9 Tales Told in the Dark 18 Read online

  The young Gaucho was sick all over a dead Paraguayan’s worn-out boots.

  His Corporal stood just behind him, arms crossed and nodding solemnly.

  THE END.

  FRESH CUT by Sara Green

  The fresh cut grass hung in the air. It shouldn’t have permeated the locked windows and doors, but still that’s all Cleo could smell. She never knew herself to have allergies, but her throat was borderline scratchy and her head started to feel a little cloudy.

  At first, she was too lazy, and assumed the smell would go away. But it had begun just before lunch time and the sound of the mower in her neighbor’s yard had long since ceased. At the very least, she arose from her bed to check in case she had a long forgotten can of air freshener in her pantry. But she had a sneaking suspicion that one of the windows was left open from the night before when she tossed a bowl of clam chowder out the window so that it didn’t stink up the trashcan.

  She checked that window first, and it was snugly in place. She couldn’t imagine that the smell of cut grass was so strong that it weaved its way through anything except and actual opening. In the seven years she’d lived in this house, she’d never smelled the grass so strongly. Not even when her landscaper came in to collect his monthly check. In that instance, the door was only ever open for a minute or two, because Cleo always had the check made out already.

  He would kindly thank her in his broken English, and Cleo would sweep up the grass clipping he tracked in as he exited her porch. He always apologized.

  It was upon her thought of the man whom she could not name or pick out of a line up, that she found herself standing in her foyer—staring down at wet grass clippings all over her imported Phoenician tile.

  She looked through the glass of her double door entryway. Her tongue stretched her bottom lip, preparing to chew out the responsible party. But there was no landscaping truck and trailer in on her driveway, and across the way, her neighbor’s drive was unoccupied by anything other than their covered convertible sports car.

  There was just one other explanation for this particular mess.

  Her sister’s child was staying with her. Abandoned out of dire duress, Cleo presumed, for the child and Cleo certainly held no interest or bond with each other.

  Cleo had shown him the game room and made him swear on his life not to scratch the billiard table, or touch the darts. These were all of Cleo’s ex-husband’s things—and she just hadn’t had the interest to bother with their removal. But holes in the wall, and torn up felt would diminish the resale value, which she had intended to do a year ago.

  Yes, that little brat had gone out the front door, despite being told countless times never to use the front door. She knew he had because the two deadbolts were locked, and anyone who exited through those doors (after tracking in grass) would not have been able to lock those—not even with a key. Cleo only ever locked those when she was home and alone. Though the brat’s presence did not count as company. He was merely nine years old and if he wasn’t autistic then he was just plain dumb. Her sister’s fault.

  Cleo started to inhale—in preparation for screaming the brat’s name, but she could not recall it.

  Nevertheless, she was determined to find him and make him clean up his mess. The grass clippings were all over the foyer and certainly the source of the dreadful smell that infected the whole house.

  She found him hunched under the billiard table, flipping through National Geographic magazines. More of her ex-husband’s mess. He bumped his head as soon as he heard Cleo open the french doors and snarl.

  “You made a mess upstairs, and you must clean it this instance.”

  The brat played it dump. Big doe like eyes caught in head lights, a little shimmer from the shake of his head.

  “Do not lie to me, young man. You will clean it up. I do not have hired help like your lazy parents. I do not make messes, therefore I do not pay to have them tidied,” Cleo said.

  When the brat didn’t budge, Cleo reached under the table and grabbed his forearm. She dug her nails as she wrenched his arm. The brat stumbled out, bumping his head once more.

  “In the foyer!” Cleo pointed. “The broom and dust pan, you will find in the hall closet.”

  The brat cowered and posed no more argument. Cleo glared down at the mess of magazines on the floor. The breasts of an African woman stared back up at her. The little pervert, she thought. His mother will hear of this.

  The brat hated the way his feet echoed as he entered the gaudy foyer. He removed the weight from his heels, and stood on his toes. He tried his best not to make any sound, that’s what he’d been told to do. It wasn’t all that different than life at home. His father always accused him of stomping and his mother always told him to shut up.

  He didn’t mind being quiet. He found it was best to be as quiet as possible and for two days he’d managed to stay out of his aunt’s way. He was almost certain that she had forgotten he was in the house until the moment she came down into the game room and scolder him for a mess he did not make.

  Despite his best effort, his aunt was not through with him just yet. She stomped into the foyer to inspect his effort.

  “Your parents’ teach you nothing.”

  The brat swept the grass away from the door, hurriedly, as if his hustle would be commended.

  “You will be lucky if you inherit a dime,” Cleo told the brat. “My parents had too many children and so the great family wealth has been greatly diminished, and the way your parents spend so much money on useless things, well, I’m sure you will be on food stamps within the decade. So consider this menial labor to be practice.”

  The brat didn’t look up. He used the dust pan and hand broom. He’d cleaned up messes before. His parents had also told him it was something he should get used to doing. He didn’t doubt them.

  “I want this done in five minutes. I will be back to inspect it, and I best not find my tiny piece of grass on my floor,” Cleo said. She snapped her finger, turned on a heel, and then exited the foyer with a long trailing sigh.

  The brat swept his away around the foyer, following the path of the clippings. It was then that he realized they turned and did not continue. They stopped at the hall closet.

  The brat’s eyes had risen from the floor to the closet door handle. He could see the edge of the latch bolt, flush with the metal plate. The door was not shut completely. The handle was turned, held tight so that it could swing open at any moment without any sound from the doorknob.

  The brat knew this, he often held the handle tight as he closed a door—so that it wouldn’t give away his movement, then he’d slowly release the handle. If he did it just right there wouldn’t be any sound at all. But whoever had tracked the grass clippings in was behind that door, and they had not seen fit to let go of the handle.

  They were waiting for something.

  The brat eyed the door and scooted away. He wondered who was watching him through the small sliver between the door and its frame. Who had tracked in the grass clippings?

  The brat didn’t want to find out. He collected the dustpan and broom and edged his way out of the foyer. He was caught just as he lost sight of the closet door.

  “Are you finished already?”

  The brat nodded. Fear had put him on edge, and his aunt’s nasty tone did nothing to alleviate it.

  Cleo stared down her nostrils, and flared them. “We’ll have to see about that. Do not go anywhere. I will tell you if you are finished. I can see a clipping you missed!”

  Cleo stormed across the foyer and bent, not out of effort to pick up any clipping, but to theatrically point out the lone clipping. It was right beneath the edge of the closet door.

  The brat saw a flicker of light on the shiny brass handle as it moved.

  The brat ran.

  “Get back here, brat!” Cleo yelled. She started to repeat herself, but the words turned into a muffled scream.

  The brat ran faster, as the commotion in the foyer was enough to ra
ttle the fine china in a large glass cabinet two rooms over. His aunt’s screeches were short, but echoed.

  Then a series of thumps and silence graced Cleo’s house once more. The brat had only noticed because he had taken refuge beneath a bed. Though he knew he could not stay there, he needed to catch his breath and become quiet again.

  He had hid from his parents before. He knew it was best not to be seen, and eventually they would give up looking for him—for their house was too big. The brat had learned a trick to hiding, and that was to double back. The hide in the place his parents had checked first.

  If whatever was in that closet was coming for him, he only had to make it back to the foyer, and then he could hide in the coat closet until it gave up and left.

  That’s when the brat heard the voice of a man. There was no effort made to whisper and his voice carried through the house with the abrasiveness of a conference call on speaker phone.

  “I can’t find your boy anywhere.” There was a moment of silence as if he was on the phone rather than speaking to someone who was physically present. Then the man said, “Of course it looks like he did it. It’s probably better if the cops find him hiding….You want blood on his hands? ….No, no. You’re right….of course I’m calling from their house phone. You said once she was dead to call you like it was your boy asking for help…. Well then don’t call the police immediately! You can tell them that it took a moment before you became concerned. I don’t know. I’m not going to tell you how to get away with it. I kill, lady. All I want is my cut of that nice inheritance you’re going to get… I’m not changing the deal. I’m a man of my word. You son will have blood on his hands.”

  Silence followed that promise.

  Then the smack of a shoe, long stationary, lifted from the ground. The next foot fall landed in the direction of the bedroom. Then another.

  And another.

  The killer headed straight for the brat.

  The brat scurried out from under the bed, he intended to make it to the bathroom—with no thought for thereafter. But the killer leapt into the bedroom and quickly corned him.

  The brat faked dashing under the bed, then jumped up on it. The killer reached for him as he sprung from the bed to the floor, the force enough to keep the killer from keeping his grip.

  The brat sprinted. He had one option now—get out of the house.

  But the killer was a big man, a sturdy and athletic one. And there were few obstacles in the large hallways and rooms. The killer caught him as they both reached the foyer again.

  “Hold still, ya brat!” The killer shook him. “Now look what you done. You got your auntie killed. You killed your auntie. You got it?”

  The brat fought, but the killer shook him, until the boy was stuck in the man’s embrace. His feet kicked at the killer’s shins, until he stood up and squeezed tighter. He pulled the brat up and cradled him. One hand was all he needed to shackle both the brat’s tiny wrists. Then the killer forced the knife handle into the boy’s hand. “I need your finger prints. And her blood! You’ll want her blood on your hands! Tell them the bogey man did this. They’ll believe you, kid!”

  The brat spat in his face.

  The killer shook the brat. “Maybe you killed yourself!”

  The killer forced the brat’s hands, clenching them around the knife as he turned it towards the brat’s chest.

  The sirens had long ceased, but the flashing blue lights continued as dusk engulfed Cleo’s well-manicured lawn and home.

  “It’s a good thing you called,” a detective said. He lifted the yellow crime scene tape so that the distraught mother could duck under it. “The neighbors did hear or see anything. The closest neighbor is on vacation in the Hamptons.”

  “H-H-He was so…so troubled,” the mother said. “I never really thought he was capable of this though. He was so sweet sometimes. You understand, right?”

  The detective cleared his throat. “I think you misheard your son when he called, ma’am. He didn’t kill your sister.”

  The mother’s shock was real this time, something the detective noted with a scrunched brow.

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s a hero. He killed your sister’s killer before he was presumably killed. Damn lucky. The guy was six foot five and two hundred and fifty pounds by the looks of it. Probably a professional.”

  “You mean a h-h-hitman?”

  “Or extortionist. We’ll have some more questions for you down at the precinct, but I think it’s best your son sees his mother now.”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  The detective led the mother inside, passed two covered lumps. A crime scene photographer’s flash was popping as he surveyed the scene.

  In the kitchen, a medic sat next to the mother’s son. He was eating a bowl of ice cream.

  “He said he wasn’t diabetic, and I figured he earned it,” the detective said. “He’s earned all the ice cream in the world.”

  The mother patted her son on the back. “You had quite the v-v-visit… didn’t you?”

  Her son slurped melted ice cream from the spoon, then dug back in for another large scoop.

  “Well, you enjoy that.” She turned to the detective and forced a saddened smile. “We have plenty of money. We’ll get him the best therapists possible.”

  “You’re next of kin, aren’t you?” the detective asked.

  “I believe so. My brothers were killed in a car accident last year.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  The mother rubbed her son’s back, a little harder than desired. The son looked up at her, and waited for her to notice his gaze.

  “Go on, eat your ice cream. You’re allowed to have all the ice cream you want.”

  The son blinked at his mother, and then said, “I will have all the ice cream.”

  And he meant it.

  THE END.

  THE FARMER WHO TRULY LOVED HIS WIFE by Shane Porteous

  A figure floated over the city, one that every inhabitant stared at. Within the municipal there was not an eye that wasn’t darkly demonic, not a face that wasn’t freakish, not a set of jaws unfilled with fangs or sharp teeth, not a head without at least one horn, not an arm or leg without a single spike, not an anatomy that wasn’t considered an abomination, not an entity that wasn't evil. It was a metropolitan of monsters and not the kind that children feared finding under their beds. It was the kind that even brave men were terrified of, the kind that would eat the ears right off an infant’s head, the kind that found rape as refreshing as a warm cup of tea on a cold morning.

  They stared at the figure floating in the sky, each of them noticing how the stars stayed far away from it as if they were as frightened of the figure as fireflies were when a hungry hawk flew through the sky. The figure was as frightening as it was formidable, even to these creatures, whose home looked like something that belonged in a nightmare-filled head.

  Amongst the abominations a handful rose into the air, some were male, others female, some were naked and others were not. But they all bared the same brood of wings, black, barbaric and leather like, as if belonging to a breed of bat, so horrifying no historian had ever dared to record their existence. Each of the flyers was either black or verdant in skin colour, the two most dominant shades of gangrene, they certainly were as gruesome as expunged extremities. They rose up together encircling the figure, like the teeth of a bear trap ready to rip into an ankle. The beastly bat-winged brood kept their stares, their eyes as green and ghastly as ghosts rising from graves.

  With such eyes they got a closer look at the figure. It was shaped like a man, so far as, if one saw only its shadow, one would think they were staring at a person. But the figure was far more freakish than that, a male so monstrous even his muscles seemed morose, like they had been ripped right off a healthy human’s body and plastered onto his bones. His arms, as brawny as they brutal, were the darkest shade of white one could ever see, as if not even the brightest of colours could escape the darkness that dwelled within. Upon s
uch arms his veins looked like worms wriggling through the flesh of eyeballs. Even the pants he wore were perilous, the kind of black so cruel it could chase any other darkness out of its path. The skin upon his head seemed shadow-like, the purple of a spleen, with tiny terrible tears where a mouth should be, shaped like teeth but looking more like blue veins, pulsing with black blood. His hair was the colour of cooked chicken bone, more stabbing than growing out of his scalp and bristling down to his neck. His single pair of eyes was the worst, they were all different shades of white, separated by faint circles one after the other, looking like the skin of a white worm. The demons still stared at the figure and so he stared back, his eyes wondering over them like scalpels slicing through skin.

  It began with one but filled them all, a light, the green of an aurora borealis glowed within their eyes and then grew in their opened mouths, like their skulls were jacko-lanterns. The lights lurked out of their mouths, appearing like lances, all moving towards the white eyed figure. The lights combined upon impact summoning a sphere around him, before eroding in an explosion. Yet the figure remained untouched, the green energy vanishing like a ghost without making contact with him, as if a sinister snow globe of protection shielded him.

  The figure’s eyes moved again, lurking and looking upon each of his attacker, before lunging his hands upon a chosen two. One male and one female, he grabbed their faces, his hands seizing their skulls like snakes upon eggs. Every breath they took was accompanied by a scream and yet no scream was loud enough to drown out the sound of their skulls shattering, of the blood and brains bursting out through the figure’s fingers. Their bodies fell and the figure did nothing to clean his digits of their destruction. A male came for him, bearing its terrible teeth towards his back. But the figure turned to face it before any biting could take place. Both hands reached around grabbing either side of the demon’s head like a vice, his fingers finding the demon’s eyes and sinking into them like worms into apples. Before the demon could scream the figure had torn it in half, like a rapist ripping off a dress. Like a bag of flour, the demon’s blood exploded in front of the figure, splattering itself upon his chest.