9 Tales Told in the Dark 22 Read online

  9TALES TOLD IN THE DARK #22

  © Copyright 2017 Bride of Chaos/ All Rights Reserved to the Authors.

  Edited by A.R. Jesse

  Cover Art by Turtle&Noise

  No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  ALL WORK HEREIN IS FICTION…or so our authors tell us…

  First electronic edition 2017

  This Collection is presented by THE 9 TALES SERIES for more information on this series please visit www.brideofchaos.com *

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  9TALES TOLD IN THE DARK #22

  Table of Contents

  FIRST BITE by Mark Bearden

  THIS IS HORROR by Daniel J. Kirk

  LITTLE MEN by D. A. D'Amico

  GENTLE COMES THE THAW by Paul Lubaczewski

  HONEY AND OIL by Kev Harrison

  THE LAST NIGHT by Mandi Jourdan

  A SLOW METABOLISM by Simon McHardy

  THE WOODS OUT BACK by Shawn P. Madison

  FULL SPREAD by Sara Green

  NEED MORE HORROR IN YOUR DIET?

  FIRST BITE by Mark Bearden

  I heard what sounded like a dog barking from underneath the dead grass beside my grandma’s tombstone. I dropped the RC Cola two-liter and Mickey Mouse gift bag with bite-sized Snickers, peppermint discs, and jawbreakers (grandma’s favorites), picked up my skateboard, set it on the gravel road, and headed home.

  While mom watched Rainy’s Deep Fried Cooking Hour, I had just enough time to grab a shovel out of my dad’s tool shed, return to the cemetery, and dig up whatever was crying for help, before mom even noticed. Am I nuts? What if my mind’s playing tricks on me? Ever since grandma died, a week before my sweet sixteen, I’ve been on edge. But I know what I heard, and I won’t rest, until I find out the truth.

  What if this is my chance to do something worthwhile and save a life, instead of living like a damn joke? Before psyching myself out, I grabbed a shovel, bolted out the back gate, and sprinted down the alley. I was in such a rush I left my skateboard in the backyard. “There’s a first for everything,” grandma always said.

  I had two hours before the sun went down so I had to hustle. I ain’t built for hard labor. My dad, when he was around, did the mowing, weed picking, gardening, house painting, vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms, and even did the dishes while me and mom sat on our butts.

  By the way, I can’t remember the last time mom went to work. She was a part-time life insurance sales lady, and worked five hours a day. According to mom, dad was a bill collector for Cotton Dust Phone Co. Mom claimed he despised it so much he was close to slitting his wrists with a dull steak knife. I’ll have to take her word for it. Dad never talked about his job, when he was around me.

  When dad split, mom stayed home twenty-four hours a day. When I asked her about her job, she turned up the TV volume and yelled, “I’m taking a well-deserved break so shut up about it!”

  As long as we have a roof over our heads and get to eat, I ain’t complaining. I’d die if I had to give up my skateboard collection. So far, I have sixteen, one for every year I was born. I made myself a promise a long time ago: I’ll stay out of mom’s business as long as she stays out of mine.

  She’d laugh and call me insane if I mentioned that there might be an animal of some kind trapped underneath the ground at the cemetery and needs help. Hell, she only took me to my grandma’s grave one time, and that was at the stupid funeral. I can’t count how many times I begged her, but she blew me off and said, “Your grandma’s dead! Get over it! You don’t need to visit her! The old bag ain’t there!” I’d shut myself in my room, cry, and remember when me and grandma would eat a mountain of French fries buried in salt and drink black coffee and tell each other jokes at K-Mart’s café. Now, K-Mart is gone and grandma is too. Go figure.

  I held onto the shovel tight, tiptoed under the wooden archway that was full of termite holes, and laughed at the cardboard sign with ONLY SLEEPING CEMETERY spray painted in black and nailed to a six-foot-tall board in the shape of a cross. This town’s so cheap they can’t afford a proper sign, sturdy tombstones, or to hire a clean freak who will kill the weeds and keep the grass thriving, fresh, and bright green. Mom would say, “The dead don’t care! They’re long gone, baby!”

  A white cat was asleep in a leafless tree with drooping, skeletal limbs next to a bench with PRAY HARD AND GOD WILL LISTEN spray painted in yellow at the beginning of a crooked, dirt path. Is that the same cat that showed up when the minister and his mafia-dressed servants put grandma in the ground? I stepped on a patch of scattered leaves. The cat’s eyes shot open, ears stood up, and it climbed down the tree, crawled under the table, and vanished.

  Let’s hope I won’t be doing the same thing soon. I’m too chunky to disappear anyway. Dad said I reminded him of a football player in drag. Mom agreed and said, “When you came out, the doctor had a hard time determining if you were a boy or girl. He looked you over real good, and then said, ‘Yep, it’s a girl. She’s just manly. Give her time and she’ll outgrow it, and become a beautiful princess.’ I ain’t sure what the doctor was smoking, but you’re getting uglier every time I see you. I ain’t gonna be shocked when you start growing facial hair faster than a damn ape!”

  Whenever my parents gave me shit like that, I’d ride my skateboard for miles and miles. It was the only way I could keep sane.

  I passed a headless statue with arms raised high in the air and wearing a robe, and stepped off the path. I walked over marked and unmarked graves with turned over crosses and tombstones covered in bird shit. God, please don’t let a semi-intelligent zombie like Bub from Day of the Dead pop up, grab me, and take me under.

  I wasn’t worried about a cop, cemetery worker, mortician, or a priest to spot me, since the townsfolk didn’t come here often. Why does everyone view death like a curse? I tell you one thing: I’m gonna keep on visiting grandma. Come to think of it, today is her birthday. She was born on Hallows eve. Maybe that’s why Halloween is my favorite holiday.

  The barking grew louder as I approached grandma’s grave. The ground started to move as the thing attempted to claw its way out.

  “Hold on, buddy, I’ll get you out of there!”

  I didn’t have to dig too deep, before the dog leaped out, sprinted to the nearest tree, hiked its leg, peed, and then returned to me. I tossed the shovel as soon as the dog rolled in front of my feet and begged for a belly rub. I stroked his muscular stomach. The dog grinned, with his tongue hanging out and tail wagging.

  He wasn’t a normal dog though. He was a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a Rottweiler, only with long, sharp teeth bigger than a Grizzly bear.

  “Who the hell buried you, buddy?”

  The dog continued to wag its tail like it didn’t have a care in the world. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch who did this to you! You’re too sweet to deserve this.”

  I stopped rubbing his belly, hugged his neck, kissed his cheek, and said, “How did you survive, Dirty Black?”

  He gave me a headbutt as if to say, “How do you know my name? Have we already met?”

  I blurted out “Dirty Black” because his pitch black fur was caked in dirt. Besides, it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

  What will kids at school think of me now? They already think I’m weird because I don’t watch po
pular TV shows, read, listen to music, play video games, eat junk food, or hang out. All I do is dream about Sean Thompson, devour zombie movies, stick to my strict diet of salads with fat-free ranch, fat-free strawberry yogurt, and lots of coffee, and ride my shark-toothed shaped skateboard.

  One of these days, I’ll kiss Sean, marry him, and have three kids, and a yellow house. I’m just gonna have to suffer through high school and pray I survive, until my fantasy becomes reality. But how the hell am I gonna explain myself? I can’t tell everyone I dug up a half Yorky-half Rottweiler (that was buried alive) with my dad’s shovel and took him home!

  I had another problem: my parents won’t allow me to have a pet of any kind because they think I ain’t responsible enough to take care of one. How am I gonna keep Dirty Black a secret? I ain’t gonna leave him out here. I’ll just hold onto him until I figure out what to do. Who the hell does he belong to? I can’t imagine his owner burying him alive.

  I kept Dirty Black in a cardboard box in between the lawnmower and weed eater in the tool shed so he’d be safe. Mom hasn’t been in there since dad went AWOL a month after grandma was shot in the face. Last time I saw him, he gave me a kiss on the forehead, early one Saturday morning, said he was going out for a jog, and never came back.

  I left a window cracked so Dirty Black could breathe, shut the tool shed’s door, snapped the padlock shut, slipped the key (that dad kept in a toolbox) in my back pocket and whistled a mindless tune like I was innocent.

  I opened the sliding back door, and slipped inside. Mom turned off the TV, threw the remote down, and said, “Where the hell have you been, young lady?”

  “Riding my skateboard,” I said. “Is that a crime?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, Shirley.” Mom grabbed my wrist, pulled me into the kitchen, and sat me down at that table that had piles of overdue bills. “Do you see what I’ve had to deal with, ever since your dad left us? Our ship is sinking, and you’re out having fun! If you cared, you’d get a job and help me out! But you’re just like your father and think that life is one big ole game! Well, I got news for you, honey, life is hell, and if you wanna keep your head above water you better play your cards smart, or you’ll lose everything!”

  “If you’d go back to work instead of watching cooking shows all day, you wouldn’t be in trouble!” I couldn’t keep quiet. I had too much shit bottled inside. I had to let it out.

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me, mom,” I said. “You’re too damn lazy, and that’s why dad left!”

  “As long as you live under my roof you will respect me!”

  “Screw you!” I said, pushing away from the table, and storming off to my room.

  “I was gonna make you a ham and peanut butter sandwich with grape jelly for dinner, but now you can forget it!”

  “I don’t eat that shit!” I said. “I’d rather starve!”

  I slammed the door shut, and leaned against my skateboards that were stacked on top of one another beside my entertainment center with my zombie movie collection. I closed my eyes and dreamed of starring in a gritty B-movie about a quiet, brooding teenager who returns from the grave (after her mom strangles her), rescues abused teens, and forms an elite skateboard gang that makes an oath to rid the town and then the world of asshole parents.

  When mom fell asleep on the couch with donut crumbs on her blouse, cut up bills at her feet, and a god-awful show featuring different ways to cook ribs blaring full blast, I fixed a ham and peanut butter sandwich with grape jelly and fed it to Dirty Black. He ate it in one gulp. Then I filled up a cereal bowl with bottled water, and he sucked it dry.

  On Halloween morning, while mom was counting the last bit of money she had to her name and watching another episode of Rainey’s Deep Fried Cooking Hour, I attached a leash to Dirty Black’s collar and went to grandma’s grave to tell her how much I missed her, and needed her to protect me.

  “If I live with mom too much longer I’m afraid she’ll kill me, grandma,” I said, kneeling beside her tombstone with Dirty Black standing at attention. “Can you help me? I need you more than ever.”

  I heard her voice whisper in my ear, “I will, honey, but I’m still pissed that no one came to my rescue when I needed help. In a way, I suppose my death was kinda my own damn fault. So, I’ve got no one to blame, except myself.”

  Although she had been manager at Violet’s Used Clothing for thirty-eight years and felt a loyalty to the job, I warned her to retire after the landlord, Beatrice Alvarez, placed a voodoo doll drenched in goat’s blood and a needle sticking out of its forehead on the jewelry counter beside the cash register and said, “I’m gonna put a curse on you if you don’t quit and let my husband use this store as a garage so he can remodel his damn cars!”

  Grandma wouldn’t budge, and a year later Beatrice’s cousin waltzed into the store, and shot grandma in between the eyes with a .38 handgun. That night the cops caught the punk and arrested him. He will stand trial in a month from now. When he dies, I pray the devil will shoot him in the face over and over for eternity.

  I left Dirty Black in the box in the tool shed, and had plans of indulging in a George A. Romero marathon. Instead, mom was cooking donut burgers with bacon, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob, green bean casserole, baby back ribs, and apple pie cobbler. She expected me to join her, even though she knew I was on a strict diet.

  How did she afford to buy all that food when she was almost broke? Was she lying when she said, ‘our ship had sunk’? What the hell am I missing?

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “I’m cooking the mother of all dinners, honey, what does it look like?”

  “How did you pull it off?”

  “Don’t worry about it, silly,” Mom stirred the mashed potatoes and took a bite. “Now, go wash up, have a seat, and I’ll fix you a plate.”

  “Okay, I guess,” I headed to the bathroom when I noticed an open yellow purse on the couch with loose change, credit cards, and driver’s license scattered on the carpet. I picked up the purse and driver’s license, and brought them to mom.

  “Where did you get this?” I looked at the brunette with ‘70’s-style glasses, owl eyes, a crow-like nose, and said, “Who is Danielle Nettles?”

  Mom turned off the stovetop burners, dropped a spoon, licked her fingers, snatched the purse out of my hands, and said, “The neighbor was stupid enough to leave her purse in the passenger seat with the car door unlocked so I took it. If she needed it then she wouldn’t have been so careless. I did this so I could fix us a nice dinner for a change. We even have enough to make rent. This is a blessing, Shirley. God wanted me to take it. In some cases, stealing is okay. I did this for us, honey. God will understand. It ain’t my fault your dad left us without making sure we had enough money to make it. So, wash up because dinner’s almost ready. Let’s put our troubles aside and enjoy ourselves for once. We’ve struggled long enough.”

  “You’re a damn thief, mom!”

  “No, I’m not,” Mom said. “I had to do it or we’d be out on the street!”

  “You are so full of shit! I’m sorry you’re my mom!”

  “Take that back!” Mom said, shaking the purse in my face. “You don’t mean that!”

  “I don’t wanna know you!”

  “I didn’t have a choice, Shirley. I wasn’t gonna let us lose everything.”

  Mom tried to touch my arm, and I slapped her hard.

  “Stay away from me, you bitch!” I said. “You never cared about me, dad, or grandma! I hate you!”

  I sprinted out the back door. Before I reached the tool shed, Dirty Black leaped through the window and landed on all fours. He stood between me and mom, growling and exposing his teeth.

  “Dirty Black, leave mom alone,” I said. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Who the hell is this piece of shit, Shirley?” Mom said, backing up against the birdbath. “Have you been hiding this thing from me?”

  “Not really,” I said, moving o
ut of Dirty Black’s way. “I can explain.”

  Dirty Black ran forward and rammed mom’s legs with his head. She fell on her back. I froze.

  “Help me, Shirley! Help me, goddammit!”

  But it was no use. Dirty Black ripped off her fingers, one by one, and ate them.

  “Holy shit!” Mom screamed. “Help me!”

  I still couldn’t move.

  Dirty Black looked into her soul, and chewed off mom’s hands as if he was teaching her a lesson for stealing. Mom’s eyes shut. Blood squirted out of her severed wrists, and sprayed Dirty Black in the face.

  That was the first time he had feasted upon human flesh. I doubt that will be his last.

  THE END.

  THIS IS HORROR by Daniel J. Kirk

  The chili cooled and stiffened. It sat on the kitchen tiles for a couple of hours. Miraculously, the clutter of footsteps dodged it and restrained the hungry Labrador retriever. The black dog gave up. Her eyes drooped, blinking longingly at the corner of the kitchen cabinet—as if she could see around the cabinet to where the spilled chili looked longingly back at her.

  The old dog had patience, but the collar around her neck called her Spunk. Her black hair was mangy, so long ago were the days of thoughtfulness that were attributed to her bathing and grooming. Her odor dominated the house, though only the visitors ever noticed. Every piece of furniture had almost an oily coat that attracted her stray hairs.

  A few of that day’s visitors took notice. They refused to sit. It would have behooved the operations of the kitchen, had the visitors not trailed the preparation of the meal, and then the current clean up. Two less people and one might presume Spunk would have had enough room to sneak in and lick up that glob of chili. But retrospect likes to look for the all the possible ways tragedy could have been overcome.

  The shoe wasn’t even a very high high-heel.

  It was just enough.