THE SUBWAY COLLECTION-A Box Set of 8 Dark Stories to Read on the Go (6 page)

             
I'm beginning to have real trouble deciphering between the real and the unreal. I hope Brian's madness wasn't catching. I've put in for a transfer. I told them I didn't care where they sent me just as long as it was out of McMurdo Sound and out of Antarctica. They said it might take a while. Finding replacements was hell. I told them it was imperative. I'm not sure they're listening.

             
As I sit here in my bunk, keeping to myself, I hear the arctic wind and it never ceases. It rattles across the corrugated walls like...like a metal arm dragging past the window searching for the next victim, waiting until the time is ripe for murder, taking all the time in the world to make the next move--like a chess player who is patient, methodical, like a player who never loses.

             
The guys tell me I need to get more rest. It was a shock, what I went through when attacked by my friend, they say. They've heard the story about the winter night near the baseball diamond and the scraping sound at the car door. I had to tell them, something made me tell them the whole thing. I've broken down and told them about poor Betsy Ann who was snatched from the road and dragged into the woods. I finally even admitted I took Folcum for a little walk to the creek and held his head under the water until he drown. I can recall the chill of the flowing water, a bird singing wildly in a nearby tree, the muscles bunching in the back of Folcum's neck. I can taste revenge like it is a penny on my tongue. I can feel the man losing his battle, his body going limp to fall halfway into the water, ripples rolling over his motionless head and shoulders like he's a rock, just a centuries' old rock obstructing the water's flow.

             
I told them what happens then, how he comes back, sometimes years later.
He always comes back.

             
No one believes a word I say. I just can't tell a story like Brian could. If I was a better storyteller they would probably see what I see when I look out the windows, when I go outside to check the equipment, when I glance around in the dark shadows that squat in the corners like malevolent creatures. One man, Jimmy Datsuoto, says he believes me, he thinks maybe he can see something out of the corner of his eye sometimes and it creeps him out. Jimmy's become my friend. He beats me at chess. Everyone beats me at games.

             
I will have to make a weapon to defend myself the way Brian had to do. That's what I tell Jimmy and he agrees. He said he needed to make one too.

             
We need protection from the demon who stalks McMurdo Sound.

             
I don't know about Jimmy, he's on his own and I told him so, but I'm not going to let Folcum take me alive.

             
It's been two months since Brian was taken away and I miss him. Jimmy's sitting across the table from me in the radar room and it's his move. I'm about to block his queen from taking my bishop, if he doesn't move it.

             
"DID YOU HEAR THAT? WAS IT THE WIND?" Jimmy's shouting. I tell him to shut the hell up.

             
I reach for the welded pipes and Jimmy reaches for his.

             
We're ready. We know exactly what to do.

             
THE END

SPARKLE

A Tale of the Devil

by

Billie Sue Mosiman

Copyright Billie Sue Mosiman 2012, All Rights Reserved

SPARKLE

             
ABE ABADDON STOOD scowling out the front windows of the big old stone house, waiting for the couple to arrive.

             
He watched snow fluttering against the windows as twilight settled. He could just see the swinging sign at the snowy lawn's edge, STONYHART BED & BREAKFAST. The wind blew it back and forth with a regular rhythm.

             
It was almost Christmas, a day Abe dreaded. Here in upper Connecticut the season was usually greeted with several feet of snow, winds that brought temperatures dipping below zero, and early dark night. This new snow was sure to drift against the doors and up to the window sills before dawn.

             
He turned from the windows and went again to the dark stairs, looking up. He turned on the ancient wall sconces with a switch. Four of them at intervals up the staircase gave dim, but sufficient light for going up to the second floor where the rooms were for rent. Abe tread up the steps, the scowl still in place, his mood dark as the backside of the moon.

             
He didn't like the man who would soon be in his house. He cared little for the woman, either, but she wasn't a problem. The man was. He was the one who had made the reservation in early November. Abe knew the website advertising Stonyhart had drawn the man to the site and then caused him to make the call. That was the website's job--pull the bad ones toward it, cause them to choose it over other accommodations.

             
At the top of the long stairs, Abe turned right and walked softly along the carpeted hall to Room 12. Standing at the closed door, Abe's scowl relented and a demented smile replaced it. Room 12 was the "Sparkle" room. It was where everything waited for the right occupant.

             
Abe turned the doorknob and stepped inside without turning on the overhead stained glass fixture, or going to the ancient chest to switch on the lamp. He didn't need artificial light. This room was called the Sparkle room for a reason.

             
#

             
Dina looked over at Frank with trepidation. How she wished she wasn't in a car with him on the way to her parents' home for Christmas. It was as if she couldn't get out of it and there was no help for it. She had dated him for two months and was slowly moving away from him by missing a few calls, making excuses why she couldn't go out, and making herself generally unavailable, but he wasn't the kind of man who noticed subtlety. He thought everything was as intact and screwed down tight as a bolt against hardwood. He hadn't done anything too terrible to her or acted in some kind of unseemly manner, but there were cracks in the veneer that was Frank Nesbeth. These cracks, when she peered into them, revealed a man of secrets, a man who was probably involved in criminal activities (though he claimed to be a computer nerd at an up and coming tech company). She overheard some of his phone conversations and they sure didn't sound like he was talking about computers. He made references like "bag 'em" and "make sure the warehouse is watched" and, whispering angrily, "we're not talking about this on the phone."

             
Dina figured that's what she got for going out with men she met at bars during Happy Hour. It was all her fault, but she didn't know how to get out of this relationship.

             
Now he was driving her to her family's home. He had shown up two days ago and caught her packing for the trip. He saw the folded clothes, the wrapped Christmas gifts. He invited himself, offering to make arrangements for the overnight stay in a motel for the long trek to Connecticut from Virginia.

             
What could she say to him,
no, I don't want you to go?
Dina hated disputes and conflicts of any sort. It's probably why she never got pay raises or moved up at the art gallery where she worked. She didn't have the stomach to be aggressive and pursue a hard line. She'd rather be told what to do than be the boss and give others orders. She couldn't order Frank to back off and she sure couldn't tell him she didn't want him along on the trip home.

             
He was driving over the snowy roads too fast for her taste. Dark was coming on like a stealthy black cat creeping around a corner of the world. The conifers hung heavy with a blanket of snow. The ditches were filled with snowfall and the gray slushy gutters on each side of the road were freezing into slick pans of ice. If he had to brake, they were going to slide right into a snowdrift.

             
She wrung her hands unconsciously until she saw Frank glancing over at them and then looking into her face for clues to her nervousness. She held her hands still and tried to breathe easy. "So what's this surprise place you've found for our overnight?" she asked.

             
They had left the freeway and had taken an exit into a small town, and finally outside of the town down a two-lane blacktop through thick, silent forests.

             
"It's called Stonyhart Bed and Breakfast. The pictures on the internet were fantastic. It's a huge three-story made of gray stone with narrow lead glass windows. It even has a turret and dormers on the roof. Looks like the castle of Frankenstein." He laughed and Dina drew in her shoulders. "Frankenstein, get it? My name's Frank?"

             
She smiled at him. Inside her stomach began to churn and she caught herself again fiddling her fingers, locking them, unlocking them. She stopped. She needed to get hold of herself. After all, she had dated this man, she had bedded him, and until she could find a way to move him out of her life, she was stuck with him.

             
"Sounds...interesting." She glanced out the side window of the Nissan Pathfinder at the impenetrable wall of deep green forests covered with snow and they looked as thick as old clotted cream. She shivered despite the warm air blowing from the car vents. "How far is it?"

             
"Another mile or so." He consulted the GPS map and nodded. "Listen, you're gonna love it."

             
She had never once said she liked old creepy bed and breakfasts--or stone castles--or places hidden off the beaten path at the end of a long, empty glacial road. Frank really didn't know her well at all. God, she didn't feel Christmasy, and it was her favorite holiday of the year. She just had to get through this night, through the short drive in the morning to her parents' house, and then she'd feel better, she was sure she would...

             
#

             
Abe sat in a high-backed leather chair before the great stone fireplace. Flames danced and shadows cavorted across the room. He would wait to turn on the lights when the young couple arrived. Until then, he favored the dark, the fire, the flames, the...shadows.

             
In those shadows were people. Not technically, but in true reality.
Shadow people
some whacko radio talk show hosts and their late night callers, wide-eyed and caffeined to the gills, called them. Abe called them demons, the abandoned, the confused and revengeful. And he knew what he was talking about.

             
He waved one long, thin hand in the air as if orchestrating and said, "Cease your stalking."

             
The shadows wavered and rippled then settled, shivering only a little, making the walls and furniture alive with anticipation.

             
Frank Nesbeth was a soul who needed reaping, Abe thought. He had started out bad as a boy and grew worse as a man. He had stolen from his hard-working mother. He had scared his grandmother into having a fatal heart attack. He had deceived a number of people, abused their trust, beaten those who got in his way, broken hearts, been involved in the movement of huge shipments of drugs in and out of Charlotte, Virginia--much of it shuffled into the hands of school children who grew addicted--some of them dying. He had ambitions to scale the ladder of the underworld and become, finally, a big man--a man no one can say no to, a man feared and loathed. A great man of power.