Nightmares- Volumes 1-4

By Billy Wells

Nightmares- Volumes 1-4- A Billy Wells Horror Anthology
A collection of twenty horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone.
The nightmares include:
NO REST FOR THE DEAD: A gravedigger provides fresh cadavers for medical research and makes a killing.
THE ICE MAN: A woman and her boyfriend try to convince her bridge partner that her husband is an infamous hit man who has a reputation for unspeakable acts and cruelty.
DESECRATIONS: Someone has pulverized the heads of two bodies with a sledgehammer in their caskets at a local funeral parlor.
SANTA'S NOT COMING TO TOWN: An eight-year-old boy is pissed that Santa never brings him toys like his friends at school and seeks revenge
GOR: An alien seeks revenge when a hunter enters the forest where he made his home and kills three of his animal friends.
FIDO: George lost his job and needs to leave his hometown to start a new life. A rich recluse seems like an easy target to get fast cash except for a sign on the wall surrounding her estate, "Beware of Fido.”
THE MONSTER NEXT DOOR: An apartment dweller is convinced his next-door neighbor is a monster.
THE VAMPIRE CLUB: Something big in the basement has devoured Mike’s neighbor’s cat on loan to catch a mouse.
FAIR GAME: After pushing a commuter into a subway train, a serial killer stops at a bar for a beer and strikes up a conversation with a stranger he decides to kill as well.
THE PARTY: A man crashes a Halloween party held in a dilapidated mansion unoccupied for decades.
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS: Four friends make New Year’s resolutions to overcome the phobias each of them have in the coming year. A month later, three of them have met with unexplained deaths, and the survivor keeps having nightmares that they were murdered.
THE REFRIGERATOR: A man finds a message for help in a used refrigerator that was once owned by vampires in the house where his father died ten years before.
THE TAXIDERMIST Louie finds a deformed taxidermist with outstanding credentials to mount his most prized kill from twenty-five years of hunting.
OFF LIMITS: June loses her job and moves in with her sister under the explicit condition her sister's bedroom is off limits.
SURPRISE! SURPRISE!: Jane has arranged a surprise birthday party for her boss at his funeral parlor.
THE BABYSITTER: A psychotic female teenager cooks up an elaborate scheme to pose as a babysitter for a wealthy couple, rob them for road money, and murder their little boy to punish them for being rich.
BUG: A student propositions a professor with sex for an "A.”
THE JOKER: An author plans to use the comedic M.O. of the way a serial killer staged his victims in his next novel.
RED HATS MASQUERADE BALL: A retired psychopath can't wait to blind and disfigure a group of ladies with an exploding gag gift at their upcoming Halloween party.
SOMETHING IN THE SKY: Strange things happen to two college students on Lovers Lane after a meteor cuts a path through a nearby cemetery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Billy Wells
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005840938

Billy Wells

I have published eleven collections of horror stories with surprise endings, Check out my latest video for the gory detailsI have written 238 short stories so far in my quest to exceed Ray Bradbury's 400 short stories. It goes without saying it will be an uphill climb.Stephen King is my favorite horror writer, and I admire what King has accomplished in the horror genre in terms of movies made from his considerable volume of work.My channels on You Tube has amassed over 7,000,000 hits, mostly from my "Dead Celebrities" videos and have over 13,000 subscribers.I love movies and had seen over 1,500 by the age of 13 when there was snow on 13 channels after midnight.I read constantly and have rated over 700 books on Goodreads.My favorite horror movies are Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, and the Evil Dead. My favorite movie of all time Is Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life with James Stewart. My favorite authors are Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, John Sandford, Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Jeffery Deaver, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Lee Burke, Richard Matheson, Lee Child, and Jack Kilborn/Konrath.Since reviews are the life's blood of every author, I would greatly appreciate a review of any of my books and hold anyone who does in high esteem for all eternity.

Book preview

Nightmares-Volumes 1-4

A Billy Wells Horror Anthology

Selections From

Black As Night, Shivers & Other Nightmares, Don't Look Behind You, Scary Stories-Vols. 1-5, Midnight Snacks, Scare Factory, and Stories To Make Your Skin Crawl

Copyright © 2022 by Billy Wells

Published by Billy Wells at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This story is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Contents

No Rest For the Dead

The Ice Man

Desecrations

Santa’s Not Coming To Town

Gor

Fido

The Monster Next Door

The Vampire Club

Fair Game

The Party

New Year’s Resolutions

The Refrigerator

The Taxidermist

Off Limits

Surprise! Surprise!

The Babysitter

Bug

The Joker

Red Hats Masquerade Ball

Something in the Sky

About Billy Wells

Reviews in Today’s World

No Rest For the Dead

Mort Spade popped the top on a Rolling Rock and pushed a button on the remote for his TV. He checked the guide and saw the movie, The Body Snatcher, had just started on TNT.

He hated to watch commercials, but he loved horror flicks so he pushed the channel button and saw the opening credits scrolling up on the screen.

Fuck, he said, pitching the remote on the sofa. Black and white. He wished the movie was in color but decided to watch it anyway.

As he watched Cabman John Gray, played by Boris Karloff, digging up fresh corpses and selling them to a Dr. MacFarlane for what at the time must've been big bucks, Mort had a brainstorm. Why couldn't he do the same thing Gray was doing? He’d been a maintenance man at the Morningside Cemetery for over ten years, and he was making peanuts. Digging graves, mostly with a backhoe, was his primary job, along with moving dead people from various locations to the funeral home or the cemetery.

During the movie, Gray had a great business going with his horse and carriage, and Mort wanted to give it a try himself. The problem was finding someone who wanted to buy cadavers like Dr. MacFarlane in the movie.

When the movie ended, Mort went to his computer and booted up. After an interminable time, he saw the Microsoft network finally fill the screen. He googled Craigslist and put funeral arrangements in the search engine. A list of undertakers and research facilities came up. One stood out from the rest with the catchy slogan, A body is a terrible thing to waste. He hit the link and was taken to a site with a large picture of a group of smiling doctors standing in front of an impressive medical building. They held a banner that read, Help Save A Child And Dispense With Enormous Funeral Costs. Donate Your Body To Medical Research.

Wow. Maybe this would be the perfect place to sell a cadaver.

He read every word on the page. These doctors were soliciting elderly people who didn't have the money for a customary funeral to agree to donate their bodies to science upon their death.

Mort didn't know if these doctors would pay him for a body already embalmed or not, but what did he have to lose by asking. He called the number listed in the ad.

A female answered, Edmunds Medical Research.

Hello, Mort said. I'd like to speak with someone about donating a body.

Just a second, let me transfer you to Mr. Sharlaton.

Mort listened to the phone ringing, and on the third ring, he heard, Mr. Sharlaton here. May I help you?

Uhh, Mort said, and suddenly realized he couldn’t find the words to put a sentence together.

Is someone on the line? Sharlaton asked impatiently.

Yes. I don't know how to begin exactly, Mort stammered nervously.

May I ask with whom I am speaking?

Well, Mort hesitated. Actually I would like to remain anonymous.

I'm sorry, sir, but I already know you’re calling from the Mort Spade listing. Your name is already visible on caller ID. Are you Mort?

Well, yes, but what I want to ask must remain strictly confidential.

I understand, Mort. Many of our calls begin this way. Death of a loved one is always a ticklish matter to discuss. What do you want to know?

Let's say I know someone who is very sick and will probably kick... I mean pass away soon. The person’s spouse, who is responsible for paying for the funeral, has no money, but does have complete control of what happens to the body once the spouse dies. Could I...I mean my friend, donate the body to your organization without the deceased signed permission?

Yes. It happens all the time. All you... I mean your friend, has to do is have the loved one sign a waiver stating your friend will be solely responsible for the disposition of his or her body in the event of death. I can even fax you a copy of the form they need to sign if you like.

Mort’s face beamed with excitement. Let's say I place an ad like you did on Craigslist to solicit people, who will agree to use your service, and I supply you with their names. Do you have, what d'you call it ...an affiliate agreement arrangement? You know… would you pay a finders fee for every person I can get to donate their body?

Actually, yes, Sharlaton replied cheerfully. We already have several affiliates who receive finders fees for body donations.

Really. And how much do you pay for each corpse…I mean dearly departed?

Two thousand dollars is our standard fee for a deceased who expired in less than twelve hours, and one thousand for one between twelve and twenty-four hours.

Mort could barely form his next sentence; the grin on his face was so wide. I guess this is a crazy question, but I'll ask it anyway. Let's say the deceased is embalmed and goes through the memorial service process, but rather than a burial or cremation, they elect to donate their body to your organization after the ceremony.

Cadavers already embalmed are less desirable for our primary research, but we do have other uses for such bodies with universities and medical training establishments. But, we only pay five hundred dollars for those cadavers.

If I find a donor, are you the person I should speak with to receive my payment?

Yes. Since I spoke with you initially, I will be your contact for all future dealings with our company.

* * *

The next Wednesday, Mort excavated a grave for a newly departed and closed it after the funeral. The man had died of a heart attack at the age of forty-two. He wondered if the cadaver being young would increase his payment for the donation.

That night, at three in the morning, Mort drove the backhoe to the fresh grave. There was little chance anyone would hear the machine digging since it was deep in the new section of the cemetery far from the main road. Still, the work was nerve-racking since the roar of the engine was loud enough to drown out the sound of a tank if it approached during the excavation.

Knowing he would be exhuming the body in only a few hours, Mort dispensed with placing the top on the concrete vault. He simply covered the hole with dirt as fast as he could without anyone seeing. He wasn’t used to digging up bodies only burying them, and he’d never excavated a grave at night. Even with the headlight of the backhoe blazing, the shadows of the machine’s arm rising and lowering cast eerie shadows on the gravesite that unnerved him more and more, as the exhumation progressed.

Then, the bucket finally reached the coffin on one of its downward spirals and split the mahogany top. Mort didn’t hear the loud crack of the impact and the wood splintering for the roar of the engine but he felt the vibration. He cringed at the thought of the bucket crashing through the top and squashing the body as flat as a pancake. He quickly turned off the engine to inspect the damage.

He jumped into the hole, and straddling the edges of the concrete vault, began removing the excess dirt so he could lift the lid of the coffin and drag out the body. He wasn’t looking forward to handling the corpse, but the mechanical coffin lowering device only went down, not up. Consequently, the body would have to be physically removed from the coffin just like Boris had done in the movie.

Mort winced when he saw the huge crack and the long gash in the mahogany top and the scrapes along the sides where his shovel had raked across it. Finally, he lifted the lid and exposed the body of the corpse within. He chuckled when he remembered Joseph Stiff was his real name.

Stiff had a spray of dirt that had seeped through the jagged crack on his face and on his black suit and red tie. An ugly bloodworm that had also fallen inside had crawled into the corpse’s right nostril and was trying to make a home there. Mort plucked it off and flicked it away like a big booger. The next obstacle was getting the body out of the coffin and into his truck without messing it up too badly.

Mort was beginning to wonder whether he had misjudged how hard it would be to make five hundred dollars grave robbing. He loved earning two weeks pay for a single night’s work, but it was ball-busting labor for one man. He wished Fuzzy, his fellow gravedigger friend, could help, but he was afraid to ask him for fear he would blow the whistle.

Mort walked back to his truck in the parking lot and backed it up to the edge of the grave. Next, he took some blankets from behind his seat, opened the tailgate, and spread two of them in the truck bed and on the ground just above the corpse’s head. He straddled the corner of the vault, and reaching down and placing his hands under Stiff’s arms, he dragged him on to the blanket. Catching his breath, he lifted him like a giant sack of potatoes into the truck bed, covered him with another blanket, and closed the tailgate.

Huffing and puffing, he collapsed on the ground next to his truck and thought about the joy of getting back to his place to crack open a cold Rolling Rock.

After a rest, Mort returned to the backhoe, pushed in the pile of dirt he had removed, and smoothed it over so it looked about the same as the grave had when he started.

After returning the backhoe to its assigned parking space in the cemetery lot, he went back to his truck and drove to Edmunds Medical Research. By the time he arrived, the sun was beginning to rise.

When he pulled into the large parking lot, and he saw a loading dock and assumed it must be the place where people disposed of the bodies and got paid. The interior was dark, and no one was moving about inside at this early hour. He waited.

At seven-fifty, a car pulled into the lot and parked. A young man got out, and after unlocking the door next to the receiving window, he went inside and turned on the light.

At eight o'clock, Mort saw the door to the loading dock go up. He drove alongside of the receiving window so he’d be first in line. The man inside was talking on the phone.

Mort waited for the young man to hang up and talk to him, and finally, he noticed Mort and said, Good morning. May I help you?

I‘m making a delivery. This is my first time, and I’m not entirely familiar with the process. Do I give the purchase order to you?

A slot opened in the window and a receiving box opened. Place the P.O. inside, sir. Let me take a look.

Mort complied. The man smiled when he looked at the purchase order and said, trying not to laugh, This is a loading dock for supplies… things like equipment, paper goods, drugs. We don't accept cadavers here.

I'm sorry. Like I said this is my first delivery. Where is the proper place to deliver a cadaver?

Usually, our drivers pick up the body of the deceased at their residence, the hospital, or the morgue and take it to the arranged drop off point. I don’t remember anyone making a personal delivery from a truck. Do you have the name of a contact I can call?

Yes, Mort said nervously. Mr. Sharlaton. Call him. He's the one I spoke to about the arrangements.

The clerk picked up a phone and called the name he’d been given. Mort saw the man's lips moving but didn't hear what he said.

Finally, the voice returned over the loudspeaker, Pull to the side over there next to the trash cans. Someone will be here shortly.

Mort hoped his failure to follow the correct procedure would not threaten his relationship with the facility before it had even begun. He saw a black van approaching from around the corner of the building. It pulled alongside his truck. Two surly men who looked like Stallone and Schwarzenegger in their prime, strong enough to rip his arms off, got out of the van and approached him.

The first one with a large spider tattoo on his left cheek bellowed, Where's the stiff?

He's in the truck bed, Mort replied, mesmerized by the man’s bulging biceps.

I’m Sydney. Do you have a purchase order? he barked.

Mort handed him the form and asked, How do I get my money?

Would you prefer $450 cash now or a check in two weeks?

I'll take the cash now, Mort said with no hesitation. This is my first delivery. Did I fill out the form correctly?

Sydney glanced at it and said, Looks good to me.

Will I receive a 1099 for the money I receive?

A what?

You know, a tax form reporting the money you paid me during the year.

Do you want one? Sydney said skeptically.

Well, not really. But I'll do whatever you and Mr. Sharlaton want.

Do you plan to bring in more stiffs or is this the only one?

I hope there’ll be more, but I don't know for sure.

Sydney handed Mort a business card through the window. If you come again, call the number on this card an hour before you plan to deliver, and either me or my brother, Sherwood, will meet you at the back of the parking lot to pick up the stiff.

Mort couldn't believe what he was hearing. He hoped he wouldn't go to jail. This sounded too good to be true.

Sydney and Sherwood, who had tattoos over most of their visible skin, pulled back the blanket covering Andrew Stiff and scrutinized him. They seemed pleased. Afterward, they transferred the body into the back of their black van.

Mort wondered if they would pay him or stiff him. Sherwood came to the driver’s side window and gave him an envelope containing $450 cash. After he watched the van drive away and disappear over the crest of a hill, Mort drove to his apartment and knocked down a six-pack of Rolling Rock. He felt like he was riding on top of the world.

Over the next year, Mort delivered twenty-five cadavers to the Edmunds facility and received $450 for each one. Each week, he religiously placed an ad on Craigslist and in the local newspaper, soliciting people, who wanted to donate their body to science.

Mort was working much harder than he ever had and his effort was paying off. His bank account was growing steadily. Life was good as long as no one tried to exhume one of the corpses he’d dug up and sold to science. Occasionally, Mort received email agreements for body donations, but most of the corpses still came from cadavers he dug up the night after he buried them.

* * *

Finally, one night after struggling with a particularly obese body, Mort did not feel well. In spite of the chills and fever he’d been experiencing for several days, he drove to the Edmunds’ parking lot to deliver the rotund cadaver to Sydney and Sherwood as he usually did. After this delivery, Mort had already decided he would take a well-earned two-week vacation and rest up before he killed himself working too hard to get rich.

When Sydney and Sherwood arrived in their black van after receiving Mort’s call, they pulled alongside his truck and found him slumped over the steering wheel. They piled out of the van, and after opening the truck door, Sherwood felt for a pulse. He couldn't detect one.

The brothers removed Mort’s lifeless body from the truck, laid him out on the pavement, and took turns pounding on his chest for five minutes without a response. They had grown to like the gangly old codger and were genuinely sad he had apparently had a heart attack and died. After a few more moments of heartfelt bereavement, they loaded Mort’s body into the van with the cadaver he’d brought for them and delivered both bodies to the Edmunds facility. They received twenty-five hundred dollars for their trouble. It went a long way toward relieving their momentary pangs of remorse.

Later that morning, the facility shipped the embalmed cadaver Mort had brought with him in the truck to a university for dissection by medical students. Since Mort had not been embalmed, Sydney and Sherwood delivered him to the National Highway Safety Administration. The brothers heard they used cadavers as test dummies to study the frame-by-frame carnage of a body involved in a head-on collision.

As soon as Mort’s body arrived at the test site, two men in black sweat suits removed him from the van and strapped him into a Kia compact. In this particular experiment, the small car was scheduled to have a head-on collision with a tractor-trailer loaded with concrete stanchions used in the construction of highway bridges.

The brothers hadn’t had breakfast, and feeling hungry, they stopped just down the road at Krispie Kreme for some donuts and coffee.

Sitting outside at a table munching on the sugary delights, the brothers had an unobstructed view of the test site. As they listened to the roar of the bellowing mufflers and smelled the acrid fumes of the diesel exhaust, they were comforted they had left strict instructions in their wallets, their vehicles, and their living wills their bodies would not be donated to medical science under any circumstances.

Poor old Mort, I'm going to miss him, Sidney said mournfully. He was the best good old boy we ever did business with.

Sherwood grinned, And he was stupid enough to give us a 10% commission on every stiff.

That, too. Sydney sighed and sipped the steaming hot coffee. I'd put a flower on his grave if he had one, but after the eighteen-wheeler pulverizes his body, they’ll haul what’s left to the land fill.

Well, would you rather have NASA test its landing systems with his corpse? He'd be burned to a crisp upon impact after a teeth-rattling trip into outer space.

Yeah, but not all the landings are bad. NASA isn’t that incompetent. I'm sure he'd have a 50-50 chance to come down in one piece.

Sydney, it's a no win situation. If he wasn’t incinerated the first time, they’d probably keep shooting his corpse into space until he was.

I don't think so. The corpse would be all dried out by that time. They wouldn't send it up more than once.

No matter what you say, Mort is lucky. The National Highway Safety Administration is the best way to go. Boom! You're obliterated in one quick ball busting collision. Better that than be bloating and wasting away in the sun for months to better inform law-enforcement about decomposition.

You're right, Sherwood. That would be the last way I'd want to go.

I understand some university science departments let the military use cadavers donated to them to test landmine resistant footwear.

"If the people who donate