to find him. No one bothered to check on the neighborhood asshole. I knew his body was there the entire time and I never said a word.”

  He stares at me thoughtfully.

  “Your profession makes sense now,” he grumbles, taking another drink from his glass. “Good way to try to redeem yourself for leaving his body there.”

  I lift the glass the bartender had refilled during my story and toss it back. I need to slow down. If I keep going at this rate, I’ll be waking up with a headache in the morning.

  “Yeah. I considered that.”

  We fall into a silence again that seems unhurried. I’m not sure if my story freaked him out, but he hasn’t moved away, he’s still sitting far too close for comfort.

  “Yes, I think he’ll do.”

  “What was that?” The Old Man had mumbled the words so softly I barely heard, but I turn my head toward him and lean closer. “What did you say?”

  The next time he looks at me, I wrinkle my brow. Did his eyes always look so black? There are hardly any pupils left, they’re so dark. And there’s a flicker there, almost like a reflection of a flame, but there’s no way it could be. If this bar had an open flame, it would burn down easily.

  “I said, I think you’ll do nicely.” A grin spreads across his face, creepier than I’ve ever seen. The bartender doesn’t seem to notice, too intent on wiping a smudge from a glass which will never go away.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s time, son. I’m sorry. This won’t make your life any easier, but try to embrace it, yeah? Makes things easier in the long run if you don’t fight it.” He clamps his hand down on my wrist suddenly, so fast I jump. I try to jerk away from him, but his hold is iron.

  “What the fuck is your problem, man?”

  The fire in his eyes gets brighter, far brighter than should be possible, and I start yanking harder. Fuck this. I’m not drunk enough to handle this shit. His hold doesn’t let up, and there’s an itching where his rough skin touches my own. As I stare into his eyes, his image seems to explode and reform, until I’m staring at something grotesque, something horrifying, and I can’t quite process it.

  A scream funnels up my throat as he leans into me, but it never gets the chance to escape.

  Darkness slams into me so hard, I never feel my body hit the floor.

  * * *

  /-/-/-/

  * * *

  What the actual fuck?

  That’s my first thought when I crawl my way up through the blackness, my head pounding so hard it feels like a jackhammer is destroying my brain. The barest amount of light filtering in through the blinds sends a sharp bite of pain through my head, and I slam them shut quickly. When the pounding slows, I brave opening my eyes a slit and peer around me.

  I don’t remember anything after the old man last night. Darkness is the only thing I can recall, and an intense burning, as if someone had set me on fire. Am I dead?

  With dawning horror, I realize I’m in my own bed, back in my apartment, with no memory of how I got here, or what happened. Shit, I’m going to be on an episode of True Crime or some shit.

  Immediately, I
go on alert, as much as I can with a massive fucking hangover. I’ve never hurt this bad after whiskey. Tequila, sure, but never the whiskey. Did the old man from the bar roofie me? That would be a twist I didn’t see coming. Just in case, I take stock of my body. Besides the ache from a hangover, there doesn’t seem to be any other bites of pain. Good, that’s good. I blow out a breath and take in everything around me. My red sheets are twisted around me, my skin coated with a fine sheen of sweat. I’m naked except for my boxers and damn if that doesn’t put me on edge again. I never sleep in boxers.

  You brought yourself back to your abode.

  The thought slams into my head so hard I can’t fight it, so clear, it makes me flinch. What the hell? Where did that come from? And why the hell does my subconscious sound so proper?

  “I must have really overdone it last night,” I grumble, running my hand through my hair. Shower. I need a long shower.

  I manage to drag myself to the bathroom and crank on the water. I’m tempted to turn it to as hot as possible but ultimately leave it cold. It’s a shock to my system when I step inside and I curse.