Quarter to Midnight: Fifteen Horror Short Stories Read online

  Quarter to Midnight

  By Darcy Coates

  © 2015

  Cover © Rebecca Weaver 2015

  Description

  From award-winning horror author Darcy Coates comes a collection of fifteen chilling stories.

  Push past the curtains of the rational, safe world and explore the un-nameable horrors living in the darkest corners of our conscience. This is the realm of monsters and shifting shadows, where a single wrong step can plunge you into a chilling, irreversible fight for your life.

  Ideal for reading late at night when your house is dark and rain is lashing at the walls, and you feel as though you could glance up at any moment and see a chalk-white face pressed against your window.

  In this collection:

  Lights Out: There’s something very, very wrong with the new delivery for Jodie’s store. Almost as soon as the crates are brought inside, things start to go wrong. Customers seem reluctant to linger. Clothes are thrown off the racks during the middle of the night. And Jodie’s co-workers stop answering their phones.

  Mirror Man: For as long as I can remember, a dark figure has watched me through my mirror. He never speaks and hardly moves. Recently, though, he’s started to inch out of the shadows to stand closer to me.

  Crypt: In 1965, a young child went missing while he and his brother explored a disused cemetery. His brother claimed his death wasn’t an accident; that something dark and deadly lurked inside the crypt. More than fifty years later, Sara finds herself facing the gate to the abandoned graveyard, with the story of the dead child ringing in her ears…

  Whose Woods These Are: A lot has changed about Morrow Woods since Anna last visited it. A fence has been constructed around the perimeter and the campers’ parking lot has been closed. And inside the forest, Anna finds the trees are scarred with deep gashes, almost as though they’d been attacked…

  Cutty Street Lamp: No one likes passing through the lamp halfway down Cutty Street. Its glow seems a little stranger and a little bluer than its companions, and people become unwell if they step into its light.

  The Mannequin: There’s a mannequin hidden at the back of Mark’s rented basement room, and it gives him the creeps. Sometimes it throws its dust cloth off. Sometimes he feels it watching him when his back is turned. And sometimes it moves while he’s asleep…

  Dead Call: The same number has been calling me, repeatedly, for three days straight. When I answer, I hear silence. When I redial, I can make out a very faint echo, as though the other line is in a large room. No matter what I do, they just keep calling.

  Lucy: A man is passing through a small, strange town during a torrential storm. He hears a child calling for help, but the townspeople lock their doors.

  Sub Basement: The Basement Run is the most feared job in the office. When you’re sent to retrieve files from the abandoned, lightless, decaying Sub Basement, you’re likely to come out with a story or two. And the longer you spend down there, the stranger your tales become…

  The Watcher: Jasmine thought her initiation would involve a stupid prank. She definitely wasn’t expecting a challenge to guard over a shadow-filled gully at midnight. Her job: to watch for the monster that’s rumoured to lurk in the woods.

  The Mallory Haunting: A paranormal investigator is invited to explore the strange events occurring at a suburban home.

  Crawlspace: When Erica discovers a door hidden behind the wallpaper in her new bedroom, she assumes it’s a small crawlspace. There’s nothing unusual about it… except for the quiet tapping noise she can hear late at night.

  Hitchhiker: Helen’s car has broken down in the middle of nowhere. She’s following the dirt highway to the nearest town when she hears a strange car gaining on her. In less than five minutes, her world is changed forever.

  Mannering House: Friends explore a rumoured haunted house with a notoriously bloody history.

  Station 331: Three women, living and working on a remote moon station, are conducting a routine patrol when they come across an alien creature they’ve never seen before. It doesn’t match any entries in their database, and, rather than calling for backup from their ward planet, they decide to deal with it themselves… with terrifying consequences.

  Contents

  LIGHTS OUT

  MIRROR MAN

  CRYPT

  WHOSE WOODS THESE ARE

  CUTTY STREET LAMP

  THE MANNEQUIN

  DEAD CALL

  LUCY

  SUB BASEMENT

  THE WATCHER

  THE MALLORY HAUNTING

  CRAWLSPACE

  HITCHIKER

  MANNERING HOUSE

  STATION 331

  Author’s Note

  LIGHTS OUT

  Jodie swore under her breath as she balled her frozen hands into fists and pushed them under her arms, trying to warm them. Her fingers felt like ice that could snap off at any moment. Beside her, Earl lit a cigarette and puffed on it until the smoulder took hold. His eyes were bloodshot under swollen lids, and deep crevices around the corners of his mouth told Jodie he was working off a hangover.

  On her other side, Miho huddled against the loading dock’s brickwork, bundled up in layers of coats and scarves. Her nose was red, barely visible above the fur lining of the jacket she’d pulled up around her ears, and she kept sniffing and rubbing at it with the back of her knitted glove.

  Jodie pulled one hand out and checked her watch. It was ten past. She swore again.

  “I say we go back inside and let them bring ’em in themselves,” Earl said.

  “Your dad would have our necks,” Jodie retorted. The words came out more harshly than she’d meant them to, but Earl didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ve already told him I’m not working here anymore.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke in a slow stream. “I’m a damn laughing stock, working in a girl’s clothing store.”

  Jodie bit her tongue. The cold was making her want to bicker, but she knew better than to upset the boss’s son. Besides, he wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t been able to hold down any other job, and though he said he hated the supposed degradation of being surrounded by fashion, he enjoyed partying too much to give up his only source of income.

  “It’s here,” Miho said with evident relief. She pushed off the wall and started hopping from foot to foot, trying to get some warmth into her legs as she watched the truck backing into the loading dock. Its flashing lights and an intermittent beep warned of its arrival. Earl squinted his eyes closed as though that could block out the sound.

  Jodie waited until the truck came to a stop, its rear roller doors facing them, then shuffled towards the cabin. A wave of heat swept over her face as the driver rolled down the window and gave her a toothy grin. “Enjoying the weather?” he asked, passing the clipboard out for her to sign.

  “Yeah, it’s a gorgeous spring day, huh?” Jodie said, forcing a smile. Outside, the loading dock’s doors was obscured by sheets of heavy rain that blurred the outlines of the trees just beyond the parking lot.

  “You got it from here?” The driver took the clipboard back. Jodie noticed a well-worn novel on the passenger seat and a refillable mug filled with some steaming substance in the cup holder.

  “Yeah, we’ll be right.” She, Earl, and Miho were already freezing and miserable; there was no point dragging the driver out to help them when he so clearly wanted to enjoy his break in the truck’s warm cabin.

  Jodie shuffled to the back of the truck again, where Earl had already pulled up the roller doors. Miho stood by with the trolley as Jodie climbed into the back of the truck.

  She found eight wooden crates st
rapped to the truck’s floor. As she started to unbuckle them, a chilled sensation that had nothing to do with the cold crawled down Jodie’s back. She sometimes got the feeling late at night, when her apartment suddenly seemed wildly too big and too empty for her, and she would pause the TV to listen, convinced she’d heard a door open, and imagine she heard footsteps, foreign and heavy, creeping across the scratched wooden floors.

  The sensation was so strong that she stopped, one hand holding the strap’s buckle. Her other hand rested on the lid of the crate, which was long, narrow, and large enough for a person to fit inside. Like a crude coffin. Jodie dropped the buckle and stepped back, the sensation growing stronger, digging its claws into her chest and gnawing at her stomach. She imagined opening one of the wooden boxes, pushing aside the packing material to find a face, blanched white from death, eyes stitched closed, hands clasped over its suited chest, waiting for her.

  “What’s’er matter?” Earl slurred around his cigarette. His small eyes were scowling at her as he stood over his own crate. The sound of his voice snapped Jodie back to reality. She took a deep breath and shook her head.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Let’s hurry and get out of this damned cold.”

  They managed to squeeze four crates onto the trolley, stacking them on top of each other. Earl and Miho stood on either side, bracing the wooden boxes, while Jodie pulled the handle, guiding their cargo through the concrete back passageways of the shopping centre.

  Their store was in the eastern end of the Inglebrook Centre. The complex was nearly two decades old, but scrupulous cleaning and frequent renovations kept it looking brand-new. The public enjoyed polished tile floors, natural lighting via the glass ceiling, and frequent clusters of potted palm trees and shrubs that were so shiny they looked fake upon first glance.

  Jodie got to see a very different part of the centre, though: the back passageways used by the cleaners and store staff to carry equipment through the building without disturbing the carefully cultivated atmosphere of the public section. There were no polished-tile floors in the back passageways, no potted plants, and no air conditioning. The back held only concrete, which showed its age with discoloured patches and stains, and weak fluorescent lights that cast a sickly glow over the tunnels. Jodie felt like a maid in a historical novel, condemned to use the servants’ passageways to travel through her wealthy lord’s manor.

  “Can you go any faster?” Earl barked. “I’m freezing back here.”

  “They’re ceramic,” Jodie retorted, “and I’m not about to explain to the boss that we dropped and broke them.”

  Earl muttered something under his breath, but Jodie ignored him. They were almost at the door that opened into their shop’s cramped storage room. It would be warmer there—and brighter.

  “Careful!” Miho shrieked, and Earl shouted a series of expletives. Jodie turned to see that the top crate had shifted, slipping off its pile, and Earl was struggling to get it back on.

  “What did I just say?” Jodie snapped, hurrying to help him. For the second time that morning, her words came out harsher than she’d intended, and Earl noticed. He gave the crate a final, hard shove to get it back into place then turned on Jodie, his bloodshot eyes furious.

  “It wasn’t my fault. Miho pushed it!”

  “I didn’t!” the girl squeaked from behind the crates. “I was just holding it, and it started falling towards you!”

  “Liar!” he yelled back, his voice cracking. “You shoved it really damn hard. You were trying to get me into trouble.”

  “Enough!” Jodie pressed her numb fingers to the bridge of her nose, where a headache had started. “I don’t care what happened. It didn’t fall, it didn’t break, and Mr Heinlein has nothing to yell at us about. That’s the main thing.”

  Earl didn’t look happy, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. Jodie wrenched their storage room door open and carefully guided the trolley inside. The small area was stuffed with far too much stock; shelves on one wall held bags full of laybys, and racks were crowded with shirts and dresses that hadn’t fit into the front store or were damaged and waiting to be returned. They’d carved a space in one corner by stacking boxes full of clothes and bags up to the ceiling to make room for their delivery. They carefully unstacked the crates, laying them upright in the narrow space.

  The door at the opposite end of the room opened, and a small, mousy woman with large teeth poked her head in. “You’re back?” She sounded breathless, as if she’d just run a marathon. “Thank goodness. There are at least eight people waiting to be rung up, and the crazy lady’s back.”

  That’s the last thing we need today, Jodie thought, smothering a groan.

  “I’m going to get the rest of the boxes off the truck.” Earl’s voice sounded uncharacteristically bright. “Better not keep the driver waiting.”

  “I’ll help you!” Miho took hold of the trolley’s handle and pushed it towards the door, which Earl held open, their fight forgotten in their mutual desire to escape the storefront.

  Allie, her eyes huge and pleading, hovered in the doorway. Jodie shrugged at her. “Guess it’s just you and me. I’ll take the crazy lady.”

  “Thank you,” Allie breathed, and darted back into the store. Before following her co-worker, Jodie glanced at the crates, which stood just over head height once they were upright. Tall and imposing, the boxes looked even more like coffins than they had on the truck. Their bare, cheap wood took on a strangely gloomy tone in the harsh lights of the storeroom.

  Movement caught Jodie’s eyes, and she started as one of the crates near the back rocked slightly then stilled. Probably something in it was settling.

  Jodie hesitated for another moment, her hand on the doorknob, worried that the rocking crate was a sign that they might topple. They held firm, though, stacked like impractically tall dominoes, sending thick shadows running up the walls behind them. Allie called her name, the girl’s voice tense with stress under her thin veneer of polite friendliness, and Jodie let herself through the door.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time. She leaned on the store’s counter, holding a bag of clothing in front of her. To her right, Allie swiped clothes across the barcode scanner, checking out customers as quickly as she could. Her spiel was the same every time: “Found everything all right? Do you have a rewards account? Cash or card? Would you like a bag for that?”

  Mrs Danvers, their crazy lady, stood in front of Jodie. Her small eyes were watery, their irises so dark that they looked like little pits of coal in her face. She kept licking her lips as though it were a compulsion, while she repeatedly nudged the bag towards Jodie.

  “I want to return them,” she said, speaking slowly, as though Jodie were too stupid to understand her. “I have the receipt.”

  Here we go again. Getting Mrs Danvers out of the shop in under ten minutes was a miracle. They’d been going at it for nearly twelve by that point, and Jodie’s patience was wearing thin.

  The first time she’d met Mrs Danvers, she’d assumed the older, overweight woman had a mental disorder. With each visit, though, she’d become more and more convinced that Mrs Danvers was completely sane, but had developed a habit of repeating the same phrases over and over again, like a dog that refused to release its bone, knowing that, eventually, she would win simply by wearing her opponent down.

  Not with me. Not today.

  “These clothes are outside the month return policy,” Jodie repeated, forcing herself to speak calmly, echoing the phrase as though it had become her life motto. “And they show significant signs of wear and tear.”

  “I haven’t worn them,” Mrs Danvers objected, licking her lips again.

  “This one has lipstick stains on it.” Jodie pulled the clothes out of the bag one by one. “This shirt has a tear down one side. This singlet has stains under the arms. And this skirt isn’t even from our store.”

  Mrs Danvers turned her head to one side, her shrewd eyes narrowed. “I want to
speak with your manager.”

  “I am the manager.” Jodie gripped the bag in both hands to stop herself from giving in to the temptation to shake the older woman.

  “I have the receipt.” Again, the thick tongue, moist and flabby, slipped out to wet the cracked lips. “I want to return these clothes.”

  Allie shot Jodie a sympathetic glance as she bagged a customer’s purchases. No one liked dealing with Mrs Danvers. Jodie was the best at it, but she usually had to take a break afterwards. She would go into the storage room and punch the bags of clothing or glare at the stain on the ceiling and pretend it was Mrs Danvers’s face while rehearsing of the things she would say if there was no risk of being fired. “You’re banned from the store for life. Never return!” was always at the top of her list. She was sure Mrs Danvers had already been black-listed from most of the other clothing stores in the centre. But Mr Heinlein, their boss, had a strict—and, in Jodie’s opinion, idiotic—policy of never turning away customers.

  “No,” she said, speaking so loudly and firmly that the customers waiting in the checkout line stared at her. “You may not return these clothes. You bought them more than eight months ago, and you’ve clearly worn them multiple times. You cannot return them.”

  The tongue darted out again. Mrs Danvers turned her head to the other side, her beady black eyes never leaving Jodie’s face. After a moment of thought, she said, “I want to speak to the manager. I need to return these clothes. They don’t fit right. I have the receipt.”

  “No,” Jodie said, biting down on the frustration and lowering her voice. “No, no, no, no. You’re not returning these clothes.”