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Billy Wells Horror
Category:
Horror
Type: Fiction
Pages: 206
Copyright: 03/13/2014
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Ten Tales of Terror If You Dare...
Scary Stories: A Collection of Horror-Vol 2 is a compilation of short stories, mostly in the horror/thriller genre with surprise endings.
Table of Contents:
Forbidden Fruit: A father buys purple fruit at a roadside stand that turns his youngest son into a ravenous ghoul.
Drool: The city is swarming with zombies as Jerry and Maggie leave to find refuge at his grandma's farm in the country.
Something in the Ice: A teenager finds a monster frozen in the lake on the same day big cats have escaped from the local zoo and are gobbling up the town folk.
The Refrigerator: A man finds a message for help in a used refrigerator that was once owned by vampires in the house where his father died ten years before.
Fine Print: A computer fanatic finds a game where the players act as judge, jury, and executioner to mete out justice to evildoers.
Til Death Do Us Part: A serial killer gets his kicks by torturing and murdering beautiful women once they agree to marry him.
Something in the Dark: A woman plagued by recurring nightmares that have plagued her since she was a little girl seeks help from the most expensive shrink in NYC to effectively save her life.
The Package: A doctor receives a ransom note in a gift wrapped with ribbons and a bow from a G. Reaper.
Something in the Cave: Mysterious things begin to happen when two friends explore a cave over a thousand feet deep and find a myriad of tunnels someone created long ago.
Gor: An alien seeks revenge when a hunter enters the forest where he made his home and kills three of his animal friends.
Hark! This book contains horror stories. Please don't read it if you don't enjoy horror!
Also, if your parents did not allow you to go to horror movies a s a child, this may not be a book you should read.
Also, if you are prone to nightmares, don't read this book:
1. at night when you are alone.
2. If you believe in ghosts, goblins, or the Loch Ness monster.
3. during the full moon, particularly when the wolfbane blooms.
4. around a campfire after dark in a dense forest.
5. if the news reported that a deranged maniac has escaped from the local asylum.
6. if you think something from another planet has landed on earth.
7. if limbs being hacked off make you queasy.
9. during a lightning storm where your home could be plunged into total darkness.
But if you like to walk through graveyards after midnight, or visit haunted houses on Halloween, or explore dilapidated, defunct insane asylums, or play scary music in the dark when you are alone, enjoy the horror if you dare. If you really want to feel creepy, you might want to read this book with life-size monster mannequins sitting around you like Charles Royster did in my story, The Clown at Midnight. Hopefully, you will fare better than he did as you journey into the unknown.
So, take the plunge and feel the terror that waits just beyond the door in spaces where the subtle shades of black are imperceptible in the gloom. In a forest where the silence is so profound it suggests the awakening of an enormous beast from a long sleep with a mission to rip apart any bird, animal, or insect that dares make a sound. In a tomb where the children of the night seek fresh, warm blood, and the wind howls and the wolf bane blooms under the full moon. Into fields of sorrow where scarecrows walk, monsters crawl and awful things go bump in the night. Go to those creepy places you never thought you’d go where the whisper of a spider’s web lingers on the back of your neck too long. and the icy fingers of something dead send shivers up your spine that makes your blood run cold.
Excerpt
Forbidden Fruit
Up ahead Wesley saw a fruit stand on the right shoulder of the road and slowed his SUV.
“I feel like having a cantaloupe or a watermelon,” he said loudly as he pulled into a parking place in front of the line of large rectangular boxes full of various kinds of fruit.
Turning to his wife, Lisa, and looking back at the two kids, Jason and Brent, he saw all three either texting or playing a video game. He said louder, “Does anyone want some watermelon or cantaloupe?”
Wesley was totally surprised when Brent, not looking up from his game, said, “Sure, Dad. I’d like some.”
“How about you, Jason?”
“Not now, Dad. I'm concentrating on staying alive. I only have one life left. Oh! It’s too late. They got me. Jeepers, Dad,” he groaned.
“Don't blame me for your ineptitude. Do you want some watermelon?”
“Okay,” Jason said, putting aside his Starship to Oblivion game in disgust. “Now that the Cyborg blitzed me, I might as well.”
Lisa was immersed in an incredible YouTube video about climbing Mount Everest that was so gripping she ignored Wesley's gibbering about fruit.
Wesley shook his head, perplexed at how hard communicating had become since everyone had a Smartphone. He rarely had an intelligent conversation with anyone in his family anymore.
Leaving the mesmerized threesome in the SUV with the AC running, a blast of summer heat took away his breath for a moment as Wesley approached the boxes of fruit.
“Hello there, sonny,” an old geezer in the straw hat wheezed. “What will it be today? Watermelon? Peaches? Or maybe some juicy tangerines?”
“Boy, all of them sound so mouthwatering, it's hard to decide. I think I’ll have a bag of each. My wife and my boys are too busy texting and playing games to tell me what they want, so I guess I'll have to choose myself.”
The old man filled several bags with the fruit and brought them all to the small cash box. He manually wrote up a striped green receipt and, without the use of a calculator, arrived at the $21.50 total.
Wesley looked at the receipt, checking the math on his phone and arriving at the identical figure, then replied, “Wow, I can’t believe you came up with the total so fast and even added the tax. It’s hard to find someone who can do that without a calculator these days.”
“My third-grade teacher, bless her soul, taught me the old-fashioned way. By the way, did you ever try one of these?” the elderly man asked, grabbing a purple fruit about the size of a grapefruit and holding it up. “This is something new in genetic engineering. Some scientist fiddled with several different types of fruits and came up what they call ‘purple passion.’”
“Something about making fruit in a laboratory doesn't sit well with me. I just saw an old movie where some researchers genetically altered cockroaches to stem a deadly disease and inadvertently created a giant bug, hell-bent on wiping out the human race.”
“Believe me, when you taste purple passion, I guarantee this will be your favorite fruit from now on. Like a potato chip, I'll bet you can't eat only one. Tell you what. I'll give you a sample to try. There are four of you … yes? Two adults and two children.” The old man placed four of the purple fruit in another bag and, with a warm smile, handed it to Wesley.
“Thanks a lot. I'll try it, based on your glowing recommendation.” After counting out the $21.50, Wesley grabbed the four bags of fruit and got back into the SUV.
Looking at the others and seeing no indication they had even noticed he had returned or had left in the first place, he announced, “I just won the lotto for $92 million, and I’ve decided to take a rocket ship to the moon.” It didn't surprise him when no one said anything at his remark. While Wesley waited for an oncoming car to pass, Lisa looked up from the Mount Everest video and saw the old man’s face from the produce stand framed in the window. He gave her a subtle wink and waved as they pulled into the highway.
When the family arrived home, Lisa started making grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and Wesley cut up several pieces of the fruit and put them in a large bowl in the center of the kitchen table.
They all sat down to eat, and, while waiting for the sandwiches, Wesley and the boys began to munch on the succulent cubes of watermelon, peaches, tangerines, and the new purple passion fruit that resembled a pear on the inside.
“Wow, Dad!” Jason blurted out excitedly, “What is this new fruit? I've never tasted anything like it before.”
“It's called purple passion. I must say, the old man was right. He said, once you tasted it, it would be your favorite from now on.” After eating the sandwiches, the family gobbled up every morsel of the fruit before they went about their afternoon activities.
* * *
At three o'clock in the morning, an odd noise—which sounded like a muffled scream from the direction of the boys’ rooms—awakened Lisa. She heard the pounding rain on the roof and the rumble of thunder. Lightning lit up the windowpane as she looked at the clock on the table and saw no digital readout. The electricity was apparently off.
She shook Wesley and aroused him from a deep sleep, saying, “I think I heard one of the boys cry out. I believe it was Jason.”
“I didn't hear anything,” Wesley muttered, barely awake.
“Really, darling, you wouldn't hear a bomb go off in the next room. You know how soundly you sleep.”
“I don't hear anything now, except … is that thunder? Damn, it's raining really hard. Look, maybe Jason was having a bad dream. In fact, maybe you were having a bad dream.”
“Even after I was awake? I don’t think so. I tell you I heard the tail end of a scream or someone crying out,” Lisa said, staring into the blackness beyond the open door.
“Well, why don't you check while I get some sleep? Why should both of us go?”
“Something is not right, Wesley. I can feel it. I want you to go with me. The electricity is off.”
“Damn, why does this happen every time there's a storm? Well, all right,” he groaned, rising from the bed with a big yawn. “You know I have to get up at six o’clock.”
Wesley took a small flashlight from the end table, and the two of them made their way into the hall.
Immediately they detected an odd smell. Not a sharp odor but dull, like a recent fart, and yet not exactly like a fart.
“What’s that smell?” Wesley finally asked, sniffing the air.
At the door to Jason's room, the smell grew more pungent. Wesley led with the flashlight through the open door and slipped on something slick on the tile floor. He was on his butt before he could fathom what he’d seen in the bed.
“What the hell is this on the floor?” Wesley shouted, with the back end of his pajamas soaked. As he struggled to his feet, the beam of light fell on the scene that would live in their nightmares forever. The room was swimming in blood. It was on the floor, the walls, the bed; and what was left of Jason was covered with it.
Lisa screamed, and Wesley ran to his son's bedside and threw back the blood-soaked sheet. They both stood there with their mouths agape and emotions soaring, glaring at the handiwork of what had to be some kind of wild animal attack. So much of Jason’s torso and face were missing that their oldest son was barely recognizable as a human being.
Immediately realizing there was no way to help Jason, Lisa shrieked, “What about Brent?”
“My God,” Wesley gasped, struggling for breath.
Without the slightest regard for a beast that could still be lurking in the house, the two of them bolted into the hallway.
Before them, in the beam of the flashlight, they saw, with shocking clarity, Brent sitting on the floor sucking on what looked like a slab of raw meat. His face and his pajamas were soaked with blood.
“What are you eating?” Lisa screamed.
“I couldn't help it, Mommy. I was so hungry.”
“Hungry?” Lisa murmured as Wesley sank to the floor and began to sob. “You killed your brother because you wanted to eat him?”
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