Consumed - Volume 1: An Extreme Horror Anthology. Read online

  CONSUMED

  VOLUME 1

  Kyle M. Scott

  Text Copyright 2014©Kyle M. Scott

  All rights reserved

  Second Authorised Digital Version

  Re-edited and Revised

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the author. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This book was written using UK standard dictionary. Some spellings may differ from US variations.

  For my beautiful baby daughter - Raina Gabrielle.

  My inspiration for all that I do.

  Love you more than I can ever express, Bug.

  Special Thanks to:

  Thanks to everyone who stood by me as I took my first dread-drenched steps into the world of horror fiction. It’s been a long road and I couldn’t possibly have walked it without all the positive energy, love and goodwill generated by my friends and family. You’re all just about the most amazing people a guy could have in his world.

  Special thanks to my Mum and Dad for believing in me, (even though you refuse to read my work), and to Michelle Craig, for the unwavering support, journalistic savvy and infectious drive.

  And last but not least, to my insomnia - I couldn’t do it without you, old pal.

  There must be more to life than having everything! – Maurice Sendak.

  SPECIAL DELIVERY

  A feast of friends – Jim Morrison

  “No way! I’m not doing it.”

  “Oh, I think you are, buddy.”

  “I have a date tonight, Pete. I’m seeing Shelly for a movie. We’re meeting at 10 o’clock and it’s already half past nine!”

  Pete sighed. “I really need you on this one. It’s a big delivery and I ain’t got anyone else to make the run. This one’s on you, sunshine.”

  “Pete, please. This is my last chance with her. You know I screwed things up last time. I need this.”

  Pete put down the timetable he held in his huge, chubby hands, and turned to face Jack straight on, and in his best, no-nonsense tone, he said, “Look son, I feel your pain. I really do. But I have a date too; with a huge fucking widescreen television that I just bought over the weekend and a brand spanking new Blu-Ray player. If I let my ladies down they may never forgive me.”

  “Damn it, Pete. This is BS.”

  Pete laughed. “It’s pronounced ‘bullshit’ Jack, and yeah, maybe it is bullshit...maybe it is... but life ain’t altogether fair and right now I’m the big bad boss in your life. And in this greasy little hellhole, fairness and justice hold no quarter, my young friend. You’re making the fucking delivery or I’ll be having that uniform off your back right now. There are plenty of unemployed desperadoes out there that would jump at the chance to wear it and I haven’t got time for your teenage dipshittery. That clear?!”

  Jack looked down at his too-tight shirt - bright red with black sleeves - and the annoyingly cheerful logo emblazoned above his right breast that read ‘Antonio’s Pizzeria’.

  Wouldn’t be much of a loss, he thought to himself.

  Pete was waiting, eyes glued on Jack with a look of bemusement that said he couldn’t believe this kid may just throw in the towel for some tail.

  But this wasn’t just some pretty girl, and he wasn’t merely some horny teenager. This was Shelly Reardon. Head of Hill-vale High’s prestigious poetry society and the one and only girl he’d loved his whole short life.

  This wasn’t about carnality - this was about true love- the realisation of all his childhood dreams.

  Since the first time he’d laid eyes on her at the age of five; he’d known she’d be the one he’d marry. First, of course, he’d have to woo her – a step in his master plan that had taken over a decade to overcome.

  Overcome it he did, though, and after waiting all these long years he’d asked her out. Amazingly, she said yes, and last night was their first date.

  It hadn’t gone very well.

  Jack was a nervous type. Always had been, always would be, and when it came to being around Shelly, his affliction took on somewhat epic proportions.

  When they’d been just friends it was manageable but last night, being on a date with her – it had been a nerve-shredding Fiasco for the ages.

  He’d been a stuttering, gibbering wreck the entire time, and in a valiant attempt to settle into the evening, he’d drank a little too much.

  Well, a lot too much actually.

  Jack’s stomach turned at the memory, vague though it was through the lens of his alcoholic stupor.

  There’d been confessions of love, drunken attempts at seduction, and vomiting – lots and lots of vomiting.

  Nobody’s idea of fun and fancy...

  “What’s it gonna be, Jacky?” asked Pete, startling Jack from his shameful musings.

  Hell! He really needed this job, too. Without it he had nothing. Jack never came from a wealthy family; in truth it was quite the opposite. He was one step up from white trash and five flights down from the hallowed heights of the working class. His parents had no cash to spare - not after drowning their sorrows under an alcoholic sea each time they received their joint welfare allowance - so the simple pleasure of having some pocket money was non-existent, and he’d surely have absolutely no chance with Shelly were he to announce that for future dates, they’d be frequenting a park bench, watching ducks swim.

  That just wouldn’t do at all.

  One last plead for mercy.

  . “Please, Pete. I’m begging you, man. This girl means everything to me.”

  Pete was a man a few words, “Don’t give a shit, kid. What’s it gonna be? You’re either taking on this delivery or you’re taking your achy-breaky heart to collect your fucking food stamps.”

  Jack saw no reasoning with the man. “Jesus. Okay, I’ll do it. Just give me five minutes to call Shelly, ok?”

  “I’ll give you three.”

  ***

  Jack stood out front of Antonio’s and took a long slow lungful of the cool night air. The sky was clearer than usual despite the incoming clouds over the sea, and the stars shone down on all LA, and for the briefest moment he wondered how many lovers were gazing up at those stars, arm in arm and happy. It made him feel a little sick.

  This is far too beautiful an evening to have your heart broke, he thought, wearily.

  Maybe she’ll understand. She knows I need the work, and she’s met Pete the Prick. She knows he’s no teddy bear. Maybe she’ll be cool...

  Feeling like the world was closing its curtains on his heart, he took a deep breath and dialled her number. He didn’t have to look it up; he knew it by heart, and had done since the first time he dialled her.

  After a tension drenched eternity that lasted exactly the length of four rings, Shelly answered, and Jack felt like he was stood in front of a firing squad.

  “Hi Jack.” She sounded happy to hear from him. Good start.

  “Hey Shelly, listen, I gotta make this short. Pete has me bent over a barrel here. We got one last delivery just came through, here - a big one. There’s no one else here to make the journey. He...”

  Shelly sounded completely unfazed. “Are you going to be a little late? If so, it’s fine, Jack. I know how much this job means to you.”

  As always, she made the greatest of crises seem as weightless as a summer breeze.

  “I’m sorry, Shelly. I know I messed up the other night...I was nervous, and I had a little too much to drink, and now this. I...”

  Shelly finished his sentence for him, effectively lettin
g him off the hook in her inimitably compassionate way. “...you like me a lot and you got scared, and it won’t happen again. It’s all fine, Jack. I know who you really are; it’s not like we just met, after all,” she laughed, “if you consider all our play dates together as children, our dates together probably number in the hundreds. One bum date out of hundreds isn’t terrible odds, so don’t sweat it...I’m not.”

  She’s amazing. “Thanks Shelly. I’ll be as quick as I can. I’d have you wait at our meeting spot but I may be as much as two hours. It’s a long way off, this delivery. Can’t fathom why they called Antonio’s. There has to be at least twenty Pizza restaurants closer than ours, and it’s not like the Pizzas are worth a damn.”

  The sound of her laughter elevated him. Being able to make her laugh had always made him feel ten feet tall.

  “Look, don’t worry about it. It’s the weekend, Jack. I’m a big girl and I can stay up after my bedtime,” she laughed “and in other good news, mom and dad are staying with friends this weekend, so we can hang out at my house.”

  Her house - Jack gulped, and worried it was audible on her end of the line. “Your house?” he stammered.

  “Yes, Jack...my house. You know...Where I live?” She teased.

  “Okay; sure. That would be...great. We’ll do that then.”

  “Lovely! We can stay up all night and watch scary movies. I’ll get the popcorn in, boyo! Bring some beers with you - no whiskey though!”

  Scary movies were her bread and butter. He’d never met anyone as obsessed with horror as Shelly, male or female. Jack couldn’t quite understand the draw of such lewd material, but it made her happy, and that in turn made him happy. He laughed himself this time. “No whiskey. I promise.”

  “Where is it you’re delivering to, exactly?” she asked.

  “Oh, some family manor a thousand clicks outside the city. I even have a name – ‘Athos House’ – sounds mighty pretentious for L.A, huh? I’m guessing they’re well off.”

  “Athos House? I know the place! Well, I've heard of it. They’re more than well-off, Jack...they’re practically swimming in money.” Shelly’s excitable nature was infectious.

  “How come you know of it?” Jack was genuinely surprised.

  “I haven’t seen the house, but I’ve heard all about it from my Dad. He goes up that way sometimes to do jobs for the owners. You know how he is - master of all trades and all that jazz.”

  Jack knew.

  Like his own family, Shelly’s parents lived and survived on the seedier side of town, where the cities angels feared to tread and their bright lights never shone. That’s where the similarities ended, though.

  Yes, they both shared a common economic background - victims of the seemingly unending recession that had been hoisted on a generation with no favouring to colour or creed - but unlike Jack’s mother and father, Shelly’s parents were honest, decent folk who believed in the fight to make something better of themselves. Both families may be struggling, but for Shelly’s family, struggling meant more than reaching for the next bottle of bourbon or rolling the next joint. It meant hard and honest working, real determination and an admirable sense of integrity no matter how far the system had dragged them down.

  It sounded like her father’s work had been taking him far and wide, even out-with the city limits, and it lightened Jack’s heart to know that at least Shelly had a father who had his child’s best interests at heart.

  “So? What’s it like?” he asked, feeling genuinely excited about the trip now.

  “Well, apparently it’s this huge, gothic mansion, nestled deep among the redwoods way out in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like it’s straight out of a horror movie, right? I’d love to see it myself someday. Dad says they have beautiful gardens with a maze and even a small lake. He only ever met the owners of the house once – on his first call out - and has been greeted solely by one butler or another ever since that first time.”

  “They have Butlers?” Jack asked, amused by her enthusiasm.

  Shelly laughed again, light as air, “Yep. They sure do, Jack. They have them dressed up like penguins - as prim and proper as all get out. Sounds like The Overlook Hotel, huh?”

  Shelly never missed an opportunity to reference her beloved horror pictures.

  “Wonder if I’ll get to meet the owners. I’ve never met a rich person before.”

  “I’ll cross my fingers for you, honey.” The playful sarcasm was evident in her tone, but that wasn’t what had Jack beaming like a kid in a candy store.

  She called me,’ honey’. Jack’s heart beat like a bass drum – his mood soaring.

  “I’d better go, Shell. I’ll call you on the way back, if Lloyd doesn’t get me first!”

  He could tell she was smiling by the tone of her voice.

  “Make sure you do. See you soon, Jack. Oh, and for the record, it was the Janitor who done all the killing in ‘The Shining’, not Lloyd. I’ll let you off this time though, buster.”

  She hung up, laughing as she did so.

  ***

  Antonio’s had been officially closed to the public for nearing half an hour by the time the enormous order was ready for delivery; only the neon sign that flickered red then green, remained burning at the stores front end – a reminder to all passing drivers that tomorrow may well be a good damn time for Pizza, no-matter how poorly made. Jack waited patiently in the restaurants overly spacious kitchen, eying up the chef, David, like a crack addict fixing to score as he hopped from left foot to right foot, wired with excitement as he played over the romance that the evening promised to hold.

  When I get this job over and done with...

  He had to admit it - he was even a little excited about the job itself. His girlfriend’s enthusiasm really had a way of lighting a fire in his normally mediocre imagination.

  Jack also knew she had a way with words, though, and she wasn’t above embellishing a tale for maximum impact. It was part of her charm, and it had carried her far into the academic stratosphere of Hill-vale High. Her talents in the arts had secured her a position in the underbelly of the daunting social pyramid that was the American higher education system, but in a world where intelligence was frowned upon, she was destined to always be on the outside; at the bottom of the social barrel – looking in or looking up.

  Her beauty was such that it may have held the power to sway the school’s oligarchy into accepting her as one of their own, despite her academic credentials; but that could never be. In a capitalist fairground like the good ole US of A, the dollar ruled supreme, both outwith and inside the gates of even the lowest educational facility.

  As above, so below...

  Humble, witty, intelligent and possessed of a rare beauty; Shelly was surely the epitome of any man’s dream come true. Or would be, were it not for the simple yet inescapable curse of her family lineage.

  Elite circles were a place dictated by financial background, not educational. Shelly didn’t make the grade.

  It broke Jack’s heart to see her so consistently victimised over her family’s financial standing. She was a strong, proud girl; yet no matter how high she climbed as a student and as a person, she was forever haunted by the taunts and the merciless bullying that her upbringing inspired.

  Shelly had no will to join the ranks of what both she and Jack saw as the over-privileged and spiritually undernourished; yet there was no denying the lasting heartbreak and pain that the constant insults and mockery imbued in her.

  Jack had experienced a similar path in his own dark journey through the educational grinder, but he was long past personal concern. There was no time for self-pity when the woman he loved needed his compassion.

  He would hold this job down. He would work his fingers to the bone and one fine day he would become manager and take over from that damn sadist, Pete. Then he’d rake in some real money, and he’d whisk Shelly away from the lower-east side of LA that was both their home and their prison, and give her a new life – the one she de
served.

  First though – he’d deliver these pizzas. Small steps...

  A few short hours from now I’ll have her hand in mine. I’ll tell her of my plans. I’ll –

  “Hey! Fuck-nut! You actually planning on getting these pizzas out there this decade!?”

  Pete – destroyer of reverie and all things sacred.

  “Ready when you are, Pete.”

  “Then have at it, hoss. Don’t just stand there all fucking night dreaming of Jeanie. Get your finger out your hole and get moving.”

  With a sigh, Jack reached for the van keys sat atop the kitchen workspace, winked once non-committedly at his bastard of a boss, and headed for the door.

  ***

  Outside, a light rain had begun to fall; for a short moment, he stopped to watch raindrops catching the light of the street lamps. The downpour was peppering the evening sky with a translucent light that Jack surmised would make for a wondrous romantic companion to his evening with Shelly. The wonder that the rain inspired in him was short-lived, though, as his eyes were drawn back to terra firma.

  The back-of-store where the company van sat was as grim as they came – a trash-littered, foul smelling and dank alleyway that shared its rot and ruin with the two stores to either side of Antonio’s – M and J’s Costume Parlour and a general store called Nina’s that was renowned for selling the cheapest liquor in town.

  Tonight, though, the overwhelming smell of rotting meats and cat shit, that so frequently brought home to him the bleak truth of his lot in life, couldn’t dampen Jack’s spirits. With the rain as his soundtrack and a heart full of hope for what the evening may bring – the usually disheartening reality that the stores rear-end held had lost all its sway.

  Jack whistled as he pushed the keys into the driver’s door, unlocked it, entered the clammy confines of the van, and settled in for his journey. The night was humid, despite the rains cooling touch, and he removed his jacket, tossing it onto the passenger seat.