The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

“Cool,” he said solemnly.
Throughout June and July and August he carried it always, carving his initials
into every tree he met until a ten-block radius of their house bore his mark. But
the knife didn’t last a lifetime; it didn’t last the summer before it fell to pieces,
the parts inside worn out from the countless times he’d opened and closed them.
Then Jason started saving his allowance for real hunting knives, not kids’ toys
like the one his father had given him. He bought his first real Bowie knife that
October, and the strong steel blade fascinated him—certainly better at carving
wood than his scout knife had been.
A few months later, he found a set of meat cleavers on sale at Walmart, an
impulse buy that left him broke for a month. That Christmas he found his
grandfather’s old army sword in the attic and took it to hang on his bedroom
wall.
His mania grew through high school. Ginsu knives from television ads.
Bayonettes from flea markets. Dirks and daggers and cutlasses and epees and
scythes and Japanese throwing stars—
When he graduated, his parents bundled him off to the far-distant University of
Pennsylvania, hoping a change of friends and environment might broaden his
interests. Instead, it served to focus them. The college fencing team found him
an eager student. History courses provided information on ancient arms he might
never have encountered otherwise.
He also met Joanne Bleiler there. She had like interests in history (though it
was politics that drew her), and they found themselves paired in a little study
group that led to a romance that led to marriage in their senior year.
But their interests were perhaps a bit too far apart. While Joanne joined a law
firm as a clerk, pushing, always pushing, he found himself left behind. Alone,
most evenings, with nothing but his collection of knives.
Then the creature came to him. Small and gray and vaguely batlike, with
silvery eyes and needle-sharp teeth, it seemed disturbingly familiar. Perhaps it
had always been there, he thought, just waiting to be heard. Or perhaps his
desperate, lonely need brought it to him.
Whatever, the creature came whispering soft words, telling him how bright and
beautiful his blades were (why did Joanne never see that?), telling him
everything he wanted to hear.
He listened. Perhaps that was his greatest mistake.
And as Joanne grew more shrill and insistent, he fled to the creature for
comfort and understanding. It always knew what to say. It always made him feel