Two Stories by JD Phillips

In the marathon of posts ending October, here are two wonderful short horror stories by JD Phillips!

When Love Goes Bad

Nothing in the world was as tragic as a once beautiful love gone bad.

Bentley Ross had lived and re-lived this tragedy more times than he cared to count and yet the memories of wilted spirits and wasted potential often haunted his sleep. He saw each of their faces when he dared close his eyes in the calm dark of his bedroom. Specifically, he saw the exact moment the fire within his soul consumed that last little bit of spark still lingering within their eyes. The moment he knew he’d just lost another muse. The moment fear he may never regain the lost inspiration swelled fresh beneath his veins.

He’d written an extensive enough list of songs to tide him over after the last love dwindled away but the fire was all consuming and prone to such fits and whims he wasn’t able to take solace in that. The ache was ever growing. Longing turned to near desperation. He was all but certain he was doomed to wither when he happened across Lenara.

He knew straightaway Lenara wasn’t like the others he’d taken a shine to. She wasn’t drawn to the fire that had lured and undone those that’d come before. She wasn’t impressed by or particularly interested in him at all, in fact, upon their first encounter. She’d made him chase and then, once he’d finally caught her, kept him on his toes working to assure she never found any reason to leave him.

A nearly endless stream of notes and words swirled inside his brain almost faster than he could manage to write so long as Lenara was within sight. They spent as much time together as two people possibly could. When he’d played the first completed song she’d stirred within him she’d broken down into tears so genuine her entire body shook in time to the melody.

He was so moved by her passionate response he nearly shed a few tears of his own for he knew he’d created something truly remarkable. She was remarkable – the one he’d been searching for his entire life. His resolve to keep this love free of the decay that’d ruined so many others only deepened as he began recording one new track after another in the small studio downstairs across from the room he’d fashioned especially for her.

Life and business, unfortunately, meant the bliss couldn’t carry on uninterrupted. The tour proposed by his manager was too good a deal to pass up and besides he was eager to unleash his favorite of the new creations on the world. It would take him away from Lenara for well over a year – a thought that pained him greatly – but the greatest loves were those able to withstand both time and distance. Lenara promised to never leave him and in return he made arrangements to ensure she’d want for nothing while he was away.

He thought of her constantly once the tour began. Names and faces passed in blurs of light and sound. They were – be it fellow musicians, venue staff, or fans – as insignificant as shadows passing along a wall come sunset. They did nothing for him and as such he saw no use in even speaking to them. Small talk, after all, was like torture and twice as empty. The only thing he cared to focus upon was the stream of lyrics and notes still lingering inside his brain.

The pangs of separation kept the fire burning bright. Songs continued pouring out of him at an unprecedented rate. He imagined Lenara in the crowd at every show he played and thought of new verses. He pictured her weeping on the basement floor, silver bracelets shining beneath the bare bulb hanging overhead as she covered her face and shook with his song, when he had time to rest inside a hotel room or the tour bus and hummed new accompanying tunes.

His desire only grew more ravenous as the tour went on. He could see her exactly as he’d last seen her at the house, striking his favorite pose while wearing her best dress, and his mind wandered into more torrid waters. His hand on her thigh, slowly moving into less charted territory below deck. The curve of her lips pressing softly against his fingertips. The quiet darkness behind her misty stare while she sat perfect as a picture.

In those moments his other senses conspired to bring the fantasy closer to life, giving him acute memories of the smell of her skin and softness of her hair as well as the flowery perfume he’d bought her early in their relationship. So strong were said

sensations that he could almost believe she was truly in the room or on the bus with him if he closed his eyes. He wondered more than once if this was what it meant to be haunted; if so he had no intentions of ever giving up the ghost.

Every last nerve in his body was ablaze by the time the tour finally came to an end, a feeling that only intensified during the ride back from the airport. He was on his way home. On his way back to Lenara at long last. The fire raged with such intensity it was all he could do to contain himself and remain still for the duration of the car ride.

He tossed more cash than the driver had earned up front, grabbed his luggage, and began to hastily retreat before the car had even come to a full stop so eager was he to get inside his home and reunite with his muse.

He envisioned her just as he’d done so many times on the road, sitting in her special room in the deep purple dress that so complimented her complexion, as he approached the large front door of his house and prepared to insert the key. Close now. Close enough to anticipate the taste of her cool smooth skin. Close enough to practically

smell her perfume. So painfully close.

“Oh, hey, Bent,” he heard a vaguely familiar voice say from behind.

It took several seconds to pull out of the fantasy, quell the flames enough to recall who the man attached to the voice was, and put on the best show of a casual smile he could manage. He’d left his neighbor Joe in charge of watching his home while he was touring – mostly to chase away any curious tourists or ballsy fans with no sense of boundaries but also to water plants and see that his pet birds were cared for. As such, he knew it was only proper to greet the man if for no other reason than to give thanks and retrieve his spare house key.

“Everything go good with the tour?” Joe was asking. “I meant to keep track of it online but we had a bad storm a couple weeks back that knocked the power out across the entire neighborhood.”

He nodded absently and uttered the usual pleasantries people liked to hear. Yes, the tour was successful. Yes, he had a great time. Yes, he was glad to be back home to finally shower and rest in the comfort of his own bed. No, he couldn’t share any of the new music he was working on.

Joe listened with the usual doe-eyed interest someone who never had and never would lead such a lifestyle usually offered, smiling with a mixture of pleasure and envy, until he announced he’d reached his limit for small talk and would like his key returned.

“Oh, right,” Joe said, laughing dumbly as if waking from a daze. “Oh! That reminds me, actually. I, uh, came running right over here to give you a heads up before you went inside. I didn’t want it to be a total surprise, you know?”

The fragile mask holding his pleasant casual smile in place grew heavy but he managed to keep it in place. “What’s that?”

“Yeah, so – the storm, you know,” Joe replied. “Well, like I said it knocked everyone’s power out for a good while. Just made a total mess of the power lines and – Right. I just wanted to let you know I did the best by you that I could.”

The mask grew heavier still. “Did the best by me?”

“Oh, I mean with your stuff,” Joe said. “I cleaned out your fridge and freezer so you wouldn’t have a bunch of rotten stuff to come home to but you didn’t give me the key to the basement so I couldn’t check it.”

The mask dropped completely. He couldn’t even think to care. Of course he hadn’t given Joe the key to the basement – there was only one in existence and he’d taken it with him just as he always took it with him no matter how long he intended to be out of the house. It was better that way. Safer.

“I thought about calling a locksmith once I noticed the bad smell but I remembered you saying that’s where your little studio is and I know you don’t like people snooping around your work stuff,” Joe was saying, yammering on and on as though he didn’t have a clue he was now mostly talking to himself. “I just… uh… didn’t want you to be mad like I didn’t care about your place getting messed up in case it’s bad down there.”

He turned his back on Joe without uttering a single word and forced himself to insert his house key and push open the front door. He dropped his luggage just inside the doorway and then simply stood there, staring vacantly down the front hallway. He could

see the rhythmic flash flash flash of the oven clock reflecting upon a wall in the distance and knew Joe was indeed being truthful about the power having gone out at some point.

His heart sank.

The door to the basement was located on the far side of the house, near the back door and kitchen, but it might as well have been miles away for all the willpower he’d need to muster to approach it. The familiar chill of hollow stillness settled into his bones as he blindly pushed the front door shut behind him without a single care of how near it was to Joe’s face. He took a deep breath against his better judgment as if he could will the scent of her perfume into being – but there was no sweetness here. Not anymore. Now there was only the decay he’d wanted so badly to avoid this time around. Nothing in the world was as tragic as a once beautiful love gone bad.

Something Wicked

I notice her almost straight away, a lovely bundle of bronzed flesh in a fitted black dress gently teasing the straw within the drinking glass before her to demonstrate the manner in which she could be teasing me. Kohl-rimmed eyes, sharply defined, full lips the color of Chardonnay. She has a ravenous glimmer within her lens tinted eyes hungry enough to suggest her capable of devouring me whole.

A full meal now and finish the rest of you for breakfast, she thinks with a sudden, wry smile.

I return the smile with one of my own and nod as I head in her direction, a smile that transmits agreement with her thought without revealing any of my own. There’s nothing wrong with the girl’s thinking, after all, or my reaction to it aside from the fact that she’s got the situation turned around. Oh, and that, unlike her, I intend the sentiment be taken quite literally.

She won’t be my first – far, far from it – but you’ve most likely guessed that already. Trying so hard, she is, and while highly entertaining it is an act tainted with redundancy. Doing her best to lead me into temptation, yes, with hardly a clue of how well I already know the way. Predator and their prey… it never fails to amaze me how often one misjudges which role they are to play.

If you’re expecting some woe for my wicked soul refrain to pop to life at this point, some proclamation of how misunderstood I am and how it’s all because my mommy loved me too much and daddy not at all, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint. I am not a redeemer – not for this hungry temptress or a lonely girl misguidedly seeking love dressed up as one – and I feel no need to seek one for myself. An idiot all too happy to wander off with the first available smile after one round too many, any person foolishly out alone or unfortunately stranded – I look upon them all as ample opportunities and therefore find each equally appealing. Gender, origins, ethnicity… details don’t matter as much when all I’m really interested in is the blood flowing underneath.

You can understand, given those facts, how little room there is for prejudice in my world but please don’t get the wrong impression of me. I have standards. I am not some bottom feeding fiend that goes looking for the first soul I can find down darkened alleys and crack dens or college universities, snatching whatever I can find without discretion. I follow the rules and tastes of aesthetics as much as possible. I go for vintage years, late 20’s to 30’s, for instance. Capturing a flower in the height of its bloom is always preferable to plucking up those marked by decay and by taking them into myself I ensure their lives aren’t taken in vain. It’s the only form of immortality I can bother to give them.

I’ve no problem with others like me but I also have no desire to make any more of them. It’s gotten complicated enough, hunting in this day and age, what with the development of cameras in every corner and all your movies and books and novel little notions of what we are clogging the industries. I’m sure you can appreciate the delicate dance stalking the fields of cement and neon for a decent day’s meal has become – especially since victims of today are more likely to snap a photo of me on their cell phones and run off to update their blogs than cower respectfully and pray. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Not so long as there are still people as welcoming as this girl here to be found. In some ways the hunt has never been easier.

By this point you’re probably thinking you’ve heard this tale before and therefore know what you’re dealing with but you’d be mistaken. We’ve never met before, you and I, and all those stories you’ve watched or heard and romanticized are mere fairytales. Better for us, of course, as misconception forges the mightiest of shields, but for me it all crossed from amusing to tedious centuries ago. We are the truth that has inspired wildfires of imagination and fantastic superstition. The lamia, the bloodsucking soul stealing wraith rumored to lurk in the night, the undead, the vampire… you can think of us as any or all of these silly words made up by mortal men and maybe gather a few threads of the greater truth. You may even come close enough to want to take precaution, try to figure out which bits of the stories are fact and which are folly, but still you will never know exactly what – where – we are.

My name, though, if you must, is Chist. Only one letter off from a certain other number one son born well after me. I think I’ve fared much better. I never trust a man too eager to lay his life on the line or the women who claim to love them. It’s rather pointless, don’t you think? Die in the name of love, for someone else’s sins… put it

however you wish but it still settles upon that irreversible payment of death and what good is that? Die with me, good. Die for me, better. So long as you take care not to take me with you.

There was a time it wasn’t easy for a creature such as I to walk about without raising an eyebrow or finding myself at the wrong end of a few dozen flaming torches. Pale skinned boys and girls with hair dark as coal are much more common in our current society, perhaps the only positive change to take note of. The obsession with expressing individuality and catering to vanity has led to dyes and colored lenses that allow people to change their birth given traits. Today irises as red as blood such as mine are in demand and barely earn a second glance around here. The human phenomenon of strangling diversity into assimilation is a beautiful thing.

Don’t misunderstand. My red eyes are a rarity, I know of none other born within our race to possess eyes like mine, and if not for them there would be nothing about my outward appearance to differentiate me from you. Just another tall, thin man of thirty or so – all arms and legs and snow white smile – strolling down the street on a particularly lovely Sunday afternoon. I prefer to dress well; it makes me seem more approachable. Respectable. Trustworthy. A nice tie, a soft articulate manner of speaking… it has all the power of flame to a moth or a lollypop to an infant.

So now we’ve met, you and I. Tonight and perhaps well into the morning I’ll be busy showing this young woman what it truly means to be devoured and then I’ll be on the move again. Perhaps next time I’ll wander into your city, your town, your place of business. I am the stuff of legends, yes, and twice as unclean. I am nothing you presume me to be, everything you think you want me to be, but please don’t concern yourself too much.

I am bersai.

You will never see me coming.

Bio:

JD has been writing since childhood and has been self-published as well as picked up through small presses.

She enjoys making creepy dolls and communes with ghosts and cats in her spare time.