Tiny Tales of Terror
by Louise Ann Barton 2012
Cover Image: Boborsillo | Dreamstime.com
ebook Copyright 2013 ISBN 9781301838820
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced, or utilized in any form, or by any device, electronic or mechanical, or by other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including photocopying, or recording, or any information or retrieval system, without written permission from the author. The characters and plot herein are not based on any person living or dead, and are the product of the author’s imagination.
Original Copyright 2009
For information,
[email protected] or louisebartonsbooks.blogspot.com
TINY TALES OF TERROR
Louise Ann Barton
This collection of tiny terrifying tales features ravening werewolves, prowling vampires, marauding mummies, vengeful ghosts, serial killers, murderous spouses, wandering gypsies, and gobbling ghouls.
Each tale is different, each is set in a different place and time, and each ends with a twist.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LET THE DEAD LIE STILL
(A country estate, Leicestershire, England - 1952)
CREEPING IN THE CRYPT
(An old cemetery in New Orleans - 2010)
WHOM DO YOU TRUST?
(A Carmelite Abbey, in upstate New York - 2013)
GHOULISH DELIGHT
(In her majesty’s diplomatic service, India, 1949)
HOWLING MOON
(Lycos, the werewolf moon, circling the planet Arcadia)
THE VAMPIRE BLOG
(The offices of PERSON MAGAZINE, Los Angeles - 2009)
THE MUMMY MURDERS
(A small museum – upstate New York - 1999)
DON’T GO NEAR THE CAVES
(Hungry families, crop failures, and flood -, Wyoming - 1846)
RED QUEEN, WHITE QUEEN
(The Smythe Estate - Windlesham, Surrey - 1959)
THE SOUL EATER
(Halloween - Smuggler’s Cove, Scotland - 2010)
THE RISING OF THE SUN;
THE CHANGING OF THE MOON
(Deep inside the royal tomb of a nameless mummy)
THE INHERITANCE IN THE ATTIC
(The Blackwood Estate - Northumberland, England - 1978)
FIRST-BORN SON
(Windlesham Hall - England - 1958)
WALPURGISNACHT
(In the forest, near the Brocken Mountains, Germany - 1356)
REFUNDABLE WITHIN SEVEN DAYS
(A luxurious estate in Brentwood, California - 2011)
LAND OF THE TREMBLING EARTH
(Okefenokee Swamp, Florida - 2010)
A CASTLE IN SPAIN
(Hollywood, California - 1934)
SHARK ISLAND
(Shipwrecked in the South Seas - 1986)
IN FOR A PENNY
(A small family farm - near Pine Grove, New Jersey - 1940)
THE BEAST OF OLD KIRK CHAPEL
(Village of Old Kirk, Scotland - 1947)
PROJECT ATOM
(A government project is used to commit murder - 1957)
THE FAMILY CREST
(Plague-torn Hungary - 1347 A. D.)
I SEE DEAD PEOPLE
(Edinburgh, Scotland - 1828))
PARROT WITH A CANDLESTICK
(Brooklyn, New York - 2000)
NIGHT CRAWLERS
(A suburban community - Long Island – present day)
THE GRISLY SECRET OF HASTINGS HALL
(England during WW II - 1943)
THE CREEPING DOSE
(The Catskills, New York - 1949)
THE HAUNTING OF GUNDHAR HALL
(An Icelandic castle tour - present day)
TO SLEEP WITH KINGS
(Exploring Egypt’s Grand Pyramid, Giza - 2012)
DEATH OF A DIETY
(At the holy shrine - on the planet Arcana)
WEREWOLVES FOR BREAKFAST
(New York City, present day - in a public library meeting room)
THE CURIOUS CASE OF WHITE CHAPEL ALLEY
(Whitechapel District, London - 1888)
OVER THE MEADOW & THROUGH THE WOOD
(A dark, deserted Russian forest, winter - 1870)
THE VAMPIRE IN THE MIRROR
(New York - New Orleans - Venice - 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Louise Ann Barton
LET THE DEAD LIE STILL
A country estate, Leicestershire, England - 1952
I saw Rachel again last night, walking in the garden. My wife had been dead these past two years, but looked as young and darkly beautiful as ever. I stared at her white figure gliding along in the moonlight until it retreated down the winding path and was out of sight.
I turned and ran from the spot as hard as I could, across the great lawn, and back toward the house. Back to our library, where Madeline was relaxing, reading a book.
"Rachel is back!"
At this, Madeline’s head jerked up. The book slipped from her lap to the floor. She stared at me in horror, then, recovering herself, snapped, "That’s a poor attempt at humor."
"She’s supposed to be dead," I moaned.
Madeline viewed me as if I were an idiot child. "Of course, she’s supposed to be dead. We killed her, didn’t we?"
"Perhaps she’s not as dead as we’d thought," I whispered.
"Nonsense," Madeline insisted with growing annoyance. "We caved in her skull with that garden gnome and slipped her body into the bog." She gave a strange laugh. "I know dead when I see it."
"But not dead enough. She’s out and about. I’ve seen her walking in the garden twice before. Just last week in fact . . . ."
Madeline was out of her chair in an instant, grabbing my lapels, shaking me. "You saw someone prowling about the estate? Someone pretending to be Rachel? And you said nothing." She reached for the bell pull to summon our new butler.
By the time Jeffers arrived, Madeline was frantic. "Tell Jason that Mr. Blackstone wants him to release the dogs! Make sure no one has tampered with security, that the house and gates are locked." Jeffers hurried off, while Madeline and I waited anxiously in the library. And I recalled Rachel’s mysterious cousin who’d gone to Australia after she was reported missing and wondered if he was responsible.
Then we heard the sound of baying hounds, as they raced to and fro, searching. Now and then we heard one of the men call to the other or shout orders to the dogs, and then the yelping stopped. This meant Jason was putting the animals back in their pens for the night. And in due course, Jeffers returned.
"All the security systems are in place, Sir. We didn’t find an intruder on the grounds, but we did find this." He held out a piece of white, filmy cloth.
It was silky to the touch and I raised it to my nose. Rachel’s perfume!
Madeline announced, "That will be all, Jeffers." And the butler bowed and left the room. We waited until he was out of earshot.
"Almost blurted it out," I murmured.
"I know, Jonathan, I know," Madeline soothed.
"But touch it yourself. Put it to your nose. It’s her scent! And she wore a dress of this very material the night we . . ."
"Not another word, darling," she insisted, "before you give us away." She took our passports from the desk drawer. "Go upstairs and pack. We’re catching the next flight to Paris."
"But what if it’s an intruder?" I spluttered. "And what if it’s Rachel and she really has come back."
"Well, we won’t be here to torment, will we." She punched a number into the phone’s speed dial. "A business trip for two," she told the travel agent, "on the next flight to Paris."
Once our arrangemen
ts had been made, Madeline hung up and came over to me. After a long kiss, she remarked, "We can’t just sell Rachel’s estate. Without a body, you can’t inherit anything. And we can’t produce her corpse or it’s the gallows for us." She kissed me again. "Just be content that we’re still free and together, and have access to all her beautiful money."
I went upstairs to pack with Jeffers’ help, while Madeline asked to have the car brought around. Then I repaired to the foyer and waited for Madeline to join me. And I waited. And waited.
I was about to go back upstairs to help choose her frocks, when Jeffers burst into the foyer. "It’s Miss Madeline," he began, in distress, half-turning, expecting me to follow. Then he ran out of the house, across the lawn, in the direction of the forest. I raced after him, calling, but the man didn’t look back. We were deep in the forest when I realized he was heading for the bog.
My mind whirled as to how Madeline could have gotten from packing upstairs to the depths of the quagmire, until I realized the moon was now behind a cloud and Jeffers had somehow disappeared in the darkness. And the horror struck me that I was out here, alone, without a torch, perhaps only inches from being swallowed by the bog.
"Help me! Help me!" It was Madeline’s voice coming from somewhere on my left. I staggered blindly towards the sound, only to find my shoes trapped in the mud.
"I’m sinking!" she wailed. To my horror, I found myself sinking, too.
Jeffers snapped on his torch, illuminating first me and then Madeline. "Rachel is back," he called to me triumphantly. "Appeared more than a year ago, moaning she’d been murdered. Her ghost couldn’t have harmed you, so I hatched this scheme. Seeing her gliding along got you nervous, not as careful anymore. I tricked each of you into coming down here to wander about until you fell in."
"But why?" I begged.
Madeline was quiet now and the slime was up to my chin.
"Rachel was my cousin," Jeffers shouted. "No one else left in the family. And while you two are supposed to be in Paris, I’ll be the one living in her fine house and spending her money. With none the wiser."
The last thing I saw was Rachel’s pale ghost gliding toward me across the bog, hatred in her eyes. And I died with a prayer on my lips:
Let the dead lie still.
BACK TO TOP
CREEPING IN THE CRYPT
An old cemetery in New Orleans - 2010
Simon pushed his way through the open gate, entering the old cemetery on Plantation Street. Those howling police sirens were for him. He pulled up his sweatshirt hood and hurried down the path, past the rows of burial vaults.
Two teenage girls, clad in black with Goth makeup, came toward him. Simon averted his face as they drew closer. One whispered fiercely to the other.
"Dropping roses and garlic cloves keeps this cemetery free of vampires."
And she dropped a red rose and a small, white object onto the path as he went by. Then the girls passed through the gate and disappeared onto Plantation Street.
The summer sun had sunk low in the sky and Simon knew the cemetery would be closing soon. Needing a hiding place for the night, he cast his eyes desperately about, considering the burial vaults. He went up and down, furtively testing the knobs, but each door was locked. Just as he was about to give up, he came upon a barrel vault with a knob that turned. Slipping inside, he closed the door, and looked around.
He was in a small room with a table tomb set in the center. Beyond that Simon found steps leading down into a small chamber, dark as night. The cemetery gates would be locked within minutes and no one would think to search for him here. He found a candy bar in his pocket and wolfed it down. Then he crept down to the lower level and spent the night on a stone bed.
Simon remained hidden the next day, hearing conversations of passing mourners.
"That mugger hasn’t been caught yet," a man said.
"Let’s sit on this bench and have our picnic," his companion suggested.
They were talking about him.
Simon’s belly growled. He watched the picnic basket sitting atop an ornately carved, stone bench only five feet away. As the couple sat with their backs to him, Simon the Mugger crept out just long enough to grab the basket and nip back inside. He heard cries of dismay and the man shouted, "Where’s that damn basket!" After a few minutes of fussing, the disappointed pair left.
He was gnawing on fried chicken legs and sipping white wine when the teens returned, their whispers drifting on the breeze.
"Louis says when we’ve sharpened enough stakes, we can go hunting them."
The other snapped, "Damn vampires!" and announced she was dropping another rose."
Their voices trailed off.
In Simon’s opinion, teenage girls should be boffed, and often, as long as a large piece of tape went over their mouths first. And these two seemed particularly demented, but he wondered if he could catch one alone and drag her inside.
The next day, the groundskeeper entered Simon’s tomb. Walked right in and spread his lunch and a newspaper on top of the table tomb. Simon barely had time to slip out of sight. After dining, the fellow nodded off and Simon crept out. According to the newspaper, the police had their hands full with a series of ritual murders. No chance they’d be looking for him.
He gobbled down the rest of the food and slipped outside. Simon strolled along the pathways, wondering if he should remain for another day. As the paths were empty, he again tried the knobs to the vaults. To his surprise, he found another door unlocked and slipped inside. He neither noticed the carving of a broken rose at the entrance, symbolizing a young life cut short, nor did he care.
By the next afternoon, the cemetery visitors were buzzing about the ghost in the cemetery. Simon crouched inside the tomb, listening to their accounts.
"Then these black hands came out and stole a whole picnic basket!"
"It was white and transparent! It made moaning sounds!"
And so it went.
Simon thought it was time to sneak back into society, actually had his hand on the door knob, when the voices of the teen Goths reached his ears.
"Diamond, give me a chance to stash these stakes over by that big oak. And you just keep dropping those roses on this side."
"Yeah, Silver," said the other girl. "We’ll just hide until the gates are locked. As soon as it’s dark, we can hunt."
Simon chuckled. How could he leave when these two weirdly painted, nubile lasses planned to lock themselves in the cemetery with him. Party tonight! he thought and cleared the table tomb of its floral arrangements. Then he peeked out. The one called Diamond stood with her back to him, waiting for her friend’s return.
"Hurry up! I’m almost out of roses," she called.
Simon crept out onto the pathway and came up behind the girl. One large hand clamped firmly over her mouth, the other arm encircling her, he picked the girl off her feet and carried her into the tomb. Once inside, he shut the door, threw her onto the tomb’s lid, and stuffed his handkerchief into her heavily lipsticked mouth. Simon tore at her clothes and then pinned her with his body.
Somehow, the girl got one hand free and tore away the gag. The ensuing scream summoned Silver to action. Following the shrieks, she located Simon’s tomb and burst through the entrance. Silver came up behind Simon, raising her stake and mallet.
"Death to all vampires!" she howled and brought the mallet down with a mighty whack. As blood spurted from the wound, Simon gave a strangled cry.
The triumphant girl managed to shove his body aside, then helped Diamond to her feet and straightened her clothes. Silver wiped Diamond’s tears away and handed her a can of spray paint. Together they sprayed their message across the inside of the tomb:
DEATH TO ALL VAMPIRES!
Afterwards, the ones the police called The Red Rose Killers packed up, climbed over the locked gates, and hurried back down Plantation Street. As Diamond trotted along, she panted, "Don’
t forget, next time, I get to pound the stake."
BACK TO TOP
WHOM DO YOU TRUST?
A Carmelite Abbey, in upstate New York – 2013
"Sarah White, a young mother, is missing and presumed dead," the radio reported. "This brings the total to six. The media believes this to be the work of a serial killer and the Commissioner still refuses to comment."
This news was more than Sister Michael George, a young Carmelite, had bargained for as she’d only wanted to hear the weather. She clicked the radio off and resumed packing. In a few minutes she’d be wearing secular clothes and off to visit her ailing grandmother. The Mother Superior had graciously loaned her an old, green station wagon. Just one small suitcase, that’s all it took, and Sister Michael George headed for the car. The other sisters had gathered to bid her goodbye.
"Be careful, sister," Mother Superior warned the girl. "People outside our walls are often not as nice as they might be." Her voice dropped, took on a worried tone. "That last victim’s car was found empty, parked on the side of the highway. Nothing was wrong with it so why did she stop! And this killer they’re all talking about. It has to be a man. Some are not to be trusted."
"Not to worry," the girl assured the older woman. "I’ve been named for two heavenly warriors, Michael who cast down the Lord of Light and George who slew the dragon."
Then Sister Michael George pulled out onto the road. A long drive from Albany to Brooklyn, she thought. But if I drive carefully and only stop at crowded rest areas, the odds of running afoul of a serial killer should be small. And she arrived in Brooklyn, just in time to make Granny’s dinner.
After she’d cleared up the remains of their feast and made Granny comfortable, Michael George sat down with the old lady’s accounts. She really hated to invade Granny’s privacy, but saw at a glance that bank balances were too low and the debits too high.