13 Bites Volume II (13 Bites Anthology Series Book 2) Read online

  13 Bites

  Volume II

  A Short Story Anthology

  Edited by Alan Seeger

  Including stories by:

  Adam Bennett | Sarah Brett | J. A. Clark

  Shawn Inmon | B. Johnson | Paula M. Wilson

  Tabitha Ormiston-Smith | John R. Phythyon Jr.

  Joseph Picard | Alan Seeger | Terry Schott

  David Temrick | Ashton-Kate Wilson

  ©2014 Five59 Publishing - All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  The individual stories contained in this anthology are owned by their respective creators as indicated herein, and are reproduced here with their kind permission.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher or author(s), except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Paperback edition:

  ISBN-13: 978-1502770851

  ISBN-10: 1502770857

  Kindle edition:

  ASIN: B00O9MHHCO

  Proofing and editing services by

  Five59 Online - www.five59.com

  Cover design by Joseph Picard: www.ozero.ca

  Photography by Sheridan Sinclair

  PREFACE

  Oh, you’re back for more, are you? The thirteen tales of woe, wickedness and mischief we brought you a year ago weren’t sufficient to slake your thirst for terror, teasing and the occasional tickle? Fine. Here are thirteen more equally twisted stories of murder, mayhem and maybe a bit of masquerade with which we will attempt to satisfy your bloodlust.

  Geez. You people. ^^

  I want to thank everyone who read 13 BITES Volume I, or “13Bv1,” as we refer to it around here, as well as our hugely successful collection of summertime stories, SUMMER DREAMS, which was published in June of 2014. If you missed either of those, they are still available on Amazon.

  We’ve settled into a regular schedule now of doing three anthologies each year; a new 13 BITES will come out every October for as long as we have sanity remaining, and two other variously-themed collections will be published roughly every three months. We hope you continue to enjoy these books, and that you will take the offerings of the various contributing authors as an opportunity to check out their other work and enjoy those titles as well.

  Next up on our schedule is a collection of winter tales — in fact, that’s what we’re calling it: WINTER TALES, which will include stories from various wintertime traditions — Christmas, Chanukah, and possibly Kwaanza; shoppers rushing the stores on Black Friday for shopping bargains like infantry soldiers rushing an enemy bunker; watching the ball drop at New Year’s… you get the picture. Mix up a cup of hot cocoa, wrap up in your favorite blanket, and enjoy. Coming December 15, 2014.

  In the spring, tentatively April 2015, will be an as-yet untitled speculative fiction anthology; sci-fi, fantasy, and whatever else we can throw at you.

  Again, thanks for reading. What we do would be pointless without you to read it.

  Alan Seeger

  October 15, 2014

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CLOSET FEARS

  John R Phythyon Jr

  THE DEATH AND LIFE OF JAMES DELFIKI

  Adam Bennett

  CLOWNING AROUND

  B Johnson

  FIRST PERSON EXPERIENCE

  Alan Seeger

  HELLOWEEN

  Sarah Brett

  LIFE GOES ON

  Paula Miles-Wilson

  BLACK LAKE RED

  David Temrick

  ONLY TREATS...

  Terry Schott

  SIGH

  Shawn Inmon

  SOWEEN SHOWDOWN

  Joseph Picard

  THE DEAL

  Ashton-Kate Wilson

  THE MAGIC SHOW

  J. A. Clark

  RESTLESS LEGS

  Tabitha Ormiston-Smith

  John R. Phythyon, Jr. wishes he were a superhero or a magician, but since he has not yet been bitten by a radioactive spider or received his letter from Hogwarts, he writes stories about such people. He is the author of the Wolf Dasher series of fantasy-thriller mash-up novels, several modern fairy tales, and the fantasy novel, THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, their three children, two dogs, and a cat. He doesn't get a lot of sleep.

  johnphythyon.wordpress.com

  CLOSET FEARS

  John R. Phythyon, Jr.

  11.49pm

  The closet was cramped. There was barely any room to move. Brad’s knees were pushed against his chest, and his feet were crammed against the door. Overhead, the coats hung down on his head, making him sweat. The tile floor was hard, and his butt was already sore from sitting on it. Why had he hidden in the coat closet instead of the one in the bedroom, which was a walk-in? Then at least he could have moved around and maybe turned on a light.

  He supposed, though, that he was lucky to be safe for the moment. Clarissa was out there. His wife of seven years was storming around the house, looking for a way to get to him. He’d managed to temporarily prevent her by jamming a couple of vacuum cleaner attachments between the floor and the bottom of the door. Then he’d pulled down several wire hangers and fashioned a makeshift chain, which he secured to the doorknob and the pole on which the coats hung. It didn’t seem very sturdy, but it had defeated her efforts to open the closet thus far.

  “Let me in, you bastard!” she screamed, beating her fists on the door. It shook with the fury of her blows, but did not yield.

  Brad had never been afraid of Clarissa. She was short and petite. She’d never been particularly strong, and she had the least aggressive personality of anyone he’d ever met. She didn’t even like swatting the flies that got in the house, preferring to open the door and try to shoo them back outside.

  But that all changed when she came home unexpectedly tonight. She opened the door while he was catching the tail-end of SportsCenter and hissed, “Honey, I’m home!”

  Except she shouldn’t be home. She shouldn’t be anywhere but in the ground.

  “Bradley,” she said, speaking sweetly now, “open the door.”

  “No way!” he shouted back. “You’re not even supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “I am dead,” she said, sounding as though she thought he was pretty stupid. “Now open this door so I can talk to you.”

  “How can you be here?” he wailed.

  “Jesus Christ, Bradley, haven’t you seen even one vampire movie in your lifetime? I’m undead, back from the grave to drink the blood of the living.”

  Did she just curse at him? Clarissa never took the Lord’s name in vain. She was a good Catholic and adhered rigidly to The Ten Commandments.

  “There are no such things as vampires,” he shouted.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m not actually here. I didn’t crawl out of my grave, with fangs in my mouth and a thirst for your blood. This is all your imagination.”

  A sudden chill came over him. Despite the fact that he was sweating profusely, he was freezing. A thirst for his blood?

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” he said, trying and failing to keep
his voice from shaking.

  “Oh, come on, Brad,” she cooed. “You didn’t think you were going to get away with it, did you?”

  “Get away with what?”

  “Murdering me.”

  “I didn’t kill you!” he screamed. “The police said you were attacked by a wild dog that ripped your throat out.”

  “Oh, honey, it wasn’t a dog, but that’s immaterial. I was where I was because you were screwing that little whore of yours.”

  Yes, she’d come home and caught him in bed with Joan. He hadn’t expected her. He didn’t hear her come in because Joan was moaning too loudly. He didn’t see her until she muttered a heartbroken, “Oh, my God,” because he’d been on his back while Joan rode him. “It’s not what you think,” he’d said, as though there were any other explanation. It was exactly what she thought.

  She’d started crying and ran out after that. He never saw her alive again. Until tonight. Not even tonight. She still wasn’t alive.

  His phone chimed. Someone had texted.

  “Oh, now who could that be?” Clarissa said.

  Oh, shit. His phone was out in the living room. He’d been texting with Joan and set it down when he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom. Clarissa came home when he was on his way back to the TV. He’d forgotten the phone!

  “Who’s Joan?” Clarissa called out. There was a pause before she continued, “Ah. She’s the little bitch that stole my husband. I see my death didn’t make you decide to stop screwing around.”

  “You were dead, Clarissa,” he said. “You are dead.”

  “Wow,” Clarissa said, as though she hadn’t heard him. “She’s a slut! I can’t believe some of the things she’s texted.”

  Brad cursed himself. Why the hell hadn’t he ever put a lock code on his phone?

  “You...” Clarissa began and then had to stop. She started again, sounding weepy and incredulous. “You saw her on the night of my funeral? You slept with her the same day they put me in the ground? You son of a bitch!”

  Something smashed against the wall next to the closet. The object then hit the tile floor of the foyer with a second crash. Brad heard Clarissa stalk over from the living room, followed by a grinding sound on the floor.

  “Too bad you didn’t buy the insurance plan on the phone, Brad,” she said. “I don’t think they’re going to replace this one. ‘Smashed to pieces by your undead wife’ probably isn’t covered by the basic policy.”

  “Goddamn it, Clarissa,” he sobbed.

  “God didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said. “It was all you, Brad. And sniveling like a baby isn’t going to save you. Boo-hoo! There’s no one you can call for help, especially now that I’ve trashed your phone. You may as well come out here and face me.”

  “Go to hell,” he said. “I’m not coming out there so you can kill me.”

  “I’ve got all night, Brad,” she said. “You can’t wait in there forever.”

  Couldn’t he? If she was a vampire, she’d have to take cover at dawn – assuming this worked anything like the movies. All he had to do was wait her out. And it was summer. The sun came up early.

  “Try me,” he said.

  “Okay,” she answered.

  1.53am

  “Don’t you have any coffee?” Clarissa said. He could hear her rummaging around in the kitchen. “I’m dying for some hot, black coffee.”

  “What do you need coffee for?” Brad shouted through the door. “I thought all you wanted was blood now.”

  “Simple pleasures,” she answered. “I may be dead, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy a cup of joe. Why the hell isn’t there any?”

  There it was again, another curse-word. He tried to remember the last time he’d heard her swear and drew a blank. She wouldn’t even say dirty words in bed. It just wasn’t her style.

  “You drank the last of it the day you died. I haven’t been to the store yet.”

  “Typical.”

  “Well, you know what, Clarissa? I’ve been kind of busy, what with your funeral and all the questions from the police.”

  “Don’t forget screwing your whore,” she said. “That probably took up some of your shopping time.”

  He sighed. Every muscle in his body screamed at him. He was so sore from sitting jammed into the tiny space on the hard tile. He’d managed to take his shirt off, but he was still sweating profusely from the coats overhead.

  “So how was it?” she asked.

  “How was what?”

  “My funeral.”

  Brad thought about that for a moment. It was awful. Sure, he’d been messing around on her, but he didn’t want her dead. When the priest talked about what a wonderful person she was and how she was with God now, he felt genuine shame. God hadn’t called her home. She was murdered because she’d run out after finding him with Joan. And now to find out she wasn’t with God after all...

  “It was nice,” he said. “Father Gray gave a good homily. All of your friends came. I think you would have liked it.”

  Clarissa didn’t say anything for a few moments. He waited to hear her response while trying to ignore the cramps in his legs.

  “That’s good, I guess,” she said at last. Then she chuckled. “I wonder what Father Gray would say if he could see me now.”

  “Why don’t you go see him?” Brad said. He couldn’t disguise the bitter tone in his voice.

  “Why would I do that?” she said. “He’s not the one who put me here.”

  Brad didn’t know what to say to her. Despite the situation, he felt consumed with guilt. Clarissa had come back from the grave to kill him for his betrayal, and he couldn’t escape the fact that it was his infidelity that put them both in this particular pickle.

  “You know what I miss most?” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “How things used to be,” she answered. “Don’t you remember how in love we were? Don’t you remember how happy we used to be?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “When we got married, everything seemed possible.”

  “Why did you do it, Brad?” she asked after a long pause. “Why did you take up with that whore?”

  Brad suppressed the urge to shout at her. Joan wasn’t a whore. She was a nice woman who understood his needs in a way Clarissa never had. Still, it wouldn’t help to bring any of that up or to get mad.

  “I don’t know, Clarissa,” he said. “She gave me something.”

  “Yeah, she gave you something, all right,” Clarissa sneered.

  They were interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the lock. The front door opened. His heart stopped.

  “Brad?” he heard Joan say. “Are you up, sweetie? I tried calling, but it went straight to voicemail. Simon let me off early tonight, so I thought I’d come by to see how you’re doing.”

  “You gave that bitch a key?” Clarissa hissed.

  “Joan!” Brad shouted, panicked. “Get out of here now!”

  “Brad?” Joan said. He could hear her coming towards the closet.

  “You slut,” Clarissa growled. “You stole my husband.”

  Joan screamed. Then he heard her hit the floor.

  “Clarissa, don’t!” he cried. “For God’s sake, leave her alone!”

  “You’ve banged your last married man,” Clarissa said.

  Then Joan started howling. Brad could hear her struggling to get away. He could envision Clarissa tearing her flesh, sinking her teeth into her.

  “Clarissa, stop it! Leave her alone!” he shouted. He tried to stand up, but his legs howled in protest. The coats shoved him back down. He put a hand on one vacuum cleaner attachment and made to pull it out of the door.

  “Come out here and make me,” Clarissa yelled. “I dare you.”

  He stopped. He tried to be brave. He tried to will himself to open up the door and face his vampire wife. But he couldn’t do it. She would kill him. She’d have her revenge on him. And besides, it was probably too late to save Joan. From the sounds she ma
de, he was convinced Clarissa had already torn the life out of her.

  Oh, God. Poor Joan. This wasn’t her fault. She didn’t deserve this.

  Joan bleated pathetically for a few more heartbeats, and then the only sound Brad could hear was sucking. He assumed that was Clarissa feeding. It disgusted him. After a minute, that noise ceased as well.

  “Your little bitch girlfriend is dead!” Clarissa shouted at him as she banged on the closet door again, this time with such force Brad was truly afraid it would crack and yield. “You’ve got nothing left to live for, you cowardly little bastard. Now open up this door so we can be done with this.”

  “Go to hell!” he screamed back. He started to sob.

  “I don’t know what you saw in her,” Clarissa sneered. “Scrawny little thing with no tits. She’s not even that good looking.”

  “I’ll tell you what I saw in her,” he said. He was angry now, and he wanted to hurt her. “Unlike you, she was a good lay. She knew how to interest a man. She did things you never even dreamed of. After seven years of only having sex in the bedroom in one of three positions, with me always having to beg for it, I found a woman who actually liked sex. Joan was fun, and we did it everywhere. You were boring, Clarissa. You didn’t know how to keep a man interested. Joan did.”

  “Oh, I was bad in bed?” Clarissa shot back. “Maybe I’d have been more into sex if you weren’t a three-thrust-roll-over-and-fall-asleep kind of guy. Maybe I’d have been kinkier if you’d even once been able to give me an orgasm. This is all your fault, Brad. You’re a lousy lay, and you went looking for something else when you discovered you couldn’t please me even a little bit.”

  “Go to hell, Clarissa,” he said. “At least I tried.”

  “Yeah, you tried. You tried so hard you found someone else to disappoint. Your girlfriend’s dead, Brad. Her blood’s all over the living room. You’ll have a tough time explaining that to the police. Your life is over. You sit there, and you think about that for a while.”

  3.21am

  Where are the police? Brad thought. Didn’t anyone hear Joan’s screams? How could the cops not have been called?