Hell Hath No Fury

By Peggy Christie

Ever wonder how you might handle a sabbatical from work? Think the bible told you everything there is to know about the Devil? What if the noises coming from under your child’s bed weren’t just in his imagination?

Crack open Hell Hath No Fury, a collection of 21 tales of horror and dark fiction, to learn the answers to these questions. Discover stories of psychotic delusions, ghosts, a murder victim’s revenge, and a family brought closer together through torture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Cieslak
• Release date: Jun 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370254828

Peggy Christie

I'm an author of horror and dark fiction. It's probably been the cheapest and most fulfilling form of therapy ever, especially since my first story involved a secretary (which I was at the time) killing her jerk of a boss (which I had at the time) but only after he'd accidentally murdered her and covered it up (which, obviously, he never did...or did he?) I've been married to a wonderful man for 23 years and we are the proud parents of an adorable Pittie named Dozer.

Book preview

Hell Hath No Fury

Peggy Christie

Hell Hath No Fury is published by Dragon’s Roost Press.

Secretary’s Day: First published in Sinister Tales, Volume 2: Issue 2, 2007

Cabin Fever: First published at Delirium Webzine 2002

Mulligan: First published in the anthology, Elements of Horror, 2010

Bad Touching: First published in Erie Tales V: Dreadful Delusions, 2012

Earl: First published on-line at The New Flesh, April 2010

Here There Be Monsters: First published in Static Movement’s anthology, Closet Monsters, 2011

The Lonely Corridor: First published in Erie Tales 1: Tales of Terror, 2008

Keeping Up With the Joneses: First published at Planet Relish webzine, 2001. Published in podcast, Nightmare Fuel, 2009

I’ve Got a Secret: First published in Erie Tales IV: Tales of the Apocalypse/Resurrection Mary, 2012

Honor Thy Mother: First published at House of Pain website 2000

All material except Black Rain and Reborn appeared in an earlier version of Hell Hath No Fury published by Hazardous Press

All material © 2016 by Peggy Christie

Cover Art Copyright © 2016 by Luke Spooner

E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1540699985

Dragon’s Roost Press

207 Gardendale

Ferndale, MI 48220

thedragonsroost.net/styled-3/index.html

DEDICATION

A big thanks to my buddy, Michael, and Dragons Roost Press for allowing me to put my mutated child back out into the world with a couple of odd new growths that I probably should have had my dermatologist inspect first.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Secretary’s Day

Cabin Fever

Another Day In Paradise

Mother Knows Best

Mulligan

Fester

Reborn

Bad Touching

Earl

A Rose By Any Other Name

Here There Be Monsters

The Lonely Corridor

Too Soon

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Don’t Be A Dummy

I’ve Got A Secret

Black Rain

Honor Thy Mother

Family Time

Driver’s Ed

Endings

Bio

Also Available from Dragon’s Roost Press

Secretary’s Day

Ms. Phillips? We need to have a little talk.

Linda Phillips sighed, picked up her steno pad, and walked into Mr. Anderson’s office. She closed the door behind her. Heaven forbid anyone should find out what ‘having a little talk’ was really all about. She sat down and looked up at him, waiting for the bomb to drop.

Linda, it seems my report for the 1st quarter sales budget has been, uh, misplaced. Since you were the last one to work on it, you must have lost it. Fortunately, for all involved, I assured the Executive Director that you would retype the report and have it on my desk by 11:00am.

Linda looked at her watch and grimaced. It was 9:55am. She had exactly one hour and five minutes to retype the eight-page budget spreadsheet. Mr. Anderson cleared his throat nervously and played with his tie. Linda clenched her jaw and glared at him. Her jaw muscles bunched and unbunched as she reined in her anger.

It wouldn’t help to get mad. It wouldn’t make a difference if she pointed out that at five o’clock last night, she put the report directly in his hands. It didn’t matter to him because he never made mistakes. She did. She always lost the report, spilled coffee on his keyboard, or erased the whole presentation ten minutes before a meeting.

That, of course, was not the truth. The truth was simply this: Gary Anderson was an asshole. He was born an asshole and he’d die an asshole. The man could not find his dick with a flashlight and a map. The only two things in this life that he ever did very well were taking the credit and placing the blame. It was because of his brilliance that the client accepted the proposal and earned the company an extra two billion dollars in revenue. It was because of someone else entirely that the proposal fell apart and went swirling down the toilet.

Linda remembered the days before Gary Anderson. Carl Wright was the Account Manager then and she was his Secretary. She didn’t quibble over the title of Secretary or Assistant because she was happy. Mr. Wright always treated her well. He asked her if she wanted coffee when he was getting some for himself. If she was swamped with work, he was perfectly capable of making copies for himself, even the two-sided kind with staples. He remembered her birthday, her work anniversary, and even Secretary’s Day.

Mr. Wright had worked for the company for 18 years. He was respected and well-liked by everyone. He had a great head for business and was a genius at putting people at ease. But, because of some botched pitch for new business, headed up by Gary Anderson coincidentally, Mr. Wright was fired and sent on his merry way. Linda cried the day he left, thinking things would never be the same around the office without him. The next day, when Mr. Anderson took over, she knew the good old days were gone forever.

Linda remembered Gary Anderson’s first day as Account Manager as if it were yesterday. He came strutting into the office like a peacock rattling his feathers for a peahen’s loving attentions. He called a department meeting that afternoon to spell out how Gary’s Team would be structured and how things were going to be different from now on. They would all work together. Everyone would have a say, a voice. No one was insignificant. He would take care of them and everyone would get the credit when a job was done well. There’s no ‘I’ in Team, is there? That was one of Gary’s favorite sayings. Of course, after the team got to know him a little better, they realized that there may not be an ‘I’ in team, but there definitely was a ‘me’ and that’s all that Gary Anderson was interested in.

That was a little over a year ago. Since then, Linda had been ignored, denied vacation time, and pushed aside. Her ideas were always laughed at, her voice silenced on more than one occasion. Not by the team of course but by the leader himself. Gary Anderson looked at Linda as a necessary evil. He couldn’t type a presentation or even make copies by himself without destroying something. Linda was his link to the finished product. Once the work was completed, when the presentation or budget report was polished to a high shine, Gary swooped in and stole all the glory – from everyone. As far as Gary was concerned, Linda was just a glorified coffee maker with exceptional typing skills.

After she finished retyping the budget report, and other documents that had mysteriously disappeared, Mr. Anderson poked his head out of his office. Ms. Phillips? We need to have a little talk.

Glancing up from her computer screen, Linda nodded. She saved her work and walked into Mr. Anderson’s office. Closing the door behind her, she prepared for the worst – again.

Ms. Phillips, it seems someone has broken the copy machine because the original, and only, copy of the marketing presentation was destroyed in it this morning. Now, I know it wasn’t your fault, because you were retyping the report you lost earlier. However, you will need to re-create the presentation before the end of the day tomorrow.

Linda frowned. But, Mr. Anderson, don’t you remember? I’m taking tomorrow off to go visit my sister.

Well, I don’t want you to miss out on that. I guess this will need to be done before you leave tonight.

But Mr. Anderson….

Good. That’s settled then. Now, you better get back to work. You’ve got a lot to finish up.

Yes, sir. Linda muttered. She quietly closed his door and sat back in her cube. She leaned over and laid her head on the desk. After a few minutes, she began to thump her forehead in a quiet rhythm of frustration against the cool surface of her desk. Sitting up, she sighed and turned to her computer. The little clock in the corner noted 2:57pm. She grabbed the mouse and clicked. Nothing happened. She clicked it a few more times and just as she’s was about to rip it out of the computer, a little message window popped up: Systems Error. Retry? Reboot? Cancel? She clicked on Retry and got the same message. Clicking on Cancel, the message popped up again. Of course, she groaned.

As she rebooted her computer, Linda looked up to see Mr. Anderson walking past in his coat and hat. Good night, Linda. I’m all caught up on my work so I thought I’d cut out early. Enjoy your visit with your sister. See you on Monday morning. As he breezed out the front door to the elevators, Linda gave him the finger.

* * *

After an exhausting and miserable weekend, Linda shuffled into work Monday morning. She’d had a huge fight with her sister on Saturday night about… well, what didn’t they fight about? It started with whether to have pizza or hamburgers for dinner and ended with her sister accusing her of not spending enough time with their mom at the nursing home. Linda stomped out of her sister’s house and drove back home. Halfway there, while fuming over the whole ordeal, she almost fell victim to a crater-sized pothole, gaping in the middle of the road like the toothless maw of some asphalt beast. Of course when she swerved to avoid that, she scraped her car along the steel barrier to her right, causing sparks to fly through the air like confetti. At least it was still drivable, albeit scarred.

Monday plugged along at its usual tortoise pace. At noon, Mr. Anderson announced he was taking a long lunch, to celebrate his glorious victory over signing up some new business that morning with his brilliant marketing proposal (never mind that he did none of the research, writing, or presenting of said proposal). Around two thirty, he stumbled back to work, slurred a greeting to Linda, and locked himself in his office.

At about three forty five, one of the other secretaries, Cathy, went home with the flu. Cathy’s boss, the Creative Director, asked Linda if she could help type up a presentation that needed to be ready for an 8:00am meeting the following morning. Of course, she’d be happy to help. Yes, she understood that she wouldn’t get out of here until later this evening. Fine. Great. No problem.

At 7:30, Linda was packing up her bag and getting ready to go home. She’s seen neither hide nor hair of Mr. Anderson since 2:30 that afternoon. She knocked softly on his office door.

Mr. Anderson? She rapped a little louder this time. Mr. Anderson, are you all right?

She heard a grunt and groan, a snort, the sound of papers sliding off the desk, and a loud whump. After a few mumbled curses and some more banging, a disheveled Mr. Anderson opened his door. Clearing his throat, he looked bleary- eyed at Linda.

Yes, Ms. Phillips. What is it?

I was just concerned about you, Mr. Anderson. You haven’t been out of your office since early this afternoon. I just wanted to make sure…..

What time is it?

Linda looked down at her watch. It’s seven thirty, Mr. Anderson.

Damn! I’m late for my dinner party with the client. I’ve got to get going! He lurched sideways to grab his coat and briefcase. Pushing Linda out of the way, he stumbled down the hall. Shaking her head in disgust, Linda closed up his office and headed out the door behind him.

As Linda walked to the parking garage, Mr. Anderson had already made it up to the sixth level where he had parked his silver 1997 Cadillac Seville. With shaking hands he tried several times to fit the key in the door lock before he remembered he had a remote entry system on this car. He depressed the button and a soft bleep sounded as the alarm shut off and the doors unlocked. He yanked open the door and threw his coat and briefcase onto the passenger seat. He knocked his forehead on the roof as he plunged into his car.

He took a quick inventory of his appearance in the rearview mirror. He looked awful. His eyes were blood shot and droopy. A red welt rose on the skin where he had just bumped his head. His suit was crumpled and smelled of cigarette smoke and whiskey. His hair was sticking up in back where he had fallen asleep in his chair. He spit on his fingers to wet his hair into submission, just like his mother did when he was five years old to make him presentable for church.

After getting his hair under reasonable control, he checked his breath. Grimacing at the smell of sour liquor and stale cigarettes, he dug around his glove compartment for anything to cover that stench. His fingers closed over a single piece of chewing gum. He didn’t know what flavor and didn’t care. He unwrapped it as quickly as his shaking hands could manage. He crammed the stick into his mouth and bit down. The stale gum cracked and splintered into his mouth. As he worked on softening the gum, he smoothed his hands over his suit. Well, it’s not going to get any better than this.

He took one last glimpse in the mirror, cringed, and started the car. He threw the car into reverse and pounded on the gas. With squealing brakes, he avoided crashing into a red Geo by mere inches. He took a deep breath, let it out in a curse, and slammed the car into drive grinding his foot into the accelerator. Driving like a condemned man escaping the gallows, he tore around the first corner to approach level five. The parking garage was actually quite long so he had a couple hundred yards of straightaway before he needed to turn again to reach the next level. He fumbled for his seatbelt, muttering to himself about how this was all Peter’s fault.

Peter convinced him, no, made him drink those last three or four whiskey shots. Sure it was to celebrate his great work on some marketing proposal or whatever it was. Gary wasn’t interested in the particulars. It was Peter’s fault that he got so drunk he fell asleep in his office. And why hadn’t Linda checked on him sooner? She should have come in and woken him up. It was her fault that he was late now. He was just going to have to have a little talk with her.

The parking garage was built like most others in the downtown area. Two center lanes allowed two-way traffic to enter and exit the structure. The single, one-way lanes wound along the east and west sides of the garage and connected back to the center at each level. Elevator banks and the stairwells were located in enclosed partitions at the southwest and northeast corners of the building. Gary was speeding down the outside lane towards the elevator on Level Five.

Adjacent to the elevators, the lane ended in a putty-grey cement wall, which was the outer wall of the garage, forcing a driver to turn right to advance down to the next parking level. As Gary approached the turn, he was thinking of what to do with Linda. She was so irresponsible. How many times did she have to retype a presentation because of her thoughtlessness? Well, he was just going to have a little… Too late, he saw her step out from the partition in front of his speeding car. Gary Anderson was going to have more than a little talk with Linda Phillips. He was going to kill her.

* * *

As Linda walked out of the elevator to Level Five, she was digging through her purse. She couldn’t seem to find her damned keys. It wasn’t really surprising.

After a horrible weekend with her sister and extra hours at work today, nothing could make her feel worse. She also felt guilty about the fight with her sister. She had to think of something to make it up to her. They never could stay mad at each other for very long. Even when they were kids growing up on their parent’s farm in Petersburg, Illinois, they never stayed angry at each other past suppertime. After a hearty meal, with ice cream for dessert, they were giggling in each other’s arms, usually trying to determine who was the reigning champion of their nightly tickle torture session.

Linda smiled to herself at the memory. A little giggle escaped her lips, making her sound like that long-ago girl, romping around on the living room floor, trying to get her sister to scream uncle. Her hand finally closed around the cold metal of her key ring