Mandy, p.1
Mandy, page 1
Contents
Copyright
Content Warning
Dedication
Title
Epigraph
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
Thank you for reading!
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Mandy. Copyright © 2022 by Stephanie Sparks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-1-7772956-4-6 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-7772956-5-3 (ebook)
First Edition: October 2022
Cover photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.
Content Warning
Mandy contains subject matter and themes related to necrophilia, body horror, kidnapping, car accidents, consent, violence and sexual violence, and death.
Reader discretion is advised.
For the weird girls
No good deed goes unpunished.
— Unknown
Chapter 1
The last thing Mandy Fisher expected to hear in the dead of night was a fist banging on the door. It woke her like a thunderclap. Unexpected, jarring. She slowly sat up, holding her covers close to her chest. She listened, but couldn’t hear beyond the blood rushing to her head, outside of which there was only silence. And the knocking.
When the frantic pounding began again, it wasn’t a dream or her imagination playing tricks. She was all alone in her father’s house on an acreage that was a two-hour hike to the nearest town. Visitors in the middle of the night were rare, even in her father’s line of work.
She laid back down, pulling the blankets over her head. She couldn’t fall asleep, nor could she make the knocking stop. It became louder, more urgent, and then a voice cried out.
“Help us!”
Us. Meaning more than one.
Meaning Mandy would be outnumbered.
“Go away,” she whispered, breath hot under the covers.
But they wouldn’t go away. The back porchlight was on. She had forgotten to turn it off and so it became a beacon for her midnight guests.
The stranger called out again. “I know you’re in there!”
She pushed the covers aside, easing off the bed. Her feet touched the cold, hardwood floor. The planks creaked. She bit her lip as if to quiet her movements, as if the panicked stranger down below could sense her exact location.
He knew someone was in the house and he wasn’t going to stop banging on the door until either she answered it or he had smashed his way inside.
“Help us, please!”
Mandy grabbed her robe from the hook on the door. She wrapped it around herself, cinching the belt tight. Against her better judgment, she kept the lights off so that under the cover of darkness she could see who was at the door, get a description, and report them if necessary.
Not that she had anything against visitors, but something about strangers in the dark turned her stomach to ice. She never cared much for the company of others — with one exception, but he was long gone.
And he was definitely not coming back.
She tiptoed down the stairs, keeping her back against the wall but also careful not to brush against the family photos trailing downward. Her father and mother on their wedding day in a tiny church. A family photo of the three of them, Mandy just barely able to hold her own head up on her wobbly infant neck. A photo taken before cancer claimed her mother’s life. Kindergarten, grade school, junior high pics. Braces clamped on tight and shining in one awkward school photo.
Her graduation photo’s frame hung in the exact spot it had been placed years ago; the photo conspicuously absent. Her father hung it in earnest, but after everything that happened that spring, the last thing on his mind would have been to take the frame down.
Mandy gripped the tie around her waist as she approached the front door. She could see through the glass arch out onto the porch, but that light was off and no one was there. She waited for a bloodied hand to slap against the window, like in the movies she was advised to avoid, lest they aggravate her condition.
Mandy rounded the stairs. She passed by the sitting room where her father kept stacks of books and magazines. Then the formal dining room where he handled the bulk of his paperwork. Then the kitchen where he thankfully did not conduct any of his work.
No, that had been Mandy’s mistake.
Her crime scene.
At the end of the hallway was a half-lite door, and just before the door, if Mandy turned left, was the entrance to her father’s business. It was where the Fisher house became the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home.
There were no sons, however. Just Mandy and her father, and the occasional hired hand when business picked up. Her father thought the “sons” made the name sound homey and personal.
While Mandy was quite satisfied with being an only child, tonight she wished she had some big, strong brothers to protect her because she could see the stranger at the backdoor. His chin dropped onto his chest as he rested his head against the glass. He was young. Maybe Mandy’s age. It was hard to tell in the dark, the porchlight casting harsh shadows across his brawny features. His hair fell in a sweaty mess across his cro magnon forehead and heavy brows. A gash above his hairline oozed blood. His nose was busted and bloody. He was a thick boy — a man built for tackling, running, crushing, destroying. If he wanted to, he could make short work of the tired door. But he didn’t. Not yet. He was at least that little bit civilized.
All Mandy had to do was stay out of sight. Eventually he would have to go away. She was about to go back to bed. Her slight movement caught his attention. The second he glimpsed her, peeking down the hallway, his eyes widened and he started knocking all over again.
“Oh, shit, hey! You gotta help! My friend— There was an accident. I don’t know what to do.”
Mandy knew what to do.
Don’t let them in.
Go back to bed.
Forget this ever happened.
Her father’s words made her pause and reconsider. In the two years she spent in the rest home, he never once brought up the incident that put her there or forced any fatherly wisdom upon her. Not until the hot summer day he arrived to take her home. Then he let it all out.
“Make good choices, Mandy, and be kind to others,” he said, wiping the perspiration off his ruddy face. As usual for a workday, he wore a full suit and tie. The heat was cruel to his jolly body, but never affected his friendly disposition. “You’re an adult now, so more than ever, you’re responsible for what happens to you. It’s easy to wall yourself off from others and keep your head down, but you can still do good in this world. You just have to make the right choices.”
In the car on that long drive home, Mandy stared out the window and listened to her father’s sermon. She didn’t know if he meant what he was saying or if he was just trying to fill the silence, but his words stuck with her.
And he was right. All she wanted to do was shut out the world and try to move on with her life. The problem was she worked for her father, and his business was a people-facing, customer service one. It would reflect terribly on the business if she ignored a stranger’s pleas for help, only for her father to come home and find him, and then do what she should have done in the first place: Help him.
Make good choices. Be kind to others.
She sighed, dislodging her teeth from her bottom lip. Coming out from the darkness, she went to the door.
The stranger pawed the glass, like a sad, desperate puppy.
“Please.”
Mandy turned the lock. The brass slipped between her fingers as the stranger shoved his way in, invading her space. He reeked of blood, sweat, musky cologne, and beer. He loomed over, breathing hard.
Just as quickly, he moved aside and pointed outside to a crumpled mess at the bottom of the steps. A young man’s unmoving body.
“You gotta do something.”
Chapter 2
What could she do? He was dead. Mandy had worked with enough dead bodies to be certain without checking his vital signs. The stranger picked him up and carried him inside, and Mandy led him into the funeral home side of the house. They passed through the reception area like ghosts, gliding over the maroon rug and breezing past the dried flowers in ornate vases.
Mandy turned on as few lights as possible. She didn’t want to light up the whole house and give the neighbors — even though they were acres away — something to talk about.
Gossip — that’s what the Pomerleaus would do. The neighbors and people in town liked to talk about Mandy and the horrible
“What’s your name?” she asked the stranger so he wouldn’t be so strange anymore.
“Chaz. Charles to my folks, but everybody calls me Chaz.” He said it on autopilot, as though it were a line he gave every time he introduced himself, no matter how bleak the situation. “Is he going to be okay?”
Mandy couldn’t tell if Chaz was dumb or in denial. She guided him into the embalming room and instructed him to lay his friend out on the dressing table. It was more respectful than leaving him on the floor.
“Now what?” Chaz asked.
“Umm…” Mandy looked around. They could call the police. That was exactly what her father would do. A white, slimline phone hung on the wall, cord dangling down. “We should call the police.”
“What?” The word blew out of his mouth, beer fumes assaulting her nostrils. “No, no, you can’t do that. Just fix him and we’ll go.”
Fix him? “What do you think this place is?”
He whirled around. A tornado whipping open drawers and bumping the stainless steel table. He found some of her father’s tools.
“You do medical shit, don’t you?” His pitch startled Mandy. “Just do something!”
“I’m not a doctor,” she said, making a break for the phone. “I think we should call the police.”
As she lifted the phone from its cradle, Chaz ripped it out of her hand and slammed it back down.
“Jesus Christ! No goddamn police! We were drinking, okay? They’re gonna lock us up and throw away the key.”
They would lock Chaz up for whatever drunk driving accident had caused the death of his friend. His friend would be buried or cremated, and wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Unable to face the violent, sulking stranger, Mandy turned her attention to the young man on the table. He was pale and slender, much smaller than his hulking companion. His neck was broken, of that Mandy was certain, but his face had not a scratch. His wavy blonde hair, though a bit disheveled, appeared like a golden halo. He was an angel.
She touched his face, hoping he was still alive. But he already felt much too cool.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, not looking at Chaz.
“Sorry for what?” When she didn’t answer, he pounded a fist on the counter. “Sorry for what?!”
“He’s dead,” she said.
“No…” he wailed, grabbing his head as if it had been split open. He dropped onto his knees and began to sob. “Why? Oh, god, why?”
Mandy crossed her arms, remembering that she was in her robe and nightgown. Her feet were crammed in a pair of ratty slippers. How she appeared was the last thing on Chaz’s mind, but her skin still crawled. She wanted him to leave. She wanted to be able to call the police. What did he think was going to happen, that she would bury the young man without any fuss? Make all his problems go away?
She shuffle-stepped to the door, hoping he would take notice and be on his way. She rubbed her arms, wondering how she was going to explain the dead man to her father. But as she passed by the dressing table, her fingers traced the stainless steel and she gazed again at the young man’s angelic face.
Chaz sniffled and snorted into the crook of his elbow. “Robbie was, like, the best guy ever. He was always there for his friends. He just wanted to look after me. I was too drunk and he tried—” Body-wracking sobs cut him off and he curled up in the corner.
Mandy leaned slightly over him. Robbie. That was a name she didn’t hear too often. Robert and Rob were still quite common in town, but Robbie? There was something charming in a name that seemed to be from a different time. Like her own name — mocked for a cheesy ’70s song that was allegedly inspired by the songwriter’s dog. When the boys in junior high learned that little tidbit, they mocked her relentlessly.
But not Trevor.
Her heart ached. Robbie’s perfect skin reminded her of Trevor, another dead boy. She stroked his cheek. Her eyes darted toward Chaz’s corner, but he hadn’t seen her do it, too blinded by his own grief.
Trevor shouldn’t have died so young either. It was unfair.
Her fingers grazed Robbie’s hair. Nothing too incriminating, but her skin burned when Chaz lowered his hands and cried, “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
Standing rigidly, Mandy stepped away from the table. Away from Robbie. She was afraid. Not because of her proximity to a dead body, but because of her own touch. She still didn’t understand her gift.
It’s not a gift. It’s a trick.
It’s a curse.
But to rid her house of these two strangers, perhaps — just for tonight — it really was a gift.
Chapter 3
Two years earlier...
Mabel Marie Truscott died on Christmas Day. She had a belly full of food after squeezing in three family visits where she was plied with cinnamon buns and coffee, cookies, treats, two turkey dinners, and assorted deli platters. Mabel was never one to turn down a free meal — she was living on a fixed income in her golden years — or an opportunity to pinch the rosy cheeks of her many grandchildren.
After refusing all offers for a ride home, she hoofed her way back to her apartment through the thick snow. Halfway there, she realized she had forgotten her keys at someone’s house. Like the funds in her savings account, her memory was slipping away a little more each day, so she couldn’t recall at whose house.
But rather than turn around, she forged ahead and arrived at her building. She must have hoped some other resident would buzz her in, and perhaps it was for the best that no one did, because as soon as she scraped her boots on the welcome mat, her 86-year-old heart gave out on her and she collapsed at the front door where the landlord soon found her.
A week later, just after New Year’s Day, Mabel was wrapped up in her Sunday best and laid out in an affordably nice casket. Mandy spent the morning applying makeup to the old woman’s face to give her a bit of life.
Once Mabel was taken care of, Mandy had to rush around, placing program booklets on each seat in the chapel. From there, she borrowed her father’s van to pick up the wreaths at the floral shop downtown.
In her rush to get back to the chapel (ever mindful of her father’s voice that nothing was more important than the day of the funeral service), Mandy hit a patch of ice. The van slid right toward the end of the funeral procession. She slowed down just in time to ever-so-gently bump the black pickup truck parked at the end.
Gripping the steering wheel, she stared in shock as the driver of the truck threw open his door and swung a long leg out. He was dressed all in black — black cowboy boots, black jeans, black blazer over a black button-down shirt, and a black cowboy hat on top. Under all that black was Trevor Hardisty.
Mandy was terrified. She knew Trevor from school — everyone knew Trevor. He was the star football player. He was going to go far. He already had several scholarships lined up because he could run with a ball from one end of a field to the other. Mandy didn’t get what was so special about him or the sport he was so good at, but she never yucked anyone’s yum. They were from different worlds, and now those two worlds had literally collided.
Grim lines etched into his young face, Trevor approached the van. She jumped out of her skin when he tapped his knuckles on the window. She rolled it down a tiny bit, expecting to be hosed with vitriol and offensive language or pure, blinding rage.
Instead, Trevor leaned in and looked right at her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She was not, just shaken. She had never been in an accident before.
Trevor helped her out of the van and she stood in the bitter cold, snow creeping into her boots, to look at the damage to both their vehicles. His truck had a broken taillight and a white scratch from the van’s paint. She stammered an apology and a promise to exchange insurance with him, but he laughed and rubbed his elbow over the bumper.
“Naw, it’ll buff right out,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, don’t we go to the same school? I thought I’d seen you somewhere before.”
Mandy was not someone people recognized anywhere. She scurried through life as silently as a mouse, fearing her mere presence was a blight on an otherwise rodent-free world. But if someone like Trevor noticed, then maybe more people were aware of her.
