“Will your dog bite?” I asked.
“Naw,” he answered; “he don’t bite. Come in.”
I told him I had had an accident to my automobile, and asked if he could drive me to the blacksmith shop and back to my wreckage.
“Cert,” he said. “Happy to help you. I’ll hitch up foreshortly. Where’d you smash?”
“In front of the gray house about six miles back,” I answered.
“That big stone-built house?” he queried.
“The same,” I assented.
“Did you go a-past here?” he inquired astonished. “I didn’t hear ye.”
“No,” I said; “I came from the other direction.”
“Why,” he meditated, “you must ’a’ smashed ’bout sunup. Did you come over them mountains in the dark?”
“No,” I replied; “I came over them yesterday evening. I smashed up about sunset.”
“Sundown!” he exclaimed. “Where in thunder’ve ye been all night?”
“I slept in the house where I broke down.”
“In that there big stone-built house in the trees?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Why,” he quavered excitedly, “that there house is haunted! They say if you have to drive past it after dark, you can’t tell which side of the road the big white stone is on.”
“I couldn’t tell even before sunset,” I said.
“There!” he exclaimed. “Look at that, now! And you slep’ in that house! Did you sleep, honest?”
“I slept pretty well,” I said. “Except for a nightmare, I slept all night.”
“Well,” he commented, “I wouldn’t go in that there house for a farm, nor sleep in it for my salvation. And you slep’! How in thunder did you get in?”
“The boy took me in,” I said.
“What sort of a boy?” he queried, his eyes fixed on me with a queer, countrified look of absorbed interest.
“A thick-set, freckle-faced boy with a harelip,” I said.
“Talk like his mouth was full of mush?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I said; “bad case of cleft palate.”
“Well!” he exclaimed. “I never did believe in ghosts, and I never did half believe that house was haunted, but I know it now. And you slep’!”
“I didn’t see any ghosts,” I retorted irritably.
“You seen a ghost for sure,” he rejoined solemnly. “That there harelip boy’s been dead six months.”
Manipulation
Trisha J. Wooldridge
The bathtub and suds were just for effect.
Imogene leaned over the white, molded plastic edge, gritted her teeth, and sliced the razor down her wrist. Quickly, she dropped her hand into the warm water bucket beside the tub. What was the use of a bath if you were going to sully it with blood?
She would have preferred a clawfoot of ivory porcelain, what most would call antique nowadays, even if it required boiling her own water. Modern bathtubs lacked romance.
The amphetamines made her hyperaware of the Timpani-like headache. Depressants may have dulled the pain, but it was faster this way. Faster, and she was awake, alert, ready. Last time, it had abandoned her too soon.
“He” was the wrong word, but ‘it’ was so impersonal. Her relationship with Death was far more intimate than ‘it’ – and the sexual ambiguity was part of what Imogene found so infatuating. She knew they belonged together, no matter what any grand Universal Laws said.
But lately…
Imogene didn’t want to think of ‘lately.’ While she was still conscious, she remembered the first time.
* * *
She felt dirty. The kind of dirty no shower could wash away.
Bastard! One hand clutched her debutante ball gown to her navel, as if its billowing skirts could armor what mattered. What he’d tried to feel through the layers of pastel taffeta, lace, petticoat, and crinoline. Goddamned bastard! She punched the white marble top of the vanity and cursed even harder. Rosettes of blood colored its surface and her just-as-pale knuckles. She pressed her fist to her lips, not wanting to stain her dress.
Her daddy had promised her this dress last year. He’d paid for it on her sixteenth birthday to ensure she’d have exactly what she wanted. It hadn’t mattered it would likely be out of style for her birthday party/debutante ball; it was exactly what Imogene had always dreamed of wearing. Her mother had been just about scandalized when it had arrived a month ago. Why would her little girl want to come out in last year’s fashion? But Imogene had locked herself in her room with the dress and had refused any food or water until her mother saw reason.
After all, Daddy was dead. Wouldn’t mother wish to let Imogene honor his memory by wearing the dress he’d gotten for her?
Her mother had relented after a week. Imogene had measured out her washing water for just such a siege from the woman; it hadn’t been the first time she’d needed to take such drastic measures. Before, Daddy would intercede. Since Daddy had died not even nine months ago – from a heart condition that the doctors said, ‘came out of nowhere’ – Imogene had suffered a few such standoffs with her mother.
But this – this – was an affront Imogene had not seen coming. This was unspeakable. She’d informed her mother of her displeasure with Mr. Beauchamp’s visits. Imogene certainly had no intent of letting him court her. He was old for one, and now this. How dare he attack her as he’d done! At her very own birthday ball!
For all her faults, surely her mother would see the sin of this man and throw him out. Publicly. With utmost humiliation to destroy any social standing he had.
Imogene very carefully cleaned her hand and lips, and found a spare set of lace gloves in a drawer. They would conceal the angry red cracks in her otherwise pristine hands. She left the darkening crimson smudges on the vanity; surely a grand story would come of that. Standing as tall as her petite frame allowed, she marched back out to her birthday cotillion to find her mother.
After enough practiced pleasant discourse, as was expected of her – though not a one of the attending gentlemen interested her in the least – she learned her mother was entertaining one of the guests out in the garden.
When she saw her mother, the widow-of-less-than-a-year, out in the garden and mostly hidden in an azalea alcove with Mr. Beauchamp – kissing Mr. Beauchamp – the débutante was left speechless. While he was old for her, he was but a babe compared to her mother! Her stomach twisted in a most unladylike way and she barely contained the regurgitation. She turned on her heel with a swish of her skirts and returned to the house.
She maintained her dignified, lady’s mask as she wove back through the party, making sure everyone would look fondly on their last interaction with her. They would say, Such a shame. What horrible thing could have caused such a tragedy? The delicate flower simply couldn’t take the loss of her father or the shame of her mother…
Shame of her mother? They’d ask.
Why yes! Do you not see how close that woman sits to such a young man…at her own daughter’s funeral? Not even a year after burying her husband?
Excusing herself from the presence of the mayor’s wife and eligible son with the promise of a dance later – if he wished to dance with a corpse, she mused – she wound her way up the curving wooden staircase.
In her mother’s bedroom she found the laudanum the doctor had prescribed “if she were to have any moments of overwhelm upon the death of her husband.” The bottle was half empty and there was a second Imogene hadn’t been expecting – was there an affair with the doctor, too? Such disgrace!
Imogene left, taking both bottles and one of the glasses from the Waterford decanter set. She’d briefly considered doing the deed in her mother’s bed – once her parents’ bed – but after what she’d seen in the garden, who knew what her mother may have done in those bed clothes since her f
ather’s death!
No, she would do this entirely on her own terms.
In the sanctity of her own room, she bit her lip, tasting the leftover blood. The doctor had pulled her aside, telling her to keep close eye on her mother. It wasn’t very much that might…“well, just make sure she doesn’t take too much.”
When she poured the half bottle into the crystal glass, it didn’t look like very much. Maybe a finger width or two – the way her father had measured his Scotch Whiskey. Should she have also taken some of the brandy? The doctor had said alcohol enhanced its potency. No. She was not returning to that woman’s room.
Imogene took a whiff of the laudanum and wrinkled her nose. It smelled worse than Scotch Whiskey. Still, the longer she waited, the greater the chances of someone discovering her before she had made her point.
She lay on the bed and set the glass aside long enough to arrange her dress so it fell perfectly over her body. Next, she loosed her strawberry blonde hair to cascade and frame her face, like the Lady of Shalott in the painting in Daddy’s study.
Taking a deep breath, she drank the laudanum down in one swallow, as she’d seen her father do with his whiskey in moments of anger. Imogene managed not to gag; it would ruin the scene if there were any puke marring her visage!
As she suspected, the effects didn’t hit immediately. She had enough time to further arrange herself, even folding her hands over her chest.
I shall make for a beautiful, eligible debutante corpse.
Within a few moments, she was ever so tired. More tired than she’d felt in her whole life. A velvety darkness began to envelope her.
A breeze rippled in, moving a stray curl over her face.
Even in her growing stupor, Imogene felt her brow wrinkle. Was there a window open? How had she missed such a detail! Wind would surely undo her perfect stage.
The scent of rich earth permeated the air. Was someone gardening? Today? No…not just earth. The decay of fallen leaves. Of dead animals and manure. Strong, as if she were in the middle of it all.
Feeling like she were ungluing her lids, she opened her eyes. Though it felt like a weight had settled into her lungs, she sat up on her elbows.
A figure stood in front of the windows. It wore greyed shrouds wrapped around and cloaking itself. The person was sickly thin, worse than any poor field worker she’d seen. And she couldn’t see a face.
Perhaps because she was so close to her passing, she recognized the figure for what it was.
“You’re Death.” It wasn’t a question.
The figure cocked its head like a curious dog and angled its body to face her. Bony hands slipped from the ashen, frayed material and pulled the hood back some. Like its arms, Death’s face looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin.
A part of Imogene’s mind told her she ought to be horrified. Tilting her own head and jutting out her chin – though the effort felt as if she moved in vat of molasses – she narrowed her eyes and glared at the tiny dancing flames in Death’s hollow sockets. “Why did you take my Daddy?”
The smallest line appeared in the papery skin between Death’s eyes. It approached the bed. As it got closer, Imogene felt a little less heavy, a little more awake. She sat up, tucking her knees beneath her and leaning towards…Death.
Death stopped at the edge of the bed. Long black hair slipped from beneath the hood and over one shoulder. Not having studied skeletons in detail – what lady would? – Imogene could not tell if Death was man or woman. Most people, when they spoke of Death, said ‘he,’ but that just didn’t seem appropriate for what stood before her. Death’s closeness affected her like no man ever had.
“Well?” she demanded. “Can you speak?”
“I speak.” Death’s voice echoed like wind from a mausoleum. The hint of lips moved around the impression of teeth.
“Then answer my question.”
“You’re not afraid of me.” Death didn’t ask it as a question.
“I suppose I invited you. Why would I be afraid?”
Death’s blink was not a bat of eyelids but a momentary extinguishing of the flames that served as its eyes. “Many have invited me. They were all still afraid upon my arrival. Even if they didn’t fight. Even if their intent to summon me was true and they were done with living. There was still fear. Why not you?”
Imogene shrugged. “I didn’t expect I’d meet an actual you.”
“Most don’t. That’s not what makes you different.”
“Has no one else asked you why you took someone they love, either? Or did you not answer them, too?”
“They have, and I have. But they were shaking when they asked.” Tentatively, Death reached with skinbound hand bones and brushed one finger across the lace gloves that hid her bruised and cut knuckles. Pain burned for a moment, then a burning warmth spread from her hand through her body.
Imogene slowly pulled her hand away. She didn’t snatch it; she didn’t want to pull away either. But she wanted to show she was in control of herself. Even before Death.
“Is that why you haven’t answered my question?”
“No,” Death said.
Imogene found herself leaning closer to Death as it spoke. “Why did you take my Daddy?”
“I haven’t answered your question because it is a foolish question. I am rarely surprised, and I am disappointed that one who would surprise me would ask something so pedestrian. I took him for the same reason I have taken every life that has passed from this earth. Because it was his time.” Death leaned closer to Imogene, the hand it had brushed her knuckles with on the bed. “Should I continue with my usual, pedestrian process for you, or do you have any other surprises for me?”
The heavy sleepiness started to drape itself back over Imogene again. She fought it this time. Death’s closeness was making something radiate deeper inside her, a humming buzz that she wanted to keep. Swallowing, finding her mouth not as dry as she expected from the bitter laudanum, she brushed her fingers over Death’s bony knuckles.
Death’s flame gaze flared, giving the impression of the surprise-widened eyes of the living.
Imogene leaned even closer, letting her fingers cross and intertwine with Death’s. “Has anyone asked you for a kiss? A real one, not the way poets call what you do a ‘kiss of death’.”
“No.” The answer was barely a breeze’s whisper through dried lips, but Imogene heard it clearly.
“Would you kiss me?”
Death’s eye flames flickered and wavered like candles in a hurricane. Its jaw moved slightly, suggesting a swallow. It didn’t move its hand from beneath hers.
“I…have never done that.” Death’s breath – apparently Death breathed – tickled her face. Even that sensation heightened the fiery prickles erupting through her body. It made her feel more alive.
“Neither have I. Not like the way I want to kiss you.” There was no more sensation of drowsiness in her body; she felt no pain anywhere.
“I have never wanted to kiss someone.” Death radiated heat like a fever as it reached its other hand to her hair.
Imogene didn’t back away. As Death took a curl and wrapped it around its finger, she barely contained a shiver that went down her spine. After an intake of breath, she whispered back. “Never…including now?”
“Never…before.” Death filled the tiny space between them in even tinier hesitations. Finally, the softest brush. Dry, but soft. Less than a second’s blaze of fire.
Imogene followed Death’s lips before it could pull away, holding the kiss. She felt Death press a cheek to hers as it paused to gasp, then wrap a hand behind her neck as they kissed again. She held him close, letting her fingers tangle into black hair that felt like shredded silk strands.
* * *
It should have been awkward – she’d heard other girls’ stories about first kisses, the same stories over all the years �
� but it wasn’t. Clearly, they were meant to be.
Imogene looked down at her arm. Was she bleeding faster than usual, or had she taken too many drugs? Her memories were already getting dark around the edges, fading.
And she did not want that. She wanted to remember. After their kiss, despite how ‘pedestrian’ her question was, Death told her that her father had not died of heart complications. When she’d asked how her father had died, Death had pointed its fiery gaze to the glass beside her bed.
“He killed himself?” she’d asked, feeling her heart stop.
Death had shaken its head. No. That had been all she’d needed to know.
After she’d killed her mother and made it look as if her mother had poisoned Imogene and then killed herself, Death had awoken her in the family crypt.
Or, rather, she’d awoken with Death on the floor of her family crypt, shaking and gasping in waves of pleasure. Death had trembled beside her at its own rebellion of Law. Death had kissed her once more, before saying good bye and telling her to start a new life elsewhere.
A second chance.
Not even a year had passed in that second chance before Imogene had decided to summon Death once more.
* * *
“Why have you done this?” Death knelt beside a still-steaming tub.
Imogene liked how Death’s eye flames flicked from her eyes to her naked body, even as she struggled to stay awake from the drugs. She hadn’t been sure laudanum would work twice, and she’d wanted to see Death’s reaction to seeing her naked, so she’d slipped into the bath to ensure she’d bring Death. “I suppose I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I?”
Supernatural Horror Short Stories Page 82
