Doorbells at Dusk

  Edited by:

  Evans Light

  Associate Editors:

  Gregor Xane

  Jason Parent

  Adam Light

  Charlotte, NC

  Copyright © 2018 by Corpus Press

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, unless explicit permission was granted for use. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This book or portions thereof may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher. All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  “Many Carvings” © 2018 by Sean Eads & Joshua Viola

  “The Day of the Dead” © 2018 by Amber Fallon

  “A Plague of Monsters” © 2018 by Charles Gramlich

  “Offerings” © 2018 by Joanna Koch

  “The Rye-Mother” © 2018 by Curtis M. Lawson

  “Masks” © 2018 by Lisa Lepovetsky

  “Trick ’Em All” ©2015 by Adam Light

  “Rusty Husk” © 2018 by Evans Light

  “Vigil” © 2018 by Chad Lutzke

  “Adam’s Bed” © 2018 by Josh Malerman

  “Keeping Up Appearances” © 2018 by Jason Parent

  “The Friendly Man” © 2018 by Thomas Vaughn

  “Between” © 2018 by Ian Welke

  “Mr. Impossible” © 2018 by Gregor Xane

  Cover by Mikio Murakami.

  Proofing and interior formatting by Lori Michelle of The Author’s Alley.

  For more information about Corpus Press, please visit: www.corpuspress.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A PLAGUE OF MONSTERS

  Charles A. Gramlich

  THE RYE-MOTHER

  Curtis M. Lawson

  THE DAY OF THE DEAD

  Amber Fallon

  RUSTY HUSK

  Evans Light

  ADAM’S BED

  Josh Malerman

  KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

  Jason Parent

  VIGIL

  Chad Lutzke

  MR. IMPOSSIBLE

  Gregor Xane

  BETWEEN

  Ian Welke

  THE FRIENDLY MAN

  Thomas Vaughn

  MANY CARVINGS

  Sean Eads and Joshua Viola

  TRICK ’EM ALL

  Adam Light

  OFFERINGS

  Joanna Koch

  MASKS

  Lisa Lepovetsky

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  MORE FROM CORPUS PRESS

  A PLAGUE OF MONSTERS

  Charles A. Gramlich

  Gus Krebs gnawed at his thumb while looking down at the unconscious monster strapped to the work table in his basement. He didn’t know what it was but it looked . . . piggish. Nor did he have any idea where it came from.

  He’d been watching Wheel of Fortune when his doorbell rang. He’d just solved a puzzle before the actual contestants and the thrill of that unusual occurrence made him forget normal caution. Carelessly opening the door had revealed this “thing” standing there. It carried a small glowing axe, and at sight of the weapon, Gus reflexively punched it twice.

  It went down easily, maybe because it was small, and he’d dragged it into the house before any of the neighbors noticed. Because he often used power drills and saws while building furniture at home, his basement was soundproofed. Even if this thing woke up now and screamed, it wouldn’t be heard.

  Gus picked up the creature’s axe. It appeared to be made out of some hard plastic. Like a toy. But Gus figured it wasn’t any toy. The light inside had gone out when its owner lost consciousness. Maybe it was some kind of mind controlled laser. Would the little monster still be able to activate the weapon when it woke up and found itself a prisoner?

  Gus had to take precautions, do something, fast. He grabbed a hammer from his tool chest and smashed the weird weapon into smithereens, then threw its mangled remains into the trashcan.

  Needing a moment to think, Gus went back upstairs and poured himself a cup of coffee with a dollop of whiskey to calm his nerves. The burnt scent of the coffee reminded him of his long dead daddy and immediately the odor started to soothe him. He was blowing on the coffee to cool it when the doorbell rang again. He jumped, spilling blistering liquid down his chin onto his shirt. Cursing, he set down the cup and grabbed a towel to mop himself.

  The doorbell rang twice more and its incessant demands forced him out of his kitchen into the living room. He crossed to the door and peeked out through the spyhole. Nothing. Taking up the baseball bat he always kept handy against potential intruders, he cautiously unlatched his door and opened it.

  Two monsters waited outside. They were smaller than the first but they also had laser weapons. These even looked like Sci-Fi blasters and they whined as they lit up. In a panic, Gus bashed both creatures over the head with his bat and quickly dragged them inside.

  As he slammed his door, he realized his front porch light was on and wondered if it were attracting these grotesque things. Maybe they were like moths that way. He flicked off the light and double locked the doors, then hauled the two monsters down into the basement. Neither of them appeared to be breathing but he bound them to stout chairs anyway.

  Once more he returned to his kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. Pacing and sipping, pacing and sipping, he tried to figure out what was happening. Finally, he went to the front of the house and eased back the window curtains to look outside. He quickly slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from crying out. The sidewalk along the road that ran past his house had become a monster freeway.

  Dozens of the horrible creatures scampered along beneath the streetlights, with normal people intermingled among them. He saw attractive Mrs. Broussard from next door and Mr. Demby from down on the corner. Two small monsters tugged at Demby’s hands as they urged him along; Demby laughed as if it were glorious fun.

  Gus backed away from the window, then quickly opened the closet and took out the shotgun he’d bought a few years back for home defense. He’d never had to use it but that might soon change. Fumbling around on the closet’s shelf, he found the shells and began pushing them into the gun’s magazine.

  The doorbell rang.

  Gus jumped and almost pulled the trigger on the shotgun. He moved cautiously to the door, weapon ready, and peered out through the spyhole. Two police officers, a man and a woman, stood outside. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Uhm, just a second,” he called. “Hang on.”

  Sticking the shotgun back in the closet behind some coats, he returned to open the door. As he was about to warn the officers about the monsters, he noted that plenty of the nasty creatures still wandered along the street. The police didn’t seem to notice or care. That scared him.

  “Yes?” Gus asked warily.

  “Mr. Krebs,” the policewoman said. “I’m Officer Benton and this is my partner, Officer Reynolds. Sorry to bother you but we’ve had a report of a missing child. Cory Olsen. We were wondering if you’d seen him? If he’d been here trick or treating? He was dressed as an orc.”

  Gus had no idea what an “orc” was, but he wanted to shout, Well, of course you’ve got missing children. You’ve got a town full of monsters. What do you expect?

  Then something else Officer Benton had said registered.

  Gus repeated the phrase. “Trick or treating? But it’s not Halloween.”

  “No, no,” the woman said. “But you knew the town council voted to change the date this year, right? Because of the big parade to honor our returning veterans? They’re coming back on the 31st. Ca
n’t have that and Halloween on the same day.” She smiled.

  Gus’s mind did a back flip inside his head. Did that mean that he . . . Could he have made a horrible mistake in identifying the monsters? Were they just . . . No! He wasn’t crazy. He knew what he’d seen. And even though he never celebrated Halloween, there’d been no vote that he was aware of to change the date. The police were lying.

  In the next instant, he figured out why. Whoever or whatever was behind this monster plague must have planned it for Halloween—the perfect cover. But something had gone wrong. Things had started too soon and the forces behind it were scrambling for excuses. Anyway, he knew to keep such doubts and questions to himself. If they could lie, he could lie.

  “Uh, well, yeah. I mean, I completely forgot to get candy. Because of the date change. So I’ve just been leaving my porch light off. The Olsen kid, you say? I’ll certainly keep an eye open for him but I doubt I’ll see him. I’ll call you guys if I do.”

  The female officer, Benton, was smiling, but her male partner, Reynolds, was busy looking over Gus’s head into the house. Gus didn’t like that. What if they wanted to come inside? Even if they didn’t check the basement, the baseball bat was still behind the door. He hadn’t cleaned it after knocking out the last two monsters. Did it have blood on it? Other stuff? He started to take a deep breath to calm himself, but thinking that might be suspicious he quickly turned it into a cough.

  Reynolds frowned. Benton kept smiling and said, “Do keep an eye out. I imagine he’s just off somewhere binging on Halloween candy. But his parents are pretty worried.”

  “I will. Certainly I will, officers.” Gus forced a smile of his own.

  The officers turned away and Gus shut and locked the door behind him. He grabbed up the bat, which was discolored around the tip with what might be drying blood. He rushed downstairs with it.

  Once in the basement, Gus paced back and forth muttering to himself. “The police. They didn’t care about the monsters on the street. So maybe they’re monsters. Or at least they’re following the orders of the monsters. That means they aren’t looking for Cory Olsen. They’re looking for. . . ” Biting his lip, Gus turned toward the three creatures he’d captured.

  Looking for them, he thought.

  He had to do something, get rid of the things before the police came back and looked harder. He strode over to the first monster he’d captured and stared down with revulsion. The thing began thrashing back and forth on the table. Gus let out a little scream and jumped back. But he still had the baseball bat in his hands and he began whacking, whacking until the thing went still again. A lot more blood coated the bat this time.

  Then Gus noticed something else.

  “My God, my God!” he muttered.

  The monster’s face had sloughed to the side as Gus hammered at it. Beneath the hideous piggishness was a second face. One he recognized. Little Cory Olsen.

  Can’t be! No! I couldn’t have killed . . . His thoughts stopped for a moment as he studied the remains of the thing. He saw it then, enough to convince him that he wasn’t crazy. His thoughts restarted. No, no, no. It’s growing another Cory Olsen inside. A false Cory Olsen. I see parts that aren’t human. The other two monsters I’ve got down here must be like this one. But the adults. The parents. Are they the same? Already . . . molted maybe?

  Gus dropped the bat with a clang and backed away from the horror on the table. He kept backing until his legs struck something behind him. Startled, Gus spun around to see nothing more than his band saw squatting in its accustomed place. The solution to his problem shouted at him. He rushed upstairs to fetch towels and a bunch of black trash bags. Then he set to work cutting the three monsters into pieces and fitting them into the bags, which he tied off tightly and wrapped with strips of electrical tape.

  The band saw was frightfully efficient. Within an hour, Gus finished his chore. The basement had a sink with running water and another hour saw the blood and gore cleaned away and the stuffed bags tucked into the darkest corner of the room. Gus pushed his bloody clothes into yet another bag, then went upstairs to take a hot shower.

  After exiting the shower, he wiped away the condensation on the bathroom mirror to study himself in it. His reflection tore a gasp from him. His face! It was subtly altered. Not dramatically. Not yet at least. But he could see the differences.

  The blood! he thought. I had on clothes and gloves but it got on my face.I’m starting to change. It must be like an infection. It grows on the skin. First it takes you over. Controls you. Then another you hatches out from within. Not the real one, though. A modified one. One of them!

  Quickly and in desperation, using cotton balls and rubbing alcohol, Gus began to scrub at his face. He scrubbed and scrubbed, until his skin burned and tingled, until the fumes from the alcohol watered his eyes and made him feel faint. Only when his face was—as his daddy had always described it—pink as a freshly spanked bottom, did he quit.

  Maybe, he thought. Maybe I’ve stopped it. I hope I’ve stopped it.

  The doorbell rang once, then again.

  Gus wanted to ignore the sound. He wanted to get into bed and bury himself under the covers until the world was shut out. But the bell rang a third time. And a fourth.

  He finally shouted out, “I’m coming!”

  Through the peephole, Gus saw the same two cops again. He thought about the bat, cleaned but forgotten in the basement. He thought of the shotgun in the closet. He dared not use it. If he did, the whole street, the whole town, would be on him in an instant. He’d have to bluff them again, then run as soon as they were gone. Surely there was another town he could escape to. The monsters couldn’t have taken over everywhere yet.

  Forcing himself to breathe steadily, he slowly opened the door. “Hello again, officers,” he said. “Sorry it took me so long. I just got out of the shower.” They could see his wet hair; they’d know he was telling the truth.

  The policeman, Reynolds, still looked suspicious, and now the policewoman, Benton, was no longer smiling.

  “Mr. Krebs,” Benton said. “I’m afraid we’ve had two more children reported missing. We’ve been instructed to go from house to house doing a search. Is it okay for us to come in and look around?”

  “Uh . . . well you don’t think that I—”

  “It’s not a matter of thinking anything, Mr. Krebs,” Benton interrupted. The whole police force is out. It’s just our job to search every place where children might hide.” Her eyes seemed to glitter. “Or where they might be held.”

  “Well, okay. Of course. I mean, I want to do my part. Come on in. You won’t find anything here though.”

  Gus stepped back from the door to allow the two in. They quickly split up and began their search. Reynolds took the upstairs. Benton stayed downstairs to inspect the living room, kitchen, and laundry room. Gus trailed her, staying far enough away to avoid giving any impression of a threat.

  There came a heart-stopping moment when the policewoman opened the closet and shoved things around. But if she saw the shotgun leaning against the back wall in the shadows, she said nothing. Of course, lots of folks had guns in Coleman, Louisiana.

  Gus hoped the woman wouldn’t even think of the basement. Few houses down here had them because of the danger of flooding. But this woman was thorough and eventually asked him point blank if he had one. He couldn’t lie. How could he be sure she hadn’t already noticed the obscure door and was just testing him?

  He pointed out the bamboo screen he used to cover the ugly, unpainted door into the basement, opened it, flipped on the light, and went down the steps ahead of her. His eyes were wide as he scanned for any droplet of blood or unusual stain he might have missed. Everything looked clean. He could see the trash bags with the severed monster parts in them against the back wall but nothing indicated that they were filled with anything other than common trash.

  Benton looked around rather perfunctorily. “Lot of equipment,” she said.

  “Yes. I make
furniture sometimes. You can ask anyone.”

  She nodded, then shrugged. “All right. Nothing here.” She looked at Gus. “We’ll get out of your hair, Mr. Krebs.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Gus said, as the policewoman turned toward the stairs. “Wish I could.”

  A rustling came from the corner of the basement where the trash bags sat. Gus spun around in time to see what looked like a leg kick at the black plastic of the bag that wrapped it. He quickly moved in that direction as the woman turned toward him with a frown.

  “Damn rats!” Gus said. “Can’t keep ‘em out of here. Don’t know how they’re getting in.”

  He pretended to look around by the bags, as if searching for a rat, then returned his gaze to Officer Benton. She was watching him and he smiled.

  She smiled back. “I know the problem. We’ve got them down at the precinct, too.” She went up the stairs then, and Gus followed after giving the offending trash bag a surreptitious kick.

  Officer Reynolds awaited them in the living room. “Nothing,” he said, sounding disappointed.

  “All right,” Benton said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Gus felt a smile coming on and fought it down.

  As he closed the door behind the officers, a fresh banging came from the basement. Gus’s smile disappeared and he quickly glanced out through the peephole to see if the police had heard the noise. Reynolds had stopped to look back at the house with a frown, but Benton was already striding down the sidewalk. After another moment, the policeman followed his partner.

  Gus continued to watch, and was glad he did as Reynolds stopped at the end of the driveway and several other people joined him. Gus’s eyes widened as he recognized Jim and Kathy Olson, Cory Olson’s parents. There was another woman with them that Gus didn’t know, and another couple that he did—Dwayne and Tina Lamont. Dwayne was a district attorney. Tina was a real estate agent. She’d tried several times to get him to sell his house but it had belonged to Gus’s daddy. The Lamont’s had a boy a year or so younger than Cory Olson. Gus had met him—Terry!

  As Reynolds stood in deep conversation with the other five people, Gus wondered if one of the monsters he’d killed could have been growing into Terry Lamont. He was mulling that over when Reynolds and the others turned suddenly to look toward Gus’s front door. Gus jumped back from the peephole, afraid they were reading his thoughts. Who knew what powers these things had.