Chapter One

The First Day

Five AM

The shrill, old-fashioned ringtone woke him from the troubled slumber he’d finally slipped into. Nick had tossed and turned for several hours, sleep proving to be as elusive as the suspect in his latest case. It had been a long ass day, part of a long ass week of tiring detective footwork on a half-baked tip that had ended up leading nowhere. Being a cop wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Still, it was what he wanted to do, despite the less than productive times. He was glad there were not too many of those particularly frustrating weeks.

Nick stretched, yawned, and rubbed his eyes, for a moment not sure why he had awakened. His cell rang again, and he grabbed it from the nightstand. He tried to read the caller I.D. but his eyes wouldn’t focus. In fact, he thought maybe one eye wasn’t quite open at all.

“Cotter,” he croaked as he answered the phone.

“Turn on the TV, dude. You’ve got to see this.”

“The fuck?” Nick fumbled for the remote, knocking it to the floor as his large hands swept the nightstand. “Why are you watching TV and not sleeping? It’s got to be two in the morning.”

“It’s five, and D’Angelo called,” his partner, Sam Longstaff, replied. “This is big.”

Nick grunted as he bent and retrieved the wayward remote, flicking on the television. “What channel?”

“All,” Sam answered. “I told you, it’s big.”

Nick flicked through a couple of channels, infomercials, and music before finding the news report.

The newscast showed a plane crash … or at least something that resembled a plane crash. He raised the volume up.

“…so far there has been no official word about what the 747 hit, but it is clear, at this stage, that it wasn’t another plane…” the unseen newscaster said over the vision of devastation: burning, twisted parts of a clearly destroyed airplane at the edge of a wooded field. “…there appear to be no survivors, although emergency crews haven’t given up hope…”

“What am I seeing here?” Nick asked.

He heard Sam draw in an excited breath. “You won’t believe this one, man.” Sam paused for dramatic effect. “The plane hit a UFO.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Sam laughed with unmitigated glee. “No shit dude, a UFO. Pilot called it in just before they collided.”

“You know it’s going to turn out to be a helicopter or a weather balloon.”

“This time, man, you’re wrong. Turns out the news guys were already filming in the area; they caught most of it on film. This can’t be a weather balloon. Get dressed. D’Angelo wants us at the station.”

Nick swung his long legs over the side of the bed. “Where can I see the shots of the UFO?” he asked, but the line was dead. He showered quickly and dressed.

A real UFO? The thought creased his brow and made his heart beat a touch faster.

Surely they were wrong. Had to be some experimental craft, or one of those spy planes that looked like a bat plane. Or something. But what if it really was a space craft? He shook his head. No, couldn’t be. I mean, this is every geek’s dream, every science fiction movie plot.

He sat on the sofa and pulled on his shoes, tying each lace methodically.

Still, it would be cool. Really cool. It’d be like being on X-files or something. Then again, it could be like ‘war of the worlds’ and everybody dies…

Nick slammed his front door and climbed into the squad car. He wasn’t a car enthusiast like Sam; he just took home whichever car was free or waited for his partner to pick him up. He had more important things to do on the weekend than spend every spare minute polishing chrome and buffing the detail. Well, he liked to tell himself he had more important things to do, but in reality, all he did was work on his never-ending renovation of his old two-bedder three streets over that he’d bought a few years ago as an investment. If he ever finished the renovations, he would finally be able to sell the damn place, and his investment might pay off. If he was honest with himself, he’d admit that he liked to renovate, and if he did ever finish and sell the place, he would probably just buy another and start renovating all over again. Though if this thing turned out to be a real UFO maybe he would take up more interests closer to align to his partner, and best friend. Sam was the one who watched all the science fiction movies and TV shows.

Nick flicked off the radio as he pulled out of the drive and took the backstreets to the station. He was glad he didn’t come in the front when he arrived, the station was a hive of activity, media staff and vehicles were blocking the street, public crowding around, and barriers set up to control the whole thing. Nick had to turn the siren on more than once to clear the milling crowd and gain access to the underground parking lot.

Sam greeted him at the elevator doors, a large takeaway coffee in one hand, and a bagel in the other. Nick accepted them without a word, just a raised brow of curiosity.

Right on queue the floor sergeant, Conrad D’Angelo, a middle aged, stocky man poked his head out of his office.

“Boss is looking for us,” Sam quietly told Nick.

“Best we get our asses in there, then,” Nick grinned.

“He’s been like a premenstrual housewife since I got here,” said Sam, and smiled back.

They started to walk to the office, shoulder to shoulder. Nick was about three inches shorter than Sam, his close-cropped blonde hair framed a very handsome face, his broad shoulders and athletic body making him look more like a male model than a cop. Sam’s hair was darker, though he was just as handsome, his six-foot two frame and longish hair giving him a roguish appearance. Both men were single, in their thirties, and were known in the precinct as the ‘the pin-up boys,’ a title which they begrudgingly accepted with embarrassed good humor.

They had been detectives for nearly five years now, partners for much longer. They both met on their first assignment at a small suburban police station and had immediately taken to each other. Though their interests were chalk and cheese, they at least shared the same sense of humor, if not the same taste in food, movies and music. They did not look alike, however were often asked if they were brothers, such was their easy camaraderie. After so long together they talked the same, they thought the same, they even finished each other’s sentences.

Sam was younger by about four years; the police force was his first job out of college. He was from good, working class folk, his parents had all been honest, salt of the earth people, his father a carpenter and his mother a dressmaker, happily married and very proud of their children. Their older son just started working with his father and their tall, handsome, youngest boy was set to follow in his footsteps. The two girls were following their mother in her trade. All in all, they led a happy, no frills life, yearly camping vacation, public schools, smallish house and a single car.

The night Sam’s family was mugged on the street, his father killed, his mother attacked, and his older brother beaten senseless, Sam changed his mind on his future career. He saw the way the police helped, how they rescued his family and how they brought the offenders to justice. In his heart he knew that was something he wanted to do. He wanted to help people in the same way he had been helped. He enrolled in the police academy the day after he graduated college and he never looked back.

Cotter was different. He was the only son of a wealthy lawyer, his father a partner in a successful law firm, his mother a debutante and a finishing school graduate. He was raised in private schools, holidayed overseas or in the Hamptons, and never wanted for anything. He may have been blessed with blue blood, but he was hardly cut from the same cloth. After four years of watching the wheeling and dealings of his father’s practice he started to question his career path.

The final straw for Nick Cotter was watching his father win the case of a man who had been accused of murdering his wife and one of his children. Acquitted, the man had gone on to kill his wife’s family and his remaining child the day after he walked free from court. His parents were bitterly disappointed when Nick walked out of his father’s law practice to join the police force.

Nick’s first glance of the gangly, mop-haired young Sam standing in the lunchroom, filling his mouth with powdered doughnuts, made him laugh out loud. He was pleasantly surprised when the young man laughed along with him, and a friendship was made. They were paired up to walk the beat together and the friendship was cemented for all time.

No one looked twice as the tall men walked together now, side by side, in step, coffees in hand as they marched towards their desks. They were dressed nearly identically in jeans and button downs, black casual boots and their IDs clipped to their pockets.

“So why were you up watching TV at this ungodly hour?” Nick asked in between bites of his bagel.

Sam ran a hand through his long dark hair, sweeping it away from his face. “I wasn’t up at four. Was up at two, just finished…um…entertaining.” He grinned lasciviously. “Anyway, the TV was on when the news report broke through the program and, well, all shit broke loose. I watched it for ages. Then, the boss called.”

D’Angelo spotted the two detectives and beckoned them into his office. “Did Sam fill you in?” he asked Nick.

Nick shrugged. “I’m not getting much of this. He’s telling me a UFO crashed into a plane. Seriously, I’m thinking someone is taking the mickey.”

D’Angelo shook his head. “This is as serious as a heart attack. The plane was a passenger plane carrying one hundred and seventy-five souls. Here, look at the news report.”

Sam sat on the edge of the desk, Nick beside him as he took a large mouthful of the bagel.

D’Angelo turned the TV that was balancing precariously on his filing cabinet around so they could all see it. The report started with the news crew who were filming a large recreational area at night to highlight the growing homeless situation, when bright lights in the sky caught the lens of the camera. The cameraman’s arm flashed in front of the image, directing everyone’s attention to the spectacle in the sky. He focused up onto the lights and followed their erratic behavior, moving in a way that did not seem physically possible for anything other than a video game. D’Angelo stopped the report and pressed play on a large camera hooked up to the television monitor.

“This is the same camera from the same news crew,” he explained. “This is where things get interesting.”

The second cameraman started to film the dancing lights in the sky. They were bright, almost resembling two fireflies darting around each other. Until it became obvious that these were not, in fact, insects, but two aircraft, as they descended closer to the ground and started firing on each other. They maneuvered like no aircraft that Nick had ever seen, and as they got closer to the cameraman it was clear that they were something very unfamiliar. They were like something straight from a science fiction movie: two ships, sleek, dark, similar, but not the same, the only lights were the jets and the weapons ports as they fired, sparks flying and arcing as the beams of power hit the opponent’s ship, though little damage could be seen.

The cameraman was highly skilled; he kept the ships in focus as they darted about, battling for who knew what. One ship seemed to gain the advantage as it fired on the other; a flare of fire appeared, and flames broke out across the rear of the second ship as it started to climb in a haphazard way. The first ship broke off and sped away and the damaged one tried to follow. A gasp from the cameraman signaled the terrifying sight of a before unnoticed low flying commercial airliner about to cross the path of the damaged second ship. The airliner was coming in very low; it was preparing to land at the airport close by. The strange craft seemed to try to avoid it, but the damage must have limited it from turning as sharply as before and it listed to one side.

The airplane and the damaged craft collided.

The collision was loud, fiery, and horrific. The commercial plane exploded as the strange craft sheared into it, cutting it in half just in front of the engines. The explosion rained fire and debris across the park, people watching the display ran screaming from the path of destruction as the nose of the plane, separated now, hit the ground.

The camera caught it all.

Nick watched, mesmerized, unable to look away as the chunks of wreckage hit the ground, killing anyone unlucky enough to be in their path. A homeless man previously seen sheltering in a cardboard box now ran screaming, as his clothes burnt into bubbling skin peeled from him. A woman who had been pushing a shopping trolley ran as fast as she could as a large hunk of metal sheared her in half, her lower torso falling and her upper body slamming to the ground in a bloody heap at the camera man’s feet.

“What happened to the other ship?” Nick breathed.

“Keep watching.” D’Angelo didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

There, the camera tilted back, the other craft spun drunkenly as it fell, you could almost feel the effort it was making to stay airborne; but it sustained too much damage and finally hit the ground with a white explosion. The camera went dark for a moment while it adjusted to the sudden flash, then the picture came back. People were screaming, some on fire, the rest of the film crew were trying to help the injured while the unseen cameraman continued to film. He started walking forward, towards the place the smaller craft crashed, filming the whole time. Surrounding him were bodies, pieces of the plane, seats, baggage, fuselage, most burning or burnt. The cameraman continued, the further he got into the park the more devastating the scene became. Trees and shrubs were blasted out, there were pieces of bodies here rather than intact victims, and the wreckage was in chunks of smoldering, unrecognizable pieces.

He stepped over a man sliced perfectly in half, his severed intestines dangling between the halves. A woman turned to grab at his foot before she lay still, one eye hanging from its socket, her lower jaw ripped away, most of her throat gone, and where her chest had been, a gaping opening filled with blood. The camera took it all in as the unseen operator stepped forward, holding his camera on the devastation, walking forward, pausing to stop and check the pulse of a man who, once the camera man’s hand touched him, tilted to one side revealing a faceless skull separated from his body, his brain spilled out onto the scorched ground.

The camera tipped back up as the man continued forward. It was incredibly dark, only the flickering of flames from burning foliage lit the cameraman’s path, and it became almost silent, the distant screams and horror far behind him, only his breath and footsteps could be clearly heard. This picture froze as D’Angelo leaned forward and hit the pause button.

“Was that weird enough for you? Just wait, it gets even weirder.” He pressed play and leaned back.

The cameraman stumbled, briefly, and then righted himself. He gasped. The camera swung for a moment, and then pointed at the downed mysterious aircraft. It was damaged, but still surprisingly almost in one piece. It was about thirty feet long and about sixteen feet high, matt black and almost featureless. No windows were obvious, no doors or portals, either. The damage to the craft was easily seen. The top was peeled back, torn like a discarded can, and fire burned in and around it. On the ground around the UFO were two bodies, mangled, but still recognizable as human.

They were clothed in dark uniforms, but too damaged to tell if they were male or female. They were torn open like gutted fish, intestines and internal organs spilling forth, faces smashed beyond recognition. The camera panned around and found pieces of what were most likely two or three more similarly clad bodies.

Sirens could now be heard in the background as the cameraman moved closer; the heat of the flames prevented him from getting much nearer the ship than he was. Sparks arced and leapt from the hole in the top and electric wires spun wildly, blue flames tinged the red and orange fire that billowed from the craft. He circled the ship, filming as he went.

On the far side were more bodies. There was a young male, jeans, t-shirt, half of his chest and right arm were gone. A young woman was beside him, she was on her stomach, the skin on her back was torn away to reveal her spine and ribs, the top of her pelvis could be seen poking bloodily through her skin.

Another body in a dark uniform, missing a head, was otherwise intact. The camera panned up and down, it was a male, and the dark uniform, made of a fabric like vinyl, was more clearly revealed. It looked like something from a science fiction show. There was metal insignia on the shoulders and chest, knee high boots and a large belt with a silver buckle.

The camera panned over and picked up another ruined body. This one was also clad in a dark uniform but slightly different from the others’ attire. There was blood everywhere and the body was ripped from groin to sternum, ribs and muscle exposed. Blood covered the lower pelvis and several large loops of intestines spilled out onto the ground beside them.

Legs clearly were broken as they twisted off into weird angles, on one the bone sheared through the skin and it pointed up towards the sky, sinew and muscle stretched and pulled through the tear in the membrane. The devastation was much the same with both arms, and one hand was torn almost completely away.

The throat was deeply slashed, and it oozed dark blood onto the scorched ground. The camera zoomed in showing a helmet partially torn off the body; now seen more clearly it looked to be a woman. Her hair was white; most of her face was still covered in pieces of the helmet.

The arm of the cameramen could be seen coming into frame as he pulled at the remaining helmet, removing it to reveal a face that was covered in blood and soot, it was cut, ripped and burned, lit only by the reflected light of the burning craft. Small metal pieces caught the reflected firelight, they looked to be piercings.

The camera continued to film her body, showing again her injuries, and panning back to her face. A chunk of fuselage sliced into one side of her face and protruded through one eye. It had torn through her cheek and stopped at the corner of her mouth. Her lips were stretched into a rictus grin, some teeth exposed, others crushed in half. The cameraman cried out in shock as the good eye snapped open, the bright green iris moved and then stopped when it hit the camera. The lips parted; a gasp of pain released as blood flowed freely from her mouth. She took a shuddering breath, the ripped chest catching the cameraman’s attention as he zoomed out. Her lungs, exposed to the night through the massive chest wound, could clearly be seen inflating as she struggled to draw breath.

He set the camera on the ground, still filming, and for the first time the cameraman entered the shot as he leant over the woman to try to render her aide. A young man, slightly built with a trucker’s cap worn backward over a tousle of red hair, he kneeled beside the woman as he pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Her gaze didn’t follow him, and as he waved his hand past her eye, she did not track his hand. He lifted her helmet off and blood splashed from it, a large chunk of skull staying in the helmet as he pulled it off. Her brain could be clearly seen, the cameraman hesitated, not sure what to do as his hand hovered over the exposed organ, then he tried to place the helmet back on, covering the bloody wound.

The woman lifted one arm, the hand hanging by a strip of sinew as she waved the broken, clearly visible bone in the air. She seemed to be trying to speak, blood splashed from her mouth as well as her throat. The cameraman was at a loss as to what to do so he touched her face, then her shoulder, making soothing sounds that could not be understood by the viewers. The woman stopped moving and laid her arm back down. Each ragged breath she drew raised and lowered her ribs as they pointed to the sky like bloody fingers.

The fire from the broken craft was growing in intensity and the cameraman grabbed the back of the woman’s collar and dragged her away, picking up his camera as he passed it. His grunts and steps could be heard but were being drowned out now by a loud buzzing noise. The sound grew louder as the cameraman once again placed the camera on the ground before he straddled the body of the woman, trying to pull her uniform across her exposed ribs.

“How are we seeing this?” asked Nick, his face a mask of shock. “I mean, how did you get this footage?”

“Cameraman just left the camera on the ground,” D’Angelo told him. “One of our uniforms picked it up, brought it into me not fifteen minutes before you got here. We don’t know what exactly happened next, but look, you can see him collapse.”

The cameraman started using a handkerchief to wipe the blood from the side of the woman’s cheek when he stopped, his hands paused in mid-air. His eyes rolled upwards in their sockets and he fell backwards, and although he was mostly obscured by the injured woman you could see he was having a seizure. After a few moments he stopped and lay still. The woman’s ravaged chest just continued to rise and fall as she struggled to pull in breaths. She didn’t move away, and the camera just kept filming. In the background the buzzing sound grew so loud that the camera started to shake, and the craft exploded in a violent rush of white light.

It took several seconds before the camera adjusted after the flash and it revealed the scorched ground where the ship had been, though now the wreckage was mostly destroyed in the bright explosion, taking the surrounding bodies with it. In the foreground the woman continued her slow labored breaths, her chest rising and falling, but no other movement could be seen.

“What happens next?” Sam asked his sergeant.

“Not much really. You see EMT guys all over the place, and a uniform guy picks up the camera and turns it off.”

Nick drained the last of his coffee, cold now, and stood, confused and concerned. “What did we just see here?” he asked, his voice not quite steady. A rational man, this was something his sanity was fighting to believe, something that he was finding difficult to understand.

Sam folded his arms across his chest. His mind was a little more open than his partner’s, though the idea that this was all real had not fully filled his reality yet. “She was ripped up, that girl. Head to toe. How could she be alive?”

Nick scratched his head. “I’ve seen it before, people go on for half an hour or more till their brain finally realizes they’re dead.”

Sam stood again. “And what killed the camera guy, some E.T. virus? And what the hell was that ship?”

Nick shook his head. “I must ask, how did we get assigned to this event? Isn’t this something the feds would take over, or the military; surely not the Police Department?”

D’Angelo leaned back against the closed door; his hands tucked into the front loops of his pants. “No one knows we got the camera. The men filming with the cameraman just know he died, they probably think he got killed in the explosion. I have found out that the woman is still alive, in the E.R.”

Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re shittin’ me. She’d clocked out, she just didn’t know it.” He pulled himself up onto the desk and sat cross legged. “You reckon she was from the plane, or E.T.’s station wagon?”

D’Angelo and Nick turned to him. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, my boy,” D’Angelo told him. “I’m thinking you two get your asses down to the hospital and see what the fuck you can find out. Before Uncle Sam gets hold of her.”

Sam slid off the desk. “This is epic. I can’t believe this! UFOs, people keeling over with E.T. disease, others staying alive when they’re minced, it’s like we’re in a movie!”

Nick shook his head. “Dude, it’s serious, not a Disney adventure.”

D’Angelo moved away from the door. “Just be careful. We don’t have jurisdiction here, really, and we don’t know what killed that cameraman. Just, don’t touch anything, okay?”

Nick nodded. “This is all very surreal.”

D’Angelo gave him a half grin. “Just pretend you’re in the movie that’s playing in Longstaff’s head.” He unplugged the camera. “Don’t mention this camera to anyone. Understand?” he placed the camera in a drawer of the cabinet and locked it. “As far as you know, it doesn’t exist.”

The two tall men made their way to the underground car park. Both were silent as they mulled over the strange occurrences. Neither could believe what they just witnessed. Sam hit the door to the parking lot with his elbow, smacking it against the wall as they marched through.

“I’m driving,” Sam stated.

Nick shrugged. “Of course you’re driving, you dick. I hate driving.”

“Well, we’re taking a squad car. Easier access in and out.”

“Makes sense.” He turned and gave his partner a grin. “Be a nice break from those Japanese plastic cars you like to drive.”

Sam punched him in the arm. “At least I drive. I swear one day I’m forcing you to get a license.”

Nick climbed into the squad car. “I have a license. I just like to be chauffeured around.”

“Funny.”

“Yeah, I’m laughing.”

Find out more about Caroline on her website.

Origin of Evil is now available for Kindle and in paperback here. Coming soon to Audible.

Time and Tide Waits (from Elements of Horror Book Four: Water)

Andrew Bell

It was now or never, he thought, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, feeling the cold sweat trickle down his back.

 They sat upon the dune, a late summer sun struggling to break through the low, gun metal grey clouds that dragged themselves across the north-east coast of England to the ancient shore of Seaton Carew. The sound of coin-operated gambling machines and the scent of beef burgers and fried onions rode the stiffening breeze that had increased over the past hour. All they needed now was the delicate ripple of children’s laughter and John and Emma could quite possibly be enjoying an evening, the likes of which they had grown accustomed to over the past ten summers together. John grinned from ear to ear and gave her the wink of an eye.

 “Here?” said Emma, the look of shock in her face, the sudden paleness of her usually rosy cheeks. “Now?” By the time she had uttered her second word, John had graduated from gut-stiffening nervousness to eagerness. To get the deed done and over with, to shut her the hell up so he could move on with his life.

 “Well,” John replied, shaking his head, “why in the hell not? Remember when we used to do crazy stuff like this?”

 “Only if you think it’s safe…” Emma began, but it was all the affirmation he needed. Her blouse was already being unbuttoned by the time she took another bite of her corned beef and onion sandwich. “I’m not finished.”

 It had been easy. His stomach churned and he wanted to regurgitate his half of the bloody picnic, beer sloshing around in his gut as he turned his hulking figure of a wife over. He knew that now he didn’t have to make eye contact with her the evening would run a lot smoother. That was indeed the plan.

“Jonathan, you’re hurting me,” Emma said, trying to turn her head, but her long blonde hair was a tangle of sand and silver, wrapped about her husband’s fist. “Stop it, it’s not fun anymore… Jonathan, STOP IT!”

 CRACK!

John froze, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs now as Emma fell limp in the sand.

 “Honey?” he whispered, gently slapping her large, bare hips. She didn’t move or say a word.

  He rolled off the body and sat in the sand, still half naked. A seagull wheeled in the heavens, gliding around and around. He shook violently, trying to throw up, but it wouldn’t happen. He was in total control; the master of this moment and it was down to him to finish what he had started.

 “I can do this,” he said with conviction in his voice. “I can do this. It’s what you wanted.” He stared down at Emma’s head, how she faced away from him in the sand, neck broken and already turning a faint black. “Come on, Jonathan, move your arse.”

 Tears poured from his eyes, but he failed to distinguish those from panic, grief and loss, from freedom, accomplishment and joy, as he looked down at the large patch of sand where he had made love to his wife not minutes earlier. Now there was nothing but dark, disturbed sand.

 “About as dark and disturbed as you,” he whispered, quickly surveying the rest of the beach. But despite the blood pounding in his ears and the rumbling in his stomach, only the sound of coins rattling in collection trays in the penny arcade nearby, and the gentle hiss of the sea as it made its way up the beach, converged upon him.

 That’s when he noticed the tall figure standing knee deep in the silver sea, staring right at him. He looked about, just in case he was seeing things, but unlike in the movies, the figure was still there; staring, pulling at its wide brimmed hat as if in salute. The long, pale yellow raincoat looked almost held together by mould as the figure slowly turned his back on the beach.

John wanted to run down to the shore, grab whoever the bastard thought he was – spying on him like that! But that was pretty much the extent of his thoughts. For the ocean had slowly washed over the stranger, head, shoulders, and all.

He couldn’t sleep. It was unseasonably warm, not for the August weather, but for this part of England! The solstice had passed and now the dark nights were quickly drawing in. Yet the heat moved about the house like a trapped bird.

 “Screw this,” he mumbled. He left the bedroom, unable to look at Emma’s side of the bed, and made his way down the stairs to the kitchen. The linoleum felt icy beneath his bare feet, an equally cool breeze enveloped his clammy body as he crossed to the… that’s when he noticed the back door was ajar, swinging slowly on its hinges. He reached the keys from the hook near the sink and slammed the door shut, jammed the lock fast and drew the deadbolts.

  John wanted to laugh, shook his head, and raked his hands through his thinning hair. He squeezed his eyes closed, watching the stars dance there for a moment, the keys jangling softly from the lock the only sound; except for the hammering of his heart.

 “Sleep…get some sleep.” He’d figure everything out when the sun came up, he decided. He’d killed his wife and now nothing was behaving the way it should, especially his nerves. He nodded and let out a deep breath.

 It wasn’t until he reached the foot of the staircase that he noticed the small pools of water, leading from the kitchen, along the pine-floored hallway, to the living room. In the darkness his pulse kicked a bass drum, he could barely see the light switch on the wall opposite, could hardly reach it. His stomach turned, assaulted by the sudden reek.

He flicked the switch.

Emma was in the living room, sitting in her favourite chair, the one closest to the television set. Her pale face was encrusted with dark spots, grains of sand that reached across the deep purple bruise on her throat and along her mouth, spilled over her double chin like vomit. Her clothing was soaked through, her blouse open, revealing her lifeless body, which now seemed the most revolting thing John had ever seen.

Then he saw the look in her eyes.

They were black with the hint of a cataract in her right eye. But they were staring at him. Something was moving on her lips…

“Fuck!” John hollered as the small crab crawled from Emma’s swollen lips, seeming to fix him with its cold, unforgiving eyes, before disappearing between the folds of its host’s dead skin.

“Emma?”

“She can’t hear you.”

John almost lost his balance as he swung round to meet the figure sitting in the chair at the far side of the room.

The leather squealed beneath its weight as it reached a bony hand up to the wide brimmed hat, which balanced precariously on its scrawny head. The worn and fleshless skull twisted slowly to the right, filling the silence with a sickening crackle and popping sound.

“That feels better,” the figure mumbled, placing the hat back on its head.

John managed to catch a glimpse of the deep crevice that separated the left temple from its jaw; a shiver running down his spine.

“What are you doing in my house?” said the skull. “Isn’t that what you were going to say?”

“That…that was you,” stammered John. “That was you in the water.”

Whatever it was slowly nodded. Water, or some other fluid, poured from its broken skull like thick black tar.

“Bob Carpenter,” it said.

“And that’s supposed to mean…something to me?” John stammered.

“She was pretty tough to dig up…I like your style. Good and deep. Just like your last goodbye, eh?” Bob chuckled. The sound of his laughter was like fingers raking through gravel.

“What have you done?” John’s voice was little more than a whisper.

“Me?” Bob placed a hand on his chest. “What have I done?”

“Look…I had to do what I did,” replied John, unable to take his eyes off his wife’s rotten, sunken face. “Just…just take her back…Go back, whatever you want …I can’t help you.”

Bob shook his head. “I can’t do that, erm, mister… Jonathan Stainsby,” he said, looking at a credit card he’d taken from a wallet from the coffee table by his knees. He flung it across the room. “Not the greatest of names, but I guess it would have to do.”

“This is insane!”

“I can help you,” said Bob steadily, clearing what throat he still possessed. “I can ensure nobody knows about your dearly beloved over there. The police would never know…and she’d never be found…”

“But I had her covered. Nobody would’ve found her anyway.”

“Well, I can’t let that happen.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

Silence hung in the air for a moment except for the all too familiar tap tap tap of water that fell from Bob’s elbow. It collected by his feet.

“Swim with me.”

“What?” John laughed. “Swim with you? Why the hell for? Get out of my house! This isn’t happening. I’m going back to bed.”

“As you wish,” replied Bob, slowly getting up out of the chair.

“And…you can take that…thing with you,” said John, pointing in Emma’s direction, unable to look upon the abominable husk that now sat in its favourite chair.

“Come on, sugar,” said Bob, picking Emma up into a fireman’s lift, groaning under the weight. “We’ve outstayed our welcome.”

John watched him walk through the kitchen, accidentally hitting Emma’s head on the door frame in the process. This was real, thought John, his gorge rising. This was really happening.

“See you later,” said Bob, kicking the back gate. The latch slammed loudly in the oppressive silence as he left the yard.

John woke up, screaming. The bed was a crumpled mess of damp sheets and pillows, and his shorts and tee shirt were soaked through with perspiration.

“You’re losing it, John-boy,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looked over at the bedside clock and gave a sigh. It was almost two in the afternoon.

He heard a grumbling noise, which resembled a hungry stomach. But there was nothing in the room – then he heard it again. John jumped out of bed and crossed to the window. He gave a chuckle as he saw the weekly yard bin collection truck reverse slowly along the back alley.

“I couldn’t give a shit this week, fellas,” he chuckled.

He was about to turn away from the window when his skin sunk like melted wax on his muscles. In the yard below, where he kept the bins, something familiar was hanging over the edge of the one closest to the gate.

It was a human arm.

Emma’s arm!

And the rubbish collectors were climbing out of their truck and making their rounds!

He almost lost his balance descending the stairs, jumping from the last few, hitting the floor with a heavy, loud thud. Pain lanced through his bare feet, but he ignored it in his haste to reach the yard before the collectors could.

“It’s okay, lads,” he said, steadily pulling the bins closer to the house. The ground was wet from the previous evening’s rainfall, but he knew he could survive a pair of soggy feet. “They’re bloody empty anyway.”

The two council workers gave a shrug before moving on to the next yard.

The grin upon his face was starting to hurt. But when he was confident that nobody could see, John pulled the bin inside the kitchen, despite the stench arising from it.

The arm dangled lifelessly from the bin; thin blue veins criss-crossed the pallid flesh like creeping ivy. He wanted to throw up, but there was no time.

He knew he had broken the speed limit, but that didn’t matter. If he had been caught by camera then so be it, he thought, shrugging his boots from his feet, ignoring the thick, wet clods of earth he had trailed through the hallway. He needed sleep. The sun was setting, and the birds sang softly in the tree outside. But he just craved his bed.

The body was now buried in a shallow grave over fifty miles away.

 The next morning, as he lifted his head from the pillow, Emma was there beside him, just like the devoted wife she had been in life.

Her flesh was almost a green hue, mottled and loose. Her eyes had vanished, leaving two black and fathomless orbits. But they looked upon him as though the darkness was pure hatred. She was covered in the earth that he had buried her in the previous evening, and now John wanted to claw at her ghastly face, tear her fucking head clean from her shoulders!

That’s when he heard the strained sound of laughter. He surveyed the room, but it was coming from without. John closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, knowing what was coming next.

He gave Emma a wide berth as he made his way to the window and looked down. Bob Carpenter was looking up at him, a hand at his wide brimmed hat in salutation. He could do nothing but watch the figure walk away, disappearing behind a bush.

“This is what you wanted!” John called out, feeling the rough hands of the evening breeze pull at his hair. The arcades of Seaton Carew were closed for the day, yet he could still detect a hint of toffee apple and hotdog floating on the breeze. “Come on then, Mr. Carpenter. I’m waiting!”

“I knew you’d see sense,” a voice replied. It was from afar, but it could easily have been an echo from inside his own head, it was so clear and crisp. “Get it? Sea sense?”

“I get your joke…What do you want?”

“Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”

John hesitated a moment, peering over his shoulder at the car parked further up the beach.

“She’ll be fine,” said Bob, shaking his head. “You worry too much.”

He had left small, deep delves in the wet sand; they dotted the beach from the frothy shoreline up to where the dunes began.

“Where everything began?”

“What did you say?”

“Isn’t that what you were thinking?” replied Bob. “Don’t you regret the whole mess?”

“No, I don’t. It was meant to be. It had to be done.”

Bob reached out a skeletal arm around the other man’s shoulder, nodding slowly, turning him to face the gun metal grey shore as it crept further up the beach. “I like your style, sunshine,” he said, turning him to face the ocean.

They made it to the shore, and John turned towards Bob.

“Who are you?”

“You don’t recognise me?” replied Bob, shaking his head. “Of course, you wouldn’t recognise me.”

“Hold on a minute,” said John, squinting his eyes in the gloom. “I don’t recognise you, but I remember the story now,” he said. “You were all over the Hartlepool Post a few years ago. Fell off the pier and smashed your skull against the rocks…deserved it if you ask me. The police hunted you down after weeks of you being on the run.”

“Well how do you think I got this little love bite? And it was more than a “few” years as you so eloquently put it,” Bob replied heavily as though he was becoming increasingly impatient by the second. He removed his hat and pointed a bony finger at the crack in his head. In the setting sunlight the mould, which spilled over the jagged crevice, appeared almost luminescent. And for the first time, John had the misfortune of seeing the monster’s face in all its hellish glory. The tide and its myriad creatures had taken the lions’ share of his meat, leaving the scraps to time. And now, as leathery flesh which appeared as dry as parchment hung from his face, it did resemble a human being. Through the narrow crack in his skull, fading sunlight shimmered like quicksilver. He turned to face John, but the other man quickly averted the cold empty eye sockets as if staring might awaken a plague of locusts from the living corpse’s rancid soul. “It must have been…” said Bob, letting the icy water rush over his black, tattered trouser legs. “Let me see now… ah, yes, almost thirty years ago now.”

“That was before I was born,” said John, as though that little pearl of information was of any consequence whatsoever. “But it had been in the news, I remember seeing it in some old newspaper cut-outs mum and dad used to keep in an old china teacup. Come to think of it now, my friend’s mum had the same cut-out. Everybody knew about it…You murdered your wife…”

The ocean crept further up their legs as they walked along the shore. There was a lull in the air as though the world and everything in it had suddenly taken a deep breath, as if in anticipation.

“Don’t even think it.”

“What?”

“Don’t you be getting all righteous on me,” said Bob, staring out into the thin, amber line on the horizon. “You and I were cut from the same cloth.”

“You killed your wife…”

“Correction!” snapped Bob, holding a finger in the air. He stood still now, looking squarely at John, a living scarecrow of a figure, the brim of his dirty hat bending slightly to the marshalling breeze. “The bitch was my brother’s wife. And who are you? Or should I say, what are you?”

The other man nodded slowly, looking down at the water as it swirled about his thighs.

“We had an affair,” Bob continued, shrugging his almost non-existent shoulders. “But what had started out as a bit of slap and tickle in the afternoon soon turned into something a lot more serious. Dumb blonde wanted to come clean, but I loved my kid brother. I couldn’t let that happen…so she had to go. Besides, the conniving little slut was going to rat on me anyway. I liked sex…what can I say? I didn’t belong to her.”

“But…”

“What does all this have to do with you? That’s what you were thinking, right? See, I know you…I know about everyone in this fucking God forsaken town!” The anger arose from deep within the labyrinth of rot and putrescence. The water seemed to respond to his frustration and darkening mood, slapping against their bodies, splashing against their legs; the tide holding them firmly in place as though they were trying to wade through setting cement. “I used to work on the docks just half a mile behind us. There were some adventures going on there, believe me. I didn’t just operate cranes, my friend. Fishermen would pull in and off load their catch of the day, but also smuggle in a couple of tarts now and again. You know how it is; a young lad with money in his pocket and pussy on his mind, gets down and dirty after work. So…Lizzie, that was the hole I was filling behind my kid’s back, decided to come meet me after the whistle blew. It was ten o’clock and I was already well-oiled by the time Lizzie found me, head down between another girl’s legs…”

“So, you got rid of her?”

“The girl was called Sharyn,” Bob ruminated, ignoring John’s words as if he shared the water with no other soul. “She had the sexiest, darkest, brown eyes I had ever seen. What she knew about sex made me look like a clumsy schoolboy pushing to cop a feel of tit on a first date! Her skin was as smooth as marble, and her hair was as black as jet. I can’t remember ever running my hands through something which felt like freshly spun silk before…”

“She sounds amazing,” replied John, even though he knew his remark would fall on deaf ears, or rather, non- existent ears. “Where is she now?”

Bob nodded inland, towards the dunes.

“But…I can’t see her,” said John, shading his eyes from the darkening horizon. “There’s nobody up there.”

Bob chuckled, shaking his head. It was a harsh, hollow sound, a rumble not of his body but from Hell itself.

“You hit the nail on the head, my friend.”

“What?”

“Oh, there’s a body up there, all right,” Bob replied, sighing. “It’s under the dunes.”

John froze, silence taking him by the throat, its grip tightening.

“I’m surprised you didn’t find her when you were poking around with your wife’s corpse.”

“I want this to end…please, tell me what to do,” John said, his voice crackling, throat as dry as sandpaper. “You won’t let me be until this is fucking over, will you?”

Bob slowly shook his head; his permanent skull smiles gleaming in the dusky sunlight.

“Sharyn told me about the wonders of the deep,” said Bob, sitting on the dune whilst watching John, cold and shaking, rake at the sand with his bare hands. “Yes, she knew a thing or two…she believed in the afterlife too. You see, we kept on seeing each other, even after I dumped Lizzie. I can’t remember ever having such a great and meaningful time with another person before. Love? I don’t know about that. Fascination is probably a little closer to the truth, I suppose.”

“Please don’t make me do this. I’m begging you,” said Jonathan, almost waist deep in the sand.

“But you’re almost there, my friend,” Bob replied, shaking his head. “I had to bury her good and deep, you know? I’m not as strong as I used to be. When she came here to kill herself, I didn’t like it. I mean, who would want to witness the one you love… But when I had the strength I crawled from the sea, took her lifeless body, dug the grave and…well, there you have it.”

“Sacrifice? Is that what…”

Bob nodded.

“When my body got washed out to sea, she knew I was never coming back. Even when she knew I had killed Lizzie, she harboured me for a short while, kept the police away when the heat got unbearable.

“At night, we’d make love…and she was an animal. Everything about her was magical. I was a dullard at school; never stuck in. I was just one of the lad’s eager to kick a football around. So, one night she showed me her collection of books. I joked around for a time but then started to take an interest in the thick, leather bound tomes that took pride of place on the shelf in her grubby little bedsit. They looked as though they had survived a few wars. One of them was covered in what I later found out was human fat. Not candle wax, but actual human fat. It contained passages that she insisted had been written by mermaids…I know, I know, I thought it was a load of crap too, my friend.”

John felt the first needles of ice-cold rain prick his cheek. The rumble of thunder came up from behind him like a prankster, but he was grateful for its icy breeze. His fingers were numbing from pulling at the sand, the fear of stroking the rotten flesh of Bob’s dearly beloved made his blood run cold.

“So…what did this book tell you?”

“It was more of a guidebook than anything else,” replied Bob, turning to face the sea, the red line was visible through the crack in his skull. “When the coppers finally caught up with me, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew that nothing and nobody could touch me. That’s what the book taught me. For the first time in my whole life…I was awaking. Sharyn took her pills and fell asleep. I’d laid her to rest, but it wasn’t over by a long chalk.”

“Why me?” John cried, wanting to fall back in the dune and sleep, in the hope this nightmare would end.

“You’re a murderer,” said Bob. “Oh, don’t look at me in that tone of voice, my friend. We are one and the same. Waiting thirty years for someone like you to come along had taken its toll. In fact, I was thinking you’d never arrive.”

That’s when John screamed.

He quickly climbed out of the hole as though a bucket of scorpions had been poured in there with him. Backing away from his find now, both hands covering his mouth, he looked over at the skeletal abomination standing over the grave.

“Good lad,” it said, nodding slowly. “You found her.”

He couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he carried the corpse to the sea.

“I…I can’t do this…I can’t…”

“But you’re doing so well,” said Bob, walking alongside him, barely leaving an imprint in the softening sand. “I’m…weak. Getting weaker by the minute it seems. Even in death nothing lives forever…That was clever, wasn’t it? Your wife will never come back…if…you do this. I mean…you wouldn’t want her turning up at the most awkward of…times…carrying your ex has…taken the…best of me.”

Bob was indeed getting weaker, thought John as they stepped into the water.

Then something happened.

He felt movement in his arms, a stirring, as though…

“It’s working! Ha! It’s bloody working!” Bob’s laughter was like a skewer through the other man’s ear. “It’s really working!”

The stench of her remains was turning John’s stomach, but it was the sudden jolt of movement in her that threatened to push him over the edge. The sea was almost touching the rancid bones and clothing.

“NO!”

“There she is,” Bob laughed. “Wakey, wakey, my darling.”

John wanted to scream as Sharyn turned her head and looked up into his eyes. One of her eye sockets was compacted with sand. What had once been a luscious mane of hair now spread across her gleaming face like seaweed. And as her mouth, an array of rotten, decaying teeth, opened on its hinge, she / it spoke.

“B…s’at …s’at you?”

“See…see, it’s working, my love!” Bob clapped his bony hands together. “You were right.”

“What…what’s happening to me?” said John, looking over at the creature now jumping for joy beside him. He could see the life shining in his eyes.

“No…God, no!”

Bob, well, he wasn’t the same at all. Flesh had covered his once rotten skull, a mop of dark hair was swept back from his face, slightly grey at the temples. He had eyes that were more like beacons of glee. And his voice seemed somewhat familiar.

John felt his clothing sag on his frame as though they were many sizes too big. That’s when he saw the clump of grey hair fall on Sharyn’s chest. He was ageing!

“What’s…” But his’ words caught in his throat like a chicken bone as he looked into the eye of the creature beside him.

“I told you we were one and the same,” said Bob, or rather, a mirror image of John himself.

“You can put me down now, darling,” said the beautiful girl in his arms, her full lips drawn back into an award-winning smile. She winked and blew a kiss.

John let go of her, a hand accidentally brushing against her breast.

His fingers!

In abject terror, John looked at his hands. They were crumbling into dust. Flesh, muscle, bone – it was all falling away. He heard tiny patters of something falling into the water… His teeth!

Sharyn jumped into Bob’s embrace, forgetting the walking dead that had carried her thus far. Their mouths touched for the first time in thirty years, and they were hungry for each other. “I told you we would be together again someday.”

“Yes, you did, sweetie,” said Bob, smiling from ear to ear.

They gave John a cursory glance before heading back to shore.

“Been nice knowing you,” Bob hollered over his shoulder.

John didn’t hear the words; his body had broken in two…then three. And before the lovers reached dry land, he was no more.

“Will you marry me?”

Bob laughed, shaking his head.

“Hey, I’m trying to be romantic here, young man,” Sharyn giggled, playfully delivering a punch to Bob’s stomach as they approached the car. Darts of rain flew through the blinding glare of the arc sodium lights high up in the blackened sky.

“Mrs. Jonathan Stainsby?” replied Bob, turning the words over in his mouth like fine wine. “Think you could get used to that?”

Sharyn screwed up the perfect little nose that God had blessed her with. “Nah, the name’s got to go.”

Bob ran his hands along the boot of the car, drumming his fingers on the cold metal. Sharyn stood close beside him now, feeling the coldness of the night for the first time in what seemed like forever.

“What do we do with her?”

Bob turned to her and grinned.

“Oh, no!” she backed away, laughing loudly. “You can do that yourself. I’ll wait in the car.” Before Bob could protest, Sharyn had grabbed the keys from his sodden pockets, his wallet, or rather, Jonathan’s wallet fell onto the tarmac. She picked it up and then got into the car.

“Unbelievable,” said Bob, watching his love turn on the radio.

“And be quick about it,” Sharyn shouted through the glass. She was holding up a credit card. “I’m fucking starving!”

Bob carried Emma over to the sand dune and dropped her in the ground. As he pushed the sand over her, he could hear the beat of dance music ride the shoulders of the strengthening wind.

“Great…Now I have to learn how to dance,” he sighed.

Elements of Horror Book Four: Water is now available for Kindle, in paperback, and on Audible here.

SCORCHED (from Elements of Horror Book Three: Fire)

              Scott Donnelly

   “My father died,” Josh said as he looked up from the black words that gawked at him from the unfolded paper he held in his hands. The envelope sitting on his desk was from his late father’s estate; he’d inherited his father’s home.

   “I’m sorry, Josh,” Kenna whispered sensitively.

   Kenna was the endless bright light in Josh’s life. He’d known her for almost two full decades, and not only did they share a profound love for one another, but she also kept him sane. She leaned in and kissed his neck tenderly.

   “It’s ok,” Josh said delicately. He folded the letter back up and slid it into the envelope. He pushed it aside and stared at his computer. “I haven’t seen him in twenty years. After my mother died, he wasn’t himself. He couldn’t take care of us. He left…”

   Childhood memories began to saturate Josh’s mind. He zoned out and pictured images of his mother losing her battle to cancer right before his eyes. He pictured his father drinking, hitting him, shouting, and bleeding from his hands. Kenna snapped him out of the horrific daydream by massaging his shoulders. He closed his eyes and smiled. “That feels good.”

   “Where’s his house?” she quietly asked. “The one you inherited.”

   That’s where Josh was confused. He grew up in Florida; his father loathed the cold weather with a passion. It made his skin hurt, he’d always say. “Montana.”

   “It’s cold in Montana,” Kenna smirked.

   “Yup.”

   That night, the clock radio next to the bed switched over to 1am. Josh couldn’t sleep. He was wide awake, lying next to Kenna. She hadn’t made a noise in hours, so he was certain she was asleep. At least one mind was at ease.

   He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and searched for any information he could on Charles Peet in Montana. Aside from the address listed in the estate letter, there was nothing else about his father on the Internet. It was almost like he had gone off the grid on the other side of the country after his wife had died so horribly. Maybe he left so I didn’t have to watch him spiral into his drunken madness? Maybe he really didn’t want to hurt me, and leaving was all he could think of to protect me? But, Montana? Why so far away? Josh thought to himself.

   “Can’t sleep?” Kenna asked in a gravelly voice, seemingly awaking out of nowhere.

   “No.” Josh thought for a moment. “He left twenty years ago. I wonder how he lived.” He rolled onto his side and looked Kenna in her drowsy eyes. “Will you come to Montana with me?”

   She smiled. “Obviously.” He smiled back as Kenna cradled him closer to her.

   When the sun on Saturday morning crawled out from over the Atlantic, Josh and Kenna were already on a plane. They had a layover in Columbus, Ohio, and then it was a straight shot to Helena, Montana. From beaches, boardwalks, and gator-filled swamps, to vast wilderness, tall trees, sparkling lakes, and dense forests – it was quite the transition.

   Josh and Kenna took a cab from Helena to a dirt road several miles away that went deep into the forest.

   “Excuse me,” Josh said to the driver. “Is this the right way?”

   “You said Hart-Tell Road, right?” the middle-aged cab driver asked, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette.

   “Yes, sir.”

   The driver smiled in the rearview mirror at Josh. “Then yes, this is the right way.”

   They drove for a good twenty minutes, passing valley after valley, overgrown forests, mountains on the horizon that seemed to not move at all, and then Josh questioned the driver once again. “Are we close?”

   At that very moment, the driver stopped the cab, kicking up dirt that swirled around the car. Josh and Kenna looked out the window and saw an old, rusted mailbox hanging off a bent pole at an odd angle. A dirt pathway next to it slithered back into the trees where it disappeared. The name on the box had washed out over time, but it was there: Charles Peet.

   “You have the number for the cab company, right?” the driver asked.

   Josh pulled out a slip of paper where he’d scribbled it down. It was sloppy, but he could still make it out. “Yes.”

   “Give us an hour from the time you call to get here. Your father didn’t live in the most easily accessible place,” the driver continued.

   “Will do. Thank you,” Josh said, handing the man a rather generous tip.

   As the cab turned around and drove away, Josh and Kenna looked past the mailbox, and down the dirt pathway that curved around behind a thick cluster of pine trees. It was so dark that the woods appeared black.

   Josh and Kenna walked the path slowly, keeping an eye out for bears. Several signs on their drive to the property indicated the dangers of bears in the area. The woods were serene and mostly silent. The sounds of buzzing bugs and isolated bird chirps surrounded them, although it was nothing they could see. The wildlife hid tactically in the dimness of their home.

   They came around another bend and into a small clearing where Charles’ house was. It was a peculiar sight–the house was small, neatly tucked back into a part of the forest that seemed to be off that map, so to speak. It was made of logs with a brick chimney. It was smaller than a cabin, but significantly larger than a shack. Moss had overrun all sides of the chimney and covered most of the roof. The front door, which sat at the top of three, crudely built steps, was open slightly.

   On the opposite side of the dwelling from where the chimney was, sat an old car covered in dirt and grime and sporting numerous cracks and chips in the windows. The tires were all flat, and the license plates had been removed. Next to the car, a gray wolf stood incredibly still, watching the new strangers on the property. Kenna saw it first and put her arm up to stop Josh. They watched the animal, which was watching them. Josh stared into its eyes, and his heart rate picked up. He’d never been in the presence of an animal like this before.

   A sound from the forest grabbed the wolf’s attention–probably helpless prey of some kind–and it sprinted off and vanished into the shrubbery. Josh and Kenna sighed in relief and nervously laughed in sync with each other. Kenna gestured to the old house, “Shall we?”

   “After you,” Josh said, letting his girlfriend approach the home first.

   Since the door was open, they were immediately on guard for any possible animals that may have wandered inside. The daylight that wasn’t blocked by the canopy of trees outside lit up the inside of the cabin through its dirty windows. Kenna entered the house first, and the smell immediately overwhelmed her. “Smells like fire. Do you smell that? Like, burning wood.”

   Josh sniffed the air as he entered and agreed with Kenna’s theory. It smelled like the remains of an old campfire. There was also a hint of burnt hair, but he didn’t dwell on that for long–it was an old cabin. However, looking around the interior, a fire clearly didn’t seem all that possible. The olive-green carpet was clean—very little dust was noticeable. The bookshelf against the wall appeared well organized, and knit blankets were neatly folded on the couch and chair respectively.

   Josh continued to wander the one-roomed home. A bed and nightstand were in the far corner. A half bath was next to it, separated only by a stained, torn curtain hanging from loose hinges in the ceiling. A gas stove sat across the room next to a clean fireplace with no sign of a recent fire. A small, circular kitchen table stood next to it. Only one chair was pushed neatly under the table. Josh was confused.

   “This isn’t my father,” he inaudibly said to himself, knowing that the condition of his house was the exact opposite of what the man was like twenty years earlier. He then went to the kitchen area and opened all three of the wall-mounted cabinets. There were cans of vegetables, but no liquor or scotch. He then opened the small refrigerator next to the stove – no beer, no wine. “There’s no alcohol here,” he said.

   Kenna knew a lot about Charles. She’d met Josh not long after his mother died, so she was there to lend an ear, and take the verbal beatings that were intended for his father. She knew this didn’t look like a place that kind of man would live in.

   She looked around and saw a light switch on the wall. She flipped it, but nothing turned on. She looked around and noticed there wasn’t a single lamp, or any light for that matter, in the entire place. “That’s weird,” she said. “Why aren’t there lights in here?”

   Josh shrugged. The light from outside then started to fade and the house became a little darker. He went to the window and watched as the trees started to blow heavily, twisting branches and sending leaves spiraling into the air. He looked up, and through the small cracks in the canopy, saw dark clouds rushing across the sky vigorously. “We’re going to get a nasty storm.”

   “At least we don’t have to worry about the electricity going out,” Kenna joked. Josh chuckled, but more just to please her. He felt uncomfortable at his father’s house. Twenty years had passed. He didn’t know this man–not the one who had lived here, anyway.

   “We’d better find some candles.”

   They were able to scrounge up a handful of half-melted candles, and Josh also found an oil lamp in one of the cabinets, along with a shelf full of matches. They lit each candle and sporadically placed them around the house. They sat the oil lamp down on the handcrafted wooden coffee table and sat next to one another on the couch.

   “No TV,” Kenna said. “No radio, very little food, a clean house, a neatly organized bookshelf, and a boatload of matches. Does this seem like your father?”

   Josh shook his head. “Not the one I knew. But who knows what twenty years, isolated in the middle of the forest, could do to a man.”

   The rain pounded the top of the house, threatening each moment with the possibility of it collapsing. Thunder shook heavily outside, and sharp flashes of lightning lit the house up for split seconds at a time. Josh looked at his phone and saw it was just past 8pm. He then noticed the 53 percent charge. “Christ,” he said.

   “What is it?”

   “We’re not going to be able to charge our phones – no electricity.”

   Kenna slid hers out of her pocket. It was roughly half charged as well.

   “We need to use them sparingly. I’ll call the cab first thing in the morning before my dies. I don’t want this house. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

   “You’re not even going to go through his stuff? Maybe there are some things here you’d want to remember your father by.”

   “I don’t want to remember him. I don’t want any of this stuff. He was a violent man, and he left. He left me alone, with no one. He didn’t care about me at all. He wouldn’t want me to have his stuff either.”

   “You weren’t alone, Josh,” Kenna said, inching closer to him on the couch. “You were never alone.” She put her hand on his leg and he exhaled. “He put you on the Will for a reason, right?”

   Josh didn’t answer.

   Kenna picked up the oil lamp by the handle and stood up. “Take the books at least. You can just sell them and make a few bucks.” She carried the lamp over to the bookshelf, and a flash of lightning outside allowed her to navigate to it quicker. “You can learn a lot about a man from the books he reads.”

   “Yeah,” Josh muttered from the couch, “and what kind of man do you see over there? What kind of man was born in this house?”

   Kenna fingered through the shelves, one by one. “He liked bird watching. He liked DIY projects. He liked maps of Montana’s Forestry and Lakes.” She looked down to the next shelf. “Oh, and the occasional dirty magazine.”

   Josh laughed. “Those are just out in the open?”

   “He wasn’t shy.”

   Josh and Kenna were then interrupted by a shrill and rapid pounding on the front door. Josh jumped up quickly and Kenna swung around. He motioned for her to come up beside him and he took control of the lamp.

   “Who knows we’re here?” Kenna whispered.

   “No one.”

   Josh slowly crept up to the front door and put his ear against it. “Who’s there?” he called out.

   “Frank Gore!” A man’s voice yelled on the other side of the door, attempting to out-scream the thunderous rain and slapping winds. “I was a friend of Charles Peet!”

   On a whim, Josh opened the door. A man in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, stood there in a black raincoat, holding the hood down over his head so the wind didn’t rip it off. Josh moved out of the way and let the man in. As he breezed by the couple, the scent of burnt wood stirred up again, reminiscent once more of an old campfire. He closed the door and lifted the lamp to see the man better.

   Frank Gore removed the hood from his head and stood there, steadily dripping rainwater onto the wooden floor, and through the wide cracks between the floorboards. “Bless you,” he said.

   “You knew my father? Charles?”

   Frank looked at Josh warily. “You must be Joshua. Charles spoke of you often.”

   “Really?”

   “Oh yes. He missed you every day. He felt so much guilt for leaving after your mother passed away. He said you were angry, and he wasn’t proud of who he was. He said it was the only way that the fire in your eyes would leave—if he did.”

   “No way he cared that much!” Kenna screamed with fiery rage, defending all Josh had been through.

   Frank stared, off-put by the screaming.

   Two candles behind Frank flickered, as if a soft wind was blowing through the room, and were then abruptly extinguished, sending a wiggling stream of smoke into the air. Josh and Kenna both noticed it. Frank continued to speak: “It’s a shame–after all he and I had been through together, a heart attack claimed his life for good,” he chuckled.

   Josh noticed an ominous suggestiveness behind Frank’s words. “What can I do—” Josh stopped in mid-sentence as he witnessed yet another candle behind Frank flicker and go out. A shadow crept across the ceiling, directly above the candle, and crawled down the wall by the bed. The sight, unnatural to Josh’s eyes, sent a chill down his spine.

   “I assume you want to know why I’m here,” Frank said. “I just came to grab a couple of my things before you seize control of the house and all of Charles’ belongings.”

   Kenna didn’t like that idea. She nudged Josh, and he agreed, still trying to shake the shadowy anomaly. “With all due respect, Mr. Gore, I don’t know you. Before you take anything from this house, it should probably go through the courts first.”

   Frank stared at Josh with dead eyes. His demeanor changed almost instantly. “Charles had borrowed some items from me. I came to take them back.”

   “I understand. And I’m sure you can have them back. But, legally.”

   “And not late at night, during a storm,” Kenna heatedly added. She was right though, Josh thought. What an odd time to drive out to the middle of nowhere.

   “What exactly are these items?” Josh asked, keeping his protective girlfriend at bay from the stranger.

   Frank just stood there and stared. “You didn’t know your father like you thought you did. But I did.” He aggressively flipped the hood back over his head. “I’ll be back at daybreak. If you find a black bag, leave it outside the door. It’s mine. You won’t be taking it.” Frank stormed by Josh and Kenna and tripped on an uneven floorboard in front of the door. He looked down to his feet and then up at the couple. He smiled threateningly and winked. He opened the door and walked out into the wicked storm outside. Josh shut the door and locked it.

   “What a freak show,” Kenna said.

   Josh, however, had something else on his mind. He turned back to the dark corner of the house where the bed was. “Did you see the shadows?”

   “What shadows?”

   “When the candles flickered out, some weird shadow appeared on the ceiling and slid all the way to that wall, and then went down the wall near the bed.” He jogged over to the dark corner and lifted the oil lamp. The flickering flame from the wick projected dancing shadows on the wall over the bed. Black handprints speckled the wall. He lifted the lamp and followed the prints up the wall, across the ceiling, and above the front door. He lowered the lamp just as a shadow, the size and shape of a small child, sank deep into the shifted floorboards.

   Josh and Kenna both jumped; the latter letting out a startling shriek.

   “What was that?!” she screamed, grabbing onto Josh’s arm. He didn’t respond; he focused his eyes on the door and the floor below it. His heart rate increased noticeably.

   The remaining candles all began to flicker, and as a flash of lightning zapped the darkness outside, roaring thunder shook the cabin’s foundation. The flames vanished from the wicks. Smoke climbed the air, and the only light remaining was in the limited range of the glowing oil lamp. The house began to creak and crack, and the windows rattled. Quiet whispers began to circle Josh and Kenna—soft voices of the old and the young. The voices began to say things that the couple didn’t understand, but it quickly became clear that the voices were not of a living man, woman, or child. They were coming from…somewhere else.

   “Who’s there?!” Josh called out. Kenna began to sob and buried her face into her boyfriend’s side. The overwhelming stench of death engulfed the house. It was horrible; it stunk of rotting flesh and burnt hair. The smell of fire then overpowered it. Josh’s attention was drawn to the oil lamp he held in his trembling grip. The handle became hot and the flame inside the glass grew larger and larger, before it popped. The glass shattered and Josh let go of the handle. The remains of the fiery lamp fell to the floor and broke open. Flames shot out in all directions and spread across the wooden floor swiftly. The furniture, the bookshelf—all ignited in bright, yellow-hot flames.

   As the flames arose from the floor, they carried with it dark, shadowy, human-shaped figures. The frantically twitching flames from the uneven floorboards in front of the door – the same area where the mysterious campfire smell seemed to linger – lifted them. There were now dozens of the shadowy figures, all standing around Josh and Kenna. The flames shielded some; others seemed to be fragmented versions of their former selves—whoever they were.

   “Josh,” Kenna’s voice trembled as she gripped his arm so tight that he had to peel her hand off to stop it from cutting off his circulation. “JOSH!” she screamed.

   Josh swung around and found he was face to face with one of the necrotic entities. It was charred completely black; small glowing embers pulsated intermittently among the genderless body. It reached for him, ashes falling from its arm and rickety hand, which still had a diamond ring on one of the fingers. Josh couldn’t move—terror conquered his mind. The figure grabbed Josh around the neck—its scorched hand crumbling as it gripped tighter. Josh stared into its eyes, which were nothing more than empty cavities, sparkling with orange embers. It opened its mouth to speak, but only a ghastly wail emerged. Ashes spewed out and covered Josh’s face.

   Josh thrashed and swung his fists wildly, completely destroying the being in a dusty, black cloud. He turned and grabbed Kenna by the arm and ran for the front door. He could see the flames had completely engulfed the only exit, but it didn’t matter—it was his only chance. Josh gritted his teeth and ran faster and harder toward the door. He threw his shoulder into it, crashed through, and dragged Kenna out quickly. He pulled her several yards away from the burning cabin and they both collapsed to the ground, frightened and out of breath.

   The rain continued to fall, although it didn’t seem to do anything for the fire. Thunder rumbled above them, and the sky lit up as lightning spider-crawled through the clouds. Screams from the dead creatures inside exploded, seemingly louder than the thunder and pounding rain combined. The screams were horrible, terrifying, but also…sad.

   Josh and Kenna sat in the saturated grass and watched the house continue to burn through the night.

   The fire trucks arrived later, along with an army of police cars and detectives. Before the fire was extinguished, Josh and Kenna were transported back to Helena where they waited to be interviewed.

   Josh waited out in the station’s homicide department while he assumed Kenna gave her statement. He was covered in soot and his eyes were red. He looked at the wall next to him. Dozens upon dozens of missing persons flyers congested the space. There were men, women, and children—all missing in the Montana Mountains. The amount of people missing was concerning. He looked carefully at one girl in particular. She was young, with blonde hair and a smile full of life. Her eyes were crystal blue, and she rested on her side next to a Christmas tree. The picture appeared to have been taken of her without her knowledge of it coming–possibly by a boyfriend or husband. It was a good choice of picture to use if the family was looking to tug at heartstrings in order for attention to be drawn to their missing daughter. She looked very happy. She wore an oversized red hooded sweatshirt with a Calgary Flames logo on the chest. Josh followed the sleeve down to her small hand where he saw an engagement ring on her finger—a shiny diamond was neatly set in the middle of a smaller ring of diamonds.

   He recognized the ring immediately. It was on the same charred hand that grabbed at his neck back at his father’s cabin. The gears in Josh’s head began to spiral out of control. None of it should have made any sense, but it made perfect sense. Is this what my father was up to this whole time? Josh thought to himself as he became flushed with dread and guilt on his father’s behalf.

   He looked back at the dozens of other flyers surrounding the blonde-haired girl. The dates from each report varied—one went back twenty years…just after he’d left Florida.

   “Mr. Peet, were ready for you,” a sharply dressed and experienced detective said as he stood in front of Josh. Josh looked at him completely astonished. “This way, sir.”

   The daunting theory of his father being a serial killer and burying his victims scorched bodies under the floorboards of his remote cabin in the middle of nowhere spewed out almost immediately in the interview. The mention of Frank Gore only added a mystifying element to his theory.

   “I’m sure Kenna told you all about it, but he was looking for a black bag.” Josh said. “He seemed very adamant about getting it out of the house.”

   The detective took notes on everything Josh said and recorded the interview for extra measure. He then looked up at Josh and saw he was pale. “Are you feeling okay, Mr. Peet?”

   “Just…” Josh began, but couldn’t find the right word or phrase for what he felt; for what he’d experienced.

   “I understand,” the detective said. He glanced back down at his notes before returning his attention to Josh. “Now, tell me, Josh, who exactly is Kenna?”

   “My girlfriend.”

   The detective held his look on Josh. “Your girlfriend?” The detective didn’t seem to believe him.

   “Yes, my girlfriend,” Josh reiterated. The detective seemed confused. “I’m sorry,” Josh added, “I don’t understand. You just spoke with her, didn’t you? Did she say something different?”

   The detective sat his pen down and shrugged. “Did I speak with her?”

   Josh was fuddled. “Are you serious?”

   The detective just stared back.

   “Kenna was at the house with me. She’s my girlfriend. We came here from Florida together.”

   “How long have you known her?” the detective asked, picking his pen back up.

   “What? You’re not implying that she–”

   “I’m not implying anything, Mr. Peet. When did you meet her?”

   Josh was perplexed by the detective’s questions but decided to roll with it and basically humor him. “It’s been years. I’ve known her since we were kids. I met her right after my mom died and my father left.”

   The detective picked his pen back up and starting writing notes again. “She was there with you, you say? At the cabin tonight?”

   “Of course she was!” Josh became irate. “She’s here at the station! You brought her back in the same car as me!” Josh stood up and rushed to the door where a small window looked out into the waiting area. He smiled when he saw Kenna sitting on one of the chairs with her legs crossed. She smiled back and waved at him. “She’s right there,” Josh said peacefully.

   The detective stood up and walked to the window. Josh moved out of the way and let him look through the glass. Three chairs sat in the waiting area — empty.

   “You met Kenna after your mother died and left you alone with an abusive father?” he asked.

   “Yes, sir. She has basically helped me through life since then. I owe her everything. She’s kept me sane.”

   “Sane,” the detective repeated to himself softly. He turned to Josh and smiled. “Well, Josh, you’ve been through a lot.” He backed away from the door and motioned for Josh to sit back down. Josh took one more glance out the window and waved at his beautiful girlfriend again. He sat down, across from the detective.

   “So, what’s the verdict?” Josh asked, finally in a calm and relaxed state of mind.

   “Well, there was significant evidence at the cabin that backs up your story. We think your father may have in fact been the serial killer that’s terrorized this area for decades. We did find a black bag, but I cannot disclose its contents. And we have put out an APB for a Frank William Gore. We’d like to talk to him specifically about your father and his possible participation.”

   Josh seemed to drift away again.

   “Are you okay?” the detective asked.

   “I think so. I feel so guilty about what happened to those people,” Josh said, glancing out the window at the wall of missing people. “They did nothing to deserve this.”

   “Please don’t feel guilty, Mr. Peet,” the detective said. “You have enough on your mind. You let your past haunt you. You don’t need to carry any of this. We’ll take it from here.”

   The detective stood up and grabbed his notes, cramming them back into the torn folders. “Wait here. I want to give my friend at Wallington Hospital a call.”

   “Okay,” Josh said. The detective left the room and closed the door. Josh stood up and wandered the room for a moment, stretching his legs. He looked back out the window and blew Kenna a kiss. She blew one back.

   “You know, you can help make up for what your father did to us,” a young woman’s voice said from behind him. He turned around and saw a beautiful blonde girl sitting in the chair where the detective had been sitting. She had a gorgeous smile and looked very comfortable in her Calgary Flames sweatshirt. The diamond ring on her finger glittered in the light.

   “How?” Josh asked. “I’d do anything to right what my father’s done. No one deserves that fate.”

   The woman smiled. “Your father is dead, but Frank Gore isn’t. Your father would strangle us to death. Frank Gore would burn our bodies. When he arrived at the cabin tonight, his presence woke us. We have hope for final retribution”

   Dozens of other people appeared in the room. Josh was overwhelmed. There were men, women, and children—all of them identical to the faces on the flyers.

   The blonde woman rested her hand on his. “Help us,” she asked.

   Josh wasn’t like his father. But, when he needed help, Kenna was there for him. Now, he had a chance to help others because of his father’s uncontrollable violence.

   “Will you help us?” she asked again.

   Josh responded with a cold, detached smile, without a hint of hesitation: “Frank Gore will burn,” he whispered.

Find Scott’s book, Cheater, Cheater, on Amazon here

Elements of Horror Book Three: Fire is now available for Kindle, in paperback, and on Audible here.

Please, I Need To Breathe (from Elements of Horror Book Two: Air)

R.C. Rumple

          It happened each time the familiar stench of death met his nostrils. As if by instinct, his head snapped back with such intensity and force his neck popped. There was something putrid about the scent of a rotting corpse that set off this reflex. Even Mother Nature cringed and pinched her nose closed as her gift of fresh air was contaminated with an acrid aroma which labored to spin one’s head and send the stomach into gastric revulsion. 

         It also was an unpleasant reminder he needed to remove the bodies that had gathered in his brother’s basement over the last few weeks.

         Justin would never tackle the task. Left up to him, they would collect indefinitely, or at least until there was no more space for any others to be crammed into. Obviously, he had no sense of smell. Or, was it he enjoyed inhaling the memories of his murderous ways? Jonathan would have to remember to ask, as if it mattered. Chances were his morbid curiosity on the topic would fade after the corpses had been removed and buried in the mountains. The house would fully air out after a day or two and become like any other. In a week or so, he would return and find the stink had returned thanks to Justin’s habits.

         Early on, he had almost threatened to turn Justin in to the authorities. Yet, how could he do that to his own brother? In retrospect, he wished he had. Now, it was too late. He had inadvertently assumed the role of an accomplice by disposing of the evidence. The never-ending cycle of being his brother’s garbage collector had become his cross to bear.

         Yet, it wasn’t Justin’s fault. Jonathan knew it was an affliction—a mental condition of sorts—causing Justin to murder in such quantity. When the killing sprees had begun, Justin had blamed it on the phases of the moon. But that had been a charade, an excuse, a validation. Justin was an addict. As a junkie needed his fix, Justin was addicted to the adrenaline rush of hearing the pleading and screams of mercy from his victims.

         Atrocious as it seemed, Jonathan had developed a sense of empathy derived from his own mental condition. His own experiences had proved one had no control over what the brain demanded.

         During his second U.S. Army tour in the Middle East, he had been wounded by a roadside bomb explosion. He had considered himself lucky to survive as others in his vehicle had been killed. Then, the blackouts started. There were instances where he would be fine—at the top of his game—and his conduct considered normal for one in a war zone. Without warning, he would be overcome by a huge, black tornado and sent into its internal darkness. Somehow, in this oblivious state, he continued to perform his duties. Yet, upon awakening, he would find he’d lost several hours with no recollection of what he’d done during the missing time. Before long, the frequency of these blackouts increased from one a month to a peak of one every two or three days. Worried he might put either himself or his men in danger, he had reported his condition. Subjected to examinations by all types of doctors, he had been temporarily confined for observation in U.S. owned European medical facilities. Even after maintaining an exemplary service record, they had him classified and medically discharged Jonathan as mentally disabled. His life had never been the same.

         Returning to civilian life, employment had been impossible to land. His type of discharge converted the “Thank you for your service” remarks into “Thanks, but no thanks.” Surviving on a tiny government check once a month, he battled depression and a loss of self-worth. At times, he reached out to various helplines and made the necessary calls. Yet, his embarrassment had kept him from attending meetings or making his appointments. In his mind, he was a waste of a human being. Suicide seemed to be the only option available to relieve him of his downward spiral. And then, Justin contacted him.

         Jonathan had avoided his family since returning. He was aware his father’s disgust with his condition, having himself retired from the military with a perfect record. The Major would never understand. Jonathan was a disgrace, a failure, one shamed and not welcome home. His mother had little to offer in the way of understanding, as well. She had been proud and standing tall among the members of her various social clubs while bragging of his fighting overseas. As with his father, she had found it difficult to admit her son wasn’t still the omnipotent hero. No, not a hero … only a zero … a letdown she had to eliminate from conversations before his condition was discovered and someone had dared to think it was genetic.

***

           Justin called one sunny afternoon and gave him the news. Mom and Dad were dead—killed in a car accident. None of the safety devices their big SUV had come with could save them from an eighteen-wheeler crashing through the siderails of an overpass. Justin mocked their final moments before being crushed as the truck smashed on top of them and faked tears. Their bodies had been so mangled the funeral services would have to be completed as closed casket.

          Justin had forced Jonathan to stand alone as he had refused to attend the services. Later, he would laugh about having done so. “You’re a stupid bastard, aren’t you? They never loved us. They were social conscious assholes, both of them, and only used us to elevate their own position among the social elite. I’m glad they’re fucking dead. I wish it would have happened sooner.”

          He hadn’t changed over the passing months.

***

         Pulling open the basement door, the pungency of the air hit Jonathan hard. It had been a smell similar to ten thousand trash dumpsters in the city’s restaurant district raising their lids at once and flooding the city with the odorous remains of last week’s lunch specials. He stood a moment, trying to adjust to the stench, but found it impossible. As he descended the basement steps, he could see Justin had been busy. The layers of protruding legs he had first sighted on his way down had become a stack of bloating, naked bodies.

         Jonathan exhaled the air from upstairs and inhaled a breath of the basement’s sour air, fighting back his gag reflex. It had only been a couple of weeks since he had last cleared the basement of Justin’s indulgences. Today, there were seven more bodies to remove. This was becoming an every-other-day event for Justin. If his twin insisted on this frequency, he would have to start helping with the disposal. Luckily, most of his victims were either young teens or slender twenty-something women, so they weren’t going to be that heavy to carry up the steps. Still, their burying in the rock-filled, mountain soil would take a lot of effort … effort where more than one doing the shoveling would be helpful.

***

         Their parents had been social climbers concerned with their community image. Viewing their reaction to the bodies in front of him that first time could have been entertaining. Still, the one thing their parents had done was to leave the twins substantial insurance money. There had been close to a million dollars to split, plus policies to pay for the two houses and other properties they owned.

          Within a month after the funeral, Jonathan had taken residency in the smaller, second home and Justin had remained in the old homestead he had never left. A few weeks after settling into his new abode, Jonathan’s blackouts returned. No longer existing only hours, there were nights and even full days lost to his memory. He confided this in Justin during a phone conversation in hopes of gaining his understanding but was chided instead. “Hell, I’d love to lose some days. Be good to get rid of the boredom for a change. You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with it like I do. I gotta have my excitement. You know, my rushes. Life is too short to live bored. Just be you when I call. I hate talking to strangers.”

          It was only a few days later Jonathan learned what Justin had been talking about.

          The phone had awakened him on the couch. Not wanting to answer, the call had gone to his voicemail. It had been Justin. “Hey, I need you to help me out. I’ve got some things in the basement I need you get rid of for me. You know, crap that needs to get buried somewhere. If you don’t mind, bring that old van over and load it up. I don’t want anyone to find it, so come alone and keep your mouth shut about it. I won’t be home, but you have a key. Remember, brothers gotta help each other out. Talk to you later!”

          Jonathan remembered when he had entered a smell, like that of today’s, had smacked him in the face. It was the initial time his head had snapped back, and his neck popped. It was then he should have turned and walked away.

***

         His mind continued to wander during the wrapping of the first two bodies in garbage bags. The third body to be enclosed in trash bags shocked him back to the present. Its eyes fixed on him, Jonathan felt as if he was being dissected by the dilated pupils trying to hide the deep blue beneath the heavy haze. For once, Jonathan saw more than just a dead body. This girl was beautiful. Raising up her dangling scalp to its normal position, her red hair added a fullness and familiarity that made Jonathan’s head swim. He had seen this one before—somewhere she had been working behind a counter—and remembered how great she looked while still breathing.

         The other bodies had been unknowns to him, just carcasses needing disposal. Yet, this one was different. Recalling her smiling face and energy, she was more than the others. This one was a person … a person who should still be inhaling the fresh air outside. She should be going to concerts, attending musicals, enjoying all aspects of life. Instead, she was lying here bloating and rotting.

         Justin had shown her no mercy. It was obvious the girl had been scalped alive. There was too much blood to have been done after she had died. Open slits peppered her once rosy cheeks like a multitude of long freckles—all superficial penknife jabs meaning to cause only pain. Deep box cutter slices from her shoulders to her fingers had opened wide with the bloating, exposing the tendons and muscles inside. Jonathan imagined the desperation of her screams of agony as they had been made while feeling the life flow from her wounds. Her supple breasts, once desired by those she brought fantasies, were now missing nipples—savagely torn away by pliers, Jonathan guessed. Even her vagina had been the victim of multiple stabbings. His eyes, running down her body, noticed her feet were missing several toes from each, obviously snipped off by the bloody wire cutters still on the table. One calf had been completely removed from the bone and the other dangled loosely. Without a trace of remorse, a Tic Tac Toe diagram had been sliced into both thighs and imaginary games played.

         Justin had gone too far with this one.

         Jonathan wanted nothing more than to jump in his van and drive away. Running up the stairs and out the back door, he vomited off the porch. Let Justin take care of them. If he’s so demented and cruel as to find excitement in doing this to such a beautiful girl, he deserves to at least clean-up after himself. In fact, he needs to go to jail, to prison for life, or even hang. How could someone so vicious be my brother?

         Yet, instead of departing, he took a seat on the back step and lit a cigarette.

***

          There had been tremendous initial shock at discovering what his brother was asking him to do that first time. Four naked bodies laid before him that day … bodies covered in the wounds made by a deranged attacker. But, when he thought about it, there was little difference between those and the bodies of the bystanders and enemy they’d stacked high overseas. Those rotted quickly while baking in the heat of the afternoon, the buzzing of flies their musical accompaniment. Bullet torn bodies left out for their relatives to take if they wanted and later burned if they didn’t. Even then, he preferred the smell of a pile of burning flesh in the air as to the smell of rotting corpses in the basement. Outside, if one didn’t like the smell of a human barbeque, they could walk into a fresh breeze free of death.

          Ignoring every inkling of common sense telling him to walk away, Jonathan had set to work to help his twin. With the absence of body bags, he had adlibbed and substituted multiple garbage bags to cover them individually. Jonathan wanted no evidence left in his van. Double bagging the top and bottom of each victim would keep his vehicle DNA-evidence free.     

          Loading the last of the bodies in his van that long-ago day, Jonathan had to figure out where he could dispose of them. His parents had owned property bordering a state park in the mountains only an hour’s drive away. Now, it was his and Justin’s. He could drive to the edge of their property and bury them in park land. That way, if they were ever discovered, he could claim their property had only been used as a pass-through to the park’s by the murderer. It would be impossible to prove otherwise.

          Driving home late that afternoon, after each had been buried in their own grave, his muscles ached. Jonathan had learned the hard way. The following trip, he had dug only one large grave and tossed the bodies in atop each other. It had been much less work and taken less time. He had felt better both physically and in knowing the less time he spent there meant the less the chance of someone seeing him there. It was a “Win-Win” situation for him, and the bodies never complained about being stuffed in together.

***

             Finishing his cigarette, Jonathan rose and smiled at his earlier frustrations. So often had he been called upon to clean-up that it was now routine. Plus, a trip to the mountains every two weeks had not only given him exercise, but plenty of fresh air to breathe. After filling his lungs with the air of the dead, it was a relief to fill them with clean mountain air. He felt more alive, more able to handle the pressures of life. He could almost see the trees doing their thing with photosynthesis and shooting out the air’s freshness. He had even contemplated building a home up there but had quickly reconsidered. His presence, so close to all the bodies buried, would make him an immediate suspect should they ever be discovered. He would have to settle for refreshing his lungs every two weeks and be satisfied.

         Shaking his head, he knew he was in too deep to quit and live a halfway normal life. Justin had made sure of that. The next time they got together, though, he would have to have a long talk with his twin brother. The current rate of killing was simply too rapid. Not only was the body burying becoming a burden, but the authorities had to be on high alert. If there wasn’t already, the number of missing people would soon raise suspicions and bring about a major investigation. Sooner or later, Justin would make a mistake, and both would end up in prison. They had to reduce the chances of that happening.

          Okay, relax and take a deep breath. I just need to breathe, to breathe in life, not death. Justin, where the hell are you at? I could use some help. Next time, you either show up or do it all yourself.

         Gulping down one last swallow of fresh air, Jonathan returned to the odorous cloud inside the home and to the basement. Finishing the wrapping, he carried the bodies out one by one and lay them in the back of the van, thankful for his dead mother’s obsession of landscaping. She had demanded seclusion from the neighbors and positioned various trees and bamboo shoots to ensure she would get it. Not only did it keep the neighbor’s wandering eyes from invading her privacy, it hid his body loading process. Now, all that was left was to clean-up the basement.

         Before heading back down the stairs, Jonathan, reminded of the strong breezes outside, opened all the first-floor windows. As overbearing as the smell had been, the fresh air currents sent the curtains dancing and the odors taking flight. It was the first time since he had arrived inside that breathing wasn’t a challenge. If only the basement had windows.

         The hose was still lying in the corner where he’d left it last time around. Spraying the dried blood off the metal restraining table in the center of the room, Jonathan then turned his attention to the bloody instruments and tools his brother had utilized. Dropping them in a bucket of industrial disinfectant to soak, he turned his attention to the floor. His shoes had been sticking to the dried blood spatters and puddles during the body removal, bugging him with each step. Mopping and hosing in rotation several times, he struggled to eliminate the signs of his brother’s handiwork. Floor complete, he washed off and wiped down the instruments before putting them back in their proper places.

         Jonathan had made the cleaning a part of his routine after a few visits and finding Justin had ignored doing so. He had worried about the blood clogging up the center floor drain in the beginning. The picture of plumbers pulling out their metal snake and finding it covered in victims coagulated blood was not one he wanted to experience in real life. He had since made sure to dump several buckets of drain cleaner into it each visit. He hoped that would work in helping the drain from being stopped up by loosening any of the blood from the pipes and washing it into the sewer system.

         Finished, Jonathan stood back and inspected his work before returning to the upstairs and the fresh air. Even with the bodies removed, the basement clung to the odor of rot. He made his way to an open window and relished in the freshness the outside air offered.

         The open windows of his van helped the mountain air keep the smell inside minimal as he later drove up the mountain incline on the two-lane county road. Cherishing the cleanliness of the air, Jonathan was enjoying the ride. Singing along to a classic rock tune on the radio, his journey was almost complete. Soon, he would arrive, bury the bodies, and be done with the dirty work for at least a week, maybe two, depending upon his brother’s needs. He tried to tally up how many trips he had made and how many bodies had been buried. Ten trips, maybe fifteen … three or four bodies a trip to begin with, increasing gradually to the seven he carried today … at least sixty bodies. Too many, way too many.

         Turning onto their property, Jonathan maneuvered his van through the forest path to his burial grounds. It had been raining and the trail was muddy. He had to be careful and not get stuck. If he did make it, burying with a shovel loaded with heavy mud would be a real chore. He jumped, not remembering if he had forgotten to bring the shovel. A quick stop and check in the back proved his worries to be unnecessary. Damn, I’m getting jumpy. I don’t know why. Something’s wrong … just not right. It’s the path. It looks like someone’s been back here. The weeds are not standing tall … almost like they’ve been mashed down.

         Slowing the van, Jonathan continued to seek out signs of trespassers. The land is posted. No one should be here. Unless park employees have some legal right that I didn’t know about, they would be trespassing if accessing the park from this direction. Could it be campers thinking they’re on park land? If so, they’re going to be in for quite a surprise. I won’t stand for trespassers. They’ll either leave or I’ll get my brother up here to take care of them.

         He was almost disappointed as he left his property and entered state park lands without any human contact.

         Arriving close to the burial site, Jonathan delayed the unloading process, instead deciding on taking a look around first. Walking through the final brush and into the clearing, piles of fresh dirt, like giant molehills, dotted the grassland—each standing where Justin’s victims had been buried.

         His burial grounds had been discovered!

         Something stung him in the center of his back and jolted him forward. Stumbling, Jonathan’s forehead hit one of the few scattered saplings as he was slammed to the ground. He felt himself blacking out, exiting the world as he had done so often. No! Not now. I got to get out of here. There are bodies in the van. I must find somewhere new to bury them!

***

         It had been so long ago, so many months, since he had awakened to the bright lights and stale air. Doctors questioned him endlessly, but he had no memories of anything since feeling the sting in his back. But, breathing in the recycled air of the place brought a true desire to inhale fresh mountain air.   

         Jonathan had no knowledge of how he had arrived. Nor, did he stop wondering about how many bodies were stacking up in Justin’s basement.

         Regardless of his responses to all the doctors’ questions, there were no responses to his own. Most in white coats seemed too wrapped up in their own philosophies and opinions and sidestepped his inquiries. None made much sense to him, but he played along.

         In hopes of treating his affliction of blackouts, the doctors had requested the authorities provide anything of personal nature that might help. Their opinions were that the items might spur a response and strike a nerve to bring him around. A single letter was received. It was this letter that had sent Jonathan into a mode of silence, a world existing somewhere between him and his blackouts. One that squeezed the air out of him and kept it out … suffocating his mind and his body. He longed to once again breathe in and feel the wonder of the fresh air of freedom in the mountains. He needed to breathe so desperately but found the air of the asylum not worth consuming. Somehow, he would make it happen. Perhaps, Justin would come to his aid. Like a knight riding a white horse, he would admit his guilt and minimize his brother’s. Until that day, he could only ponder over his parents last written words in a letter never sent.

Dear Jonathan,

     We are so sorry for treating you as we did. Mrs. Johnson’s son was killed in a battle last week, probably one like you had fought many times. We saw her tears and the heartbreak of his loss and realized we weren’t unlucky you came back to us with medical problems, but lucky you came back at all.  

     Please, can you find it in your heart to give us another chance?

     We love you so much and feel so empty with you not being a part of our life. We want you to get better, like you were before you left. We’ll do anything we can to help you get back that way—happy and carefree, and enjoying life.

     Please, don’t ignore this. We want you back in our lives more than anything in the world. Remember, we love you. Please, don’t desert us. You’re our only child.

     Our love always,

     Mom & Dad

Elements of Horror Book Two: Air is available for Kindle, in paperback, and on Audible here.

Today sees the launch of the epic dark fantasy / horror novel Appletown by Antoinette Corvo. Available now in (giant!) paperback and for Kindle here.

October is the month for great new horror reads and next Friday sees the launch of Donovan ‘Monster’ Smith’s debut collection of creature tales, Monsters in the Dark. Kindle is available to pre-order now from Amazon.

To celebrate the launch of K is for Kidnap at the start of this month, B is for Beasts will remain at just 77p/99c on Kindle until the end of October! You can also find Aliens, Cannibals, Demons, Exorcism, Fear, Genies, Hell, Internet, and Jack-o’-Lantern on Amazon and all included in Kindle Unlimited.

Win a Kindle loaded with great horror books!

Author David Viergutz has an awesome competition running on his website, and you can win a Kindle loaded with books (including a few of ours). Simply head over to the site to enter…

Win an assortment of cool prizes with Horror Hub!

We have got involved with Horror Hub who are organising competitions throughout October. You can find out more on their website.