Razor's Edge Part 2: 8 More Tales of Horror and Suspense

By Mark A Daniel

Razor's Edge 2 is a compilation of horror stories set in the late 80s including "Something Under the Bed", "The Hangin' Tree", "Changing Times", "The Mirror", "Feeding Time", "The Wanderer", "Mightier Then the Sword", and "The Trappings of Time"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark A. Daniel
• Release date: Jun 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088155172

Book preview

1

SOMETHING UNDER THE BED

Johnny Jacobs lay awake in his bed. It was ten o’clock and it had been lights out (all lights, that is, except the night-light) at eight-thirty since tonight was a school night. He had fallen asleep around nine but then awakened just before ten. He had been dreaming, and he awoke believing he heard rustling sounds under his bed. Johnny lay awake, his heart racing, but now heard nothing.

What he could hear though was the television. Mom and Dad were gone tonight. They were in St. Louis attending a performance of the St. Louis Symphony at the Powell Symphony Hall and were supposed to be back around midnight. Jennifer Griffith was sitting in the living room, watching a Twilight Zone rerun, and attempting to master the nuances of plane geometry. Jennifer’s boyfriend Zack was expected to show up around eleven. He was much better at figures than Jennifer was, and he was already in Algebra II.

Johnny lay listening to William Shatner explain his mental problems to an understanding wife on an airliner. Johnny had seen this one several times. It was the one where there was a monster, he thought someone had said gremlin, on the wing of the airplane and nobody could see it but Shatner, so everyone thought he was crazy. They used that episode for part of the Twilight Zone movie a few years back. Johnny tried his best to make out the words which were further distorted by an occasional ‘Dammit!’ uttered by the math-stricken sitter. He laid there for the better part of twenty minutes before he began to slip into slumberland once again. Then the rustling noise…

Johnny jerked fully awake, knocking Fred the bear to the floor. He was sure he had heard something that time. His heart raced in his chest as his imagination tortured his mind. He laid perfectly still, listening. But nothing happened. There was no noise. Johnny rolled to his right side, away from the wall, and leaned over the bed to pick up Fred. But Fred was gone. Johnny pulled himself fully back into the bed. He knew this was silly. He knew Fred had just bounced under the bed. He knew that tomorrow he would laugh at himself for his childishness. But that was tomorrow, and this was now. So he laid very still, listening.

He heard the gunshots from the television as Shatner shot the furry gremlin (which, Johnny remembered, had looked amazingly like a man wrapped in carpet). Then Johnny heard a low scratching sound which froze his body. His bedroom door swung slowly open. Johnny didn’t have to wait until the morning to feel silly then. It was only Duffy, his Cocker Spaniel, coming to jump in Johnny’s bed, as was the ritual every night about this time.

Duffy bounced her way to the side of Johnny’s bed and prepared herself for the jump. She always did a little dance as she wondered, each night, if she could really jump that high. Often a little encouragement would speed up the process.

Johnny turned onto his side and looked over the side of the bed at his dog. Come on, Duffy, Johnny called to her as she performed her funny dance. Come on, you can make it.

Johnny watched as Duffy danced her final steps. Then her dance became something strange, something which Johnny didn’t recognize. Duffy made a short hop up the side of the bed but stopped near the top. She yelped and jerked as if something had actually pulled her back to the floor by one of her back legs. Duffy fell back to the ground on her side. Then Johnny could see that something did in fact have a hold of Duffy’s leg. It was long and ropy looking in the dark. At first Johnny thought that Duffy had gotten caught up in the extension cord which ran under his bed to his lamp on the dresser. But then another ropy looking thing came flying out from under the bed and wrapped itself around Duffy’s midsection.

Duffy! Johnny called out, but it was already too late. Before he could do anything, anything at all, Duffy was gone. She had slid, no, been pulled underneath the bed. He could hear wet shuffling sounds and Duffy whimpered out briefly, then was cut short. After that a series of sloppy sounding sucking sounds came from under the bed.

He sat up in his bed listening, momentarily frozen by fright, as the sucking sounds increased in intensity, then stopped. There were no noises now. It was as if nothing had happened, except that his door was jarred open. That was enough to convince him that it had not been a dream. Even if it were a dream, his reaction which followed would likely have been the same.

Johnny opened up his mouth and screamed out. Then he screamed out again, and again. Footsteps began to pound down the hallway as Jennifer came running to what sounded to be certain tragedy.

When she opened the bedroom door the rest of the way and flipped on the switch that turned on the lamp by Johnny’s bed, she saw Johnny sitting up, a terrified look on his face, screaming out nonsense. She ran to the bed and sat down in the middle of it.

Johnny! she yelled out at him. Johnny, stop it and tell me what’s the matter.

Duffy! Duffy! Duffy! he screamed out. Duffy went under the bed! Duffy went under the bed! Something grabbed her! Something grabbed Duffy!

Johnny was rigid and Jennifer did her best to calm him down.

Now, Johnny, I want you to just settle down. Just for a minute, all right?

Johnny stopped yelling and simply breathed in and out in a fast and panicked manner.

I want you to just settle down, Jennifer told him. You've had a bad dream and I want you to settle down.

No! Johnny replied, still breathing rapidly. He looked briefly over the edge of the bed. No, he repeated. Not a dream. It wasn’t a dream. This was real. Johnny thought suddenly of the show he had heard earlier. Now he knew what Shatner must have felt like.

This is silly, Jennifer observed. Think about it, Johnny. Things like that don’t really happen. You were dreaming. I just left Duffy sitting on the sofa when I ran in here. She was lying, but it was all she could do to get Johnny to settle down.

Really? Johnny asked. He knew he had seen it all happen, he knew it had been real, but it wouldn’t be the first time something like this had happened only to be explained away by the dragon slaying adult. One time he had seen his mom walking toward him in his bed. He had called out to her several times, but she wouldn’t answer. Finally, just before she got to the bed, his bedroom light came on and his mother appeared at the doorway, asking what it was he needed. That had seemed so real too but was only a dream. Maybe Jennifer was right. Maybe.

Here, Jennifer said to him as she scooted off of the bed. Get off of the bed and look underneath, and I’ll bet you don’t find anything different than whatever you've hidden under there. She stood with her arms out, offering to help Johnny down.

He wasn’t that sure.

You look first, Johnny said with an unsure, but more relaxed look in his eyes.

Okay, Jennifer responded. "But after that I want you to look. Then I want you to go back to sleep."

All right, Johnny conceded. He was beginning to feel ashamed already for screaming and acting as he had.

Jennifer stood in front of Johnny looking at him. Then she looked down at the floor with the same expression frozen on her face. The reality of what was happening was not registering.

A long, tentacle like cord had whipped out from underneath the bed and wrapped itself around her left ankle. Then another came out and wrapped around her right calf. She stood looking down in disbelief. She finally reacted when the cords whipped back under the bed, pulling her roughly to the floor.

Johnny scooted back against the wall and watched in horror as Jennifer was pulled at until her legs were completely under the bed. She remained in the sitting position and slid up against the side of the bed, screaming.

Oh my God! she called out. Oh my God, Johnny, help me! Help me Johnny!

Jennifer reached across the bed for Johnny. He stayed back against the wall, out of reach, and all she got was a handful of the multicolored comforter that lay on top of Johnny’s bed.

Jennifer shook violently up against the side of the bed. The look of utter horror on her face changed to one of absolute pain, and Johnny could hear the sucking sounds again. Jennifer’s cries for help changed into unintelligible screams of pain.

She screamed again and again. All Johnny could see was her face and her outstretched arms. An acrid smell, like battery acid, was filling the room. Then another cord whipped out from under the bed and wrapped itself around Jennifer’s waist. She pushed away from the bed, trying to pull herself from under it. Then Johnny heard a ripping sound and a single shrill scream from Jennifer, then she fainted. She simply fell backwards to the floor. She lay their unconscious, her body undulating from some mostly unseen force. She moved and slid, an inch at a time, underneath the bed. Johnny stayed up against the wall and watched as Jennifer's head, and finally her arms, disappeared from sight. The sick sucking sounds continued until a couple of minutes after the last of Jennifer had slid from sight. Then there was nothing. Nothing but the acrid odor, and that too was fading.

Johnny sat against the wall looking at the floor where moments before Jennifer had been lying. She was gone now, just like Duffy, and this was definitely no dream. He couldn’t expect Mother to come walking in the door any moment asking what it was that was frightening him so badly. He wouldn’t be able to simply describe the dream to Mother, then get a comforting hug and go back to sleep. No, if Mother came in the bedroom door now he was sure he would have to watch a rerun of Jennifer meets the bed monster.

The house was silent, except for the voice of Julius Hunter explaining the latest convenience store robbery on the eleven o’clock news. Nothing else.

Johnny crawled across the top of the bed to his dresser and opened the top drawer. He pulled his socks and underwear to the front and reached to the back. He could feel the small, hard object at the tip of his fingers. He grabbed hold and pulled out his small pocketknife. His father had given it to him at Christmas. Johnny had opened the small box and been filled with a mixture of excitement and awe. Just a few months before, his mother had said he was too young to own one, and Johnny thought he caught a stern look passing from his mother to his father that Christmas morning. Dad sat Johnny down and gave him something he called the ‘responsibility talk’, something he said his father had given him several years back when he had gotten his single-shot twenty-two rifle. Johnny closed the dresser drawer and returned to his post against the wall. He pulled open the longest blade he had and held the knife in both hands. All he had to do was hold the fort until Mom and Dad got home. That was all.

Johnny sat and waited and watched. There were no sounds now but the television. Only a hint of the acid smell lingered. There was no evidence now that anything was wrong. There were no signs that Jennifer had been consumed by whatever had decided to roost under Johnny’s bed tonight, no signs except for the comforter which was pulled halfway off of the bed.

Johnny sat and thought. What could he do now? He thought about jumping as far across the room as he could, then making a break for the door, but he wasn’t quite ready to take that chance. He remembered that when both Duffy and Jennifer had been attacked, it had not been instantly, but after they had stood near the bed for a little while. No, no it was too risky. There was too much at stake to even risk the jump. What if he fell down for just long enough? What if the thing moved quicker this time? Johnny decided that the best plan of action was to sit tight for now.

After a few minutes of waiting (time seemed to be going so slowly) and watching, Johnny heard a knock at the door. He knew that sometimes, usually after he had fallen asleep, Jennifer’s boyfriend Zack would come over to ‘help her with her homework’ (though from the sound of things sometimes Johnny wondered just what kind of classes they had in high school). Another knock. This was it. His salvation was just outside the front door.

HEY! Johnny shouted. HEY! COME IN ZACK! HEY, ZACK, COME IN! HELP, ZACK!

Zack Somerville was just about to knock a third time when he heard someone inside (it had to be Johnny) shouting for him to come in. (Did he hear ‘help’?) Zack tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked. He had told Jennifer to always lock the door when she was baby-sitting and apparently she’d taken his advice. He reached over and rang the doorbell several times, but no one came. He could still hear Johnny shouting inside and was sure he was hearing the word ‘help’ now.

Zack ran around to the back of the house. He got to the sliding-glass door, but it was locked as well. He could see Jennifer’s ‘Basic Anatomy’ book lying opened on the sofa, and the television was on, but there was no Jennifer. He could hear the screams of the Jacobs kid becoming more frantic. He must have thought that Zack had left.

Zack ran to the end of the house, to Johnny’s window. He knocked on the window and the shouting stopped. After a moment the curtains ruffled, and a little head appeared at the left-most edge of the window.

Zack, Johnny said, come inside! There’s something under my bed, and it ate my dog, and it ate Jennifer, and I can’t let you in. Johnny was leaning on his dresser so he could just reach the window. Outside Zack was peering in, looking a little panicked, and a little puzzled.

Johnny, Zack said, can you let me in the house please? Where’s Jennifer? Is she in the bathroom?

Johnny stood for a moment wondering if perhaps Zack hadn’t heard what it was he had just told him. Then he realized what the problem was. Zack could hear him perfectly, he just didn’t believe him (just like the guy on Twilight Zone, Johnny thought). Johnny thought for just a minute. He had to think of something a little different.

Zack! He called out. I can’t get out of my room because my door is locked shut. Johnny knew that most of the bedroom doors he had seen didn’t have locks on them, and certainly not on the outside, but he hoped that this would get by Zack. "I think Jennifer fell down or something, because I heard her scream, and then I heard a ‘thump’ sound,