Scare Factory includes 20 horror and thriller stories with wicked plots and surprise endings for readers who might enjoy a midnight stroll through a cemetery or an exploratory visit to an abandoned insane asylum during the wee hours. Do you ever feel like someone’s watching you from the shadows after you turn out the lights? I do.
The nightmares include:
DESECRATIONS: An after-hours intruder pulverizes the heads of two corpses with a sledgehammer at a local funeral parlor.
THE METEOR A meteor crashes into Newt's home carrying a tiny alien who loves to sing and dance.
ARMAGEDDON: An alien calls Earth to speak to the commander in chief about a meteor that will incinerate the planet in less than two hours.
VIRAL: A freelance photographer makes his living selling brutal photographs of victims at crime scenes to local newspapers and web sites.
BORN TO BE WILD: After working with a renowned geneticist for five years, a young Harvard graduate is frustrated by his mentor's failure to publish any of their discoveries.
CATS: The police investigate the home of an elderly woman with a houseful of cats who has not retrieved her newspapers for four days.
BEWARE THE CLOWN: On his deathbed, Jeffrey's grandpa gives him a peculiar warning to Beware of the Clown, Not To Go In the Tent, and To Stay in the Dark.
PRISONERS: US Marshals are sent to recover a busload of prisoners who have escaped into a huge national forest.
THE TIME MACHINE: NASA hires Dirk to work on their project to teleport astronauts to a new planet, Vulcan, but first he plans to travel back in time to save his mother from a brutal murder.
SOMETHING IN THE BED: Mildred awakes not recognizing her husband or her son. Nothing matters now but the hunger.
THE MONTPELIER CLUB A member of a university club tries to join a group of drinking buddies who he believes are vigilantes who fight crime when the system fails.
UNCANNY COINCIDENCES: Ashley joins a dating club to find the perfect mate but is drawn to a member who resembles the man who murdered her mother.
SURVIVOR A woman contemplating suicide saves a young girl from committing suicide before all hell breaks loose.
DÉJÀ VU Madison has recurring dreams about the same man attempting to kill her time in different historical periods.
BOPEEP A consulting retired police chief attempts to extort money from a fortuneteller for scamming clients and gets more than he bargained for.
SOMETHING IN THE TOMB Former pizza parlor operators become tomb raiders and discover the sarcophagus of a pharaoh legend has as a vampire.
BOBBY A father receives a call that his son who disappeared ten years before will be returned to him for $100,000.
ALLERGIC REACTION: Dr. Wishbone sends little Bradley to a retreat to see if his rash will improve while away from home.
DREAMSCAPE An introvert becomes a power hungry monster who rules his dream world like a tyrant after discovering lucid dreaming.
RATT: Tammy is pregnant and on her way to an abortion clinic in a spooky neighborhood.
Excerpt
DESECRATIONS
Angus Scumm, the funeral director at Scumm’s Funeral Parlor, called the Mount Hope Police Department at 9 a.m. The duty officer forwarded the call to Sheriff Omar Dunkin, who was enjoying a jelly doughnut with his coffee and morning paper.
"Dunkin," the sheriff answered gruffly, wiping a dollop of raspberry jelly from his chin.
"Sheriff, this is Angus," the agitated voice said breathlessly, "Put down that jelly doughnut, and come to the funeral parlor as soon as possible. Someone has defiled two of my dearly departed in their caskets during the night. I can't imagine what depraved monster could have done something so despicable right before the funeral.”
"Settle down, Angus, before you have a coronary. I'll be there in five minutes." The sheriff put down the phone, crammed the remainder of the doughnut into his mouth, and drained the cup of coffee.
Five minutes later, the sheriff pulled into a parking space in front of the funeral parlor. The lot was deserted except for two hearses parked on the corner.
When Dunkin opened the entry door to the small vestibule, Scumm met him just inside. Dunkin did a double take at the unnatural pallor of the undertaker's ashen face. He looked paler than the corpses in his viewing rooms. He thought Scumm should touch up his own face with a little makeup like he did his clients. Who wants to speak with someone who looks like a vampire about a funeral?
Without any small talk, Scumm said, “Follow me,” in a deep voice much like Lurch had on the Adams family TV show and led the sheriff into the first viewing room to the left.
Dunkin noticed the temperature decrease markedly as he entered the dim interior, only lighted by several fake candles with eye drop bulbs. About thirty bouquets of flowers had been strategically placed about the room. The overpowering scent of all the flowers assaulted the sheriff's nostrils and made him slightly dizzy, on the brink of sneezing. In the back of the space, Dunkin saw the open casket illuminated by several recessed lights in the ceiling. About thirty chairs were arranged in three rows of ten in front of the casket.
Dunkin followed Scumm until he stepped to the side to allow the sheriff an unobstructed view. The Sheriff's face paled and his mouth fell open, as he stood horrified at the mutilated corpse before him.
The dead man's forehead had been crushed by something heavy, possibly a sledgehammer. Based on how the upper skull was almost completely mashed into mush, he'd been struck many times.
"Have you ever seen anything so hideous in your life?" Scumm asked, covering his mouth with his hand in a markedly feminine gesture.
"I've seen a few skulls pancaked in car crashes, but I admit, I've never seen a head obliterated like this. It almost gives the corpse a cartoonish appearance with the head so much smaller than the torso."
Dunkin knew as soon as the words left his mouth how unfeeling his ill-timed comment had been. He felt Scumm's rage on the back of his neck and his own face reddening, but the funeral director didn't say anything.
Dunkin felt a little queasy as Scumm turned and led him to the adjacent viewing room. He could feel the heartburn coming on, and he didn't have any Tums with him.
This viewing room looked different. The lights were brighter, which made it seem more cheerful, if that were possible.
Across the room, Dunkin saw the disfigured face of a woman laid out in a striking red dress in a noticeably more expensive casket with additional adornments and carvings on the side panels. The room was much larger, with many more bouquets and twice as many chairs filling more than half the space.
After reaching the coffin, the sheriff stood aghast at the unspeakable horror before him. The MO was similar to the male corpse, but the blows to the head had flattened more of the lower face than the upper half. One of the blows had smashed the bridge of the woman's nose and placed a deep indentation between her eyes, which made them protrude grotesquely outward from the corners.
"Well," Dunkin said, after feeling another twinge of queasiness, "Although the bludgeoning of the woman's head is somewhat different, I assume the same person did the grisly deed. Do you lock the doors at night?"
"Absolutely,”’ Scumm said decisively with obvious agitation in his voice. "Whoever did this broke a window in the back door to get in."
The funeral director paused a beat, then continued, "If you catch the monster who did this, what would he be charged with?"
"Desecration of a deceased is a misdemeanor, not a felony in this state. Moreover, I'm sorry to say, if this is the work of some teenagers out for a sick thrill, they'll probably just have their wrists slapped since the victims were already dead and nothing was stolen."
"Can you imagine how Mr. Jenkins felt when I told him what this psycho had done to his wife? It's a travesty of justice, and doubly so if the person at any age can do this and get away with it."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Scumm. I don't make the laws, I only uphold them to the best of my ability."
The sheriff's stomach told him he needed to leave quickly. His ulcers were playing havoc with his digestive tract. And, the squashed heads and the severe acid reflux he'd gotten from the coffee and doughnuts didn't help. "I suggest you close up shop until I can get Fred Bishop and a few of his crime scene crew out here to take a look. Since both victims are already deceased, this won't be a murder investigation, just a breaking and entering offense. I'll call you after I talk to Fred."
Dunkin left Scumm standing in the vestibule with a long, thoroughly disgusted look on his face.
Dunkin drove back to town, still reeling from the horrific images of the battered skulls of the two corpses. He knew images such as these would remain in his memory forever.
Mount Hope was a small town in the Appalachian range with a population of slightly more than two thousand people. Main Street had fifteen stores clustered around the main intersection. The rest of the buildings on the street were residences. It was a quaint place where everyone knew everyone else. Almost no visitors came to Mount Hope to stay. The few who grew up here rarely left. Small farms surrounded the town nestled at the bottom of the mountain.
Dunkin knew every teenager who lived in the area since he attended the high school football and basketball games. He could not think of any one of them who could have committed such a heinous crime. Moreover, he couldn't think of any adult who could've done it either.
After calling the medical examiner to investigate the crime scene, the sheriff drove north on Route 261 toward Backward Holler to speak with James Jenkins, the husband of the second victim.
When he pulled into the gravel driveway of the doublewide, he saw Jenkins on the front porch with his hands covering his eyes, sobbing. When Dunkin approached him, he looked up, and seeing the sheriff, he wiped his face on his sleeve.
"Sorry to bother you at a time like this," Dunkin said. "But I need to ask you a few questions."
"Who could have done this horrible thing?" Jenkins sobbed. “I’ve been racking my brain ever since Scumm called. I know everyone in this town, and for the life of me, I can't think of anyone who could've done this."
"That's why I'm here, James. I didn't think you'd know anyone who hated your lovely wife so much they would want to do this, but I had to ask."
"My wife was like an angel. She didn't have a single enemy all her life. She went to church every Sunday and everyone loved her. She was a beautiful, caring person."
"Everyone in town thought a lot of your Elizabeth, no doubt, and the same with Moe Childress, the other victim." Dunkin paused and scratched his eyebrow, then continued, "Elizabeth and Moe were probably just unfortunate random victims of circumstance. My guess is whoever did this would've done the same thing to anyone they found at the funeral parlor. It probably had nothing to do with your dear wife, Elizabeth."
"What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but if I ever find out who did this, so help me God, I will bash his fucking head into a bloody pulp."
"I know how you feel, James, but please let me do my job. I won't bother you with any further questions, at least for right now. If you think of anything, call me. Again, I'm so sorry this happened to God-fearing, upstanding townsfolk like you."
The sheriff returned to his cruiser and headed toward town. He didn't know what to do next since he didn't have a clue where to start. Hopefully Fred Bishop would shed some light on the matter, but he doubted it.
It was late in the day when Bishop stopped by the Sheriff's office with his findings. Dunkin leaned back in his chair and dropped his pen on the desk. "Well, Fred, did you find anything we can use to get to the bottom of this mess?"
"Nary a thing, Omar. Whoever did it didn't leave a clue. All I can tell you is what you already know. The perp used a heavy blunt instrument, probably a sledgehammer on both bodies."
"I assume there won't be a DNA analysis."
"The perp didn't leave anything behind to analyze. But you're correct. The town budget doesn't call for a DNA analysis unless a murder has been committed."
The sheriff scratched his head and kicked the battered trashcan under his desk. "Have you ever heard of such a thing happening before?"
"Never, Omar."
"Have teenage pranks reached this level of depravity in our small town?"
"I certainly don't think so, but I can't think of another reason off hand. What can possibly cause someone to crush the skull of a dead person in a funeral parlor?"
The sheriff took a large bite from his jelly doughnut and sipped his coffee. “I may be reaching for straws, but it occurred to me over at Jenkins' place, that TV show, The Walking Dead, might have planted a wild hair up somebody's ass. Maybe some scatterbrained, misguided nimrod is hell-bent on killing potential zombies. The only way to put a zombie down for good on the show is to destroy his brain with a bullet, a sharp stick or knife, or to crush his skull with something heavy. A sledgehammer would be handier than carrying a big rock around."
"You might have something, Omar. If this weren’t a teenage prank, it would explain why someone would do such a horrible thing to two good townsfolk who didn't have an enemy in the world. Maybe some screwball who watched the show believes the zombie apocalypse is real and any dead person will return to life to eat the living unless they take action."
"Hot damn. I wonder if someone has escaped from the mental hospital in Montauk. Would they let crazy people watch that show?"
"Damned if I know, give them a call." Bishop paused and his face brightened. "One thing's for sure. If this is what's really happening, there will be more victims as soon as someone else dies around here."
The sheriff picked up the phone and called the Montauk Sanitarium, which was about thirty miles north of Mount Hope.
The Sheriff's excitement fizzled when the doctor in charge assured him no patient had escaped from the facility in over ten years. Dunkin thanked the doctor, sighed with disappointment, and hung up the phone.
Fred Bishop replied, "Nothing lost, nothing gained. Anyway, it's more likely some old geezer who lives on the outskirts of town has become senile and thinks the zombie apocalypse is real."
"You're right. And he's visiting funeral parlors at night with his sledgehammer."
They heard the phone ring at the main desk. They heard the duty officer answer it and speak to the caller. After hanging up, he said, "Omar, that was Henry, James Jenkins' son. He stopped at his father's house and found him dead from an overdose of sleeping pills. The teenager wanted to know what to do next. I told him we'd be there shortly."
The sheriff and Bishop headed for Jenkins’ residence. After an initial inspection, Bishop confirmed the suicide. Jenkins had even left a note on the kitchen table saying he didn't want to go on without Elizabeth. The Sheriff called Scumm and told him to come for the body so he could begin preparing for a double funeral.
Once the body had been removed and the hearse had pulled away, Dunkin said to Bishop, "I'm sorry Jenkins took his life, but this is our chance to see if someone will come to the funeral parlor tomorrow night to crush his skull."
"And you and your men will be waiting for them. Right?"
"Right." The sheriff nodded with cold, bulldog determination.
Scumm wasted no time embalming Jenkins and preparing the body for a viewing the next evening. The Daily Chronicle carried the story and the times of the viewing and the funeral.
Dunkin and his men had parked their vehicles in a secluded spot a few blocks away from the funeral home. Once inside, they started playing Rummy by candlelight at a table in the corner of Jenkins’ viewing room. Scumm had dimmed all the lights in the interior when he closed up and went to his residence across the street.
Around 9:30 p.m., they heard a pane of glass shatter in the back. The four men eased from their chairs, drew their weapons, and moved behind the open doorway leading into the hall.
Dunkin and his men heard someone moving through the hall toward them. Then a shadowy figure darted into the room. As soon as the intruder entered, the sheriff and his deputies rushed in behind him and turned all the dimmers to full light. They recognized the elderly mountain man, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans and holding a large sledgehammer, as Leonard Biggs.
After the initial shock of being confronted in the act, Biggs let out a bloodcurdling scream, and raising the heavy weapon, he veered to the left and bounded toward the coffin housing James Jenkins' body. The three deputies tackled him, wrestled him to the carpet, and wrenched the sledgehammer from his grasp. The sheriff stepped forward from behind and cuffed the struggling, screaming man.
The lawmen all knew Leonard Biggs, a taxidermist who lived alone at the base of the mountain. Having lost his weapon, Biggs’s eyes bulged with fear as he continued to glare in horror at the coffin on the far side of the room.
When Dunkin slapped him hard in the face, Biggs stopped screaming and shouted, "What's wrong with you people? Don't you know the dead are coming back to life and feeding on us?"
"Leonard," the Sheriff said calmly. "You've been watching too much Walking Dead on TV. There's no such thing as zombies. You're confused. I know that show is realistic but it's all fantasy. You need a shrink and some pills to bring you back to reality."
Leonard kept struggling and retorted in a frenzy, "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. There's no reception on the mountain, so I don't own a TV. I've heard people talking about that show, but I've never seen it. My father had a heart attack and died last night after a long illness. While I was carrying him from the woodpile into the house, he came back to life and attacked me. I got away from him by the skin of my teeth and was able to get to my shotgun. I blew a hole in his stomach as big as Texas, but he kept coming until I bashed his head in with my bowling ball.
The sheriff nodded agreeably at Biggs, who continued to struggle like a wild man. Dunkin figured the old timer had drunk too much moonshine and had a bad dream. His deputies had such a hard time holding him down, the sheriff gave him a kick in the head, and he stopped moving.
Before anyone could say a word, Dunkin's phone rang, and he answered. He heard a lot of commotion in the background.
Then, Homer McWeed, one of his deputies he'd left to man the office, shouted excitedly, “Sheriff, there’s been a bad accident at Boomer's Crossroads. A Mack truck pancaked two vehicles loaded with families. The trucker's okay, but all eight of the passengers in the cars are mangled up. We moved the first car off the road and are using the Jaws of Life to free the bodies from the second car now. The EMTs are en route to the funeral parlor with the four victims we removed from the first vehicle. Fred Bishop is on his way over there now to take a look at their remains."
"Okay, McWeed, I’ll get out there as soon as I can. Leonard Biggs is the screwball who desecrated the two corpses at the funeral parlor. We caught him red-handed trying to sledgehammer James Jenkins' corpse.”
"Really. That's incredible. I used to hunt with the old geezer. Well, Sheriff, take your time. Everyone's dead here except for the trucker. Me and Harry will…"
Dunkin heard a piercing scream in the background. "What's happening, McWeed?”
"I can't believe what I'm seeing right before my eyes."
"What is it?"
"Several of the dead people Harry and I laid out in a row on the shoulder just got up and attacked the trucker who was having a smoke next to his semi. Three of them are sprawled on top of him now."
"McWeed, listen to what you're saying. They couldn't have been dead if they're still walking around. They must be pissed off at the trucker for causing the accident."
"Negative, Sheriff. The first two had their guts hanging out and the third one had his chest caved in by the steering wheel. The fourth one, who had both legs severed below the knee, is also crawling on the ground toward the trucker. I've never seen anyone so dead as these four, but they're still walking around like nothing happened. Well, except for the one with no legs. He's crawling."
The sheriff stood speechless as he listened to his deputy blabbering on about what was happening at the crossroads. Then, Leonard Biggs came to and started screaming in his ear again, "Look, McWeed, I can’t process what your saying. We have things under control here so I’ll be on my way over there shortly. Do what I would do until I get there."
The sheriff heard a piercing scream. "McWeed, what's happening?" There was no response. "McWeed!"
Then, Jerry Klondike, one of the sheriff's deputies at the funeral home, announced he had to take a piss and hurried into the hall.
After Klondike had taken only a few steps into the hall, he rushed back into the room with a weird look on his face, quivering with fear, and wheezing breathlessly, "I found Scumm on the floor. He's totally messed up. Some kind of animal mauled him. He's all blood and guts."
"Wha…?" The sheriff began. Then, he heard another piercing scream on the phone and gunshots. "McWeed! What's happening now? McWeed! Speak to me!" He didn't get an answer from his deputy, but heard only weird noises in the earpiece that reminded him of hogs feeding. "McWeed!" he shouted, but heard only the sound of ripping, tearing, slurping, and unintelligible grunts.
The two EMTs who had moved Jenkins' body to the funeral home appeared in the doorway. Dunkin saw patches of blood and gore on their white uniforms and insane hunger in their glaring, maniacal eyes. Four mutilated accident victims followed behind the EMTs. They rushed at the deputies guarding Biggs, and the officers opened fire on the throng of ravenous undead. They kept firing worthless bullets at them until the zombies overcame them and started feasting on them.
Biggs, with his hands and feet cuffed behind his back, tried to crawl away, but he too succumbed to the bloody teeth of the ravenous throng.
Dunkin fired four shots into their backs before he realized the bullets had no effect. The last two bullets blew away the tops of two of their heads and these zombies slumped forward and stopped moving.
The feasting undead and the bodies blocked the only door from the room. The sheriff tried to reload, but his hands shook so badly he dropped the first two shells. He finally loaded the next two successfully when the bloody corpse of Scumm blundered through the doorway and began crawling over the mound of dead bodies toward him. Dunkin couldn't believe how fast the undertaker could still move with the huge cavern in his midsection and a missing right eye.
The sheriff retreated backwards and fired both bullets at Scumm’s head. The first shot missed entirely, but the second found the mark between his eyes. The remaining half of Scumm's body toppled like a tree with a bloody thud on to the floor.
Dunkin reloaded his gun and while the auto accident victims feasted on his deputies, he fired at point blank range and blew away the backs of their heads until all of the corpses in the room had stopped moving.
Dunkin was still reeling from the life and death struggle when something else crawled through the doorway and slithered toward him like a large reptile. Ghastly trails of intestines followed the thing like a tail moving from side to side behind the half torso.
The sheriff stood his ground and fired a lethal shot through the top of its head. Then, Dunkin heard something move behind him and turned to see James Jenkins climbing from his coffin. The sheriff stood in awe at the wonderful job Scumm had done on Jenkins face. The corpse’s complexion seemed as radiant as a male model on TV. Dunkin wanted to conserve his final bullet so he withdrew his billy club and pulverized Jenkins' head until it looked similar to his wife's corpse in the casket in the other room.
Dunkin rushed from the room, bounded out the front door, raced to his cruiser, and headed toward home. He punched speed dial for his wife, Madge, but she didn't answer.
“Madge, pick up the phone," he pleaded again and again, but he received no answer.
He saw groups of shambling zombies already marauding his neighborhood when he arrived, and with no hesitation, he squashed a few with his cruiser as he barreled toward his house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Oddly, just like his house, he didn't see a single light on either side of the street. It was almost 11 p.m., too early for Madge or Mindy to have gone to bed. Gruesome thoughts bombarded his mind as he exited the cruiser. His heart beat like a jackhammer. The front door to his house was slightly ajar. Dunkin stood paralyzed with fear at what he was about to see. He didn't know if he could go on if anything happened to Madge and his daughter, Mindy.
He drew his gun from the holster. He knew he had one last bullet in the chamber. He didn't know if he had another bullet; he hadn't had time to check. He had a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, a deep emptiness he had never known. He thought he was about to find out how Jim Jenkins probably felt before he took the pills that ended his life. With all the strength he could muster, he pushed open the door and stepped into the darkness.
The house lights came on and blinded him. A raucous roar in unison of “Happy birthday, Omar” filled the room from the throng of over fifty dear friends, blissfully drinking and making merry. They had started the party some time ago and must have been waiting in the dark for him to arrive. Most of those attending looked shitfaced.
Everyone raised their glasses. Dunkin's next-door neighbor, Knott Long, proposed a toast. The sheriff returned his revolver to its holster and stood dumbfounded and speechless as Madge rushed to embrace him and gave him a kiss.
The celebratory din and the blazing lights at the end of the street alerted hundreds of zombies combing the neighborhood in search of fresh meat. Madge handed Dunkin a glass of his favorite cocktail, a gin and tonic, as something thumped loudly against the front door.
The closest neighbor turned quickly, opened the door wide, and shouted festively, “Come on in!" before he saw the horde of walking dead standing there with blood dripping from their mouths. The horde stormed inside and fell upon the merry, unwary, shitfaced partygoers.
Dunkin thought about Madge and Mindy for a second. Then he selfishly used his last bullet on himself.
WEIRD RHODY is a short story collection featuring five strange tales all set in Rhode Island and written by five Rhode Island authors. The anthology is a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, the Ocean State's famed author of pulp horror.
The fortunate inherit riches, prestige, positive notoriety. Those not so lucky bear legacies filled with poverty, infamy or, worse yet, the unhinged insanity and murderous urges of their ancestors.
