Read Online Dark Corners - Twelve Tales of Terror by Michael Bray - Free Book Online Page A

You’d
think carrying this around with me for so many years would be
punishment enough, but I think I always knew—deep down—that
it wasn’t… Bad luck has followed me ever since that day,
bound to me like a ball and chain. My mother and father were killed
in a car accident when I was eighteen, and my sister, Tina, was
institutionalized for the murder of her best friend—only to
escape, disappearing to God knows where… Because of this, I
have done all I can to keep my own family close, protected from
something I guess I always knew would catch up with me… Now
he’s back, and he’s coming.
    I
am writing this from a hotel room in Southend, having fled my home
when he first came for me. I know now there is no way to escape it.
My best guess is that they helped him to find me, the dark things. The rats and the spiders, and
the festering things that live in the black, wet places of the world.
He’s one of them now, you see. Kept alive by what? The need for
revenge? The pain of betrayal? Who can say for sure… I can
already hear him, scratching around behind the walls, and I’m
too old and too tired to run anymore.
    That day, the day it happened, had been a hot one. It
had been a rare English summer that year, without winds and rain. We
Brits always make the most of summers like that, but the flip side is
that boredom soon sets in, especially for restless kids with no
school to go to. Snoddy and I were hanging around my place, generally
wasting the day away, when he suddenly asked me if I had heard of the
old Fisherman house. I had, of course—everyone had. It was one
of those places everyone had a ghost story about, usually one that
came from a friend of a friend, or from somebody who knew someone who
knew someone else who used to live there. That kind of deal. It was,
of course, the usual schoolyard bullshit. I looked back at Snoddy,
his skinny face taut and determined. The wheels were already turning
in his mind as he watched me and waited for my answer.
    “ You
wanna go break in?” he asked me, flashing his pierced lipped,
crooked-toothed grin. I didn’t, not really, but I couldn’t
say that. I was already technically grounded, and didn’t want
to push my luck. But you can’t say that when you’re a
kid, not when the pressure of expectation is heaped on you by your
friends. So I reluctantly agreed.
    We
picked Denton up on the way. Most people didn’t like Denton.
The other kids said he was fat, but he was just big for his age, with
a huge barrel chest and broad shoulders. He played rugby for the
school team, and although at a glance he did look a little chubby, he
was fitter than most of the other kids in our year group. They would
never say it to his face, of course. Denton had a well documented
mean streak and a bit of a reputation as a bully, and I think that
without him driving things along, that day might have been much
different. Right from the start, I could tell he was itching for a
confrontation. You could sense it in the air, if that makes any
sense. I think Snoddy felt it too as we walked in tense silence past
houses ripe with the smells of freshly cut grass, and the meaty
charred smell of barbecues going full tilt.
    The
Fisherman house had been empty for over thirty years, and depending
on who you talked to, had either been the site of a grisly murder, or
the home of an old man who kidnapped and ate local kids. I never
believed any of it, and although I knew it was just a building—bricks
and mortar—it still gave me a small chill when I first set eyes
on it. The grass out front was hip high and a sickly, faded yellow,
and the house itself was an ugly stain on what was otherwise a nice
area. Its walls seemed to bow inwards, and the windows were covered
by graffiti-scrawled wooden boards. It certainly looked the part, and
despite my disbelief, I could imagine any one of the stories about it
being true. Suddenly I regretted going, and wondered if Denton and
Snoddy felt the same. I thought