SHIVER: 13 Sexy Tales of Humor and Horror (20 page)

To my delight, Jay wore a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie that I’d designed for him, and even though it wasn’t fancy dress, I didn’t mind. I took a strange pleasure out of seeing him in clothes I’d made. He whistled appreciatively when he saw me, and I smiled happily.

“That was a low move you pulled in the shower,” I said as I took his hand and he led me outside and into a waiting taxi.

“You loved it, and you make a very pretty cat, by the way,” he said, dipping his head down and capturing my mouth in a quick, tender kiss. His tongue briefly slid past the seam of my lips and dipped inside, but then it was gone. He could be such a tease sometimes.

Tina lived in an apartment in a stylish part of town. Her place was small, but maybe it just seemed that way because there were so many people. She pouted when she answered the door — yes, that’s right,
pouted
. Her hair was up in a twist, and she was wearing a pink Playboy bunny outfit. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. This was obviously the thing she had up her sleeve. I was almost offended on Jay’s behalf that she thought a sexy bunny outfit would be enough to tempt him.

“Jay, you didn’t dress up,” she said, trying to look all cute and disappointed. She barely gave me a second glance, even though I
had
gone to the trouble of dressing up.

Jay wrapped his arm around my waist as he led me inside. “Oh, I beg to differ. I thought my Alfred Hitchcock vibe was obvious,” he said, winking.

“You could be anyone in that suit,” said Tina, still feigning disappointment, like he had to make it up to her or something.

God, this woman needed to get a clue.

A somewhat awkward silence ensued.

“Oh, well, make yourselves at home, and feel free to have some drinks and food,” she said, and then went to talk to a group of other people. I saw her briefly touch Jay’s hand before walking away, and he broke the contact immediately, giving me an apologetic look. I knew there was nothing going on between them, but it was getting on my last nerve how she kept trying to get his attention.

Jay led me over to a counter full of drinks and poured me a glass of white wine. He knew my tipple of choice by now. His was usually a whiskey or sometimes a beer.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm. “She obviously wore that outfit for your benefit. Perhaps you
should
fire her.”

Jay gave me a pleased smile. “You sound bitter, Watson. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Oh, whatever. You’re just as bad. Remember the barman from our honeymoon? I swear, if looks could kill, the guy would have dropped dead on the spot the moment you set your eyes on him.”

He massaged my hip as he placed a wine glass in my hand. Just my mention of the barman brought on a frown, and I enjoyed it. “Let’s not talk about that,” he said, and then some people we knew from Jay’s show came over to make chitchat. About an hour passed, and despite Tina making fuck-me eyes at my husband all night, I was having a decent time. I’d had a couple glasses of wine in me when I saw her make her way toward the bathroom. With alcohol-fuelled courage, I decided this was my time to set her straight.

Just before she had the chance to close the door, I pushed it open with my hand and stepped in after her.

“What the hell?” she said, giving me a dirty look.

“We need to talk,” I stated firmly, and closed the door behind me.

“I was just about to take a piss…um, what was your name again?” she asked bitchily.

Oh, she knew exactly what my name was. I laughed as I imagined her cutting my head out of photographs of me and Jay, and then supergluing her own head onto my body.

“My name is Matilda,” I enunciated. “Matilda
Fields
, and I’d like to politely request that you stop making a play for my husband. It isn’t proper.”

She stared at me, eyes squinted in annoyance. Then she folded her arms and cocked her head. “Jay is my boss. I work for him, so I’m certainly not making a play. I think you might be imagining things.” She paused and let out a long sigh. “Some women, God, so insecure and jealous.”

My eyebrows practically shot right up to the ceiling. “If you weren’t interested in him, then you wouldn’t have just said that. But anyway, I don’t want to drag this out. I just wanted to tell you to back off. We just got married, and I’d like to enjoy being a newlywed for a while without having to deal with women like you.”

She huffed. “Women like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

I gave her a wry look. “I bet you always wanted your friends’ Barbie dolls, didn’t you? You couldn’t just go get your own — you had to have somebody else’s.”

“This is my apartment, and I think you need to leave now,” she hissed, and took a threatening step toward me. I backed up, because despite Jay’s opinion that I could take her, I didn’t think I was tough enough to win a cat fight, even though, strangely enough, I was dressed up as a cat.

This was a weird night, and as I turned to leave, I discovered that it was about to get even weirder. I opened the door and stepped out, and there on the floor lay Jay’s black cape, the one I’d been repairing for him the other day. I blinked, wondering if I was seeing things, because the cape was huge, and I definitely hadn’t remembered him bringing it with him.

Kneeling down, I gathered it up and went to find my husband. He wasn’t in the party, but when I asked around, I was told he’d gone outside to have a smoke. Stepping out onto the terrace, I saw him bring a cigarette to his lips and take a drag. He turned, a welcoming look on his face, like he’d been expecting me. Stepping closer, he exhaled the smoke, blowing it over my face. For some reason, it made me feel sleepy.

“Hey, Watson, I want you to relax now. You’re going to go to sleep for a little while,” he said, his voice a flat monotone. Less than a second later, I was falling, and I felt Jay catch me just before I lost consciousness.

My head felt
foggy when I woke up, and I was cold, so cold my skin was prickling. It was strange, because I hadn’t felt this kind of cold since I’d arrived in Vegas. It was forever hot and humid here unless you were somewhere that was air-conditioned. It got a little colder at night, but not this much, not in my experience, anyway. I could also hear rain pounding down on the roof of wherever I was; a roll of thunder rang out, causing me to shudder. When I was little, I’d always been scared of thunder.

My body was sore because I’d been lying flat on dirty wooden floorboards. It was dark, and I didn’t know where I was, couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there.

I searched my memory for clues, but the last thing I could remember was having lunch with Jay on the stage after I’d been mending his cape. For some reason, I felt like there was a gap, like there were things that had been blanked out. They were just within my grasp, but when I tried to reach for them, they disappeared like wisps of smoke. The imagery of smoke triggered something, but my brain couldn’t work to comprehend what that something was.

Pushing myself up onto my knees, I looked around. I could hardly see a thing until a fluorescent light bulb began to flicker in the distance.

It blinked on and off, providing me with the opportunity to take in my surroundings. When I did, my gut sank. I was in a gigantic, rundown, grotty old room in what felt like an abandoned factory or warehouse. There was rusty old equipment scattered about, but I couldn’t tell what it might be for. I was shivering hard, because this felt like a kidnapping to me. There was no way I’d set foot in a place like this of my own choosing.

“Gah!” I yelped as I felt somebody tap me on the shoulder. I turned, startled, but there was no one. Then I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. Oddly, there was a large mirror on the wall at the other end of the room. It was large, with an antique frame, and completely out of place for the setting. Feeling compelled, I walked toward it, and when I got near enough, I gasped because there was a figure standing there, still as a statue, looking at me through the glass: a tall male form wearing all black with a white mask over his face. The mask had a single black question mark on one cheek, which for some reason I found highly disturbing.

I glanced all about frantically, trying to figure out where the reflection was coming from, because I was standing right in front of it and I couldn’t see myself, only the man. It was almost as though he were trapped inside the mirror.

He was still staring at me.

“Who are you?” I called out, and the moment I said it, the glass cracked, causing me to jump. More thunder rang out, this time followed by the loud wailing of a woman who sounded like she was in extreme pain. I was trembling all over now; the wail was foreboding, and it made my skin crawl. Seeming uninterested in my fear, the man within the glass turned and walked away. Then he was gone, but I still couldn’t see my own reflection.

It was eerie. I was only wearing a thin lacy dress, and I was freezing now as I rubbed at my arms. Freezing and terrified.

“Help!” I cried. “Please, somebody help me!”

My voice echoed around the empty space. I ran to one of the windows, trying to see outside, but it was so coated with dirt that I couldn’t make out a thing. When I noticed the open door at the end of the room where I had originally woken up, I ran for it. If I could at least get out of the building, then I could figure out where I was and perhaps get to safety. Before I reached the door, a strange hissing sound filled the room and I froze.

It started out low and soft, but rose in volume little by little. It was a horrible sound, and it made my skin crawl, like somebody had crossbred a snake with a vampire. A vampire! For crying out loud, I was being ridiculous. This was rapist territory, not horror movie territory. Still, the imagery of the man in the mask had my mind conjuring up all sorts of macabre ideas. Someone was trying to fuck with my head. I tried to will myself to believe I’d imagined him because it was the only way I knew how to carry on.

I felt something move by my foot and looked down to see a massive snake slithering through my legs. My mouth dropped open in a silent scream, and then I heard a whisper echo in my ears. A single word.

“
Murder.
”

When I looked back down, the snake was gone, but now I could feel a new presence advancing behind me. I didn’t want to turn around to see what it was, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. For some reason, my brain wanted to see what it was frightened of. I could hear footsteps advancing behind me, and when I looked, I saw the man in the mask. Now he wasn’t trapped inside the mirror, he was real and coming straight at me. He wasn’t wearing the mask anymore; it had been pulled down and hung around his neck, but I wished he’d kept it on. His face was deathly pale, like a corpse, and his eyes were blood red. There was no white at all, just red. He was holding a knife in his hand and it was covered in blood.

His movements sped up once he saw me looking, and I sprang into action, screaming as I ran for the door. I made it and discovered a narrow staircase, practically tripping over myself as I scurried down the steps. All the while I could hear the red-eyed man coming after me, hissing and grunting. Luckily, I was a fast runner. My entire body broke out into a sweat, and my every pore was pulsing with pure, undiluted fear, adrenaline rushing through my system. I had never felt anything quite like it. Had never felt the imminence of death so strongly, because something deep down in my bones told me that if the man caught me, I was done for.

It didn’t even bear thinking about where the bloody knife had come from and whose blood it was. My muscles were drawn tight, and my mouth was dry and rough like sandpaper. If this was a dream, then I desperately wanted to wake up. Tears were streaming down my face as I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered another room, this one almost identical to the first. I hated it. I felt like I was in a labyrinth that never ended. But then I scanned the space and realised it was worse, because lining the far wall were about twenty people standing there, still as stone, all replicas of the man in the mask, like their clothing was a uniform or something.

Who the hell were these people?

The hissing got close again, so I knew Mr. Red Eyes had caught up with me. I was penned in. No escape. Arms came around my middle, gripping me tight like a vice, and I whimpered. This was it. I was done for. All at once the line of identically dressed people started to move, marching toward me, their movements strange and staccato, their footsteps ringing loud and harsh as I was held in place. I struggled to break free, but it was no use — my captor’s strength was far superior to my own.

“Please! Please let me go,” I begged.

When the line of people was just two feet away, they stopped, and the tall one right in the centre stepped forward. My chest rose and fell frantically in terror, and then he pulled off his mask, revealing a familiar face. The face of my husband.

My breath escaped me all at once, and I felt like I might faint.

Confusion washed over me as Jay came and took me from the man and into his own arms.

“Hush now, it’s okay, you’re safe,” he whispered, bringing his hand up to my face. He clicked his fingers, and the sound reverberated in my ears. Then I was out again.

***

I woke up
to the sound of an engine running. I was lying down, this time in the back of a car. Jay’s car. I’d recognise his smell anywhere. My head was in his lap, and he was stroking my hair away from my face in a soothing manner. The windows were down, and the fresh night air flowed in. I swallowed down deep gulps of it, my heart still going ninety as the events leading up to this moment rushed into my head all at once.