When She Cries (a short horror story)

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Introduction to “When She Cries”

Back in the ’80s America held a lively conversation with itself about self-defense.

Several high-profile cases had come to pass where wives had shot and killed abusive husbands, girlfriends had killed abusive boyfriends, and children had killed abusive parents.

Were there limits to self-defense? Was there a line that should not be crossed where self-defense became plain old-fashioned murder?

With “When She Cries” I wanted to examine two things:

1. Instances where self-defense becomes a kind of execution. This story illustrates that concept. Was the protagonist defending himself or was he executing his antagonist to prevent future abuse?

2. What about the mental toll exacted by killing another human being, warranted or not? Would the shooter be able to rationalize his or her actions as self-defense, or would they be crippled by the knowledge they had killed another human being?

This story demonstrates that not all horror tales require a monster.

Sometimes the monster lies within.

—

WHEN SHE CRIES

A scream like broken glass, cutting a jagged edge against the shower’s hiss. David heard it. The air was suddenly unbreathable. Then a thud, a dull sound, worn sawteeth drawn across the bones of his spine.

Evie –

He wrenched down the faucets and cupped a hand over the shower nozzle.

Feet trampled the hallway. Another lunatic scream, amplified into the throat of the hallway and echoing madly.

“DAVID!”

A snare-drum brace of fists pounded the door. He threw back the shower curtain and shimmied wet and lathered into his shorts, too quick for any thought but the sick panic she had screamed into him. He jerked open the door and Evie lunged at him, a shuddering angina of terror, just escaped from monsters and her eyes, her face bald from the fright of it.

She screamed, “It’s BUDDY!” She dug needlelike fingernails into his arms. “He’s lost it! He’s lost – my God! – he’s got an ax – he’s gonna – oh, Jesus! – he’s – he’s – ”

Buddy. The old boyfriend. Who drove the truck – with the oversized tires, shotguns mounted in the back window. Big Buddy. Big, big Buddy. A wad of tobacco perpetually wedged between his cheek and jaw. Ditched over the phone by Evie. That was nice. “I’m gonna make you wish to hell you were never born,” Buddy seethed at her from midnight telephone calls. Even nicer.

Crazy, crazy Buddy.

From the living room came the sound of something thick and stubborn flying apart. The door. A short, guttural bark; Evie’s eyes peeled white, and David grabbed her, terror twisting his stomach. He spoke in a strangled whisper, “The bedroom! Run!”

He shoved her out of the bathroom, her hip smacking solidly against the door molding. She ran sideways, David shoving from behind, half-running, half-staggering across the hallway until they had made it to the bedroom. David slammed the door, locked it and backed away as if it might try to grab him. Evie crouched at the foot of the bed.

“Gun,” she whispered. David turned, and she was pointing at the gun cabinet, at his father’s .38. It hung from the corner, holstered, dark and slippery with oil, too slippery for his mind to grip what she was saying.

“Get the damn gun!” she whispered again and David stared down at her, numb.

“I can’t shoot anyone. …”

Something smashed loudly against the door and sank to the bone, wooden ribs snapping, then squeaked as smooth metal was jerked away. Somebody was laughing, a crawling lunatic snake of a sound. Evie curled into herself and twitched when the door boomed again. Wood cracked. A shark’s tooth of ax blade chewed through the facing.

David threw back the cabinet door and grabbed the pistol; he almost dropped it. It seemed too heavy, too dirty, and he held it as he would have held something infected. He turned to Evie. She swallowed, took a shuddering breath, and lost herself to a sudden palsy of tears.

“Sh – shoot through the door.”

Again, the thought misfired, and he stared at her lamely, not a hint of understanding in his expression, the gun dangling limply in his hands.

The spine of the door broke and the ax blade chewed cleanly through to their side, wood strips broken and cartwheeling away from the hole. The blade twisted and worried itself from the door.

David rotated on his heel, almost fell, pointed the gun at the door, both hands on the butt and his fingers sweaty around the trigger. His heart pulsed and he felt it with his entire body. He squeezed on the trigger but he could not pull it – he couldn’t do it and they would be killed, but My God, oh Jesus I can’t do this please help me Jesus –

He heard a back-of-the-throat grunt and an agony of shattered wood – the door exploded into flying pieces that spun crazily into the walls and cabinet. Evie lunged at David, screamed “SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!” Screamed all thought from him, the terror, until he could not see or hear or even understand what it was he had been afraid of and could only pull the trigger.

The shot was a bomb going off – the gun bucked fire and curdled smoke – the ax spun straight up, then fell and thunked to the floor. Silence.

Oh. Oh. …

Then … thrashing. Angry, meaningless thrashing, a bellow that sounded like a truck horn. David peered uncomprehendingly into the smoke spreading across the hallway. Evie peeked over his shoulder.

Buddy lay midway between the door and the bathroom, his arms and legs working back and forth, clawing at air, kicking, his fists clenching and unclenching, grabbing at unseen throats. He jerked to one side – David backed away – and a reddish-black spray of blood spattered the floor. He coughed and shouted, and against the narrow walls his deep voice resonated spastic hate.

David watched, horror caught in his throat and impossible to swallow; he felt pain in his arm and saw Evie hanging there, fingers hooked into him, her eyes marbled and moonlike. She turned to him.

“He’s not dead yet.”

David nodded, not taking his eyes from the hall. Buddy kicked with his foot and the ax went tumbling.

“Again,” she murmured. David stopped breathing.

“Again,” she said.

Buddy coughed blood, coughed and sucked a gurgling breath, coughed again and sputtered a growl.

“Again?” David frowned at her.

“AGAIN! Shoot him again! Dammit He’s – he’s – ” Her face tightened with hysteria. “We won’t – I won’t – be able to live – ” Her voice dissolved into a warbling sob. “They’ll – they’ll save him – and – and – he’ll come – back.” She began to cry, a sound utterly without hope, shot with remorse. “That is not,” and she punctuated the “not” by squeezing his arm, “how I – I – want to live.”

He shut his eyes and opened them. The gun was still pointed at the hall. He shook his head. Barely.

“I can’t – I – can’t. …”

She grabbed his chin, turned his face to hers. She squeezed hard.

“Shoot him again.”

He started to back away, new terror in his gut.

“Shoot!”

The hallway was strangely quiet. David looked into the gloom. He saw Buddy watching him, his eyes narrowed and incandescent, something beyond understanding – monstrous and preternatural – lurking within the dead stare. It was a hungry, predatory look, as if he would shake off the effects of the wound, his purpose restored, and finish what he had come here to do. David watched, spellbound, falling into those eyes, sucked down and falling, losing his sight, his senses. …

Then smooth hands were wrapping around his, smooth as smoke, a woman’s hands, Evie’s, tightening in a grip that was both repugnant and irresistible.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

They pulled the trigger.

—

She’s crying again.

And I hate it – I hate the sound. Mothers grieving, wives alone, sounds of deserts inside people. It’s too much to bear. It eats at the soul – you hurt in all the same places. Sometimes I think we share too much.

It’s not as if we did a bad thing. Buddy was crazy. He would have killed us. I’m sure he would have killed us. Hacked us with an ax – forty whacks. Crazy. He wrecked his place before he came here – his truck. With an ax – forty whacks. Putting his life into disorder. We were forty-one.

Shoot him. I didn’t have the nerve – I don’t know … maybe, if he’d gotten into the room … I don’t know. Would I have done it? I mean, would I have really made the decision myself? Would I have been quick enough? Would I –

Dear God.

She made me do what had to be done. I see that now. “Self-defense” the investigating officer called it. “Simple self-defense.” No jury in the world would have moved for a conviction. But there was no jury, because there was no trial. The D.A. did not press charges. “Self-defense,” he said.

Self-defense.

I wish she would stop crying. I hate the sound – I hate it. I don’t know what to do.

She shouldn’t make us hurt over this. What’s the point? Tears aren’t penitence. Remorse. Fear. What is it she’s feeling? If she would only say. Pain. Useless, squandered pain.

She cries like this every day, it seems, and I don’t know what to do. It isn’t fair; she’s killing me … us … slowly. It hurts.

I don’t know what to do. But I’ve got to do something. I’ve talked to her but she won’t listen. Blame … she has to see blame. Why does there have to be blame? There is no blame. We did what we had to do.

This thing is eating at her, at me. She won’t let it go. She – she needs to let it go. For my sake, if nothing else.

But I don’t think she’ll want to do that, and don’t know what to do.

She’s crying. I hate the sound of crying. When she cries, I get these … urges – I don’t want to talk about it. If she would only stop – If I could make her stop crying.

I – I don’t know what to do. If she would say. If she would tell me.

Maybe she will tell me, again. When the hurt is unbearable, when it eats the heart, the life right out of her. Maybe then she will tell me … I will wait for her to tell me, and this time, I won’t be indecisive. I swear to God, I’ll do it. Just what she tells me.

If I could only make her stop crying.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .