Dark: A Horror Anthology Read online

  “I’ll be right back. Please, please don’t go anywhere,” she said, her voice almost pleading.

  “Heather, there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be right now,” he said. He saw her cheeks brighten once more before she turned and walked down the hallway.

  Jonathon took a pull of his cigarette and sipped his beer. He was glad he had met Heather. This sure beat the hell out of sitting alone in his hotel room tapping away on his laptop or watching Nick-at-Nite.

  Heather seemed like a wonderful person and she had welcomed him with open arms. And as the night progressed he wondered if she would welcome him with spread legs as well.

  “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” she said as she walked into the living room. On the coffee table in front of them she sat down a pack of Zig-Zag rolling papers and began to unroll a sandwich baggie. The inside of the baggie, Jonathon could see and recognized immediately, was filled with a green leafy substance. “You do smoke it don’t you? I read in a magazine interview you lived on it for quite a few years.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t smoked since I’ve been on this book tour though. Too dangerous to travel with,” he said.

  “Cool,” she said. Expertly, Heather began to roll a hefty sized joint. He handed her his Zippo and they began to toke. Jonathon could tell right away the quality of the marijuana was superior to what he had expected.

  “Darling, you’re full of surprises,” he said when he had absorbed the smoke thoroughly.

  “How about some sweet tea?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Sweet tea is the best thing to drink when you’re high,” she said.

  “I’ve never heard that, might as well try it.” His beer bottle has miraculously emptied and he was getting a little dry-mouthed.

  As she brought him a frosted glass of tea he began to feel the effects of the weed. He felt cozy but disconnected. A large smile spread across his face and he was happy. Heather walked over to the entertainment center and put a CD in to the player. Suddenly soft music filled the room. Jonathon felt his body, involuntarily, respond to the rhythm.

  They talked for an hour. Sometimes their conversation was coherent, sometimes it wasn’t; they kept on talking. Jonathon learned that she wasn’t quite able to make ends meet as a tanning salon attendant and that her mother, God bless her soul, sent a sizeable check every month to help out. She told him about the way her father had treated her (coldly) after she dropped out of college. She was an electrical engineering major, but found it too hard and too boring. Instead of finding another major she had tucked her tail between her legs and just quit.

  Jonathon told her about how he had first broke through the stone wall of the writing business (more luck than anything else). How he had worked three low-paying, menial jobs at a time just because they gave him an opportunity to write instead of sticking to one job that would require more brainpower and time. He told Heather he had grown up on the Mississippi Coast, which she already knew. He did not, however, tell her the truth about why he had left. He just told her it was in search of new experiences to write about.

  They finished two glasses of tea each and Jonathon asked to use the little boys’ room. As he stood he found balancing himself was a true test of skill. He made his way there and back only with the help and support of the hallway wall.

  When he returned to the living room the lights had been lowered. A small assortment of scented candles were lit and scattered around the room. From the sound Jonathon realized Heather was busy in the kitchen. Settling back onto the couch he reached for the marijuana and papers and began to roll another joint.

  She walked into the room carrying two more glasses of sweet tea. She handed him his and took her seat beside him. “Rollin’ another one?”

  “Yep. I figured what the hell,” he said.

  He lifted the glass of tea to his mouth and drank. EEEEWW. The sweetness of the tea had dissipated; in its absence sourness had materialized. Sourness on the verge of bitterness. His face showed the shock.

  “Oh, Jonathon I’m sorry. I put a little lemon juice in it. I must have put too much,” she laughed.

  “Shit, at least it’s wet,” he said.

  Before he had a chance to ignite the joint she reached for him. Her mouth connected to his. Slowly at first, then more rushed, they began to explore each other’s mouths. He tasted the sweetness of the tea within her and plunged his tongue further in.

  He began to caress her neck with his hands. Goose pimples erupted on her arms as she surveyed his chest. Lifting his shirt she began to rake her fingernails upwards and downwards on his bare chest. Unbuttoning her shirt, Jonathon reached for her breasts. She wore a lace bra and with expert and practiced skill, he unhooked it using one hand.

  He held both of her breasts with either hand and began to rub and tease her already erect nipples. Heather began to breathe heavily and at that moment within his hazy mind he knew he was home free. He began to ease her back onto the couch.

  She resisted.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, almost pouting.

  “In the bedroom,” she said.

  The smile returned to Jonathon’s face as he pulled her to her feet. Dizziness bombarded him as he stood upright. He felt as if he were being rocked by ocean waves in every direction. With some doing, he steadied himself. Unease fired in his stomach, almost a mild nausea.

  With Heather leading the way he was able to make it to the bedroom without collapsing. Figuring the marijuana had gotten the best of him; he accepted his condition and tried not to let his sickness show. Heather shoved him onto the bed. The firmness of the mattress threatened to bounce him off but before it had the chance, Heather pounced down on of him.

  She freed herself of her blouse and removed his shirt for him as well. As Heather bent down and kissed his neck and ears her soft dark hair covered him. The sensation was wonderful, like hundreds of soft, fantastically soft, feathers massaging and tickling him. He reached for her breasts and kneaded them like a baker going after his daily work with the reverence of one truly inspired.

  His eyes began to shut automatically and he had to fight to reopen them. His thoughts started to swirl together until he couldn’t be sure whether he was thinking lucidly or not. He tried to look into her face.

  His eyelids shut.

  He pried them open.

  His eyelids shut, hard.

  He used every ounce of his strength to open them.

  They slammed shut.

  His eyelids parted and he was awake. He felt her riding him. The rhythm was maddening and he gave himself to it. Heather bent down to his face and he could smell her tantalizing aroma mixed with sweat. Her mouth was only inches from his ear. Her breath smelled of sweet marijuana smoke.

  “I love your mind,” she whispered.

  His eyes closed once again.

  “I…I don’t feel so well…,” he managed.

  “Shhh, now, darling. You’ll feel better in just a minute. Much, much better.” She was grunting between words. The rhythm of her hips like second nature.

  It felt wonderful, but there was something else, a conflicting sensation gaining in power.

  The odd feeling was unlike anything Jonathon had ever felt before. It was a queer cross between the flu and a really audacious hangover.

  But he wasn’t so far gone he didn’t realize something was wrong. Very, very wrong. He wrote crime thrillers for a living. And if he believed his own hype, he was very good at it. He was well aware, the more he thought about it, that he’d been drugged. Jonathon had no way to know what kind of drug had been used. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was no longer in control of his own body.

  Cracking his eyelids required monumental effort. Through the narrow slit, he saw Heather, a vision of erotic beauty atop him, glowing in the ambient light. But this glimmering goddess was no angel. But a devil. And to what end she had drugged him, only she knew.

  Jonathon had no intention of finding ou
t.

  From a well of strength he didn’t even know existed, he found he could lift his arms. He did more than that, though. Gripping her in the bend of her thighs and her waist, he tossed her off his crotch. The irony of throwing a hottie like this out of the bed was not lost on him, but the thought only survived a moment. He had more pressing things on his mind.

  Like living.

  Heather fell hard on the side of the bed, hitting the floor and rolling. She was on her feet in an instant. The energy expended to throw her off seemed to be just all he had in him. Jonathon tried to scramble from the bed but found moving, even minutely, was like sloshing through heavy oil.

  A mere six inches was all he’d been able to scoop when, through the slit he managed to keep his eyes open, he saw Heather standing over him. The soft look of adoration was gone replaced by a much harder look. One that could only be described as hate.

  “You fucker! What’d you do that for? I was giving you the ride of your life and you do something like that. You’ll burn for that you bastard!” The last word was more of a growl than actual speech.

  Heather reached down, grabbed hold of his hair with both of her hands and slung him off the bed. It was Jonathon’s turn to hit the floor, and boy, did he hit hard.

  “Mr. Big Time Writer! I bring you to my home. You drink my beer! You smoke my weed! Even put your cock in me and you want to throw me away like I’m a PIECE OF TRASH!” She was over him now, his body covered by the triangle of her legs up to her body. A foot crashed down into his ribs. His body’s movements were sluggish and he only hung onto consciousness by a hair’s breadth, but he could still feel. And he felt the two ribs crack as surely as if were hooked to an X-ray machine and could see the damage instead of merely feeling it.

  “Stop. P-P-Please…” Jonathon was in bad shape. Much worse than he’d been just seconds ago. Unknown to him, one of the cracked ribs had punctured a lung and even as he fought hard to stay awake and alert, his breached lung was slowly, but most surely, filling up on him making breathing harder than he’d ever thought possible. Every breath was a war and every gasp a battle.

  “Aww. Poor little thing. He’s sad now. Ain’t ya?”

  How the so sweet, so kind, so endearing Heather had morphed into this demonic Lilith was beyond Jonathon. She was no longer remotely attractive. Her eyes were crazed, bloodshot. Her muscles tensed, muscles he hadn’t even noticed before. Her lips curled around teeth that were too sharp, too white.

  “I just wanted to talk, book boy.” She bent closer to him. “Just you. Just me. Is that so much to ask. Apparently it was. Should have sent along a picture of my tits or how about my bare ass! Yeah, that’d probably done it huh?”

  “What do you mean? I-I- don’t…” but he couldn’t say anymore. The little air left in his lungs was too precious.

  “I wrote you, Jonathon Harper. Seven times, I wrote you. The P.O. Box number in the back of all your books. You know the part, ‘All correspondence should be addressed to yada-yada-yada. Seven times. All I wanted was a little note. A little something. I gave you my email, my cell number, my home phone, my address. I gave you everything. And what did I get in return. An empty mail box. That’s what. You conceited fucker.”

  “I didn’t,” he started. He struggled for air. “I had no way to—” Another foot crashed down. This one to his testicles and it smashed them almost to jelly.

  “But you had a way to know how to get in my panties didn’t you. Oh, yeah, men always know that.”

  “But, what about when the morning comes? You’d have grabbed your pants off the floor, threw your clothes on and been gone. Another city, another signing. Another quick piece of ass.”

  And then suddenly, the hate was gone from her face. As suddenly as the adoration had melted away and anger had risen, so too did her rage fade out. Replaced by, replaced by sadness.

  “I loved you. Truly and deeply. Irrevocably. I loved the stories you told, the images you let me glimpse, and the people you introduced me to. I loved you more than I have ever loved anyone. And your mind, I loved it more than all the rest, because it is you.”

  There was no more air in his lungs to plead his case. He was hearing this she-beast, but the words were sounding funny now, the sound of her voice like they traveled a long, long tunnel. Jonathon realized that he was fading. His life-force dimming with each tick of the clock. And for what? For not answering a fan letter. Or, what’d she say, seven, fan letters?

  It was crazy, it was pure lunacy. It was like something you’d read about, or something he’d write about. It was happening, though. No denying that. It was happening here and now and to him.

  “P-P-P…” he tried, but the plea just couldn’t escape.

  “How the mighty have fallen. Bet you wish you’d been a little better about returning correspondence, eh, book-boy?”

  Jonathon feebly raised an arm. It made it half way up, straightening at the elbow when Heather spoke again. “But now you are mine.”

  *

  The very next morning…

  Heather awoke to bright mid-morning beams of light cutting between her bedroom blinds. Although, her body was tired and sore she rose from the bed. Jonathon’s scent still lingered.

  Cutting a glance to the bedside clock, she realized she was late for work. With a yawn and a stretch she stood and began to ready herself for work.

  Heather forewent the shower, having cleansed herself thoroughly last night—almost scrubbing the skin off her body, actually. She dressed in khaki pants and a light blue pull over blouse.

  She walked into the kitchen where the automatic coffee maker had brewed a pot hours earlier. She poured herself half a cup and walked to the refrigerator.

  She opened the freezer compartment and smiled. Sitting amidst her frozen waffles, a partially consumed gallon of strawberry ice cream, and ice cube trays was a clear glass container housing Jonathon Harp’s brain within formaldehyde. Heather had told a little white lie to her favorite writer. She had not studied electrical engineering during her college days, but chemical engineering. Feeling a lie was necessary, she thought of the electrical part. After all, she didn’t want Jonathon wondering about what she’d put in his drink until it was too late, now did she?

  She touched the container and closed her eyes. “I told you, Jonathon, I love your mind. And now it’s mine…forever,” Heather said in barely a whisper.

  She closed the freezer door and picked up her coffee and went to work.

  *

  Groan of Tedium

  By Sal Cipriano

  It’s my birthday. I should be excited, right? Or at least, like…happy? But no, I’m far from it. Instead, there’s that same old feeling, the groan of tedium as I affectionately call it. It’s that feeling of the same old same old, the bullshit grind that’s swallowed my life whole. Naturally, I’m too weak to pull away from it. Perfect. Well, for me at least.

  “Vinny! Get back in here, smoke break’s over!” Thank you, you fuck. And just like that my heart sinks further south.

  Jimmy, my boss here at Cotton Glass Funeral Home, likes nothing more than stamping out any fleeting moments of pleasure that I may get. In this case: a couple of drags from a Lucky Strike.

  “I’m done! I’m coming! Sorry!” I say, but not meaning it. I’m sorry my ass, is more like it.

  “Yeah, sure you are, but I don’t wanna hear it, just get Chapel 2 cleaned up, then come on up to my office. I got something else for you.” The Fucker is ready to ruin another birthday.

  “Wait…what?! Jimmy! It’s my birthday! Lisa’s meeting me in like 30 minutes! You know this!” Because that’ll get me anywhere.

  “Hey that’s not my problem, so stop your whining. She can wait in my office.” Well a fuck you, too, then.

  Twenty minutes later and Chapel 2 is cleaned up. There was a hell of a lot of tissues used tonight. You can always judge a person’s worth to society by the amount of tissues used at their funeral. Mrs. Margaret Fesko had to up there. A shit ton of tissues, e
verywhere you can imagine. A mess, but an honorable one.

  Five minutes of scrubbing possible mucus matter off my hands does the trick afterwards, and I’m up to talk to Jimmy Vivona, the aforementioned fuck of a manager. He’s a slimy, creepy, real disgusting snake of a man in every way imaginable. He’s a coward, too. I see him on the phone trying to conduct whatever shady deal he may be in on, and sweating each and every time. Loser.

  Up in his office, I’m usually comfortable. After all, I take mighty nice naps on his cushy couch just about every day. Another one of those fleeting moments of daily pleasure I get. Tonight, though, it’s not comfortable up here at all. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but Jimmy is in sweaty mode, and the terrible feeling that he’s about to involve me in something stupid, AKA dangerous, sets in.

  “I’m gonna lay it right on ya, Vinny…” Of Course. “…and I’m really…ah hum…sorry to do this to you…” Wait for it. “…but I need you accept a shipment tonight.” Bingo! Cue Stupid Dangerous Shit.

  “A shipment? Tonight? Who brings shipments after hours?” Dumb question, of course, but in incredulous moments like this, I need to be somewhat humored.

  “Do I haveta answer that? I know you know things, Vinny, but you’re a good kid. I know you know how to keep that trap of yours shut. And I know you’re loyal, am I right?”

  Fucker is right. I’m loyal to a fault, hence why I’m usually too weak to change anything bad in my life. Who ever thought loyalty and weakness went hand in hand? Thanks, Dad. The man instilled those two attributes firmly within me with a variety of tactics that pushed my fragile young spirit to its very limits. He would regularly beat on Mom and Natalie, and make me watch, and then tell me things like how guys don’t tell on guys, dad’s your best friend, your general, etc. I never squealed on him, cause…well…he’s my dad, my best friend, my general. And I’m a good kid, a loyal soldier. Yeah, it’s messed up.

  “Yeah, Jimmy. This gonna get me in trouble in any way?” Why. Do. I. Bother?