Fiction Vortex - October 2013 Horror Issue

  Not unknown ... to the bedroom. It’s going for the easy targets first.

  Even with such an awful thought in mind, he found himself slowly rising to his feet. Shuffling like a blind man, he groped for the switch on the wall and flipped it. Nothing. His hands traced toward the left, for the breaker box on the wall. He found it, and flung it open. He could hear something deeper in the house now, footsteps heavy and thudding.

  You’re still the man of this house, a voice said, but its tone was not nearly as confident as the words, and they’re still your family.

  Hands trembling, he ran his fingers down the line of switches, at first too fast to catch any breakers that might have tripped. Willing himself to slow down, he tried again, this time finding the one he needed. With a flick, the light returned.

  Scanning the room, his mouth dropped as he spied the unmistakable tracks of mud and filth that must have landed inches from where he had laid sprawled on the concrete. The trail led up the stairs and into the house, and he followed, hammer held in front of him like a priest clutching a rosary. The footsteps were sporadic and uneven, but the trail was easy enough to follow. A cloud of fetid air seemed to cling to his face, as if her were wearing a used body bag around his head. The grimy tracks led directly into Kate’s room, running underneath the closed door.

  It’s in there. It’s waiting for you.

  Gently, he swung the door in and gasped. Her room, which seconds before had been as tidy and neat as a three-year-old's room could be, was in shambles. The tiny table where he and his daughter held tea parties was overturned. Dolls were scattered, toy boxes tipped, but the worst was the pair of teddy bears that rested at the end of her bed. She had picked them out herself at a store where you could customize the doll however you wanted and give them names. One of them, the pink one, was officially named Mommy. The other, a darker green hue, was Daddy. Now, the pink one still sat in its usual place, but the green one rested on its side near the edge of the bed. It sat in the center of a pool of black muck that he could neither name nor place. It looked like mud, but there were pieces of mulch and sticks, and even as he watched, it jumped and writhed with bugs. There were beetles, large black ones, and cockroaches. At one end, a centipede crawled out blindly, its antennae fanning out in smooth arcs. The awful mound of filth shifted a bit, tilting the bear onto its side, and he realized in a grotesque moment of clarity that there was something bigger near the bottom.

  However, he didn’t have time to speculate on what it could be. Whatever had done this, it was inside his daughter’s closet, rooting around and breathing heavily. Dan stepped back in retreat, and the floor creaked under his foot. Then he saw it, a hand ... no. Not a hand. Not exactly. It was the suggestion of a hand, something that wanted to be a hand, but it was wrong, so very wrong.

  Dan ran, and in an instant, he knew it was chasing him. He never glanced back, but he knew it had him. The stench filled his mouth and nose, invading his lungs, firing his taste buds with the horrible tang of rotten buttermilk and old, dead things, and when he flung open the bedroom door and slammed it shut behind him, he was certain it would splinter around him as the beast crashed into it. No crash came. No splinters. Nothing. Just his beating heart and the slow, gentle breathing of his wife. Then, a thin, weak laugh on the other side of the door as it shambled back down the hallway.

  Shelly was asleep. My God, he thought. People still sleep. There are people in this world who are still able to sleep. I’ll never be one of them again. Movement from the corner of his eye turned his head. He knew what he would see before he looked.

  "Daddy," Kate said. She was already standing next to the bed. For some reason, she looked much older than she had several hours ago.

  "Kate," he said, his voice much more desperate than he meant for it to be. "Come here."

  He was tired, unbearably so, and from the way she fell into his arms, he could see she was too. Her head fell instinctively onto his shoulder as he slumped to the floor, his back still toward the door. In moments, he knew she would be asleep, and despite all that had happened, he wondered if he would as well.

  "Kate," he said softly. "I need you to listen to me."

  "I’m so sleepy," she said.

  "I know honey, but I need you to help me figure something out. Your dream, the one we talked about earlier ... you said that bad things happened when people hurt each other."

  "That’s what the man in the dream said."

  "But it doesn’t make sense ... people hurt each other all the time. Strangers rob and shoot each other..."

  "No," she said. "Not just strangers. When people hurt the ones they love the most. When they know how much it will hurt, and they do it anyway. That’s what calls the bad things. That’s what let them in."

  A tear forced its way out of Dan’s clenched eyes.

  "Is there any way to stop it?" he asked.

  "I don’t know Daddy." She leaned forward rested her head on his shoulder. "It was just a dream."

  ~~~~~

  3:15 AM

  When he awoke, Kate’s head was still on his shoulder, but he was laying flat on his back with her sprawled on top of him. He reached, groping across the carpet, trying to find some sense of where he was, who he was, why he felt such a sick, empty dread in his stomach.

  Something happened, he thought. Something bad.

  His hand brushed the door, the same he had been leaning against. It was open wide, the cool air of the hall rushing in to meet him. None of it had been real. It was a shared dream, a collective mania brought on by one too many horror stories, too many bad dreams. He cradled her as he shuffled to his feet to lay her in the bed. Shelly was there, still breathing deeply, still asleep. Carefully, he set his daughter down next to her and curled in behind them, pulling them both close.

  Guilt, a voice inside him said. He waited for more to follow, but that was all, a single echoing word.

  He glanced over Shelly, looking for the digital clock to check the time, but the familiar red glow was missing, no doubt turned the wrong way. Leaning back toward his side of the bed, he looked for Kate’s monitor, which was always plugged in there, a glowing blue beacon of sanity in the darkest hours of the night. The light was out. There was only blackness.

  Power ... out?

  The stench of death began to fill his nose, instantly causing his eyes to well. It was the smell of every dead thing that had ever existed, the opposite of life, the herald of evil, the monster that carried children away in the night and left them mangled and forgotten in ditches and landfills. Through the weak moonlight shining through the blinds, he saw it rise up from under the bed, stretching high above them and practically filling the ceiling, and the laughter that droned from it was the voice of madness. Dan gripped his wife and child, pulling them toward himself with all his might.

  You can end this, a voice inside screamed. It wants you.

  Dan didn’t need to be told this. He knew all too well, but all he could do was clutch them tighter.

  "Dan," Shelly said. "You’re ... hurting me."

  "Daddy!"

  Dan didn’t hear a word they said, just that laugh, an endless nightmare that would forever ring in his ears, and as he continued to squeeze, the nameless thing leaned down and began to do its work.

  ~~~~~

  2:46 PM

  The bodies were found by Shelly’s friend Barbara. The two often met early to get a mile of walking in before starting the day. When her knocks went unanswered, she let herself in with the key hidden behind one of the shutters on the front porch. Kate and Shelly were in the bed, both blue and still clutching each other, an embrace that would never end. At once, Barbara clapped a hand over her mouth, certain that carbon monoxide was to blame. When she turned and saw Dan hanging from the rod in the closet by a necktie, she knew better.

  Now, nearly twelve hours after the final moments of the family, no one had many questions about what happened. The ‘why,’ as the detectives on site knew, might never be answered, but the ‘w
hat’ was clear to anyone. Barbara knew as soon as she saw him hanging there; a husband goes crazy and strangles his wife and daughter before hanging himself up in the closet. Open and shut. And now, the pictures had been taken, evidence placed in bags, and everyone was ready to call it a day.

  A young detective — still shaken from the scene — ducked into the bathroom as the bodies were finally carried out, not because he couldn’t handle it, but because he didn’t want to. There was a sense of emptiness to all of this, and he knew it would take a while to get out of his system. In other murders, there was usually a bad guy to get, a lead to follow, justice still left to serve, but this ... this just felt so pointless. As he pondered this, his cell phone rang.

  "Yeah?"

  "We got the records from his cell phone," the voice on the line said.

  "Anything out of the ordinary?"

  "Nothing that would explain all this. At least not on the surface. There were an awful lot of calls to a Holly Baxter."

  "We know her yet?" the detective asked.

  "Yeah, they worked together. They went back and forth quite a bit ... maybe 20 calls over two weeks and twice as many texts. The last text he sent her said, ‘Can’t wait to see you.’ That was about a week ago."

  "So it just dropped off after that?"

  "Yep. Not a single thing."

  "We’ll be talking to her very soon."

  "My thoughts exactly. Any ideas on the mud all over the place?"

  "We found a pair of his boots caked in the stuff out in the garage."

  "So, he just decided to make a mess of the place before he got down to business."

  "I honestly don’t know." The detective’s voice was heavy and exhausted. "Maybe the lab will tell us something, but I doubt it. Crazy don’t work in the lab. Crazy just is."

  As he hung up the phone, he took a deep breath and let it out slow. It still didn’t feel right, but he suspected it never would. It wasn’t neat or poetic or logical. It was just tragic. File it as such and move on.

  The detective turned on his heel to leave the bathroom, and walked away. Soon, others followed suit, and before nightfall, the house was empty and as silent as a grave. No one was there to see it, but a centipede — larger than most — crawled silently out from behind the toilet in the master bathroom. Slow and searching, it began to explore.

  D.W. Gillespie is a long time horror writer and fan who lives in Middle Tennessee with his wife and two kids. He's been featured in Disturbed Digest, Daylight Dims Anthology, Dark Moon Digest, and several others.

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  Buried Secrets

  by Gary Cecil; published October 25, 2013

  Max Jensen and his wife, Megan, pulled into the driveway of their new home.

  "Isn’t it beautiful?" Megan asked.

  "It sure is."

  He rubbed her stomach slowly.

  "I cannot wait for Kevin to enjoy it, too."

  "You mean Katie, right?"

  They laughed together.

  One week earlier, they signed the papers for the house. It was a white, two-story, wooden Victorian Gothic Revival, from the 1850’s. They stole it for an easy two hundred thousand, compliments of the Ohio housing market plummet.

  As they went inside, Megan went straight to the couch and plopped down on it. Her bare feet were hanging over the side.

  "This is the life. I seriously do not want to go back to work next week. Can’t I just lie here all day?"

  "Well, you could, but I don’t think we would be in this house for long. My job alone can’t afford this mortgage. Hell, I could hardly afford a one-bedroom apartment. But then again, you do look mighty sexy on that couch."

  She laughed.

  He walked to the end of the couch and kissed her feet.

  "It has been the longest day, babe. I’m going to grab a shower and call it a night. Meet me in the bedroom?"

  "Sure, Maximillian."

  "Oh God, don’t call me that. My mother used to call me that all the time when I was younger."

  She shrugged her shoulders and curled her lip.

  "I’ll be quick, I promise."

  As he walked away, she winked at him.

  ~~~~~

  When he got out of the shower, she was lying down on the bed. All of her clothes were on the floor, and with her right index finger she made a come here gesture.

  Max obliged, and they made love. He held her close, falling asleep shortly afterwards.

  ~~~~~

  Megan awoke from her sleep and poked Max on the shoulder.

  "Hey, wake up."

  He groaned for a moment.

  "What’s wrong?"

  "I heard something. Over there."

  She pointed toward the bathroom.

  It took him a few seconds to see her hand.

  "What did you hear?"

  "I don’t know, just check it out."

  He got out of bed and crept to the bathroom. Then he flipped the light switch up, blinding him temporarily.

  "Well, there you have it. I don’t see anything."

  "I’m sorry; it sounded like it was scurrying across the floor. I smelled something too."

  "Smelled something?"

  "Yeah, it was old and rotten, like curdled milk."

  "I don’t smell any of that now."

  "Me either."

  He walked back over to the bed and sat down next to her.

  "Whatever it is, it’s gone now."

  He leaned in and kissed her forehead.

  "I love you."

  "I love you, t—" She felt something crawl alongside her leg. "Get it off!" She jumped out of the sheets and pushed him back against the wall with her.

  "What happened?"

  "Something touched me. It was on my leg!"

  A moment later, a giant rat scampered out of the covers and onto her pillow.

  Max pointed his finger and laughed.

  "It’s just a rat."

  She continued to cry.

  "It’s not funny!"

  "It’s a little funny."

  "Do something about that thing!"

  Max grabbed a white shirt from the drawer. The rat was still on the pillow, as he inched toward it quietly.

  Almost there.

  When he reached out with the shirt, the rat sped off and was once again, out of sight.

  "Damn! I almost had him!"

  "I’m not sleeping on that bed."

  "It will be fine. There can’t be many more of them things walking around."

  "All right, but if I feel anything, I don’t care if it’s your big toe, I’m sleeping on the couch."

  Max tossed the soiled pillow onto the ground and replaced it with a fresh one. Then he turned out the bathroom light, and they went to bed for the second time that night.

  ~~~~~

  They slept in until eleven o’ clock the next morning. The goal for the day was to start painting the living room.

  "I don’t want to get out of bed," she said.

  "Me either, but we’ve got to start painting. We both go back to work next week, and if we don’t start now, we’ll never finish. Plus, the baby-safe acrylic paint we spent hours researching for, would be wasted."

  She rubbed her eyes and dangled her feet off the bed. Before her toes touched the wood floor, she felt a slimy and squishy mass spread between them.

  "Max! The rat! It’s dead!"

  She hopped on her right foot to the bathroom, her left foot covered with the insides of the now, deceased rat.

  "Did you do that?"

  "No, it was like that before I stepped on it."

  The rat lay dead on the floor, with its stomach ripped open. An iron-like stink filled the air.

  "What could do that to this thing?"

  She ran her foot under the water and began scrubbing.

  "I don’t know. I hope there aren’t any snakes in this house, too."

  Max disposed of the rat carcass, and they made their way downstairs for breakfast.

  The
rest of the day went well. They finished painting the living room in a beautiful light jasmine shade and even made some progress on the kitchen.

  "I’m proud of you, baby," he said. "You did a great job today."

  "Awe, thank you, Max!"

  With her left hand behind her back, she reached in for a kiss. When their lips met, she put her hand out to the side and slid the paintbrush down the spine of his shirt.

  "Hey!"

  "What are you going to do about it?"

  He took off his shirt revealing his light skin and muscled body.

  "Look, a rat!" He pointed behind her.

  She turned around quickly. When she did, he grabbed a wet brush. As she turned back to him, he painted her left cheek.

  "Gotcha!"

  "Real funny!"

  "Oh my, God, It’s nine o’ clock."

  "Time flies when you’re ... painting houses?"

  "Nice try, Max, leave the rhyming to the poets. I need to shower before this paint dries."

  "Can I come, too?"

  "Yes, but no fun stuff, mister. You can wash my hair and massage my back though."

  "Deal!"

  Megan bent over to start the water. Her back split in perfect symmetry, and her caramel skin looked silky and impurity free.

  God, she’s beautiful.

  He put shampoo in her hair and gently worked his hands through her long brown locks.

  "This feels great, baby, don’t stop."

  "I won’t."

  The lights flickered and then shut off altogether.

  "The power must’ve gone out," he said.

  "It’s not even raining."

  The water ran for a bit more then came to a halt. They were freezing, and it was pitch-black inside the bathroom.

  He carefully placed his foot on the rug and got out of the shower.

  "Wait, not yet. Look at this."

  He pulled the shower curtain to the side. A light peered through the wall like a ray of sunshine through a partly cloudy sky. The hole was just large enough for a small rat to fit through.

  "I never noticed that before," he said.

  "It wasn’t there when we walked through the house with the realtor."

  She hunched over and put both of her hands on the wall.

  "I’ll take a peek."

  Her right eye looked inside the hole. "I see clothes and boxes. This is the closet down the hall."

  "That’s so strange for a hole to be there. I’m really starting to wonder if we have a rodent problem."