Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) (18 page)

The story had the desired effect.  It kept his sons from poking around Crimson House.  They avoided it.  They were
afraid
of it.

What Cyrus hadn’t anticipated was his sons telling the ghost story to their friends.

Within a few years, a legend had taken root.

Now, nearly three decades later, Crimson House was still the stuff of local folklore. 

Over the years, teenagers have added new layers of spray paint, maintaining its crimson appearance.

And every Halloween, the ghost hunters came.

Inside Crimson House, Cyrus had a place where he could hide, where he could spy on trespassers.  He was always eager to hear new twists on his old yarn.  Last year, the ghost story bore only the vaguest resemblance to the tale Cyrus originally told his sons nearly thirty years ago.

Now, October 31st had finally come again. Cyrus left Brick House just before sunset.  It was already very dark.  The sky was overcast, the wind was picking up, and he could smell the approaching storm.

As he trudged through the dying fields, bound for Crimson House, Cyrus said a silent prayer that the bad weather wouldn’t keep the kids away.

He was looking forward to the
girls
.

He hoped very much there would be girls.

******

Isabella Idlewine was a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl.  A junior in high school, she was enormously popular.  She was currently ‘between boyfriends’ (she broke up with Jacob Lauder two weeks ago because he was caught red-handed looking at other girl’s butts) but that suited her just fine.  By Christmas, Isabella would be going steady with someone of
her
choosing.  For now, she was enjoying her independence.  (And she
insisted
on being called Isabella and not just Bella.)
Isabella was a free spirit.

She saw her first and only ghost when she was just nine years old.  It wasn’t a
frightening
experience.  She
loved
it.

And ever since then, she’d been eager to see other ghosts—other glimpses of the unseen reality that is shared with the seen.

The ghost was her grandmother’s.  She had always been close to her Nana and, on the night the old woman died, Isabella (then ‘Belly’) woke up from a sound sleep to find her grandmother sitting on the side of her bed.  Her Nana talked at length to Belly, telling her how much she loved her.  Her Nana told Belly to always listen to her own heart because Belly’s heart was a
good
one.  Her Nana told her that there were no limits to what she could do with her life.  And her Nana told her that she should do what made her happy.

Her Nana told her that she would one day meet her soul mate, a person that she would connect with and love with all her big heart.

Then her Nana just faded away, right before Isabella’s eyes.

Little Belly climbed out of bed, went to her parents’ bedroom, and told them what happened.  They didn’t believe her.  They told her she’d been dreaming. 

The next morning her grandmother’s body was discovered.

Even now, eight years later, Isabella could still remember, quite vividly, the conversation she had with her grandmother’s spirit.

She was
named
after her grandmother.  And when her Grandmother Isabella went to Heaven, little Belly stopped being Belly and became an Isabella herself forevermore.

After that, ghosts became her hobby.  She read everything she could find on the subject.  She was fascinated by tales of earthbound spirits, victims of tragic demises who didn’t know they’d died.

That was why she was so angry with her friends when she discovered they were holding out on her.  True, Isabella only moved here three years ago but that was still two Halloweens that had passed without her hearing anything about the local haunted house.

There was disagreement amongst her friends about what happened there, particularly about the date of the events.  Some said the murders took place in the 1970s; others said they occurred all the way back in the 50s.  The only thing everyone seemed to agree on was it happened in January, during one of the worst blizzards in the state’s history.  A man went nuts— cabin fever— and killed not only his nagging wife but also his four kids.

And while a few storytellers added knives or guns or even the occasional axe, most seem to agree on the method of execution.  Unable to actually harm his loved ones, but also unable to go on living, the crazy man had tied up his family and threw open all the doors to his crimson home.  Then he got drunk, laid down in the snow, and died.  His family eventually froze to death but not before screaming for help.  No one heard, of course.  The house was too far from the road and the howling wind was entirely too loud.

Isabella didn’t know if the legend was true or not (she secretly suspected it
wasn’t
because she could never find any mention of it on the Internet) but she remained
hopeful
it was true.

On Halloween night just after dusk, Isabella and six friends snuck onto Cyrus’s land and made their way back to the haunted house.  Her three girlfriends seemed nervous.  Their boyfriends seemed horny (nothing new there.) 

Isabella was excited.

She had brought with her tools traditionally effective in summoning ghosts.  In addition to a Ouija board and sandalwood incense, she was also carrying tom-toms, having read about how Voodoo priestesses in New Orleans use drums to call up spirits.

She honestly didn’t think she’d see any apparitions tonight but she remained ever hopeful.

In the west, lightning fell from the sky.

******

They always gathered in the living room.  According to the stories, it was there, in the living room, that ghosts had been seen, tied to chairs, screaming for help.  The prevailing wisdom was visitors didn’t need to be here in January, near the anniversary of the murders.

For the ghosts in Crimson House, it was
always
winter.

At some point in the distant past, someone brought five chairs here, one for each of the alleged victims.  The teenagers never sat on them.  The living sat on the floor.

One of the things that amused Cyrus was how the number of victims grew.  When he originally told the ghost story to his two sons, the death toll was limited to a woman and her two sons. When he told the story to his own two boys, he wanted the story to strike as close to home as possible.

Years ago, the death count rose to six, although there was always differing opinions about whether the four murdered children were boys or girls. 

He wondered how high of a death toll would be discussed this year. 

When the teenagers gathered, Cyrus was excited to see the girls this year outnumbered the boys.  One girl in particular really captured his attention.

All of Cyrus’s previous victims were young women that he kidnapped from the Big City, nearly thirty miles away.  He had never killed anyone from around here, even though he was tempted to on many occasions.

Cyrus prided himself on his self-control.  He believed it was the reason he’d never been caught.

These young people were in no danger from him.

He would never strike so close to home.

But he was tempted.  The young blonde—he soon learned her name was Isabella- was
exactly
the type of girl that Cyrus had always loved.  She was
beautiful
, every bit as beautiful as the girls buried in the basement.

He became aroused as he watched her.  At his age, it was amazing how amorous he felt.

He knew he would need to go to the Big City after all.  He might even go later tonight.

He wanted Isabella.

But he’d never give in to his desires.

It was too dangerous.

******

After lighting the incense, Isabella persuaded one of her friends to work the Ouija board with her.  A few minutes later, the clouds burst.  There was a roof over their heads but it was full of holes and offered little shelter. When splashing dribbles put out one of the guys’ cigarettes, he immediately declared he was leaving.

Isabella wasn’t ready to go yet.  She had always been warm-blooded; despite a radical drop in the temperature, she was not the slightest bit chilled; and she hadn’t tried her drums yet.

She decided to stay.

Her friends tried to talk her out of it but she was determined to try some tricks.

She wanted to see some spirits… or at least
hear
some spirits through her Ouija board.  And this place seemed
ripe
for some reason.  This place
felt
like a place where the unseen was very close to being seen.

And so her friends (and her friend’s friends) left her, not thinking for a moment that she was in any jeopardy.  They all went running out of Crimson House, dashing into the rain, unknowingly leaving Isabella alone with a serial killer.

                        ******

Cyrus began to sweat when he realized he was alone with Isabella.  The old cravings were back with a vengeance, stronger than ever before.  The girl had gotten herself wet, the ceiling above her was a sieve, and her sweatshirt was clinging provocatively to her chest.  He imagined how much fun it would be to grab her, to strip her, to rape her and cut her.  Lightning sizzled and thunder roared.  The thought of loving/torturing Isabella while the storm raged outside made Cyrus particularly randy.  He would love to hear her screams intermingled with the thunder.

The longer he watched her, however, the more confused he became, particularly when she began playing her tom-toms.  She talked to herself but in such a low whisper he couldn’t hear her, no matter how hard he strained.  She began a circular march, moving around and around the five chairs in the center of the room.  Her wanderings periodically brought her near Cyrus’s hiding place, a closet that opened through another room with a peephole opening on this man living room.  He finally was able to catch snatches of what this honey was chanting.

He was startled to realize Isabella wasn’t talking to herself after all.

She was talking to the ghosts.

She was beseeching them to show themselves, to appear to her.

Cyrus found that profoundly odd.  He couldn’t understand why she would do such a thing.

Isabella continued to walk round and around the room, pounding her drums.

Cyrus’s confusion and curiosity dulled his passion.

Feeling his lust wane ignited his anger.

Then Isabella did something that caused Cyrus’s hot blood to go cold.

******

Isabella turned again to her Ouija board, but not before stripping off her wet sweatshirt.  Barely covered by a black lycra bra, her young breasts pointed unknowingly at Cyrus.  She sat on the floor, bent over her planchette, and she asked a series of yes or no questions which established there was, indeed, a presence here in Crimson House.

Thrilled, Isabella asked the ghost to name itself.

******

Cyrus remembered all his girls, each and every one of them.  He remembered their faces, their names, the way they screamed when they were hurt, the sounds of their gasps when they were dispatched by his knives.

Cyrus loved every one of them.

They
belonged
to him.

When the Ouija board spelled out the name of his first victim, both her first
and
last name, Cyrus was
petrified
.

But the hateful/lovable girl didn’t stop there!

She began spelling out the name of his
second
victim, speaking each letter aloud as the planchette stopped on it.

That’s when Cyrus lost all self-control.

******

When Isabella wasn’t home by midnight, her parents checked with her friends.  Learning where she was last seen, her father went looking for her.

When he found her Ouija board and discarded sweatshirt, he became frightened.  When he found her bloody underwear, he nearly panicked.

Hearing someone whistling, Isabella’s father crept down into the basement of the dilapidated red house.  There in the cellar, Lee Idlewine discovered Cyrus Colton burying his ravaged daughter.

There was a struggle but the outcome was never in doubt.  Cyrus was old and spent.  Isabella’s father was young, grief stricken, and enraged.  Lee’s fury was fueled by adrenalin and despair. 

Cyrus was killed with his own shovel.

While his body was buried elsewhere, in a nearby cemetery, Cyrus’s spirit remained trapped in Crimson House.  Like all his other victims, Isabella’s soul moved on, ascending into the Light.

It would be another seven years before Crimson House was finally torn down.  During that time, many teenagers would come to it, hoping to catch a glimpse of the old man’s specter.

Cyrus’s ghost was sometimes spotted in the basement, whistling happily as he dug another grave.

THE END

The Legend of Bullet Lake

______________________

Another Middleridge Tale   

______________________         

The hunting trip to Bullet Lake was Drake’s idea.   He had always been the leader of their group.  Drake Dupree, Tom Pascal, John Womack, Kyle Cain, and Roger Luttman had been friends all of their short lives.  They grew up together in the city of Middleridge, Indiana.  They all went to Middleridge High School together; they were Middleridge Mavericks.  It was Drake who gave them their name: The Fearless Five.  Most of the trouble they got into when they were young was instigated by Dupree.  He was their alpha male.

Drake Dupree was a handsome, healthy twenty-year old.  He had curly blond hair, deep blue eyes, and rugged features.  In high school, he was on the basketball and baseball teams.  He still worked out, keeping his abs hard and his biceps bulging.  He was always optimistic, generally cheery, and had an easy smile he knew could charm the pants off girls . . . and often did.

Drake had gotten the boys into minor trouble at various times when they were younger, but Drake wasn’t bad; he just hated boundaries.  Drake was an explorer.  He also loved testing his own limits.  When, for instance, Roger fractured both his legs jumping into the Hook river when they were sophomores, it was only by the grace of God Drake didn’t break his own limbs.  Drake was the first to jump; Roger was simply unlucky, landing as he did on that submerged log.