Horror Tales Read Free Page A

that night and she thought of taking a tranquilizer. It happened to her rather frequently, when Penny slept outside home, no matter if it was her ex- husband´s home. At last, she relaxed, but when she was almost asleep, she seemed to hear someone was whispering somewhere in the house. At first she felt the shivers, but then she got up determined to frighten the possible intruder away. She took the wireless phone with her, in case it was necessary to call the police, and a starter pistol (she was terrified to use a real one). She left her bedroom barefoot, walking slowly along the carpeted hallway of the second floor. It was in that exact moment when she discovered that the whispers came from Penny´s bedroom. How could it be? She approached to the closed door, but she didn´t dare to open it.
    -  Who´s there? I´ll call the police immediately! – she almost shouted.

    And then, a deadly silence invaded the whole house. She waited a couple of minutes, almost holding up her breathing. She knew that on the other side someone was awaiting. And, tuning her ear, she seemed to hear some weak footsteps, which wandered around the room fairly slowly. Determined, she opened the door in a rush, pointing with the starter gun at the center of the room. Nobody was there. Wait a moment : the doll was thrown in the middle of the room, and she perfectly remembered having put her on the bed that same afternoon. Who had moved her? She searched desperately in the bedroom, looking even inside the closet and under the bed. There was no one there. And suddenly, a crazy idea crossed her mind. It was an idea as ridiculous as terrifying. She picked up the porcelain doll from the floor and looked at her face. Indeed: she had changed again . Now she was showing a malevolent smile, in which some irregular and sharp teeth could be spotted. Was she becoming insane? Furious, she smashed the doll against the wall. Pat ´s porcelain face cracked, and it was marked by a huge scar that made a path, from her forehead to her chin. Cathy, satisfied, went back to her bedroom even more relaxed and fell immediately asleep.
    The next day, around eleven, the phone rang at Paul´s home. It was really strange that someone phoned on a public holiday, and he thought that maybe it was his mother, wishing to invite him and her granddaughter to have a barbecue and to eat a delicious plum pie. 
    -  Who is it?
    -  Am I speaking to Mr. Paul Rosemberg?
    -  Yes – answered Paul, really intrigued.
    -  I am the county sheriff... Look, I am really sorry to tell you that a neighbor has found, around half an hour ago, your ex-wife dead in her bed. We need you come over here. I am sorry.
    Paul tried, with consternation, to obtain some more information, but the sheriff refused to facilitate it. He left Penny in his parents´ house, without telling her anything, and he headed to his previous home. It was surrounded by a yellow tape, and lots of neighbors and journalists were crowded outside the house. He asked for the sheriff and some agents took him immediately to the hall, in which they had improvised a kind of office for both the police and CSI.
    -  Paul, this is going to be complicated. We would like you to recognize your ex- wife´s body. And it´s not a scene you may like. If you prefer it, we can wait for CSI to finish and do the authentication this afternoon at the morgue.
    -  No, no... I wish to help in the investigation. But I don´t understand anything... Has she been murdered?
    -  Well... We don´t have the forensic report yet, but judging by the state of the corpse... I would say it results evident.
    The sheriff took Paul upstairs, as if he already knew the whole house. He shrugged his feet, drowning, without getting to believe that all that was really happening. And in his mind, a fixed idea was harassing him: How would he explain Penny that she was not going to see her mum ever again? But all his thoughts vanished when the sheriff pointed at Cathy´s body, lying