Mortality Tales

By R. A. Kay

A collection of short, unsettling stories about bad things happening to ordinary people in everyday situations. You may not like all of them, but you will like some. And one or two will stay in your mind, lingering, slowly eating away at you. Every time you see a bare plaster wall or a hospital bed or a pretty cottage, you will think of these stories. And you will remember.
The Attic: A couple move into their forever home. When they explore the attic, the forever home becomes a never ending nightmare.
A Fairytale: A tiny tale of small creatures and their true natures.
A Trumpet Sounds: A fighter meets a woman who has nothing left to lose. She is not afraid of him, or his army, or any of the other armies. He learns why.
An Encounter: Love at first sight. It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Overwhelming, exciting, a powerful and irresistible feeling that takes you over and leads you on. But to where?
Last Words: At the end of a long life, a woman has her final conversation.
Locked Out: Imagine waking and not moving, for days on end. Weeks. Months. What would you do? What could you do? And how would you feel?
Morning Glory: You know what it’s like. The morning after the night before. But what actually happened the night before? And why does he feel so bad?
Sticklebacks: The story of a fish out of water.
The Darlings: They see everything, kids. Everything the parents do, it all sinks in and stays there in their minds. Sometimes it festers.
The Stranger: A stranger is passing through, from nowhere in particular to nowhere special. He hears a cry for help. What else could he do?
The Good Neighbour: In a small village people like to get on with their neighbours. When a new one arrives, it’s only right that they should be welcomed. Everyone loves a good neighbour. Don't they?

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. A. Kay
• Release date: Oct 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005936860

R. A. Kay

I have been many things. I have been and done things that I choose to forget. I have now chosen none of these. I choose to write.What I write is often odd. I enjoy writing unsettling stories. Not pure horror, not gore, just stories that linger in the mind. These stories are published under the name R. A. Kay. Under the name Ricky A. Kay I write stories set in and around the place I live – Sheffield, England. These pieces are usually about ordinary people in ordinary circumstances and how they behave in extraordinary situations. Just to confuse things, some of my unsettling work is set in Sheffield. And some of the extraordinary situations can be quite unsettling.So that’s me. I’m starting this adventure later than I’d planned, but I still feel excited about it. Come with me. I hope you will feel the same.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

A COLLECTION OF short, unsettling stories about extraordinary things happening to ordinary people. People like Jo, a woman who, on the first day in her new home, makes a discovery that reveals a dark history to the house. Then there is the woman in a deserted middle-eastern village who sees death walk into her life. You will read about a young boy losing his innocence, with terrifying results. You will meet Jack, a security officer who needs to find out why people in his organisation keep ending up dead. The eponymous Stranger is someone you would never want to meet on a dark night, or at any other time. And as for the good neighbour...

I think it’s time for you to find somewhere comfortable and sit down and read the stories. Somewhere nice and warm, with good lighting, and a phone nearby. Just in case.

THE ATTIC

THE ROOM WAS big and white and dusty and filled with fear.

There was no reason for the fear. It was just something she felt as she entered the room. She'd felt it the first time that she'd walked through the door. She'd turned the round, loose, rattly old doorknob, and rested her hand on the much-painted door frame, and put her head into the room, and she'd been scared and she didn't know why.

It was the top room of the house, a big attic room, empty and bare of any furniture, just dusty floorboards and white-painted wood-chip covering the walls. A large dormer window had been installed at some time, its un-curtained panes streaked with grime on the inside and a splatter of birdlime on the outside. Two great, thick timber purlins ran along the length of the room, one on each side, the ends embedded in the brickwork of the walls that supported the roof. It was a light, bright room, almost too bright; when the sun shone from the west, it poured in through the window and bounced off every surface, each reflection accumulating and magnifying the light until it became almost painful to the eye.

Her husband squeezed past her and walked through the door. The sound of his leather-soled shoes on the bare floorboards echoed around the room and made her feel uncomfortable, as if he was somehow intruding. She followed him in, her rubber-soled sneakers making no sound at all.

Yeah, this could be great, Jo, he said. Nice and bright. Bags of room. Wall space for hanging your work, and that area under the dormer would be ideal for your desk and easel and whatnot. A fair old view, too, although a titch like you'd need a step up to see it, and these windows will want cleaning, but it all looks good to me. Just what you said you wanted, really. Don't you think, Jo?

He turned to her and saw that she wasn't looking at the room. She was looking at him. She was a petite red-head, with blue eyes and high cheekbones, and lips that were usually formed into an easy smile. Her lips were pressed tight together right now, though. He saw something in her eyes too, something he didn't recognise, that he'd never seen before.

He saw that she was scared.

What's the matter? he said.

She stood in the centre of the room, hugging herself, her shoulders hunched up. It was a warm spring day but she looked like she was cold. She shrugged.

I don't know, she said.

He walked over to her and put an arm round her shoulders and kissed her cheek. He made an assumption. It was wrong.

Bit too late for second thoughts now, love. We're in. This is it. Day one of life in our forever home.

He kissed her again, smiling. She didn't respond. A frown spread over his face.

Come on, Jo. What's up?

She shrugged again. I don't know, Mark.

Is it just because it needs cleaning and decorating? We can sort that out, can't we? A lick of paint and it'll be fine. Won't it?

Jo slipped out of his arms and began walking around the room. She ran a hand along one of the timber purlins and then rubbed the acquired dust off with her other hand. She paused at the window, standing on tiptoe to see out through it. At the end of the room she stopped in front of the wall. Mark walked up to stand beside her.

Wood-chip, he said, running his hand over the heavily painted surface of the wallpaper. Hate the bloody stuff. Reminds me of when I was young and we lived in that godawful terraced house. Tiny little place it was, too small for a family as big as ours. I hated it. I suppose that's why I've always wanted somewhere like this; a big, old house, with lots of rooms and nooks and crannies, lots of space to spread out in. Lots to love.

He reached out to a small piece of torn wallpaper that had been left trailing down. He tugged at it and the tear became bigger.

Well, that's handy, he said. Whoever put this paper on was a bit stingy with the paste. Looks like it's only held on by the paint now.

He tugged again. The paper peeled easily away from the wall. Long strips of it dropped to the floor, the layers of paint that had covered the paper crumbling to dust as they fell.

We could have this lot all off in an couple of hours, Jo. Put something nice up instead. Or we could get the walls skimmed and paint them some bright, happy colours, yellow or orange or...

Mark, said Jo.

Mark looked at his wife. She was staring at the bare plaster that had been hidden beneath the wallpaper and was now revealed to them for the first time. He stepped back and stood alongside her and tried to see what she was looking at. He couldn't see anything except for scraps of wallpaper and a few scratches on the wall.

What is it, love?

Look, she said. Can't you see?

Mark looked again at the area of the wall that Jo was pointing towards. He saw that the scratches in the plaster weren't random. They had been scribed into the surface with a fine pointed tool of some kind, the point of a knife, perhaps, or a nail. He could see that the lines were part of a drawing. The style looked like something scratched out by a childish hand; odd-angled lines and curves had been formed from multiple passes with the tool, scratching and re-scratching, so that the resulting shapes had an indeterminate, feathered appearance. The shapes were of children, of boys and girls of different ages and sizes and shapes.

They were naked.

The two of them stood together in silence looking at the figures. The detail was enough for them to know that they were drawn from life, by someone who had seen these figures unclothed and had who had observed them closely. They could see three figures, two girls and a boy. The feet of each figure almost rested on the skirting board. They appeared to be drawn to scale; life-size.

The tallest figure was that of a girl. She stood in profile. The boy stood with his back to this figure, and a smaller girl stood on the other side of him, facing into the room. No emotion could be seen on any of the faces. None of them were smiling.

We can't stay here, said Jo.

Mark said nothing.

Mark, said Jo. We can't stay here. I can't stay here.

Mark turned to face his wife.

Let's just calm down a minute, he said. There might be a perfectly sensible explanation for all this.

Like what?

Mark shook his head. I don't know, Jo. An idea struck him. Maybe the kids drew themselves. Maybe they were naturists or something, the family that lived here when this... was done. Maybe they were just... artists. With really bad taste.

I'm not living here, said Jo.

D'you think you're just being a bit emotional, maybe?

I'm not.

We've only just moved in, Jo, shouted Mark. This is our first day. The removal van hasn't even left the drive yet. We can't just pack everything up and leave. We couldn't if we wanted to. It would take months to sell now, and all our money is here, in the bricks and mortar of this house. We can't afford to live anywhere else.

Jo turned to look at the figures on the wall again. She looked at the unsmiling face of the small girl and tried to imagine what she had seen, what she had done. What had been done to her.

I don't care, she said. I'm not living here, Mark. I can't.

Jo lay in bed, staring at the ceiling of the room as Mark snored gently beside her. It was the early hours of the morning but she hadn't slept. She had laid down and looked up and realised that their bedroom was directly below the attic room and all possibility of sleep had left her. All she had been able to do was to think about the drawings. She had tried to believe Mark, to believe that there was an explanation that didn't include all the horrors that still floated around in her mind, but she couldn't. For each possible explanation that he conceived, she conjured a more probable rebuttal until she knew, she absolutely knew, that whatever had happened in that room had been bad beyond her imaginings.

As she lay there she wondered how these unknown children must have felt. She refused to consider the physicality of what might have been done to them. It seemed to her that thinking about such things only made them worse and there was nothing anyone could do now that would ease any pain they had suffered. She thought instead about their lives. Had any part of it been good, she wondered, or did they live in misery from the day they were born? She hoped that they had been able to enjoy some good days in their brief lives.

She sat up.

Brief lives? How do I know that they're dead? Perhaps they aren't. Perhaps they're still alive. Maybe they survived and managed to overcome their past. Maybe they even managed to live well in spite of it.

The idea that there could yet be some hope for the children made her restless. She slipped out of bed and put on her dressing gown and slippers and headed for the kitchen. As she reached the top of the stairs another thought struck her. If there was any information still to be found about the children, about how they might be found if they were still alive today, it was likely to be scrawled on the walls of the attic.

The attic door creaked as she opened it, and she felt the sense of fear again as she stepped onto the bare boards. Light from a full summer moon hanging just outside the window filled the white-painted room but still she tried the old brass switch. There was no bulb in the socket that dangled from the centre of the roof. She paused for a moment, listening. The only sounds she could hear were a gentle breeze running over the roof and, in the far distance, the noise of traffic on the bypass.

Walking slowly, treading carefully, she moved across the room. The drawings could still be seen, even in this light. They seemed to be more clearly defined, if anything, the angle of the moonlight across the drawings providing a relief effect. She bent to examine the figure of the tall girl. There were no other markings that she could see, no words or messages, just the feathery scratchings that outlined the figure. She moved on to the figure of the boy.

He was looking at her.

Jo staggered backwards. A slipper fell from her foot and she stumbled and sat down heavily on the bare floorboards. The dull thud as she hit the floor echoed around the room.

The figure of the boy was facing her.

He hadn't been like that before, she was sure of that. He'd been standing sideways, facing the small girl. He was facing out into the room now though, looking at Jo, his eyes big and round, his mouth unsmiling. Jo scurried away from him, moving backwards on her hands and feet. She bumped into a pair of legs and screeched.

Jo, said Mark, lifting her up to him. What're you doing?

She grabbed hold of his arm and pointed to the drawings. He's looking at me, Mark. See? The boy's looking at me.

Mark followed the line of her finger. A cloud passed over the face of the moon and the room dimmed for a moment. When the light returned he walked over to the wall. He knelt down and examined the figure of the boy and then stood up again and moved to one side.

The boy was facing the little girl.

Mark shrugged and opened his hands. He walked back to her and put his arms round her.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, love, he said. You can't really see anything properly in this gloom. I'll put a bulb in tomorrow. What were you doing up here anyway, though?

Jo stared at the wall.

I thought I might find something, she said. Some more details. About them. I wanted to find out who they were. I wanted to help them.

Help them? said Mark. How would you do that? That wallpaper's been on for bloody years, decades probably. These kids would be well and truly grown up by now. They'd be old people, maybe even dead. How could you help them?

Jo shook her head.

I don't know, she said. But they do need help. I know that. I can feel it.

She waved as Mark drove away the following morning. He had meetings with the estate agents and solicitors to finalise the bills for the house move, and then he'd arranged to see their accountant to see what options they had if they did have to move again. Jo had intended to go with him but she had hardly slept and wasn't feeling up to it. The bathroom mirror showed her how tired she looked. Even the dragonfly tattooed on her shoulder seemed limp and lifeless. She had a shower, rinsing off with the water set as cold as she could stand it in an effort to liven herself up. She made a large pot of strong coffee and drank it with some toast and honey. The tiredness lifted and she began to feel more like her usual self, so she started unpacking the boxes that had been stacked in the living room and distributing the contents around the house. Whatever happened, they were going to have to live here for a while, after all.

It was a grey day outside and the rain came, light at first, but then heavier and heavier, along with a wind that gusted all around the house and blew shrill whistles through the gaps that it found around the doors and windows. She carried boxes full of pots and pans and cutlery through to the kitchen; boxes full of paintings and photographs and ornaments to the dining room; suitcases full of clothes and shoes up to the bedrooms. She took some vases into the conservatory at the back of the house and stood and watched the rain hurl itself against the old glass panes. The trees and bushes in the garden jumped and threw themselves around, and the clouds above them ran through the sky like a wild, grey river. She began to feel cold and tired again. I need to sleep, she thought. She went upstairs and lay on top of the bed and closed her eyes. She was immediately asleep.

She dreamed of fear that night. Everything that had ever scared her came to to visit her in her sleep: she