Year's End: 14 Tales of Holiday Horror (7 page)

“I see.”

“Maybe I should go.”

Walters pulled himself up and slid onto the desk, his feet just hitting the ground. “Nothing of the sort, my friend. Those goals are useless because they’re not what you desire.” He looked at his long fingernails as if he expected them to grow, then back at me. “Do you know what you truly desire, Mr. Lambert?”

I searched every corner of my brain. There were things I liked, some I wanted, but none that I “truly desired.”

“Not really.”

“Don’t feel bad. Most men haven’t a clue consciously. The answers are all tightly locked up in their subconscious. The only way to set them free is through the audio-graph.”

“What?”

“The audio-graph is a machine that plays recorded sounds which tap into the decision-making sections of your brain. They help to release your true aspirations to the conscious mind.”

“I don’t know if my wife…”

He held up a wrinkled palm. “I understand, Mr. Lambert. But if you do what you truly want, you’ll be a much happier person. And wouldn’t that make your wife happier?”

“I suppose.”

“I guarantee things will be much better for you after using the audio-graph. And the great thing is you only need one session.”

“One session? How can that be?”

“We’ve found that the longer you spend trying to reach your desires, the less chance there is of accomplishing them.”

I weighed what he said and finally decided to go through with it. What could I lose? And I could sure use some happiness in my life. Walters gave me earphones, and as I lay back in the leather chair, strange sounds blew into my brain. They reminded me of a high school orchestra where all the instruments were out of tune. And yet, I felt compelled to listen. Emotions appeared and disappeared, and then re-appeared—anger, sadness, fury. Finally, a calmness swept over me. I removed the earphones and sat up.

“How do you feel, Mr. Lambert?”

“Bit of a headache.”

“Most of our clients get that. It’s to do with our conscious mind knowing for the first time what it truly wants and being anxious to get started. It will go away once you’ve attained your resolutions. There are three you will accomplish tonight.

“But I don’t even know what they are.”

He patted my shoulder. “Your mind does. That’s all that matters. Of course, as a precautionary measure, they’re recorded in the audio-graph.”

He took my address so that he could bill me and I left. I looked at my watch and saw that it was a quarter to ten. I needed to go meet Angela, yet when I started driving, I seemed to be travelling in the opposite direction. My hands were automatically making wrong turns. I tried to force them to steer in the other direction, but they wouldn’t budge.

It bothered me at first, but then I realized it must be from the audio-graph session. I wasn’t too worried, as Walters had told me that my mind knew what it was doing.

A short time later, I parked the car in front of my accountant’s house—Sydney Roberts. I didn’t know why. Perhaps subconsciously, I had wanted to spend time with him. After all, he had no one in his life—a recent divorce, no friends. I had always felt sorry for him.

However, last week, I’d discovered that he’d kept a hundred dollars I’d given him for his cousin’s MS charity. I thought he might have just forgotten about it, but he claimed he’d handed it to the donations chairman. I’d decided to have it out with him in the future, but not tonight—New Year’s Eve and all.

Sydney, a short balding man with large eyeglasses, greeted me with a wide grin. He seemed to be happy for the company. We had a drink in his kitchen and talked.

“I really appreciate you coming over tonight, Randy. It does get lonely now that the wife’s gone.”

Suddenly, my mouth began moving of its own accord. “You never fucking handed my money to the charity, did you?”

What was I saying? I didn’t mean to talk about that.

He flushed red. “Yeah, of course, I did.”

I tried to close my mouth, but my lips seemed to have a mind of their own. “Don’t lie, scumbag. I hired you when you had nothing and this is how you treat me?”

He looked at me, pain in his eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry. And this is no excuse, but my aunt had developed dementia and I needed every scrap of money I could find for home care. I wanted to tell you. I…I…just didn’t know how.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

I sighed, relieved. I felt normal again. I stood to go, but my body began moving toward one of his drawers. My hands whipped out a steak knife and sliced through his chest.

Sydney looked down at his chest in disbelief. “What did you…?”

I sliced through his chest again.

Sydney let out a tormented howl and fell to the ground, blood filling his shirt.

I stared at the horror I had just caused, feeling faint. But then adrenaline kicked in and I raced to my car
.

What had I done? Sure, he had kept my money, but he didn’t deserve to die. Suddenly, my hand started the car and I began driving.

Then it hit me. Had this been one of the resolutions locked away in my subconscious? To murder Sydney because he stole a puny hundred dollars? I couldn’t believe I had that kind of vengeance inside me.

I zigzagged through side streets to the restaurant so I could meet Angela. But somehow, I ended up at 22 Balmour Avenue. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know anyone who lived here.

Or did I?

A tall women with short red hair answered the door. My mouth worked by itself again. “Hello, is Tom Leeman here?” I heard the name come out of my mouth and then remembered it. He had bullied me when I attended high school.

An aged Tom came to the door, still with the same pudgy cheeks, big ears.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if you remember me, but you used to beat me up.”

I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “You’re John Lambert.”

I nodded.

He seemed sad for a moment, then spread his hands. “I’m very sorry about that. I treated a lot of people badly in those days. Spent years in therapy to figure everything out. I’ve since turned my life around. Became a minister. However, I can understand if you still harbour ill will toward me.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I forgive you.”

He smiled. I turned around to go. But, then my legs began to move on their own, turning back toward the door. My hands grabbed hold of them, trying to force them to move elsewhere, but they kept moving forward.

I stood in front of Leeman again.

“Forget something?”

“Yes.” I banged his head against the door hard, ten times. Just like he had done to me so many years back. He gasped, fell to the ground, blood pouring from his head. His wife came to the door and screamed.

I ran into the car, my whole body trembling, breathing hard.

I had turned into a monster.

Walters had told me there were three resolutions. I had to stop the third from happening. But my hand already held the keys and was about to insert them into the ignition. I seized the keys with my other hand and threw them to the ground. Then I reached for my cell phone and dialled Walters’ number.

“What have you done?” I screamed into the phone. “I’ve killed two people. I have to stop this.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lambert. Once the process is begun, it cannot be halted.”

“There must be a way.”

“Afraid not.”

“Can you at least tell me what I’m going to do next? Maybe I can prevent it.”

I didn’t hear anything for a moment, then he spoke in a low tone. “Okay, because it’s your first time with us, Mr. Lambert, I’ll make an exception. I will decipher your files from the audio-graph.”

While I had been talking on the phone, my left hand had reached down, clutched the keys and started the car. My right hand latched onto the steering wheel and began turning it.

I slammed my foot on the brake to stop the car from moving.

I heard Walters’ voice. “Okay, the third resolution is that you’re going to kill your boss.”

“That can’t be. He’s generous, a good man.”

“Obviously you don’t truly think that.”

“This can’t be happening.”

“Mr. Lambert. We didn’t put these resolutions into your mind. It’s the nature of man to seek revenge for past hurts. Apparently, at your core, you have a lot of unresolved issues. Just the way it is. We merely free your unconscious to deal with things as it sees fit.”

He hung up and my foot lifted from the brake. My hands held tight onto the steering wheel and the car began moving.

Another murder would not happen. I would not allow it. Using all my strength, I forced the car down Denison Avenue rather than the boss’s street.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

A few minutes later, I arrived at the restaurant to meet Angela. My mind fired a thousand thoughts at me, but I refused to think about the dreadful acts I’d committed till I was in a safe place. I searched through the restaurant but couldn’t find Angela. I looked at my watch—ten thirty. Crap, she must be at the hotel.

I sped down to the Triumph Towers, my hands and feet seeming to do my bidding now. I raced up to the room.

I knocked at the door. Angela answered, looking furious. “Where the hell were you? You promised you’d be at the restaurant by nine.”

“Honey, it’s been a terrible night.”

“You don’t know terrible. I sat alone, waiting for an hour straight.”

“I killed two people.”

She grimaced. “You didn’t go to the resolution place, did you? You went drinking with your buddies instead. I ask you to do one thing and you can’t even do that. I had the whole evening planned.”

I had to make her understand. I put my hands on her shoulders, looked her straight in the eyes. “I was going to kill my boss.”

At that moment, I realized I had misunderstood, as my hands slowly crept their way up Angela’s neck and squeezed.

Trigger

Leah Givens

Showtime.
Ray’s fingers tingled at the controls. First time shooting fireworks at this field. And it couldn’t come soon enough. He stood, grabbed the cold metal doorknob of the booth and pulled to let in the freezing night. How many times had he ignited the new year with the flick of a switch? Close to twenty years, as though his father had beaten it into him. Never here, though, the perfect location, a plateau of land that dropped off to yield an open sky. Just the nine o’clock kiddie show, and still his skin itched to get started. He reached fingernails down to scratch underneath his T-shirt, his hand running over a hilly landscape of belt-buckle scars.

Snow and blankets patchworked the field.
Hundreds of people must be here, probably half the town.
The proposal to raze Pine Hill Wild Bird Conservatory had promised a good show, plus plenty of other uses for a tree-free place. Enough to stomp down protests from environmentalists that the old forest held something sacred: if not the birds, then the Indian burial grounds beneath. Eagles that had nested there for ages could move on, officials argued, and old Indian myths held no meaning nowadays. A clearcutting began, one that wouldn’t quite satisfy either side.
I guess
this compromise works best; a small empty field, and a half-ring of woods left behind.

One last glance at his watch. Ray shut the door and sat down again. Through the booth he heard the crowd’s countdown: “Three, two, one…” Adrenaline buzzed his fingertips as he flipped the red switch.

Why am I so excited? I could describe the whole sequence from memory.
Ray focused on the small booth window. Sure enough, the intro blast—a pink burst like a rose with green streaks as foliage. The booth’s walls hummed with cheers and claps.
Ah.
He settled in the chair to watch, chuckling at himself.
Same show every year, but the kid in me always wants to see the lights.

Next up, the ice-blue spider design. Ray’s eyes anticipated familiar sparks of color in the darkness.
Wait, what?
A low, fuming boom jolted him to standing.
Oh, crap, this isn’t supposed to…
His hands floundered for the phone on the wall while his eyes held to the sky. A tiny ball of light exploded into limitless brightness; the view through his window transformed from black to entirely white.

What on Earth?
The shock stopped him in place. From the center of his vision sprung a mass of birds, large as eagles yet feathered white all over. They all flew outwards, blazing across the sky, wings loud in unsynchronized flapping. Silence fell as they disappeared. Moments later, the brightness departed too. Night ruled again through his window, and the darkness looked blacker than ever.

Ray reached for the doorknob as if by instinct.
This is my show; I’m responsible.
Amidst the rush of his mind, he could hear a mix of yells and cries outside.
What am I going to tell them? It might help if
I
knew.
He opened the booth’s door; cold air swirled in and around him. With the wind he felt the presence of his father alight on his shoulders, like a coat—only this coat chilled him more than the winter night. He shivered, then exaggerated the movement, as if trying to shake off the heaviness, an anger that bit harder than rough wool.

“You
fucking
moron
!” a raspy voice yelled. Ray, startled, looked for the source. He saw a thin figure sitting on snow-littered grass a few feet away.
God, is he talking to me? I didn’t mean to…

“Hey, that’s not necessary!” shouted Big Ed of Ed’s Everything, his figure hard to miss, bundled on a nearby blanket. “I’m having some weird déjà-vu of my wife leaving. And you’re calling
me
stupid?”

“Plus, this is supposed to be ‘kid-friendly,’” Ray added, shaky but glad to be relieved of blame.

The cigarette-scarred voice continued, louder and louder. “You are a
louse
on a
hound
. No, you’re a spot the sun forgot to burn…not good enough for a
chicken
to pick from its claws!”

“Hey, man!” Ed said. “No one deserves that kind of abuse! Is it even me you’re mad at? What did I ever do to you?”