Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror by Eden Royce Read Free Book Online

more. It was the voice of disdain he’d hated so much that he’d choked it out of her. “Don’t worry, my love. We’ll be together soon.”
    Mike slammed the coffin shut. As he clambered out of the dank hole, he could hear Karen’s cackling laughter. Free from the hole, he brushed dirt from his slacks and tried to catch his breath. “I’m getting as far away from this freak show as possible.”
    “There is still the matter of my payment.”
    “Right. When I get the money tomorrow, you’ll get paid.”
    “Payment is due when I do the work.”
    “Look, I don’t have it right now. You heard her; it’s in the bank. But I’ll get you your payment, I swear.”
    “You already have it.”
    She reached out to him and he knocked her hand away, then pulled out his wallet. “Here’s thirty bucks. That’s all I’ve got on me.”
    The black tongue curled around her thick lips. “I would prefer your eternal servitude.”
    Mike ran.
    Arctic wind shrieked in from behind the witch and tore the scarf from her head, allowing the long, thin braids to crack whip-like in the now frozen air. Icy mist rose from the ground. Zéphyrine’s eyes rolled back in her skull, white against the walnut skin as she stretched her bare, fleshy arms to the torn sky. A high, keening cry rose up as the earth lunged and snapped like a rabid dog on a leash. She released its chain. “My legion, the hunt is now.”
    Mike’s dress shoes slipped on the moist dirt he’d se eagerly dug up. He panted and his body dripped cold sweat. He stumbled into another hole, hidden by the cemetery’s long grasses, and went down. He clawed at the ground as it retched and split open beneath him. Rot and decay tumbled into his mouth as he tried to scream. He spat, rubbed his tongue on his filth-crusted sleeve.
    A skeletal hand closed around his ankle, the flesh on the bone slick with the ooze of decay. Mike stared as the remains of the skeleton pulled itself forward and opened a mouth teeming with bloated maggots.
    “So warm,” it whispered.
    Mike howled and kicked off the thing’s grip, scrambled to his feet and fled toward the open cemetery gate. He dodged the grasping hands emerging from the dirt. He risked a glance behind him. They were lumbering toward him, hundreds of them, stinking and leaking putrid gore. He ran harder, trying to outdistance the rotting corpses as they swayed to Zéphyrine’s eerie song.
    Mike turned to see a milk-white form rise in his path and he could not avoid it. He ran through the spirit and gasped at the achy weakness it left. Hope of escape withered. More hazy forms emanated from the frosty slush, each taking a turn ripping away hunks of his soul. He wobbled, unable to keep his footing.
    His steps faltered as the apparitions circled back for another pass, their banshee wails gluttonous and gleeful.
    Legs leaden now, Mike sank deeper into the tortured soil. It was getting closer: the rattle of bone, the tattered mutterings… Above it all, the scent of wet ashes. He began to sob.
     
    ***
     
    Anthony strolled into the diner and found Mike at a corner table hunched over a cup of steaming coffee. His navy suit jacket was grayed over with dust and his hair stood at odd angles. Mike pushed a thin strip of paper with an address scrawled on it across the table. Anthony looked around before he pocketed it. “Man, you look like hell.”

Hand Of Glory
     
    Heat waves always brought out the murderers. And the grip Mother Nature had on Charleston’s neck had everyone down for the count. I crushed out my cigarette before entering the interrogation room then rubbed the wine stain lipstick from my fingers. The ancient central air conditioning couldn’t keep up with the midday sun and the triple digit temperatures it dragged with it. The room was hotter than Satan’s bathwater.
    A two-way mirror was the only break in the flat gray walls surrounding the metal table where a suspect slumped, his wrists shackled. The man’s eye had a split