In Your Face Horror (Chamber Of Horror Series) Read online

  In Your Face Horror

  Chamber of Horror Series

  By

  Billy Wells

  In Your Face Horror

  Copyright © 2012 by Billy Wells

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Why I Wrote This Book

  As a young boy, I read a story entitled The October Game by Ray Bradbury in an Alfred Hitchcock anthology paperback. That story not only chilled me to the bone, but it inspired me to write horror stories of my own. One of my early attempts, Black As Night is included in this book. I tweaked it some, but for the most part, it is the same story I submitted to Ruth Tisinger, my high school English teacher, all those years ago. Knowing she hated scary stories and would be grading it for the next day’s class at night, I included the following note at the end of the story for additional effect, “Now, Mrs. Tisinger, as you sit streaking my paper with scarlet, someone could be watching you through the window. Are you alone?”.

  From those humble beginnings, I have written 93 short stories, mostly horror, with surprise endings. I’m about to publish my third compilation entitled Don’t Look Behind You-A Collection of Horror. I’ve seen more movies than anyone I’ve ever known and enjoy most genres, but a good horror film has always been my favorite.

  My dream would be to see some of the stories in this book in a movie or a TV show.

  Table of Contents

  Why I Wrote This Book

  The Clown At Midnight

  SHIVERS

  BLACK AS NIGHT

  Under New Management

  Christmas Eve

  Tattoo

  Cyclops

  Victim 13

  A Shortcut Through The Woods

  Something In The Car

  Masquerade

  The Vampire Club

  The Shell Game

  The Troll

  The Boy Who Cried “Boogeyman”

  Fortune Teller

  Werewolf On Broadway

  The Rapture

  The Babysitter

  Spiders

  The Ax

  Vampires & Werewolves

  To Know the End

  Ravenous

  What the Cat Dragged In

  Tooth Fairy

  The Love Room

  Tommy

  The Maw

  Shadow On The Stairs

  Bedtime Story

  Claws

  Confessional

  The Clown At Midnight

  My name is Charles Royster. All my friends know I am a horror film fanatic, and they tease me relentlessly about the props I set up in my TV room before I watch a horror flick.

  I place two life-size movie monsters on both sides of my 55-inch TV. My favorites are Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Next, I place a life-size werewolf mannequin dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans in the side chair next to the sofa to watch the movie with me. I light one small candle on the coffee table and turn on the overhead fan at its slowest setting. The draft makes the candle flicker eerily and gives the monsters a more ominous presence.

  Larry Igou, a friend at work, had given me a DVD to watch this evening. He recommended it as one of the scariest movies he had ever seen. I asked him to join me, but unfortunately, he had other plans or didn’t want to take a chance on cardiac arrest viewing the film at my house.

  I got home at about 9 p.m., had a few drinks and dinner, and positioned my props to watch Terror on Tape. It was almost 10 p.m. when I slid the DVD into the player and sat down next to the werewolf. I turned off all the lights in the house with my remote. The single candle was the only light.

  The werewolf stared at me with his constant wolfish grin.

  The feature played for one hour and thirty minutes with scenes from the goriest horror movies of all time. One of the most terrifying scenes was when the madman ripped out the buxom blonde’s tongue in Blood Feast. For a moment, I thought I might throw up, but the sensation mercifully passed.

  Wow! Larry was right. I had never seen a horror movie with this much blood and gore. My nerves were shattered as I sat in the dark with my movie monsters watching blood splattering all over the screen and limbs being hacked off. It was a bloodbath in startling color from start to finish.

  When the fright fest was over, I sat there exhausted with goose bumps all over my arms and legs and chills tweaking the hairs on the back of my neck. All my monsters seemed to leer at me in the flickering candlelight.

  When the credits stopped rolling, the most haunting melody I’d ever heard assaulted my ears as I began to shudder violently. From the blackness on the screen, these words scrolled up: “You will win tonight’s trivia contest if you can name the famous person who said, ‘A clown is funny in the circus ring, but what if the same clown appeared at your door at midnight…’ Call 888-8888, and if you are the first person with the correct answer, you will be eligible for the thrill of your life.” A hideous laugh echoed in the background.

  I reached for the phone and punched in the number. An eerie voice said, “What is the answer?”

  “Lon Chaney, Sr. He said the greatest horror was “the clown at midnight.”

  “Correct! You are the winner,” an eerie voice said. “I will come to you at midnight and give you a thrill you will remember for the rest of your life.”

  “What? Is this some kind of joke?” I listened for a response, but the line was dead.

  It was inconceivable that anyone would come to my house at midnight for the $2.00 rental fee Larry probably paid. I smiled nervously and turned off the TV. It was 11:25 according to the clock on the wall. I sat surrounded by my monsters and pondered my next move.

  Then I redialed the number.

  Before I could even speak, the voice said, “It’s too late. I’m on my way.” The line went dead, and no one answered the second and third time I tried to call it off.

  I went to the kitchen and grabbed the largest butcher knife I owned and returned to the living room.

  My nerves were raw with anticipation as the minutes ticked away. I regretted making the stupid call, terrified at what might happen at midnight.

  I paced the floor as the witching hour neared.

  The doorbell rang. I thought of not answering, but my curiosity drove me. Before I could reach the handle, the door squeaked slowly open. This made no sense. I knew I had locked it when I came home from work.

  I was experiencing “horror overload” when I began gasping for breath. My whole body was convulsing in utter fear as I looked into the darkness beyond the door.

  A tall, pale shape stood in the shadows between the columns on the front porch. The street lamp overhead shone down on a white head and the tip of a red, bulbous nose and portions of a gaudy clown suit. In the shadows, I could see two cruel eyes fixed on me from the recesses of his dark, hollow sockets.

  From the long, pointed teeth came a voice that would chill a corpse, “A clown is funny in the circus ring, but how do I look standing at your door at midnight?” He tooted a maddening horn and roared with fiendish laughter.

  Suddenly, strobe lights from out of nowhere revealed the hideous eyes and teeth in graphic clarity as the seven-foot clown monster advanced toward me in a pulsing, mind- altering motion. Two rows of pointed teeth spread across his face from ear to ear in a horrifying grin.

  As he raised his two grotesque claws to strike, he looked down at me and said, “Are you scared?”

  “Scared shitless,” I said as I plunged the butcher knife into th
e center of his chest. The giant clown monster rocked back and then teetered forward, gripping my shoulders to steady himself with what felt like rubber claws. A stream of his warm blood soaked my Phantom of the Opera T-shirt. Urine ran down my leg into my shoe as bright lights illuminated the darkness. Three cameramen and my best friend, Larry, ran into view from the bushes screaming in unison, “You don’t have to be scared. We’re broadcasting this on live TV.”

  * * *

  SHIVERS

  When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. There was not a glint of light or even the subtle shading of shadow.

  He listened. There was no external sound other than his own breathing and the slight movement of his head on what felt like a pillow.

  His mind was cloudy, and when he tried to move his hands, he found they were immovable. He felt something wrapped around his right wrist holding it down, but he could still move his fingers. His left hand felt like it was set in concrete. He tried to move his legs, but discovered to his horror, he had no feeling of any kind below the waist.

  Searching his mind for an explanation, he began to back peddle into memories of yesterday and beyond, but it felt like a vast wasteland.

  Suddenly, his name occurred to him out of the stupor that clouded his mind. He was Steve Russell, a combine salesman working out of Kansas City, Kansas. His wife’s name was Lois, and they had two children, Jason and Jill, who were eight and four. The last thing he remembered was stopping at a rest stop to pee on Interstate 70 late at night. His mind was blank after that.

  Did he have an accident? Why couldn’t he feel his legs? Was he paralyzed?

  The place where he lay seemed more like an isolation booth than a hospital, and it was intensely cold.

  Shivering violently, it felt like goose bumps covered every inch of his body. He tried to move his right hand inward toward his thigh, but he could only reach a small portion of his right leg, which felt as hard as an iron pipe and numb to the touch. He felt exposed and vulnerable as if lying nude on a bed with a cold blast of air-conditioning falling on him from above. He tried desperately to free his right hand since he couldn’t feel his left hand at all.

  It finally occurred to him to cry out for help. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? He tried to gather the energy to speak, but he couldn’t swallow. He also discovered he couldn’t open his mouth. His jaws were locked, and he couldn’t feel his tongue. His mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton gauze. Had he bitten his tongue off on the steering wheel when he’d crashed the car? He had no recollection of any accident.

  Did he have brain damage? What was today? Where was Lois? No matter how strange his surroundings seemed; he had to be in a hospital. The doctors must have restrained his hands to stop him from hurting himself.

  Starting to sob, he feared he was no longer Steve Russell, or not the Steve Russell he’d been yesterday. He wasn’t brain dead, but the thought of his being the proverbial vegetable for the rest of his life weighed heavily on his mind.

  He might be in an intensive care facility. Maybe he was a burn victim. Possibly, an ointment covered his entire body, and this was why he felt so cold. He thought he remembered reading burn victims were always cold when they had burns all over their body. He might be in an ice bath to control the pain.

  Suddenly a horrible thought swept into his mind like a sledgehammer. Was he blind? Maybe he wasn’t in a dark room. Maybe this was what being blind was like. Maybe he was in an open, airy, sunlit room and the air-conditioning was just too cold for his taste. He wouldn’t know it if he were blind.

  He wanted to cry like he’d never cried before, but somehow there were no tears. Could a blind man cry? He’d never thought about it before.

  He had to settle down and gather his thoughts. What did he know? He couldn’t see so he could be blind. He couldn’t speak so he might have bitten his tongue off. He couldn’t move his left arm or his legs so he might be paralyzed. He also had no awareness of a penis or any sensation he needed to urinate. He was extremely cold and shivering so he might be a burn victim. There were a lot of minuses.

  What were the pluses? He wasn’t in pain. He could hear. If not tied to the bed, he could move his right arm. Hey, here’s a big one. He wasn’t dead. He was still breathing and very much alive.

  What had happened before he’d lost track of time? After he’d had breakfast at the cheap motel’s restaurant the last morning he could remember, he’d made a few calls to prospective farmers in proximity to Interstate 70. After lunch, he’d sold combines to Jasper Rogers and Mike Armstrong. Other than the two sales, he could only see visions of miles and miles of monotonous interstate highway.

  It was the season to harvest in Kansas, and the drive across country was flat and boring. The dust of sometimes four or five combines clouding his windshield for most of the day increased the possibility of his falling asleep at the wheel. He’d stopped several times for coffee to keep awake. The mattress was so hard in last night’s fleabag motel, he’d barely gotten a wink of sleep.

  If only a nurse would stop in now that he was awake. He couldn’t reach a call button to summon one, but sooner or later, someone would come in to change his IV or check his temperature and vital signs. He’d been in the hospital with pneumonia for eight days in 1998. He knew the drill.

  Suddenly it occurred to him, he’d heard no machines chirping, no televisions blaring, and no announcements on an intercom. This was certainly abnormal. How could a hospital function without these commonplace sounds?

  All at once, an excruciating pain erupted in both hip joints that surpassed any toothache or gallstone attack he’d ever experienced. The agony continued to build until he passed out.

  Fifteen minutes later, two men in pale green surgical gowns and face shields stopped at the door and looked at the chart hanging from an in box on the wall.

  “Who’s this poor slob?” the younger surgeon asked.

  “He’s just another guy who had to pee at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “The rest stop on Interstate 70?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who brought him in? Crowbar or Toothless?”

  “They had the night off.”

  “No, don’t tell me it was….”

  “You guessed it. Meathook.”

  “The poor bastard. How unlucky can one person be?”

  The two surgeons stepped inside the room.

  “What’s been harvested so far?” the younger surgeon asked.

  “According to the chart, the kidneys, the liver, the optic nerves, the left arm, and both legs.”

  “What’s left?”

  “The right arm and the heart.”

  “For God sakes! Put something over his eyes. Bloody eye sockets creep me out.”

  The older surgeon draped a small towel over Steve’s empty eyes. His head was also partly immobilized by a neck brace.

  “How gross. His lips have been sewn shut.”

  “Meathook loves deep fried tongue as a substitute for baloney, and he’s trying to get a side job at Morgan’s funeral home sewing lips shut and needs the practice.”

  “Spare me the details.”

  The younger surgeon made the initial cut to amputate Steve’s right arm. Afterward, the older surgeon severed the shoulder bone with a circular saw and detached it. One placed a tourniquet on the wound, and the other wrapped the arm in plastic and placed it in a tub of ice on a cart.

  Steve awoke in a fit of agony. He immediately discovered his right arm felt like lead, and he could no longer move it.

  He heard someone say, “it’ s a good thing…ah… Steve here is a vegetable on life support and brain dead. Can you imagine what it would be like to harvest all his organs while he was alive?”

  The high keening sound of the surgeon’s saw obliterated Steve’s final attempt to scream as the precision blade cut through his breastbone like warm butter.

  * * *

  BLACK AS NIGHT

  The Thompsons were a poor family
who lived in a dilapidated farmhouse on a gravel road about three miles from Route 11 in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It was a cold Halloween night in 1963, and the family of four had just finished eating dinner.

  Norman Thompson looked out his window at the expanse of his property as he pondered the chores he would do tomorrow. Emily, his wife, was sewing a checkered quilt in the living room by the light of one naked hundred-watt bulb. Their teenage sons, Hank and Jeb, were lying exhausted on the front porch after a hard day’s work bailing hay.

  Jeb struggled to his feet from a hammock and flexed his aching muscles. He extracted a rock from his pocket, and after winding up like a pitcher on a mound, he hurled it as far into the night as he could. Momentarily, the sound of breaking glass shattered the silence of the dark house that stood in the shadows across the gravel road.

  “Damn, Jeb, that was a hellacious throw. You’re gettin’ pretty accurate in your rock throwin’,” Hank complimented as he leaned off the side of the porch and spit out a big chaw of tobacco juice.

  “That old house gives me the creeps. I wish somebody would come along and bulldoze it.”

  “What would be the point? The whole parcel Sam Johnson owned is nothing but a pile of rocks. I’ll bet that house will fall down before somebody bulldozes it. It’s just not worth the bother.” Hank scratched his oily black hair and continued. “Do you know what day it is?”

  Jeb paused for a moment and then replied, “Hey, I almost forgot after liftin’ all those bails of hay. It’s Halloween, and I know what you’re gonna say before you even say it.”

  “Last year, on this very night, with a full moon blazin’ just like tonight, we heard the sound of that horse. The hoof beats sounded so strange…like thunder,” Hank whispered in his spookiest voice.

  “I’ll never forget how scared I was,” Jeb piped in as he peeled a scab from his thumb.

  Hank jumped up from his rocker, and like an actor on a Broadway stage, he motioned in the distance and shouted, “And lo and behold, the horse had a rider, both as black as night.” And then he continued in his normal voice, “He looked like he was going to a Halloween party, dressed in black from head to toe and wearing a black mask so you couldn’t see his face and a black cape blowing in the breeze like some kind of vampire.”