Horrors, Volume One Read online

  Horrors: Volume One

  Sharp

  Lot Lizards

  The Woods

  Thank you for purchasing Horrors: Volume One.

  I hope you enjoyed these stories, and that you’ll recommend this book to your friends who like a good scare. Please take a moment to rate and review this book. It helps to get the word out and the feedback is always appreciated.

  Please send me an email letting me know what you thought of Horrors: Volume One. And to find out about upcoming titles.

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  Pleasant Dreams,

  Jim McKenna

  Coming Soon!

  Horrors, Volumes Two and Three!

  Sharp

  I. Honing.

  When Cari finished and he was sated she climbed his body and settled in next to him. She kissed him long and deep so he could taste and smell the residue of his semen in her mouth. He liked this ritual. Cari was a spitter, not a swallower, discreetly getting rid of his load in a washcloth. But she knew her husband and loved him, and little affections like this were important in their marriage. “I love you, baby,” Ken said, and Cari purred.

  After a few minutes cuddling him Cari rose to her bare pedicured feet and raised her arms over her head, giving her Pilates and yoga toned body a catlike stretch. She walked across the cream carpet to the window, adjusting the plaid pajama bottoms low on her hips. This too was for Ken, the casual nudity around the house. She went topless when they were alone when she could, letting Ken admire her full, enhanced breasts. This was a little sexual power play, and if Ken noticed her ever-present but subtle manipulations of him with her sexuality he never complained. And she liked the exhibitionist part of it all. She stared out the window into the backyard, all lost in darkness except for the dim lights surrounding the pool like low hanging stars. The muscles in her neck and jaw ached from her efforts. She opened and closed her mouth and slowly rocked her head from side to side. She could feel his eyes on her, on the dimples puckering her lower back just above her ass. She pulled the scrunchie out of her hair and shook it down her back.

  “I love your blowjobs,” Ken said to her back.

  “I know you do, baby.”

  “You don't think I'm being selfish, do you?”

  Here we go again, she thought. Ken the Caring. Ken the Kind. They had been together almost eleven years, and still his insecurities peeked through. He was sincere and she knew it. He loved getting head. Cari enjoyed it, too. Even now she felt the wetness between her legs. It turned her on to take control of him and feel him respond, react, and give himself to her. She liked to surprise him during the week, dropping to her knees and blowing him, or providing an impromptu handjob when he least expected it.

  But Ken was wired to make a woman happy. Ken was wired to be with a woman he could please and adore, and it was hard for him to let go and be loved without giving back, to receive pleasure without reciprocating in kind. That was why she made a point of sucking him off as much as she did. She liked the boyish way he sought to thank her for her talents and attentions; liked to feel him squirm emotionally, even just a little bit.

  Suddenly, Cari spun around and ran towards Ken, leaping up and tackling him down on the bed, smothering his face between her breasts. “Yes! You are a very selfish boy! Bad, bad, bad!” She rocked and rolled with him on the bed, and he laughed. She drew him into a hug and kissed him. “I love you, Mr. Ken Perkins,” she cooed, “and I love having your little buddy in my mouth.”

  Ken smiled. “Still no swallowing though.”

  “Ugh! No. We tried that.”

  Ken laughed. “Yeah, that was funny. It was worth it for the look on your face.” Cari grimaced. “You know, maybe we can try again. That will be my anniversary present.”

  “Think harder,” Cari said.

  “Wanna hear my joke?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “So there was this couple, right? They were married fifteen years. Now a long time ago right when they got married, he started leaving cash on the nightstand after they had sex. It was just a little joke between them. Neither knew anymore where it began but he kept at it all this time.”

  “Okay.”

  “So it's the morning of their fifteenth and she wakes him up with breakfast in bed and all that, and when he’s done she puts a blindfold on him and leads him outside. She takes the blindfold off him and there in the driveway is a brand new fishing boat. ‘Happy anniversary’ she says, and the guy just blown away.”

  “I bet.”

  “Yeah. So he asks her how she did this, and she tells him that all this time she’s been putting that sex money aside with the idea of surprising him one day, and that day is here. The man looks at the boat, shakes his head in disbelief and says “Damn honey, If I’d given you all my business I’d have a truck to pull it with.”

  They both laughed. “That’s cute,” she said.

  “So you think most wives are taking care of their husbands like I do after eleven years?”

  “I hope so,” he said.

  “You’re lucky I love you,” she said and he smiled up at her.

  “Eleven years,” he grunted, getting up from bed.

  She looked at the nightstand clock. “In five minutes. Do you want to wait a couple minutes and exchange gifts?”

  “Sure. You get me something nice?”

  “I think you’ll like it,” she said. “I even went by the anniversary annual gift list. Eleven years. Steel.”

  “I can’t wait,” he said.

  She looked back at the clock. 11:58. “Well don’t then,” she said and pulling away skipped into the walk-in closet and returned with a black box tied with white ribbon. He took it from her and sat on the bed, and she hopped up behind him to peer over his shoulder.

  “Heavy,” he said, giving the box a little shake. She ran her fingers into his gray hair and watched him open the box.

  Cari was thirty-six and Ken was sixty-four, and to her Ken was starting to show his age. It happened a few years back when she looked up at him at dinner and saw an old man, genteel and handsome but… old. It was funny to her how it snuck up him, and maybe it did that to everyone. He’d had more a gut in the last few years but it was kept in check with golf and occasional tennis. She wondered first if he knew he’d turned a corner and whether having a young wife on his arm was like to make him self-conscious. Then she realized that she was years along in age too and that thought froze everything else out. Best not to think of that sort of thing. Men aged with dignity, right?

  Ken opened the box and spread aside the tissue paper, revealing a pair of police issue handcuffs, complete with two keys. On both ratchets was engraved Cari and Ken Perkins: Bound Together Forever. He took the cuffs out, smiling and laughing.

  “Do you like them?” She asked smiling. “They’re the real thing. Like police use.”

  He held them up and grinned. “I love them. That’s so clever of you.” He weighed the cuffs in his hand. “Heavy”.

  “I found some cheap sex toy ones but these were nicer.”

  “You think of everything, baby,” Ken said. “You even went the traditional gift route. Well guess what? So did I.”

  “Mmm, I see. So no gold this year, Mr. Perkins? No rubies? No platinum up your sleeve?”

  “Nope.”

  “I think Mercedes are made of steel, right?”

  Ken laughed, pulling on his robe. “Yes they are, my love.” He walked out the bedroom door. Cari fished a tank top from the floor and pulled it over her head. In a minute she heard him coming up the stairs.

  “Do I have to close my eyes?” she shouted.

  Ken came through the door holding a large box wrapped in gold foil with a silver and blue ribbon. He set the box in f
ront of her on the bed and smiled.

  Cari unwrapped the box and opened the lid. Reaching in she felt something large and heavy. She lifted it out and unfolded some tissue paper sheets. “Oh, wow,” she said.

  The knives were all nestled in an old dark block of very hard wood. The handles were black and silver, and looked shiny with use but meticulously cared for. Cari wrapped her fingers around one handle and withdrew a long steel blade. She held it up and turned it slowly in the soft bedroom light.

  “They’re from Germany,” Ken was saying. “They were made right after World War One by master craftsmen. I’m no knife guy, but from what I learned these are some of the finest blades ever made.”

  Cari clutched the ebony handle and felt the even, balanced weight of the knife in her hand. “Oh, Ken. This is wonderful.”

  “And look, see? This is all a complete set, made at the same time and by the same guy, probably.” He drew out another knife from the block, and Cari set the one she had on the bed and looked at the new one. “You’ve been getting more into gourmet cooking and so I thought you’d like something really special.”

  Cari pulled a third knife from the block. This one was thinner than the others, but the weight was still perfectly balanced, and the steel gleamed in the light like a Christmas ornament.

  “What you have there is a boning knife,” Ken said. That one’s a chef knife, and there’s also a carving knife, and this bad boy.” He tugged on a handle that was thicker than the others and withdrew a heavy rectangle of steel. “That’s right, kids. A cleaver.”

  Cari looked at all the knives one by one. “I love them, Ken. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome, baby.”

  They cleared the knives off the bed and after a little more play time turned off the lights and slept. Cari slept restless, as if she were chasing some image or thought through her dreams but could not catch it. It was as if something she needed to know was being kept from her, something urgent slipping away from her into the caverns of sleep. Once she startled awake. Ken snored next to her. She covered herself deeper into the covers with her cuff-bound hands. Before she closed her eyes she saw the block of knives on the dresser across the room, and pale moonlight was reaching into the room to touch them where they stood. And watched.

  II. Chef.

  On an early afternoon all bright and sunny, Cari walked into the kitchen to get to work. She dumped vegetables from a plastic bag into the sink and turned on the cold water, then donned a red apron and tied it at her waist. The knives sat alone in the center of the island, snug in their dark teak block.

  Cari set up a few cucumbers on a cutting board and drew out the chef knife. She cut the first cucumber into thin discs. The knife slid through the cold flesh with barely a sound and it was so easy for her to get into a fast staccato beat with the blade. She swirled the stack of slices out in a swirl pattern on the board and admired them. Taking up the next cucumber she sliced it vertically, like a pickle spear. Again the blade slipped though clean and sharp.

  She took one of the spears and set it in front of her on the board, and started working at it with the knife. First she cut at one angle, then another. She cut lengthwise and turned her wrist to make a smooth, serpentine path. She moved that thin slice into place and rapid chopped it into little nuggets. The more she cut with the knife the more she liked it, and she wasn’t thinking of the veggies so much as the way the blade felt as it worked. One after the other she took up the cucumbers and chopped them, and when she was done there was little left but a pile of green pulpy flesh on the white board.

  Cari held the knife out in front of her smiled. There was something cold and beautiful about the blade. She stepped back from the island and turned like a dancer, cutting the air with the knife. She took a second knife, the carving knife from the block and danced and twirled with both knives. She posed like a warrior. She crossed them at her chest. She saluted with them and gracefully bowed, laughing.

  She returned to the counter and raised the chef knife up to her eyes. There were little ripples deep in the steel and she followed the flowing pattern of lines back and forth. Back and forth. She brought the bright cold blade to her lips, not kissing it pressing her lips to the steel and feeling it draw away the warmth of her mouth. Cari closed her eyes. She was aware that she was warmer now, and there was a soft tickling inside of her. Something in the bright afternoon, in that kitchen all alone was turning her on. Something in the knife pleased her.

  She wiped the blade with a dry towel, put the carving knife in its slot and withdrew the honing steel from the block. Holding the steel firmly in her left hand, Cari drew the blade down the steel. Shhhink . The blade hissed. First one side and then the other, with a slow, careful rhythm, Cari honed the blade.

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  At the end of each stroke the tip of the blade gave off a high ringing tone. The tone was like a call to her. There was a sensation of distance to the sound, like the call of an animal or a hunter’s horn in the far distance of a forest. The ringing made her think of high cold places and dark forests.

  She set the knife and steel down and got the meat from the refrigerator. She unwrapped and rinsed the slab of beef, patted it dry and set it on the cutting board. She was planning a stir fry and wanted little diced cubes. Taking up the knife she set her left fingers on the cold meat and lowered the blade. It sliced clean, oh so clean. The red meat seemed to fall away at the cut with no effort. Cari smiled and she felt more than heard a purr in her throat. She took each slice through the red beef slowly and carefully. She relished the feel of this beautiful, bright steel gliding through the flesh. She reached the end of the slab and admired her work. It looked perfect. Each strip was uniform to the one before and it was all cut so very, very clean.

  Was this what it meant to have quality tools? Cari thought. You always hear about master chefs or mechanics or whatever spending extra money for top of the line tools when it seems that there is no difference in performance from one simple object to another. A wrench is a wrench, right? I knife is a knife, right?

  Wrong.

  Cari knew there was something special with this knife. There was something special within the knife. There was a depth in the steel, maybe in the way it was forged or ground or something.

  She held the blade up to her face and stared into the steel. She thought again of high cold alpine places and deep fairy tale woods. She saw a cabin the distance and a stone building next to it. Through the door of the building there was a blacksmith fire, bright and hot. She heard the clang of hammers on steel.

  And something moved in the reflection of the knife.

  Cari started and looked behind her. Nothing there. The kitchen was bright and quiet. The TV screen on the wall was dark. She was alone.

  She did not feel alone.

  She took a deep breath. She was warmer now. Quickly she set the knife down and rotated the cutting board ninety degrees to start the next cuts into the meat. She took up the knife again, and after giving it a wipe with the towel she picked up the honing steel once more.

  Shhhink

  The blade hissed.

  Shhhink

  The blade sang.

  She started the smooth rhythm again, swiping the blade up and down the steel shaft. She picked up the pace a little.

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  It was so smooth and so easy. She got warmer now, her face flushing. She could feel sweat bead under her hair. Faster now.

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  Shhhink

  Cari started to pant. She felt heat between her legs, and a creamy, silky wetness. Her toes curled. More and more, faster and faster.

  Shhhink!

  Shhhink!

  Shhhink!

  Shhhink!

  The steel was singing now. The blade flashed from one side of the honing steel to the other in a
fury. There was a humming everywhere, primal and deep from inside and outside of her. She picked up her speed even more. Her belly tightened and ached and her flesh started rising to climax.

  Shhhink!

  Shhhink!

  Shhhink!

  Shhh-

  Just then the blade skipped the handle and bit in to the top of her thumb, and there was no pain. Her ecstasy doubled as thick bright blood welled from the little cut and started to run down her arm. The fury of her pulse sent the blood faster out and she felt the rich red blood blend together with hand and handle.

  She moaned aloud and at once dropped the steel and sucked hard at the cut, drawing blood into her mouth. Her knees nearly buckled. Pleasure exploded through her in a fury like she had never known, and without knowing, blind to all but ecstasy and blood she wrenched her panties aside and ground the pommel of the knife onto her clit.

  She screamed and it was a laugh and it was a roar. The handle slipped back in her wetness, found her passage and entered her. And the knife fucked her. Pinching the blade in her fingers like a vise she thrust the handle in and out and in and out and still she heard the ringing of the steel and the low guttural humming, and another orgasm washed over her. And when she let go her knees nearly gave way and desperate to get ahold of herself she tossed the knife up onto the counter and let herself slump to the floor.

  Cari crouched there panting and sniffling. Blood smeared her left hand, her chin and lips. She licked the blood from her lips and tasted tears mingled in with it. Her body cooled. Carefully she stood and turned on the tap and bathed her cut hand. It wasn’t a bad cut or too deep and the bleeding had already stopped. Cari thought it was just the right cut. Yes that was it. Cari heard in her head that the knife blessed her with a little slice - a little kiss. It was not her fury at the honing steel that had caused her to miss. No, it was the blade itself urging her and teasing her, like a lover giving his woman a sharp slap on the ass during a good hard fuck.

  Cari looked over at the knife. The chef knife. It lay on the slices of beef where she tossed it. The handle was stained with her blood and juices. The blade seemed calm to her, sated. The counter had little smears of blood here and there. The teak block held the other knives, watching and waiting. The room was bright and warm. The house so very quiet.