Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Odd Job Tom Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

ODD JOB TOM

Most people looked down on him, Tom knew that. He could guess what they saw when they looked at him and didn’t much care. Certainly didn’t care enough to puff his chest, raise his voice, and explain that some people could live aside from the desires of excess. Odd Job Tom they called him and it was right on the nose. Tom liked the alliteration, even if so many said his name as if in parody or sheer disrespect. A good many locals pegged him as stupid, even slow. He only came to Cooper’s Lot nine years ago—after the tragedy—and supposed if he had gone through school with the locals, they’d know him differently.

He carted the big can of patching tar and the thick-bristled brush up the back stairs of the Cooper’s Lot Public Library. His heavy, dirty boots echoed dully with each footfall. A yawn escaped him. There were three long days’ worth of work at the library, and he was on day two. The library was the oldest building in town, and by more than a little. A touch inconveniently, it sat on the great hill at the center of Cooper’s Lot, overlooking everything, including the old folks and those with handicaps trudging along the steep sidewalks to access all the public services provided at the library.

Three years back, Tom had been patching a wall after repairing a pipe at a gaming store. Four men and two women sat at a long table with three empty chairs. One of the men was telling a story about how a missing girl, Rosa Lee Philips, was last seen at the library. His voice went harsh then and he said, “Vampires live in the basement, only way to keep them from eating the town is a sacrifice; one every five years.” The guy was good, probably a hoot around campfires.

Another time, Tom was reforming and fixing the cracks in the cement of Gerald Watson’s front porch when he heard the kids next-door. There was a shrub not five feet from the porch and they were just on the other side. “You know, Billy Ray didn’t get suspended because the principal wanted him on the trip to the library,” one girl said. Another asked why and the girl replied, “They feed bad kids to the boiler in the basement and the blood makes the town happy.” A boy asked what and the girl went on to explain some wonderfully nonsensical thing about Satan and the head librarian being mistress to the Lord of Darkness.

“What a mess,” Tom said as he began the initial tour of the rooftop. Those five gallons of tar weren’t going to last long. And the time it would take him… He sighed, they’d agreed on payment upfront and to argue was to open his mouth much more than he cared to. At least when people were around. “What a mess,” he said again.

The sun was on its journey west and the roof and the sky around it took on a pink hue. Everything but the crows. Dozens watched him, perched upon the lip of the roof and its hideous gargoyles that slipped in place every few feet.

Tom withdrew his pocketknife and began peeling back the steel clips on the tar can. A crow cawed at him. “Caw!” he said back.

“Bed! Bed!” a crow screeched and another crow mimicked, then another and another.

Tom straightened up and gawked at the beady eyes, his mind doing somersaults until he got it. Not ‘bed’ but ‘bread.’ Someone had been feeding these crows and saying the word. Probably there was a geriatric who spent their days at the park, very proud of teaching a piece of language to the birds.

Tom got back to it. He set the can’s lid aside.

“Bed! Dead!”

Tom was on his knees, looking at the birds. Strange, that did not at all sound like brea—another crow cawed, another, another, and another. Six birds, all perched on the shoulders of a single hideous gargoyle. The birds lifted off then, but not far, cawing. Something shiny glinted pinkly from the rooftop lip next to the gargoyle.

“Did you bring me a prize?” Tom whispered, thinking about those videos he’d seen where crows brought people things, money and coins and buttons and…he lifted a little gold heart pendant on a skinny gold chain. On the back in fine script, were the words: For Issa, Love Grandpa. “Somebody’s probably missing that.” He looked at the gargoyle. The damned thing, like all the damned things, had beastly bodies but wailing humanoid faces, contorted in expressions of agony. Up close, he also recognized the cement of this gargoyle was new, almost pristine.

Tom straightened, pendant in hand, and stepped to the next closest gargoyle. And just like he figured, the cement was old and pitted. This one’s face looked downright ancient by comparison to the last one’s and—

“Please don’t touch those,” a crisp, stern voice said.

Tom turned, retracting his hand like the gargoyle was hot.

“We will get someone in special if the gargoyles need repairs,” Ms. Johansen said. She was the head librarian and appeared to take the role seriously, as if cast for it: navy slacks, billowy white blouse tucked in, hair in a moderate but intense beehive, two pearl earrings, sensible black shoes.

Tom nodded, slipping the pendant into his pocket as he turned away from the gargoyle.

“We’re closing in five minutes, which means we have to lock the doors, which means you’ll have to finish-up up here tomorrow.”

Tom sighed and bent over his tar can. He placed the lid on, tightening down four of the steel clips. Thankfully, he hadn’t dipped his brush, wouldn’t have to wrestle it clean in the next four minutes.

The can and brush went beneath the overhang of the roof access doorway. Ms. Johansen remained there, waiting for Tom. She held the door so he could head down first. In the dim stairs, he went against his norm and asked a question unrelated to work. “Do you know anyone named Issa?”

The footfalls behind him paused a moment, but only a moment, and Ms. Johansen said, “Only that actress. She’s Black. Was in the film adaptation of a very popular young adult novel. We’re only recently able to keep copies on the shelves. Almost since we got it, it has had a wait list.”

Well. Tom doubted the pendant in his pocket belonged to a famous actress.

“Why do you ask?” Ms. Johansen said.

It was Tom’s turn to pause, though he did so only mentally, his feet did not betray him as they continued walking, one in front of the other, through the library. “A crow had a pendant. Set it down on the roof. Best put it in the lost and found,” he said, reaching, reluctantly, into his pocket. Sometimes he earned a tip on jobs but doubted very much he’d be getting one for his hard work at the library, no matter how long it took him.

“Oh…those crows,” Ms. Johansen said, snatching the pendant.

—

About a year after arriving at Cooper’s Lot, he was in one of the three diners having breakfast and reading the paper when he overheard someone whisper, “Retards mimic reading so they appear normal.” Tom didn’t lower the paper right away, but when he did, the two sitting closest to his table grinned at him and gave single nods.

Since then, he had the paper delivered to his driveway. He lived in a tiny bungalow a four-minute bike ride from the town limits. Next to his morning joe and two slices of toast—buttered and then jammed—he set down the week’s paper.

NO SIGN OF MISSING GIRL was the top headline. Beneath that was Melissa Carter has been missing since last Thursday afternoon. Tom’s mouth tightened with the distaste of the news. He’d heard most of the story already and skimmed until reaching a quote: “My Issa would never run off. I know she sometimes gets into shenanigans, but I always, always knew where she was,” said Robert Carter, Melissa’s grandfather and legal guardian. Tom took a sip of coffee and nearly spat it out by the time things computed in his morning-foggy brain.

The pendant!

—

 “That’s an interesting thought,” Ms. Johansen said, patting Tom on the shoulder like he’d done good.

He knew that pat, knew the condescension in voices but decided he did his part by telling someone; what more did the universe want from him?

He’d taken his lunch break on the roof, the white bread of his sandwiches marred by black fingerprints as he ate. If he was going to finish today, there’d be no lollygagging. No getting weirded out by the birds that seemed to caw dead! at him every few minutes.

He checked his phone after counting the final three faded patches of roof and recognized that he had about four minutes until Ms. Johansen came up and stole him from duty. The can was nearly empty when he popped to his feet, knees crunching at the abruptness of the motion. He had tar up to his elbows as he scraped and dumped globs on to the big spots. He’d be lucky to have enough, but also, he’d saved the least in-need for last, so no matter what, things would probably work out. At least for the short run. Those spots might swell and leak in a few years.

“No need to rush, Tom,” Ms. Johansen said.

Tom looked over his shoulder. The librarian had let her hair down and the top two buttons of her blouse open. She wore a small gold pendant. For a moment, Tom thought it was Issa’s heart, but no, it was a strange sun with angry little eyes.

Ms. Johansen saw him looking and adjusted her blouse. He was embarrassed, as if caught looking at her cleavage. She smiled at him.

“On Friday nights we get together, just some locals. We’re having drinks at Hubert’s Pub after supper; if you’d care to join us.”

Tom began swabbing the tar again, frantic to finish quickly. “Oh, uh…” he trailed. He hadn’t done anything social since moving to town, not since his wife’s funeral a little more than nine years earlier.

  “Drinks on us. Be good for you to meet people, let them know you’re all there. I hope you don’t take offense, but there are rumors.”

Tom turned at this. “Yes, I know…okay, what time?”

“Nine o’clock, we’re usually all home by midnight,” Ms. Johansen said.

—

The white button-up shirt smelled stale, but looked okay tucked into his newest, cleanest pair of Levi’s. He didn’t have anything nicer for his feet than his heavy leather boots. Then again, Hubert’s Pub was hardly fine dining.  He hopped onto his Schwinn and pedaled into town.

He arrived at a few minutes before 9:00 PM and took his time with the lock, not wanting to be the first there, not wanting to give the waitstaff any wrong ideas about who was fronting the beer tab—usually, if he wanted to drink beer, he could do so for a buck and a half a bottle at home, forget paying five or six just to be in a pub.

“Tom, how’s it going?”

Tom looked over his shoulder. The mayor? “Uh, hi,” he said.

“Lana says you’re joining us tonight,” the mayor said.

Lana, that had to be the librarian’s first name. He realized right then that he’d never used it or heard it used. “Yep,” he said. “Don’t turn down free drinks.”

The mayor clapped Tom on the shoulder, but not in the typical way, not condescendingly, more like buddy-buddy. It was an odd sensation, and it took Tom spiraling down memory lane and reeling back in a flash, hooking on the uneasiness at the funeral, reminding him why he didn’t keep friends. Instinctively, he felt the jackknife in his pocket.

Inside, rock music played low—currently a B-side from a Foo Fighters album—and most of the patrons sat at the bar, necks craned and eyes on the big screen above the wall of liquor bottles. It appeared the Dodgers were hosting the Blue Jays, and doing a fine job of it. A couple young men were making use of the dart board next to the pool table. Off in the corner, at a long table, Ms. Johansen sat with two detectives, the man who owned the industrial laundry, and the woman who owned all three hotels in town—Tom recognized each of them from the paper. Tom counted wrinkles and did some math in his head, he guessed at his being thirty-two that he was the youngest by at least a decade.

“There’s Odd Job Tom,” one of the detectives said, as if they’d been old friends, the kind that go way, way back.

Tom nodded.

“I checked with Dave here about that necklace you found,” Ms. Johansen said. “Different Issa.”

“Shame; would be nice to get a lead on that poor girl,” the detective named Dave said into a glass of beer before tipping it tight to his mouth.

From behind and a few feet away, someone huffed. Tom figured it was unrelated until he watched the middle school’s principal pull out a chair at the table. Tom tried to think nothing of it and sat down. His mind had a way of running off, probably because he spent so much time alone these days, and it wouldn’t do to be woolgathering when at least a little part of himself wanted to prove to these people that he wasn’t slow.

Six pitchers and four pounds of wings were consumed in the first hour. Ms. Johansen appeared drunk and twice Tom felt her foot creeping up his thighs. Jesus, she had to be sixty…then again, it had been nearly a decade since…no, she had to be playing.

“I need to hit the head,” Tom said and pushed back from the table.

He’d nursed two glasses of beer, but it was hitting him nonetheless. Usually, if he wanted to feel this buzzed, he had to down at least a six-pack. He shouldered through the men’s room door and squinted into the brightness of the fluorescent lighting overhead. The scent of fresh piss with gentle tones of urinal cake soap permeated around him like a cloud. He blinked rapidly and sniffed three long drags, regulating his shaky position.

He sighed at the urinal as he tapped his bladder. He leaned forward and pressed his head against the cool cinderblock wall painted pale blue, marred by hapless Sharpie graffiti. The coolness was good, it felt grounding. He needed to sober up or get lost, didn’t need more stories about him floating around, especially not ones he’d actually earned.

After shaking twice and zipping his fly, he stepped to the sinks. The door opened and something by the Barenaked Ladies grew momentarily louder, the scent of deep fryer momentarily stronger. Tom looked in the mirrors at the short man shuffling his way. He had on a grey trench coat, a beat-up brown fedora, and a rubber Barack Obama mask.

“Run! Run!” the figure said.

Tom turned at this. He’d never mistake a crow’s caw, had listened to it for close to ten hours straight that day alone. “What the hell?” he whispered.

“Danger! Danger! Dead! Dead!”

“How?” Tom hissed on an exhaled breath.

The door opened a crack, a laughing man shouted, “I’m just pissing!”

The short man in the Obama mask suddenly burst in a scatter of black feathers and beady obsidian eyes before flowing like the murmuration of starlings out through the small window above the toilet stall.

The shouting man came into the washroom; one of the dart players from earlier, looking good and soused. Tom swallowed and started back on shaky legs, stepping over the hat and trench coat, to the pub proper. What he’d just witnessed was impossible and yet had happened. His mouth and throat ran dry as he looked to the table. It was empty but for Ms. Johansen. She had her blouse unbuttoned to her bra.

“Guess it’s just you and me,” she said, rising and coming toward him. Once she reached him, she took him by the arm. “Tab’s paid,” she whispered and then breathing hot against his ear added, “but I know where we can keep the party going.”

Tom was too frazzled to argue and he let her lead him to the door. The outside air was muggy but not too hot. He took a deep breath and shook a few cobwebs. “My bike,” he said.

“Shh,” Ms. Johansen said and ran her right hand down into Tom’s front left pocket. “We’re one and the same, you and I. Everybody thinks they can look at us and know us. I want to show you the real me.”

“No, but my bike,” Tom said, trying to pull away.

“It’s okay, see,” she said and pointed with the hand not stroking him through the cotton of his pocket. On the roof of her old Jeep Cherokee was bicycle, strapped and ready to go.

From on a powerline, a single crow cried out, “Dead! Dead!”

—

By the time they reached the library, Tom was so flushed his mind, already muddy with what he’d drank, had narrowed to a single slim avenue. This librarian was taking somewhere and they were about to get as intimate as it got. When they reached the library, he asked no questions, only followed her, his hand in her hand, through the main doors and beyond the checkout counter. The heat at his core was rising higher with each step they took, there was no stopping it now.

He exhaled deeply.

He’d have to move tomorrow.

For nine years he’d kept to himself because it was the only way to conquer the hunger; ever since the honeymoon when they’d taken the trip to the Arabian Desert and he was led away from the rest of the dune buggy pack, ever since he’d accidentally followed what the locals called alghul into what might’ve been his grave, ever since he accepted the trade and became alghul…a ghoul himself.

Wouldn’t be so hard to leave Cooper’s Lot. He rented his home in cash and never used the bank, always got paid in cash, too. Tom wasn’t even his real name. He licked his lips and imagined tasting her flesh. Would it be as good as his beautiful bride’s had been?

Doubtful.

He tried to pull Ms. Johansen to him when they reached her office. “No,” she said. “Down here.” She pushed through a hidden wall panel, and they started down cement steps. “Watch your feet, it’s a long way to bottom.”

And it was, took more than a minute of stepping and passing by ancient bulb lighting strung on stiff black lines to reach the next floor. Tom’s guts grumbled and he bit his bottom lip. He would feel guilt in the morning, he knew that, but here and now, this was him making everything perfect in the universe.

“Stay put a second,” Ms. Johansen said, bringing her face close. She licked his lips. He snapped at her tongue, but she’d already jerked away, moving into the darkness.

Second passed. Straight ahead were the sounds of steel sliding against steel followed by a chain being flung away. A heavy door creaked open and then banged against the floor behind it. The sounds repeated. A gentle yellow glow played up from beneath, silhouetting Ms. Johansen as she began stripping and stepping slowly toward him.

The flames below grew brighter with each passing heartbeat. The heat within Tom did the same. His mouth opened, his teeth elongating, spreading his jaws. He began to pant.

“Wait?” Ms. Johansen said.

A flaming yellow pillar rose and then shined down on him, on her, on the sixteen men and women standing naked around them, gold sun pendants dangling at their chests.

Tom leapt, his long fingers and nails outstretched like horrible talons, his jaws spread wide enough to halve a cantaloupe.

“Help! He’s not—!” Ms. Johansen shouted, stopping only at the incredible cracking of bone as his pointed teeth trepanned her skull. He spat her scalp and slurped up her brain. The fluids, the tissues, the beauty of it all. He was lost to the moment, didn’t see the naked crowd around him, didn’t see the sun face appear amid the harsh yellow flame pillar. “Push him in,” someone said and Tom heard it only distantly over the crackling fire and the melody of his meal consumption. Then he was falling and burning. The pain was terrific and endless. He screamed, spraying a red wash of Ms. Johansen out like a spit-take.

He kept falling and falling, burning hotter and hotter. The flame closed around him like a fist. His skin began to peel, layer by layer. His eyes popped in their sockets and his bones became ash. His brain and heart continued when all else was gone, floating in the eternal yellow flame as it pulled back beneath the floor of the Cooper’s Lot Public Library.

—

“I don’t rightly know,” the mayor said to the detective named Dave.

“Whatever he was, he sure makes one ugly gargoyle.”

The mayor nodded. They were on the roof looking at the latest installment. Where the other gargoyles were humanoid in the face, this thing looked like something out of a B-horror movie, maybe something about a yeti or one of those new-aged vampires with one hundred teeth crowding their mouths; it had fat and droopy brows, eyes bugging, jaws simply too big for the size of the head.

“You hungry?” the mayor asked after about a minute of quiet—quiet aside from the eerie murder that had amalgamated on the far side of the roof.

“Subway?” Dave the detective said.

The mayor nodded and they started to the door.

The crows watched. Once the men were truly and fully gone, they took flight and touched back down around the new gargoyle. One popped with its mouth, pushing in between its brethren. It dropped Tom’s jackknife next to the statue’s clawed left foot and then cawed, “Dead!”

XX