Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror

  “Don’t know about no bulbs,” he said. “She keeps matches in the kitchen, though. Candles, too, I think. I only know ’cause she tole me never to mess with ’em.”

  “I’m going to step back into the other room and get them.”

  “No!”

  “I’ll just be right outside, and I’ll keep the door open, okay?”

  “Don’t leave me!”

  “I’m not leaving you, Wilbur. I have to get us some light so we can see.”

  “Well, then keep talkin’,” he pleaded. “Please, miss. Keep on lettin’ me hear you when you go.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise!”

  “I promise.”

  She made it out of the room and, with her outstretched arms patting madly at the air, she at last found the kitchenette. She could still hear the fright in Wilbur’s panting breath and made a point to call out to him every few seconds. After rummaging through cabinets and drawers cluttered with cookware and utensils, her hand fell on what she thought was a candlestick. A quick sniff of vanilla-scented wax confirmed it. She found a box of matches in the same drawer and lit the candle.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Wilbur was sitting upright in his bed. His pajamas were soaked with sweat.

  Somehow the boy she had pictured in her head didn’t look like the boy she saw now. She had imagined a child more . . . well, different—younger perhaps, given the degree of his terror.

  He looked to be about eight or nine and had the face of a cherub.

  “You okay?” she asked, standing at the door.

  “Think so,” he whispered. “For now.” He wiped the tear streaks from his cheeks.

  “It’s all over. You woke up, you see. So it’s all over now.”

  “That don’t always help, miss . . .”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Will you come over here, Miss Elizabeth?” His arms reached out toward her.

  Taking care about where she stepped this time, she went to him and took a seat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was like a wet sponge. A faded Snoopy sheet lay twisted across it.

  “It’s okay now.” She took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  He quickly took his hand back.

  “Lemme touch you.” It was the second time he had made the peculiar request. “May I, Miss Elizabeth? Would you mind?”

  “Well . . . I . . .”

  His hand came up. She winced instinctively as the soft pads of his fingers began to trace the contours of her face—over her eyes, down both sides of her nose, across her mouth, and under her chin. Then his other hand moved to the top of her head and slowly raked down the length of her hair.

  He smiled, a grin missing two lower teeth. “Now I can see you. I reckon you can close your mouth now.”

  Elizabeth closed her jaw, which had fallen open in shock. “Omigod,” she whispered, unable to mask the astonishment in her voice. “You can’t see!”

  “I’m blind. But I can still see. I know how you look now, that’s for sure. You could help me out by tellin’ me the color of your hair and eyes, though.”

  “Um . . . blue.”

  “You got blue hair?”

  “No, I meant . . . I mean I have blue eyes. And blond hair.”

  “I know. I’s just teasin’ you.” A frown creased his face. “Blue eyes? Hmm. Mama says blue is cold. And blond is like yellow, right? A hot color.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “That’s how Mama ’splains colors. Says they got a feelin’ to ’em. Blue’s cold. Yellow’s hot. Orange’s warm. White don’t feel much like nothing at all. And black . . . well, I got a pretty good idea what black’s like. See plenty of that, that’s for sure.”

  His meaning finally dawned on her. “You were born blind. Right? You’ve never actually seen colors.”

  “Yep, born blind. Nope, never seen colors. But I can still see. Too good sometimes in fact.”

  Elizabeth held up the candle and looked around the windowless room. Scattered toys covered the floor. A knife-whittled cross hung from a frayed piece of yarn above the bed. Higher up the wall was what looked like a dotted line of pencil marks, which upon closer inspection was a line of ants moving in single file toward a crack below the ceiling.

  There were no posters or picture frames on the scarred walls. She found this odd until it occurred to her that they would make about as much sense as a lamp in the room of a blind child.

  He gripped her hand. “Will you stay with me, Miss Elizabeth, beside me, I mean?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “All night?”

  “Sure. If you want. Are you hungry?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  “Can I get you some fresh pajamas?”

  “These’re all I got, these here Spider-Mans. They are Spidies, aren’t they?”

  “Sure are. How about if I go and get you a glass of water?”

  “No!” His grip became a vise on her arm. “Stay.”

  “All right, Wilbur. I’ll stay.”

  Satisfied, his grip loosened. His head fell back to the pillow. Elizabeth pulled up the sheet, using a dry corner of it to blot the beaded sweat from his brow.

  “It’s late,” she said. “You better try and get some sleep.”

  “Please. Can’t I stay awake . . . just for a while?”

  “Okay. But just a short while.”

  He nodded, and his eyes blinked slowly closed.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Wilbur’s body shuddered at the sound, but Elizabeth’s calming hand settled him again.

  “Why don’t you tell me about your dream,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “Maybe talking about it will make it seem . . . less scary.”

  Wilbur shook his head. “It’s best if I don’t. Best if I don’t think about it at all. That’s the only way to keep ’em away.”

  “To keep who away?”

  “The creepers.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t suppress her smile and hoped that he couldn’t sense it. “Who are the creepers?”

  “Best to keep ’em right out of my head, Miss Elizabeth. That way they won’t come. It’s safe when everything stays dark. In my head, I mean.”

  “What a strange thing to say.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Most people feel just the opposite about the dark. I know when I was a little girl, I was very frightened of it.”

  “Not me. I feel good when I just see the dark. It’s when stuff starts gettin’ into my head that things go bad.”

  “Like when you have a scary dream?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Or even when I just get to thinkin’ on scary things.”

  “I was always taught that an active imagination was a good thing, especially for little boys. Wonderful things can come out of it.”

  “Bad stuff, too,” he whispered. “ ’Specially for someone like me.”

  “Like you?”

  “Blind folks. Mama says folks born blind don’t know the way things really look, just how we imagine ’em. And she says some blind folks even have a heightened imagination.”

  “Sounds like a pretty neat gift to me.”

  “Yeah. But sometimes mine gets heightened too much. Sometimes when I get to thinkin’ on things I see in my head, those things just get a little . . . too real.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes drifted down to the candle, which had dribbled a puddle of wax at her feet. “Wilbur . . . what do the creepers look like?”

  “They changin’ all the time. Depends on how I see ’em in my head, or maybe how I dreamed ’em. You understand?”

  “No, Wilbur. I’m afraid I don’t. Can you explain it to me?”

  His eyes opened again. “Please, Miss Elizabeth, don’t get me thinkin’ ’bout ’em.”

  “But I think it might help.”

  “No! Please.” He sat up quickly. “I shouldn’t be thinkin’ on it.” Panicked, he pressed his back against the headboard; his heels dug trenches into the
mattress.

  “Okay, Wilbur. Calm down.”

  “No.” He shut his eyes tightly. “It’s already too late!”

  She placed a hand on his churning legs in an attempt to restrain him. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Everything’s all right.”

  “No! It’s too late, Miss Elizabeth! It don’t take ’em long to come once I start seein’ ’em. And I can see ’em now! They’re already—”

  “Wilbur, calm down! This is silly. It’s impossible to see things in your head and then suddenly make them come to—”

  The explosion of sound from the front room split the air and rocked the entire house.

  Elizabeth screamed. The candle slipped from her hand and fell to the floor, plunging the room into darkness.

  Wilbur went rigid beside her.

  “It’s too late,” he said in a shaken whisper. “They’re here. I’m seein’ ’em right now . . . and they’re coming for us.”

  Elizabeth turned to him, her heart a drum in her chest. It can’t be true, she thought. It’s not possible!

  In the next instant the heavens opened overhead. Rain pelted the tin roof like machine-gun fire.

  Lightning flashed, and in the fleeting blue strobe Elizabeth found Wilbur’s eyes fixed on the open door.

  Thunder crashed again, much closer than before.

  Elizabeth leaned toward Wilbur and whispered, “What’s happening, Wilbur? Please, tell me what’s happening!”

  Before he could answer, another percussive burst of sound shot out of the living room. The house lurched in a crack of splintering wood. Somewhere a window shattered. A warm wind rushed into the room, swirling around them like grabbing hands.

  Elizabeth lunged for Wilbur and lifted him off the bed. His arms wrapped tightly around her neck. Clutching him to her chest, she rushed blindly from the room.

  She screamed again when she saw what awaited in the front room.

  The creepers had already blocked off the only route of escape.

  Against the continuous strobes of lightning, they appeared as humanlike shadows, faceless save for a pair of narrow-slit eyes that glowed bright green.

  Their movement was lithe, catlike.

  Elizabeth saw two of them enter through the open doorway on wiry limbs. The door itself had been ripped from its hinges and now lay in scattered slats across the floor.

  Another creeper entered to her left, slithering over the jagged shards of a broken window set high into the wall. Once inside, the creeper proceeded to crawl headfirst down the wall until it reached the floor and came back up in a low, predatory crouch.

  A cloud of dust plumed into the room.

  Elizabeth turned. Another creeper had come in through the chimney and now stood coiled in a sprinter’s pose atop the ashes in the fireplace.

  A cannon shot of thunder shook the house.

  Wilbur buried his face into Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  “Make it stop!” he cried. “Please, make it stop! Don’t let them get me!”

  But the creepers were already circling in. Elizabeth moved backward on trembling legs until she found herself pinned against the wall, her path to the door blocked by the dark figures closing in with slow, calculated steps.

  Holding Wilbur close to her chest, she turned her back on them, using her body as a shield.

  “Stay away from him!” she shouted. “He’s just a little boy!”

  Her plea was met with hungry grins—four sets of jagged yellow teeth splitting the width of the creepers’ menacing black faces.

  They were only five feet away.

  Four.

  Three.

  “They’re gonna kill us!” Wilbur cried. “I can see them! Make them go away!”

  “I can’t!” Elizabeth shook her head desperately. “I don’t know what to do!”

  No sooner had she said the words than she realized it wasn’t she who held the power to save them.

  The only one who could rescue them from their stalkers was the one who had created them—the one who had imagined them into existence.

  Keeping her back to the creepers, she knelt, setting Wilbur’s bare feet on the rain-slick floor. It took every ounce of strength she had to pry the boy off of her. Against his protests, she pushed him back far enough to hold his face between her hands.

  “Send them away, Miss Elizabeth!” he cried over the howl of the wind. “Please. You gotta send ’em away!”

  “I can’t do that, Wilbur! Only you can!”

  “No . . .”

  “Wilbur, listen to me! If you can imagine bad things and make them real, then you can do the same with good things. But you have to choose to see the good things, Wilbur. You have to imagine them to make it real. It’s the only way to beat them, and I can’t do it for you!”

  The creepers were upon them now.

  Elizabeth felt cold, gelatinous fingers on the back of her neck. She kept her eyes on Wilbur, refusing to move, refusing to let him sense her fear. The hand slithered around to the front of her neck and began to squeeze. Still Elizabeth held firm, unmoving.

  The other creepers closed in on Wilbur.

  They knelt at the boy’s side, their hungry gaze set on his neck, their jaws open wide.

  The cold, boneless fingers increased their grip at Elizabeth’s throat.

  “Come on, Wilbur,” she gasped. “You have the power to end this. You can change your fate just by changing your thoughts.”

  Wilbur’s eyes opened as the creepers’ gaping jaws went for his neck.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop it right now!”

  The creepers did as ordered.

  The glow of their eyes dimmed.

  They tilted their heads in confusion, their prey having become their master in an instant.

  Elizabeth felt the eel-like fingers loosen at her neck, then fall away.

  She struggled to draw breath into her lungs as Wilbur looked at each of the creepers in turn. She realized the boy wasn’t just looking toward his stalkers, but actually seeing them, seeing them as he imagined them.

  And when her own eyes moved to the creepers, it became clear that his image of them had changed. He now saw them as he wanted to see them—scared and defeated.

  The fear had vanished from his face, replaced by something much bolder, defiant.

  “I am not afraid of you,” he declared. “And I won’t let you do this to me anymore. I created you, and now I will destroy you.”

  His eyes moved intently toward the ceiling. The swirling wind grew stronger and shifted direction, as though it was being sucked toward the open doorway.

  Wilbur’s hands reached out and found Elizabeth’s shoulders. He squeezed, keeping her close, as the suction of air increased.

  The creepers’ bodies began to stretch like pieces of warm toffee. They suddenly looked shriveled and weak, their emerald eyes wide with fear. When the force of the wind became too much, they dug their tendril-like fingers into the floor, struggling to hold on.

  An infantile cry rang out as the first creeper slid across the floor and flew out into the night as though yanked by a powerful chain. The others followed in quick succession, each clawing futilely at the floor as the wind sucked them out like limp sheets of fabric.

  The wind died the instant they were gone.

  As though a faucet had been shut off, the rain quickly trickled away. Then a final growl of thunder rolled toward a distant sky.

  When silence had fallen over the broken house, Elizabeth reached up and dried the tears from Wilbur’s cheeks.

  She drew him against her.

  They held each other for some time before she led him back to the bedroom, relit the candle, and tucked him into bed.

  He took hold of her arm as she stood to go. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “But will you come back? Please, you must . . .”

  “Of course I’ll come back, Wilbur. Did you really have to ask?”

  “It’s just that they never do.” r />
  “They? You mean the ones who came before me? Yes, your mother told me they never come back.”

  “No. They never do.”

  She leaned in close to his ear. “Well, I’m coming back, Wilbur. I will always come back. That’s a promise.”

  He smiled, reached up to her face, and once again traced her features with delicate hands.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Elizabeth . . . I think you’re beautiful.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I surely do. Beautiful. If only you could see yourself the way I see you . . .”

  “Well, thank you, Wilbur. A lady always loves to hear that.”

  He fell asleep seconds later.

  Elizabeth stood and tiptoed out of the room. Shielding the candle flame with her hand, she returned to the living room, crossed to the window, and looked out into the peaceful night.

  A cool breeze drifted in through the broken glass.

  The candle flickered, and she caught her own reflection in one of the shards—a green face with slick amphibious skin, blotched with spots.

  PINEY POWER

  ▼ F. PAUL WILSON ▼

  ▼ ONE ▼

  Old Man Foster had the signs posted all over his land.

  NO FISHING

  NO HUNTING

  NO TRAPPING

  NO TRESPASSING

  No kidding. And no big deal.

  Jack never paid them much attention. He figured since he wasn’t involved in the first three, he deserved a pass on the last. No, what caught Jack’s eye was the bright red object tacked to the bark just below the sign.

  “Hey, check it out,” he said, hitting the brakes. His tires skidded in the sandy soil as his BMX came to a stop. “Who’d put a reflector way out here?”

  Weezy stopped her bike beside his. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  Her birth certificate said Louise, but no one had called her that since she turned two. She was older than Jack—hit fifteen last week, while Jack still had a few months to go. As usual, she was all in black—sneaks, jeans, Bauhaus T-shirt. She’d wound her dark hair into two braids today, giving her a Wednesday Addams look.

  “Never noticed it before.”

  “Because it wasn’t there,” she said.

  Jack accepted that as fact. They used this firebreak trail a lot when they were cruising the Barrens, and if the reflector had been here before, she’d remember. Weezy never forgot anything. Ever.