From Setting Sun to Morning Light (standard:horror, 2698 words)
Author: Cloud Strife	Added: Jul 30 2003	Views/Reads: 3710/2782	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The strange tale of a woman running a bed and breakfast who is receiving orders to kill her guests from a mysterious figure known simply as George

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

of his head.  He too was stunned by the first blow and it took just one 
more to finish him off but Anne revelling in the joy of killing at this 
point struck him over and over again until long after he was dead. The 
body was contorting horribly which finally made her turn away in 
disgust.  The blood was soaking into the carpet as well as almost 
everywhere else in the room and she knew that it had to be taken care 
of quickly before it began to dry but now after her rage had subsided 
the sight of the blood soaked room was too awful for her to bear.  
There was so much blood splattered all over the room that Anne had been 
forced to go and have a glass of water and a lie down in her own room 
before returning to clean it up.  She had begun to feel more than a 
little woozy at the awful sight.  She remembered to close the door of 
the couple's room when she left so nobody could see what she had done.  
Then after her lie down came the inevitable cleaning up of the room. 

How she always hated the clean up.  She felt that it was a far more
unpleasant task than the act of killing itself.  The blood was 
beginning to dry in many places inside room two so she had to work 
extremely fast.  She needed plenty of towels to soak up all of the 
blood, she scrubbed the carpet vigorously and had to get rid of the bed 
sheets but eventually had the room restored to what even by her high 
standards was pristine condition.  The bodies were dismembered in the 
bathtub with a saw so the blood could drain away and they were then 
placed in refuse sacks, which were buried in the soft ground of the 
backyard.  She was extremely fatigued by the time all of this had been 
accomplished but George appeared to be satisfied with her work so she 
too was happy.  She didn't tell him that she had left the bodies in the 
room for a while as she lay down to compose herself because she knew 
only too well that he would have been very angry with that.  Anne was 
relieved that he was pleased with her work, as he and the house were 
all she had and she had no intentions of losing either of them. The 
next few days passed rather uneventfully for Anne although several new 
parties booked rooms in the house.  It was back to the usual routine of 
looking after her guests in not such a final manner until about a week 
after she had killed the young couple when George demanded that she 
cleanse the house of two ladies who had moved into room six just that 
morning.  She had tried again to reason with him but as usual she could 
not stand up to him for long and soon began to agree that he knew best 
and they needed to be taken care of immediately.  George scared her 
sometimes when he was angry. 

She waited once again until one of them had left the house and entered
room six with a golf club quickly closing the door behind her.  Her 
victim was facing the television and drying her hair at the same time.  
Anne approached her quietly and drove the club into the woman's head 
with a nasty and sickening crunch.  The woman was killed instantly but 
again Anne struck her victim repeatedly to make sure of that fact and 
again the ghastly contortions of the body distressed Anne immensely 
almost making her sick.  It was something she was never going to get 
used to.  Fortunately most of the blood was pooling on the bed which 
meant that Anne would merely have to dispose of the sheets and so this 
clean up would not be as bad as the last one at least.  She turned to 
wait behind the door for her next victim to come back when she noticed 
something in the corner of the room by the window.  Her blood froze 
instantly in her veins. 

There by the window stood a short and heavyset man wearing a white shirt
and faded blue jeans.  He must be a friend of theirs she thought.  Anne 
noticed that he had a peculiar expression on his face that was a 
mixture of sheer disbelief and also unbridled horror.  He was clearly 
rooted to the spot in fear at what he had just witnessed as he had not 
moved or made a sound during the entire incident.  He began to move 
quite fast however when Anne started to advance upon him with the club. 
 It almost amused her the way he fled in such a state of panic at her 
approach.  She would be sure to tell George about it later.  The man 
sprinted towards the door but Anne managed to strike him hard on the 
back with the club just as he reached it.  This blow brought him to his 
knees but he was still able to crawl out of the room.  He kept crawling 
down the corridor no matter how many times she struck him on the back 
or on his legs.  “This isn't supposed to happen”, she gasped finally 
striking him as hard as she could on the back of his head.  That proved 
to be a lot more effective than her previous efforts.  He was dead. 

She had a hard time dragging the body back inside of room six and when
she had done it she was so thankful that the man had not screamed out 
during the ordeal which would have brought the other residents running 
to see what had happened straight away and also that none of the other 
residents had been wandering in that particular corridor at the time.  
She had barely a moment to ponder these things and get her breath back 
when the other woman returned.  Anne was now delirious with fear and 
rage and was determined to make this victim suffer in a way that she 
had never thought possible.  She struck the unsuspecting woman hard in 
the face with the now mangled golf club leaving her with a broken nose 
and quickly wrapped her head tightly in a pillowcase so that she 
couldn't speak or scream.  She now stood over her trembling victim 
gripping the club in her right hand and with her left hand calmly 
stroking the now bloody pillowcase that covered her victim's head. 

“Do you know what I am going to do to you now?”, she asked the
whimpering figure lying on the ground but of course the woman could not 
answer.  “You are going to die very slowly and very painfully”, spoke 
Anne, “because your friend nearly wrecked George's plan.  He almost 
made it all the way down the corridor.  That's never happened before 
with any of the others”.  As she spoke these words she could almost 
smell and taste the fear that was coming from the figure beneath her.  
It gave Anne an enormous sense of power and she realised that George 
had been right when he told her to get rid of these people.  She could 
see that at last and was sorry for doubting him.  He was always right.  
He was clever and she needed him.  The whimpers from below were growing 
louder now.  Anne who was at this stage quite used to dragging bodies 
around her house brought the woman into the en suite bathroom and threw 
her into the tub.  After smashing her victim's legs with the club just 
in case she had any thoughts about escaping and with the woman in 
unbearable agony but still alive an industrial saw that Anne kept 
specially for these situations was used to cut the arms, legs and 
finally the head from the still living, still breathing body. 

Anne cleaned the mess caused by the other two bodies finding several
teeth in the process that must have come from when she struck her last 
victim in the face but was too shaken to dispose of them for a while.  
She was a bit unsettled at what a close shave she had survived with 
that man whom she had not known was in the room at the time and decided 
not to bury the bodies in the backyard but instead to burn them in the 
furnace located below in her basement.  She waited long into the night 
until all of the other guests had returned and retired for the night, 
then one by one brought the three bodies downstairs to the basement 
where they burned quickly due to the ferocious heat of the furnace.  
There was a horrible smell in the basement for weeks afterwards but 
that didn't matter because nobody but her ever went down there anyway. 

After that grizzly deed had been completed she made her way wearily to
the kitchen and boiled the kettle for a well-earned cup of tea but 
glancing at an old clock on the tiled kitchen wall realised with horror 
that it was nearly a quarter to six in the morning.  She hadn't slept 
all night and was now facing a brand new day before her.  She sat at 
the kitchen table with her head in her hands feeling completely 
exhausted.  At the same time George entered the kitchen whistling 
softly.  “You've done well again Anne”, he said.  “You never let me 
down.  I'm so proud of you but you know that don't you.  You've always 
known that”.  “Yes I know George”, replied Anne in an emotionally 
drained voice.  “You've done a lot for me and I know that it plays on 
your conscience often but please don't feel bad about what we are 
doing”, spoke George slowly and calmly.  After a pause he went on.  “Do 
you remember why I told you to call this place From Setting Sun to 
Morning Light all those years ago?”, he asked.  “Of course I remember 
why George”, replied Anne who was beginning to feel a little better at 
George's reassuring words.  “The sun is setting on all these 
meaningless people's lives.  We have the power to take their lives and 
by doing so it means that you and I will be able to stay here together 
forever as sure as night follows day and day follows night.  We will 
greet every new morning together until the end of time and our sunset 
will never come”.  “Don't you want that my dear?” 

Before she could answer him, George uncurled himself from beneath her
legs with a small sigh.  She felt his bushy tail brush up against her 
softly and gave him a loving scratch behind his small, silky black ears 
before he made his way slowly on four paws towards the backdoor.  She 
rose from her chair with a newly found purpose and energy for the day 
ahead and began to set the table for breakfast humming an old song 
softly to herself. George left the kitchen and went silently out into 
the early morning light through the little cat flap at the bottom of 
the door. 


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