13 Tales To Give You Night Terrors (17 page)

“
IT’S
different when you have your own,” she said to me as she cooed
and goo-goo-gooed over somebody else’s baby. Seven months gone and
my best friend was positively evangelical with pregnancy, as if the
scales had fallen from her eyes and she had found a glorious new
religion.

I shouldn’t worry.

“
Your maternal instinct
will kick in soon,” she tells me. “When you feel a life inside you,
it changes you. Every woman has the instinct, you wait, it’ll
happen.”

I had a cat once. Not the same, I
know, but I loved this cat; she was my friend. We’d go on the prowl
together. She’d comfort me when I was sad—taught me things, that
animal. She used to bring me “gifts”. Leaves and snails when she
was a kitten, then when she was older it was dead things. Birds,
mice, an occasional mole. Not the best gift—a crow in the toilet. I
used to tell her off and eventually she stopped. Stopped with the
dead stuff, that is—then it was live stuff. A chaffinch flapping
round the bedroom. A vole on the floor, scared senseless while the
cat kept it locked in the headlight of her proprietorial glare.
There was even an angry duck once—a match for the cat, but fair
play to her, she’d got it through the cat flap. God knows how. Then
there was this shrew. Tiny little mite, you could see its heart
beating like mad, its little legs paralysed with fear. So small—no
bigger than your thumb, really. It’s a wonder the cat
bothered.

That’s where I got the
idea.

The cat’s long dead. It would have
been ridiculous to wait for the fickle fancies of a bloody cat,
anyway. But you can buy these things (God bless the internet) to
feed to snakes. Apparently most people don’t buy live shrews—normal
people prefer frozen mice. Normal people don’t want to see the
price of life, the exchange. One for another, ten lives, a hundred
lives, a thousand. But you can buy live shrews. There are a lot of
weirdos out there.

I found a man who sells
them not forty minutes’ drive from my house. Phoned ahead. Bought
ten for “Sissy” my pet snake (so
I
wouldn’t look like a weirdo) and carefully took
them home in a cardboard box with holes in the lid. In the house I
peered into the box. Teeny little things, they were. Hardly a meal,
merely a mouthful.

The first one died. They’re so little
and panicky and I couldn’t hold onto it properly—I don’t know if I
broke its neck or it died of fright or both. I just couldn’t get it
inside the condom, it was struggling too much.

Nine more
tries
.

But the second time was a dream after
I blew the condom up a bit first. I wanted a bit of air in there,
anyway.

I rubbed butter on the
outside.

I’d always been good at taking
pills.

This was different, of
course.

It was moving, for a start. I could
feel its tiny feet on my tongue—ten tiny toes! I wretched a bit.
But I swallowed it all down in the end. I was frightened at
first.

What have I
done?

I relaxed. I knew this was what I
wanted, knew it was worth the sickness and the discomfort. I could
feel it in me, my esophagus, going down, could feel its little
heartbeat, its breathing, its clawing and wriggling, felt it move
into my tummy. Could I feel it kick in there? Maybe. I’d like to
think so, yes. Yes—yes, I could feel it kick, because it’s no one’s
body but my own, and I know what I felt. Life. In me.

There. She was right. It changes
everything. So I know next time I see a baby smiling up at me, its
soft fatty limbs waving in tender joy, I’ll look at it quite
differently.

13.
THE HOUSESITTER

Elliot Arthur Cross, United
States

THE
sun was already
setting as Nolan finally spotted the narrow driveway leading to the
lake house. He’d thought he was lost for the last five minutes and
considered calling it quits. But there was Thirteen Serling Drive,
barely visible through the thicket. The lake had to be on the other
side. How far out had he driven?

He crept the car down the drive until he
reached the impressive two-story house with mammoth windows. The
lights were on in one room and a classic car from the ’60s or ’70s
was parked by the front door. It looked European and was jet black
except for the white trim around the wheels and curtains in the
backseat.

Nolan parked next to the vehicle and stepped
out into the balmy summer air. He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d
been to spot the ad on Craigslist.
Housesitter wanted for one week $500.
In other
words,
Hey Nolan, here’s some easy cash to
get out of your cramped house and enjoy yourself for a week. You’re
welcome.

He knocked on the front door and stepped back.
He’d emailed back and forth a few times with the homeowner, but
there was still that voice in the back of his head telling him it
was too good to be true. Maybe he was being catfished or lured out
into the boonies by some psychopath.

Just my luck.

Nolan absent-mindedly tugged on his silver
cross necklace. The door opened and a man with wavy black hair and
moon-shaped glasses smiled at Nolan. He wore suspenders and a bow
tie like he was horribly out of date or terribly fashion forward.
He stuck his hand out for Nolan to shake, his skin cold to the
touch.

“
You must be Nolan. Or a
particularly polite home invader.”

“
I’m Nolan.”

“
My preferred choice. I’m Amicus
Sundown. Enter.”

Nolan stepped inside the house and took stock
of the space before him. A narrow hallway led to a room on one side
and a huge open space on the other, part kitchen, part living room.
The back wall consisted mostly of windows overlooking a dock
jutting into the darkening lake.

“
My new summer home,” Amicus
explained as he shut the front door, a slight Southern accent in
his diction. “Are you familiar with the property?”

“
The lake? Not really.”

“
It’s not the lake which interests
me. It’s the plot of land.” Amicus ushered him into the living room
while he busied himself in the kitchen. “I’m a collector, you see.
I’m drawn to oddities. History. I’m leaving in just a moment, care
to share a drink with me first?”

“
I’m only seventeen.”

“
Perfectly legal in civilized
cultures like Vienna or Cyprus.”

“
Okay, sure.” Nolan wasn’t about to
turn down free booze. His eye caught a drawing on the wall of a
sad-looking clown. It looked like a child’s picture.

Amicus poured Mountain Dew, rum, gin and
blackberry brandy into twin glasses half filled with ice. He
trotted to the living room and handed Nolan one. He clinked the
glasses together and brought his up to his thin lips. Nolan smiled
weakly and gingerly sipped the drink. Sweet, carbonated, and unlike
anything he’d had before.

“
What is it?”

“
Post Nap Funk.” Amicus sat in an
easy chair and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “The cat
doesn’t like strangers, you see. Macabre is a persnickety kitty,
but he’ll grow accustomed to you. Just make sure he doesn’t leave
the house. There are all sorts of things out there that’d give you
night terrors.”

“
No problem. You spelled out
everything perfectly in our emails.”

“
Yes.” Amicus drank, his eyes
closed.

“
You mentioned the fireplace.
Where’s the wood for it?”

“
There’s a cabana of sorts behind
the house. I may turn it into a bar. The wood is stacked there.”
Amicus stood and grazed his fingers along the mantelpiece. He
stopped at a small taxidermied rodent. “It’s more difficult, I
hear, on the smaller creatures.”

“
What is that? A mouse?”

“
It’s a shrew. Most people feed
them to snakes. Not this one. Tell me, do you like
stories?”

“
Sure. Who doesn’t?”

“
Good. I thought it important you
know the history of the property. Just in case. Long before this
home was built by the water, the entire area was farmland. The
apple trees that dot the forest covered the fields and a farmhouse
sat further inland. The Munroe family lived there until 1911. In
the dead of night one summer evening, all six Munroes were lured
into their barn, one at a time, where a stranger viciously hacked
them to death with an ax from their own toolshed. A young farmhand
who often stayed on the property was murdered inside the
house.”

“
That’s awful. Who did
it?”

“
No arrest was ever made. Three
days after the murders, neighbors noticed the usually boisterous
farm had been silent and none of the Munroes were seen in church.
The police arrived and found the farm animals perfectly looked
after. The killer had stayed in the farmhouse those three days,
cooking meals and caring for all the animals and carrying out the
chores. He must have eaten breakfast mere feet from the farmhand’s
gruesome corpse.”

Nolan shivered and sipped more of his drink.
“So they tore down the farm and some yuppie built this lake house?
No offense.”

“
None taken. Would you like to know
the most peculiar aspect of the case?”

“
Is it going to freak me out?” He’d
be spending a whole week here, and he didn’t want to imagine ghosts
every time a floorboard creaked.

The storyteller’s eyes sparkled. “The killer
covered every mirror in the house with sheets, as well as the
farmhand’s face, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of being seen.
For some reason, perhaps out of respect, he placed a single flower
on the death veil. Even stranger, he wrapped a pillow case over the
telephone.”

“
Why would someone do
that?”

“
Perhaps the killer couldn’t stand
the notion of anyone, or anything, reaching out to him.” Amicus
downed his drink and poured the ice out into the sink. “It’s time I
got going.”

Nolan felt something poke against his butt. He
felt the couch cushion and found a collar stuffed inside with the
name TROUBLE crudely written on it.

“
All right,” he said. He stood up
and walked toward the front door. He’d been looking forward to
being alone, but after hearing the story, he couldn’t shake the
feeling he wished the stranger would stay just a bit longer. “I’ve
got everything under control here.”

“
Of course. I’ll see you in one
week, I’m sure.” Amicus tilted his head to the side, giving Nolan a
long look. The edges of his razor thin lips curled upward before he
left.

Nolan watched through the windows as the
strange man approached his car and bent down for something that
turned out to be a large apple. He bit into it as he got into the
classic car. It started without a problem and then slowly backed
out down the driveway. Nolan thought about the murderer all those
years ago and pictured him dressed similarly to Amicus, only
shabbier. Had he gorged on apples as all those bodies
decomposed?

At least I’m not in the murder
house. Don’t think about the axman.

Alone at last. No brothers and sisters or his
mother and father breathing down his neck. And apparently a fully
stocked bar.

He returned to the living room and tossed his
keys on the coffee table. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and
autodialed Parker, gazing out at the pristine lake through the
kitchen window. The full moon reflected on the inky water beyond
the dock. He thought about the week ahead and all the time he’d get
to boat on the lake. Too bad it wasn’t warm enough to swim at
night, otherwise he and Parker could skinny dip. That was an idea
all right. Screw the temperature, he could think of other ways to
keep his boyfriend warm.

My boyfriend.

Two months of sneaking out of the house. Two
months of lying to his brothers and sisters. Lying to his
parents.
He absent-mindedly touched the cross round
his neck.

But Parker’s worth it. I can tell
them about him when I go to college. If I’m still with Parker. I’ll
still be with Parker.

“
Hey, babe, what’s up?”

“
Hey.” Parker’s voice brought an
automatic smile to Nolan’s face. “Dude left a minute ago. It’s just
me, the lake house, and Macabre the cat for seven whole
days.”

“
You’re kidding.”

“
Nope.”

Parker sighed. “I thought that was next
weekend.”

Nolan felt deflated. All this excitement and
he’d have to wait even longer. The phone vibrated and he found an
incoming text from his mother reminding him to say his prayers
every night.

“
Well, this vacation gig goes
through next weekend,” Nolan said.

“
I already got next weekend off and
ordered us tickets to see This Is My Roommate,” Parker said, his
voice sounding flat.

“
What?” Nolan squealed.

“
I wanted to surprise
you.”

“
I am surprised! You’re the best. I
love those guys, but you’re a close second. Oh my god.” Nolan
couldn’t believe Parker’s thoughtfulness.