Dance with Terror: A Collection of 50 Short Weird Stories

By Raj Napal

It grabbed her neck tight, slowly suffocating her as she gulped for air. [A Deathly Presence]

A childs voice whispered to me, Help me escape this tomb. [A Good Nights Sleep]

Deep red marks of ligatureor branch strangulationadorned their necks. [A Kind Deed]

When Heathers bloody head rolled across the table, Alan was ecstatic. Great side effects, John. [A Prized Footage]

We screamed as we saw huge pale hands, fifty feet in diameter, holding the outer rails of the machine. [Roller Coaster Ride]

Mary floated above the witness stand, blood dripping from her body. [A Ghostly Presence]

I was frozen by the sight of my torso, which now had the appearance of the body of a large snake.
[The Dravodians]

We stared in horror at the ceiling as the creatures gigantic head peered down at us with blood dripping from his fangs. [An Eerie Virus]

Finish him off. The night is young. Weve more hunting to do. [City Slick]

I was desperate to plunge a dagger into my heart to escape the monstrosity Id become.
[Devils Curse]

There were faint screaming sounds coming from the floors above! [Graduation Ceremony]

News just came in of attacks on humans by all kinds of wild animals outside the Kwambi reserve. [My Dear Pet]

There was no one therejust a deep-brown stain like dried-up muddy water on the bed! [Screams of the River]

The handle of the luggage was sticky with red stains. [Screaming Infidelity]

Blood dripped from the suit. [The Suit]

A skull was dangling from the uppermost branch . . . [The Wineglass]

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503579019

Raj Napal

Raj Napal practiced law as a defence trial lawyer in predominantly criminal cases in England for nearly fifteen years before he emigrated to Canada in 1996. There he continued the practice of criminal law but also developed an interest in immigration law. Over the years, his immigration practice became more focused on advocacy and appellate work in all divisions of the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Federal Court. Through this appellate work, he gained valuable practical insights into immigration law.

Book preview

Graduation Ceremony

I had an important meeting on the tenth floor of that building on Bay Street.

I was in the elevator with three other people, two ladies and a gentleman. I was in a rush to get to my floor. On the third floor, the elevator got stuck. I pushed the panic button, but the damn contraption wouldn’t move. It was stuck.

We panicked. There was absolutely no way of talking with people inside the building or the outside world as our cell phones wouldn’t work.

Then suddenly, everyone started talking about how we could possibly survive in this hopeless situation. Alice, the younger of the two ladies, slim, with dark hair and a pretty face, screamed out, What the bloody hell is going on? We’ve been in here for an hour, and nothing is happening! I can’t use my cell phone. My career is on the brink, and I must attend that meeting.

Tom, a man in his late fifties, with a large beer belly and balding gray hair, intervened, This is not about you, young lady. We all have important appointments, not just you.

I could see trouble brewing as I glimpsed a spark of anger in Alice’s eyes.

Look, we’re all very upset by this situation, but we must be strong and find a way out, so let’s be positive and try to get out of this mess, I quickly said, hoping I could calm them down.

I felt energy and adrenaline flow through my veins in my iron determination to get out of this hellhole.

They all nodded.

I could see there was a grate of sorts above us. Perhaps if I could climb there and open it, we could figure out a way to escape from this trap.

We were all finding it hard to breathe. The air seemed thin. I didn’t want them to panic more by telling them that the air going down the elevator might have been compromised. I kept quiet.

Tom was a tall man over six foot two, so I climbed onto his shoulders so I could reach the grate and open it.

I was terrified with what I saw! There was smoke everywhere. A catastrophe had occurred. The columns and pillars that held the elevator looked bent. I screamed inside. Was this building on the verge of destruction?

When I got back into the elevator, I could see questioning eyes from the group. This building is on the verge of collapse. We have to get out of here and climb down to ground level through the columns that hold this damn contraption, I told them.

Nancy, a stout blonde woman in her mid-thirties, started crying. I can’t do this. I am afraid of heights. I’d rather die here! she screamed out.

You must do this and I’ll be with you, or death is certain! I shouted back at her.

She agreed. Her frightened eyes said it all.

When I was on the lip of the grate, I assisted the others up. I told them to climb onto the teeth of the column. Each descending tooth was only eight inches wide, but there was enough space for a foothold. I told Nancy to look at me and not down as I held her tight. I could see her still blue eyes staring at me in a trance!

The smoke was almost suffocating us, and it became more intense as we slowly climbed down. Alice was losing her breath. I’m choking, please help me, she cried out in panic.

I clambered toward her and put a handkerchief across her face. It seemed to work. I feel better, but I don’t know how long I can last, she said.

I gently wiped the tears from her face. We will be okay. Just have faith in God, I said, barely able to control my own emotions in this crisis.

There were faint screaming sounds coming from the floors above! It was eerie and sent a chill through my spine. I could see the others were frightened too. Tom looked really scared as he screamed out, What kind of sound is this? It’s creepy!

Keep quiet! Can’t you see you’re frightening them even more? I shouted back.

We courageously continued our descent into this dark pit.

When we arrived at the ground level, we were wet with sweat. We could see a small opening and squeezed out of it.

When we came out, there was a mass of milky cloudy smoke in the concourse of the building. We ran for the exit, and as we did so, a group of firemen greeted us and escorted us outside.

We sucked the clean, pure air in deeply, relieved at being alive.

This was an overwhelming experience for all of us, and sharing it brought us closer together. We swapped phone numbers. You’re my good friends, and I cherish that. My daughter is graduating tomorrow. I would like you guys to come. I know my little girl will be so happy that you helped her dad through this ordeal, I said with a smile.

There was a warm and radiant smile upon their faces as they accepted the invite. We huddled together and hugged each other. There was a special smile on Nancy’s face as she looked deeply into my eyes, and I knew that we’d share a great friendship!

Ten minutes later, when we were about half a mile from the building, it exploded into a rage of fire.

The next day, the newspaper reports said that a severe electrical fault caused the fire and that one hundred and sixty-eight people died, perishing in the flames from the fourth floor to the fifteenth level!

How and why we survived was a mystery to me, but I had a dream that night that made some kind of sense, and I cried. In the dream, a bright light glowed from His hand as He gave the diploma to my daughter while I held my little girl close to me.

God didn’t want me to miss her graduation and performed a miracle to save us!

But why did so many other souls have to die? I’ll never know!

Compassion

Daughter’s sweet innocence, now eighteen.

Full make up and dyed hair—red and flowing.

Lips stained with lipstick her boon.

Dances in our home, her beauty radiant and glowing.

In ages past, just a baby in Dad’s arms sucking on her soother

As Dad fed her with milk and honey in her life after she emerged from womb.

Baby girl now grown up, ready for life’s adventures.

Ready for foray in world’s splendor.

Leaving her old man’s retreat and paternal comfort.

His face wet with tears in dark gloom.

Helena with her beauty, brains, wit and brandishing that clear pearl white smile

Will conquer the world in her deep devoted humanity, compassion and care.

Protecting human rights in vigorous journeys,

Embracing the good and crushing evil in her stride.

Dad proud of his girl’s endeavors in this cruel world.

His spirit and that of God by her side to avoid the Devil’s snare.

And Dad wouldn’t miss her graduation ceremony in a million years.

Forever grateful to God he was there and shed the tears.

A Good Night’s Sleep

That’s what you get for being a student, Alan. No money. Just damn books you have to read and boring lectures you’ve got to bleeding attend.

Come on, Pete. Are you telling me I have to suck it up? I can’t even afford a bed to sleep on in this crummy apartment.

There’s an old antique shop near campus where they sell old furniture dirt cheap. Go there and have a look, Alan.

The criminology class finished at three in the afternoon, and I biked down to Haggerty’s Antiques. It nestled between an ice cream shop and dry-cleaners in the old part of Leeds, where the streets were narrow and cobbled. The sky was gray, and the dark clouds cast an eerie gloom that winter afternoon. There were no pedestrians about, but Haggerty’s store was lighted up, and I could see the shadow of a tall willowy man bent over the pink light of an old lamp.

I walked in, hoping I could grab a bed for fifty pounds. I knew it was unlikely, but it was worth a try.

As soon as I stepped in, a thin man approached me with a glint in his deep gray eyes. He wore a wry smile. I was distracted by the glimmer of the gold, silver, and shiny mahogany of the stuff he displayed.

My heart beat fast when I observed him. He must’ve been over ninety. His face was all wrinkled up. His thin lips were barely discernible. A mass of gray hair that looked like a wig partially swooped down over the upper part of his eyes. The man wasn’t just thin—he was emaciated. His large pale hands were bony, with long fingers and blackish nails. He had a bad stoop but partially straightened up. So, young sir, what can I do for you? I’m the owner, Thomas Haggerty, he said with a strange smile, which showed his rotten yellow teeth.

I accidentally bit my lips as I was about to utter a response. Such was my nervous apprehension. I was about to run out, but his voice was soft and melodious, a complete contrast to his devilish body and face.

I’m looking for a bed. I’d like to look at the cheapest you have as my budget is tight.

He ran his skeletal fingers through his wig-like hair and laughed. Well, I have a bed that was manufactured in 1890, over 114 years ago. The maker of the bed was Simon Craysmith. He invented the first box base for a mattress.

He invited me to the back of the store. The bed was a monstrosity. But when I sat on the mattress, it was quite bouncy.

This bed is large, measuring seventy-seven inches long by twelve inches deep and five feet wide. I can give it to you for sixty pounds, Haggerty casually remarked.

If it’s such an old antique, why is it cheap, Mr. Haggerty? I curiously replied.

Craysmith died at an early age, and there was some mystery surrounding his suicide. All the furniture he made fell into disfavor. They also found flaws in his designs, but this bed, although big, is pretty solid.

I sucked my teeth and stuck my finger in my right ear, a bad habit that I had whenever I was nervous. I thought that it was just a bed. Who cares if it’s big and ugly even if the maker of that thing met a mysterious and tragic death?

Can you sell it for fifty quid? That’s all I have, I asked Haggerty.

Sure, no problem as long as it’s cash, and you don’t need a receipt. I don’t have a refund policy, so you’re stuck with it.

I had no class the following morning. I arranged for Pete to come to my apartment in his pickup truck to help me move the bed to my place. I was at the door when he arrived, not wanting him to see me sleeping on the floor of the bedroom.

K, let’s get cracking, Alan. I have to be in class at eleven, and it’s already ten now.

When he arrived at Haggerty’s shop, his vehicle came to a screeching stop. When he saw the bed, he stared at me. This sure is a big bad bed.

It’s comfortable, Pete. That’s all that matters.

He helped me put the bed up in my bedroom. As we stood the thing up on the floor, there was an odd creaky noise coming from the base. Pete noticed it too.

What’s that, Alan? he said and appeared shocked.

I haven’t got a clue.

The sound stopped, and we didn’t think any more of it.

I’d played an exhausting game of squash in the league competition that afternoon after class. When I got home after seven thirty at night, I was exhausted. After supper, I retreated to my bedroom. There was a harsh wind hammering the windows of the bedroom, and snow was accumulating around it. I switched on my bedside table lamp and looked at the bed. Even though it was grotesque, it provided the reassuring sight of a better sleep without the hardness of the floor punishing my back. I read one of the chapters of the tort book I’d been given as part of my assignment. The legal terms bored me, and I soon fell into deep slumber. I can only vaguely remember the nightmare that I had after I woke up in a cold sweat in the early hours of the morning.

This was the damn nightmare:

A child’s voice whispered to me, Please, sir, help me escape this tomb. The sentence was repeated several times, and then I saw a man and a woman carry a child and place him in an open coffin. However, it didn’t really look like a coffin as it wasn’t deep enough. The child was pale and thin. He was wrapped in a white sheet. His dark eyes were open, but they were blank. His lips were half parted as if he’d just been shocked by something. The man and woman wore strange-looking clothes.

It was four in the morning. As I tried to understand this nightmare, the bed seemed to move a slight bit, and the cover on top slipped onto the floor. Questions were forming in my mind. What the hell was going on? I’ve not experienced such a nightmare before. Was it to do with the bed? I managed to drift into sleep again as these thoughts swirled in my confused mind.

I awoke at seven in the morning when the alarm went off. I gulped down a mug of black coffee while I researched Craysmith on the Internet. The screen brightened up with a lot of information. There was a headline and an article that followed beneath, which attracted my attention. It read,

CRAYSMITH’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH

Simon Craysmith, our inventor of the box sleeper was found dead on the self-same bed he built. The police found a suicide note. Simon wrote that he welcomed death as this contraption was too horrific to imagine. He did not say what the contraption was and what the horror was. The man died from a pistol bullet he fired at close range to his temple.

This was the end of the article, and there was not much more information on the Net about him, but I didn’t persist in the research as I was tired and sleepy.

The facts were clear. There must be a connection between the bed and the strange nightmare. Class went badly as I wasn’t able to focus on my professor’s lecture. I skipped the last class at two in the afternoon and rushed to my apartment. I peered all around the damn bed. I took the mattress off and tried to open the cloth cover on the base. It wouldn’t budge. But as I pulled at it, I could hear a boy’s voice:

My name is Henry Craysmith. They killed me and shoved me in there.

I could hear the frame of the base of the bed stretching. I pinched myself. I was wide awake.

There was now silence, and I went on the computer and discovered Craysmith’s eight-year-old son, Henry, was suspected of drowning in a lake, but his body was not found. He went missing a week before Simon shot himself. His wife, Mary, died of arsenic poisoning ten days after her husband committed suicide.

Did the bed have something to do with the suicide of Henry’s parents? This mystery was frightening me and overwhelmed the whole of my being at the wrong time as my first-term exams were in six weeks. I called Patrick, a pastor and my dad’s best friend.

I heard the familiar Irish lilt of Pat on the line: My dear boy, how can I help you? Are you doing well at law school?

I’m fine, Pat. I’ve got a problem with my bed. I need you to come to my apartment today. You might’ve to do an exorcism as some long-dead kid is talking to me from the base of the bed!

Strange. I’ll be over at six in the evening.

As the minute hand of my living room clock crept slowly past five in the evening, I grabbed a scotch, gulping it down hard to calm my nerves. I didn’t want to be anywhere near my bedroom until Pat arrived.

41175.png

This evening I’m sitting at my study table on my fourth scotch. My mind is in a haze, and a deep depression nagged me for days since Pat did the exorcism. I could see the creamy form of a child drift from the base of the bed and disappear as Pat recited some Latin words and sprinkled sanctified water on top of it.

However, I believe this story is only half-finished. Will I be able to complete it? Now for the first time in my life, I want to end my life!

Satan’s Lair