About the author and series.
This book is part of a series, written by IP Spall, consisting of 22 short stories in total. To find out more about this book series or any of IP Spall’s other publications, head to https://linktr.ee/ipspallbooks
Many of these short stories are free, and if you enjoy reading this book, you can even buy a total collection of all the short stories for a low price! Follow the link above to find out more.
This story can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2VJQ3cZ
An uncomfortable foreword
It has been said that a series of short stories must emanate unexpectedness and a sense of chilling surprise. Such a collection of stories would require a character framework that is present throughout the whole book; from tale to tale, offering the reader a chance to relate to the individual characters — their pain, their horror, their paranoia. Such a collation would also contain an underlying subplot, so all of the stories connect and relate to one another, in a weblike manner, allowing each entry to follow on from the last with some continuity, while still retaining individuality.
I gave this some thought and decided to do the complete opposite. For me, each story should be read as an individual tale of terror, and certainly not as a collective.
Each of my short stories should evoke thought, emotion, and hopefully, leaves the reader wondering what the hell happens next. Let’s face it; not everyone looks for a happy ending in the stories they read. With this in mind, let your imaginations run wild, and enjoy the unpredictability; often an uncomfortable ride.
The curse
It was just as they left the foyer of the Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre, in New Orleans’s French Quarter, when something quite strange happened to Carrie and Matt, on their way home. As they crossed the road opposite the theatre’s entrance, they both walked hand in hand back to their car. It was early evening, and they both noticed that the sky was turning a beautiful shade of deep yellow. The show had just finished, and so they both just wanted to go home; the car wasn’t that far away. With minimal conversation, mainly just about how they had both enjoyed themselves, they walked with ernest. It was when they turned the next corner that Matt happened to bump into someone who was coming around the corner at the same pace and position. Without warning, the two men bumped into each other, coming to blows, crashing into each other’s body space. Matt immediately apologised to the other man, politely and respectfully, but unfortunately, the stranger wasn’t so accommodating. At first, Carrie and Matt thought he spoke French, as Carrie managed to get a few words here and there, but the more he spoke, the less she understood. The old man looked angry, and the stranger began to rant at Matt, aggressively invading his personal space. As there were a few vague similarities to the local dialect, Carrie suggested that he must have been talking an old form of the Louisiana French Creole, but neither of them knew for sure. The man started to shout louder and louder at him before he then turned his attention to Carrie as well. As he stood there seemingly getting angrier and nastier towards the couple, they both felt themselves instinctively begin to back away from him, as his anger seemed to grow exponentially by the second. Carrie took the lead and started to plead with him to calm down, but the stranger wasn’t backing down at all, and with every step backwards they made, the man took a step forward, relentless in his verbal and abusive attack on them both.
The man looked quite reasonable in his appearance, with short greyish hair and a few days of stubble, he dressed quite smartly, in a brown suit. Admittedly the suit looked old, probably from the eighties, but it was smart albeit a little tattered and worn. He had a white shirt on underneath, minus a tie, and he looked like he’d been drinking or doing something, as his eyes were a strange flame-red colour, giving the couple the impression that he was intoxicated by something or other. His appearance gave Matt and Carrie an air of apprehension, as they didn’t know what he was capable of, so although he slowly mimicked their every move, they both tried to move away from him subtly, while the stranger continued shouting at them. The angry man then started flaying his hands around, making strange gestures, now directed towards them both, which was a worry. Then, only a minute after, he pulled out a small metal box from his top jacket pocket; once opened, he flicked a small pinch of silver powder towards them both. That was enough, Carrie grabbed Matt’s hand and sternly told the man that they were leaving, but just as they turned to go, the man shouted even louder, suddenly bursting into English.
“I curse you for what you have done,” he said. They both turned back to look at him, surprised to hear him speak their language before they looked at each in a knowing stare. Carrie again yanked his arm, leading him away from the man, who finally stopped following them. They could hear him still shouting, reverting to the strange language, which just made them walk with haste, not once turning to look back at him. They both felt his eyes still burning into their backs as they gradually got some distance between them. With every step, the man’s angry voice slowly faded, and with the traffic passing by, they soon got out of ear-shot, eventually arriving back at their car.
On the way home, both of them felt unsettled by the angry and aggressive confrontation that had verbally insulted them both. The man’s reaction was really over the top, so they questioned their sanity and whether they were inadvertently at fault in some way; the rest of the journey home was in complete silence.
Almost immediately after they had left the French Quarter, things started to go wrong. Within only ten minutes of departing, and just a few miles away from where they initially parked, Matt somehow managed to crash the car. Crashing into another vehicle almost head-on, on a small rural back road that led out of the city, both vehicles slowed down to go around a tight corner. Matt hit the oncoming car smashing into the front end of it, causing them both to come to an abrupt halt. Matt was furious; he was clearly on the wrong side of the road, and as the two vehicles met, face to face.
“What the hell are you doing”? Carrie screamed at him, holding on for dear life as their vehicle was knocked onto the side of the road, luckily just onto a small patch of grass that sat alongside a muddy river. Matt bit back almost straight away, stating that the other driver was apparently at fault; going off on one, in a particularly foul and angry mood.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Matt said, quite angrily.
“What… yes, it was; you were on the wrong side of the road, you idiot” Carrie said, but Matt wasn’t having any of it. Carrie stopped and took in a breath, quite perplexed by his ridiculous answer. She then looked towards the other car, seeing the other driver’s door open. Naturally concerned for their safety, Carrie watched as a massive young man get out; covered in tattoo’s, and as he walked towards them, she noticed a prominent scar that ran across his right eye and down his cheek. Her stomach sunk, she grabbed his arm to warn him, but within the seconds that followed, Matt’s red mist forced him out of the car, ready to confront the other driver. Carrie was initially going to get out supporting her man, but instead, knowing the obstinate mood that Matt was in, she decided to hang back and watch, knowing precisely what the outcome was likely to be.
Unusually, and to her surprise, Matt stood his ground, and after a few minutes of insults and threats flying about, he was the first person to throw a punch. Out of their ten years of marriage, she’d never seen him like this before, and it worried her greatly. Matt was usually a big softy at heart, and he’d never even got close to any form of violence in the past, so to see him aggressively attack the other driver, shocked her a great deal. The other guy, who was about a foot taller than him, just stepped aside. Matt threw his punch, putting all his efforts into the swing and fell forward, falling onto the road. He got up again, in an uncontrollable fit of anger; he turned back, and still threw another punch, missing him as he moved. This game of cat and mouse continued for a while until the other driver lost his patience and proceeded to beat him senseless. With every hit, Matt fell to the ground, landing hard against the cold floor of the road. He took a total of six heavy-duty punches and some nasty kicks to the stomach area before the stranger went back to his car and drove away at speed, wheel spinning his car as he went. Matt was left bleeding on the road, lying motionless in front of Carrie and their vehicle. Carrie quickly got out and ran over to him. Somehow she managed to get him back to the car and inside, onto the back seat. Carrie then jumped into the driver’s seat and luckily managed to start the vehicle. She turned around and headed back towards New Orleans East Hospital, where he was admitted and taken up to one of the wards. Apart from the humiliation of it all, he had fractured at least two ribs and had a possible fractured jaw as well, and to top it all, the nurse thought that he probably had some severe internal bruising. Once he was settled in, and the doctor had done all the preliminary tests, Matt launched into a sudden and verbal attacked on Carrie, accusing her of siding with the other driver. When she was allowed to get a word in, she pleaded her case, telling him how much she loved him, but for some reason, known only to Matt, he decided to dislike her, a lot and relentlessly continued his aggressive and nasty assault towards her. As expected, he pushed and pushed until it ended in a blazing row, during which, Matt grabbed her arm, yanking it hard, which reduced her to tears, mostly because of the pain he caused. Carrie burst into tears, and with no respect or empathy from Matt, she ran out of the hospital, telling him where to shove it, succumbing to her upset. She shouted at him one last time on the way out, telling him that she’d be back in the morning, and then left the ward crying, shocked by his behaviour, leaving him without even giving him a second look.
As he sat there, all angry and pissed off before he realised and decided to check himself out, he waited for a time when all the nurses seemingly disappeared; then he got dressed quickly, leaving the ward as silently as possible. On the way out, he realised that he no longer had his wallet or his phone, which upset him even more, but his soul was to get the hell out of there as quickly and as quietly as possible.
Once he’d left the building, he crossed the parking lot to see a group of older teenagers smoking in the corner, and as he was such a foul mood, he decided to go over there and blag a smoke, hoping that it might calm his nerves a little. The group had been drinking and were all excited about something or other. They gave him a cigarette, and in the conversation that followed, they offered him a chance to go to a free party, on the other side of town. He took a few tokes and a deep breath; he thought for a moment, and after realising that he’d lost his woman, his wallet and phone, as well as smash his car up and been physically attacked, he just said ‘fuck it’ to himself and accepted their invite, not knowing where he’d end up.
His apathetic mood led him to a party in an old abandoned warehouse of some kind, adorned with strange hypnotic lighting and a considerable amount of street graffiti. After looking at the kids inside, he felt old and little out of place, so he helped himself to quite a few beers, downing them far too quickly. Finally, he slowly began to enjoy himself, especially surrounded by loads of happy young people and plenty of beautiful girls. As the night progressed, he felt himself slowly go off the rails, feeling the buzz gradually take control. He felt himself get more and more drunk, maybe too drunk, he couldn’t rule out whether he’d been spiked or not. His consciousness slowly subsided as he seemed to get more uncontrollable and ‘off his head’, slowly losing his ability to interact with anyone. The night seemed to fly by, far too quickly; next thing he knew, and the last thing he remembered, was slumping into a pile on the cold concrete floor, tucked away in a dark and discreet corner of the abandoned building somewhere, going off to sleep.
Hours later, he slowly began to come to, and out of the darkness, he felt the cold shock of surprise flood his body. He woke up bleary-eyed to find himself in a field, overlooking the whole city, which must have easily been at least five to ten miles away. The next shock to the system followed quickly, as he realised that he was also naked, completely naked, with absolutely no sign of his clothes to be seen anywhere. He looked around to see nothing nearby, any houses or roads, just open rural countryside. ‘Oh no, I’ve gone and done it this time’ he said to himself, as his heart sank, looking around at the fields in the full moonlight. He had no idea of where he was, or what time was, which soon transpired into a mild form of panic. As he stood up, he also now realised just how cold it was, and with merely no idea which way to go, he shrugged and just started walking downhill, back towards the city, even though it was a long way off in the distance.
Matt was now in another foul mood again, especially as he had a banging headache and was so cold, that it was increasingly becoming painful. As he walked, his feet were beginning to hurt, and his body was shaking quite violently. He had no choice; he had to go somewhere, so he walked and walked endlessly. After an hour or so later, the horizon slowly started to change colour, as the sun tried desperately to push its way through the clouds on the horizon. Suddenly out of the blue, he turned a corner and met a solitary woman who happened to be out jogging, running down the country road with her dog. Apart from her being quite shocked to see a naked man first thing in the morning, she removed her headphones and slowed down to talk to him, especially as he looked at her with sorrowful eyes. He was still angry, to the point that he didn’t care about his predicament, so he just stood there, unashamed, with everything on show. He figured that once he got into the city, maybe he could then either get a cab or make a reverse call to Carrie, hoping that she’d come and pick him up, either way, he had to get back to civilisation somehow, and this girl before him was currently his only and best hope.
“Excuse me, what’s the quickest way back to the city?” he said, really quite embarrassed.
“What the hell happened to you?” she said, with a huge grin on her face, trying not to laugh. She got no answer, just an unpleasant look in return.
“Oh yes, just go down there, and you’ll eventually hit the motorway, which will take into the city,” she said, smiling again at him. She eyed him up and down a few times before she put her headphones back in and ran off. Matt didn’t want to stop to talk, so he thanked her and walked off as well. The young girl, just shrugged her shoulders, bemused by his predicament. She ran a few steps away, before turning to check him out one last time.
He walked and walked, seemingly walking for hours, as the road he was on, finally disappeared, and turned into a gravel footpath, leading to nowhere. He had taken the wrong route, or that stupid girl had given him the wrong directions, either way, he was still lost, still angry and even colder and more painful than before.
Before long, the whole city had gone, lost from sight. Matt now found himself out on what looked like moorland. He verbally expressed his anger again, out to the world, knowing that no one could hear him. He was upset with the girl, as well as Carrie and even himself for getting into such a scenario. As he vocalised his thoughts in a fit of anger, he then stubbed his toe, so on top of everything else, he also had two sore feet, both of which were now bleeding. Walking was now becoming difficult, as the pain was incredible. Still naked, the cold was now biting hard, with a burning sensation coming from all over his body, not just his feet. Furious in his efforts, he continued walking; the next obstacle came quickly, as he tripped up on a hole in the grass, making him fall severely. Not only did he scratch himself this time, but he also fell towards a large patch of brambles that scratched him all down his left side. His situation was getting even worse. He also twisted his ankle in the process. The scratches slowly and quietly started to drip blood, seemingly all over his body.
Still, in his foul mood, fuelled by nearly every step he took, he continued regardless, until Matt had the realisation that somehow he’d left all signs of civilisation behind and was now actually not on any form of road or pathway. He was seemingly walking across open countryside, into the unknown. Matt moaned out loud, crying out in pain and anger, with vocal insults issued in rapid succession. The sun had only just made an appearance; he grew freezing and utterly exhausted, so he stopped to survey the situation. Matt sat down on the cold, wet grass, as his body started to shiver quite violently. Through glazed eyes, desperately trying to hold the tears back, off in the distance, he saw something move. It took a moment; he watched the small black blob slowly come into focus, it was a dog running towards him. It wasn’t until the animal got too close, did he see how big it was, and panic set in, as the creature ran aggressively towards, barking quite ferociously. Instincts told him to run, as he headed off in the opposite direction, but the dog soon caught up with him and launched into an attack. Matt fell onto his front as the dog bite him on the leg, angrily growling and snarling at him. As he fell, he swung his arms around his head, desperately trying to protect himself. The dog ravished his leg, in the chaos of the attacked; he searched for anything nearby that could help. Feeling the ground around him, he found a stick nearby, which he proceeded to stab at the creatures face. He thrust it at least five times before the animal yelped and ran off, just as quickly as it arrived. Matt was in a real state now; his body was freezing to death, his arms and chest covered in scratches, and his leg had been bitten quite severely, now oozing a significant amount of blood from the wounds. He lay there motionless, in a moment of peace and serenity, the little strength he had left to get up or move. He lay there crying to himself, mumbling under his voice, as his body began to shake violently; it scared him, he couldn’t catch his breath, and everything was too painful. To add insult to injury, as he lay there slowly dying, he suddenly felt the pain of something underneath him, biting him. He looked down to see ants. He drew in a deep breath, raising enough energy from somewhere to move a metre or so. That was it; he was unable to go any further.
The fear, panic, and pain were all too much; he found it hard to keep his eyes open, as his breathing became laboured. He grabbed at the ground, struggling to breathe. Then, without any notice, he felt a few catastrophic chest pains, which not only scared the hell out of him but also forewarned him that he didn’t have much time left. He was so cold, and so exhausted that he just gave up. He closed his eyes; inside his head, he saw his mother, who ied a few years prior. She stood there looking at him on the crest of a nearby hill. She waved at him. Blue with hypothermia, and as the darkness started to invade, he just couldn’t be bothered to breathe anymore. Inside his head, he stood up and walked towards her warm smile and loving embrace.
The strange man in New Orleans, who had cursed poor old Matt, then knew that it had run its course. Within 24 hours of the confrontation, Matt was dead and his wife, Carrie was now widowed, separated without a single goodbye.
About the author and series.
This book is part of a series, written by IP Spall, consisting of 22 short stories in total. To find out more about this book series or any of IP Spall’s other publications, head to https://linktr.ee/ipspallbooks
Many of these short stories are free, and if you enjoy reading this book, you can even buy a total collection of all the short stories for a low price! Follow the link above to find out more.
This story can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2VJQ3cZ
Comments
Post a Comment