Shades: Eight Tales of Terror (3 page)

Not daring to breathe, Jessica peeked over the one hand she held out in a defensive posture
toward the door, still clasping the other over her nose and mouth.

The hallway door stood open and empty.

She didn’t trust this for one second, but no other avenue of escape existed. It was either the door, or crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head…and she remembered Marge’s comment about the latter move in her recent story.

“I can d-do this.” H
er shaky reassurance didn’t help as much as she hoped. “It’s just down the hall…then down the stairs…and then run like hell for the front door.” Three slow trembling steps brought her to the opening, and she peered into the shadowed hallway.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

Dust covered everything. Cobwebs hung in great shrouds from the ceiling and fixtures, transforming the hall into a gloomy tunnel that reeked of disrepair and abandonment. Marge kept a tight ship when it came to her house, but the hallway looked like something from some long deserted derelict.

Whatever hopes Jessica harbored about the presence being Marge, or some unknown intruder, drained away. This was no burglar, or other natural menace. Something had come through here, leaving a wide trail of dust, cobwebs, and frigid air in its path.

And that “something” smelled like burnt meat.

The stench hung in the icy air, turning Jessica’s stomach and forcing her to fight back the urge to retch. Eve
rything depended on silence, so she kept her nose and mouth covered as she began to creep down the passage toward the stairs. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, magnified by the hollow quiet of the air, as she strained to hear even the slightest of noises that might come from the stairwell ahead.

With slow, silent care, Jessica reached the top of the stairs.

The murk deepened on this end of the hall, and the noxious smell grew stronger. The cold seemed to flow up the stairway from below, yet no movement in the air disturbed the great curtains of cobwebs now draping the banister. Due to the right turn the stairs took half way down, she couldn’t see the landing at the bottom.

The idea of starting down the steps, without knowing what might wait on the lower landing, distressed her. The only way to see below would be to get down on her hands and knees and peek under the first floor ceiling from the second step. It would be awkward, but the alternative would be to start her descent blind and possibly alert whatever waited below.

Jessica bit her lip in concentration as she lowered herself into a crouch.

One at a time, she placed her palms on the floor, then moved her weight onto them in gradual amounts. The last thing she wanted to do now was cause a floorboard to creak. With infinite care, she went down to one knee, then the other. She paused in each step of the process, making sure to gently bring each knee into contact with the floor before letting them support her.

At last she achieved the position, and allowed herself to take a few quiet breaths…

…and that’s when the cell phone in her pocket went off.

***

Marge tilted her head so she could pin the phone between her ear and shoulder as she held up the two different jars of salsa. She remembered that Jessica’s allergies went berserk over one of them, but couldn’t recall which one.

When Ricky told her of his new fiancée’s allergies, her initial reaction had been negative. She pictured a dainty little prima-donna who whined at every challenge life threw her way, but Jessica turned out to not fit that description at all. Cheerful and gregarious, her future daughter-in-law generally avoided the things that affected her without making it a burden on others, and willingly endured them when circumstances called for it. Jessica’s refusal to let allergies rule her life had Marge scolding her to respect them more, when she was initially prepared to roll her eyes at the mention of them.

Now she fretted over getting the right salsa, knowing full well Jessica wouldn’t complain if she got it wrong.

“C’mon, girl. Pick up,” she muttered as she squinted at the labels. Her reading glasses were at home and the glare from the store’s bright fluorescents didn’t help. “I’ll let you get back to sleep as soon as…”

“Marge!”

For a second, the older woman had a hard time recognizing the harsh whisper on the phone as belonging to her son’s fiancée.

“Jessie? Is that…”

“Marge?” her voice sounded like she was whispering and trying not to cry at the same time. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the corner store.” S
he put down one of the jars and repositioned the phone, “Right down the street. Are you alright? What’s wrong, honey?”

“S-She’s here!”

The statement carried an edge of hysteria that sent a thin trickle of ice down Marge’s spine.

“Who’s there, honey? Do you need to call the police?”

Nothing but tight whispered gasps answered, the sound of somebody trying not to hyperventilate. Then Jessica returned.

“It’s cold! A-And there’s dust and cobwebs everywhere! And the dress…she’s back in her dress!”

The thin trickle turned into an instant river.

“Who’s back in her dress?” Marge abandoned her cart and started pushing
toward the front of the store. What in God’s name was going on back at her house? She thought Jessica had been asleep. “Jessica, you’re having a nightmare. Wake up!”

“I’m awake, Marge,” the voice whimpered. “She’s really here. I think she’s dow….rs…..”

Static fuzzed the connection, then her voice returned.

“…scared, Marge. I d-don’t know what to do.”

“Get out of the house!”

“I’m – I’m trying. But I’ve got to see what’s at the bottom of the stairs.”

“What?”

“The stairs…Marge.” The whispered voice gulped. “I don’t want to just…OH MY GOD!”

The ensuing shriek was followed by a loud clatter that Marge interpreted as the phone being dropped. The woman paused at the entrance of the store and pressed her own phone tightly against her ear, straining to make out anything that might give a hint of what was happening. She could make out a series of receding thuds that sounded like somebody stumbling and running away from the phone on a hardwood floor, then a slam.

“Jessica!”

Nothing.

“JESSICA!”

She prepared to fold up the phone and head for the car, then stopped and pressed it tightly to her head again.

What was that?

It took her a second to make it out. Then it became clearer as if the source were approaching the dropped phone.

It sounded like…singing. It was faint, and possessed a strange quality as if the singer were at the bottom of a well, but with effort she finally made out the words.

“
Here comes the bride. All dressed in white…”

The lyrics became clearer as the singer reached the phone.

“
Sweetly, serenely, in the glowing light…”

It was the deadest voice she ever heard.

***

“
Lovely to see. Marching to thee…”

Jessica put her back against the bedroom door and bit her hand to keep from screaming. Her one connection to the outside world lay
back somewhere on the staircase. Her phone rested where she dropped it when she finally got that peek at the bottom of the stairs. She only got a glance at the veiled figure ascending the stairs, but it told her all she needed to know.

Priscella Hatcher didn’t fill out her dress
so well anymore.

B
ut she still liked butcher knives.

The ghastly thing coming up the stairs had carried the knife in an almost ceremonial fashion in front of it…point up…as if it were a sharpened steel bouquet.

“
Sweet love united for eternity.”

Jessica closed her eyes and gritted her teeth at the approaching sound. The voice possessed a strange hol
low quality, as if it were coming out of a long pipe, yet also resonated in a way completely at odds with every other sound in the deadened atmosphere. The shuffling steps and rustle of old satin reached the top of the stairs and halted for a moment. Jessica could envision the grisly thing swaying there at the end of the hallway, as it turned to face down the passage toward her room.

“Here comes the bride…”

The singing resumed and Jessica knew the phantom had restarted its approach. The haunting voice drew nearer, reeking of both death and madness. Its strange tonal quality seemed to thrum against her nervous system, triggering a panic response she could barely fight.

Worse yet, the temperature started to fall again.

Fog began to appear on the glass surface of the mirror above the dresser, and the ceiling started to crawl with the beginnings of cobwebs. Even the dust coating the room seemed to thicken as the specter drew near. And that awful deadness to the air increased, muffling all sound but the now ghastly tune coming to an end outside in the hall.

The door grew achingly cold against her back and Jessica scanned the room with desperation, hunting some form of escape. The windows were painted closed and over twenty feet above a cut stone patio. A dive through those would likely be fatal. To her right, the closet door offered little better…just a hiding place that would fool no one, and no exit. The final option, to her left, was the bathroom. It also had no other exit, but it featured a door with a little deadbolt lock.

A single long scratching noise sounded at the door to her back, either a butcher knife or a withered nail, she really didn’t want to know which. All that mattered was what it meant…

Priscilla now stood inches behind her.

It was either the bathroom, or risk the dive through one of the windows. As much as heights frightened her, the windows were tempting. They offered the one sure-fire escape from the horror on the other side of the door. Jessica stared at the window blinds, knowing the old paper relics would hardly slow her down if she chose to make the dive. They also meant she would be diving blind, and wouldn’t be able to see what lay beneath her until she was already through the window and falling.

A soft click sounded
and she looked down to see the doorknob turning beside her.

Jessica shrieked and charged the window. For one brief instant she thought she had screwed up the courage to make the leap…

…but with a cry of despair acknowledged she couldn’t do it and bolted to her left instead.

Behind her, the bedroom door slammed open and the stench of charred flesh flooded the air. She only caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of the awful figure gliding into the room before ripping open the bathroom door and plunging inside.

Maintaining her grip on the door, she slammed it behind her then turned to fumble with the lock. This bathroom didn’t have a window and, since she hadn’t had time to turn on the light, she scrabbled for the little deadbolt in the dark. Now screaming in both frustration and terror, Jessica groped for the little knob, expecting to have the door in front of her ripped open at any instant and finding herself confronted with the horrid wraith. She knew that would be the end of her, as she would probably die of sheer horror before the thing could ever bring the knife into play.

After an eternity of split seconds, her fingers closed around the lock and she twisted it shut with a gasp of relief.

Jessica stumbled backwards in the dark, away from the locked door, and leaned against the sink. She remembered the light switch, but it was beside the door to the bedroom and she had no intention of going back over there.

Either the lock would hold or it wouldn’t.

Her ragged breathing filled her ears in the darkness, making it impossible to hear what transpired in the other room. Jessica didn’t really need to see to know the horror must be near the door because the bathroom had already started to feel like the inside of a refrigerator. And that smell…like a barbeque gone horribly wrong.

She bit a knuckle in the blackness, trying to regain some control. The
taste of blood filled her mouth from biting too hard, but hardly elicited her notice. The pain did help her focus a little bit, and she remembered the small night light above the sink. Marge liked to leave it on at night when she had company, so they could find their way to the bathroom.

Feeling along the edge of the now freezing sink, her hands fumbled around the soap dish then started exploring the wall. Jessica kept herself facing where she knew the door to be while she searched the wall by feel. She found the edge of the mirror and traced it over to where the wall socket had to be. Finally, her trembling fingers found the little nightlight.

With a relieved exhalation she located the little switch and turned it on…

A
nd found herself face to face with what remained of Priscilla Hatcher.

***

“Jessieee!” Marge hurried out of the car and headed for the back door of the house.

She clutched a cigarette lighter in one hand and a can of lighter fluid in the other—objects she had grabbed in her hasty departure from the store. She still couldn’t bring herself to believe Priscilla Hatcher awaited inside, not for one second, but she came prepared to send that evil bitch straight back to hell if she turned out to be wrong.