WICKED

Genre: Horror  

 

 

 

WICKED

By Randy Romero

 

 

Sarah Barber called out from the kitchen, “Harold, you want mayo or mustard on your sandwich?”

Harold offered no reply. Even if he did, she could hear nothing over the blaring television. Wheel of Fortune was on, and an excited contestant was telling Pat Sajak that they’d like to buy a vowel.

“Harold, if you’re awake, turn that damn TV down. I can’t even hear myself think.”

Since Harold didn’t respond, she decided for him. She made him a turkey, ham, and cheese with mustard. She used white bread because Harold was stubborn and wouldn’t accept any substitutes. And American cheese because he had the palate of an eight-year-old. Then she made herself a turkey and swiss on whole wheat with light mayonnaise, because she had to be mindful of her cholesterol at her age.

She walked into the living room with two plates and found Harold nodding off in his recliner. “Dinner is served,” she said and dropped his sandwich in his lap.

He sat up and reached for the remote to turn the volume down. “Stupid TV. The volume is all screwed up.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the volume. There’s something wrong with your hearing.”

“My hearing is perfectly fine. My doctor said so himself.”

“You haven’t been to the doctor in years.”

“Well, the last time I went he said my hearing was perfectly fine.”

“Shut up and eat your sandwich,” she laughed.

Harold Barber’s hearing wasn’t what it used to be, though he’d never admit it. At least he still had his eyesight. Sarah couldn’t say the same with her black, thick framed glasses. Without them she’d be squinting to see the letters on the board behind Vanna White.

The phone rang, startling them both.

“Goddamn telemarketers,” Harold muttered. “I told them not to call so late. I’m going to be pissed if it’s them.”

“I’ll see who it is,” Sarah said.

The phone was on a small end table beside the burgundy sofa. All they had was a landline. As senior citizens, they avoided new technology. They had no use for cellphones seeing as how they rarely left the house. They didn’t own a computer either. They got all their entertainment from television and they got all their news from the papers.

Sarah picked up the phone and raised it to her ear.

“Hello?”

Heavy breathing on the other end. Then a voice came, one that rattled her brittle bones.

She stared straight ahead, her feet glued to the beige carpet. Her throat was as dry as a desert. She couldn’t utter a word to the person on the other end of the phone.

“Who is it?” Harold asked, his curiosity piqued.

Sarah lowered the phone from her ear. “It’s…It’s Anna,” she whispered.

“That’s not funny, Sarah. Why would you joke about something like that?”

She held out the phone. “Hear it for yourself.”

Harold got up and snatched the phone from her hand. He put it to his ear and Sarah huddled around him, as close to the phone as she could get.

They both listened in fear. They could say nothing. They could only listen. It was garbled and distorted, but it was clearly Anna’s voice.

But Anna Barber was dead and had been for 19 years. The Barbers were sure of that.

She was buried under a concrete slab in their basement.

Harold heard enough and dropped the phone in its cradle.

“Do you believe me now?” Sarah shrieked.

“Yes…I heard it too.”

“How is it possible?”

“It’s not possible. It’s got to be a prank. A sick, sick joke.”

But who? Harold thought. Who would stoop so low as to imitate their (as far as the rest of the world was concerned) missing daughter?

The Barbers wanted to love their daughter more than anything in the world. But anyone could see, even from an early age, that Anna wasn’t like other children. She didn’t talk much. She didn’t make friends easy. The other kids tended to avoid her. Animals were terrified of her presence. The Barbers couldn’t even own a pet.

They knew Anna was different. But they tried to deny the truth. Only her nana saw what she really was.

On her eighth birthday, when Anna went to blow out the candles on her birthday cake, the flames shot up so high that it charred the ceiling. That was when her nana proclaimed in front of the entire family that Anna was a witch.

Harold and Sarah balked at the accusation, until they spoke with her in private. She implored them to give Anna up for adoption. She warned them that as long as Anna was around, the whole family was in danger.

One week later, nana was dead. She bit off her own tongue in her sleep and choked on it.

Nobody dared to call Anna a witch after that. It wasn’t just the animals that were afraid of her. It was her parents too. They kept a close eye on her for years, into her teens.

At night, they would hear her talking to somebody else in her room. But every time they went in to check on her, she was alone. Some nights, she would disappear without saying a word and turn up the next day like nothing happened. That was around the exact same time that people from the neighborhood started dying under questionable circumstances.

There was a girl at Anna’s school who used to pick on her. Sarah had spoken to the principal about her and remembered her name when she saw it in the paper. Jessica Priest. It’s hard to forget a last name like that. Jessica and her parents had died in a car accident when the brakes had mysteriously failed.

Then there was Scott Levy, the kid up the street who called Anna a weirdo in passing. He was out drinking with his friends one weekend and took a fall off a roof. His friends told the cops he wasn’t even that drunk, and the toxicology report backed up their claim. They also told the cops that it didn’t seem like an accident. They insisted it was intentional.

They said Scott just got up and walked to the ledge like something compelled him to, and took a two-story plunge.

And Mrs. Garcia, who looked down on Anna ever since she was a child for being “different”. She was found in her garage with her car running.

When she was home, she hardly spoke, hardly left her room. Her skin was sickly and pale. Her shoulder-length hair was tangled in black knots. Her eyes were dark and bloodshot. She bared no resemblance to the child that Harold and Sarah had raised.

Anna was seventeen when Harold decided to end it once and for all with a double barrel shotgun. They had gone snooping through Anna’s things when she was at school, and had found among her possessions, items belonging to other people from around the neighborhood.

Stashed away in her bottom drawer was Mrs. Garcia’s hairbrush and Jessica Priest’s necklace, along with Scott Levy’s wallet and countless other stolen items. They knew then something had to done. The evil growing inside their daughter was too powerful to control or contain.

They buried their secrets in the basement and declared Anna missing. The police didn’t care too much to investigate, and Harold and Sarah didn’t push them. No suspicion ever fell on the Barbers. Their family didn’t question it either. They all just assumed that Anna had run away and would turn up one day whenever she felt like it.

“This isn’t happening,” Sarah moaned. She sat back down on the sofa because she was feeling faint.

“It’s a stupid joke, Sarah. Some asshole is messing with us. That’s got to be it.”

The phone rang again and this time it was Harold who answered. He didn’t say anything. Just held the phone to his ear.

“Did you miss me?” a haunting voice asked. “I’ve missed you.”

“Anna, is this really you?” he said, a quiver in his voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the void,” Anna said. “That space between the dead and the living. It’s so cold where I am. I’m cold all the time. Why did you do it, daddy? Why did you do it?”

Harold dropped the phone and yanked the phone line out of the wall. “I’m done listening to this crap.”

He walked into the kitchen to avoid addressing the subject any further. “Get a grip,” he whispered to himself. “Anna is gone. Somebody is having a good laugh at your expense.”

A faint sound emanated from the basement. He wondered if Sarah heard it too. It sounded like something was scratching and clawing its way up the stairs.

Harold jumped as all four burners on the stove ignited with a loud crackle and the flames shot up into the air, almost setting the curtain above the kitchen sink ablaze. Harold managed to put all four out with his heart practically beating out of his chest.

From the kitchen, he could hear the shrill ring of the phone. The phone that he unplugged…

Sarah stared unblinking at the phone, afraid to move from the sofa.

“Don’t answer it!” Harold cried.

The phone stopped just as the TV went out. Then the lights flickered and faded. The TV crackled and sizzled as the screen exploded. The end table went flying across the room. Sarah leapt to her feet and ran into Harold’s arms. For a moment, their sofa was suspended in the air before it was flung against the wall, shattering a row of picture frames.

Sarah ran for the door, but couldn’t get it open.

“What’s wrong?” Harold asked.

“The lock…it’s jammed or something. I can’t get it open.”

“Move out of the way.”

Harold tried with all his strength, but the lock wouldn’t budge. The lights blinked on and the basement door creaked open. They could hear it’s whining hinges all the way from the living room. It was as if Anna was beckoning them, calling them down to the basement.

“You stay here, I’m going downstairs.”

She pleaded with him not to. But stubborn old Harold just refused to listen. He said if he wasn’t back upstairs in two minutes to call 911 and find a way out of the house. But Sarah wasn’t about to leave his side for even a second.

“If you’re going, I’m going too.” She squeezed his hand tight.

They walked to the basement door, took a deep breath, and descended the stairs…

 

 

***

 

 

The house was all marked off with yellow police tape when Gordon Matthews showed up on the scene with a cup of coffee in hand. He met the coroner outside.

“No bagel?” the coroner asked.

“I only had time for coffee this morning.”

“How’s the wife?”

“Ex-wife. She’s been putting me through hell. Thanks for reminding me. What have we got?”

“It’s best you see it for yourself. The couples name is Sarah and Harold Barber.

Matthews ducked under the yellow tape that formed an X in front of the door and surveyed the scene.

“What the hell happened here?” Detective Matthews asked the officer who was first on the scene.

“Murder, suicide? Double homicide? Take your pick. The place is a mess. There’s blood everywhere. I’ll leave it to you and the coroner to figure out.”

“What else have you got for me?”

“Coroner places the time of death around 4:45AM. But neighbors heard noises through all hours of the night. One neighbor said it sounded like they were rearranging furniture at one point. Another one heard yelling, or screaming. They couldn’t be sure. Then around one in the morning, neighbors reported what they said sounded like a jackhammer. Looks like the husband decided to tear up the basement.

We don’t know what happened after that. Both bodies were found here in the living room. Multiple scratch marks on both victims. The woman’s left hand was pierced with a pair of scissors. Numerous stab wounds to the face and torso. The husband was gutted with a butcher knife. Oh and get this, the coroner says the wounds appear to be self-inflicted. I haven’t looked downstairs yet, but some of the boys are poking around down there now.”

“Hey, detective,” another officer called. “We found something in the basement. You’re gonna want to see this…”