The Misunderstood and Other Misfit Horrors Read online

  “I wonder how many people won’t be around to see morning,” Martha said. Wallace suddenly couldn’t help himself. She was being foolish, and he was tired of it. One way or another, he was going to knock this lunacy out of her head.

  “I don’t want to hear another word about this,” he shouted, holding Martha at arm’s length.

  “Then go upstairs,” she told him firmly.

  And that was it. Wallace had had enough. He grabbed her firmly by the wrist. “Let’s go,” he growled. “We’re going to go outside and prove to you that there isn’t anything to be afraid of.”

  “No,” Martha screamed, frantic.

  But Wallace was stronger. Because Martha’s houseshoes gave her very little traction on the linoleum, she slid across the floor. Wallace didn’t stop pulling.

  “Let’s go and see the Death Angel,” he said. “This should prove once and for all just how paranoid and backwoods this town is.”

  Martha, however, had other ideas. She managed to grab one of the fireplace implements as Wallace dragged her toward the door. Before he could raise a hand to block her attack, Martha had clubbed him in the back of the head. Wallace went down hard, immediately releasing his grip on his wife.

  At that moment, she knew that she had to make a decision. And quickly. The Death Angel would be making his way down the street, taking the offerings from those who left one and taking the lives of those who hadn’t. There was no meat to be found in their house. But there was one alternative. It was her only chance at survival. Martha wasn’t quite ready to die yet.

  * * *

  Wallace opened his eyes slowly and was unsure of where he was at first. It was dark, and he seemed to be stuck in some sort of hole. But that wasn’t entirely right either as he realized that he was sitting in his oversized toolbox. Martha had knocked him out and somehow managed to drag him out here.

  He could feel the rage building in him and struggled frantically to free himself from the work box. She had thrown him out with the belief that The Death Angel would take him instead of her, and it infuriated him. One, because she had bought in to the whole nonsense. Two, because it showed how selfish she really was.

  Wallace stopped struggling when he heard Mrs. Olson from two houses down sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Please don’t take Charlie,” she pleaded. “He’s all I’ve got. I put out a pot roast for you. Honest, I did. Someone must have stolen it.”

  And then the lamentations started afresh.

  Wallace strained to see who she was talking to, but all he could see was a dark furtive shape like smoke, a hazy black mist hovering around the empty toy wagon. Then the smoke began to clear. A pair of strong, translucent wings materialized from the smog. They were attached to a muscular frame made of black leather. Strong legs, powerful torso, arms that ended not in hands but in talons. A demon’s face with a masochist’s smile. White fangs tinted red. Yellow eyes. Two small spiraling horns ending in sharp points. A fallen angel in every sense of the word. It looked like something out of Gustave Dore’s depictions of Hell.

  The Death Angel smiled at Wallace and headed in his direction.

  “No,” he muttered to himself as he tried to free himself. It was only as he struggled that he realized Martha had bound his hands and feet with duct tape.

  The Death Angel came closer, morphing into black fog that crept and eddied along the ground. It was like watching a brewing thunderhead form and churn.

  “Martha,” Wallace screamed, hoping his wife would come to her senses and help him. But Martha made no move to come out of the house.

  Wallace craned his neck to search for her and saw her worried face staring back at him from one of the upstairs windows. She quickly pulled the curtains shut, unwilling to watch what would eventually happen to her husband.

  Thankfully, the Death Angel was methodical and stopped one house down. Wallace tried to stand up and hop toward the house. But Martha had been thorough with the way she bound him. He managed to wriggle out of the truckbox only to fall flat on his face. The grass was wet and moist against his cheek.

  “Martha,” he screamed. But the light in the upstairs room went off. Like a frightened turtle, Martha wasn’t sticking her head out until she was certain the coast was clear.

  Wallace managed to turn himself over and watched in horror as the dark creature stuck its slanted head into what might have been a feeding trough and began to eat the raw meat. For a moment or two there was only the ripping of animal flesh and the smacking of black lips.

  Then Wallace saw The Death Angel lift its head and look at him once again. He could tell by the way it bared its teeth that it was smiling. It had probably been quite a while since it had gotten a live offering.

  He opened his mouth to scream when he felt something tug at the duct tape. It was Martha with a pair of scissors.

  “Hurry,” Wallace implored, watching the beast as it stalked him. Martha held up the scissors as the dark fog wrapped them up like a thick blanket.

  “I should have listened to you,” Wallace said, trembling. “I’m sorry. Now cut me loose.”

  “Oh, I didn’t come out here to cut you loose,” Martha said, keeping her eyes focused on the obsidian figure striding toward them. “I came here to make sure that it takes you instead of me.”

  “What do you mean?” Wallace asked, horrified. “Let me go.”

  “The Death Angel passes over the houses that offer it blood. So far as I can tell there’s no blood on you. Yet...”

  Wallace screamed as Martha buried the scissors into his thigh. Immediately, crimson streams jettisoned into the air.

  The Death Angel moved faster.

  Wallace, seizing his only chance, lunged out at Martha with his bound feet. The kick hit her in the center of the chest, pushing her toward the beast. The Death Angel caught her and buried its teeth into her throat. The scream was little more than a watery gurgle.

  Wallace cried out as he watched his wife fall to the ground. Most of her throat was gone, and her eyes had the faraway look of a morphine addict. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. But a split second of panic had changed everything.

  And still the Death Angel moved forward. Wallace trembled as it stood before him, its mouth painted with Martha’s blood like a harlot’s fire-engine lipstick. He closed his eyes, waiting for the moment when it ripped his head away from his shoulders to get at the spurting blood within. But that never happened. Instead, it moved quietly on to the next house. Martha had been sacrifice enough to save Wallace’s life, and he felt sick at the thought of what he had done. He had given his own partner over to the Death Angel, and he lived as a result. Yes, she had tied him up with the intent of offering him to the beast. But her mind had been clouded by fear, by the certainty that she was going to die if she didn’t do something quickly. The worst thing about it was that she hadn’t resorted to that immediately. She had wanted to put some meat out like everyone else had done. Wallace had been the one to squash that idea. Now his life had changed forever, and his wife was gone.

  So much had gone wrong. Emotions had flared, and bad decisions had been made. Now there was nothing left to do but cope. Suddenly, Wallace thought he understood why the Jacksons hadn’t moved away yet. Maybe they realized what had taken their daughter and were simply unwilling to let her death go unavenged.

  Despite their differences and the throbbing ache in his thigh where Martha had buried the scissors, Wallace had loved his wife and knew that her reactions had been the direct result of her fear. It saddened him to think that he could have prevented it all with a simple pork chop or a pound of raw hamburger. Or by simply taking her to the movies in the next town as she’d suggested.

  Before he had been ready to leave town as quick as possible. Now he wasn’t sure he would ever leave. If need be, he would stay as many Halloweens as it took until he found the creature’s weakness. Then, he would kill it.

  Until then, however, he could only do one thing.

  Wallace pulled up a l
awn chair and sat out on his porch, listening to the wailing of families up and down the street who hadn’t heeded the warnings. He cried right along with them until the sun came up. Then he cried some more.

  The Machinery of Infinity

  The tick-tock of the clocks was soothing. It was like being in the womb and listening to a mother's heart. Comforting. As if time itself stood still in that one room while the world decayed outside the walls. As far as the old man knew the clocks had never been wound or set by human hands. They had just always been here, ticking away with metronomic regularity. And every once in a while one of them would stop, never to keep time again.

  The old man looked through his telescope at the bustle of people crowding the streets of the nearest city. They were oblivious to the clocks that were steadily chewing away at the minutes of their lives. Or at least they were until one of the clocks stopped. Immediately, an obese woman wearing large hoop earrings and a floral print dress crashed to the pavement. Her heart was still long before the paramedics arrived. The people didn't realize that one of the clocks was responsible for this. But they had all heard the saying before about someone's time running out, and somewhere deep in the subconscious they made the connection.

  Lucas didn’t have time to watch the fracas below. The doorbell drew his attention away from the window. He looked at the watch on his wrist and wondered where the time had gone. He hadn’t expected the reporter here so soon.

  When he opened the door he was surprised to find a beautiful young girl with a head full of blazing red hair. She hardly looked like the type of shark needed to survive in a predator’s world. But it was obvious that she knew how to stay afloat without drowning or getting eaten by a bigger fish. She was smart, and Lucas could tell it immediately. He couldn’t help liking her. It bothered him.

  “Mr. Blake? I’m Ashley Dobbs. I’m here to do the interview with you.”

  “The interview. Right.” he said hesitantly.

  “It’s just going to be a little public interest piece about you and all of your clocks. Nothing to be nervous about.”

  Lucas nodded, not quite believing it. He knew quite a bit more than she did about what the interview was going to entail.

  She looked around the room with a child’s sense of wonder. “You do have quite a lot of clocks. It must have taken you years to amass such a collection. How did we find out about you in the first place?”

  “Actually, I contacted your editor myself about doing an interview. It seemed like a good way to show off what I’ve spent so many years of my life pursuing.”

  “I’m sure the public will be interested.”

  Lucas smiled. “I think so,” he said.

  Ashley dug a small handheld recorder out of her purse. “Do you mind if I record our conversation? It will make it easier to write the piece if I have something to refer to.”

  “Of course not.”

  Lucas led the girl over to a high-backed leather chair. He sat down across from her on the matching leather sofa.

  “Why the fascination with clocks?” she asked him, getting right to the point.

  “They measure a mystery,” Lucas replied. “Time is as elusive as sand through our fingers. We never have enough of it, and unlike some things in life, you can never bargain for more. We’re all allotted a limited amount of time, and when that’s gone, we’re through. Finished. I’ve always found it fascinating that we plan our lives by the mandates of a clock.”

  “Everybody wishes they had more time at some point or another,” Ashley agreed.

  “It’s true. Any husband who’s ever lost a wife yearns for five more minutes to tell her that he loved her. Victims of paralysis wonder what their lives might be like if they had left the house one minute later or one minute sooner and avoided the car crash. A second can make the difference in winning a race and losing a race. It can also mean the difference in disarming a bomb. Seconds and minutes provide the framework around which we build our lives. Take away a second here, an idle minute there, and a life can be reduced to rubble. It’s like pulling a girder out of a skyscraper and watching it fall. Time can mean everything in the grand scheme of things.”

  “That’s pretty philosophical,” Ashley said, impressed. “I thought you were going to say something about how soothing the sound of the clocks were or how much you admired the individual craftsmanship of each one.”

  “These clocks are the foundation of the world,” Lucas said, looking very serious as he said it.

  Something about the way he spoke made Ashley a little uncomfortable. She had heard that kind of fervor before in the words of doomsday cultists.

  “I take it that most of these clocks are one of a kind,” she said, holding the recorder tightly.

  “Everyone of them are unique,” Lucas said. “As unique as fingerprints or snowflakes.”

  “You made them?”

  “I have never seen the maker, but some would call him God.”

  Ashley felt around in her purse and was satisfied when she found her cell phone. This guy was a little on the eccentric side to say the least. Nothing to worry about yet. Still, she wanted to be prepared in case he tried something.

  “So tell me what’s really special about these clocks,” Ashley said, trying to ignore that bit about God. “Tell me what it is about these clocks that would interest the world.”

  “When these clocks stop, the world ends. These clocks are the only thing keeping the earth spinning and lives from ending tragically.”

  Ashley was suddenly sure she had stumbled across a bonafide nutcase. Lucas must have been able to read the expression on her face.

  “You think I’m crazy. You think I’m just a doddering old man who’s stayed locked up in his apartment for far too long. But I’m as sane as you are. More realistic too. Once these clocks stop, Armageddon will tear the earth apart.”

  “Why should I believe any of this?” Ashley asked. She was glad to see the little wheels on the tape recorder were still moving. Nobody would believe a story like this unless presented with proof.

  “Go to the television,” Lucas said. “Find a channel with news.”

  Ashley did as she was told, and Lucas went to his wall of clocks. He was careful about the clock he chose.

  In truth, it was hardly a clock. A watch would have been a more accurate description as it could have easily been worn on a wrist without drawing scrutiny.

  Lucas held it up before Ashley like a hypnotist about to put his subject under. It ticked back and forth like a pendulum. "Watch closely," Lucas said.

  Nonchalantly, he dropped the clock on the floor and smiled to show that he had done it on purpose. It kept ticking until he stomped it flat with the heel of his shoe. Gears crackled, springs popped, and the room seemed a little smaller without that clock to fill in the milliseconds of silence with its quiet ticking.

  "I don't understand," Ashley said impatiently when nothing happened.

  The old man calmly swept up the battered remains of the clock. Somewhere in the background an anchorman on television was talking about the impending war with one of the terrorist countries. Ashley wouldn't have heard any of it if there hadn't been a change in the newsman's tone.

  She quickly turned to face the TV set and the harried newscaster. It was clear from the look on his face that he had just received a very disturbing memo. He cleared his throat once and took a long sip of water.

  "I have a breaking bit of news here on my desk." He struggled with the words, unsure of how to say them aloud.

  "The President of the United States has just been shot. I repeat The President of the United States has just been shot. This is not a joke. This is a very real report. He has been rushed to Bethesda Naval Hospital, but there is no word on his condition. I have no specifics about the location or severity of the gunshot wound. I will report every piece of news as I receive it."

  Ashley sat back down in the leather chair, numbed by the news.

  “It’s not possible that you caused this,”
she said.

  “It is possible. Should I prove it to you again?”

  Ashley considered the possibilities. If he really was responsible for what happened to the president, then another demonstration would end in some sort of catastrophe. It was a crazy thing to consider.

  Lucas took another clock off the wall and grabbed a hammer out of a nearby drawer. This time the clock was bigger, more impressive. If what Lucas said was true, then there was no telling what destroying one this size might do.

  “Wait,” she said. “I believe you.”

  Lucas smiled, satisfied. Then he pulverized the clock anyway.

  Moments later Ashley heard something on TV about an earthquake killing thousands of people in Peru. But she was too shocked to really comprehend it all.

  “You didn’t really believe me,” Lucas said. “But I’ll bet you do now. These clocks are like gears in the machinery of infinity. Destroy one and things start going haywire. Destroy them all....” He let the thought linger like a cloud of contagion on the air.

  “You’re crazy,” she said. “Why did you even bother to set up this interview in the first place if there’s not going to be anyone left to see it?”

  “People take time for granted. They think tomorrow is guaranteed when it isn’t. Don’t you think the world would be a lot better if everyone valued the days and weeks and years they were given?”

  “Who made it your decision to judge what humanity needs?” Ashley asked. “Sure, we may take time for granted but that doesn’t mean you should take it upon yourself to teach us a lesson.”

  Lucas sighed. “I have lived here for as long as I can remember. I have lived alone, cooped up in a tiny apartment that may well be the nexus of our universe. I have lived with only the tick-tock companionship of these clocks, and I have done it with the knowledge that I was wasting my time knowingly while others do so oblivious to the forces that move and swirl around them like eddies of air. They take life for granted. I would do anything to trade places with them for a day, to forget my post here in this rathole. But that isn’t what destiny has planned for me. It isn’t my choice to do what I want. Why should anyone else be any different?”