Creepier by the Dozen: Twelve Twisted Tales

By Stephen Hise

Twelve short stories in the "Twilight Zone" tradition by a father, son and daughter team of writers. From an ambulance ride with a serial killer to an interrogation with an apathetic hitman, these macabre stories are designed to get your mind racing and your heart pumping.

A reviewer writes: "These twelve tales range from creepy to eerie and all are well done. I found myself wanting more, and occasionally shuddering at a couple of the endings. If you like The Twilight Zone you will love Creepier by the Dozen."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Hise
• Release date: Oct 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458196637

Stephen Hise

Stephen Hise is the founder and co-administrator of Indies Unlimited. An avid supporter of the indie author movement, he launched the site in October, 2011, as a platform to celebrate independent authors, promote networking among and between authors and readers, and to showcase the dazzling array of talent in the indie author community. Visit http://www.IndiesUnlimited.com.Hise is an Arizona-based independent author and consultant. He has been involved in technical writing and fiction for many years. He is the author of the novel, Upgrade, and contributor to the short story anthology, Creepier by the Dozen. He is currently involved in multiple collaborative projects with other indie authors.You can find Stephen Hise's website at http://StephenHise.com.

Book preview

Creepier by the Dozen

Twelve Twisted Tales

by

Stephen Hise

Cole Hise

and

Anneliese Hise

Published by Stephen Hise at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Stephen Hise, Cole Hise, and Anneliese Hise

Updated March 2013

Smashwords Updated Edition, October 22, 2015

Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Tale One: Transfer

Tale Two: In the Purest Form

Tale Three: Conscience and Consciousness

Tale Four: Your Day

Tale Five: Guardian

Tale Six: Outside with God

Tale Seven: GPS

Tale Eight: Savior

Tale Nine: Illusion

Tale Ten: The Session

Tale Eleven: Apathy

Tale Twelve: The Hopeless

About the Authors

*******

Tale One

Transfer

by Stephen Hise

The ambulance service I work for used to have a contract with the state prison hospital to transfer patients who needed care or tests the prison hospital did not provide. We would go pick up the patients, the guards would handcuff the prisoners to the stretcher, place a spit-shield over their faces and two Highway Patrolmen would follow the ambulance on the eighty-mile trip to the University Medical Center.

I had been on a handful of these trips. Most of the time, the prisoner was no one I had ever heard of, but on this trip I was transporting Henry Lee Phelps. He was the most notorious serial killer in state history. He had butchered six teenage girls back in the late nineties.

When I saw him, I was a little surprised at how small and innocuous he looked. He was only about five-eight, and very slight of build. He winced as the guard ratcheted the cuffs tight on his wrist, securing his hands at waist level on the rails of the stretcher. Then he looked at me and smiled a benign, almost avuncular smile.

Aside from technical competence, the ability to assert clinical detachment is the most important skill a good paramedic can have. It protects you from the horrors of the job and allows you to care for an abused child or the abuser with the same proficiency. Still, there was something about that smile that made my guts roil, and I just wanted to get the transfer over with.

The guards accompanied us to the back of the ambulance. We loaded the patient and I hopped into the back with him, assuming my customary position on the squad bench. The driver went around the vehicle to the front, radioed base that we were en route to University Medical Center, and we headed out the gate. As the gates closed, the state patrol car fell in behind us and began following with flashing lights, but no siren.

The first few minutes of the trip passed in a stony silence. I busied myself checking the patient’s intravenous line and reviewing his chart. I recorded his vital signs on the trip report, then sat back and stared at the ceiling.

He turned his head to look at me, and for a few more minutes said nothing at all. When he did finally speak, it was with a weak, thin voice. I suppose you think me a monster of some sort.

I rolled my eyes and told him that I wasn’t thinking anything at all; my business was with him as a patient and not as a person. Then I suggested to him that it was a long trip and he might as well try to get some sleep.

He laughed a hoarse laugh, then asked me, If you could go back in time and kill me – save those girls, you’d do it, though, wouldn’t you?

I didn’t answer, but he continued, I think anybody would. That would be a prudent thing to do, don’t you think?

Again, I gave no answer. I had hoped he would lose interest in trying to engage me and just go to sleep.

What about Hitler? he asked. Would you think it a good idea to go back in time and kill Hitler before he came to power? He was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions.

I looked at him. His eyes were twinkling at me, a wry grin on his wan face. I conceded the point insofar as it would have been nice if some intervention could have saved all those lives.

Exactly so. Yet, you would have been considered a murderer. It would be no good trying to explain that you were acting in the interest of humankind. Society would consider you a monster, just as it does me.

I thought of the faces of those teenage girls I had seen so often on newscasts during the coverage of the trial and wondered how he had concluded each of them was a future Hitler who had to be stopped. I had expected him to offer just such a deluded explanation, but he took a different turn.

You’re a paramedic, a life-saver. Tell me, have you ever saved someone who should not have been saved; someone who perhaps came back and did more harm than good? Do you even know?

I thought, how would I know that? Yet, I did know. I could remember a patient I had resuscitated from a methamphetamine overdose who had later gunned down his wife and children. Phelps may have seen this realization dawning on my face for he seemed inspired to continue.

You see? You have been directly responsible for those ills visited upon humanity by those you saved who should not have been saved. How many children have been molested, how many women raped, how much disease and misery have been spread by people you saved who should have died instead? You think that you and I are different – polar opposites, even. Yet, we both have intervened to change the course of future events.

I finally rebutted that it was impossible to know the course of future events, and that the only thing we can do is to give anyone every chance to make good. I told him that he may have thought those girls evil, but any one of them might have been a doctor or lawyer or a loving mother. It is one thing to fantasize about preemptively undoing a Hitler, but that is only with the benefit of hindsight; there is no way to know.

"You see, that’s the problem. People are cattle. They all pretend as if they do not know the difference between good people and bad people. They just wait around