‘Tis Hallow’s Eve: A Halloween Horror Anthology
By Dairenna VonRavenstone
Copyright 2011 Dairenna VonRavenstone
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
This Halloween Horror anthology is dedicated to all my fans new and old. Without you I would not being writing and creating. Thank you to all my friends, my segregate family and to anyone who listens to my random ramblings.
Contents
Shadow – Cat-haters will hate cats even more after reading this
Far From Home – Always bring a cell phone when traveling long distances
Tricky Treats – A creature comes out on Halloween to punish naughty children
Boil and Trouble – Always remember the story of a witch
Magic – Some things in life are worth death
Blood-letting – Never make fun of the weird ones
Happy Halloween – When entering a stranger’s home uninvited, always bring back-up.
Carnival – Sometimes it’s not the clowns that are evil
Shadow
Inspiration: I love cats and decided to give something for cat-haters to add to their list of reasons to hate cats. Originally the cat in this story was black. But it’s always a black cat that gets the horrible reputation so the cat had a color change.
It had been a long night and all he wanted to do was go home to get some needed sleep. He shuffled along streets covered in a damp fog lit only by the occasional street lamp. A fine mist coated the shoulders of his over-coat and he was glad he had decided to bring it to work despite the formerly warm air of the day.
Overhead a cloud raced over the moon and the stars winked in and out of existence. He sighed and huddled deeper into his coat, feeling the stubble of his beard scrape against the inner lining. He reminded himself to shave but figured it did not matter. His stocky build and black hair made him look like a bar-tender and he supposed his customers were happy about that.
As he passed the mouth of an alleyway a light meow came to his ears. The alley in question was unlit and the smell of rotten garbage was powerful. He waited a few moments, trying to see past the shadows and the fog but he could not. Another mew came and he scoffed, choosing to ignore it. He hated cats anyway.
He soon forgot about the slight distraction as he continued his walk home. He was three blocks away from his complex when another meow startled him out of his half-asleep stupor. He turned looked down. Twirling around his ankles was a slim, pure white, long furred feline. He stared at it for a few long moments then pushed it away, not quite kicking it out right but sending it the message to leave him alone.
The cat hissed but did not run off. The man muttered something to himself and walked away with a shake of his head. He made it three steps before another meow came from behind him. He paid it no attention and continued to stride forward. Another mew hovered from somewhere at his back but he figured the stupid animal would go away eventually.
He was answered with another meow. He let out a sigh and turned, seeing the same white feline sitting on the sidewalk staring at him with one yellow-green eye and one blue eye. For a long while man and animal stared each other down. Man grunted and ran a hand through greasy hair.
“What? I don’t have any food, go away,” he told the cat while gesturing at it to leave.
The cat responded by licking a front paw. He assumed this meant something along the lines of “I don’t care,” in cat language. He watched it for a long while then decided he was being an idiot. It was three AM; he was sore, tired, hungry and watching a stray cat lick itself in the middle of the street.
“Fuck it,” he grumbled as he turned and continued to stalk back to his apartment.
He did not have to turn around to know the cat was following him. He disregarded it and finally made it to a run-down apartment building with a single blinking light under a sagging awning. He stuck his key in the lock, turned it and slammed the door in the feline’s face before it could follow.
He watched as it hissed at him again then gave it the finger. The cat tilted its head to a side, yawned hugely as if to show off its fangs and walked off. The man huffed, turned and began walking up the four flights of stairs to his apartment. He strode down a dingy yellow hall with barely working light bulbs and the faint smell of urine. He wondered if the bar would be busy on Halloween in two weeks.
He hoped it would not be since he did not need a bunch of pagan freaks in masks voodoo-dolling him into free drinks. He turned the key to his apartment and it stuck. With a low curse he jiggled the key in its lock and the door popped open. For the millionth time since he moved in three years ago he promised himself he would find a better place.
The door thudded shut behind him and he turned on a light to reveal a moldy apartment. A torn leather couch sat in front of an old wooden frame that held a precariously balanced television with rabbit ears. Pizza boxes, empty beer cans and old newspapers littered the floor as old mail and over-due bills piled on the stand beside the door.
The carpet used to be white but lack of care had turned it the color of ash. A mattress was shoved into one corner since the only bedroom was unusable because of a leak in the middle of the ceiling when it rained. The leak was supposed to be fixed before he moved in. He left a few pails in that room to catch the shower of water that came every other day.
Scattered around the room was dirty laundry, scuffed paper backs and boxes that were filled with clean but musty clothes, dirty magazines, and DVDs. He had not actually been able to fully unpack since he was not able to use the other room. It did not matter. He had most of a roof over his head, beer in the fridge and there were not any bugs.
He pulled off his coat, tossed his shoes off his feet and walked into the kitchen. He opened the fridge a moment later and bent to stare inside. A loud meow startled him and he stood abruptly, slamming his head off a shelf and falling to his knees with a shout.
“Son of a fucking bitch,” he groused and looked around his kitchen.
Sitting demurely on his counter was the white cat. He stared at it as it watched him rub the sore spot on his head and stood slowly. The cat made no motion to move, merely regarding him with a frightening amount of intelligence in its oddly colored eyes. He grabbed a beer can out of the fridge and in one swift movement, threw it at the cat.
The cat jumped away and the beer can exploded over the counter. He roared a few choice curse words as the cat darted out of the kitchen from between his legs. He spun to follow it as it ran over to the open window and jumped away. He looked at the window for a long moment and knew he had closed it before leaving his apartment.
“Bloody fuck,”
He woke up sometime in the afternoon, staring at a crack in the ceiling above his head. The air was warm but not hot enough to make him want to open the window he had slammed shut last night. Stained sheets were tangled around him and his boxer-clad form. He ran a hand over his face and winced at a sudden pain on his cheek.
He sat up and rushed to the bathroom. He fumbled along the wall and finally flicked on the light. Green tile and counter tops blinded him for a moment before he looked into the mirror. On his right cheek were four ragged lines of dried blood about an inch long. He stared at them for a long moment and noticed they were slightly puffy. They would never match his short nails and could only come from one...
“Meow,” the cat called from his bathtub.
The man turned slowly and blinked at his impromptu guest. The cat smiled at him and he swore it let out a little chuckle. He screamed in sudden rage and launched himself at the feline. The cat waited until his momentum could not be stopped before leaping over him and making him fall headlong into the bathtub with a thunk.
“FUCK!” he shouted as he withered in pain in the middle of his bathtub.
He managed to sway to his feet and fall against the wall. The cat sat on the bathroom vanity, licking a front paw delicately. Then it jumped off the counter, walked through the wall and was gone. He allowed himself to slide down the wall when his knees gave way and he mercifully fell into a slight slumber.
A week passed and the man had not seen hair nor whisker of the mysterious cat. The scratches reminded him of the entire incident and co-workers gave him an odd look. He did not bother explaining because he had no idea what to tell them. He merely concentrated on slinging drinks to waiting hands and collecting tips.
It was half way through the shift when he felt a tingle along his spine. He finished mixing a martini and turned. The white feline sat staring at him on the stool beside the customer whose martini he had. He overlooked it and handed the woman her drink. She paid; he collected the three dollar tip and turned to his next customer.
The beer was served to the other man as the cat regarded him with an unblinking expression. He continued to snub the beast and make his way through the throng of thirsty half-drunks. One of the waitresses came by and began filling a tray with beer. As he turned to get the rum behind him, he stumbled and just about fell.
Winding around his ankles was the cat. It looked up at him with that smile again and he swallowed back a frustrated groan. He discounted it and turned to mix the drink he was working on, almost tripping on the feline again.
“You okay?” the waitress asked in concern as she looked down at his feet in wonderment.
He knew she was thinking he was drunk. If she could actually see the cat she would be mentioning it right now as it was butting its head against his legs to garner attention. The man ignored it and went back to work.
“Fine,” he rumbled to the waitress as he finished the concoction and moved to the next customer.
The cat leaped up on the bar and sat in front of a voluptuous blonde. The woman did not notice it was there. The cat licked its tail and watched unimpressed as he began to wipe down the bar. Another man came for a beer and he served it. The bar started to pick up again and for the remainder of the night, he served drinks and tried to avoid the glowing stare of the feline watching him.
October 31st came too quickly for him and soon he was staring at masked freaks as they ordered drinks and danced to hip-hop and cheesy Halloween songs. The cat had not left his side the entire time. It watched him eat under-cooked noodles. It regarded him as he drank himself into a stupor on his couch. It pondered him as he showered and shaved. It looked completely unimpressed when he urinated or defecated.
Every day he would wake up to more random claw marks on his body. He merely washed them out, put medical cream on them and bandaged them before going on with his day. One line of cuts appeared dangerously close to his groin and for that he had chased the phantom cat around the apartment until it ran through a wall and he ran into aforementioned wall head first.
After that he figured he should at least tell someone about the beast. Immediately the idea was pushed aside since no one would believe him. He tried to think of what he had done differently before the cat came into his life to make it stalk him like a feline shadow.
He served someone in a devil mask and the cat licked its stomach on the bar. A woman dressed in a cat suit came up next and he sighed heavily. The woman gave him a meow and a flick of gloved hands tipped with fake claws.
“Aww, why aren’t you dressed up?” the cat woman asked.
He considered telling her that he hated Halloween. He wanted to tell her that he was being stalked by a ghost cat. He almost told her that she looked ugly in the cat suit. But he merely shrugged and ran a hand over his hair.
“Couldn’t find a costume that I could work in. What’ll you have?” he finally sputtered out.
“Sex on the Beach,” she replied with a wink.
He did not bother to take the conversation further as he made the drink and passed it to her. She frowned, paid and turned away. A fake cat tail bounced along as she moved through the crowd and he held back a groan. Another she-devil approached him and he made her a Bloody Mary. The cat began licking its groin area. He was still unsure as to whether the thing was male or female a frankly, he did not care.
Another hour passed and the man regarded the time absently. It was a few minutes after one AM and soon they could close down the bar. A woman in an angel costume was sucking the face off a man in a vampire costume. The cat was watching them for once, swatting at the feathery wings on the woman’s back.
The man ignored it and poured a woman in a replica Cat Woman suit (a la Halley Berry) a gin and tonic. She nodded to him, winked and sauntered away. He merely shook his head and scratched absently at a healing claw mark on his hand. The cat finally stopped playing with the feathers and nudged against the hand he had on the bar.
He did not bother to try and pet it and it bumped his hand again. He turned away and grabbed a beer for a peacock and collected his tip. The cat bit his hand between thumb and forefinger. He bit his lip to hold back the yelp of pain and looked down.
Deep red blood flowed from the wound and he cursed. He ran it under the sink and motioned for the other bar tender. The woman came over and glanced at his bleeding hand.
“The fuck did you do?” she asked in a concerned voice.
“Cat bit me,” he groused admitted without fully thinking through his answer.
“A cat? What cat?” she queried in confusion.
“Never mind,” he grumbled as he dried off his hand and put a napkin on it to catch the slowing blood.
“Whatever,” she uttered and began picking up his slack.
He strode into the back room and flopped onto a chair. The cat leaped onto his lap and butted his hands with its head. He glanced around the room and finally gave in, petting it gently between the ears. Satisfied, the cat leaped away and walked through the wall.
Half an hour later he was back at the bar, his left hand covered in a band-aid and topped with a latex glove so the band-aid would not slip off into someone’s drink. The cat was back and staring at him from a stool at the bar. He sighed heavily and wished the night would end so he could sleep.
Finally last call was shouted over the freaky music and people rushed the bar. A blur of time later and people were stumbling outside as he counted the money in his register. The cat watched, its thick white tail flicking over the register every few beats.
“Good night tonight,” the other bar tender remarked.
“Yeah,” he replied without much interest.
The cat was staring at him again and he wanted to punt it across the bar. Ignoring it did not seem to be helping but he doubted he could punt it. It was some kind of ghost and he would more than likely fall on his ass trying. He decided to continue snubbing it.
“You off tomorrow?” his female partner asked in what he thought was a seduction attempt.
“No,” he returned absently.
“Got anything planned?” she inquired with a smirk.
“No,” he revealed tiredly.
“Want me to come over?” she questioned immediately.
He turned to face her fully and she shot him a saucy grin. He took in her lumpy frame, frizzy blonde hair, thick glasses and uneven complexion. The fact that he had not had sex in months gave her a few points. The white cat meowed loudly and he wondered what it would do if he did bring her home.
“Not really, no offence. But I’m really tired,” he finally mumbled.
Her smile faded and she nodded once. Without another word she went back to counting money in the other register. The cat purred happily and licked his hand. He pushed it off the bar and was satisfied when in yowled in shock and fell off.
He closed the door of his apartment and flung his coat onto the couch. Shoes flew into the wall and the cat hissed at him from the bed. He snorted at it and walked into the bathroom. Before he got there, the cat attacked his ankles and made him trip and fall to the floor.
“Bugger off,” he groused as he stood and stepped into the bathroom.
The cat followed and he stood in front of the toilet a moment later. The stream of urine from his bladder was refreshing. He sighed in a moment of pleasure before the cat leaped up and sliced at the head of his penis. He yowled in agonizing pain before falling backwards into the bathtub and cracking his head off the bottom.
For a few long moments he laid there in awe, his penis bleeding in
his hand and his head throbbing. The cat leaped onto his stomach and
stared at him. He punched at it and managed only to hit himself. He
grunted and got up, staring down at the beast as it flashed him a
smile.
“What the fucking Hell do you want with me?” He
questioned it in indignation as he ripped a roll of gauze from the
first aid kit and wrapped it around his abused organ.
It meowed at him then attacked his ankles. He kicked and it flew but landed gracefully on the counter top. He pulled up his boxers and pants and stared at it.
“What the fucking Hell did I do to you?” he inquired with a rising voice.
For a long moment the cat merely stared at him. He sighed and ran a hand over his hair, assuming the cat was done with him for the night. He was wrong. The cat leaped and hooked a too-quick paw into his right eye. He yelled in pain and the eye burst out of its socket and trailed a good amount of viscous fluids and blood down his face and shirt.
He stumbled backwards and caught himself before landing in the tub again, holding one hand over his now-empty socket and staring at the cat with a look of awe and horror. The cat began cleaning its bloody white paw, purring happily at the taste of the blood.
“YOU FUCKER!” he roared and grabbed for it.
The cat bounded away and he chased it out the bathroom door. It leaped onto his TV and he punched at it. The cat jumped away and he only managed to hurt his hand and knock the television onto the floor. There it shattered, unusable. He turned to find the cat on the couch and flipped the entire thing making it crash into a table and breaking items strewn there.
The cat came up on the mattress and he jumped at it with hands out-stretched. It dodged again and he ripped his sheets in fury. The feline sauntered into the kitchen and he followed. He managed to over-turn the dish rack and rip the fridge from the wall in a hopeless pursuit of the cat.
It finally entered the main room again and sat on a box. He leaped onto the box and landed heavily on DVDs. He tossed them aside and more than a few flew from there casings. Finally he started grabbing up random items and throwing them at the cat. The agile animal dodged every single time until every item of worth in his apartment was destroyed.
Finally the cat walked through the front door and the man roared in frustration. He followed it down the hall and to the top of the stairs. He looked down the steps but did not see it. He took a few heaving breaths and wondered if it was finally over.
He turned slowly and was met with another set of claws raking over his face and into his other eye. He let out a scream and pin wheeled his arms. His painfully graceless balancing act was in vain. A few moments later, he tumbled down the flight of stairs. His body crumpled against the wall at the landing between his floor and the one below and his neck snapped in half.
For a few long moments the only thing he could feel was a rough little tongue licking the blood off his face. Shouts came from the hall but they sounded far away in his ears. A final lick came and he sighed in relief. After a long moment, his heart stopped and he knew no more.
“So, what the hell happened to this guy?” a uniformed officer asked the mortician.
They both looked down at the body of an eyeless man who had just fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his neck. Death had been almost instantaneous. The mortician shrugged.
“It looks like he’s been mauled by a cat to be honest. There were bloody paw prints leaving the scene and it looked like something had licked his face. The lick is more akin to feline than dog, cats have a rough tongue,” the mortician replied with much more information than the officer actually wanted.
“A cat? But there’s no pets allowed in the building,” the police man muttered while shaking his head.
“It’s Halloween, maybe he was making a sacrifice in his apartment and the victim clawed away,” the mortician suggested with a smirk and a light chuckle.
“Right, mauled by a cat on Halloween,” the officer uttered and left the morgue, leaving the mortician to laugh about haunted cats.
On his way out a meow stopped him. He turned and stared at a lithe white, long furred cat with one yellow-green eye and one blue eye watching him. A look passed between the two until the buzz of the officer’s radio interrupted. The cat let out a meow and butted the officer’s legs for attention. The officer kicked the feline away and turned: