The Spinster by Newton Webb

A Contemporary Supernatural Horror Short Story: A struggling single mother is blackmailed into one last heist by a former criminal associate. But the target is not the vulnerable victim they planned.

Contents:

1. Horror Compilations

2. The Spinster

Horror Story Compilations

Tales of Terror: 24 FREE horror stories, including: ‘Love. Sex. Death.’, ‘The Hunger’, ‘Soulmates’, ‘Deus Vult’, and ‘Strings Attached’.

Midnight Whispers: 31 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Festival of the Damned,’ ‘The Morrígan.’

The Spinster

Alice trudged home through the drizzle, shoulders aching after a double shift at the petrol station, keys biting into her palm.

A brand-new BMW was parked in her driveway. She frowned. Alice didn’t know anyone with a BMW. It was unlikely that anyone on the council estate would.

Please don’t be social services again.

A flicker of unease rose, quickly quelled as she clenched her teeth and approached her front door. Maybe her brother Liam had come into money?

From bar work? Fat chance.

She pushed the door open. Her kids’ laughter drifted from the living room, bright and innocent. But it was the other voice that chilled her to the bone. A deep baritone. A man’s voice, smooth and familiar. His chuckle made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Alice froze in the hallway. Peeking around the doorframe, she saw them. Penny, seven, perched on the arm of the sofa, beaming. James, six, sat cross-legged on the floor. And between them, holding court on her sofa, was Dave Parker. Older, sleeker, more salt than pepper in his hair, but his predatory charm was undimmed by the years. He winked at her. In the corner, hunched and avoiding her gaze, sat her brother, Liam. Twenty-two going on sixteen.

He'd let Dave in.

Liam had brought that snake back into her house.

Rage, cold and sharp, pierced through Alice’s exhaustion. “Penny. James. Upstairs. Now.” Her voice was tight, low. The children looked from her face to Dave’s easy smile, sensing the sudden frost. They started to protest. “Now!” They scrambled up and obeyed.

The moment their bedroom door clicked shut upstairs, Alice turned. “What the hell are you doing here, Dave?”

Dave stretched languidly, perfectly at ease despite the hostile reception. “Alice, it’s always so good to see an old friend.” He gestured towards her brother with a negligent flick of his wrist. “Young Liam here has got himself into a spot of bother.” He patted the seat next to him. “Have a pew.”

Liam flinched. “Alice, I—”

“Shut up, Liam.” Dave’s smile widened, his eyes twinkling.

Alice remained standing, her arms crossed.

“He was moving some business for me. Good little earner. Until he got spooked by the coppers and decided to donate twenty grand’s worth of cheekies to the local sewer system.” He leaned forward, his smile vanishing. “Now, that’s inconvenient. For me. But mostly...” His eyes locked onto Liam. “...for him.” He pulled a pair of secateurs from his jacket pocket, snipping the air idly. “Debts need settling, Alice. You remember the rules, don’t you? Keeps things tidy.”

Twenty grand.

Alice stared at her brother, disbelief warring with fury. “Dealing? You told me you were a barman!”

Liam mumbled, “It wasn’t my fault, Al. I was sacked...”

“Again?” Alice glared at him.

Useless boy.

“Luckily for him,” Dave continued, pocketing the secateurs, “I have a solution. A way for little brother to clear his slate. But it does entail his big sis helping him out a bit, with her unique skillset.” He paused for effect. “Come on, Alice. For your family.”

“Forget it.”

“Come now, hear me out.” He winked at Liam, who sat with his head hung. “After all, there is nothing more important than your health now, is there?” Grinning impishly, he gave the secateurs a final theatrical snip, then returned them to his pocket.

She stood silently.

He laid out his scheme. An old woman, Tabitha Greenwick, lived alone in Hampstead. Rich as Croesus, apparently a notorious slum landlord. She had just bought a Rubens painting, *Massacre of the Innocents*. Worth tens of millions. Easy target.

“Think of it as wealth redistribution.” Dave smirked. “Pay off little Liam’s debt. You keep five percent of the rest. Nice little nest egg.”

“Five percent?” Alice scoffed. “It used to be thirty.”

“Yeah, but then again, we used to be partners, before this little born-again Christian act.” Dave shrugged. “Two and a half million, give or take. Enough to get you out of that petrol station. Three days to scope the place. Decide.” He stood up, brushing imaginary dust off his trousers. “Don’t let me down, Alice. Wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to Liam.” He ruffled Liam’s hair as he passed. “The little scallywag is so precious.” Liam flinched at the touch but remained quiet. “I’ll see myself out, pet.” Dave swaggered out the front door into the street. It closed behind him and the lock clicked shut.

Alice turned on Liam. “You stupid idiot.”

#

For three days and nights, Alice sat in Liam’s battered Ford Fiesta, never more than an hour at a time, parked opposite the Hampstead townhouse, watching. The place oozed money. Grey stone, sharp angles, multiple chimneys. Three storeys of imposing Victorian architecture. Large bay windows glowed invitingly, showcasing glimpses of a life utterly alien to her own. As she sat breathing in stale cigarette fumes, she’d thrown out the three ridiculous scented trees Liam had hung from the rear-view mirror. The saccharine scent of alpine pine was worse than the smoke.

Through the largest window, the dining room, she watched the occupant. Tabitha Greenwick. Elderly, yes, but with sharp, severe features and piercing grey eyes beneath tightly pinned grey hair. She shuffled around using her stick. During the day, she had cleaners from ten till twelve.

Twice, she had visitors. Both times they were younger women. Alice recognised the signs of poverty. The clean but worn clothing, the stressed looks in their eyes, the premature ageing from overwork. Both left visibly distressed.

Tenants.

Even from a distance, Alice saw the glint of gold at Tabitha’s throat, the sparkle of rings on her bony fingers as she moved stiffly around the room. Tasteful, expensive paintings hung on the walls behind her.

A familiar resentment, hot and acidic, burned in Alice’s gut.

She has all this, while I count pennies for bread and milk.

It wasn’t just jealousy. It felt like a profound injustice. She thought about the poor women, no doubt asking for understanding over the rent.

And this is for Liam.

Her mind worked overtime, justifying her slipping back into the bad habits of the past.

The house itself looked secure. Bars on the ground floor windows, a heavy reinforced front door. It was detached, with neighbours having clear sight lines. No obvious alarm box, but that meant little. On the last night, heart pounding, she slipped through the side gate under cover of darkness. The back garden was a small, flagstoned patio, walled in but offering privacy from the neighbours. She tested the kitchen window bars. Most were loose, the screws barely biting into the old mortar. All but one.

That one I can deal with. Fast.

She had a way in. The job was viable.

She met Dave and Liam in a dingy pub car park. Rain lashed down as Alice and Liam sat in the back of Dave’s motor.

“All right,” she said, her voice flat. “I’ll do it. But on my terms.”

Dave raised an eyebrow.

“You’re lookout. Like the old days. Don’t fob me off with one of your lads. I need someone I can—” she looked nauseous as she said the word, “—trust.” She fixed Dave with a hard stare. He nodded slowly. “And Liam,” she turned to her brother, whose pupils were visibly dilated even in the dim car park lighting. “You move in with me. Tonight. You cut ties with Dave, with all of them. And you get clean. One strike, Liam. You use anything under my roof, you’re out on the street. I won’t lift a finger. Dave can have you then.”

Liam started to protest. “Al, I can’t just...”

“Can’t you?” Alice cut him off. “Or won’t you? Because if I don’t do this, who pays Dave? And how’s that going to go down?” She held his gaze until he looked away, defeated. “Well?”

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Okay, Alice.”

“Motherhood hasn’t made you soft after all. Still the same stone-cold bitch you always were, Alice.” Dave chuckled, a low, humourless sound. “I’ve missed you. Welcome back.”

She glared at him. “This is a one-off. Then I never want to see you again. And Dave, if you ever go anywhere near my children again...”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother the little blighters, don’t worry. Got my code, ain’t I?” His eyes hardened. “But Alice, don’t ever threaten me again. You know I don’t take well to disrespect.”

Three A.M.

The witching hour. The hour when people were most vulnerable, tucked up in their beds, sheets pulled up, ignorant of the predators roaming the night. The street was dead silent, bathed in the orange glow of distant streetlights. Alice walked nonchalantly down the pavement, then slipped like a shadow through the gate of Tabitha’s townhouse.

She purposely didn’t look at Dave, parked opposite in his BMW. They each had cheap burner phones, tested earlier. He was a scumbag, but had always been professional in the old days. She hoped that was still the case.

Alice worked quickly on the last stubborn screw holding the kitchen window bars in place. The thread had gone, so she relied on a crowbar to tease it out of the ancient cement. The metal groaned softly, then gave. She caught the bars as they dropped suddenly. Alice wedged the slim airbag into the gap between the kitchen window and the frame. With one hand, she pumped it slowly, eyes fixed on the lock mechanism. As the gap widened, she slipped a length of bent wire inside, jiggling until the latch clicked. She opened the kitchen window and slipped through the narrow gap, landing silently on the cold tiles.

The kitchen was clean to the point of being sterile. Her gloved hand stroked a worktop, coming up unblemished.

I could use a maid.

She wedged a cheap, rubber doorstop under the kitchen door to secure her exit route.

Inside, the house was unnaturally still and colder than outside.

All this money and she doesn’t turn on her central heating.

Dust motes danced in the thin beam of her low light torch. The ground floor was clear: kitchen, large dining room, a formal drawing room draped in dust sheets.

No painting.

She moved to the main staircase, testing each tread before putting her weight down. The old wood creaked ominously. She listened at each door before checking them. When she heard the gentle sound of snoring, she bypassed the door she presumed was Tabitha’s bedroom.

The first-floor landing was vast. Spare bedrooms filled with furniture shrouded in polythene, like pale corpses. A library, floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books, the air thick with the smell of paper and leather. A small writing room. A music room, incongruously filled with thousands of vinyl records stacked neatly alongside an ancient gramophone.

Still no Rubens.

Two narrower staircases led up from opposite ends of the landing to the second floor, the attic space. As she ascended, candles flickered in sconces on the walls, casting long, dancing shadows. Trinkets and strange, unidentifiable objects were arranged on small tables.

Dominating the far wall was a huge, dark oil painting. A stern-faced Elizabethan nobleman stared out with cold, imperious eyes. And opposite it, bathed in the soft candlelight, hung the prize. The Rubens. *Massacre of the Innocents.* Smaller than she expected, but undeniably beautiful.

Relief washed over her, quickly followed by a prickle of profound unease. Her eyes were drawn to another painting nearby, smaller, darker. The same nobleman. But this time he stood beside a young woman. A woman with sharp features and familiar grey eyes. A woman who looked disturbingly like Tabitha Greenwick.

“He was such a wicked man.”

The voice rasped from behind her, dry and ancient. Alice spun around, torch beam stabbing into the gloom. Tabitha Greenwick stood at the top of the other staircase, watching her, her frail body silhouetted against the faint light from below.

“Our life together was a joyous one,” Tabitha took a slow step towards Alice. “He had such sights to show me.”

She smiled. Her mouth stretched, splitting her wrinkled face, opening far too wide. Rows of needle-sharp teeth, too many teeth, filled the impossible maw.

Panic seized Alice. She forgot the painting, forgot everything but escape. She lunged for the staircase she had come up, scrambling down, heart hammering against her ribs. Fumbling for the burner phone, she hit Dave’s number. “Abort! Abort!” she hissed, stumbling onto the landing. She sprinted towards the main stairs, towards the kitchen, towards the window.

She reached the kitchen, gasping for breath, and threw herself at the back door. Locked.

No. No. No.

“I can’t get out!” she yelled into the phone. “The kitchen door is locked!”

“Did you get the painting?” Dave’s voice, tight with greed, oblivious to her terror.

“It’s in the attic! She’s here! She interrupted me!”

“Fucking amateur!” Dave snarled. The line crackled. “Stay put. I’m coming.”

Slow, deliberate footsteps echoed from the main staircase. Tabitha. Descending. Alice clicked the phone off, backing away from the locked door. Her eyes darted around the kitchen. A heavy ceramic vase stood on a sideboard. She grabbed it, hefted it. As Tabitha entered the kitchen, seemingly gliding, Alice threw it with all her strength.

Tabitha swatted it aside like a troublesome fly. It smashed against the wall. Alice grabbed a small figurine and hurled it.

Blocked.

A fruit bowl.

Deflected.

A small, heavy bronze statue of a cat. It connected, thudding against Tabitha’s forehead.

A dark line of blood welled up. Tabitha paused, head cocked slightly. She didn’t even blink. An impossibly long, slender red tongue snaked out from the terrifying mouth, darted up, and licked the wound. The blood vanished. The skin sealed, leaving no mark.

“What are you?” Alice breathed, backing away.

Tabitha’s smile widened. “Old,” she rasped. Then, with chilling simplicity, “Hungry.”

Alice scrambled backwards, fumbling at doors. Pantry. Locked. Utility room. Locked. Then she saw it. The cellar door, slightly ajar. She threw herself at it, tumbling through into darkness and pulling it shut behind her, slamming her body against the wood, hands scrabbling for a lock, finding only a simple handle. She held onto it, bracing herself.

The air in the cellar was thick and cloying. A sharp chemical tang overlaid with something else. Something rank. Her eyes slowly adjusted. White tiles covered the walls, gleaming faintly. Old, heavy wooden shelves lined the space, steel reinforced. They were filled with large glass jars. Dozens of them. In the jar nearest her, suspended in murky yellowish liquid, floated a pale, perfect form.

A newborn baby.

Horror choked her. She scanned the shelves. Every jar held a similar occupant. A grotesque, silent audience in the gloom.

Her phone. It had skittered across the floor when she fell. She needed to warn Dave. Reaching for it, a thunderous pounding began on the cellar door. The handle twisted violently in her grip, the metal biting and tearing the skin of her palms. She cried out, throwing her full weight against the door. But the woman’s strength on the other side was inhuman, slowly, inexorably forcing the handle down.

As the latch clicked, as the door began to edge open, the pressure vanished.

Silence. Utter, terrifying silence.

Alice stayed pressed against the door, listening, blood dripping from her hands. Then, muffled through the wood, Dave’s voice from the kitchen. “Back off, old woman! Get away from me or I’ll...”

The distinct thwack of something heavy hitting flesh.

“Dave!” Alice screamed, pounding on the door, but her voice was lost.

A wet, tearing sound followed. A sound like canvas ripping. Then the unmistakable, sickening crack of heavy bone breaking. Dave let out a single, gurgling scream that was brutally cut short.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Alice stumbled back from the door, shaking.

He’s dead.

Her eyes darted around the cellar. Weapon? Anything? Nothing. Just the shelves. Just the jars.

Nobody is coming.

Bile rose in her throat. She grabbed the nearest jar, the cold glass slick in her bloody hands. The tiny face inside stared back with cloudy eyes.

The cellar door flew open with explosive force. Tabitha stood at the top of the short flight of steps, framed by the kitchen light. Her white nightgown was splashed liberally with bright, wet crimson. Dave’s blood. She descended slowly, deliberately, her eyes, ancient and hungry, fixed on Alice.

Terror gave Alice a final surge of defiance. She screamed, a raw, primal sound, and hurled the jar. It spun end over end, smashing against Tabitha’s chest. Glass shattered. Preservative fluid splashed over her bloodstained nightgown. The tiny, pale body landed with a soft, obscene thud on the tiled floor between them.

Tabitha stopped. She looked down at the small form on the floor. Then she raised her head, and a sound tore from her throat. A howl of pure, unadulterated rage and loss. A sound that scraped against Alice’s bones and promised utter annihilation.

She moved. Faster than sight. One moment at the foot of the stairs, the next, slamming Alice against the cold, tiled wall, pinning her with effortless, terrifying strength. Tabitha’s face was inches away, the cavernous mouth open. The stench of rotting meat filled Alice’s nostrils. Tabitha sneered, a rictus of fury. Then the long grey tongue rasped against Alice’s cheek. Alice shuddered, tears welling as she shook with fear.

“You owe me,” Tabitha hissed. “You owe me a baby.”

She released her grip. Alice slid down the wall, landing in a heap on the floor, sobbing, shaking, unable to process.

“Bring me one,” Tabitha commanded, her voice regaining its chilling composure. “A new one. Fresh. Within twelve months. Come back here. Willingly. With a child in your arms.” Her eyes bored into Alice. “If you fail me. If you try to run. I will find you, girl. I am old, patient, and have endless resources. I will find your home. And I will feast on everyone you love.” She sneered. “I have your scent now.”

Tabitha turned. Her bloodstained gown swirled as she ascended the stairs without a backward glance. She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Alice alone in the dark, surrounded by the dead, the chemical stink burning her nostrils, the tiny corpse lying obscenely on the floor.

Epilogue

The bar was dark, smelling of stale beer and unwashed flesh. Music throbbed quietly through tinny speakers. Alice was drinking once again, years of rehab undone by a night of madness. She scanned the sparse crowd. She looked different now. The weary softness was gone, replaced by a brittle hardness around her eyes, a terrifying focus. Her clothes were skimpier, less practical, chosen with care.

Bait.

Her gaze settled on a man sitting alone at the end of the bar. Late twenties, shy eyes, nursing his pint. He looked lonely. Vulnerable. Perfect.

Alice slid off her stool, smoothed her skirt, and walked towards him, forcing a smile onto her face. A smile that didn’t reach her cold, calculating eyes.

“Hey,” Her voice was soft. “Mind if I join you? It’s so noisy in here.” She sat down before he could answer. “What do you do then?” She leaned closer, letting her hand brush his arm.

It didn’t take long for him to open up and to Alice’s surprise, he was quite interesting. A nurse at the local hospital. A good man.

“Maybe,” she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “we could go somewhere quieter? My place isn’t far. We could carry on this conversation... in a bit more privacy. Where it doesn’t cost five pounds for a pint.”

He chuckled nervously at the implication.

“Don’t worry.” She winked at him. “I’m on the pill.”

THE END

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Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-3 are intended for mature audiences.