Wicked Haunted
An Anthology of the NewEngland Horror Writers
Edited by
Scott T.Goudsward
Daniel G. Keohane
David Price
Maine - New Hampshire -Vermont - Massachusetts - Rhode Island - Connecticut
www.newenglandhorror.org
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Knock, Knock Artworkby Kali Moulton
“The Thing With No Face” by Peter N. Dudar
“Lost Boy” byBracken MacLeod
“Scrying Through Torn Screens” by Patricia Gomes
“They, Too, Want to be Remembered” by KH Vaughan
“Everything Smells Like Smoke Again” by Curtis M. Lawson
“The Boy on the Red Tricycle” by Dan Szczesny
One Way Dead End Artwork by Ogmios
“East Boston Relief Station” by Paul R. McNamee
“Mouse” byLarissa Glasser
“The Walking Man” byMatt Bechtel
“My Work is Not Yet Completed” by Nick Manzolillo
“Ghosts In Their Eyes” by Trisha J. Wooldridge
“They Come With the Storm” by Dan Foley
“Turn Up the Old Victrola” by Tom Deady
“Ghost Maker” byEmma J. Gibbon
“The Pick Apart” byPaul McMahon
“The Stranding Off Schoodic Point” by R.C. Mulhare
“Triumph of the Spirit” by GD Dearborn
Ghost on a Swing Artworkby Judi Calhoun
“The Road to Gallway” by Rob Smales
“The Thin Place” byMorgan Sylvia
“Tripping the Ghost” by Barry Lee Dejasu
“we’re all haunted here” by doungai gam
“Murmur” byJeremy Flagg
“Pulped” byJames A. Moore
About the Contributors
Other Anthologies of the New EnglandHorror Writers
Dedication
Copyright Page
Knock Knock by Kali Moulton
In Appreciation for thestories of Shirley Jackson,
one of the Greatest NewEngland Ghost Writers…
The Thing With No Face
PeterN. Dudar
I don’t want to remember…Please don’tmake me remember!
KevinEllis woke up just after three a.m., his heart jack-hammering in his chest, hisskin cold and clammy from the skein of midsummer sweat. He’d only been home(his childhood home in Latham) for two days, and the nightmares had returned.Kevin’s bedroom had remained unchanged for the last three decades; a shrine tothe life of an introverted teenager of the eighties that Kevin had, over theyears, sloughed off like the dead scales of a snake. Faye Ellis had sworn asfar back as Kevin’s wedding day that she was going to box up all his belongingsand he either could take them home with him or she would have them hauled offto the town landfill. His mother had intended to turn the bedroom into aguestroom, with enough space for a crib for when he and Carrie finallypresented her with a grandchild. The divorce two years later put the final nailin that fantasy. There, in the darkness, Kevin found himself wishing thingsmight have been different.
Inthe dark, the sameness of his childhood bedroom made it feel like no time hadpassed. In his heart and his mind he was twelve again, and the sameness meantthe past still existed.
Kevinpushed the switch on the bedside lamp and shielded his eyes as the light singedaway the image still lingering from the dream. He sat up and let his legs slipoff the mattress until his feet touched the floor. The air conditioner in hiswindow kept the humidity at bay, but the air in the room still felt warm anduncomfortable. He found himself wishing he’d just checked into the Econo LodgeMotel over on Route 7. He’d have had his privacy, and would probably have beenable to escape the nightmares that invariably returned every time he came hometo visit his mother. But after his father’s passing seven years ago, there wasno way to escape Faye Ellis’s guilt trips about how his visits were growingless in frequency and duration.
Theroom felt warmer than usual. Kevin stood, scratched himself for a moment, andthen wandered over to the air conditioner to see if it might be dialed down toa lower setting. The green digital number read sixty-six degrees (thetemperature his mom had pre-programmed before he arrived, and would complainabout if he forgot to set it back when he started his day), but he was sure itcould go down to at least sixty-two. He smiled as he pressed the button, andjust like in his childhood he felt the supreme joy of secretly going againsthis mother’s wishes. The green digits dropped to 62, and the extra blast ofcold air made his sweaty skin prickle with goose bumps. Kevin crossed his armsagainst his chest and turned to climb back into bed when he heard the dogbarking from the yard behind the fence. Kevin froze in place as the yelpspierced the darkness and echoed off the window pane. His heartbeat pounded inhis chest and temples as his mind slipped back to childhood again.
Oldman Grady’s dog.
Ofcourse, that was impossible. They put Butch down over two decades ago, backwhen…
Hecrept up to the window and peeked out from the slits in the blinds.
Thething outside was watching him.
Hefroze in place, and let his eyes penetrate the darkness of the backyard. Seeingit now under the hazy summer starlight, the land beneath his window looked likea long-forgotten realm of sinister shadows and unnatural contours. In thedarkness, lawn furniture resembled hunched dwarves offering dreadful devotionsto the night. The tool shed was an ancient castle, with dragon eyes peering outwhenever the headlights of the neighbor’s car threw reflections on the glass.The flowerbed along the back fence was a row of tombstones whenever the fullmoon rose above them. These things Kevin knew by heart from childhood and he’dlong since learned to see them for what they really were. But the thingstanding directly in the center of the lawn was loathsome; a silhouette ofspindly white arms and legs that fluttered in the hot pre-dawn breeze like afrayed flag. The apparition floated in defiance of the tangible thingssurrounding it, as if it somehow wanted to find the same permanence but couldnot. Kevin struggled to make his eyes focus harder, trying to see what waslooking up into his bedroom, but the thing seemed to have no face. No eyes ornose or jaw line to give it the missing touch of humanity. Whatever it wassimply was, an ethereal reflection of something long dead.
Heleaned closer to the glass and cupped his hands around his eyes to lower theglare from the lamp. Holding his breath to keep the window from fogging, heglared at the phantasm. The thing with no face tried to glare back, to
