Psychological Horror Short Story - James and Amanda

About this story:

When James receives a mysterious package on Valentine’s Day, he’s certain it’s the perfect tool for revenge on the woman who rejected him. But Amanda has secrets of her own — and creatures of her own — and the gift he delivers is nothing compared to what’s waiting for him at home. Told in dual perspectives, “James and Amanda” is a horror short story about obsession, psychological unraveling, and the moment a stalker becomes prey. A dark blend of creature horror and Valentine’s Day revenge, it twists sharply into something far more unsettling.

 

James

James woke to the sound of thumping on his apartment door. He bound to his feet when he remembered something important was happening that day. The blanket Trailing off the bed tangled his feed and he stumbled, stubbing his toe on an empty coffee mug and slipping on half-eaten pizza.

At the door he paused to catch his breath.

“Who is it?” he trilled.

“Delivery for Mr. Jones,” a voice responded, lilting up at the end.

James frowned and knocked the side of his head. A delivery today? The thought echoed in his head. Was that why today was important? He unlocked half a dozen snips, clicks, and clacks, and opened the door, looking through the crack allowed by the chain. A young man stood in the hallway resplendent in his brown delivery uniform. In his hands he held a small box.

“Show me,” James ordered.

The man held the box forward. The label showed the correct name and address. James closed the door enough to slip the chain free and held his hands out. The young man raised his eyebrows at James in his underwear but didn’t say a word as he deposited the package into James’ arms.

“Oof.” James hefted the small package. “It’s pretty heavy.” Inside the box something moved. James imagined a glass globe rolling around in the dark of the box. He juggled vainly trying to keep the mystery box from crashing to the floor.

The delivery boy reached out and steadied the box. “Okay?” he asked.

James nodded.

The young man held out a device. “Signature, please.”

Holding the package under one arm, James felt whatever was inside still moving around. A new image blossomed in his mind. An animal rushing back and forth. He shivered at the unnerving thought. He scribbled his name on the screen.

The boy doffed his hat and turned away. Instead of taking the elevator, he disappeared into the stairwell, and James stood listening until his footsteps receded to the first floor. Closing the door, the package moved in his hands again. James set the unruly box on the floor while he slid the chain into place and re-locked the two dead bolts, knob lock, barrel bolt and mortise lock.

Once secure, he took the package and navigated the obstacle course of piled newspapers, old shoes, and dishes to the kitchen. He thought he heard a soft growl from inside the box.

He shook his head. “What an imagination I have!”

In the kitchen, James rifled through the drawer where the scissors should be. Growling, he pawed the kitchen towels, dirty dishes and underwear that littered the counter.

“Shit!” He screamed. “Why can’t things be where they belong?”

He grabbed a butter knife intending to stab at the package when it moved again, almost toppling off the counter. Setting a steadying hand on top of the box, James decided it would be prudent to examine the delivery instructions more closely.

It took him a moment to decode the layer of stickers decorating the side of the box.

“Ah, shit,” he sighed. He hadn’t been imagining the growl after all.

The package had been misdelivered. James suddenly remembered why today was so important. Valentines Day and this was Amanda’s present. He set the butter knife on the counter, found a roll of packing tape under a pile of old bills, and set about relabeling the package. He left the package in the sink to ensure it wouldn’t meander off the counter. Returning to the bedroom to get dressed, he mulled over the question of how best to get the box to Amanda.

It was clear the delivery service wasn’t trustworthy enough. “If you want something done right,” James muttered to the empty apartment.

He lugged the package – now disguised in a much larger box – downtown, ignoring the scowls of the other subway patrons. The doorman at Amanda’s apartment was a problem. Later, when they found her body and called the police, would the doorman mention a visit by James earlier in the day? James put his collar up and tugged his hat down, scrunching his shoulders toward his ears. Luckily, the man at the front desk was busy with a complaining Karen and didn’t notice when James set the box on the counter.

Unencumbered, James sauntered the four blocks to the restaurant where Amanda worked. Across the street, a cherry tree was in full bloom. He settled against the trunk as blossoms dropped around him like snow. The aroma reminded James of all his favorite things – baking bread, fresh mown grass. Blood. He inhaled deeply.

A menu from the restaurant hid his face as he watched people come and go from the building, but he needn’t have worried. Couples, arriving at the doors or returning, finished with their meals, walked hand in hand down the street without a glance in his direction.

“Disgusting!” James couldn’t abide such open displays of affection, even on Valentine’s Day.

He must have misread her calendar, or she was covering for one of her slacker co-workers. Either way, hours passed before Amanda finally made an appearance, coming out from the alley beside the restaurant. By that time, the sun had set, and the streetlights cast pools of light on the sidewalk. The menu lay discarded on the ground at his feet as the night did a much better job of hiding him.

He stood still and silent in the semi-dark, invisible. “I am one with the night,” he thought as he followed behind her like a shadow as she made her way home. Amanda strode through the front door. James slipped around the back.

James scuttled up the fire escape in time to be sitting outside her window, waiting – winded - when Amanda entered her apartment. His heart thumped as she stumbled through the door of her apartment carrying the box. She set it on the floor, freeing her hands to hang her purse and coat on the hooks by the door. She toed off her sensible shoes, setting them in the empty slot in shoe rack. For a minute, she stood staring at the box, hands on hips in thought. Finally, on stockinged feet, she carried the box down the hall toward her bedroom.

From his perch on the small landing outside her living room window, James could only see the front room of her apartment and part of the way down the hall. As such, he could only guess what happened next. He closed his eyes to picture it – Amanda getting undressed, showering, lathering her hair and body… he snapped his eyes open, afraid that he would lose himself in the fantasy and miss the reality.

He'd been waiting for this All. Day.

Considering his usual lack of patience, James waited an exceptionally long time for her screams to reverberate through the rooms. After several long minutes, when he neither heard Amanda’s screams nor saw her streaking through the apartment in terror, James reached for the window. Try as he might, the window wouldn’t budge. Amanda had cottoned on to that chink in her defenses.

He waited for another spate of long minutes, but there wasn’t a sound from deeper in Amanda’s home. Finally, James made his much slower way down the fire escape and then to the subway and home, satisfying himself with images of what might have happened when Amanda opened the box. He couldn’t stop grinning to himself.

At home, he made sure not to turn on the tv or look at any other source of news. He wanted to delay the gratification of seeing her torn body, the crowd of ‘mourning’ citizens outside her building, the red, white, and blue lights of the emergency vehicles and the dramatic faces of the police keeping the gawkers out of the crime scene.

Before he went to bed, he looked through his photo album. On page three her found a picture of Jennifer. “You’re next,” he promised her.

He never heard the scuttling in the corner of his room.

Amanda

Valentines’ day wasn’t the worst day to work, but it wasn’t the best, especially if you were single yourself. Amanda watched the couples come in hand in hand. Others arrived separately, the first to arrive always fidgeting until the other appeared. Unlike the other servers, Amanda refused to engage in ‘will they or won’t they be stood up.’

“These are people you’re talking about,” she said.

The others called her a wet blanket and a stick in the mud, but she ignored them. She remembered being there herself, waiting at the table for Mr. Right to arrive, finding too many Mr. Wrong’s. James had been the final straw.

During their first date, Amanda thought she’d met someone different. Someone who could understand her differences. His blond hair, blue eyes and broad shoulders attracted her, but he was more than good looks. He listened more than he spoke, his few words insightful and refreshing. Their first date led to more, but all too soon Amanda realized it wasn’t to be. He was planning their lives.

“Not that I hadn’t done a little fantasizing myself,” Amanda had admitted to her best friend. “We just had different ideas.”

He wanted kids, pets, a picket fence. She did not.

Inevitably, ghosting led to a fight and then tears. She watched in pity as he broke down. She ignored his calls for months and even now, two years later, she worried every time the phone rang. He didn’t scare her. She just hated rehashing it all.

Amanda got through her shift. One of the new girls called in sick and she took the double. By the end of the night, her feet were killing her, and she was fantasizing about a bath, but she’d made a ton of tips.

“Worth it,” she said, slipping the folded bills into her bra.

She changed into running shoes and waived to the kitchen staff still cleaning up. The night was damp and smelled of ozone as she strolled to her building. She nodded to the doorman and would have done the same for the man at the front desk, but he waived her over.

“You have a package.”

“I don’t remember ordering anything.” She eyed the box. “Certainly not something that large.”

“Was dropped off this afternoon. Never saw the delivery man.”

Amanda shrugged off the feeling of someone watching her. Let them try to get in! She carried the box to the elevator, her arms wrapped around the sides, purse hanging from one hand. She held the box between her hip and the elevator wall as she pressed the button for her floor and again when she keyed open her apartment door.

With the same hip, she nudged her door closed and placed the box on the floor. She hung up her coat and purse and toed off her shoes, placing them neatly on the shoe rack. She stared for a moment at the box, still feeling the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Finally, she carried the box to her bedroom.

When she read the delivery instructions in black marker, she recognized his writing. That was his mistake. Too many love letters. She would know his handwriting anywhere.

‘Be careful,’ she thought to herself.

Still, once through the outer layers, she slid her knife through the tape that held the final box closed. When she saw what lay in the bottom of the box, tears pricked her eyes.

God damn you, James!

James and Amanda

Amanda carried her bag out the bedroom window and down the second fire escape, which is how she was waiting in the dark of his bedroom when he arrived. She listened to him humming to himself as he waddled around. The last two years had made him flabbier, pudgier.

He never even saw her where she sat on the chair in the corner. He didn’t hear the scurrying of her precious pets as they traced the smells around the room. She had warned them not to eat anything they found on the floor.

“It will probably make you sick.”

When James plodded into the bedroom, she expected an exclamation, but he just looked through the album on his dresser, murmured “You’re next” and then fell face first into the bed. In an instant he was snoring loudly.

Amanda watched him for just long enough to let him get into a deep sleep and then she called out “James, oh James” in an ethereal voice.

James twitched. Amanda called his name several times. When that didn’t work, she turned on the overhead light and, despite a wish to stay far away from him, shook him violently until he finally awoke with a grunt.

“Hello, James,” she said.

James blinked at her. After a moment, he smacked his lips. “You’re dead.”

“I’m not,” Amanda said. “But you almost killed her.”

James blinked again. “What...?” He shook his head. “Who?”

Amanda glared at him. “She was never meant to be in that box for more than a few hours. You blocked her air holes.”

As James continued to blink stupidly at her, Amanda whistled. Her pets scuttled toward the bed. James didn’t notice them until the first appeared, claws piercing the sheet as it clambered up the side of the bed.

“Holy shit!” he cried, sitting bolt upright and pushing back against the wall. “What the hell is that?”

Amanda moved away from the bed. “That’s destiny.” She watched her babies creep closer to him. “We could have been a good pair, but you never could understand that we were partners.”

Later, after her creatures had their fill, she held her purse open for them to climb inside. There was still plenty of room for the photo album.

Back in her apartment, she poured herself a glass of wine and sat in her armchair with the album on her lap. She looked through the photos, stopping at the page three and then moving on to the rest. After looking through the whole album, she had to admit James had a good eye. She went back to page three and the woman named Jennifer. “He was right. You’re next.”

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