THE PERFECT WIFE by Allan Watson

To perpetuate your horror happiness we bring you the second of the two joint runner up stories in one night! 

This time Allan Watson bids you welcome to his world, and invites you to share The Perfect Wife.

Allan first graced TK'n'C's stage back in June with his wicked tale The Red Devil; when I saw his name in the list of competition entrants I hoped his story would tickle me as much as the last one. I wasn't disappointed - and neither were my fellow editors.

THE PERFECT WIFE by Allan Watson

You can find anything on the internet these days. Web pages with lists of household cleaning products that, when combined with plant food and a glass jar full of nails, transform into lethal bombs. Experts who’ll happily show you the ten most reliable ways to commit suicide. League tables (with starred rankings) informing the browser which plane crashes yielded the highest number of fatalities. There are sites out there in darkest cyberspace whose only purpose is to educate the public on the best ways to amputate their own toes, groom children, inject heroin, or even grow their own anthrax spores. But what I was looking for was something more specialised. I wanted to create the perfect wife.

I already had a wife called Clara and she was nice enough, a slim brunette with better than average legs. But there’s always room for improvement, isn’t there? Clara’s voice for instance. There was something definitely shrill and shrewish in her tone when she nagged. Howard, when are you going to get a decent job? Howard, remember to clean the shower. Howard, when was the last time you cut those horrible toe-nails? Yes, indeed. Definitely room for improvement.

What I needed was an on-line e-Grimoire, something that would instruct me on how to make her more docile, more compliant, and much less lippy. I’d read about this Italian Count from the Middle-Ages who was supposed to have murdered his five wives and brought them back to life as obedient, servile companions, happy to indulge his every whim and need. But I had no idea how to accomplish this. I spent weeks checking through hundreds of websites dealing with black magic and necromancy but most of them were either written by deluded cranks or over-imaginative teenagers. I then posted requests on likely-looking message boards and chat-rooms and finally got a reply from someone called Baal666. He asked me lots of questions, probably to find out if I was serious or not, then finally sent me a link to a page on a website called Necrobyte.

Sure enough, what I needed was right there on the screen and I wrote everything down with a feverish, shaking hand. And just as well I did, because the web site crashed my computer after five minutes. It didn’t just wipe the hard-drive, it somehow made my motherboard catch fire and caused my monitor to implode in a shower of blue sparks. But I had what I needed and all I had to do was carefully follow the instructions. The first step, of course, was to murder my wife. I did this by crushing a handful of sleeping pills and putting them into the warm milk Clara drank every night before going to bed. Once she was snoozing well and good, I taped her hands to the headboard, tied a plastic bag around her head, and simply waited until she suffocated.

The next stage I won’t go into too much detail over. It involved dumping Clara in the bath, cutting her open, draining away the blood, then removing all those eel-like, blue and purple innards normally best kept away from the light of day. When the job was complete I did as the instructions said and stuffed Clara full of sawdust, goose-feathers and horse-hair, then stitched her up with thick black twine. My needlework isn’t so good and a trail of sawdust kept leaking out when I moved her back into the spare room, so I used superglue to fix the troublesome loose seams.

Then came the anointing with unguents. The list of ingredients looked initially daunting, but the author had appended an alternative list of essential oils containing things like sweet almond, juniper, magnesium, and marjoram, all easily obtainable from the Body Shop. These had to be heated to a certain temperature, then mixed in a certain order with a scattering of graveyard dirt before being rubbed over my dead wife’s skin. The standard arcane mumbo-jumbo stuff was involved here, chanted incantations, burning candles and waving my hands in the air to create pentagrams and inverted triangles. The whole operation lasted three whole hours but finally everything was done. Except for one omission. There was the small matter of spilling my own blood as a tribute to Lucifer, but I thought that was just a touch too theatrical.

I got myself a stiff drink and enjoyed just sitting there admiring my new, much-improved, perfect wife. There was no animation at that point – the e-Grimoire claimed it would be at least two full days before she was back on her feet and ready to do some cooking and cleaning. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t put her to other uses. Putting on some smoochy Michael Buble music, I hauled her up and whirled her around the room. She didn’t weigh much to start with, but now filled with only sawdust, feathers, and horse-hair she practically weighed nothing at all. It amused me to think how much she would have hated this. Clara was one of the few women in creation who hated dancing. Every time we went to a party it would always be me urging her to get up and shake her stuff, but she never did. As I swung her up and down in time to the music I nuzzled my mouth close to Clara’s ear, telling her how much I loved her and how beautiful she looked. Then with one last graceful pirouette I swept her off to bed.

Making love that night with Clara was like nothing I had experienced before. We did things the old Clara would never have consented to. Dirty things, sick even. And not once did she mutter a word of complaint. I loved the sharp contrast between the burning rage in my groin as it ground into her own cool, vapid sex. When I was spent, I carried her back to the spare room, sat her in a chair and wished her goodnight.

The following day I left her much to her own devices. I slept late and only visited the spare room once to anoint her with the oils as per the instructions for the ritual. I wondered how much of the old Clara would survive. Would she be capable of normal speech? Would I have to teach her how to cook and use the vacuum cleaner? I hoped not as my own cooking wasn’t up to much and cleaning has never been one of my strong points. I did however have to get rid of the unwanted offal I’d removed from Clara. These sweetbreads I tied in plastic bin liners and then spent a large part of the day driving around town, dropping them off at various locations. I was dog-tired when I returned home, and after eating a cheese sandwich for dinner I went to bed alone.

I awoke in the middle of the night to find Clara lying beside me. I switched on the bedside lamp, excited by the possibility of her early reanimation, but she just lay there stiff and unresponsive, her skin cold and dry to the touch. When I tried speaking to her, asking how she was feeling, she stubbornly remained silent. Too tired to puzzle it out, I switched off the light, made diffident love to her, and fell into a dreamless sleep. In the morning her side of the bed was empty, but on the bedside table there was a note that simply said, ‘Tonight xx’.

I checked through the ritual’s instructions again but it never mentioned anything about intermittent reanimation. Then again, I imagine everyone reacted differently to coming back from the dead. In the back of my mind I worried slightly that my omission of a blood sacrifice to Lucifer may have brought about some yet unknown side-effects, but it was too late to do anything about it. I made frequent trips to the spare room that day hoping to catch Clara by surprise, but each time I entered the room she was in the exactly the same position where I’d left her in the chair. I made a few small repairs to the stitching on her torso where some of the black twine had worked loose and I brushed off a small pool of sawdust and feathers that had gathered in her lap before applying the oils. The pungent scent which at first had smelled (and tasted) mysterious and exotic was now cloying and sickly.

After another makeshift meal of cheese sandwiches and a bottle of beer, I decided to make a special effort for Clara’s return to the living. I took a long soak in the bath before shaving and liberally spraying myself with after-shave she had given me at Xmas. In the bedroom I put on a clean shirt and dressed in my best suit, then nipped out to the supermarket to buy a bunch of wilting roses and a budget priced bottle of champagne. The flowers went into a vase and the champagne into an ice bucket. I stoked up the hi-fi with Michael Buble and sat back to await my perfect wife.

After two hours I had finished off the champagne and the music had long since come to an end. Even the roses seemed to have visibly wilted a few more degrees. I was on the point of dozing off when I heard the sound of bumps and muted crashes coming from the spare room down the hall. I sat up straight and listened carefully as Clara took her first fledgling steps into her new life. The bumps and bangs continued for ten minutes before I finally heard the spare room door open and soft slithering footsteps approach the lounge.

Clara eventually came stumbling into view and I almost burst out laughing at her clumsy attempts to dress herself. She’d pulled on a cardigan back to front with her bra twisted over the top, as well as an old pair of paint-splattered jeans that she only kept for gardening or decorating. The laughter stuck in my throat however when she lurched to within a few feet of me and I noticed she was carrying a small valise with badly packed garments leaking out the sides.

‘Clara, where on earth do you think you’re going?’ I asked.

Her pale face contorted into a ghost of a bitter smile. ‘I’m leaving you, Howard’ she slurred.

That was when I noticed what she was holding in her other hand. It seemed that before Clara had slid into my bed the night before, she’d also made a trip to the kitchen. Clutched between her pale fingers was a long, serrated carving knife.

Before I could react, she had thrust the knife into my chest causing me to tip over the chair and knock over the vase of roses as I crashed to the floor. As I lay there watching my life-blood spread across the carpet to revitalise the petals of the half-dead blooms, I realised I was paying that blood tribute to Lucifer after all. Then, faintly through the harshly hissing static filling my head, I heard the crooning of Michael Buble start up again. Slowly, oh so slowly, I managed to turn my head a few inches and saw a wondrous sight.

Clara was dancing.

____________________________________

Bio: Allan Watson is a writer whose work leans towards the dark and disturbing realms of the fiction spectrum. He is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories.

THE GRANNY FARMER by Lee Hughes

Just three days until Halloween, and here is the first joint runner-up story in the Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers Halloween Horror competition, The Granny Farmer by Lee Hughes.

It's great to see Lee's work on the circuit again; his unique interpretations and insights always make for terrifying horror, with a twist of humour that is all his own. 

When I judged all the stories, I scribbled notes on the manuscripts as I went through. On The Granny Farmer, I wrote a single word 'Superb'. I'm sure you'll agree...

THE GRANNY FARMER by Lee Hughes

Will Bennett's hand shook as he pulled out the bottle of scotch. He gulped it down fast and poured another, his hand a little steadier. He cried a little, drank a little more. Four-hundred grand, it'd only started out as a twenty-thousand pound loan for some gambling debts he'd racked up. He'd lost that too. In-between the cash losses he'd lost his wife, his home, everything and was still left with a debt that kept getting bigger and bigger until the lender had sent some heavies around to his premises to let him know that the next step was the breaking of bones. Those goons had just left. Will drained his glass and went to the window. He couldn't call it a shop any more, there was no stock, no money to buy anything with, collectors had black-marked him and the landlord was working on eviction. 

The phone rang, he ignored it. After the dozenth ring it was clear they weren't going to give up. He lifted the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Bennett's Antiques?”

“Yeah.”

“You probably don't remember me but you use to act as an agent for my late husband, George Milliner.”

Yeah, he remembered George Milliner, he hadn't been in touch for nearly a decade, long before everything had turned to shit. 

“What can I do for you Mrs. Milliner?”

“Before he passed he wished for me to sell off his collections to ensure I needn't worry about finances.”

Will was about to tell her that there wasn't much he could do due to his predicament. Then he thought better of it, an opportunity like this would never come around again. “Sure, when would you like me to come around?”

“Whenever is convenient.”

“Later on this afternoon?”

“That'd be great, thanks.”

Will hung up the phone and made another quick call to let the 'man' know that he was going to be good for the cash.

*

Seeing the large house again brought back memories of when he was a new face to the game, but one that was earning a hell of a reputation for getting decent prices for collectors. Now he was in his late forties and whiskey ridden.

He rang the bell and waited. He'd only met Mrs. Milliner a couple of times and those had been fleeting. She opened the door and smiled. The ten years hadn't been too rough on her, then again ageing never seemed to have the same effect on the rich as it did the poor. 

“Glad you could come at such short notice.”

She stepped back to let Will pass.

“Would you like a drink, Mr. Bennett?”

“I'd love one, call me Will.”

“Then I'm Lydia. Tea, coffee, something stronger?”

“A scotch would do the trick.”

“I'll show you through to the sitting-room whilst I fix it for you.”

That was another thing he liked about the elite rich class, drink-driving never seemed to be frowned upon.

*

He mooched about the room, recognising a few of the items. 

“Mrs. Milliner, sorry, Lydia, which items were you thinking of selling?”

“All of them, apart from a few trinkets that mean the most to me. This old house is just too big for me on my own.”

Granny-Farming was one of the worst things you could do in the antiques business. Ripping off vulnerable old widows was frowned upon in any business, but sometimes, it was either rules or legs that had to be broken. He took a big gulp of his drink leaving it practically empty in the hopes that Mrs. Milliner offered to refresh it. 

“Well, if it's okay with you I'll have a look around, make some notes on a few items, work out some evaluations for the auctions.”

“Of course, I'll get you another drink.”

*

As he wandered he made two sets of notes, one with a low price to show Lydia, the second with the real price it would fetch. He'd only had a gander through half of the house and his figures showed he could skim enough to pay back his debt and still have a bit left over.

He was holding a rather fabulous large Italian Maiolica twin-handled vase up to the light. Six-hundred and fifty quid to her and a healthy two-grand for his hip pocket. As he was setting it down he heard a polite cough from behind him.  He turned and Lydia was there with a decent two thumbs worth of scotch in his glass.

She passed him the glass. “Do you think you'll have trouble selling the items?”

“It won't be an overnight thing, but I can get a lot of the items on the go and then we'll stagger the rest over the next month or so, don't want to flood the market, does that sound all right to you?”

“What's another couple of months - I've lived here practically all my life.”

He took another gulp. The scotch really was top of the range stuff, made a nice change from the gut-rot he'd had to drink of late. He tried to say something else but his tongue was asleep in his mouth and wouldn't rouse. He made a couple of noises that could have been vowels as the room began to spin, the floor tilted and he fell towards the ceiling as everything went dark.

*

His head was pounding, no hangover had ever felt as bad as this and his mouth was as dry as Ghandi's flip-flop. He tried to think where he was. It was becoming a habit waking up some place he shouldn't.  He remembered, it was one of the rooms in the late George Milliner's house. He recalled the events leading up to the darkness. He'd been looking at antiques, drinking good scotch galore and then the room spinning. He tried to sit up. His arms wouldn't move, they were behind him and bound. He groaned, had he been arrested?

“Hello?” he called, dry and raspy. “Mrs. Milliner?”

He was surprised when he gained an answer. “Coming, be there in a minute.”

He wiggled his way around so he could see the door. It was open a good few inches. The gap between door and jamb became filled with Mrs. Milliner. Her body and features became whole as she pushed open the door. She was smiling.

“Will, I hope I can still call you that after what's happened?”

“Huh?”

“Leaving you sprawled on the floor like litter. I'm just not as strong as I used to be, otherwise I'd have lifted you up onto the chaise longue. All I could do was put on the restraints and leave you where you were until you came to.”

“The police?”

“Oh, they can't help you.”

He wasn't expecting them to help him. “I'm not following.”

“It's been six years since my husband’s illness began. We soon learned that no amount of money can fix some things. This...” she showed him what looked like a carved bone. “and another like it were the last things he ever bought. Do you recognise it?” 

She wafted it closer to his face but Will was still stumped, he'd never seen anything like it. There was nothing flashy about it, ornate yes, not ivory, just plain old bone, long and carved. Looked as though it might have had the marrow removed as there were stoppers in either end. He quickly evaluated it and reckoned he wouldn't pay over a tenner for one.

She answered for him. “It's a Soul-Bone, shamans use them to capture souls at death, stops the spirits of evil-doers from returning to cause bedlam. George bought them from a shaman, I thought George was a bigger crackpot than the seller. Funny how things turn out.” She wiggled the Soul-Bone. “I used this as George performed his death-rattle. Sucked his soul right up into it.”

“Huh?” His new favourite word.

“Open wide, Papa's got a brand new bag.” 

She tore out one of the stoppers and jammed the rim of the bone to his lips and twisted making his lips bleed. She applied more pressure, driving the bone against his teeth. Will kept them clamped. Lydia pinched his nose and bided her time. With a gasp his mouth opened far enough and she thrust the bone in deep, past his gag-reflex and a little bit more to boot. She unstopped the other end and blew like it was a trumpet. She sank back onto the deep shag and panted. Patting her pockets, trying to find her angina spray. The struggle had taken everything out of her.

She sprayed under her tongue and watched as Will Bennett convulsed on her carpet, spraying spittle that landed and sank into the weave.

Whatever electricity was arcing through him and causing him to fit subsided and the body went still. Her heart was calming, she went over to the static body on hands and knees.

She reached out and gently shook his shoulder. He opened his eyes and focused. He opened his mouth and exhaled, the breath misty in the air and rancid as rot. “Liddy?”

Her eyes widened and her mouth cracked into a grin. “Georgie!” She hugged him and his face worked itself into a grin much like a foot trying on a new shoe, testing it for roominess. “Your turn.”

*

George plied his wife with drugs, enough to overdose a horse and waited. Her pulse slowed, wavered and ground to a halt. He lifted the bone to her lips and began to gently suck. Once hopeful he'd captured her essence he put the stoppers in. His wife's body was dead, he closed her eyes with his fingertips.

There was no mourning to be done.

It was just dead meat.

He went to where Liddy had left the cleaning girl unconscious. He hadn't been sure that his wife would be capable of these tasks, he was glad he'd been proven wrong. He was young again, late forties, but that was better than late sixties and on the fade. In a few minutes he would have his wife back and she would no longer be sixty, she'd be young and strong again. George was looking forward to taking his new wife for a sexual spin.

*

He watched her eyes open and a smile rise like the tide upon her face.

“Liddy?”

“Georgie?”

“We did it.”

“We did.”

Liddy let him help her stand. They stood for a long moment eyeing each other up. George broke the silence first. “This is going to take some time to get used to.”

“I'd like to stretch my new legs.” She ended with a giggle and a twirl.

*

It seemed sunnier outside as they held hands and walked down the steps towards the sprawling lawns. The sound of a vehicle travelling fast up their gravelled road cause them to pause and turn. A white transit van was hurtling towards the house. It came to a screeching halt, spitting up gravel in every direction. The side door slid open and two men jumped out, both in boiler-suits and balaclavas.

“What in the hell?” demanded George. The two men were armed, one with a pick-axe handle, the other a sawed-off shotgun. The goon with the pick-axe struck George in the guts with it.

“Cheers for the tip-off Will. Mr. Grady says, 'Thank you' but he'll take it from here. Dave, do the do.”

The goon with the shotgun pointed and let off a shot that took away half of George's head. Liddy screamed. The second barrel cut that short as her insides flowered through her blouse.

“Let's load the van up, it's gonna take us a few trips.”

_______________________________

Bio: Lee Hughes likes to write but can be a right lazy bastard.

Halloween Horror Competition: Winner and Runners-Up!

Well, it was tough - really tough. We received twenty-nine dark and disturbing entries in this year's Halloween Horror Competition and the quality of writing was simply outstanding.

I struggled to reduce the twenty-nine to a longlist of thirteen, and then to a shortlist of seven. Even then it was incredibly tight so I sent the seven tales to Matt, Col and David - without the authors' names - and asked them to read and score the shortlist. The results were pretty much unanimous, and our joint decision was made.

The winner of the Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers Halloween Horror Competition 2012 is...

Angel Zapata, with Lost Soles!

Many congratulations to Angel; he'll receive copies of ebooks from each of the TK'n'C editors and his terrifying story will be published here on the night of Halloween 2012. 

Runner-up in the competition is A J Humpage, with the chilling Gabriel's Reflection. Look out for her story on TK'n'C on Tuesday 30th October.

And in second runner-up place, we had a tie! So tomorrow evening we'll be publishing TWO stories:

• The Perfect Wife by Allan Watson
• The Granny Farmer by Lee Hughes

Very well done to Angel, AJ, Allan and Lee as well as all competition contestants. Take it from me - you make editing a pleasure.

Come back tomorrow for Lee and Allan's horrifying treats.

TK'n'C Editors' Halloween Special: Lily Childs

It's nearly here; the twenty-nine entries in the TK'n'C Halloween Horror Competition have been judged, longlisted, shortlisted and... all four editors are now making their final decisions. Dammit, it's been tough, but the winner and runners up will be announced on Sunday 28th October. 

In the meantime, here's the final Editors' Special for this extra-special time of year when the veil is thin and death drifts in and out of our periphery. I wrote Smiling Cyrus, too late, for an Evil Jester Press anthology. Like many of my stories, it doesn't fit elsewhere so I included it in CABARET OF DREAD: A HORROR COMPENDIUM - the first volume in a collection. I love this tale, and am proud to offer it up on TK'n'C. I hope you enjoy it too.

Lily Childs

SMILING CYRUS

Hurtling. He’s hurtling. Cyrus has a head the size of three balloons welded into one, rubber bumps in all the right places. Someone set him up, something stung him.

Trinkets and engraved goblets topple from overloaded shelves as the boy, nearly a man runs the length of the room and back again. His eyes are peas in the growing face. He tears at them, not knowing if they are about to sink forever into the burgeoning flesh or pop and burst. Salty old seadog, those tears that spill; they sting the stretch marks spreading and ripping at the child’s visage.

Blind, Cyrus throws himself to the floor. Screaming is impossible; the fattened mouth is full to suffocation with a tongue of weeping meatloaf. Who would hear him anyway?

They start with a jingle, the bells; whispering at Cyrus with their teasing voices. He slaps at the spaces his ears used to be, hearing only mosquito torture and fearing another assault. So they play a little louder. The boy shudders as the noise grows in volume. 

Tinkling, ding dong dinging, tolling and tolling and tolling until the sound is too much and the eardrums inside Cyrus’s attic-sized head explode. The roar that almost kills him is enough to wake Mr and Mrs Cleavage in their bedroom below.

It’s the same every night since their son disappeared. They hear him scream, always at the witching hour of 3:15am. Charlie Cleavage had stopped his wife Debonair from exploring the loft; that was over a year ago. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t wonder – still.

***

“Charlie?”

“What is it hun? Hey, are my eggs ready yet?”

Debbie flips them once, then back again without spilling a drop of bile-shaded yolk. Charlie doesn’t care for his wife’s allergies, or that eggs make her gag every morning. Charlie has needs.

“I want... I mean – can we have a yard sale?”

She slips the eggs onto a plate next to a pile of grits and chunks of fried bread. It’s casual, how she hands her husband his breakfast but he knows she’s up to something. He grabs her wrist. Debonair has long since learned not to give Charlie the satisfaction of a flinch. She sits down, ignoring the pain and smiles with red lips.

“I saw something you’d like.”

Charlie releases his grip, attacks the eggs in a spattering mess.

“What?” is all he can manage with a full mouth.

“Now honey that would ruin the surprise. You know how I like to please you.”

She runs her skinny hand over his knee, hating every moment.

“This is special. But I need a lidda bit of money, and I thought we could - you know, clear out the back-room, the attic, the garage...”

Charlie drops his fork on the plate.

“The attic?”

Debbie smoothes her skirt over knees made of sticks. They shake beneath the floral-patterned cotton.

“Yup. The attic. I decided you were right. Cyrus isn’t coming back.”

Cyrus isn’t coming back. She’s practised the line until it no longer shakes in her mouth. Charlie eyes her, his thick brows bristling like April caterpillars ready to spin a cold cocoon. Ain’t no butterflies in that bastard, Debbie thinks.

“OK.”

He pats Debonair’s leg, lingering at her thigh. She swallows the hate and claps her hands.

“Oh, goodie! I’ll make a start while you’re at the mill today.”

She stands, escaping before he can spread his hand wide enough to hurt.

***

The back-room, Charlie’s den that never was a den is the easiest. She’s done it already. Cleared out the artisanal tables made of maple and deer horn; they’ll fetch a good price. As will her mother-in-law’s “loada fuckin’ crap” watercolours.

The garage will be last; Debbie doesn’t understand cars so will leave anything mechanical untouched. She drifts outside to check her pitch at the front of the house before contemplating the loft-space. From the dormer above Cyrus stares down at his mother, not quite understanding why she hasn’t been to see him in so long. At his side, the Tooth Fairy wipes dribble from her plastic chin and rings her bell. Time to eat.

***

Cyrus’s old toys get their kicks in the usual ways, fathering soulless rejects by dolls with no holes, getting high from licks of raindrops that occasionally creep through the rafters. They shake, rattle and roll as Cyrus gets into position. Splayed out with everything on display Cyrus squeezes his eyes shut and lets his friends do their thing. He doesn’t mind so much anymore; it still hurts like shit but as they’ve explained – they are hungry, and if they feed they can stay alive to keep Cyrus company. It all makes sense. No. He doesn’t mind.

***

Debbie sings “Could It Be Magic?”. She’s allowed to sing when Charlie’s not at home. She does a little Donna Summer wiggle and belts out the lyrics as the sale starts to seem like an even better idea than she’d planned. Neatly labelled boxes vie for space beside transparent pink crates crammed with magazines and dog-eared paperbacks. Debbie’s song fades to a hum, trails away to silence. She gathers herself before making the ascent, before looking for Cyrus one last time.

The memory of that day kicks Debbie in the gut harder than a punch from her husband. She grabs the only chair not laden with goods and pulls herself onto it, parking her backside before her legs give way. She doesn’t cry. “Crying’s weak, bitch.” For once she is grateful for Charlie’s uninvited lesson because today she needs more strength than she has ever summoned before. She thinks of Cyrus’s freckled face; how his nose had a permanent pink stripe on the bridge from squinting at the sun. Debbie reaches out her hand to stroke the hair that isn’t there. Pale, almost peach strands of fine, fine locks – like hers used to be before Charlie declared he would never consider marrying a ‘non-blond’. She draws back to pat at her own head, fingering the stiff tresses murdered by peroxide.

When Cyrus hadn’t come home from school Debbie instantly believed him dead; abducted by trailer-trash and dumped, lifeless somewhere in the forest – the very place Charlie spent his time killing trees for a living. Charlie hit her a good one for that outburst.

The cops did their bit, a few perfunctory searches and a poster campaign, but Debbie could see it their eyes – eyes that wouldn’t return her pleading stare – they knew Cyrus was dead too.

It had quickly transpired Cyrus had never even gone to school that day. He hadn’t got on the bus, didn’t turn up to meet his pals on the corner first. They assumed their friend was sick – that’s what they told the driver. The day’s relief teacher, being new to the role had accepted Cyrus Cleavage’s absence without contacting the parents. It turned out to be the last teaching job he’d ever have but that was no comfort to the Cleavages. Charlie had made sure the young man would never make a mistake like that again, and would likely never sire a child of his own. He thought Debbie didn’t know, but she knew a lot more than Charlie gave her credit for.

Once the pre-school disappearance became common knowledge suspicions did the rounds, coming squarely back to land on the Cleavages’ shoulders. Charlie’s temper was no secret and that stuck-up wife of his had to be complicit.

Debonair wipes a lonely, disobedient tear from her cheek.

“But we didn’t do it Cyrus, did we? Not even your Daddy with those filthy fists o’his. He never touched you.”

Upstairs, a glass breaks. Downstairs, Debbie gasps. She hears it, like she’s heard that scream every night. But this is louder still, and in broad daylight. She grabs the keys from the table, forcing her trembling legs to carry her into the hallway. If she could leap three steps at a time she would but dainty skips will have to do.

Another crash. From the very top of the house. Debbie’s heart is a throbbing casket, pounding in her ears, rushing blood through too-thin arteries.

“Mommy! It hurts. Help me.”

Debbie cannot open her mouth to call her son’s name but in her head she shouts in reply “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

She is at the top hallway. Muffled bell sounds tinkle through the ceiling, clashing with the jingle of keys in Debonair’s hands. She stares about, searching for the pole to pull the ladder down. It isn’t where she left it. Charlie must have moved it when he put the lock on the inner door to stop her going up there. She tries to calm herself though her nostrils flare and her chest palpitates. She’s seen it somewhere else over the last couple of days, hell she’s even seen it this morning.

“Think, woman,” she grinds her teeth as the noises above her rise in pitch.

The garage.

“Mommy...”

She wants to scream but tries to sound calm for Cyrus’s sake.

“I’ll be back in a sec honey. Wait. Don’t go anywhere.”

The comment doesn’t strike her as idiotic until she’s out the side door and standing on oil-stained concrete. Quickly scanning the room she spots the pull-pole hanging from Charlie’s neat tool board. The nail falls to the ground as Debbie yanks the pole down and heads back inside the house, leaving the garage door open. Charlie can beat her for that later; it won’t matter to her any more.

Her body speeds on adrenaline as she races back up the two flights of stairs.

“I’m here Cyrus! Mommy’s here.”

But now the world above her screams in overwhelming silence because Cyrus isn’t there. Even as Debbie drops the hatch and drags the ladder down she knows her son was never there. She ignores her own fear and mounts the steps regardless. Reaching the top she must crawl into the holding space to access the short door and is stalled by a moment of wonder that her hulk of a husband could have installed something so solid in such a cramped place.

It’s dark. She fumbles at the fob in her hand. Five keys of different sizes. She hadn’t asked Charlie which was the right one for the loft when he threw them at her but through trial and error is successful on the fourth attempt. Her fingers are sticky with sweat as she twists the lock and pushes the door open.

There is no broken glass. There are no bells chiming. Cyrus isn’t sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor waiting for his mom because Cyrus is hanging from the ceiling by his hair. He is dressed in a life-size teddy outfit sewn from smaller bears, ripped apart and rejoined. Blood drips from every clumsy stitch, wrought with the same thread that has sealed Cyrus’s mouth into a permanent smile.

Debonair Cleavage drops to her knees. She doesn’t flinch as the door clicks shut behind her though the sound drowns out her ears. Sunlight blares through the dormer window to create a halo around her swinging son.

“Cyrus, where have you been?”

It’s all she can manage to say.

To her sides, feet scuttle behind piles of ephemera. Clonking great wooden shoes and soft rubber pumps trip towards Debonair who is staring at her son’s face, his own eyes huge with warning. A migraine of sparks whirl in the periphery closing in on the desperate mother. She twists abruptly.

“What the...?”

They dance, not slowly but with violent lurches and spins as though reeling from coiled springs wound to the limit. The procession of toylife rushes at Debonair, teeth gnashing, ready to bite. Those with hands clasp the strangest of weapons – toenail scissors, broken electricals with buzzing exposed wires... Cyrus convulses. The golden locks tear from his scalp as he writhes. Debbie crawls towards him, raises her arms up to grab at his feet – all too late. The dolls attack Debonair from all directions and even as Cyrus’s body slumps to the ground beside her – so close, so close – he can see them feeding already. He loses consciousness as tiny fingers dip into the pouring lacerations in his skull.

***

Dusk falls and the Mill Bar has closed for the week, sending workers away until the Monday shift. Charlie guzzles the last of his personal supply and remarks on the state of the lawn as he pulls into the Cleavage driveway. Two trestle tables have fallen over in the wind; the old curtains his wife has used to cover them are strewn on the grass. Has she sold everything? Reluctantly impressed, Charlie starts to wonder what treat Debonair will be buying him with the proceeds. His pleasure is short-lived; he can clearly see light glaring from the garage as its door slowly peels backward. She’s left the inner-door wide open – how many times has he told her? Trust her to ruin everything. He storms into the house, his hand already raised for the slap.

“Debonair?”

She’s up in the attic; he can hear her dragging stuff about.

“Get your sorry ass down here and tell me what the hell’s going on.” Patience isn’t one of Charlie’s few virtues; when his wife fails to respond he bounds up the stairs two at a time.

“Debonaire! Dammit woman, you answer me when I’m talkin’ at ya.”

The thud from above is enough to stop Charlie in his tracks for all of a second. He rushes the remaining stairs toward the first floor landing and is up on the top level in moments. The step-ladder is still hanging from the loft. Charlie squeezes his bulk onto it and climbs, frowning at the whispering noises that twitter in the space beyond the hatch. If she’s stolen his radio she’s gonna pay. He hammers on the solid construction – a fine piece of work – and twists the key that his wife has left in the lock.

“I’m comin’ in Debonair. You’d better be...”

Charlie’s words are ripped from his mouth, along with the end of his tongue. Shrill laughter pierces his eardrum as the knife glints – it is snatched away by unseen hands and his mouth fills with hot blood. Choking, he spits on the floor. The flow won’t stop. He reaches for the light-pull but even as he tugs it stinging arrows fly at him from the corner of the room. Squinting with pain he spies the bow from his son’s old archery set waving about, but not who is firing at him. His legs give way and he has no time to feel shame. He lands hard on his butt, his fat cheeks crashing into a pile-up of metal automobiles – Cyrus’s collection of all things with wheels. Charlie had taken them from the boy the day he went missing, angry with the lad for answering him back. Now they are crushed. Grief hits Charlie unexpectedly; his son would never be able to play with them again. Even if he were still alive, the vehicles were probably broken beyond repair, all because of me. Charlie slams a fist into the hardwood floor. The shock resonates through his core, sparking his senses back to life.

“Who’th here?” he lisps, splattering rusted spittle down his plaid shirt. The only sound is his heart drumming in his ears. Outside the wind is rising; it howls though the rafters. The sky blackens with purple storm clouds that rage black against the dormer window. Charlie doesn’t see them because of the two life-size puppets that drop from the beam to obscure his view and stop his breath. They dance. Strings rise and fall to move the limbs, they flip and flap in broken symmetry. The bile in Charlie’s gut surges upward to burn his throat as he recognises the outlines of his wife and son. Behind him, a dull click as the string-pull is grabbed and the bodies are flooded with light.

“Jesus fuckin’ hell.”

Charlie pisses his pants at the scene before his eyes. The corpses of the only family he has left in the world are bloated and pulsing, the skin rippling. How can Cyrus be here? How long has he been here? The realisation that his son must have been alive all this time and living in the goddamn house – the god-damned house – hits Charlie with such force the angry, violent heart that’s been swelling and beating at an impossible rate finally breaks. He roars in agony, clutching at his left-arm – its flesh already torn from the arrow attack – and collapses. As Charlie Cleavage’s chest spasms the last sound he hears is that of bells; his last vision is his wife and son’s mouths dropping open and dolls and toys of all makes and sizes crawling out to drop to the ground. The man that didn’t kill his son but beat his wife dies at their feet as they empty out before him.

***

They have done with this family, these creatures made by human hands. They have fed – gorged themselves on Cleavage blood until the hosts became their playthings. They leave the crusts behind – paper-thin of skin and void of organs – and beat a strange retreat into the woods behind the house.

Tooth Fairy has collected her dues. She drags molars and incisors in a brown leather bag; they clink against each other, jingling in discord. As she closes the Cleavage back door she coughs a spark into the kitchen. It catches Debonair’s red and white chequered table-cloth, the cotton flares, flames rising to lick at papers and cardboard boxes. They burn fast. With no-one to dampen the fire’s enthusiasm it pulls the rafters into its maw.

No-one will care. The boy – long-gone – has already been grieved for. Not a single person will shed a tear for Charlie Cleavage. And Debonair – Debonair was already a shell – she left years ago.

***

If you go down to the woods today... beware the tiny bells. Sometimes they chime. And sometimes they bite.

_______________________________

Bio:

Lily Childs writes horror and dark fiction. Volume 2 of CABARET OF DREAD will be released in 2013 by Ganglion Press. The third novella in the Magenta Shaman urban fantasy series is in the offing, and Lily is currently sojourning in a derelict asylum, not far from her house, where a novel is spawning.

Cabaret of Dread on Amazon UK | Amazon US/Canada
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lilychildsfeardom
Twitter: @LilyChilds
Blog: Lily Childs' Feardom

TK'n'C Editors' Halloween Special: David Barber

The deadline for that Halloween Horror competition to win ebooks by the TK'n'C editors is rapidly approaching, and Lily is straining at the manacles to get to the comp Inbox.

In the meantime David Barber reveals his love for horror with a disturbing tale written especially for the Editors' Special. In homage to one his favourite writers of the genre, Richard Laymon, David gives you...

DARE TO DREAM

Closing his book and switching off the bedside lamp, Brian Knowles shuffles down under the duvet.  His wife, Sonia, is fast asleep next to him.  He leans over and kisses her gently on the lips.

“I love you, honey,” he whispers, resting his head on the pillow.

He nestles down, drifting off, when his wife suddenly sits up.  She lets out a frightened gasp and Brian quickly gets up, switching on the bedside lamp.

“Sonia? What’s the matter?” he asks, gently rubbing Sonia’s shoulder, careful not to alarm her.

His wife just sits there staring at the curtains, her eyes unblinking.

She’s probably still asleep, Brian thinks.  He places both hands on his wife’s shoulders and is about to gently lay her down when she suddenly speaks.

“You know that feeling when you wake up and think, ‘thank goodness it was only a dream’?”

“Err, well, kind of,” he says, knowing that she's about to go off on one of her crazy stories again.

“Well, this particular dream isn’t like any I’ve had before,” she starts telling him, pushing herself back up against the headboard.

“Oh don’t tell me, you were alone in a log cabin, surrounded by darkness...”

“How do you know?” she asks, turning to him.  Her eyes are wide, searching his for answers.

He laughs, “You are crazy sometimes, you know?”

“Listen,” she says, playfully hitting him on the left shoulder.  “We’re up in the Highlands of Scotland in a log cabin at the side of a Loch. It’s totally secluded. We don’t even have a car and I have no idea how we got there.”

“I know,” he says, spreading his arms wide and waving them up and down, “maybe we sprouted wings and flew there.”  Brian laughs again.

“Right, I’m not telling you now.”  Sonia crosses her arms across her breasts and exhales through her nose.  She pouts like a spoilt child, a smile sneaking into her expression.

“Aw, come on. I’m only messing.”

“Okay, but no more laughing. You promise?”

“I promise,” Brian answers.

“So, we’d just finished watching TV and you get up to turn it off.  I turn off the lamps and we head into the bedroom...”

“Ooh, I’m loving the sound of this one,” he says, giving Sonia his full attention.

“Sorry mister, there’s none of that in this one. So, where was I? Ah, we head into the bedroom and there’s a noise outside, but not a noise that you normally hear, like an owl or something. This sound is different: like a slapping noise.”

“A bit of bondage? Hmm, interesting.”

“You really do have a one-track mind, Mr Knowles. No, not bondage. The sound is more like...well...steel against skin, like something metal being hit against a hand,” she says, staring at the curtains. 

“Hey, are you OK? What’s wrong?” he asks.

Sonia’s expression has changed.  Her brow furrows and it seems like her whole body tightens.

“Well, you decide to get out of bed to check what the noise is. You go to the window and throw open the curtains. You can’t really see very much because of the blackness outside and the lamplight inside so you lean closer to the window, cupping your hands around your face.”

She stops again and he notices a tear in her eye.

“Hey, don’t get upset, it’s only a dream.”

She turns to him and looks into his eyes. “I know, but it was just...just too real.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be daft. You can tell me what happens.”

“No, I can’t tell you. It’s horrible.”

“It’s not real, Sonia. It’s just a dream and don’t people say that bad dreams normally mean the opposite. Go on, spill the beans. Tell me what happens,” he says, stroking her arm.

“OK. So, you stare through the window, shielding the light to get a better look, when we hear the sound again. You move your head slightly and mumble something like ‘I think I can see someone’ but then you turn around really quickly and shout ‘BOO!’ You’re laughing and I’m telling you you’re out of order for scaring me when suddenly the window implodes and this huge man hits you on the back of the head with an axe. There’s blood everywhere and...I’m screaming...and...”

“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s only a dream,” he says, sitting up and comforting her.

They sit embraced on the bed, his arms around her.  The room is silent and the energy saving bulb in the bedside lamp does little to brighten up the room.

They hear a strange sound from outside the bedroom window.  Not a usual nocturnal noise but... something different.

Brian gets up from the bed and walks towards the window.

“No, Brian. Don’t open the curtains,” Sonia says.

Brian laughs, but his nerves are biting a bit. “Oh, it’ll be nothing. I think your dream is playing tricks on us.”

He gets to the window and opens the curtains.  He strains to look into the blackness and then leans closer, cupping his hands around his eyes to get a better look.

“I...I think I... can see someone.”

“Stop messing about. It’s not funny,” she says, pulling the quilt up around her.

Suddenly he spins around, ‘BOO!’  Brian laughs and looks at his wife just as the window implodes.  His eyes go wide as an axe is embedded in the back of his head.  Blood splashes onto the curtains and down the wall as his body goes limp.  There’s a squelching sounds as the axe is pulled out of his head and he crumples to the floor.  The huge man outside the window shouts into the night and starts climbing into the room.

Sonia just sits there and screams and screams and screams...

She wakes up with a start, sweating and panting for breath. 

“Brian,” she mumbles and pats the bed next to her.  It’s empty.  She sits up and throws off the duvet.  Her watch on the bedside table says 7:38 AM.

Outside the bedroom the sound of a running shower drifts along the hallway of the log cabin.  Sonia gets out of bed, opens the bedroom door and walks towards the bathroom, the dream dissipating into the far corners of her mind.

“Briiiaaannnn, do you fancy some company in there?” she says, opening the bathroom door and walking in.

The room is full of steam and Sonia’s skin tingles as she removes her bedclothes.  Naked, she walks towards the shower and gently draws the curtain back.  The shower head has been broken off and Brian has been impaled onto the outlet.  There’s blood everywhere and water is gushing out of his mouth.

Sonia screams and stumbles backwards, banging into something.  She turns and stares up into the steam.  A glint of silver flashes through the steam as an axe is brought down towards her face.  Sonia screams as the weapon closes in.

“NO...NO...NO!"

“Honey, honey. Wake up, you’re dreaming again,” Brian says, gently pushing at her shoulder.

She shudders, taking in deep breaths and opens her eyes.  A film of sweat covers her face.  She sits up and looks at Brian.

“You won’t believe the dream I’ve just had,” she says.

“Oh, don’t tell me.  I’ll bet it starts with us being in a log cabin surrounded by complete darkness...”

“How do you know?” she asks.

Brian gets up from the bed and walks over to the window, pulling open the curtains.

“Because we are, honey. We’re on holiday, remember?” he says, turning to her, a smile on his face.

Sonia smiles back, “Yes, I remember.”

The bedroom window suddenly implodes behind Brian, sending shards of glass flying across the room.  The look of shock on his face changes to a blank stare as an axe is embedded into the back of his head.

Sonia’s terrified scream echoes into the cold night air, lost in the mist that has descended onto the log cabin.

__________________

Bio:

David Barber was born in Manchester, England, but now lives in Crieff, Scotland, with his wife and their two daughters.  He started writing years ago but put it on the back burner after the arrival of his children.  He was inspired to start writing again four years ago by good friend, Col Bury, and the beauty that surrounds him in Scotland.  His writing has appeared on numerous e-zines and on his own site davidjbarber.wordpress.com

He was the editor of The Flash Fiction Offensive for 18 months and is now a crime editor of Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers.  He is also (when time allows) the editor of comedy e-zine, The Laughter Shack.

David is currently writing his first novel and is constantly fighting with the voices in his head as they churn out idea after idea.

His e-book, From A Crowded Mind, is available from Amazon.co.uk, .com and all other Amazon sites.

TK'n'C Editors' Halloween Special: Col Bury

As the competition entries pour in (there's still time to win 4 eBooks!), the Editors are certainly getting into the 'spirit' of things as Halloween approaches. Col really enjoyed switching back to his horror roots, from his crime novel endeavours, with this tense tale.  We sincerely hope you 'enjoy' it too... if you can...!

The Writing on the Wall

“You moving in this place then?”  The elderly woman, carrying a bag of groceries, didn’t make eye contact.

          “Yes… yes we are… we have.”  Sarah couldn’t disguise the pride in her voice, at her and Mike having finally found their dream home.  “Do you live through the woods? I saw a little cottage earlier.”

          “Sure. On my own now. It’s lonely out here… alone.”  Her voice was crackly, like sticks breaking underfoot.

Still no eye contact. Strange.  “Oh, Mike and I will pop over to see you. He could cook you a meal. Was a head chef in Manchester, and he’s lovely is my Mike. Funny too, he’ll soon cheer you up.”

“We’ll see.”  She craned her neck upward at charcoal clouds.  “Best get going. It’s a different place at night, you know.”  She turned away and trudged off, unsteadily, using a wooden walking stick.

“Bye… er… do you have a name?”

She didn’t turn around.  “Sure.”

“Mine’s… Sar.. ah…” 

The old lady mumbled something, Sarah didn’t fully catch.

Very odd.  Sarah watched her go, slowly disappearing through a path of flattened foliage into the woods.  Sarah shrugged and went back inside the grand old house.  Their grand old house.  Smiling with pride, she grabbed the metal wallpaper scraper and busied herself in the huge living room.  Well, it was huge compared to their dingy end-terraced in Eccles.

She thought of the aged woman, as she laboriously stripped the walls.  Why was she so aloof?  Maybe her age.  Probably lost her husband.  Anyway, nothing could spoil this dream move for her and Mike.  They’d saved up, sold up and here they were, in the middle of Wales, a few miles from the sea, and with a backdrop of Snowdonia.  Beats the concrete jungle any time.

The house sale - damn cheap too for its size and location - went smoothly and the transfer from Mike’s head office to the Aberystwyth restaurant was also timed to perfection.  Sarah recalled her excitement as she checked on Google Maps how close this house was to his new prospective workplace.  “Ten miles and just half an hour’s drive,” she’d said excitedly.  They’d hugged because they both knew it could really happen.  Just up the road from one of her favourite places too: Aberdovey, and its stunning bay.  It was truly meant to be.

Sarah stopped scraping as she saw a girl’s name scrawled on the wall.  It was faded, but she could just about make it out.  Lucinder.  Bet it’s when a kid who’d lived here had measured herself.  But there was no pencilled line, just the number 8 beside it.  Aw, must be her age.  She scraped some more and saw Jennifer 9.  It reminded her of the fact they couldn’t have kids.  It wasn’t Mike’s fault, it was her.  It had been a dark day when the doctor had informed them, but Mike was the perfect gent about it - “It doesn’t change anything. I love you and always will, Sarah.” 

Glancing again at the names, she shook thoughts of kids away.  This new house was their ‘baby’.  If it wasn’t for their… her… infertility, then they probably wouldn’t have self-indulged with the move.  Now though, nothing would spoil this for them.

Hearing a crunching sound, she paused and glanced through the bay window.  It was Mike pulling up on the drive, the four by four’s sidelights flicked off.  She ran to the front door, like a giggly school girl.

They embraced, a tingle of excitement shooting through her. 

“Bloody’ell, darkness falls quick round here, dunnit?”

“It’s lovely though.”

“Certainly is, babe.”  They unhooked themselves.  

“Drive home okay?” 

Mike grinned.  “Stunning scenery… and I defo went the scenic route.”

They strolled down the hall into the living room.  “What do you mean?”

“I was driving round in circles for twenty minutes. Bloody Sat-Nav lost its signal.”

Sarah picked up the scraper again.  “Work okay?”

“Yeah. They were all pretty friendly to the Englishman. Quite easy to boss ‘em about really.”   He grinned again.  “So, what’ve you been up to? Busy I see.”

“Talking to the neighbour.”  She raised her eyebrows and passed him a spare scraper.

“Let me get my coat off, cheeky!”  He took it off, lay it on their new leather suite that was still covered in plastic while they decorated.  “What’s with the face? We’ve not moved close to weirdos have we? I knew things had gone too well.”

“Nah, just this old lady. She was a bit strange, but I’m sure she’ll come round, once she gets to know us.”

“Strange?”

“Wouldn’t look at me or tell me her name.”

“That’s cos yer a dodgy Mancunian!”

“Oy! Says the man arrested in his teens for joyriding!”

“I dint know the car was stolen, honest!”  He tickled her and they laughed and wriggled, then embraced and kissed.

Sarah broke free first.  “Here, I want to show you something.”  She passed him the spare scraper and this time he took it.  She pointed at the girls’ names.

“And?”

“And, nothing, it’s just… help me. Let’s see if there’s any more.”

Mike looked at the bay window and walked over, shutting the blinds.  Opposite, trees swayed and creaked in the wind.  He reached up and shut the top windows before peering out of the window.  “It’s pitch black out there. You can really see the stars. No light pollution here, eh?”

“Here’s another one…”  Abigail 4.

Mike studied the names.  “So the previous owners had three girls. Bet they’re grown up by now, judging by the style of this crappy old wallpaper.”

They both scraped away. 

“Mike. Look.”

Sarah pointed at another name.  They stared agog.  Joanna 10  - screamer.  “What the hell does ‘screamer’ mean?”

 “Dunno.”

Sarah heard a dull thud and jumped.  It came from below, in the bowels of the house.  “You hear that?”

“What? Hey, steady on, babe. Old houses make noises you know. Chill.”  He smiled reassuringly, smoothed a hand across her cheek.  “So do yer reckon the numbers are their ages?”

“Assume so.”  She was still looking through the open living room door into the hall.

They continued peeling off the paper with vigour. 

Mike suddenly stopped.  “Bloody’ell, Sarah.”  He pointed.  “They’re not ages… they’re marks… marks out of ten. What the…?”

Sarah saw the name Layla 9 / 10.  She quickly scanned the other names and numbers.  Jennifer 9 also had  / 10, but it was somewhat faded. 

“Jesus. What is this, hun?”

“Don’t worry. It’s probably nothing. Summat obvious, that we’re missing.”

They bounced looks, then continued.

Sarah stopped, leaned against the wall, arms up.

“What’s up, babe?”

“It was just something the old lady said as she walked off.”

“What? What did she say?”

“I thought she said, ‘They never caught him, you know’, or something like that.”

“Really?”  Mike looked stern, not his usual self, fuelling Sarah’s angst.

“I think so. Does your laptop get a signal here.”

“Er. Not sure. Not had chance to check yet, but I’m paying for it and the telly’s working, so it should do. I can give it a go.”  He walked into the dining room and grabbed his laptop from the drawer of the sideboard containing his football trophies.  Sarah joined him as he turned it on and placed it on the dining room table.  They both sat down and waited for Windows to fire up.  

“Yes!"  The Web browser opened.  "Okay, what are we searching for exactly?”

Sarah hesitated, then said in a hushed voice.  “Missing girls in mid-Wales?”  Mike frowned at her, shook his head, and typed it in.

They stared as eight photos came up.  “Jesus Christ. Look at the names, Mike.”

Suddenly the lights and laptop went off.

Sarah felt ice shoot up her spine, and screamed.

“Shit! Okay, calm down. Give me your hand. It’s okay, babe. I’ve gotta torch on me phone.”  After a few seconds fumbling, he lit the immediate vicinity, shining the light around, causing shifting shapes of the furniture around them.

“Did you see that? The names… I’m really scared, Mike.”

 “Come on. Get a grip. Please. I’ll go down to the cellar.”

“No, don’t leave me!”

 “I won’t. We’ll both go. It’s probably just a blown fuse. The house hasn’t been lived in for a while. They did say that, remember? That’s why we got it so cheap. Needed a bit of work.”

They moved slowly out of the dining room, into the living room, through the hall and up to the door beneath the staircase.  Sarah felt a shudder as she peered into the kitchen to the rear, its dense blackness seemed to stare back at her.  She quickly looked away, holding Mike’s hand every step of the way.

Thankfully, the door to the cellar didn’t creak.  The phone torchlight wasn’t so bright, and Sarah felt jumpy, seeing dark, fluctuating shapes and shadows.  She’d not been down here before.  It smelled really musty.  The stairs were stone and their footsteps seemed amplified by the gloom.

“You okay?”

She didn’t answer.

“Right. The fuse-box is over here somewhere.” 

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“There. Looks like another door.”

“Oh yeah. Not noticed that before.”

In the far corner was the shape of an old dark wooden door, somewhat camouflaged in the brown stone brickwork.  “We’ll take a look in a minute.”

“We don’t have to.”

 “Here we go.”  He shone the torch at the fuse-box.  “You’ll have to just let go of my hand for a minute.”

Sarah released her grip, her hand clammy, her heartbeat audible.

“Yep, as I thought.”  A click later, and the lights came on, including the bare bulb just above them.

Mike grinned.  “You gonna relax now, babe?”

The wooden door burst open and a dark figure flew at them.  The sword swung at Mike before he could turn, and it cut through the air toward his head.  

Sarah screamed and froze to the spot.  Everything funnelled in, like slow motion.  The bearded man wearing a long black cloak turned to her.  He leered, his manic eyes shining with glee.  She looked at Mike and he staggered.  His expression was fixed, wide-eyed.  His head slowly slid from his neck and fell off onto the stone floor.  It bounced, settled and he stared up at her, like a dead salmon.  His jerking body crumpled beside her, blood spurting onto her legs from the gaping neck.

Catatonic, she couldn’t scream.  Her legs wobbly, she turned to the stairs and clambered up.  She instantly heard throaty laughter and felt sturdy hands gripping her ankles, as her bladder gave way.  She was pulled back down, slowly, her chin buffeting the steps, one by one.  At the bottom, he grabbed her by the hair and an excruciating pain ripped through her scalp as she was dragged past Mike’s head, those eyes still staring, helplessly.

"I hope you're a ten out of ten, like Joanna," the man said gruffly, before slamming the door.

BIO:
Col Bury is the Crime Editor of award winning webzine, THRILLERS, KILLERS ‘N’ CHILLERS.  Under the guidance of his agent, he's currently developing a crime novel series based in Manchester.  Col's ever-growing selection of short stories can be found around the net and in numerous anthologies.  His vigilante story MOPPING UP is in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST BRITISH CRIME 9, and FISTS OF DESTINY, from Col’s eBook MANCHESTER 6, was selected for THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST BRITISH CRIME 10.

Col lives in Manchester, UK with his wife and two children.  He's 'not a bad stick' at 8-ball pool and is an avid fan of Manchester City FC.
He interviews crime authors & blogs here: http/colburysnewcrimefiction.blogspot.com/

NOTE: HALLOWEEN COMP' DEADLINE: MIDNIGHT (UK) OCTOBER 22ND.