Quarter to Midnight: Fifteen Horror Short Stories Read online

  We did. It was a quiet night, and Todd was becoming fidgety by the time a woman entered the street from a side lane and began walking towards the light. I poked my cousin to get his attention then nodded to the lady. She had her hands in her jacket pockets and was watching the road in front of her, apparently absorbed in her own thoughts. Just as she approached the edge of the light, though, she changed course and stepped onto the road. We watched as she walked in a neat semi-circle, leaving at least a foot between herself and the glowing circle cast on the concrete, before returning to the pathway and continuing on her journey.

  Todd didn’t say anything, but he didn’t take his eyes off the woman until he’d seen her walk straight through the light cast by the normal lamp down the road. Then he turned to me. “Okay, that was cool.”

  I kept my face serious as I nodded, but I was rejoicing inside. “Okay, we can go back now. There’s still fifteen minutes until mum’s program ends, so if we hurry—”

  “Not yet.” Todd slipped off the brick wall. “I want to check this out.”

  Nervousness fluttered in my stomach as I followed Todd across the road. “Hey,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual, “we can’t hang around. If mum finds us missing—”

  “Shut up. This will only take a minute.”

  Todd paused just outside the circle of blueish light, staring up at the lamp. I hovered ten feet away. I’d loved watching people circumnavigate the light, but I’d never considered passing through it myself.

  Todd spent half a minute staring at the lamp then stepped directly into the light. The blue glow cast strange shadows on his face, giving him a sickly grey pallor. His eyebrows pulled into a scowl as he turned to looked at me. He opened his mouth, but closed it again, apparently deciding against whatever he’d been going to say. He looked a lot less comfortable than he had a minute before.

  “Okay,” I said, anxiety seeping into my voice, “you’ve seen the lamp. Let’s go.”

  Todd looked upwards. His eyes widened as he gazed directly at the light, then his face contorted. A horrible high whine filled my ears, and I realised it was coming from Todd’s open mouth. He seemed to be trying to scream but couldn’t get the noise to form properly. His eyes bugled, and sweat beaded over his forehead. Every muscle in his face strained, and veins stood out over his forehead like purple worms. Tears started to leak from the corner of his eyes, mingling with the perspiration on his cheeks, as he stared directly into the light.

  I screamed his name, but he either couldn’t hear me or couldn’t react. His jaw stretched wider, and the whine became higher then cut off abruptly as Todd went completely limp and crumpled to the ground.

  My heart beat painfully in my throat as I stood frozen on the sidewalk. Todd wasn’t moving, and he was still inside the circle of light. The entirety of my being screamed against the idea of getting any closer, but I couldn’t leave Todd. I squinted my eyes nearly closed, lunged forward and plunged both hands into the blue-tinted glow. In that terrible second that my hands were inside the light, I felt it—the air was charged with a faint electric current. My skin prickled, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. It felt like what I’d imagined radiation would feel like, but at the same time, it had an otherworldly sensation, like that column of air belonged to a different plane.

  My fingers seized the back of my cousin’s jacket, and I hauled him out of the light as quickly as I could. I dragged Todd at least ten feet away from the lamp before rolling him over to look at him. His face was frozen in that horrible grimace, eyes open, a small smear of blood marking where his temple had hit the sidewalk. He was as pale as a ghost and completely still.

  My memories from the rest of that night are disjointed and strange. I don’t know if I ran for help or if someone found us, though I suspect it was the latter. I have a clear image of riding in the passenger seat of our car as my mum drove in the wake of the wailing ambulance. As tears ran down her face, I realised I’d done something unforgivable when I’d told Todd about our lamp.

  I remember sitting in the waiting room, listening to the doctor explain to my mother that my cousin had suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died at the scene. Todd had only been thirteen. He’d been healthy, active, and had no history of heart problems. My mother turned to look at me, her eyes swimming with grief and terrible knowledge. Neither of us dared say it, but we both knew the light had taken Todd’s life.

  I never went near the streetlamp again. If I needed to get to the town centre, I took a longer route to skirt around Cutty Steet completely. I never spoke about it, didn’t let myself think about it, and tried to ignore the persistent nightmares. It was a relief when we moved to a different town some years later, though it looks like I’ll never completely escape the light.

  I’m twenty-six now and was recently diagnosed with cancerous growths in both of my hands. The doctors say a combination of surgery and chemo has a good chance of being successful, but I don’t think the light will let me go that easily. I’ve had an idea lately–a crazy, crazy idea–about making a pilgrimage back to my hometown. My mother passed away a few years back, so there’s no voice of reason to dissuade me. If I’m going to die, it’ll be on my own terms. I want to go back and see the lamp again. I want to stand in its light. I want to know, once and for all, what it is.

  I want to see what Todd saw.

  THE MANNEQUIN

  I followed Geoff down the stairs to the basement, keeping a few feet behind him as he wheezed and grunted his way to the landing. I suspected he didn’t get down to the lowest level of his home very often. By the time he unlocked the heavy wooden door, his face was flushed and sweaty.

  “This is it,” he announced, ushering me into the concrete room. “It’s a bit messy, but…”

  I looked around. A single mattress, old and frayed, rested in the middle of the floor. It was surrounded by dozens of boxes of all shapes and sizes, as well as furniture shrouded in blankets. A barred, grimy window was positioned nearly at the top of the wall, letting in a narrow square of sunlight.

  “Nah, it’ll be fine,” I said. “Fifty bucks a week, right?”

  “That’s right.” Geoff hitched his pants as high as they would go under his bulging stomach. “You can use the bathroom and kitchen upstairs, too. Just clean up after yourself and replace any groceries you take.”

  I nodded and approached the mattress. There were a more than a few disconcerting stains on it, but Geoff had been considerate enough to leave a stack of clean sheets, blankets, and a new pillow at the bed’s foot. I dropped my backpack–which held the entirety of my worldly possessions–beside the bed.

  “You can move the boxes and stuff around to give yourself more room,” Geoff said, hitching his pants up again as he backed towards the door. “Most of it’s junk, anyway. I never got around to cleaning it out. But there’re some tables and a chair and stuff you can use. Just don’t break anything, and we’re good, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks, man.”

  “Later,” Geoff grunted, closing the door behind himself. His huffing and groaning echoed through the room as he pulled his large frame up the stairwell.

  I turned back to the basement and gave it a closer look. There was dust everywhere, and some of the boxes looked as though they hadn’t been opened in decades.

  When my girlfriend and I had broken up, we’d both said some pretty rash things. In retrospect, “No, don’t bother. Keep the flat—I’m leaving,” was one of my less-thought-out statements. I was between jobs and didn’t have much in the way of savings, so it was pure good fortune that a friend at uni had told me how his uncle Geoff wanted to rent out his basement. It wasn’t pretty, but it was cheap and didn’t come with a contract, so I couldn’t complain much.

  I made the bed quickly, out of eagerness to cover up the yellowed stains more than anything, then started working on making my new home more liveable. There was hardly any room to stand, so I began pulling boxes away from the bed and stacked them against the walls as high
as I could reach. Moving them caused showers of dust and grime to rain down on me, sending me into sneezing fits. One of the boxes rustled suspiciously. Whether it held mice or a cockroach nest, I couldn’t have been sure, but I shoved it out of the way as quickly as I could and then dusted my filthy hands on my pants.

  I pulled the drapery off the furniture to see if any of it was useful. I found a spindly wooden rocking chair, which I set under the narrow window, and a small, round coffee table that could double as a bedside stand and a place to eat dinner. I was tempted to make use of the giant mahogany wardrobe that was missing one door, but my clothing storage needs were better met by the coatrack I found and placed beside the door.

  Most of the other furniture–the broken washing machine, the unplugged mini-fridge, the bookcase, and the foldable camping chairs–weren’t much use, so I replaced their cloths and left them where they were.

  One final piece of furniture, tall and narrow, was nestled in the corner, behind boxes and a few crates of what looked like children’s toys. Hoping it might be useful, I struggled to it, but when I pulled away its cloth, I was disappointed and a little disturbed to find a mannequin.

  The naked figure stood nearly a head taller than I did, and it was made of a smooth, slate-grey ceramic. Its masculine face was tilted upwards to gaze at a corner of the room.

  It seemed shockingly lifelike, even though its features were only abstract imitations of the real things. The smooth surface below its eyebrows gave the impression of a steady gaze, even though the face had no eyes. The lips were set in a hard line below high cheekbones, and its arms were held out in some unfathomable gesture. Its long fingers were devoid of nails, creases, and fingerprints, but somehow, they seemed just as human as my own.

  I threw the cloth back over its bald head and rearranged the fabric to ensure every part of the mannequin was covered, then I replaced the boxes and crates in front of it.

  My back was aching, and I figured the room was about as organised as I could bother making it. Dust and whorls of grime still coated the floor, and my every step kicked up small puffs. I hadn’t found a broom during my cleaning, but I supposed Geoff wouldn’t mind if I asked to borrow his.

  I jogged up the stairs and let myself through the door at the top. Geoff’s house was large, and he’d only shown me the way from the front door to the basement. As I hesitated on the landing, wondering if it would be less rude to go looking for him or to call his name, my phone beeped. I pulled it out and saw two missed messages: one from Tony, asking if I wanted to meet him and the guys at the local pub to celebrate my breakup, and another from Clive, saying they were all waiting for me.

  A grin slid across my face as I texted back, saying I would be there in ten minutes. Forgetting the broom, I raced back down the stairs to get my wallet and jacket. I watched the signal on my phone as I descended, and the bars disappeared about halfway down the stairs. Clearly, the basement was a dead zone for wi-fi. It was annoying, but I was willing to put up with a lot in exchange for cheap rent.

  I opened the door and froze as I felt eyes watching me. I looked to my left and saw the mannequin’s head, barely visible above the stacked boxes, staring in my direction.

  I dropped my phone into my pocket then circled the boxes to escape the gaze of the statue. I mustn’t have put the cloth on properly, I realised. A breeze from the open door had probably caused it to slide off.

  A minute of puffing and clambering got me next to the mannequin. I gathered the fabric from where it was pooled around his feet then threw it back over him, being extra careful to make sure it would stay put before I extracted myself from the storage area.

  The pub wasn’t far from Geoff’s house, and I got there in good time. My four friends were already halfway to drunk, so I made quick work of a pint of beer to catch up to them. When Clive asked me to share some of the ways my ex had wronged me, Tony had the bright idea to turn it into a drinking game.

  We ordered a tray of shots and drank every time I told a story that made my friends hoot in disgust. They were pre-disposed to hate my ex, and eager to drink, so it wasn’t long before we were plastered.

  We left—or we might have been kicked out; I really can’t remember—shortly after midnight. I don’t have any memory of finding my way home, but I did, which was a bit of a miracle, truthfully, as I’d only been there once before. I remember fumbling with my keys for what felt like an eternity before I realised I was trying to use the one from my old apartment. When I finally let myself into the house, I tried to creep towards my basement so I wouldn’t wake Geoff, but I had forgotten where it was and ended up looping through the house twice before I found the right door. If Geoff heard me, he was generous enough not to disturb my drunken roving.

  I woke up the next morning with a dry mouth and a splitting headache. I lay there, prone on my dust-covered mattress, for as long as I could before my bladder threatened mutiny. I pulled myself to my feet, ready to stagger upstairs, and nearly walked into the mannequin.

  It stood at the foot of my bed, its arms splayed out as though to welcome an embrace, its head tilted down to angle its non-existent gaze on me as I slept. I stumbled away from it, became tangled in my bedsheets, slipped, and caught myself on one of the boxes. My headache flared, and for a moment, I thought I would be sick on the floor. Then as I closed my eyes and breathed the dusty air through my nose, memories of the night before filtered through my mind. I remembered spinning around with the mannequin, laughing at how serious he looked and telling him he was almost stiff enough to be a replica of my ex.

  For whatever reason, Drunk Me must have thought it would be a brilliant idea to pull the mannequin out from the corner of the room and set him up to watch over me as I slept. I cursed, shambled around the statue, and stomped up the stairs.

  I’d slept in my clothes and still had my wallet in my pocket, so after relieving myself and splashing water over my face, I decided it would be less painful to go outside than hide in the cramped, dusty basement. I went to one of my favourite local cafés. There was a corner with dim lighting, and the servers knew me well enough that they wouldn’t pester me too often, so I hunkered down to drink coffee and wait out my hangover.

  By the time I felt like a human being again, I was late for a uni lecture I couldn’t miss and had to jog to get there on time. Afterwards, Tony invited me to tag along for dinner at a barbecue one of his work friends was throwing. In the end, I didn’t get back to Geoff’s house until late that night. When I opened the basement door, I was surprised to see the mannequin standing beside the rocking chair under the window.

  I paused in the doorway, confused and alarmed, until I realised Geoff must have moved it. When he hadn’t seen me that morning, he’d probably come downstairs to check on me and found the mannequin poised above my bed. It must have confused him and likely disturbed him a little, so he’d moved it.

  Great. Now he thinks I put the mannequin there on purpose. Talk about making a first impression.

  I sighed and half-heartedly kicked my bedsheets back into an approximation of where they should have been then flopped on top of them. When I split from my ex, I’d left just about everything I owned at our apartment–including my clothes, my laptop, and my uni books. I would need to ask for them back soon, but I dreaded having to carry them the twenty minutes from her apartment to my new basement. I supposed I could ask Tony for help–he was a solid friend and would brave my ex with me like a champ–but I was still holding out for slightly nicer, less-cramped accommodations, preferably without a mannequin.

  I rolled over to look at the ceramic figure. He stood beside the rocking chair, his arms hung limp by his sides, and his face was turned to observe the door. His sightless gaze was disquieting, even when he wasn’t looking at me.

  Sighing, I got up, approached the mannequin and gripped its arms. The fake skin was colder than I’d expected, almost as if he’d been sitting in a fridge. I shuddered, ground my teeth, tightened my grip on the muscular biceps, and bega
n dragging the statue back towards the corner.

  It was heavier than I’d expected, and I was winded by the time I reached the crates and boxes blocking me from his corner. It was incredible that Drunk Me had managed to pull him out the night before.

  I looked at the boxes, judged them to be too numerous and heavy to struggle through and decided it would be easier to leave the mannequin on my side of them. I pushed him into a gap between two boxes, turned him to face the corner, and borrowed the cloth from on top of the mahogany wardrobe to drape over him. When I was done, it was almost possible to pretend he wasn’t there at all.

  I went upstairs to brush my teeth, shower, and check for messages on my phone. When I got back into the basement, I barely spared a glance at my cloth-covered companion before sliding into bed. I rolled over to face the window and lay there for almost an hour before sleep finally claimed me.

  My dreams were disjointed. I imagined I was in uni, taking an exam I hadn’t studied for. Whenever I looked at the words, they squiggled across the page like worms and resettled in new places to form completely different questions. A tall, dark man with a smooth face stood beside me while I struggled to erase an incorrect answer, and as I watched the words writhe across the pages again, he bent down to whisper in my ear, “Close your eyes.”

  I sat up with a jolt. Pale light filtered through the window, telling me it was morning. I fumbled for my phone on the bedside table. The clock on my phone confirmed it was just after seven, so I got up and searched for fresh clothes on the coatrack.

  I only had three shirts and two pairs of pants, and they were all grimy with settled dust. Grumbling, I shook one of the shirts and a pair of pants, sending plumes of tiny hairs and specks swirling in the early morning light, then pulled on the clothes.

  As I made for the door, I shot a glance at the mannequin. It was no longer where I’d left it, between the boxes. I froze then rotated slowly, my eyes skimming the room.