The Tooth Collector (and Other Tales of Terror) (4 page)

“Her father deserves to die at the tip of
that blade. Not me. Not the one who loves her.” The dark soul
continued floating with the blade aimed at Cynthia.

After a moment, it lowered the weapon. The
cyclone of energy that swirled around it faded to an ominous wind.
It leaned forward, out of the hood, and Cynthia could see its pale,
withered lips and long, cadaverous nose. The skin was alabaster
white and clung to the bone so tightly that its face looked
skeletal.

“We must summon him to this world. Think of
him,” the soul growled.

Cynthia did. She thought of all the good
times they had together, of how she hated him for leaving without
so much as a goodbye. She thought of all the birthdays he had
missed. She hated him for walking out of her life, but most of all
for abandoning Kya.

The atmosphere began to pulsate around her. A
dark force pushed outward from Cynthia's broken heart, spreading to
the far corners of the room. The air was alive with energy. It
danced in waves, gathering speed until a cyclone formed before the
fireplace, spinning out of control. The center of the tiny tornado
grew darker, larger, and then... he was there.

His dark brown eyes grew wide with fear as he
appeared in the circling wind. He was older than she remembered.
Wrinkles had formed on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes.
The youthful glow had faded from his skin.

The dark figure approached him, hovering
above the floorboards. Its robes dragged along the dirty ground,
leaving a trail in the dust. The fire crackled. The bones within it
shifted. The skull's mouth fell open in a silent scream.
Recognition dawned on the blonde man before the fire as his brown
eyes locked on Cynthia.

“Cynthia?” He looked to the cloaked figure,
then back to her. “Cynthia, what's going on?”

“For every joy there is a sorrow. You are the
sacrifice!”

The blade of the scythe came down on his
skull with a loud crack. His eyes turned white as they rolled back
in his head. A gurgling noise escaped his throat, and he coughed,
dribbling blood over his lips.

The tooth collector yanked its blade from the
man's skull. Another blow punctured the temple with a wet pop. The
lost soul turned its eyes to Cynthia, two rubies floating in a
black abyss.

She woke up with Jason's fingers tucked in
between her own. He smiled with his mouth closed and gently
squeezed her hand. “Nurse, she's awake,” he said.

Cynthia's pulse quickened as she came to. Her
eyes were panicked. “Is she... is she...”

“She's beautiful,” Jason replied.

Cynthia's heart swelled. Her eyes filled with
tears. “Where is she?”

A nurse appeared beside the bed. She cradled
an infant, swaddled in a pink blanket. Wispy locks of orange hair
covered the newborn's head. Cynthia opened her arms. “May I have
her?”

The nurse smiled. “Of course.”

Cynthia took the baby in her arms. The
emerald green eyes stared up at her, and she fell in love with them
all over again. “I'll call her Mya,” she said, and kissed the
baby's head.

Blood
On The Highway

Snowflakes swirled in the headlights. They
shined like white crystals in the high beams before dissolving
against the windshield. Flake after tiny white flake. It was all
Emily had seen for hours.

The wipers ran at full speed, smearing snow
across the glass. She closed her eyes, but the snowflakes kept
coming. She saw them in her head, an endless stream of icy
diamonds, the wipers going back and forth, back and forth.

Tim was at the wheel. His face hadn't changed
in three hours. Determination creased his brow, and Emily wondered
if it would freeze that way. She stifled a laugh as she pictured
him literally frozen from the frigid climate, the same look of
perseverance in his eye.

She leaned her head against the seat and
sighed. The melody to Jingle Bells had been stuck in her head for
hours. There was nothing to block it out but the whir of the car
heater and the beating of those relentless windshield wipers. She
had tried the radio, but Tim had turned it off and said “Em, I need
to concentrate on the road.”

God, she hated Jingle Bells. She hated this
vacation. She needed to see something, anything, besides the
moonlit wintry highway, blurred by a veil of ever-falling snow—or
she would go mad.

“Are you sure we didn't take a wrong turn?”
she asked.

Tim glanced sideways without turning his
head, leering at her through the corner of his eye. “Are you
serious? Have you been paying attention? How many turns have we
even made since exiting the interstate, Em?”

“Um, I don't—”

“Two.” He gritted his teeth. “Two turns in an
hour. Hard to mess that up.”

“Okay, okay, I was just—”

“You were texting, reading, and discussing
movies with Roger Ebert back there—” He angled his thumb to point
over his shoulder.

“Witty,” a voice chimed from the
backseat.

“—while I've been chauffeuring you two
around.” Tim looked at her. A frown pulled at the corners of his
mouth. It marred the beauty of his broad, shaven chin and high
cheek bones. “And now that you're tired, grumpy, and sick of being
in the car, you've started making stupid accusations.”

“Woah, dude. Ease up,” Eric said. Tim eyed
his brother in the rear-view mirror, listening. “Where's your
holiday spirit? She just asked a simple question. I mean, how long
does it take to get to this place anyway, man?”

Tim moved his jaw around nervously. Emily
heard his teeth grind together. “It takes three hours,
man
.”
He emphasized the word “man”, mocking his younger brother's tone.
“The resort is an hour drive up the mountain after exiting the
interstate. An hour if you're traveling the speed limit, that is. I
can't see anything in this damn blizzard, so we've been traveling
at fifteen below the limit. And I didn't take a wrong turn. Sit
tight and we'll be there soon.”

Tim was on the defensive. Taking a trip to
the middle of nowhere had been his idea, a “Christmas getaway” he
had said. His cold blue eyes were fixed on the highway, foot steady
on the gas pedal. The long drive was making everyone feel restless
and stir crazy, and Emily longed to see the silhouette of the ski
resort on the snowy horizon.

She eyed Tim thoughtfully. Things hadn't been
the same since he found out she was pregnant. He'd grown callous, a
shell of a person, barely acknowledging her presence when she tried
to make him laugh, or turn him on. He responded to the news of a
baby as if it were a crisis—making plans, preparing himself,
thinking. He wore a path in the rug from pacing back and forth
during the two and a half weeks they were expecting.

She sensed happiness in his voice when she
told him about the miscarriage. “Oh, honey...” he had said. “Are
you very upset?”

What kind of a question was that? Of course
she was upset! She was devastated. And he would feel the same
crushing sadness if he cared about the baby at all. That's when
Emily realized. He'd never wanted the baby. Maybe if the life
inside her had blossomed, made it to full term, Tim would have
grown to love it. But Emily lost the embryo at eight weeks of life,
and she could swear—though she hated to admit it—Tim had breathed a
sigh of relief when she told him.

“Are we there yet?” Eric leaned forward from
the backseat, doing his best impersonation of an impatient child.
He gripped the driver's seat headrest and drummed his fingers on
the leather. He was testing Tim's patience, which was nothing but a
threadbare strand. They were brothers, with the same icy blue eyes
and dark hair, but their personalities were like night and day. Tim
was disappointed that the vacation he'd planned was turning into a
nightmare, and Eric was passing the time the only way he knew how:
by poking fun at his brother's discomfort. Mere inches from Tim's
ear, he said, “What do ya think, bro? How much longer you holding
us hostage in this car?”

Despite Eric's immaturity, Emily couldn't
fight the corners of her mouth as they curled into a smile. “Eric,
cut it out,” Tim said as he turned to punch his brother's hand from
the back of his headrest.

Suddenly the endless sky full of snow
flurries and stars disappeared behind a large white blur that
darted in front of the Jeep. White, furry, enormous. Tim couldn't
see the highway past the hulking figure that stood, frozen like a
deer in the headlights.

Tim slammed the brakes. The animal's eyes
glowed red in the headlights before it finally turned and tried to
run away. But it was too late. The tires squealed, and Emily
screamed. They were skidding, crashing, the metal frame crunching
inward. Glass splinters flew into the air, mixed with the falling
snowflakes.

Something soft supported Emily's head as the
force of the crash sent her forward. The air bag. She couldn't see
past it and her pulse quickened as she started to feel smothered.
She pushed it away from her face, trying to see if Tim was all
right. The smell of burnt rubber hung in the air. The engine hissed
and her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

The airbags began to deflate. “Emily, are you
okay?” It was Eric. Emily turned her head. A sharp pain tore
through her neck and shoulders as she did.

“Yes, I'm all right,” she answered.

Eric looked dazed. He rubbed the back of his
skull with his palm. “Ow,” he said. “Some fuckin' Christmas,
huh?”

They both looked at Tim, who was in the
driver's seat, staring blankly through a jagged hole in the
windshield. His air bag hung, deflated, in his lap. His
white-knuckled fingers gripped the steering wheel, still squeezing
it tight. His hands trembled with fear. A shard of glass between
his knuckles formed a thin trail of blood. It drizzled down his
hand onto his pants.

The car was parked horizontally across the
right shoulder lane, facing the woods. Moments before impact, Tim
had turned the steering wheel, but whatever they hit—some kind of
animal—it was solid enough to smash the front left side of the hood
and warp the metal on the entire driver's side. Tim stared into the
dark forest, motionless.

“Tim?” Emily put her hand on his forearm.
“Tim? Are you okay?”

“What the hell was that thing?” Tim's voice
was low, the words muttered, as if talking to himself. He turned to
Emily, eyes wide.

Emily had seen an animal, but she didn't know
what kind. The fur was soft and white like a polar bear, but it
walked on two feet like an ape. The hair around its face was long,
blowing in the wind. And its eyes. She could picture them, glowing
in the headlights. Shining an eerie red.

Tim tried his door. It wouldn't open. The
metal frame was bent inward near the latch. Tim leaned his shoulder
into it, pushing until the door creaked open in a chorus of
protesting metal parts. He stumbled from the car, disappearing
around the side.

Emily's door opened without a fight, and she
followed him into the frosty night. A gust of wind stole her
breath, so cold it stung her cheeks. It carried her breath away in
white, cloudy streams as she made her way around the car.

Tim stood over the animal... the beast. It
wasn't much taller than a man, but its body was packed with muscle
from head to toe. Huge biceps and thighs bulged from under its
thick, white fur. Its wide nostrils sloped into a snout that
reminded Emily of a gorilla. Each finger ended in a jagged, yellow
claw, and a bushy tail poked out from underneath its lifeless
body.

Emily cringed as she drew closer. Broken
bones tore through its skin, jutting from the rib cage, arm, and
legs at odd angles. A pool of blood gathered in the snow beneath
the beast, leaking from the deep, gory wounds that lay open
throughout its matted fur. Muscle tissue and veins dangled from the
wounds, dripping blood. Snow melted as it hit the creature's
still-warm flesh, adding to the sloppy mess.

The colorless snow was streaked with bright
red. Moonlight glistened on the beast's pointed teeth as its lips
drooped lifelessly away from its mouth. Death had caused its
muscles to relax, but Emily could swear it died with a snarl on its
face. Its eyes were beginning to frost over, staring up at the
cosmos with an empty gaze. Emily gulped. “What is it?”

Tim shook his head. “I don't know.” He knelt
in the snow and examined the corpse, inching closer. When he
realized his knees were dangerously close to the congealing pool of
blood, he made a disgusted face and stood up, dusting clumps of
snow from his knees.

“The car is fucked,” he said, gesturing to
the bent up Jeep Cherokee. “We'll be lucky if it starts.”

“Some vacation, huh?” Emily smiled at him,
trying to lighten the mood.

Tim stared at her. An inner darkness swirled
in his silver-blue eyes. The tension in the air was almost
palpable, as if Emily could reach out and grab a piece of it and
chuck it like a snowball. “I planned this trip for you,” he
growled. “You were too nervous to fly. Not interested in the
beach.”

“The beach for Christmas, Tim? It didn't seem
right...”