The Tooth Collector (and Other Tales of Terror) (13 page)

Sam gulped. He put every ounce of his
strength behind it as he chucked the camcorder at the old man's
hand. Mark and Sam were both shocked when the flying camera hit its
mark. It slammed into the man's bony fist, sending the gun skidding
over the gravel drive.

The old man's eyes widened as he dove for the
gun. His knees buckled under the sudden movement, and he fell to
the ground, jagged rocks digging into his skin. Mark got to the gun
first. He plucked it from the stranger's grasp as he stretched his
arms, reaching for it. Mark stood over their former assailant with
a victorious smirk on his face.

“Why'd you do this?”

He didn't answer, but a swift kick to the
ribs got him talking. “I heard you coming. I live in the house down
the road. I've stayed there... many decades... protecting my
secret.”

Sam joined Mark. Their shadows fell over the
man as he looked up at them with dark brown, malevolent eyes.
“Look,” Mark said, closing one eye to look down the barrel of the
gun. “I'm tired of being forced to ask so many questions. So here's
one more: Why don't you tell us this 'secret' of yours and I might
consider letting you go.”

“What's the point? If the truth gets out,
I'll lose the respect of my family, of my friends. I'll be
remembered as a monster, a murderer. Just kill me now.” Silence
fell over them. As if sensing the somber moment, the sun dipped
behind a patch of clouds, throwing everything into grayness again.
The man began to weep, tears trailing down his cheeks. “So many,
many years I've lived with the guilt of what we did to beautiful
Anna. She was the first to die at the hands of Dr. Walters and his
brutal methods. He thought stopping the brain, then jump-starting
it again was the best way to eliminate mental illness. I followed
in his footsteps, but I never meant to hurt her.”

He sighed and bowed his head in shame, still
seated on the gravel driveway. “After Anna, we started using the
crematorium for proper disposal of the bodies, but at the time of
Anna's death, the crematorium was still being constructed.” He
paused to wet his throat with saliva, head hanging low on his neck
to avoid eye contact with his captors. “Dr. Walters didn't want to
risk being shut down or forced to discontinue his work over one
accidental death. So we buried her, burned her files, made it so
she never existed. The doctor insisted on perfecting his
resuscitation skills, and with some patients the process seemed to
work. But as the death toll rose higher and higher: two, three,
four, five, six—I began to worry we were doing more harm than
good.” He wiped his nose, cleared his throat. “That's when I
started to see her. She was everywhere I turned, mocking me with
those blue lips and sad, lifeless eyes.”

Sam glanced up at the hospital, picturing her
in there, listening. Mark kept the revolver trained on his target.
“So I got the place shut down by reporting the other abuse that
went on here. It wasn't hard. And no one ever suspected me. I had
Harper Hospital condemned before the authorities had a chance to
discover the truth behind the missing patients. I only wanted to be
rid of the past, to keep the name Frederick Stout from going down
in history as a monster... a madman.”

His frail shoulders shook as he began to sob
harder. “You're not the first, you know. There was another young
man who came here poking around. He saw Anna. He followed her,
discovered my secret. He wasn't aware of me watching him, had no
way of knowing I see everything that happens on Harper Hill. Up
here... this is my world... just me, my house, and the asylum. I
heard him coming, the same as I heard you. And I buried him down
there with Anna.”

Sam shivered as the grisly details were
revealed. “And where is Anna?”

“Ask her yourself,” growled Frederick. He
lunged for Mark's legs, ramming his knees with all the force he
could muster. Mark lost his footing as the blow knocked him
sideways. He hit the ground, and Frederick was upon him, his speed
shocking for a man nearly a century old.

They grappled on the ground, pebbles flying
through the air. They were momentarily lost in a cloud of gravel
dust. When Sam could see again, the old man was straddling Mark. In
his hands was a pocket knife. He held it in the air, the blade
shining in his shaky grip as he prepared to plunge it into Mark's
chest.

Mark rolled sideways, crying out as the
knife's blade grazed his arm. He reared back with both fists and
delivered a double-punch to Frederick's sternum that sent him
flying backwards. The old man hit the rocks with an audible thud.
Sam approached, ready to dive for the Smith & Wesson that was
just within Frederick's spindly reach.

But he had fallen unconscious when his skull
hit the ground.

Sam watched as Anna's body was excavated. It
was nothing more than a skeleton in a tattered, knee-length dress.
The wild blonde hair had fallen away from her scalp. Even the word
“scalp” didn't apply, he thought. No skin remained on the cold,
hard skull. Her facial tissue had long ago turned into dust, a
ghoulish grin where her lips had once been. Sam hoped it wasn't too
late for the dead girl to find solace. He hoped she could finally
rest in peace.

Officer McRyan strolled over, thumbs tucked
into his belt. He stood next to Sam. “How did you know she was down
here?”

“Easy. I asked her, and she showed me.”

The cop wrinkled his brow, puzzled by the
statement, then shrugged and made a beeline for the group of
officers who formed a semi-circle around the corpse. The cellar was
alive with conversation as they discussed the bizarre findings: a
hidden room with a pool dug into the ground, a large well-sweep
device looming over it.

The police had doubted Sam when they arrived
on the scene where two young men held an older man hostage. Their
self-defense allegations were hard to believe. Fredrick Stout, a
frail geriatric of a man, didn't appear to have the vigor for an
act of violence. But there was proof, irrefutable evidence. When
Sam had thrown the camcorder to disarm the old man, miraculously
the record button had been pressed. Frederick's entire confession
was caught on video, and though Sam kept it to himself, deep down
he knew a pair of unseen hands had caused this stroke of luck.

Frederick Stout had refused to cooperate with
the police, not speaking a word to incriminate himself further. But
someone else had provided all the information they needed. Someone
who remembered every terrifying detail, who led Sam through the
hospital as Mark waited for the police with the Smith & Wesson
leveled at Frederick. She led him here, to Dr. Walter's hidden
chamber of torture, where she had drowned, where she'd been buried
and forgotten.

Photos were snapped and evidence was
collected. The young girl's body would leave the asylum today. If
only Sam could be certain this was enough to set her free.

Then he heard it. “Thank you,” her voice
whispered in his mind.

“You're welcome,” Sam whispered back.

He sighed and felt a gigantic weight lift
from his shoulders—until he noticed the dead man in the corner. He
looked around, but no one else seemed to notice. Mark stood outside
the door, attempting to flirt with a disinterested female officer.
The investigators went about their business. Sam turned his
attention back to the apparition.

The dead man hovered there, above the dirt
floor. A gunshot wound exposed a portion of his brain. Blood leaked
from the hole in his cranium as his dark eyes bore into Sam. The
ghostly figure reached out with a cadaverous hand, pointing to the
soil with the other.

“Officer McRyan!” Sam called. The tall man
jogged over. “Do you see that?” he asked.

“See what?”

Sam gulped. “The old man confessed to a
second murder, and I'm pretty sure you'll find the body over
there,” he said, pointing.

The officer cocked his head. “How do you
know? Did he tell you?” There was an awkward silence as Sam tried
to determine if McRyan meant the killer or the dead man. He had a
feeling the nerve-rattled cop phrased the question in such a way to
avoid the haunting truth.

“Yes,” Sam replied, leaving it at that.

The team set to work on digging up the second
corpse, carefully removing the soil. Sam hoped this was the end,
that there were no more souls trapped here. An eternity at Harper
Hill was a punishment too severe for even the likes of Frederick
Stout.

What
Happens In Vegas

Vivica tapped her six inch stilettos on the
floor and waited for her cue to enter stage left. Her chest heaved
in her sequin push-up top, and she fanned herself with both hands.
Calm down
, she thought,
before your eyeliner runs and you
turn into the world's sexiest raccoon.

Stage fright was something Vivica had never
experienced. She always said her nerves were stronger than steel;
they were titanium.
But you shouldn't have done it. It's a dirty
trick, and it's going to blow up in your face.

She watched Harvey on stage as a Burmese
python slithered up the sleeve of his tux. It reappeared, center
stage, in a cloud of confetti and smoke, and the crowd cheered.
Vivica frowned as Harvey's words from last night replayed in her
mind. She remembered the way he had scowled at her, had moved so
close to her face that she could feel his drunken body heat. “If I
catch you flirting with another man again,” he had hissed through
fetid whiskey breath, “I'll feed that goddamn rabbit of yours to
the snake.”

He smiled on stage. He turned to the crowd
with a dramatic sweep of his arms. “For the next bit of madness,
I'll need some assistance,” he bellowed. “She's hypnotic. She's
erotic. She's not afraid of the blade! Please welcome... Ms.
Vivica.”

Vivica entered the spotlight with a seductive
swagger. She stepped over to a large wooden structure. It was
circular, painted red and white like a huge target. She pressed her
back against the wood. Harvey tightened her restraints.

He stepped back, took aim, and within seconds
knives whizzed through the air, stabbing an outline of her body in
the wood.
Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.
A blade struck the
board mere inches from her face. She gritted her teeth. I'm getting
too old for this.

The show dragged on and on, until finally the
moment arrived. The hat trick. Harvey loved his tired old hat
trick. “An homage to the ancestors of magic”, he called it.

There was a secret compartment in the table
below his hat. That's where Abra Cadabra was supposed to be
waiting. Sweet, fluffy little Abra Cadabra, the bunny Harvey had
threatened to kill just one night before. Vivica smirked.

He plunged his hand into the hat and felt
around for the rabbit. He froze. A look somewhere between pain and
horror crossed his features. His eyes grew wide, and he let out a
scream so loud it made Vivica cringe. He writhed and tried to pull
away, but something yanked his arm deeper.

Vivica knew the rabbit would bite. That was
the whole point of the prank—to startle Harvey, to deliver a blow
to his pride in front of a huge audience. But this? Something
wasn't right. Harvey was in too much pain.

He freed his hand from the hole, and the fat,
hideous rabbit dangled there, its yellow teeth buried deep between
his knuckles. Blood and foamy saliva moistened its face. The hat
was stuck between Harvey's elbow and the frothing little beast. It
made it difficult for him to get a good view of his predator.

But Vivica could see it. She gulped. What
exactly was she seeing?

Triple the size of Abra, this rabbit's beady
red eyes were slanted, its hackles raised. Its sharp claws sliced
the air. Harvey gripped its plump body with his free hand and
attempted to squeeze the life out of the critter as it mangled his
knuckles, whipping its mangy head back and forth.

It opened its bloody maw and chomped down,
severing fingers. Blood squirted from the amputated digits. The
theater filled with screams. It spat the fingers out and lunged
forward, ripping into Harvey's arm. Tears of pain welled in his
eyes. Blood coated his shirt.

He reared back and flung the rabbit to the
floor. It growled, exposing a mouth full of fangs. It hopped over
to him and used its claws to scurry up the fabric of his pants. He
tried desperately to kick it off, doing a one-legged dance with his
mutilated hand tucked under his armpit. It scrambled across his
chest. Its face hovered just over the pulse at his jugular.

Vivica ran to him. A scream of agony echoed
through the sound system from a nearby microphone as the creature
tore into his neck. He fell to his knees, ripping the little
monster from his throat with both hands as crimson gore soaked its
fur. Harvey's fingers went limp and he dropped it.

Vivica's shadow fell over the rabbit. It
glared at her, yellow teeth bared. She lifted a slender leg and
stomped down with all her might, driving the thin metal of her
stiletto heel through the top of the rabbit's skull with a wet
crunch. The rabbit's paws twitched as she removed the metallic heel
from its brain. With one last feeble kick, it stopped moving.

She dropped to the floor beside Harvey. Blood
spilled from his neck. It soaked her knees and pooled around them
as memories of last night washed over her. The strange man's
words... “I have the perfect rabbit for you,” he had said. His eyes
shined like obsidian in the dim track lighting of the hotel bar.
“An extremely rare breed. One that will teach old Harvey a
lesson.”