Necrology Shorts Anthology- Issue 5: Tales of Macabre and Horror

By Wolfgang

Necrology Shorts - Issue 5

Twenty new tales from the best new writers.

Are you ready to enter the darkness? Necrology Shorts has twenty more new tales in issue 5. If you love short stories you will love Necrology Shorts.

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and other great horror writers, our writers have created some unique tales which will entertain you for hours.

Check out all the issues of Necrology Shorts for Kindle and keep an eye out for new issues coming out in the future!

Visit www.NecrologyShorts.com for more information.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wolfgang
• Release date: Jun 4, 2012

Wolfgang

Necrology Shorts is dedicated to horror, scifi, and fantasy. We publish short fiction by new and well know authors. Necrology Shorts website is updated daily with new stories and we also publish collections for Sony Ebook and Amazon Kindle.

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Necrology Shorts

Anthology

Issue 5

Published by Necrology Shorts (www.NecrologyShorts.com)

Copyright © 2012 Isis International & Necrology Shorts

All Rights Reserved

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Table of Contents

Seed

Movie Night

Written Off

Fiddlebacks

Shepherd and the Thief

Under My Skin

The Tower of Eleta

Offering

Gluttony

Cell Forty-Nine

Crow Land

The Math Teacher

Legion

The Queen

Graveyard Dirt

The Tax Man’s Dog

The World of Man

Disturbance Call at the Fairy Bar

Graffiti Park

Vengeance and Valor

Seed

By Andrew Martin

Seed looked down and his lip jumped under his thin mustache and right then Carr knew.

Carr put the girl’s picture back in his pocket. He put his other hand on his piece and said, Mr. Seed, put your hands up. High.

Behind him Carr heard his partner’s feet scrape the bottom step as he squared off.

I—uh—

You heard me motherfucker! Hands now! Carr jammed his piece in Seed’s stomach  and pulled him off his feet, their weight carrying them down the steps—heard Harry jump out of the way and then felt him grabbing for Seed, too. Seed started screaming and clawing and there was a blade, hooked and crude like a prison shank and Carr pulled the trigger once, twice, three times and Seed was deadweight with blood and bone splattered all over his front door. Then Harry was pulling Carr’s piece out of his hand and dragging him down onto Seed’s lawn, forcing him to sit.

Carr, Jesus man you got cut, sit down.

Carr on the ground, Harry rushed back to Seed and put two fingers on his carotid artery. Carr’s piece was in Harry’s belt but Harry still had his own out, barrel to the grass. Carr’s head was pounding and pools of yellow light were growing around the edges of his vision, obscuring the house. Carr squeezed his eyes shut and willed his to head clear.

Police! Harry barked and disappeared into the house. Neighbors were starting to come out now, cautious but seemingly confident the gunfire was over.

Damn—they shot the white boy!

They cursed now—

Carr got to his feet, his left arm wet and on fire. He ground his teeth together. He pulled his badge, clumsy fingers streaking blood on his shirt.

You all right—I told you that mothafucka up to no good, I told you—Officer, Officer, that man makin’ all kinds of noise…

Back towards 29 Carr could hear sirens.

Police— Carr said again and shook his head, holding his badge out, the yellow light receding, revealing the squat houses—peeling paint, sagging porches, rusting fences.  Knots of neighbors were forming; the elderly stayed way back on their porches, one foot in their front doors, ready to disappear at a moment’s notice; the kids pushing baby carriages found each other while the hard cases in ‘do rags tried to ignore the wounded cop, like if they made eye contact Carr’d suddenly realize that shooting the only white guy on the block might upset some cosmic order and he’d need to roust them to set it right again.

Stay back, Carr said as loudly as he could manage and stumbled up the lawn, stepped over the shank and around the skinny shit with half his spine sticking out. He winced at the shit stink hanging over Seed and muttered fuck you as he went, as if hating that dead scumbag would keep his pork roll egg and cheese stay down.

Harry, Carr said as he stepped into Seed’s living room.

Christ. There was no furniture. No TV. Just take out bags, pint won-ton containers, and books. Thousands of them. In spots he could see where the collection had started out on shelves slapped together from plywood and cinderblocks, then spread in drifts across the rest of the living room.

As Carr picked his way through the mess headed for the kitchen he started noting titles- Religion in Britain Before Rome, Tomb of the Eagles, The Domesday, Conquest of Gaul, Trees of North America,—

Carr?

Yeah Har—

He heard Harry coming up the basement steps. A familiar smell hit him and he winced, stopped short of the kitchen, and put a hand against the wall, knees going loose. He’d been damn sure before, but now he was positive he hadn’t just shot some crazy bookworm.

Harry appeared in the kitchen, his dark skin gray. It’s him man. We got the motherfucker.

***

Carr’s stitches itched.

Seed had cut him down his left arm from shoulder to elbow; it was shallow, but worth 25 stitches. Now Carr sat alone at a table in a bar on Hamilton Avenue, pint glass in front of him, waiting on Harry and cracking his scarred knuckles to keep from digging at his stitches.

Carr was on Administrative leave while the shooting was being sorted out and he’d been kept out of the loop. Probably on purpose, he thought, and took another swallow of Lager. All he really knew was that Shynell Jackson’s body hadn’t been in Seed’s house. That’s what was eating him now. The little girl he’d been looking for wasn’t there.

The door opened and Harry entered, Carr watched his partner in the mirror over the bar. He tracked his partner as he crossed the nearly empty room, his eyes working back and forth, probably making sure no one else from the department was here—

Jesus, Carr thought, him too, and white-knuckled the pint glass. Since the shooting Carr was radioactive; guys he’d known for years weren’t take his calls and he’d put it together pretty quick. Even as he’d been helped into the ambulance he’d seen it on their faces, seen them appraising Seed’s 90lbs-soaking-wet to Carr’s 12-years-of-street-time-hard-210 and knife or no knife, their looks said you should have gotten the motherfucker alive. Then we’d know about the girl.

Well I know about the girl, Carr thought. Shynell’s dead and—

Carr!

Harry shot him a half-assed smile and came over. Carr just locked eyes with his own reflection, counted the switchbacks of his twice-broken nose and noted more grey in his crew cut than had been there a week ago—

What I do? Harry asked shoulders tense like he expected Carr to hang one on him.

What?

You look like you’re gonna kill someone.

That some kind of a joke?

Hey…no…forget it. You been here long?

Carr shrugged. Locked eyes with Harry. Sinatra was on the radio. Carr stared harder and Harry looked away.

This’d be my ass, you know that right?

Carr shrugged.

Well I brought it anyway but seriously man, this is my ass. Harry dug in his coat and produced a thumb drive. He slid it across the table and Carr grabbed it. Carr snapped his finger and the bartender, all bald head and red jowls, looked up.

One for my partner. Thanks. Now tell me again about the scalps Harry.

Harry shifted in his chair and looked uncomfortable. He’d told Carr about the scalps he’d seen in the basement as Carr was being loaded into the ambulance. The look on Harry’s face said he regretted it now. Harry shot a glance over his shoulder as if Lt. Wysek and the rest of the homicide squad were going to burst through the door at any moment and have his badge. He took a deep breath.

The bartender appeared and put a pint of Lager in front of Harry. Carr pushed money at him and waved off the change. Harry’s reprieve over, he began.

Not full scalps, just pieces of them. Harry joined his thumb and index finger like he saying ok.  About that big around. Always with a single braid still attached. Twelve of them. The braids are all bound with some kind of homemade rope.

"Jesus—that the other evidence the Sentinel was talking about?"

He’d spit the rag’s name like a curse, but if Harry was sorry Carr had to get his information from the newspaper it didn’t show—

He cleared his throat and went on, yeah. Not much else though and that’s the truth. Couple thousand books but you saw that. There’s the knife…forensics’ saying it’s handmade, copper bladed, shitty construction too so they figure Seed made it himself—

Harry paused when Carr’s eyes went cold at the mention of the homemade knife.

Did the job though. You saw that.

Yeah. How that’s feeling?

Itches like a son of a bitch. Shynell one of the scalps?

Too early to tell—but yeah, probably.

Carr seemed to settle on his stool. So knife’s homemade…copper and what?

Green wood handle. Oak they think.

How ‘bout the rope?

Rope’s charitable. More like braided vine.

Real back to nature type. Chief start searching the woods yet?

He’s hoping to turn up something first, something to narrow it down…there’s a lot of woods outside this city, and plenty more on the other side of the river. Something flashed behind Harry’s eyes and Carr could have broken his nose on the spot. He lunged forward and grabbed his partner’s sleeve.

I ain’t takin’ that shit off you Harry, you got that? No fucking way. It was a good kill and you fucking know it.

Look Carr-

No Goddamnit! You look—you fuckin’ look. I’m tired of people lookin’ at me  like I blew this case and I’m sure as shit not going to tolerate that fuckin’ look on my  rook’ partner’s face. I didn’t blow shit.

I’m sorry Carr.

You’re Goddamn right you are. That little girl was dead already, and putting three in that motherfucker was all anybody coulda done for her. He dropped Harry’s sleeve. Carr stood up and pulled his Carhartt jacket on.

Carr—where you going man?

Carr turned as he hit the door, one big hand planted dead center on the Pabst poster hung there. The library.

***

Seed was 37 and had no prior criminal record when Carr killed him. He’d been some half-assed perma-grad student up at Rutgers, majoring in religions of Pre-Christian Europe. No known living relatives but he’d inherited a small trust when his mother died, enough to keep him in used text books and Chinese food, but not much else. Carr went through the folder Harry had copied and didn’t find much else useful. The standard quiet guy/kept to himself bullshit.  Despite going for years he managed to make almost no impression on his grad school professors or fellow classmates.

His neighbors had a harsher opinion than that of his professors. They talked about loud noises from his house at night, cross words over dogs and children, all bold shit coming from the lone 90lb white guy on the block. And then—

Carr sat back from the computer, remembered the living room, the piles of books. He closed out of the Seed file, and began a search on Ancient European religions. An hour later he was running Google maps.

Two hours later he was back on State Street and heading for his car.

***

He figured he had about an hour of daylight left, maybe less. From what he’d seen on Google the island was small, just a few wooded acres abutting the light rail line, and an hour should’ve given him enough time to look the place over.

Now, looking across the creek and up the moldering bulk heads that formed the shore of the island, it didn’t look so easy. Above the bulkheads was a riot of grey-black vegetation. Crooked trees choked by massive vines struck skyward at all angles while tangles of briars filled the gaps in the forest’s walls. Carr couldn’t see so much as a deer path in that morass.

Seed you pathetic shit, Carr muttered and his hand found the comforting weight of his off-duty piece under his coat.

There was no maybe on this for Carr. He knew this was the place like he’d known Seed was the guy when he tic’ed out after he saw Shynell’s picture. The school shit, the mountains of books, that homemade knife that had looked like every ancient artifact Carr’d ever seen thumbing through National Geographics in hospital waiting rooms—it all added up. Seed was a religious maniac, only he obsessed over a religion the Romans had stomped out two thousand years ago.

What an asshole, Carr thought, what an over educated white boy asshole—

After that initial realization it’d been an hour crash course in the basics of human sacrifice, and by the fifth mention of sacred islands, Carr knew what he had to find. Now that he’d found it though, a part of Carr didn’t want to take it any further. A part of him wanted to call Harry or Lt. Wysek and let them sort it out. Something about that island, squatting there in that creek like the world’s largest deadfall bothered Carr.

Don’t be a pussy, he told himself and headed for the light rail bridge.

***

Carr dropped the four or five feet from the railroad trestle and landed, knees bent, on Seed’s island. Carr stood, crouched slightly, his hand at his gun again, his fingers tensing, the light rain finding its’ way through the canopy and wetting his face.

Carr listened. Nothing. No birds cried out, no deer crashed ahead of him through the briars. The island was quiet. And clean. No bum shelters under the trestle, no piles of empty bottles, or plastic bags. Unless Seed had taken a boat across the creek, he’d have to have come the way Carr did, and come dragging or carrying Shynell Jackson.

Then he either threw her down or lowered her? It didn’t look right but Carr didn’t doubt his gut either. This was the place.

Facing the shoulder-high briars, Carr zipped his jacket up and stepped forward and stopped again. On auto pilot he unzipped his jacket, pulled the compact .45 from its holster and tried it in the pocket of his Carhartt. The jacket had big pockets, thank Christ. Feeling better he shoved his way into the briars and made for the center of the island.

***

It was slow going, and he cursed and crashed and dragged his way through the briars. They were nasty fuckers, thorns curving back like sharks’ teeth that went through his jeans like they were paper. The vines wrapped around his Timberlands and it was like dragging anchors behind him until he’d have to stop and untangle one foot at a time before lunging forward again, one hand keeping the .45 in his pocket, the other batting vines away and alternating between guarding his face or his balls.

The briars opened up and Carr’s boots sank in black muck and he cursed, then quickly slogged to a rise at the high side of the mud hole. The creek was tidal and the island would be shot through with little sinks like this; it was probably what kept the bums out. The place must be mosquito heaven in the summer.

On the high side of the sink the vegetation changed. The trees got bigger and huge vines, bigger around the Carr’s forearms, wove in an out of their branches. Carr got close to one and saw they packed thorns the size of deck screws. The briars eased up, no doubt blocked from what little light they needed by the canopy above. The leaves were gone now though, and sickly yellow light came through the branches. Carr needed to hurry this up or he’d be fighting his way back in the dark.

Here and there remnants of stone foundations broke through the black earth. Old railroad buildings probably, coal sheds or offices, Carr thought. Did Seed make them hinges in his warped mind? Carr ground his teeth at the thought of Seed dragging that little girl out here onto this shithole island, thorns ripping at her, her tiny feet covered in that stinking mud. I’m glad I killed you, Carr said aloud.

The woods opened up ahead and the clouds parted and anemic sunlight fell on a low rise. Halfway up the rise a stone foundation stuck out of the ground like the spine of a dinosaur emerging from a sand dune.  There was a single wooden post planted at the rise’s top. Shreds of something, rope probably, dangled from the post. Carr picked up his pace and behind him there was a rustle in the leaf litter. A fallen branch jumped as a squirrel or some other unseen creature ran into the undergrowth. He didn’t so much as turn his head. That post was all he saw now.

Carr hurried to the base of the rise, his boots quiet on the soft ground. In his peripheral he caught sight of massive black trees, widely spaced on either side of him, their limbs trailing more of the huge thorn covered vines. There were more giant trees on the opposite side of the rise but they were already starting to fade into a wall of deepening shadow. What little sunlight remained now shone on the post like a spotlight.

Carr scrambled over the exposed foundations, scaly black roots filling the spaces in the dry laid stone. Somebody, he saw as he picked up speed, kids probably, had started chipping the beginnings of letters into the stone, but had given up. He hit the top of the rise and stopped.

Carr didn’t know what he’d expected, maybe a ring of poorly concealed graves, but what he found was underwhelming. There were more tree roots then dirt, black scaly bastards bigger around then his thigh. There wasn’t enough dirt here to bury a dog, much less Shynell Jackson and a dozen other people. It was still the place though, Carr was sure of it. Behind and in front of him there was more crashing in the undergrowth, a regular squirrel jamboree by the sound of it. Carr barely noticed—he was transfixed by the stake, now ablaze with the suddenly harsh light of the setting sun.

The stake had been driven into a gap between the roots. It was three feet tall and three inches around. It had been hacked from green wood like the handle of Seed’s knife. That fuck had been no carpenter; it was crooked and had been cut too thin in places. Some sort of copper ring was threaded through the top; it looked like braided electrical wire and had bits of knotted vine still tied to it. Human hair too, and what looked like dried blood.

Seed you motherfucker, Carr said and ground his boot heel into a root to keep from kicking the stake over. A twelve year old girl, tethered to this thing, probably in the dark, and now Carr wished he’d gut shot Seed instead and let the bastard ling—Carr had his gun out and turned around, the last red rays of the dying sun throwing his shadow on the stake.

The sound came again and he got into shooting stance, panning the .45 around the rise, counting seven giant trees as he rotated. It was a low moan, like the sigh of the wind in the night, but there was too much life behind it to be the wind. He’d half expected someone, impossible but maybe Seed, hollow eyed, blood leaking from the holes in his chest, to step out from behind one of those gargantuan trees. He wished it was Seed, so he could kill him again.

Police!

Nothing. The sound came again, a sigh so deep he almost couldn’t hear it, followed by a dry rattle as the limbs of the trees clattered together. It even looked like the wind, the big trees leaning forward just slightly and then bending back. It couldn’t be. Carr didn’t feel any wind.

His left hand came away from the gun, went fishing in his pocket for his cell phone, to call Harry, let him know—

He shot once at the explosion of leaves, the black thing hitting him above his right elbow and knocking him back, his wind gone, hot liquid red spraying everywhere. His vision exploded yellow and his teeth clacked together so hard he’d feel it for days, and his stomach lurched as he hit the ground. He was on his back trying to pull the trigger—no recoil—no noise—fucking gun’s jammed, he thought as he went to get up, pushing against the tree roots which felt like they were shaking, and he fell down again on his right side and there was an explosion of agony and—my God my arm is gone!

The black root was taking its time drawing back down the rise, his arm, Carhartt sleeve, and off duty .45 going with it. Carr babbled and realized for the first time it was blood dripping from his face.

N-na-no!

The massive trees were indeed bending now, looming over the rise, the grey vines slowly unfurling from the limbs and dancing, swaying on the air like cobras as they descended into the clearing. He squeezed the trigger again and again and then the blood spurting from the ragged end of his bicep made him stop and scream because he’d forgotten that quick that his arm was gone.

The sigh came again and was picked up from the woods all around him. Down the rise even the briars were shaking, gibbering in high pitched voices. He started to push himself up with his left arm, his faculties coming back, turning, left arm finding the post and dragging himself up, old dead hair sticking to the blood on his hand and he wondered if any of it was Shynell’s and the sigh came again so loud it was deafening and he could hear words in that great exhalation, hard words full of consonants in a language he couldn’t understand.  Something brushed his ankles just above his boots and he slapped back at it and had a millisecond of agonizing pain, his hand caught on those giant thorns and then the vines pulled him apart and Carr was gone.

***

The moon rode high now and the big pieces of Carr, the flesh and bone and viscera were long gone. The trees sang as the briars shimmered in the moonlight and lapped Carr’s blood from the altar.

Movie Night

By Jason Howell

Gabe shuffled through the stack of movies, each plastic box displaying Pic-A-Rent’s logo below a smiling cartoon frog, and selected the first DVD of the evening. If anything can relax you after a rough day, it’s a good, long movie night. And talk about a rough day. Kelsey was still creeping around the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner without taking her pouting eyes off the floor. Was it such a hard thing to get a simple prescription?

Can’t you come in? she had mumbled that afternoon, studying the Kia’s sun-blistered dash as they sat in the Bee-Log County Health Clinic’s parking-lot. And Gabe had to explain, again, what she already knew—that not only did all the doctors at good ol’ BCHC know him and now refused to see him but that bitchy receptionist had supposedly claimed she’d call the cops if Mr. Gabe Ballard stepped onto the premises again. So he would lay low for a few months then try to be seen the next time he had a cold or something—something legitimate to get his foot back in the door. But for now it was up to K to get a hold of the goods.

And she finally went but, Jesus, it took more effort than it should have. Gabe spun the disc silver-side up on the tip of his finger, holding it in the light of the brown lamp (an ugly one given to Kelsey by her sister) that squatted on the end-table by the couch. He watched the reflection of the dragon-print fleece blanket thumb-tacked over the living-room window swirl in the spiral rainbow. Finally, he had glanced around the parking lot then turned toward her, raising the back of his hand, biting his lower lip and bracing his face. That did it.

Just tell them it’s your back. They can’t disprove that, Kelsey’s husband had advised as she slunk out of the car with a glazed yet (for some reason) surprised expression. And if they start in about a piss-test or calling the cops, just get back here.

Gabe popped the DVD into the player and turned the TV volume up before settling into the well-worn center of his couch. A genuine half-and-half optimist/pessimist, Gabe might have agreed with the philosopher Hegel (if he had ever read him) that this is an imperfect world but that man (as in mankind) strove through progressive levels of imperfection toward eventual utopia. Gabe’s father had hit; Gabe did not. He had learned he didn’t need to and he was proud of that—not because it spared his wife pain in addition to fear but because it spared them both the tell-tale bruises. Now that’s what got you in trouble—hadn’t it gotten Dad into more than enough of the very same? Hegel saw utopia as the convergence of rationality and spirituality, as well as everything at odds in the imperfect present, but Gabe held a different view. Sometimes, in his altruistic moods, he thought of the people (as in men) who might inherit that age of absolute spirit, the stage of societal evolution in which, as Gabe envisioned it, a man might merely tell a woman what to do and have it done without violence or any other effort. And because he was in an altruistic mood in these moments, he looked on the future’s beneficiaries with almost more graciousness than jealous contempt for that (surely far-off) time he would not live to see.

Gabby, as his Dad had sometimes called him, settled into movie-night position while the first preview came up. On movie night you always let the previews roll. That’s when theater-goers loaded themselves down with popcorn and candy and that’s when Gabe loaded up with the goodies which that magic slip of paper (eventually obtained by his hesitant wife) had entitled them to at the Cane River Pharmacy. His hereto stormy brow cleared, if only somewhat, as Gabe picked up the movie-night dinner plate from its place on the end-table (right next to the ugly, squatting lamp) and crossed his legs up on the couch. Speaking of the devil, Kelsey appeared at the doorway, creeping again.

Go make sure Ozzy and Snowball have some food left, her man said without looking up from the dish where he slowly crushed the pale tablets with the butt of his cell phone, two at a time, inside a folded dollar bill. Can’t have them barking on movie night.

K stood there for a moment, maybe thinking about starting an argument, but then went to the closet and slipped her Hello-Kitty-socked feet into Gabe’s boots before heading to the backdoor of their trailer. No fuss, no muss. Kelsey had an interest in keeping things mellow on movie night. She pretended to have no liking for the thin rows of egg-shell-white powder on that plate but after Gabe fired the first two or three through the rolled bill into his nose, she always slid onto the couch beside him, with her sissy can of sprite and straw.

Listening to the plastic feed bowls rattle and the two six-month-old huskies whine with pleasure out back, Gabe removed a matchbook-sized baggie secured with a black twist-tie from his pajama-pants pocket. The ridge of powder that poured out of the hole he bit from one corner of the plastic bag was fine as baking soda and bright yellow. Hearing the rattle and whine cease, Gabe folded and tucked the now half-empty bag back into his pocket and pressed his face toward the dinner plate’s new line, following it with two more of his usual.

Gabby, as Gabe sometimes thought of himself as his awareness of the outside, demanding world because opaque like water just beginning to grey into ice, leaned back and stared into the 27-inch Sam-sonic, waiting for explosions and sex. Or maybe it would be the nature video, in which wolves or lions would explode after deer or antelope then slink off to the tall grass and mate—Gabby maintained a variety of interests. Instead, jarringly, light guitar and soft-throated singing played over a panning shot of an immaculately clean city. A woman with big lips, tiny wrists and three strands of hair placed an equal distance apart on her forehead