Trick or treat?
If you fancy the latter, here’s a horror story I wrote that was recently published in the World Goedam Collection produced by South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Do check out the entire collection for “goedam” (i.e. strange, scary tales) written by authors across UNESCO’s Cities of Literature.
The Adoring Dentist
‘I love you,’ he said.
‘I luh yoo oo,’ she drooled.
The drill began to wail, and darkness took her in.
#
Eliza came slowly around. Consciousness began as a vague throbbing in her head, which bloomed gradually into an ache in her mouth. The ache gained fire as it crept across her face, forcing her to open her eyes. Light flooded in and a silhouette hovered in the glare. It leaned in close – her husband. He smiled gently.
She tried to speak but could only gargle.
‘Sshh,’ he said. ‘Don’t speak.’
Eliza took in the room. It looked familiar.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘You’re home.’ He brushed a knuckle along her temple. ‘The propofol had you out cold. I had to carry you to the car.’
‘Ngh,’ said Eliza.
‘Don’t speak,’ he repeated, his cheek twitching. ‘You’ll hurt yourself. Here, look.’ He left the edge of the bed and returned with a bunch of chrysanthemums and lilies. ‘Happy anniversary, Eliza. Ten impeccable years.’ He leaned forward to kiss her forehead.
The stench of lilies turned Eliza’s stomach. ‘Hrrrm,’ she breathed. A string of red saliva pooled on the collar of her nightgown.
‘Would you like to see your anniversary present?’ Her husband put the flowers into a waiting vase and adjusted them carefully before returning to his wife. ‘Here.’ He took her elbow to helped her out of bed.
He guided her down the stairs, kissing the side of her head as they went. Holding her by the shoulders, he eased her around the corner and into the bathroom.
Eliza peered into the mirror and screamed. Stabs of metallic agony cut into her gums. The face in the mirror screamed back, its huge eyes welling above a mangled mess of mouth. Steel rods protruded from her face, fastened by pins and screws to form a glistening cage around the shrieking wound. The more Eliza screamed, the more it hurt; and the more it hurt, the more it bled. Chunks of scab cracked and fell away, followed by the blood that flooded her mouth and spilled onto tiles.
Eliza flailed her fists against her husband while he pulled her out of the room, his expression stoic, motionless, calm. Eliza could only sob while he carried her up the stairs, just as he’d done on their wedding day, ten beautiful years ago.
#
Three months later, Eliza and her husband were brushing their teeth. He put his palm to the small of her back as they brushed. Eliza leaned away to spit into the sink. She looked with some dismay at the red dashes streaking the foam and – after tonguing her teeth – spat out a gristly clot of blood.
Her husband’s spit joined her own in the sink. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s still healing. It’ll take time.’
‘How much longer, though? It’s still so sore.’
‘Keep using the benzydamine. And ibuprofen.’
‘It’s not just the pain. It’s the blood. It just starts coming randomly. People stare at me in the street and I realise my chin’s covered in blood.’
Her husband rinsed his brush under the tap. ‘It was an extensive procedure. You can’t have all your teeth removed and replaced without some inconvenience afterwards.’
‘I know that. I know’
He tapped his finger against his lips, silent for a moment. ‘Do you regret it?’ he finally asked.
‘Oh god no, of course not!’ Eliza took his hand, kissed his cheek. ‘They’re wonderful. I’d never go back.’ She exposed her teeth to the mirror. ‘You know how much I hated my teeth after the accident. I think you were right – about them being bad for…for the way I felt. About myself. I didn’t think I’d ever get over that crash. But these are perfect. I’m feeling better already. I mean, just look at them. You’d never know they were false.’
‘They’re the best money can buy.’
‘I can see that. And I’m sorry I didn’t have more faith in you when you offered to do this. Thank you for always encouraging me – even when I got so anxious about the procedure. You always know what’s best for me. This is so much more than a new set of teeth.’ Eliza beamed at her reflection. ‘I know I grumble about the pain, but I do love them. I feel like a new person. I don’t avoid catching myself in mirrors anymore. I feel like…like I’ve got myself back.’
Without warning, her husband slipped his finger into her mouth and probed her teeth. ‘I think they’re exquisite.’ His finger tasted of disinfectant.
‘They are,’ said Eliza, mumbling around his finger and wincing with pain.
#
They sent her to the grave, in the end
It started – about three years later – with a plunger. Or more specifically, without a plunger. The bath’s plughole was blocked. Eliza was certain she’d find the plunger in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t under the stairs or with the toolbox either. But she’d seen it somewhere around the house – and recently, too.
She ended up in the garage, moving heavy boxes and sifting through household debris. She could easily have gone out to buy a new plunger, but instead she heaved and muttered, sweated and cursed. She knew the plunger was somewhere, and she was determined to find it.
She never found the plunger. Instead, she found an unfamiliar satchel, tucked into the bottom of a box beneath some musty bin bags. She didn’t recognise the satchel at all, so she dragged it out and peered inside.
Its contents were spread over the coffee table when her husband got home. He looked astonished when he came in from the hallway and saw them there.
Eliza grinned. ‘I didn’t know you had all this uni stuff! Just look at these photos!” She giggled. “You were as handsome then as you are now.’
Her husband cleared his throat, put down his bag and sat beside her. ‘Where did you find these?’
‘In the garage. Just look at you there. My, my. And all these pretty girls – the way this one’s looking at you! Always the charmer.’
‘Hmm.’ Her husband was frowning.
‘And I can’t get over this yearbook. I didn’t think English universities did this. More of an American thing, isn’t it?’
‘Five years is a long time to spend with friends at dental school, Eliza. You want something to remember them by.’
‘Then why leave it all to rot in the garage? This is wonderful!’ Eliza laughed. ‘Just look at the state of those clothes! They looked good at the time, I suppose.’
‘I suppose,’ echoed her husband. He took a deep breath before smiling at his wife. ‘What’s for dinner?’
#
Eliza stashed the satchel and its contents away after that, in the cabinet with their photo albums.
It took a few weeks for her to notice the dread. It crept up on her with dark stealth, flitting between the shadows of her mind. As time went by, she found it harder to brush aside – to account it to the weather, to tiredness, to one of those days. She began to get the feeling that she was slipping back, somehow; losing something she’d gained, although she couldn’t tell exactly what.
The dread took firm hold when Eliza realised she was avoiding mirrors again. After three years of a contentment she’d just started to take for granted, she was back to fearing her teeth.
It took courage to confront them. Courage and a stiff drink. Eventually, Eliza stepped into the bathroom and looked squarely into the mirror. Slowly, laboriously, she pulled back her lips. Her teeth shone immaculately at her and the dread became a deep but subtle terror. Eliza burst into tears and ran from the room.
The fear grew with each passing day, but she couldn’t put a finger on its cause. She tried to ignore it – or at least to hide it – but it must have shown, for her husband occasionally asked what was wrong. She always insisted she was fine. She insisted again and again, as if she could convince herself too. But she wasn’t fine at all, and the fear continued to fester.
In her dreams, she’d get out of bed and go to the kitchen. She’d take the pliers from the toolbox, carry them to the bathroom and try to remove her teeth. But they wouldn’t come out. She’d wail and blubber as she pulled, but the more she heaved, the more the teeth burrowed into her gums. She’d give up and gape into the bathroom mirror, horrified by the bulges that moved beneath her skin. Her teeth tunnelled up the length her face, carving tissue as they went.
In later dreams, she was able to pull out her teeth and spit them into the sink. She’d gaze at the blood-streaked porcelain and notice that her teeth were twitching, twinkling like pearls on red silk. Her mouth, ragged and raw, would hang open as the teeth grew needles for legs – as they scuttled out of the sink and up her paralysed thighs.
#
The dreams finally led to revelation.
One night, the teeth in Eliza’s dream didn’t head up her nightgown. Instead, they paraded out of the bathroom like a line of enamel ants. Eliza followed them through the hallway and into the living room. She switched on the light and saw them heading for the cabinet.
Eliza woke suddenly, knowing without doubt that the root of her fear lay sealed within her husband’s satchel.
#
As soon as her husband headed to work the next morning, Eliza went to the cabinet. But the satchel was gone. It may have been months since she’d put it there, but Eliza knew for a fact that she’d never removed it.
She was soon opening every drawer and cupboard in the house, overturning every surface, probing every nook and cranny. Four hours had passed without any hint of a satchel, but still she hunted.
Late that afternoon, Eliza emerged from the garden shed filthy, tired, triumphant. She clutched her husband’s satchel in her hands. It had been sealed in a plastic bag and buried at the bottom of a bucket of gravel, which had been stored beneath of a pile of heavy boxes in the furthest corner of the shed.
Eliza staggered into the kitchen, fell to her knees and let the photos spill across the floor. Her eyes scanned the scattered pictures, almost too frightened to focus. But she soon found the photo that confirmed everything she feared.
An hour later, Eliza returned to the shed to fetch a shovel, and dusk found her digging up the grave of Berenice Clemm.
Getting Berenice’s name had been easy; she had an entry in the yearbook, and was sat close to her husband in at least a couple of photos. Eliza saw again how Berenice looked at her husband, and noticed – with a pang in her chest she’d ignored before – the way her husband looked back.
Discovering Berenice’s location had taken a little longer – an hour of googling. And when Eliza discovered that Berenice resided in a cemetery and not a home, she moaned and wept and mashed her fists against her gums.
Eliza wept as she dug. She hadn’t stopped crying since she’d started the three-hour drive to the cemetery. Her sobs were broken by coughs that sent red mist from her battered mouth.
The sky darkened. It began to rain.
Eliza’s shovel finally found wood, and she scraped mud away to reveal the coffin. It took the last of her strength to smash through its lid.
Dropping once more to her knees, Eliza pulled away the splintered wood. After yanking a large chunk away, she saw the skeletal face of Berenice Clemm.
Eliza barely noticed the hollow eye sockets or the shrunken cheeks. Her gaze was fixed on Beatrice’s grin.
Not a tooth remained in those withered gums.
Darren Simpson Writes 