Seven Deadly Tales of Terror (10 page)
Read Seven Deadly Tales of Terror Online
Authors: Bryan Smith
He let his arms hang limply at his sides when it was over. They each felt like they weighed about a million pounds. For a while he just sat there, breathing heavily and staring at his father’s ruined face in a numb state of shock. When he belatedly understood that Josh Benson had died, the numbness went away and he let out a strangled gasp followed by another round of violent sobbing. It went on for a while.
Luke’s father had been a worthless piece of shit, but he had also been his last living relative. In those first starkly bleak moments in the aftermath of it all, beating the old man to death felt like the perfect capper to a perfectly crappy life. He had no one left in the world who gave a shit about him, even in a twisted, hateful way. No more family. No more friends. Only his dogs loved him. He cried and cursed the old man, letting out a lifetime’s worth of frustration and regret, as well as helpless grief for the life he might have had if he’d been raised by people who were decent.
When the explosion of emotion at last subsided, he got up and commenced a careful search of the house. He hadn’t come this far to fail now and damned if he was going to let the old man get the last laugh. He found the first part of what he needed in a lockbox Josh Benson had kept under his bed. Inside it were gruesome Polaroid photographs of his victims, along with other sick mementos of his crimes, including locks of hair, various undergarments, ID cards, and a small piece of rotted flesh wrapped in a clear plastic bag. Luke’s face twisted in disgust at the sight of the latter, which he was pretty sure had been someone’s nipple.
He carried the box out to the living room, removed some of the items from it, and arranged them carefully on the coffee table. The intent here was to make it look as if the old man had been consumed with nostalgia during his last night on earth. Once he was satisfied with the placement of the items, he went out to the garage, where he found his father’s shotgun. Back inside, he fetched a chair from the kitchen and put the old man’s corpse on it. The chair had been positioned so that where he’d already bled on the carpet would fit with what was about to happen.
Whether he would get away with what he had in mind was questionable. But Luke figured he’d already staged one crime scene tonight, so why not go for a second one? The odds against things working out in his favor were higher than ever, but he was damn well going to do his best.
He wedged the barrel of the shotgun up under his father’s chin and got his hands wrapped around the stock of the weapon. It was tricky and took some doing, but he eventually managed to make it happen. The blast of the gun made him cringe and momentarily deafened him while making a suitably messy wreck of his father’s head. The grisly tableau was sickening, but he refused to allow another surge of emotion to paralyze him.
His getaway came courtesy of the old Indian motorcycle Josh Benson had kept in the garage next to his Mustang. The bike was rarely used and its absence wouldn’t mean anything to the lawmen investigating the scene. If anyone asked him about it later, he would just claim the old man had given it to him months earlier.
The ride back to his isolated trailer was even more uneventful than the ride into town earlier. He didn’t cross paths with even a single vehicle from the sheriff’s department. The rush of the warm night air felt good against his face as he left Murfreesboro behind and cranked the bike’s engine to a high rev, feeling freer than he ever had as he sped down the dark rural roads en route toward whatever the future held for him.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Bryan Smith is the author of numerous previous novels and novellas, including Slowly We Rot, All Hallow’s Dead, 68 Kill, The Reborn, Depraved, The Killing Kind, Strange Ways, House of Blood, and The Freakshow. Bestselling horror author Brian Keene described Slowly We Rot as, “The best zombie novel I’ve ever read.” The Trent Haaga-directed film version of 68 KILL recently completed filming. Bryan lives in Tennessee, where he spends the bulk of his non-writing time reading, binge-watching things on Netflix, and having the occasional beer or three. Visit his home on the web at
www.thehorrorofbryansmith.blogspot.com
.
SPOTIFY playlist for SEVEN DEADLY TALES OF TERROR:
https://open.spotify.com/user/bryandsmith/playlist/3xlBszvJ9OBJpmlc8AA02m
Table of Contents