Enigmas

By Erik Handy

ENIGMAS

 

A ghost hiding from a stalker. The truth about dolls. A storm of baby teeth. Dinner time. In Enigmas, you'll experience these terrible scenes and more!

 

Erik Handy, the author of The Mummy Kills The Brides and Carve, brings you 21 stories that continue the genre-bending short fiction legacies of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. This is the ultimate short story collection for horror lovers!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erik Handy
• Release date: Jul 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798223156895

Erik Handy

Erik Handy grew up on a steady diet of professional wrestling, bad horror movies that went straight to video, and comic books. There were also a lot of video games thrown in the mix. He currently absorbs silence and fish tacos.

Book preview

A Measure of Peace

New owners again. The third set in two years. They wouldn’t last.

The woman would make sure of that. She didn’t mean to, but her outbursts mirrored the agony she suffered while alive.

Ten years gone. A mother and father left behind. A few friends from college. Memories of them receded the more she focused. Maybe this was the price for killing herself. Maybe this was Hell – not a world of fire, but one of slow amnesia.

I still remember him, she said as a month passed and the new owners left.

She hoped some memories faded quicker than others, but she also knew that hope killed her.

It was a snowball effect. A chance meeting at a library rolled into a sudden marriage proposal and then into a succession of restraining orders until she ran out of options.

Restraining orders, she said aloud, wanting someone else to hear her voice. Useless pieces of paper.

She moved to different states. Twice.

His letters followed. He began sending them to her parents. They all went unanswered so he began calling and calling. She changed her number, but because she was a registered voter, finding it only took a minute’s search online.

Leave me alone, she told him. She realized she had lost herself in a memory. She was alone in the house she died in. Death was her final chance to break free. Suicide.

Her parents and friends must have been devastated, but she had no way of knowing. In death, she wasn’t free to roam as she pleased. There was no wise, old man to give her the lay of the afterlife. No guidebook to read. Dead was dead and stuck was stuck.

At least I have peace, she said. She went to the window that opened out on the quiet street. Some measure of peace.

The shadows of the neighboring houses came and went. As usual, she lost track of how many cycles passed. She had an empty room where she could stand like an iron statue and let her thoughts, all those kind and awful images, shrink to a pinpoint until she was numb. This wasn’t Hell. This was Heaven.

Movement from behind.

She sighed.

New owners probably. Another set of faces to not remember.

I see you, the familiar voice said.

She didn’t think she could get the chills, but she did. Another lesson learned.

It was him.

As in life, she was trapped, confined to the site of her death. She could only run to the four walls which held her prisoner and beat her fists upon them, raging against her fate. And this was her fate. She resigned herself to it. Escape was a fantasy.

No.

Worse.

Escape was impossible, an idea she’d have to expunge from her mind once and for all.

When I heard the place was haunted, the man said, I knew it was you doing the haunting. So I had to buy this house. Fortunately for you, I believe in ghosts.

All Dolls Are Voodoo Dolls

It’s not a voodoo doll, Lily’s mother told her.

I wish it was Marissa.

Marissa? It took a few moments for Lily’s mother to put the name with a face. When she did, she still wasn’t sure who the girl exactly was. Well, your doll isn’t Marissa.

But I wish it was Marissa. Lily turned the rag doll’s head around as far as she could without decapitating the toy.

What did she do now, Lily?

The little girl yanked and tugged at both arms. Nothing.

So she deserves to have her head twisted off and her arms broken over nothing?

Lily shrugged.

Speak, Lily.

She’s mean.

The world is mean. Was she mean to you?

Lily didn’t answer. When she finally did, I don’t know.

She either is or she isn’t.

The girl stuck her forefinger into the doll’s stomach, jabbing it over and over.

What did she do?

She’s weird.

Okay. First, she’s mean. Now, she’s weird. Which is it?

I don’t know.

Lily’s mother snatched the doll from the girl. Quit it and talk to me.

You wouldn’t understand.

Okay. So explain it to me.

While Lily explained to her mother the intricate machinations of seven-year-olds, Donny Dunlap next door was sending his army action figures to war. He wasn’t as brutal as little Lily, but some of his men were thrown across the room in spectacular imaginary explosions.

Two houses over, Mister George had a date with his steady girl. He had to blow her up a little because she’d gotten soft during the last week.

***

Ain’t you the lucky one? Akrim said.

The woman looked at him, her eyes red from the last hour she spent crying in agony. She clutched her arms around her stomach.

Akrim shrugged. Could be worse.

How could it be worse? We suffer because some cruel god thought it’d be great if two universes existed. In one, cause. The other, effect. Pleasure and pain. So tell me, Akrim, how could it be worse?

Akrim went to their apartment window. You could be Betty next door. She’s been howling all night. This is the first time she’s been quiet. I wonder if she’s gained some weight, if you know what I mean.

I do know and that’s not funny. How would you feel if you were someone’s sex toy?

I wouldn’t know. But I’d be more than willing to give it a shot.

You’re disgusting.

Then ask the manbo for a transfer.

I did.

And?

This block is full.

Akrim shook his head. There’s too many of us.

Too many of them.

That’s what I meant.

The tide will turn, the woman said. It has to.

I don’t believe that.

Why not?

If it was true, things would have changed a long time ago. But they haven’t. You and I are still here. And the others still play. Akrim’s face suddenly paled. Get down.

What?

Run for cover!

The woman barely made it behind the couch.

Akrim shot across the room, landing face-first in the wall.

And Then Some

Dirty Pat was a good shot, but he plugged the wild rabbit with two anyway. At this distance, his revolver still packed a punch, but not enough to obliterate all the meat from the animal’s bones.

He collected his breakfast and set out for the hills when he saw another rabbit just a few yards away. The