Twisted Little Things and Other Stories (9 page)

She waited, and then finally she allowed herself a faint smile.

Amused by her own fears, she realized that for a fraction of a second, she'd actually allowed herself to believe in the possibility of ghosts. After a lifetime of rational thinking, she was genuinely bemused to realize that all it had taken had been a simple knife falling to the floor to make her start freaking out. She figured one of the many, many passing buses had shaken the building, causing the knife to slowly move across the table and drop over the edge.

That made sense.

It was the only explanation.

Sighing, she knelt down and grabbed the knife.

And then she froze.

Staring straight ahead, she saw a woman's legs on the other side of table nine.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, someone was sitting on the chair.

Feeling a creeping sense of fear running up her spine, Lisa remained on one knee, stared at the legs. Clad in thin black stockings, they seemed svelte and thin, while the figure's feet were resting in a set of black heels. The lace frills of a black dress could just about be made out below the knees, with a delicate threaded pattern that seemed just a little old-fashioned.

Lisa paused, telling herself she should look above the table, but somehow her body seemed frozen.

“Donna?” she whispered, hoping against hope that somehow the whole thing was a trick.

She waited.

Silence.

“Annette? Is that you?”

No reply.

Too scared to move, she felt as if her entire body had suddenly been gripped by an overwhelming sense of fear. Looking down at her right hand, she saw that she was starting to tremble, no matter how hard she tried to remind herself that there was no such thing as ghosts. She figured she should just stand up and look over the top of the table, to face whoever was sitting on the other side, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to make the move. It was as if her body had taken over, refusing to do what her mind knew was the right thing.

Suddenly, the lights from another passing bus briefly filled the restaurant, allowing Lisa to see the black-clad legs more clearly than ever.

She took a deep breath.

Either you're going to stay like this until morning
, she told herself,
or you stand up right now and face this thing .Whatever it is, it's sure as hell not a ghost
.

Finally, slowly, she began to stand up, while watching the edge of the table and bracing to see the face of whoever or whatever was waiting for her. Her whole body was trembling now, but she forced herself to focus on the fact that ghosts didn't exist.

Ghosts
couldn't
exist.

Any second now she'd see that.

As her terrified face rose above the edge of the table, her eyes were suddenly filled with a vast brightness on the other side of the window. She heard a bus horn blaring, and she saw the silhouette of a woman wearing a dark hat and veil. The woman's stare was intense and unblinking, and behind her there was a bright, growing light, accompanied by the sound of tires squealing.

Lisa could only stare, frozen by the sight of the woman's dead eyes, even as the light became unbearable and the window shattered.

Epilogue

Four hours later

“Let them through!” someone called out from the front of the small crowd. “For God's sake, let them through!”

“Where is she?” Mary screamed, running across the street toward the devastated restaurant. The front of the building had been crushed, and the rear of a double-decker bus lay on its side in the wreckage with steam rising from is twisted carcass. The damage had been so extensive that the upper levels had collapsed and sent debris all the way over to the opposite pavement. A sign bearing the Croussiard's logo had been left crushed in the street, next to thick tire marks burned into the tarmac where the bus driver had desperately tried to brake.

“Stay back,” a police officer said, stepping in front of Mary and trying to block her way. “I can't let you get any closer.”

“Wait, love,” Harry said, putting a trembling hand on Mary's shoulder as he stared in horror at what was left of the restaurant. “Someone'll tell us where she is. She'll be fine, she has to be.”

“Where's my daughter?” Mary shouted, as two more officers hurried past. “Where's Lisa? She was working here tonight! It was her first shift!”

As his wife began to sob, Harry puts his arms around her and looked at what was left of the restaurant. The double-decker bus had skidded onto the pavement at full speed before plowing straight through the main window, and it was clear that anyone who'd been at the front of the restaurant at the time would have stood no chance. The bus was so far inside, only its tail-lights were hanging out, still blinking red and orange.

“They pulled a body out of the rubble a few minutes ago,” a man said nearby, with tears in her eyes. “A young woman, from what I heard. Someone who worked there.” He made the sign of the cross against his chest. “Poor thing.”

“Where's Lisa?” Mary stammered, turning to Harry. “Where is she?”

“I don't know, love,” he replied, trying to stay calm as yet more flashing blue lights approached. All around, various radios could be heard crackling to life as emergency teams tried to coordinate their efforts. “She'll be fine, though. I'm sure of it.”

“I knew she should never have come to work here,” Mary continued, “not after what happened all those years ago.”

Harry shook his head. “That has nothing to do with -”

“It was tempting fate!” Mary sobbed. “You and Vivian used to come to this place once a week when you were courting, and then after you left her and got engaged to me, she killed herself here. Right here, at one of the tables!” She turned and stared at the ruined restaurant as tears flowed down her face. “I warned you both, I said she shouldn't take the job here. I should have told her the truth about why I was so against it. You know what they say about Vivian Carradine, Harry. They say she was still -”

“That's all nonsense,” he replied, interrupting her before she could get the words out.

“They say she was still there every night,” she sobbed, “at table nine, waiting. Waiting for you, Harry, or... Maybe she was just waiting for revenge.”

“That's a load of superstitious nonsense,” he replied, turning and trying to get the attention of a passing officer. “Can someone tell us what's going on? Our daughter Lisa was working here tonight, and she hasn't been home yet. We don't know where -”

Suddenly he heard Lisa's familiar ring-tone in the distance. Turning, he realized her phone was ringing somewhere in the rubble of the restaurant, and a moment later he saw his wife had tried calling.

“She was in there,” Mary sobbed, dropping to her knees as fresh tears streamed down her face. “My poor little girl was in there when the bus hit! I tried to tell her not to work here! I was so scared, I knew something would happen...”

“We don't know that she was in there,” Harry replied, even though the color was already draining from his face. After a moment, the ring-tone fell silent. “She might have just left her phone behind, that's all, she...”

He paused, trying to come up with another explanation.

“Where is she, then?” Mary screamed. “If she left before the crash, where is she now?”

“The driver survived,” said another bystander, updating the woman next to him. “They carted him off to hospital. Apparently he said he was driving along, minding his own business, and then suddenly there was a woman right out in the middle of the road. He reckoned he didn't see her, on account of her wearing all black. So he swerved to avoid her, and then he lost control and went straight through the front of the restaurant. He said he saw someone in there at the last moment, a waitress or something at one of the tables. He said he looked her right in the eye before..”

“So horrible,” the woman sobbed. “That poor girl.”

Harry turned and looked over at the bystanders for a moment, before spotting more police heading along the pavement, making their way toward the restaurant. He still desperately wanted to believe that Lisa was okay, but as his wife continued to sob, he realized that his hope was fading. Piece by piece, like the scattered bricks from the restaurant, every scrap of hope was crumbling away.

“No,” he whispered, still looking around at the gathering crowd, hoping to see Lisa or at least for someone to tell him what had happened. All the sound seemed to fade away, leaving just a constant ringing sensation in his ears. “She can't have been here, she can't.” Tears began to stream down his face as he looked at the sea of faces. “Not my Lisa. Not my little girl. She got out, she must have done. Why would she even have been in there after closing, why would she -”

Stopping suddenly, he froze as he saw a familiar face at the back of the crowd. Wearing all black, her pale features barely visible through the veil, Vivian Carradine stared back at him with cold, dark eyes.

After a moment, the faintest of smiles crossed her face, and then she turned and walked away. Her revenge complete, she disappeared into the night. Shell-shocked, all Harry could manage was to stare at the spot where Vivian had been standing, while his wife sobbed in a heap on the ground.

The Third Voice

Prologue

“Lunch is going to be healthy today,” Sheila said with a smile as she finished slicing the cucumber. “Trust me, you'll thank me when you're older and not addicted to fast food.”

“Aw!” Kenny said with a groan, turning and stomping back over to the table. “That's not fun! How is that fun?”

Sheila smiled. Now that her son was eleven, he seemed to have suddenly developed a much more striking personality, and she couldn't help but feel pleased that he stood up for himself. Glancing toward the table, she saw that Kenny had slumped down in a chair next to his father, and now the pair of them were looking through a fishing magazine.

“Food won't be long,” she told them.

“Couldn't there be at least
one
hamburger involved?” asked Tom, her husband.

“No chance,” she was about to say, before pausing for a moment.

For a few seconds, she wondered whether she was being too mean.

“One hamburger, then,” she imagined herself telling them.

No.

No, she didn't want to cave.

“Just one.”

No. Even though there was a part of her that wanted to let them have a juicy burger, Sheila quickly pushed that idea to the back of her head and focused on more sensible thoughts. It was always hard resisting her husband's pleas for fatty food, and she often wavered between different responses, but today she was feeling strict.

Heading over to the table, she set a plate of cucumber slices down, along with a plate of cherry tomatoes, and then she hurried back to the counter.

“Hey,” Tom muttered, “where's the knife?”

“I already cut the cucumber,” she point out.

“For the tomatoes. Come on, you know I like 'em sliced.”

“Fine,” she said with a smile, and a sigh. Grabbing a knife, one that was perhaps a little too big for cherry tomatoes, she wandered back toward the table. “You know, you
could
just eat them as they are. It wouldn't hurt you to -”

“Kill him.”

She froze, stopping directly behind her husband as he and their son continued to look at the magazine.

“Kill him.”

The voice sounded like hers, but she knew it had to be coming from somewhere else. It wasn't the voice that always told her to be strict and cook healthy food, nor was it the voice that teased her and made her sometimes back down. Instead, this was a new voice, a third voice, that had suddenly emptied her head, as if from nowhere.

“Kill him.”

Before she could even think about what she was doing, Sheila raised the knife in her right hand and then brought it crashing down, slicing the blade straight into the back of Tom's head and through to his brain.

One

Three years, and several hundred miles away

“I heard she got all cut up. With a razor, like she... Well, you know... One doesn't like to gossip, but still... Apparently she was cut to ribbons!”

She leaned closer, across the shop's counter.

“Down there,” she added with a conspiratorial whisper. “Downstairs.”

“In the basement?”

“No! Down below. In her... area...”

“Oh!”

“Exactly!”

“My word...”

Mary glanced at the door, to make sure they weren't about to be interrupted, and then she too leaned across the counter.

“
I
heard that when they found the poor girl,” she said, keeping her voice low, “there were...
things
stuffed inside her.”

“Things?” Milly asked, her eyes widening with shock.

“Up her,” Mary added, nodding slowly. “Broken tree branches. Old twigs. Lots of them. All with sharp, pointed ends, and they'd really been forced into her body. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of brute who'd do something like that, but evidently there are some utterly terrible people in the world. If you ask me, they should strap him to a chair and -”

She stopped suddenly as a figure passed the shop window. Holding her breath, she watched as the figure headed off through town. With wide, terrified eyes, she seems scared that she might get interrupted at any moment, and she held her breath for several seconds.

“They'd really been rammed in tight,” she continued, turning back to Milly. “I heard there was so much blood, even the police who found her couldn't keep their lunches down. One of them even threw up. The poor girl had been tortured, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“And gagged, because it wasn't that far out of town, so if she hadn't been gagged, we all would've heard her.”

“I'm surprised he didn't cut her tongue out,” Milly suggested. “That'd have stopped her screaming too, and there'd have been no risk of the gag coming loose.”

“Good point,” Mary muttered. “I'm surprised the killer didn't think of that. He could've cut her little toes off, too.”

Milly frowned. “Why?”

“Sets your balance off. Makes it harder for you to run away, if you get out of the ropes. I read that online once.”

“Oh.”

“Then again, he could have just cut off her feet, or cut the tendons on the back of her heel. Same results. If you wanted to really make sure someone was stuck, that's what you'd do.” She sniffed. “Poor little Julie, though. I remember when she was just a kid. It's not right, is it? She was only twenty-one, and getting dragged out there into the forest by some maniac so he could -”

She spotted movement outside, as a figure approached the door.

“Incoming,” she added, leaning back and starting to ring up Milly's purchases. A half-side of beef, twelve tripe sausages and a bone for the dog. “I hear the weather's supposed to pick up around Tuesday week,” she said loudly, as if to demonstrate that they were talking about nothing of great importance. “Until then, it's gonna be all -”

Stopping suddenly, she stared in shock as Constance entered the store, smiling from ear to ear.

“Good morning, ladies,” Constance said brightly, making her way to the counter and setting her bag down. “And how are we doing on this fine Saturday?”

Mary and Milly stared at her, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Pulling her purse from her pocket, Constance flashed a smile at Mary before turning to Milly.

“I'm hoping that you've got a spare beef joint for the weekend,” she continued. “I know I've left it late, but it's been such a busy week and I didn't have time to plan. You know how it can be, don't you?”

She waited for a reply, before turning to Mary and seeing the shock in the other woman's face.

“What's wrong?” Constance asked finally. “You both look like you've seen a ghost.”

“No,” Milly stammered, her face draining of all color, “it's just...”

“Julie,” Mary said, swallowing hard. “We... Constance, we heard about Julie.”

“It's very sad,” Constance replied, rolling her eyes. “Now, about that beef joint -”

“We didn't think we'd see you up and about so soon,” Milly told her. “I mean... After what happened to your daughter, we thought...”

“It was a shock, I'll tell you,” Constance muttered, pulling some notes from her purse. “When that police officer came to the door and told me, yesterday morning, I...” Her voice trailed off for a moment, and her smile briefly faded before coming back stronger than ever. “She was a good girl. The best daughter a mother could ever hope for. I shall miss her terribly.”

Milly and Mary exchanged shocked glances.

“Whatever's the matter?” Constance asked.

“Do you have someone to look after you?” Mary asked, reaching out and placing a hand on her arm. “Are you all alone in that house now that... Well, now that Julie's gone?”

“Oh, I've never minded being alone,” Constance replied with a laugh. “It's a little weird, but I'll clear out Julie's room tonight or tomorrow. I was thinking of turning her old room into a small office.”

“But...” Milly stared at her for a moment. “Constance, we heard what actually happened to Julie. We heard what that monster did to her...”

“Horrible,” Constance said, nodding in agreement but still smiling. “At least the wretched man was caught quickly. I doubt they'll be letting him out of jail any time soon, eh?” She took a deep breath. “Now, about that joint of beef?”

A few minutes later, having wrapped the beef, Milly watched as Constance headed out of the shop. Full of smiles and laughs, Constance seemed like a woman with no worries on her mind at all, someone who was happily going about her business without a care in the world, and certainly not someone who – just twenty-four hours earlier – had been informed by the police that her daughter's bloody body had been found dismembered in the forest.

Slowly, Milly turned to Mary.

“She seems to be... taking it well.”