A Peculiar Collection Read online

want to be sure of their purpose. I want them to dissipate in the air, turn into a choking smog, and drift away. Instead, like individual mercury balls, they join until they’re almost blocking out my light. The demented surround me and whisper in my ear. They babble incoherent suggestions of how wretched my existence is about to become.

  Through the small tunnel they’ve left, I see in a distorted fisheye vision. One of the paramedics looks at his watch as the other reluctantly stops working.

  The black creatures allow me this last precious glimpse of life before coalescing around and under me. They melt the tarmac I’m lying on, their heat painful to my back. Slowly, I dip within the earth.

  I’m in a coffin of black shapes.

  The world dims in painful slow motion, until all light has been exhaustively cancelled. No more gasping, no more chances, no more crystal worlds awaiting my presence. I am stolen, mute yet screaming.

  In the closet

  “Mandy, please let me out,” Kenny asked, and thumped his feet on the wall again.

  “Shut up, would you,” she said, and banged on the door.

  He heard her pacing back and forth, with that tut-tutting noise she always made when she was thinking.

  “I’ll be good, I’ll do anything you ask, just let me out.”

  There was no reply for a while, just the soft sounds of her feet on the carpet and that infernal tutting sound.

  “I can’t let you out,” she finally said.

  “I’ve changed my mind, Mandy, I’m not going to leave you.” Kenny rolled over in the cupboard, and shuffled to the side. There was a slight gap where the door met the wall letting in a thin beam of light in. Kenny put his eye up against this and tried to see out.

  “I’m not going to go. I’ll tell Kath it’s over and how I still love you.”

  Mandy sniffed as she paced past the Kenny’s sliver of view. She had her hands in her hair, pressed against her scalp, as if her head really hurt.

  “I don’t believe you.” She’d stopped on the other side of the room. Tut-tut-tut.

  “What’re you going to do, keep me in here forever?”

  Mandy resumed pacing. He saw her for an instant, her face turned towards his. She wore a frown, and tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “Simple. Unlock the door, untie my hands and feet, and we’ll have a cuddle and forget about the whole thing.”

  “We can’t do that!” She sounded so shocked, as if this hadn’t occurred to her before.

  “No,” Kenny said. “I don’t see it that way – more of a misunderstanding. Let me out, and we’ll sort it all out together.

  “No,” she said in a wailing voice, as she flashed past his view of the room.

  “Mandy!” Kenny shouted. “Let me out of here!” He rolled back onto his back, and raised his legs, and kicked at the wall as hard as he could. The soles of his shoes made a satisfying thump, so he pulled back and slammed his feet down again.

  “What’re you doing?”

  He heard her run to the door, could almost sense her leaning up against the wood. The door handle moved a little, her hand must be on the other side. Kenny kicked at the wall again.

  “Stop that!” She pounded on the door. “Stop that right now!”

  “Not until you let me out.”

  Mandy walked away from the door, and from the periodic flickering of the light, he reckoned she must have started pacing again.

  “Think… think… think…,” she muttered. Tut-tut-tut.

  He barely heard her above his beating on the wall. The doorbell rang out, its sound sharp against his banging. He stopped for a moment, his eyes widening in the dark. Then he thumped his feet on the wall again.

  “Hello, Mr. Thompson,” she said. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Hi, Katrina,” the voice of a man said. “I think I’ll pass… you know, with him in the cupboard.”

  Kenny stopped, and listened.

  “You okay?” Mr. Thompson asked.

  “I’ll be fine. He’s back, and driving me crazy.”

  “I was asking around and found out some things.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  There was a moment of silence. “He’s listening, isn’t he?” Mr. Thompson said.

  “Freaky, isn’t it?”

  “There was a tenant a few years ago, and she locked her boyfriend in the cupboard.” There was a pause then he said, “Left him there until he died.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I know someone who can help… maybe.”

  “Like an exorcist?”

  “A medium. I’ll give her your number if that’s okay, and maybe we can get rid of your unwanted housemate.”

  Mr. Thompson said good-bye, and Kenny heard a rap on the cupboard door.

  “Time to go, Kenny,” she said.

  “Let me out, Mandy!” he howled, and started pounding on the walls again.

  Mary Beth and Joe

  Joe was running late. He hated delays, and was bound to be fuming when he walked in the door. Mary Beth tried to remember the last time he’d smiled as she rubbed her stomach. A foot, or maybe an elbow protruded. Her baby. Conceived during the month Joe wasn’t home.

  Mary Beth perched on the edge of the sofa, patting her tummy. The telephone caught her eye. Maybe she should call him, find out if he was okay. A small sly thought emerged from a dark corner of her mind and suggested he wasn’t.

  Someone rapped on the windowpane. Mary Beth gasped and fell off the sofa, landing hard on her tailbone. A second knock sounded, and Mary Beth ran to open the front door.

  “Joe?”

  Her husband waited, leaning heavily against the wall of the porch. Blood from a wound gushed out a slash in his shirt. Without saying a word to her, he lurched up to the house and staggered inside. He collapsed into a chair and compressed his stomach with both hands.

  “What happened?” she cried.

  “That bastard Ritchie.”

  “You weren’t gambling again?” she asked.

  Joe nodded. “He stabbed me.” He pushed hard, blood oozing between his big fingers.

  “I’ll call for an ambulance, I’ll get help!” Mary Beth turned circles, looking for the phone.

  “No!” he shouted. Then, more softly, “There’s no need.”

  “Why not? For God’s sake, Joe, you’re going to bleed to death.” She ran out the room. “We need to call an ambulance, the police!” she shouted from the kitchen. Seconds later, she dashed back in, an armful of tea towels held to her chest. “I have to press these against…” Her breath hitched. “I’m going to ring for a doctor.” She dumped the towels on Joe’s belly and put his hands on top, then snatched the phone from its cradle.

  “Don’t bother.”

  “No!” she cried, the phone falling from her fingers. She dropped down on the floor next to Joe. “I’ll do it.” She fiddled with the tea towels, trying to make a bandage.

  “I’m already dead.”

  “Don’t be silly!” She pressed down. “You’re right here, talking to me.”

  “I’m already dead.”

  “Stop saying that!” she screamed, tears brimmed. He was a hard man, but he was her man, and she was having a baby - he couldn’t die. She balled the tea towels and held them down. To her surprise, they sank through his body, as if Joe consisted of quicksand. Mary Beth took a step back, tripped, and fell onto the sofa.

  “I told you.” The blood from his wound slowed to a trickle, his face bleaching to a creamy white. “Too late for me. But you can help.”

  Mary Beth nodded dumbly.

  “Follow me, to the alley. You have to find the weapon, so the police can catch Ritchie.”

  “Catch Ritchie?” she echoed.

  Joe stood up, straightening to full height, a faint smile on his lips. “No more pain.” He stretched, palms pressed against the ceiling. “Nice.”

  Mary Beth stared at her husband, and then to the cha
ir. Clean tea towels lay in a scrunched up pile. Dazed, she followed him from the house.

  Joe ran in a slow motion bob, his feet not quite touching the ground. He turned into the alley at the end of a terrace of houses. In the shadows, under a weedy tree, she spotted a dark shape.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yeah.” Joe scanned the scrub.

  He floated away, towards the streetlight, Mary Beth walked into the shadows.

  “Oh, Joe.” She knelt beside his body and took his bloody hand between her own, knocking the mobile from his fingers. “What have you done?” She placed the palm against her cheek and sobbed.

  “Mary Beth,” he called from the other end of the alley. “It’s here.”

  She put his hand down and struggled onto her feet. Then she walked with slow steps, carefully, as if in a thick fog.

  “Pick it up.”

  Under the large leaf of a weed, a blade reflected the light from the alley’s streetlamp. Far away, Mary Beth heard the shrill cry of a police car.

  “I don’t want to pick it up.” She turned away from the weapon, her large brown eyes returning to the body of her husband.

  “You must, you must pick it up.”

  He tried to put his arms around her, but they fell through, with an unpleasant sensation - wet and cold. She shivered, and picked up the knife. The handle had a coating of something wet. Joe’s blood.

  “Now go back to the tree.”

  Mary Beth trailed the ghost, a murder weapon held between thumb and forefinger, swinging back and forth as she walked. Sirens shrieked.

  She placed the knife on the ground by his feet. With a restrained sob, she looked up at Joe, searching for guidance in his pale eyes.

  “It’s time to go. Lie with me, Mary Beth.” He gave a gentle smile. “One last time.”

  She knelt down, shifted one of his arms, and rested her head on it. She