Another Man's Wife plus 3 Other Tales of Horror (5 page)

The ghoul had been resurrected from Brian’s
first victim, a woman he’d picked up hitchhiking. He brought her to
his house where he slashed her throat, killing her. Her tremendous
loss of blood was euphoric, but hadn’t lasted long enough. It took
him until the fifth kill to find his ultimate pleasure--the slow
bleed-outs. He buried the woman in his backyard, afraid to
transport her remains and dump her body elsewhere. The fear of
getting pulled over was too great. It was, he’d imagined, how a lot
of criminals were caught.

After his sixth kill, he realized he was a
novice serial killer and would need guidance. Using the internet he
researched thousands of websites and articles about serial killers.
Since he
was
one, he needed to study them, learn their ways
and mistakes. One day while searching the web, he came upon a link
leading him to a website called,
Raising of the Dead for
Personal Gain
. It had a site counter at the bottom. He was
visitor number four since the site’s inception ten years ago.
Strange, he had thought at the time. From the material on the
website he learned about zombies and ghouls. Zombies ate the living
and ghouls ate the dead, the latter often roaming graveyards at
night and feeding off of the corpses. At first Brian had thought
the whole thing a joke, not taking it seriously. He sent the
website’s owner an email, asking what he needed to do in order to
bring a person back from the dead and serve his needs. He received
a two word reply: The Undeath.

After researching The Undeath, he found out
that it was a very old book, dating back to the period of the Salem
witch trials. He emailed the website’s owner again, asking where he
could buy the book, having not found it anyplace for sale.

A week later he received a reply asking for
his address. He gave a P.O. Box number, registered under a false
name, finding it odd that the person hadn’t asked for money. The
next day in his P.O. Box the book lay.

It was bound in leather, worn from old age.
It stunk like moth balls and decay. Dust layered the outside,
filling cracks in the leather like spackle. Brian was unnerved by
the speediness of its arrival, but felt safe, knowing the sender
didn’t know his real name. He sent a thank you email asking if the
person wanted the book returned at some point, but never received a
reply.

As he read from the ancient text, Brian felt
empowered and strong--invincible. While at work, he often found his
mind wandering, thinking about the item as if it were calling out
to him. Each page was filled with fascinating entries from witches’
trials. Many of the pages consisted of the numerous and different
ways a witch was put to death. Finally, listed at the back of the
book were spells. He had found the one for creating a ghoul, an
undead creature that would help serve his purpose. And like bleach
used at a crime scene, the ghoul would serve as his undead DNA
disposal unit.

Brian would require a place to keep the
creature. After researching the town’s history, he came upon the
old, forgotten graveyard. It was exactly what he needed; a desolate
place where he could bring his captives, and a home for the
ghoul.

Following the instructions with meticulous
resolve, he began by digging up the woman in his backyard, her
flesh intact and ripe. He read from The Undeath, slicing his
finger, leaving a smudge of his blood in the book next to a number
of previous entries, before letting the blood fall into the
corpse’s mouth. The spell, when combined with his blood, would
bring the corpse back as a member of the undead.

Later, that same evening, Brian was awakened;
the ghoul standing at the foot of his bed. The Undeath stated that
the ghoul was tied to him spiritually and would understand his
needs, doing his bidding without question. He wanted the monster
for disposing of his kills. In order to maintain the spell, every
victim had to be fed to the ghoul.

He drove with the creature to the graveyard
that early morning and using the spell book, bound it to the
property and surrounding bog. Since the graveyard was old, the
corpses all but decaying skeletons, the creature would need things
to eat while waiting for Brian to bring it dead human flesh. It
could survive on toads and turtles as long it received dead human
flesh once a month. People using ghouls to outright kill or perform
difficult tasks needed to supply them with fresh kills on a regular
basis. Brian was only using his to clean up.

The ghoul leaned over the dead corpse of
Harriet Baker, as if searching for the best area to begin its
feast. It took hold of the lifeless female, ripped apart the
abdomen and began devouring the intestines. It ate fast as if
starved. The scene was gruesome, the woman’s stomach an empty
cavity within minutes as it moved to her chest. It broke the ribs
and sternum to get at the heart and lungs, the snapping sounds
striking the silent air like a whip. The monster would eat every
part of the woman, taking the bones back to the swamp where it
would bury them in the marsh; the evidence gone.

Two months later, and Brian had supplied the
ghoul with two more bodies. Summer had come and gone and it was
time for his vacation. He always closed his dental practice for a
week, heading south to warmer lands.

He booked a flight to the Cayman Islands
where he lounged around on the beaches and drank margaritas
poolside. He’d met quite a few women, finding it hard to control
his urges. How wonderful it would be to kill a woman abroad. He
would have to settle for sex though, not wanting to break the rules
of the ghoul spell. Rough intercourse was a terrible substitute for
killing, but it would hold him over until he arrived home.

He’d met a young woman from South Carolina,
vacationing with three of her girlfriends. She had a southern
accent he found appealing, different. They went out to a
candlelight dinner, taking a moonlit walk on the beach afterward.
He dazzled her with words--his knowledge of poetry sublime--and
body movements as slight as they were, making her fall for him
almost immediately. He’d always had the ability to find the right
woman, gullible and trusting. And the current one, like all of his
victims, was perfect.

He invited her up to his room for a nightcap.
They ordered champagne and oysters, sitting on the balcony enjoying
the refreshing and pleasant tropical air. He wanted to kill her,
badly, having to sink his nails into his leg to keep himself
centered.

After a couple of glasses of wine, they were
on the hotel bed, going at it. He’d gotten her clothes off and was
caressing her hair when he began strangling her; not something he
usually did. He liked his females to bleed. It must have been the
need to kill combined with the wine. The lady wasn’t enjoying it.
Her face went red as her eyes bulged from their sockets. He
released her. She inhaled, wheezing, choking. She shoved him off
and began running to the door. He couldn’t let her leave--she would
inform the authorities.

At the door, fumbling with the lock, Brian
crept up behind her and bashed her over the head with a lamp. The
woman’s body went rigged after the impact, then crumpled to the
carpet, unconscious.

He dragged her to the bathtub, shoving her
in. Excitement, equal to his first kill, filled his body. There was
no turning back. The ghoul would understand. He’d give it two
bodies when he arrived back home, making up for the lost kill.

He ordered a steak dinner to the room. He
wasn’t hungry, but he needed a sharp knife since he didn’t bring
his with him. Making sure the woman wouldn’t wake, he bashed her
head against the tub a few times, drawing blood and splattering the
tiles. Laying two fingers against the side of her neck, he felt for
a pulse. Finding it, he grinned. Good--she was still alive. Using
the steak knife, he then slit her wrists. He cut deep, using a
sawing motion, not wanting the wounds to stop bleeding. As the
blood poured from her lacerations, he watched a river of crimson
run down the tub and disappear into the drain. His vacation was
complete.

The following morning, after purchasing new
luggage, garbage bags, and a hacksaw, he cut the body up, placing
the parts into the garbage bags. Making sure that the bags were
firmly sealed, he stuffed them into the new luggage and left the
hotel.

Brian drove his rental car until he found a
deserted back road and dumped the luggage in the bushes along with
the extra garbage bags and hacksaw. He proceeded to the airport,
dropped off the rental and boarded his flight.

He took a cab home from the airport arriving
just after nine p.m. Exhausted from the long flight and the
layovers, he went right to bed after setting his alarm clock. He
had work the next day.

The alarm buzzed at six a.m., waking Brian
from a sound and peaceful sleep. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and
yawned. Sniffing the air, his nose scrunched up at the repugnant
odor assaulting his nostrils. He opened his eyes and was
startled.

The ghoul was standing at the end of the bed.
It had moss covering its head and skin. Pieces of bone showed
through the chalky colored flesh. It appeared to be in horrendous
condition as if it were rotting away.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Brian
asked it. The corpse swayed as if on weary legs.

“Dying,” the ghoul said, its voice scratchy
and garbled.

Brian flinched. The thing had never talked
before. “You,” it said, pointing a decaying bony finger at him.

“Me?” he asked. “Are you hungry? Do you need
to eat?”

“You. Kill. Alone. Break. Deal,” it said,
coming around to the side of the bed. Brian cringed, leaning away
from it.

“Stop,” he said. “I command you.” The
creature slumped forward, reaching for him. “I order you to
stop.”

“You. Kill. Break. Pact. No. Feed. Me. I.
Die.”

“What?” Brian said, frantically. Everyone he
killed he’d fed to the ghoul except for the one in the Cayman
Islands. How did it know about her? “It was only one time,” he
explained. “I won’t do it again. I promise. I’ll bring you two
bodies tomorrow.” He kicked at the sheet, trying to get his legs
out from under it. He needed to get away. The ghoul grabbed his leg
as the limb came from the covers, its grip vice-like. Brian felt
his skin grow icy, panic seizing his chest. He cried out, pleaded,
begged, but the ghoul didn’t care. Its other hand gripped Brian’s
other ankle and squeezed, crushing it to a pulp of mangled flesh
and splintered bone. It released its hold and Brian’s legs flopped
painfully and uselessly to the ground. He screamed in agony, but
sat up and began punching the ghoul in the head. A piece of rotten
skin flaked off, stuck to his knuckles. The ghoul shot an arm out,
seizing Brian by the neck. With a flick, the monster snapped it.
Brian’s eyes rolled up, he stopped crying out and fell to the
mattress, still alive. His spinal column had been severed,
paralyzing him from the neck down.

Starting at his feet--the toes, the ghoul
began taking large bites out of Brian. The creature chewed slowly,
cow-like. Tears streaked Brian’s face as he could only watch and
listen to the ghoul eat him alive. With only dread upon his mind,
he wondered if he was truly alive, because ghouls were only
supposed to eat dead things.

The Lake
Pact

He saw the creature lunge from the depths of
Beaver Dam Lake, wrap its scaly long arms around the woman in the
canoe and pull her under. It was only a moment, but the image would
stay in his mind forever, as if branded there. The creature had
dark olive colored scales, large bulbous black eyes and gills down
its sides.

Billy wasn’t supposed to go near the lake.
His mother told him it was dangerous, especially without an adult.
No one from the neighborhood used the lake. Only outsiders were
seen swimming and boating, parking their cars alongside Lake Road,
and enjoying themselves in one of nature’s pools.

Billy was never told why he or any of the
other neighborhood kids weren’t allowed by the lake. Every time he
asked his father he received the same response: “Because I said
so.”

The woman in the canoe was a visitor. He’d
seen her Jeep parked along the road on his way toward the lake.
Everyone knew everyone from the neighborhood and Billy didn’t
recognize her. Apparently she’d never learned the basic rules of
swimming: never do it alone. He doubted it would’ve mattered
whether she had one other person or ten, because she would still be
dead. Standing on the hillside, his legs trembling, he turned and
went home.

The next day, while sitting on the school
bus, Billy passed the spot where the woman’s Jeep had been parked.
It was gone. He felt an uneasiness fall over him, a creeping dread.
He should’ve told his parents about her, but didn’t want to get
punished, and they most likely wouldn’t have believed him anyway. A
belt whipping combined with a grounding was never welcomed.

“I saw something,” he said to his best friend
Mack as they sat alone at the end of a lunchroom bench.

“Your sister naked?” Mack asked,
laughing.

Billy reached over the table and nailed him
in the arm. “No, something awful; unbelievable.”

“Your mother naked?” Mack asked, avoiding
Billy’s fist.

“I’m serious.”

“What was it?”

Billy leaned in, whispering, “I saw a woman
get killed yesterday.”

“Bullshit,” Mark said, shoving his sandwich
into his mouth.

“I went down to the lake,” Billy said,
coldly.

Mack stopped chewing and with a mouthful of
food said, “Beaver Dam Lake?”

“You know any other?”

Mack quickly finished chewing and swallowed.
“Your parents would’ve killed you if they found out you went
there.”

“I know.”