L is for Lamia (A-Z of Horror Book 12) Read online

  BOOK SUMMARY

  Nobody likes a knock at the door late at night, but that’s exactly what happens to one close-knit family on an otherwise ordinary night.

  Who is at the door and what do they want?

  For family man, Patrick, the answers will be horrifying.

  “Shall Lamia in our sight her sons devour,

  And give them back alive the self-same hour.”

  – Horace, Ars Poetica

  “You know, I’ve always wanted a child. And now I think I’ll have one… on toast!”

  – Winifred Sanderson, Hocus Pocus (1993), Walt Disney Pictures

  -1 -

  “I am a businessman…”

  Silence.

  “I was born October 28th, 1955...”

  Silence.

  “Seattle was my birthplace…”

  Silence.

  “My wife’s name is Melinda…”

  Silence.

  “In 1975 I co-founded a software-”

  “Bill Gates!”

  Patrick looked at his daughter, Hannah, and smiled. “Yep, you got it, smarty pants.”

  “Oh yeah, baby!” Hannah stuck her tongue out at her younger brother, Jake, and then rolled the dice with relish.

  Her mother Alison giggled. “Ooh, you landed on a Dumbass square, cocky. You miss a turn.”

  Jake pointed his finger at his sister and laughed. “Ha ha!”

  “Shut it, monster.”

  “Play nice,” Patrick scolded. Lately his kids just didn’t get along. “It’s mum’s turn to read the next card.”

  Alison slid a fresh card from the top of the deck and began reading from it in her posh question master voice.

  “I am a European city…”

  Silence.

  “I was founded in 735 BC…”

  Patrick leaned forward; bit his lip as an answer came to him. It was a guess, but it felt right. “Rome!”

  Alison rolled her eyes and groaned. “Yes.”

  “Yay me!”

  Jake scrunched his face up and folded his arms stroppily. “No fair. You always win at this one, dad. Can’t we play UNO?”

  “UNO is for kids.” Hannah moaned.

  “You’re a kid.”

  “I’m sixteen in three weeks.”

  “Then for three weeks you’re still a kid.”

  “Shut it, Monster.”

  “Hey,” Patrick raised a hand. “Will you two just get along, please? You’re so snappy lately, Hannah. Is everything okay at school? Did you and your boyfriend have a fight?”

  Hannah huffed. “I’m fine. I just don’t want to play stupid UNO.”

  “Okay, then we can play something else. Just let me finish whooping your arse at this first.”

  Hannah shrugged. “I quit, you’re too far ahead. Board games are stupid anyway.”

  “Hannah, come on.”

  There was a knock at the front door.

  “Who could that be?” Alison asked. “It’s almost nine.”

  Patrick got up off the sofa. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  The door knocked again, louder.

  “Okay, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

  -2-

  Patrick opened the front door to find a woman standing out on the doorstep. Her skin was so pale that she seemed to glow in the darkness. Her hair was so black that it was almost invisible against the night. A very strange looking woman.

  “Can I help you, miss?

  The woman just stared at him for a moment, but then she blinked slowly and tilted her head. “You have a lovely home.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have a lovely home.”

  “Thank you. Can I help you?”

  “Yesss.”

  Patrick kept a firm grip on the door, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. There was something wrong with this woman. The oddness seemed to reek off her.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “A child.”

  “You want a child? I’m sorry, miss. I think you have the wrong house. I’m not understanding you at all.”

  “You have a lovely home.”

  “Thank you.”

  “A lovely family.”

  Patrick had heard enough. He began to close the door. “You need to leave.”

  “Give me one of your children.”

  Patrick paused, the door half closed. “What did you just say?”

  “Your children. Hannah…Jake… Give me one of them and I will go away.”

  “Okay, miss, I’m calling the police now.” He slammed the door in the mad woman’s face, angry and confused. He stormed back into the living room where his family were all waiting for him.

  “Who was it?” Alison asked him.

  “Some bloody lunatic. I’m calling the police.”

  Alison stood up. “What, why? Patrick, what’s wrong?”

  Patrick realised how it sounded and did not enjoy the fearful looks on his family’s faces, so he tried to play it down. “It’s nothing. Just some batty mare making a nuisance of herself. I need to call the police to come move her on, or get her back to whatever care home she wandered out of.”

  He picked his mobile phone up off the coffee table and googled the number for the local police station. It started to ring but, before anyone answered, the line became distorted.

  “What the hell?” Patrick looked at the screen to check that the line was open then placed the phone back against his ear.

  It was the strangest thing, but it almost sounded like hissing.

  Patrick ended the call and tried again, got the same strange hissing sound.

  “I can’t get through,” he grunted. “Hannah, lend me your phone.”

  Hannah didn’t argue. The fact that her father was calling the police was enough to worry her. But, when he tried it, her phone was exactly the same. As soon as the call connected, there was nothing but a hissing sound.

  There was another knock at the door, louder and more persistent than last time.

  -3-

  Patrick looked at his family’s worried faces and tried not to look so anxious himself. They were only concerned because he was concerned and, really, what was there to be worried about? There was a strange woman at the door, granted, but there was nothing to suggest that she could pose a physical threat. She had been speaking nonsense, that was all.

  Still, you could never be too careful.

  Patrick noticed his son’s cricket bat propped up against the wall next to the front door and picked it up before opening the front door again.

  When he did, he found that the woman was gone. There was nothing but the dark, angular shadows of the neighbours’ houses across the road. The lamppost that was usually lit up by now was dead, leaving his front lawn as a featureless black oblong.

  Hissssss.

  Patrick looked down just in time to see the snake strike him. He was not wearing shoes, only socks, which is why the pain was sudden and unbearable when two sharp fangs pierced through his sock.

  He leapt back, eyes and mouth both wide in horror as he looked at the nest of snakes. They teemed and slithered over the front step, as if someone had unloaded a sack of them right at Patrick’s front door. It could only have been the strange women.

  She truly was insane.

  He swung his cricket bat, smashing the skull of a red and black snake that was closest. But many more came, forcing him to retreat.

  A voice whispered through the shadows. “Your children. Give me one of your children and I will go away.”

  Patrick went back inside the house and slammed the front door shut. He collapsed in the hallway, clutching his throbbing foot. His sock was wet and he realised he was bleeding
.

  Alison ran out of the living room and saw him slumped on the floor. “What’s going on? Patrick, please, tell me.”

  Patrick reached out to his wife. “Help me up. I’ve been bitten by a snake.”

  “A snake? That’s insane!”

  “Yeah, I know. I think that woman brought them. She’s a psychopath.”

  Alison helped him up and back into the living room. Jake and Hannah were huddled together on the sofa.

  “Dad, I’m scared,” said his nine-year-old son.

  Hannah pulled her brother against her and cuddled him.

  Patrick flopped down in the room’s armchair and brought his foot up onto his opposite knee. He pulled off his sock and winced at both the pain and the sight. Two ragged holes had made a gruesome mess of his instep and the wound bled profusely.

  Alison rushed into the kitchen and came back with a bandage and antiseptic. Patrick grunted in pain when the liquid alcohol predictably stung him.

  As Alison wrapped his foot, she looked Patrick in the eye and stated, “We need to call the police.”

  He nodded, looked at Hannah. “Call 999. That woman has just released a load of snakes on our front path and one of them has bitten me. That’s assault.”

  Hannah nodded eagerly and picked up her phone. It was only seconds before it became obvious that she wasn’t getting through. “I’m only getting a hissing sound,” she said.

  “Like snakes?” Jake asked, trembling.

  Hannah gave her brother another cuddle. “It’s okay, Jakey.”

  The landline phone rang in the kitchen.

  Alison’s eyes went wide as the sound made her jump. She went to get up from the floor where she was positioned in front of Patrick on her knees, but he stopped her.

  “I’ll go,” he said, hopping up onto his good foot and hobbling towards the kitchen. Pain ran up his entire lower leg, but it was gradually easing, changing to numbness.

  The phone in the kitchen was still ringing so he snatched at the handset and brought it up to his ear.

  “Hello?” he said. “Who is it?”

  “Give me one of your children or I will kill both. Lose one or lose both.”

  “Fuck you, you freak.”

  He slammed the phone down, waited a few seconds, then picked it back up again, ready to dial the police.

  Hissssss.

  “Damn it!” Patrick raged, slammed the handset back down on the cradle, over and over.

  “Patrick, calm down. Who was it?”

  He turned to his wife and shook his head, feeling as close to despair as when Jake had been born seven weeks prematurely and couldn’t breathe on his own. That had been the night from hell, but this was coming close.

  “It was her,” he said. “That bitch is tormenting us.”

  “What does she want?”

  Patrick thought about whether to tell his wife the truth He and Alison did not keep secrets – they were a partnership – but should he tell her about what the woman had said to him? She would freak out.

  She was already freaked out.

  “She said she wants one of the kids,” he admitted. “The woman’s a complete lunatic.”

  Alison covered her mouth with her hand but the gasp still made it out into the kitchen. “She wants to hurt our children?”

  Patrick pulled her close and held her in his arms. “This is mad, I know, but she’s just some nutcase. I’m going to deal with her, I promise.”

  There was a knock at the back door, making them both jump.

  -4-

  Patrick had left the cricket bat in the living room so he went and retrieved it. There, he took a moment to speak with his children.

  “Hannah, stay with your brother, okay?”

  “What’s going on, dad? Why does someone keep knocking on the door? Is someone in the garden?”

  “There’s a confused women outside the house. I’m just going to deal with her now, but I want you both to stay here.”

  “Dad, don’t go.” Jake started crying. “Please.”

  “Your sister will look after you, Jakey.”

  “No, she won’t. I don’t want you to leave, dad.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  Hannah tried to pull her brother in for another cuddle, but he pushed her away. “Get off me.”

  “Fine,” Hannah snapped. “Go hide under you bed then, you little brat.”

  Patrick glared at his daughter. “What the hell is wrong with you? He’s your little brother.”

  “It’s not my job to be his mother.”

  “No, it’s your job to be his big sister. Now stay with him while I’m gone.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and grunted. “Fine.”

  Jake wailed as Patrick limped back into the kitchen with the cricket bat, but he would just have to deal with it.

  The knocking at the back door had stopped, but Alison still stood by the fridge, staring anxiously through the back windows at the garden outside.

  “Have you seen anything?” he asked her.

  “No, it’s too dark out there. I think she’s gone away.”

  Patrick lifted the cricket bat. “She’d better hope she has.”

  He unlocked the back door and pushed it open. Met only by the night he shouted defiantly. “Come face me, you crazy bitch. You threaten a man’s family, you’re asking for trouble. Come out so I can beat the shit out of you. You hear me?”

  Silence.

  The truth was he had never beaten the shit out of anybody in his life, but he was willing to do so now. If the woman was trespassing on his property after having threatened his children, he reckoned he had a right to swing for a six.

  The metal struts of Jake’s swing set glinted in the moonlight, but there was nothing else to discern in the darkness other than wooden fencing on either side of the garden.

  Patrick stepped out into the garden, feeling the chill against his skin. His left leg was heavy and he had to half-drag it as he searched for the woman.

  The old fir tree in the corner of the garden swayed gently in the breeze and made a hissing sound that reminded Patrick of the snakes on his doorstep. The thought made him glance down at the long grass anxiously. There could be more snakes, only inches away, and he would struggle to see them in the dark. It was a bad idea to be out in the open like this.

  He looked back at the house. Alison stood in the doorway, biting her nails as she watched him.

  The garden was empty. The woman wasn’t out there.

  Time to go back inside.

  Patrick limped back towards the house and returned to the kitchen.

  “Where do you think she went?” Alison asked him.

  “Wherever she bloody well came from, I sincerely hope,” he said. “I’m going to try the phone again.”

  Hannah rushed into the kitchen. The look on her face was part scared, part angry.

  “What is it?” Alison asked her daughter.

  “It’s Jake,” she said. “He’s run away.”

  -5-

  “Why the hell weren’t you looking after him?” Patrick demanded of his daughter.

  “I was, but he said he wanted to go the toilet.”

  “You should have taken him.”

  “He’s nine years old.”

  “I said watch him. Where did he go?”

  “I heard the front door open. He must have gone outside.”

  Patrick thought about the snakes on the front step and panicked. “Shit.”

  His left leg was becoming an increasing hindrance, forcing Patrick to lollop as he made his way across the living room and out into the hallway. He yanked open the front door and stepped immediately outside.

  The snakes on the front step were gone.

  Jake was standing at the end of the path.

  He was talking with the dark-haired woman.

  “Jake, get away from her.”

  The woman’s pale skin seemed to shift and slither. She stared down the path, directly at Patrick. “You have a beautiful boy.”


  “Get away from my son. Jake, come here!”

  Jake turned around to face his father. “Look, dad. She bought me a pet. Can I keep him?”

  Patrick’s heart leapt into his mouth as he saw the hooded snake rise up in his son’s arms. It slinked from side to side, its tongue licking at the air.

  “Jake, you need to listen to me, okay? Put the snake down.”

  “But the lady told me it was friendly. I was scared at first, but he likes me. Look!”

  Jake petted the snake on the head, right behind its hood.

  Patrick took a step. “Jake!”

  The cobra twisted its body and struck. It buried its fangs into Jake’s cheek and made the little boy scream.

  The noise of his son’s agony made Patrick cry out in misery as he ran down the path. He snatched the cobra with his bare hands and yanked it free of Jake’s face. The reptile whipped its tail and hissed at Patrick, but he no longer cared for himself. This thing had just bitten his son, and it was that rage-infested thought that went through his mind as he grabbed the snake at tail and head and stretched it taut, pulling with all his might until the thing tore apart in the middle.

  He threw the two parts of the dead snake down on the ground and grabbed his shell-shocked son. Jake was just standing there on the path, as white as a sheet save the bloody patch of torn skin on his cheek.

  “Jake, Jake, talk to me.”

  Jake looked into his father’s eyes and looked confused. “I thought he liked me.”

  Then his eyes closed and his body went limp.

  Holding his son in his arms, Patrick glared at the raven-haired abomination at the bottom of his path. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  The pale-skinned woman titled her head as she spoke. “I am the nightmare that children tell their parents.”

  She blinked sideways like a lizard – and when she opened her mouth a forked tongue appeared and licked the air.

  Patrick scooped up his son and ran back towards the house.

  -6-

  Alison was waiting in the hallway and slammed the front door closed as Patrick made it back inside. When she saw her son unconscious in his arms, she screamed.