K is for Klutz
Author: Iain Rob Wright
Date: 2015-05-05 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: Iain Rob Wright blows me away - J.A. KonrathFireman, Mark Gunn, is a hero. That’s what sends him racing into a burning building to save an old man.But it might have been better if Mark had left the old man to his fate, because people have a strange way of dying whenever he is around. A Short Story by Bestselling Author, Iain Rob Wright.
Publisher: SalGad Publishing Group

BOOK SUMMARY

Fireman, Mark Gunn, is a hero. That’s what sends him racing into a burning building to save an old man.

But it might have been better if Mark had left the old man to his fate, because people have a strange way of dying whenever he is around.

“To me death is not a fearful thing. It’s living that’s cursed.

– Jim Jones

“I’m not clumsy. I’m accident prone!”

– Daniel Radcliffe

-1-

There was a tipping point in every fire when it became uncontrollable. Once a structure became more fire than building it was usually lost.

This cottage was lost.

The ancient thatched roof had gone up like a tinderbox and fuelled the fire throughout the entire space. There was no way to stop the inferno now until it had run its course. Lucky that the house was surrounded by wet grass and weed infested gravel, or the flames might have crept towards neighbouring properties. As it was, the cottage would eventually fall flat and the fire would burn itself out. All the Fire Brigade could do was keep things contained.

The fire would win this time.

But there was still a chance to save the property’s occupant. Nobody had to die today.

That was why Mark Gunn, veteran fireman, rushed into the blazing cottage with little regard for himself. The neighbours across the road had spoken of an elderly man who lived there – a man who rarely left his home and was probably still inside when the fire started.

Mark pulled down his visor and kicked in the smouldering front door, immediately racing across the disintegrating carpet. Fire raged on either side of him, biting at his skin even through his retardant clothing.

But the way ahead was clear. The corridor was still a corridor for now.

Mark made it into the kitchen and found the old man slumped on the tiles, unconscious. There was no time for CPR or First Aid. The only chance the old guy had was by being outside of that house.

Mark scooped the man up easily – his weight no more than a child’s – then turned and left the kitchen. The corridor was narrower now. The flames had increased in length and now filled the corridor. There was nothing Mark could do but drive forwards, ignoring the agonising heat against his skin and the thick layer of soot accruing on his visor and threatening to blind him.

Something fell behind him: a lintel cracking or the ceiling falling in. He should never have entered a building so far gone, but that was why he was a firefighter. His job wasn’t to salvage property; it was to save lives.

Couldn’t just let an old man burn to death.

Mark burst out of the open doorway and was immediately received by his colleagues. They threw blankets over him and the old man he had just rescued.

Mark stumbled away from the burning cottage before falling to his knees and rolling the old man onto the long grass.

“You’re going to be okay,” he enthused, pulling at the man’s earlobes and trying to get a reaction. When he got no reaction he started slapping the old man’s cheeks. “We’ve got you. You’re safe. Wake up.”

The old man’s eyelids fluttered and he woke. Mark smiled reassuringly but received only an expression of abject horror in reply.

“What…? What is happening? Where am I?”

“There was a fire at your home,” Mark explained. “An ambulance is going to take you to-”

“Get away from me,” the old man bellowed, more forcefully than he should’ve been able to. “G-get out of here. I’m...I’m…”

The smoke in the old man’s lungs took over and he started coughing and hacking.

Mark sat the old man up and patted him on the back. “Everything is going to be okay, sir. You are safe now.”

“Get…get away…”

Mark frowned but did as the old man wanted. He stood up and moved away just as two paramedics arrived to check the victim over.

“Get away from me,” the old man shouted. “It’s not safe.” He kept saying it over and over again. “I’m dangerous. I’m dangerous.”

Mark shook his head and frowned. It wasn’t unusual for someone dragged from a fire to be confused and disorientated; it was the lack of oxygen to the brain. Much longer and the old guy might have died.

Mark congratulated himself on a job well done and decided to go get himself checked out by another paramedic waiting by the ambulance, but, before he got there, he slipped in the mud and cracked his skull on the side of a little stone well. He died instantly.

It was extremely unlucky.

-2-

Doctor Isabelle Keating heard the patient shouting from the other end of the ward. It was turning into one of those days. One of those days where every patient either wanted to vomit on you or fight you.

She hurried to the opposite end of the ward and found two of her nurses, Kate and Michelle, struggling with an old man. The patient was covered in soot and had bright red skin all down one arm.

A burn victim.

“What seems to be the problem?” Keating asked calmly.

“You need to let me go,” the old man demanded. He pointed a finger and waved it around the ward at several annoyed looking patients in the other beds. “These people are in danger.”

Keating cleared her throat. “What danger?”

The old man opened his mouth to speak again but paused a moment, before eventually saying, “I can’t explain it. Just trust me. If you don’t let me leave these people will get hurt.”

“Are you making a threat?”

“No! I don’t want to hurt anybody, but it’s not my choice. You should have left me to burn in my home.”

Warning signs were beginning to make the hair stand up on the back of Keating’s neck. “Did you intend to kill yourself, sir? Are you thinking of hurting yourself now?”

“If I could hurt myself, I would, but it won’t let me. If I were to jump in front of a car I would bounce off onto my feet. I am unkillable.”

“What’s your name,” Keating asked, choosing not to indulge the man’s delusions.

“My name is David.”

“Okay, David. I’m going to move you into a private room. I understand that you want to leave, but I don’t think that is wise. You have severe burns on your left arm that need to be treated carefully. I also think that you would benefit from having a talk with somebody.”

“I’m not crazy,” he said.

“Never said that you were. You are, however, obviously in a bad place. Allow us to help you, David.”

The old man seemed close to tears and wobbled on his feet.  Eventually, he nodded his head slowly. “Okay.”

Keating smiled. “Wonderful. We’ll find you somewhere nice and comfortable.” She leaned forward, reached out a hand to touch the old man on his shoulder, but he recoiled.

“Don’t touch me,” he snapped.

Keating retreated. “Okay, I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”

“It’s not that,” he said meekly. “You want to help me, don’t you? Well, I’m trying to help you, too. Make sure that nobody else touches me. It might already be too late for those who have.”

Suddenly the two nurses present looked very nervous.

-3-

Keating was about to go home, when an emergency call came from Ward 9. Dr Love was nearby but he was taking blood in one of the consultation rooms. Keating stuck her head in and told him that she would respond to the call. He thanked her profusely, before she hurried off to Ward 9.

What she found waiting for her was totally unexpected. An emergency call usually meant a patient was crashing, bleeding badly, or maybe even choking, but this was no patient. She found one of her nurses, Kate, lying in a pool of her own blood. Her colleague, Michelle, was kneeling beside her and trying to staunch the flow coming from the ragged wound in her neck.

“What happened?” Keating urged.

Michelle looked up at her, pale as chalk. “We were just walking and she…she slipped. I don’t know what happened.”

There was no time to investigate further. They rushed Kate into theatre where a surgeon worked on her ceaselessly until he was forced to call it in at after twenty minutes. Kate’s heart had seized.

Keating was in shock. As a doctor, she was no stranger to senseless and demoralising death, but to lose a colleague so suddenly and gruesomely was enough to shock her stupid. She headed back to the scene where it had happened and found that the orderlies had already mopped up all of the blood. A hospital could not slow down for death, it must always always carry on.

“I don’t understand it,” said Michelle, who was sitting on a bench nearby. She clutched a mascara-stained tissue in her hands and was trembling. “We were just walking.”

Keating gave no reply. She was lost in her own thoughts and not really hearing anything else. The ward seemed to be in order; no obvious dangers standing out as she peered around. What ever could have slashed poor Kate’s neck open so badly? What had she hit on the way down?

Then Keating spotted it.

There was a gurney parked up against the wall and the corner of it caught the light as she stepped towards it. Sticking out of the framework was an uncovered screw. The head had snapped off, leaving behind a sharp-looking burr. A spatter of blood coated the tip of the steel.

“She cut herself on the gurney,” Keating said out loud. “The hospital is responsible.”

“That old man is responsible,” Michelle muttered.

Keating turned to the nurse. “What?”

“That old man said he was dangerous. He warned us we would get hurt. Me and Kate touched him.”

“What? Don’t be absurd.”

Michelle looked at Keating hard, her smudged makeup making her look like a sobbing ghost. “I’m not being absurd, Doctor. That old man is responsible. I feel it in my bones.”

“Where is the patient now?”

Michelle pointed her hand listlessly. “Right down the hall. Bed 6.”

Keating left Michelle moping and headed down the hall. When she reached bed 6 she went right in, not caring if the old man was ready for her or not.

He didn’t flinch at the sudden intrusion. In fact, he looked at Keating sadly, almost knowingly. Did he know what had happened to Kate? He’d probably heard everything from only a few rooms away.

“Can I leave yet?” was the first thing he asked.

“Where would you even go?” Keating asked. “The report says you were in a house fire. Do you have any family to come get you, David?”

He shook his head. “My family are all dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did the report tell you that the fireman who rescued me is dead?”

Keating pulled up a chair beside his bed and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “The fireman is dead? No, I haven’t heard that. Are you sure?”

He folded his arms and sighed. “Yes, I’m sure. He touched me.”

“Did you have anything to do with what happened to my nurse?”

“Just let me go home and no one else will get hurt.”

“That sounds like another threat.”

“It is a threat. Look, Doctor, my arm is okay. I just need to get out of here; some place where nobody can touch me.”

Keating sat back and studied the old man. Now that he was clean of soot she could see that not a single hair covered his head, but his eyebrows were thick black caterpillars. His lips were slim but his cheeks were fat. Every facial feature was a contradiction of the next. His small ears looked odd next to his wide eyes. His chart said he was sixty-four.

“David, are you suggesting that anyone who touches you is somehow in danger?”

The old man let his head fall against the pillow and tears began to spill down his plump cheeks. “I’m not suggesting anything,” he muttered.

“I’m going to have to inform the police, David. The things you have said to me are highly suspect. I don’t know if you had anything to do with what happened to Kate, but if you did…”

“I warned you,” he spat, wiping his tears away with the back of a large right hand. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Listen to what? What are you trying to say?”

“I’m cursed! Don’t you see that? Anybody who touches me, or even gets close enough to breathe the same air, will die. I am death.”

Keating stood up, stunned more by the old man’s ferocity than the contents of what he’d just said.

“I think you need help, David.”

There was an almighty crash out in the corridor, followed by multiple screams.

Keating looked at David accusingly, knowing it was ridiculous to think he had done anything from his bed.

“That will be the other nurse who touched me,” he said. “My condolences.”

-4-

Keating rushed back out into the corridor and found Michelle dead. No one tried to help her, because her head was on backwards.

There was an orderly nearby, vomiting liberally in all directions. Members of staff were appearing from every doorway, doing their best to keep the public away from the scene of a second death in a single afternoon.

“What the hell happened?” Keating demanded.

“She slipped,” the ward’s receptionist said. “I saw it from over by the help desk. The floor was still wet from when the orderlies mopped up after Kate’s accident.” The young women covered her mouth and started to weep. “Oh, God, oh God.”

Keating stared at Michelle and couldn’t comprehend how anyone could snap their neck so completely from a simple fall. A lump arrived in her throat and she struggled to swallow it down.

When she spotted Dr Love coming, she grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. “Tom, did we have a fireman in this morning?”

“No,” he answered.

Keating sighed. “Okay, thanks.”

“He went straight to the morgue,” Dr Love added. “Poor chap struck his head so hard that his brain matter was leaking out. Paramedics pronounced him dead on arrival. No point tying up A&E with him.”

Keating’s stomach flipped and she almost threw up, but the anger stopped her. She stormed down the corridor and went back into David’s room.

The old man was sat up in bed, apparently waiting for her. “Will you let me leave now?”

“I don’t understand,” Keating said. “How did you kill my nurses? That fireman?”

“Not me. The curse.”

“What curse? There’s no such thing.”

“I used to think so too, once. Until the age of twenty-eight I was as normal as anybody else. I was a travelling salesman. Used to shift vacuums back in the days when they were new.”

Keating folded her arms, ready to call the police but wanting answers first. “How is that important?”

The old man sighed. “It’s not, I suppose. It’s just nice to remember that I had a life once.”

“So what happened?” Keating asked, deciding to play along. The old man was obviously senile or insane, but letting him talk was the only way she could think of to get answers. Sometimes a person’s delusions gave away the truth.

“What happened is that I crossed a very powerful man. I don’t mean rich. I don’t mean authority. I’m talking about real power. I was selling vacuums in a small town named Redlake when I came upon a nice little neighbourhood next to some playing fields – a rugby club, I think. The houses were small but well kept, with nice green lawns and lead windows. House-proud people they were, and house-proud people was how I made my bread and butter in them days. I managed to sell three of my company’s top models before I moved onto the house at the end of the road. It was slightly bigger than the rest, with a wrought iron gate and tall trees in the garden. I should’ve noticed how private the house was, but I didn’t care at the time. I was a people person. No one could fail to love me if they just gave me thirty seconds of their time.”

“When a young woman opened the door, I thought my luck was out. Her parents probably owned the house and were out – no money here – but she invited me in anyway, told me that she did all the cleaning and could ask her father to buy her a vacuum when he got home. Lilith was her name and I still remember her smiling face and jet-black hair to this day. God, I wish I’d walked away.”

“But you didn’t,” said Keating, strangely intrigued.

“Nope. I went right on in and sat in the living room with the young woman. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, but the story she told me was a sad one. Her father kept her a prisoner – a cleaner, a servant, a slave. He was Jewish, but old-fashioned and unkind. It wasn’t long before she told me how she would never know the touch of a man. Her father had forbidden it.”

“You slept with her,” Keating said, finding the punch line obvious.

“Of course I did. No man could have resisted her. I was under her spell. I couldn’t have said no if you’d offered to buy a thousand vacuums off me.”

Keating rolled her eyes.

David let out a weary moan, more forlorn than painful. “Her old man came home and caught me right in the middle of the act. Threw me out the bedroom and right down the stairs. Broke my ankle. He weren’t done with me yet, though. His daughter was only fifteen, he yelled at me, still at school. The story she had told me was a pack of lies, as was the porky about her being nineteen. The truth was that her father was good to her and a loving man, just trying to do his best after his wife had died of leukaemia. He wasn’t the monster she had made him out to be, not until he found me with his daughter.”

Keating shook her head. “Fifteen!”

“I know I know, but I swear I didn’t know. Anyway, her usually kind father was in no mood to be kind that day. He did the strangest thing to me. He slit open his palm and dripped his blood into my eyes. Said he would turn my greatest strength against me. I was charismatic. People liked me, gravitated towards me; but from that day forward my strength become a curse. Anybody who gets close to me dies. Accidents, murders, natural causes…don’t matter. They all die. Was an accident what caused the fire at my cottage – I left a tea towel on the hob – but the fireman who carried me out is dead. Your two nurses who tried to help me are dead. Anybody else who touches me will end up dead. Help me.”

“Help you how?”

“Kill me. Give me a big dose of morphine or whatever it is that you people do.”

Keating unfolded her arms and placed her hands on her hips. “I can’t. I won’t.”

“Then others will die, Doctor. Do you want to hear about the first people I killed after that monster cursed me? It was my wife and son. That’s right, I was married. I went straight to the hospital to get my ankle fixed, but my wife was so upset that I’d had an accident that she met me there. She had picked my son up from school along the way. They both gave me these great big hugs. If only I’d known they would be my last moments with them. My son accidentally swigged a bottle of bleach from a janitor’s cart, thinking it was orange pop. My wife threw herself off the roof of the hospital a few hours later. Then the doctor and nurses who helped me with my ankle all died in a lab fire. Then the taxi driver who brushed my hand when I paid him died. Then the police officer who came to see me…”

Keating waved her hand. “Okay, okay, I get it. I still won’t kill you.”

“Why not? After everything I’ve just told you.”

“Because I’m not sure if I believe you.”

David sighed and lay back down in his bed. “You’ll believe me eventually,” he said, “but by then it will be too late.”

-5-

Keating sat in her office for a long time. The police had come and gone, interviewing witnesses but unable to rule events as anything more than accidental. Night had fallen by the time she thought about leaving the hospital. Hours of pondering whether or not to play the part of an Angel of Mercy had led her to one conclusion: she needed proof first. Proof that could not be gained from the ramblings of a single old man. His story needed substantiating. Which was why she had decided to visit the town of Redlake.

-6-

Keating had set off first thing in the morning, leaving strict instructions that David not be bothered unnecessarily and under no circumstances must he be touched or even approached. Her colleagues had all given her strange looks, but trusted her enough to listen.

The drive to Redlake had taken about ninety minutes, it being located on the southern tip of the West Midlands and her travelling from Bristol.

The town was picturesque, full of small wooded areas and little groupings of shops that backed onto mixed residential areas. There were large houses and small houses, posh and poor, but nowhere was destitute and the whole town seemed well looked after.

The only thing she knew about the neighbourhood she was looking for was that it existed near a rugby club and playing fields. That was her only clue.

Thankfully, the rugby club was well-signposted within the town and Keating had found it with relative ease. It was closed that day, so she parked up in one of the empty spaces and got out to stretch her legs.

The playing fields stretched on for several hundred metres to her left, but beyond that lay a small group of houses. There was no time to waste so Keating stepped onto the grass and headed towards the buildings. She wished she hadn’t worn heels.

What the hell am I doing? Am I really about to knock on someone’s door and ask about a curse? I suppose I have some cause to do so; I’m trying to substantiate the facts behind an old man’s delusions.

As she crossed the playing fields she became more and more hopeful that she had found the right houses. Each of them possessed a bright green lawn and none were ill kept. They were old buildings now, but none had been neglected.

She left the grass and stepped onto the pavement, looking all around her for the house she wanted.

And there it lay, at the very end of the road.

The wrought iron gate was ten-feet high but open. The trees on either side were tall, but trimmed back. The desire for privacy was obvious, but there was no foreboding atmosphere that David had alluded to. In fact, the pathway to the front door was clear and inviting.

Keating strode up the path and knocked the iron knocker against the thick wooden door. It was only a moment before her call was answered.

“Hello?” said a middle-aged woman with tied-back black hair. “May I help you?”

“I…I think I’m looking for your father.”

The woman looked at Keating curiously, deep brown eyes boring into hers. “My father has been dead nine years, dear. You must have the wrong address.”

“Was your father Jewish?”

“What an odd question. Yes, he was devoted to God and a devoted Jew. Too much so, sometimes.”

Keating couldn’t believe what came out of her mouth next. “Did your father ever curse anybody?”

The woman’s eyes went wide for a moment, but then settled down and narrowed. “Why would you ask something like that?”

“Please, I need an answer. Did your father ever curse anyone?”

The woman continued examining Keating with her deep brown eyes, but eventually seemed to accept what she saw and nodded. “My father cursed a single man in his lifetime. Just one. He always regretted it.”

Keating almost fell back at what she was hearing. Was there a chance that David wasn’t crazy? Was there a chance that he really was cursed?

“The man your father cursed? Was he a travelling vacuum salesman named David?”

The woman’s eyes went wide again. She swallowed. “How did you know?”

“Because he’s in a bed at my hospital. Since we admitted him two of my colleagues have died.”

The woman stood aside and pushed the door wide. “You’d better come in.”

-7-

The house’s interior was homely, decorated with family photos, paintings, and old wooden furniture. It wasn’t from money that the house was pleasant, but from the care and attention taken over it. There was not a thing out of place: no unwashed coffee cups or ashtrays, nor a single out of position cushion. Yet, there was something lonely about the place. The duty and care was too much, spoke of little else except its upkeep.

The lady of the house returned with two glasses of lemonade and handed one over to Keating. “My name is Lilith,” she said. “Are you a doctor?”

Keating sipped the lemonade and was delighted by its crisp, refreshing taste. “I am, yes. As I explained, David – the salesman you met many years ago – is in my hospital.”

“Then you should get rid of him as quickly as you can.”

“So you’re saying the curse is real?”

“It’s real, alright. When my daddy walked in on the man taking my virginity he saw red. He did the worst thing he could think of. He used the knowledge of his ancestors, of the eldest and most revered of our people. He uttered a curse upon poor David’s head. The curse of the Klutz. Afterwards, after my father had calmed down, he couldn’t believe what he had done. He tried to find David and release him from his odium, but he had quit his job and disappeared.”

“Probably because his wife and son died at the hands of this curse.”

Keating couldn’t believe what she was saying.

Lilith lowered her head and looked at the floor. “It’s my fault. I knew what I was doing when I seduced David. My father was so protective. I wanted to defy him in the worst way I could. I let a man have me. David had no chance. Ha, I was rather beautiful in my day.”

“How come you never left this place?” Keating asked, looking around some more and realising how old everything was.

Lilith shrugged. “This place is my home. I suppose it is also my penance. My father’s love for me evaporated after what I forced him to do. I kept this place spotless to earn back his love, but it never worked. When he passed away, I knew nothing else but looking after this place. I will clean it until the day I follow my father to the realm of the Lord and hopefully gain his forgiveness.”

“What about David?” Keating asked. “What about his forgiveness?”

“Something far out of reach, I would imagine.”

“How do we break the curse, Lilith? You said your father wanted to find David and help him. Well, I have him.”

Lilith placed her lemonade down on the table and sighed. “It’s too late. My father used his blood to bind the curse. Blinded by the blood of the afflicted. My father is dead and so is any chance to break the curse.”

“We can use your blood.”

Lilith recoiled, apparently in shock, but then she seemed to think about it. “I…don’t think it works like that.”

“Do you know for sure that it wouldn’t work?”

“No, I do not.”

Keating put down her lemonade and stood up. “Then let’s go. We can end this right now.”

Lilith leapt up and stood skittishly. “No, I can’t. I can’t face him.”

“You mean the man whose life you ruined?”

“Yes.”

“Face him now in this life or you’ll face his demon in the next.”

Lilith tilted her head. “Are you one of the faithful?”

“No, I’m a doctor. Now come on.”

-8-

Lilith had been irritatingly sullen on the journey back to Bristol. It was clear that she did not want to go with Keating, but was also seemingly unable to resist authority. After years of living beneath the rule of her father, she seemed to desire taking orders, whether she liked what they meant or not. The fact that she was so reluctant to make amends was what made Keating so angry. If all the talk of curses and magic was real, then her actions had directly led to many deaths and boundless suffering. While it may have been her father who was ultimately to blame, it was as a consequence of her teenage defiance. She should want to make things right again.

When they pulled up in the hospital car park, Lilith looked at Keating and said, “I’m scared.”

Keating turned off the engine and looked back at the woman. “Why?”

“Why? Because you’re asking me to face a man whose life I destroyed.”

“Atoning isn’t easy. If it was then it wouldn’t be worth anything.”

Lilith nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”

They headed into the hospital and Keating led the way to the ward where David was staying. Outside of the old man’s room they paused.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Keating said. “I’m a doctor and I’m trying to break a curse.”

Lilith nodded as if she understood. “Science has taken the place of magic. As one grows the other shrinks. One day there’ll be no magic left. Only science.”

“That’s the world I want to live in.”

“It may not be.”

Keating shrugged and opened the door, then stood back to let the two lovers reunite. Lilith went in with a sad expression on her face, but David’s reaction was completely different. He recognised her immediately.

“Lilith,” he said confidently. “You’re as beautiful as the day I first met you. That golden hair.”

Lilith smiled, tears already in her eyes. “Thank you, but you should hate me, not compliment me.”

“I’m an old man. I left hate behind me a long time ago. You are not to blame for what has happened to me.”

Lilith approached the bed, shaking her head adamantly. “If I hadn’t seduced you…”

David waved a hand. “I was a married man. You didn’t force me. I made a choice – a bad one – and my family suffered as a consequence. The only person I blame is myself.”

“Lots of men cheat, David. Your punishment far outweighs your crime.”

David nodded, looked thoughtful. “Perhaps, but there is no changing it. I just want it to be over. I want to die, but it won’t let me. I’m tired of it all.”

“That’s why Lilith is here,” Keating butted in. “She thinks she may be able to break the curse.”

Lilith smiled. “I’m here to help you, David. I’m so sorry I caused all this.”

David nodded, looked a little angry for a split-second. “I forgive you.”

“I’ll be back in a moment,” Keating said and went back out into the ward to retrieve a scalpel from the supply cupboard. When she returned, Lilith had sat herself down on David’s bed and the two of them were chatting away like old friends. The spark was still there between them, even after all this time.

“I have what you need,” Keating said, holding out the scalpel.

Lilith stood up and took the sharp instrument in her hand. “Thank you.”

“What are you going to do?” David asked.

Lilith went and sat back down on his bed. “My father’s blood is running through my veins. It was his blood that bound you and only his blood that can release you.” She held her hand over his face and poised the tip of the scalpel in front of it. “By the power of my people, the old and the new, by the memories of what is ancient yet forever, I release you from your suffering. Receive my blood as contract.”

Lilith moved the scalpel against her palm and took a deep breath. Her hands both trembled and she did not blink. After several moments, she moved the blade away from her skin.

“I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t cut myself. I want to but I just… It’s hard.”

“Let me do it,” David said softly.

Lilith looked at him and nodded. “Yes, you should be the one. Just cut my palm and let my blood fall into your eyes. If it works then you will finally be free of the curse my father put on you. I’m sorry.”

“So you fucking should be.”

David swept the scalpel through the air.

For a moment there was only shocked silence, as Lilith and Keating both stared at David with eyes wide open.

Then a thin line of red appeared across Lilith’s throat. It widened slowly…

Blood spurted everywhere, all over David’s face, bed and pillows. Keating ran forward, pulled the woman from the bed and held her on the floor, trying to close the wound. With one arm she reached out and punched the emergency button to call for help.

Lilith was chocking on her own blood, clawing at the air and staring desperately into Keating’s eyes. Help me, her pleading gaze was saying. Please help me.

Keating glared at David who was sat up in bed and covered in blood. “Why?” she demanded. “Why did you do that?”

“My wife, my son. Both dead because of that whore. I’ve spent more than three decades alone with only memories of everything I lost. She was my true curse, and I thank you for releasing me from her. Now I can finally die, and with a peace I thought I would never have.”

David pulled the scalpel across his own throat and flopped back in his bed as his blood arced into the air and joined the puddles already formed by Lilith’s.

By the time help came, Lilith and David were both dead and Keating lay on the bloody floor, weeping.

“What happened?” Dr Hart asked, before becoming completely slack-jawed.

“I made a mistake,” Keating whispered, wrapping her arms around her knees before beginning to wail in misery. “I got it totally wrong.”

END.

About The Author

Iain Rob Wright is one of the UK's most successful horror and suspense writers, with novels including the critically acclaimed, THE FINAL WINTER; the disturbing bestseller, ASBO; and the wicked screamfest, THE HOUSEMATES.

His work is currently being adapted for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and a massive animal lover.

Check out Iain's official website or add him on Facebook where he would love to meet you.

www.iainrobwright.com

FEAR ON EVERY PAGE

More Books by Iain Rob Wright

THE FINAL WINTER:  UK  US

Apocalyptic horror novel where it never stops snowing and something ancient stalks the earth.

ASBO:  UK  US

Innocent family man is targeted by a gang of sadistic youths.

ANIMAL KINGDOM:  UK  US

Animals turn on mankind and try to make humanity extinct.

SEA SICK:  UK  US

A deadly virus is unleashed on board a luxury cruise liner.

SAM:  UK  US

A young boy seems to be possessed.  But is he?

RAVAGE:  UK  US

Apocalyptic horror that culminates in a fight for survival at a hilltop amusement park.  Say goodbye to the world.

SAVAGE: UK US

Apocalyptic sequel to Ravage where the stakes are even higher at an abandoned pier.  Sometimes being alone is better.

THE HOUSEMATES:  UK  US

Reality TV turns deadly.  12 competitors but only 1 winner.

SOFT TARGET: UK US

Nonstop Thriller where the future of the United Kingdom is at stake.

HOLES IN THE GROUND: UK  US

Collaboration with J A Konrath.  Some things should stay buried.  And guarded forever.

THE PICTURE FRAME: UK  US

A haunted picture frame that curses anybody whose photograph is placed inside it.

2389: UK  US

At the world’s biggest amusement park, based on the moon, something has gone very very wrong.

HOT ZONE: UK  US

Sequel to Soft Target. This time the terrorists are using mankind’s deadliest diseases.

Copyright

* * *AN SG HORROR RELEASE* * *

Part of the SALGAD PUBLISHING GROUP

Redditch

UK, Worcestershire
www.SALGADPUBLISHING.com

K is for Klutz copyright 2015 by Iain Rob Wright
www.IAINROBWRIGHT.com

Cover Art Copyright 2015 Iain Rob Wright

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

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About The Author

More Books by Iain Rob Wright

Copyright

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