Sunruined: Horror Stories (3 page)

“They’re gonna make you sleep. When you wake up, we’ll be at Mr. Martin’s and you can tell him this here tree’s real.”

“And then you’ll let me go?”

“Just take the pills.”

She put them in her mouth and dry swallowed. One of them went down and one of them stuck on the back of her tongue. She gagged.

Thing Two pressed the gun to her lips.

“Open up,” he said.

She opened her mouth, the pill tickling the back of her throat. Thing Two slid the gun into her mouth, pushing the pill down into her throat. She gagged again as the pill went down and Thing Two pulled the gun out of her mouth.

“Get in the van,” he said.

She climbed into the stink of the June tree’s soil and Thing Two shut the door behind her before hopping into the front seat and shutting his door. Once his door was shut, she heard the automatic locks seal the doors.

That was it
, Nie thought.
That was my one chance to get away.

The van started and pulled out onto the road.

Nie sat in her seat, watching the two brothers.

Maybe I could bust out a window. Maybe if I went for their eyes. Jesus, I just want to be home. I want to be somewhere where none of this has happened. I want to wake up from this bad bad bad dream.

But even as she thought that, she felt her eyelids get heavier, her head fill up with something and she thought she could feel herself slide ever so slowly and gently out of her seat as the pill wrapped its narcotic fingers around her consciousness.

Nie didn’t know how long it was before she came to.

The van was still moving, she could hear the wheels thumping on the road. She was on her stomach. Thing Two was beside her. She could smell his meaty breath. His hands were between her legs. He had slid her thong aside. His fingers played with her sex, his thumb massaging her anus.

“Man, this bitch’s dry as a bone,” he said.

“I told you, after we see Mr. Martin, we’ll take that money down to Cincy and get us a couple whores.”

“Yeah, but she’s young and fresh. Her pussy’s real tight.”

Nie fought off the nausea and opened her eyes to slits.

The gun sat abandoned on the console between the two front seats.

The rest happened very fast.

Nie sprang.

She wrapped her hand around the gun, slipped her finger around the trigger, held the gun toward Thing One and pulled the trigger.

There was an explosion.

A spray of red.

The screech of tires.

Then she was flying.

Hitting the pavement and skidding across.

Maybe the pills were still in her body because she didn’t feel any of it.

Knew she had to get away.

Thing Two was probably still alive and... and he was the one that wanted to... to...
do stuff
to her.

She brought herself to her feet. Jesus, she felt wet all over. Was that blood? Her ears rang and she was having trouble hearing anything else. She walked but her body didn’t want to. She didn’t hurt. She was numb. Numb all over.

The street was lined with houses but most of them were darkened, glowing Jack-o-lanterns sitting on porches for one final night of rot.

In front of her there was a brightly lighted house. Slowly, slowly, the house came toward her.

A woman who looked like Elvira opened the door.

“Goodness, honey, what’s wrong with you?”

“Need to call police,” Nie stammered. Christ, she wasn’t going to be able to stand up much longer.

Then there was a man standing beside the woman. His hair glittered gold and he wore a pair of gold horns and, they must have been contact lenses because Nie could have sworn his eyes were orange.

“What’s wrong?” the man asked the woman but Nie could barely hear him because it sounded like...
screams
were coming from the house.

“This girl...”

Such awful screams.

“She says...”

It’s Halloween. It’s Halloween, remember. Those are Halloween sounds you’re hearing.

“That we should call the police...”

No. This isn’t right. Those screams are real. There’s too many of them. Too loud.

“Mr. Martin. What are we going to do, Mr. Martin?”

Nie stared at the man with the flaming orange eyes as he laughed. She wanted to run around and run back to the road but the road was too far away and her body couldn’t run backward anyway so she fell forward, caught herself and tried to run in that direction.

There must be a phone.

Has to be a phone.

And those screams, high and ripe and she really knew that was where she was going because it was Halloween and she wanted to be surrounded by screams, surrounded by people.

She was through the house and out the back door, the night air, the sky spinning around her and beneath the sky, surrounding her, the screaming orchard.

She stopped, turned in circles, staring at the people trees around her, the mouths contorted as they screamed at the moon, some of them waist high, some of them towering against the sky, grown to gigantic proportions.

And beside her she felt the hot breath, heard the faint crackle of eyes burning somewhere under all the screaming.

A feverish hand stroked her cheek and, after a giddy bout of laughter, she heard the voice say, “Skin like an American beech. Don’t you think?”

She willed herself to die. She wanted blood-loss or broken bones or ruptured lungs to take her away from these awful people and then she thought of Chris and wondered if it would matter.

Nie heard the woman laugh and say, “Oh, definitely, Mr. Martin.”

Nie screamed. A Halloween scream. It was all she could do. From somewhere outside herself, she heard her sapling scream rise up and join the chorus of the other trees in the orchard.

Glowers Point

Karen Bruckner had just finished knotting the condom when the phone rang. She looked apologetically at Keith and took the cordless from its charger. Instinctively, she knew who the caller was and didn’t really know why she resented him so much for calling. Trying to sound like she hadn’t just had an orgasm, she said, “Hello?”

“Hey babe, it’s me.” It was Dan, his cell phone making him sound like he’d had a stroke.

“Where are you? The signal’s terrible.”

“That’s a good question. I seem to be in the middle of Fucking Nowhere. Do you know where that’s at?”

“I’ve been there before.”

Keith ran a hand up her inner thigh and she gasped slightly.

“So what’re you up to?”

“Not much, really.”

“Are you alone?”

“For now. Allison and Kim are coming over in a bit. I think we’re going to dinner or something.”

“Okay. I was just calling to let you know I’d be home tomorrow. Oh, here’s a sign. I’ve just entered Glowers Point, Ohio.”

The Point
, Karen thought, her heart leaping around in her chest, stealing the words from her mouth. Although the place name had no significance to Dan, merely hearing the name spoken aloud ripped open a dam of memories for Karen. Immediately, a sense of doom enclosed itself around her bones, robbing her of that post-coital wave of relaxation she’d been feeling.

Something bad was going to happen.

The signal got choppier. Smacks of static punctuated Dan’s words.

Karen swallowed, a dry click from her throat echoing back to her.

“Be careful, dear,” she said. “I’m gonna let you go. I can barely hear you.” She hardly even heard her own words. She was someplace else. Closer to Dan than he realized. Someplace that had an insane logic of its own. Someplace that she never wanted to hear of again. Someplace that she certainly never wanted to visit again.

The Point, as the locals had called it.

“Okay. I love you...” There was another sound, louder than the static. Different. What came next didn’t really surprise Karen. It was like something inevitable finally being fulfilled.

Dan screamed, “Oh dear fucking God!” The signal ended with a chaotic sonic jumble, followed by silence.

“Dan?” Karen said. The bad doom feeling intensified, turning into something close to physical pain. “Dan!” She knew he wasn’t there.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Keith asked, moving his hand up to her breasts.

Men are so fucking clueless, Karen thought, scraping his sweaty hand off.

“It’s Dan. Something’s wrong with Dan.”

Immediately, Karen was out of bed and pulling on her clothes. She felt Keith’s eyes rolling over her body.

“Aw, fuck Dan. Come back to bed.”

“Shut the hell up.”

Less than five minutes after Dan had called, Karen was in the car and headed for I-71 southbound, thoughts caroming violently around in her head. She was impulsive, sure, but she had no idea why she was doing exactly what she was doing and yet it seemed like the only thing she could do. Maybe it meant she really cared for Dan although, at this point, she saw it more as a responsibility. Her feelings for Dan were certainly something she hadn’t been so sure of lately. She definitely didn’t think about Dan when Keith was all over her, except maybe about his fumbling ineptitude. With Dan, it was clothes off, him on top for a few minutes before pulling out and coming on her stomach. If he felt really imaginative, he would aim for her breasts or, sometimes, her face. Whenever he did that, she always wanted to ask him where the camera was.

Keith wasn’t like that. Today, he’d fucked her in her car in the parking garage at work and fucked her again when they got back to her apartment. But, with Keith, it was just that—fucking. Even though it had been going on for quite some time, there was no love there. No connection. And his virility had a tendency to turn brutal. She never really had to worry about sore jaws or a raw ass with Dan. Keith treated them as standard fare. With Keith, the words, “That hurts,” were said in a wasted breath.

But now she wondered if there even was a Dan. She knew it sounded severe, but Glowers Point, the Point, despite all its rolling hills and full-bloomed splendor, was a very severe place.

Her thoughts ate up the road and turned the dusk to dark.

Around Columbus, the traffic thickened and she pulled off an exit. She decided she had to find a phone. Unlike Dan, she wouldn’t have anything to do with a cell phone, although she wished she had one now so she could make the calls without burning time. She pulled into a BP and used her credit card to call information.

“City and state,” the bland feminine voice asked.

“Glowers Point, Ohio,” Karen spat. Not a religious person in the least, she had the urge to cross herself after speaking those words. She became aware of how impatient and out of breath she was.

“That’s another number. Let me get that for you.”

Karen wondered if operators were aware of how monstrously slow they were. The recording gave her the number and, having no pen or paper, she chose the extra toll to be connected automatically.

“City and state?” Another bland feminine voice. This one maybe a bit more Appalachian.

“Glowers Point, Ohio.”

“Go ahead.”

“I need the number for the Glowers Point Police Department.”

Again she chose to be connected automatically. The phone must have rang fifteen times.

“Glowers Point mergency.” A uniquely twangy female voice this time.

Karen paused. What was she supposed to say? The words tangled in her mind and got stuck in her throat. The whole purpose of the call hinged upon the fact that Glowers Point wasn’t the same town it used to be. That is, a town with a secret. A secret that all the townspeople knew and never talked about. She would be able to tell by the dispatcher’s voice if it had changed or not. There was also the possibility that maybe Dan had had an actual emergency. Maybe he ran off the road or hit a deer or, Christ, she didn’t know, suffered a fucking coronary there in his car.

“Hello?” the voice said.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. Is this the Glowers Point Police?”

“Police, Fire, and Ambellance.”

Of course, Karen thought and then said, “Um, okay. I need to find out if there’s been an accident.”

“Ain’t been none all day. Usually there is, but we ain’t got no calls bout no accidents today.”

No. The town hadn’t changed a bit. The woman’s voice made Karen think of walking into a room with your skirt tucked into the back of your hose and trying to carry on a normal conversation while the person you were talking to tried not to laugh. But there was something inside Karen that wouldn’t let her drop it at that. It was futile, she knew, to try and penetrate their shell, but she pressed on anyway.

“Can’t you radio someone? To make sure.”

“Naw. There ain’t no need fer that. If there’d been an accident, I’da hadta pers’nally call in the county.”

“Okay,” Karen said, trying to think of a million other questions to ask this woman. Trying to create a conspirator for her madness but, she knew, both she and the other woman were already part of the madness.

Before Karen could think of anything else, the woman said, “Okay? Bye now, honey.”

Karen hung up the phone, feeling lost. The call should have made her feel relieved but it served an opposite purpose. At least, she thought, Dan’s probably not dead yet.

There are some things worse than death.

No. She didn’t want to think about anything like that, the creepy cult stuff. Besides, Dan’s a grown man, he can take care of himself.

Karen laughed. She knew there was no taking care of yourself in the Point. Being there was half the problem.

As Karen wandered across the greasy parking lot to the store, only vaguely aware of what she was doing, the image of Jordan flashed through her memory, ripping in and gouging blood.

There are some things worse than death. There are some things worse than death. There are some things worse than death.

It was like she had to keep those words going like a chant so she didn’t have to actually think about what those things were.

She sat in the car and unfolded the Ohio road map. Karen could never forget the way to Glowers Point. She had always remembered it. Although, she had always thought she was remembering it only so she could avoid it in the future. She bought the map because she thought there might be some new way to get there. Perhaps a state route had been extended or a new highway created. Hell, maybe there was even a second Glowers Point in Ohio. The last few minutes were completely gone, eclipsed by the first sixteen years of her life. She didn’t remember going into the store. Didn’t remember buying the map. Didn’t. Remember.

What she remembered was this:

She and Allison and Jordan, Glowers Point High’s most innocent threesome, had all gone down to the creek for a night of camping and drinking. After a couple hours, Jordan left the campfire to go squat in the woods. Time passed, but it was drunk time, moving way too fast. It was probably an hour before Karen or Allison wondered where Jordan was. She wasn’t anywhere in the area immediately surrounding the fire. They made torches and searched a wider perimeter. Together, they scoured the trails, calling Jordan’s name.

Nothing. Throats full of dread. That was it. Had the rumors finally come true for one of them?

By four AM, Allison and Karen had given up hope. “Maybe she just went home for some reason,” they thought. They went back to Allison’s and called the local police department and were immediately told that, no, no there wasn’t anyone fitting that description—no one picked up for public drunkenness, no one murdered, no volunteer emergency calls. They called the hospital over in Dayton, too, just to make sure. The only people left were Jordan’s small circle of friends.

Karen called the first one, the phone ringing. On about the fourth ring, from behind her, she heard Allison say, “Oh my God,” and put her hand over her mouth. “Put down the phone, K. She found
us
.”

The voice on the other end picked up. Karen heard Jennifer Gentry’s mom sleepily say, “Hello,” while Karen was in the act of placing the phone back in its cradle.

Karen followed Allison down the stairs and out the front door.

Through the early dawn ground fog, they saw Jordan. Only she didn’t
look
anything like Jordan. Once she saw Allison and Karen, she collapsed onto the front yard. Allison and Karen went over to her, inspecting the damage without touching her.

“Call the police,” Karen said.

“No!” Jordan shouted, a spray of blood coming from her mouth, ropes of it dangling from her bottom lip. Her eyes darted around in her head.

Allison, disregarding Jordan’s demand, rushed into the house to make the call. Anything to take her sight off the grisly heap in the front yard.

The only thing Jordan wore was a bra, relatively mangled at this point. Blood covered her from head to toe. It was heavier in parts, like where clumps of her hair had been ripped out. As Jordan struggled to sit up, Karen noticed the series of deep red gashes down her back.

Jordan reached out to Karen and said, “He said he was going to make me like him. Something about tormenting. I think he was one of
them
.”

“It’s okay,” Karen said, placing her hands on Jordan’s shoulder.

There are some things worse than death.

Karen knew what Jordan meant by one of
them
. They were the Tormented. Karen had always figured they were as much myth as reality. Something for parents to scare little children with so they wouldn’t wander off into the woods. But as Karen got older, into her teenage years, she began to see maybe a little bit of truth behind the mythic exaggerations. It didn’t take her long to realize something was wrong when there seemed to be a student a week missing from the high school.

Historically, the Tormented were as old as the town itself. Call them the first rebellious teens in that area. The Tormented were a group of adolescents, between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, who broke off from the adult, church-centered society to found their own little cult. From everything Karen had heard, they’d been a peaceful lot. Their premise seemed to be that, rather than acting as slavehands on their parents’ farms and being expected to follow their rules, why not work for themselves and make their own rules. Karen suspected that sex was somewhere at the center of it.

The adults claimed they were decimating the innocence of their children. They ordered the youths to stop practicing but it didn’t work. Eventually, the members of the congregation decided the Tormented needed to be scared back into their senses. The adult church corralled the townspeople and stormed Black Hill, where the Tormented called home. The adults went about setting several fires, hoping the Tormented would come down from the hill and repent. Like any stubborn, rebellious teenagers, they stayed put, headed for martyrdom. The fires raged to the top of the hill but the Tormented didn’t go away. Over the years, they continued to grow. And more teenagers turned up missing. After seeing Jordan that night and hearing the things she said, Karen believed every word of it.