"I felt like looking like a badass today and this was the best I could do."
When I was still living in my little box at school, a thought occurred to me. I frequently left my door unlocked. The only way for people to get to it was for me to let them in the door outside the hall or if they came down the stairs. One day I began thinking, thoughts that were slightly spurred on by the story of that poor girl who disappeared from campus and showed up dead in Mississippi, what if someone came into my room with less that pleasant intentions? How long would it be before someone found me? What could they do in the meantime? Ugly things like that.
I know. Twisted, yes. Morbid, yes. Creepy, ohyeah. But as horrible as all that sounds, I was slightly intrigued by the idea in the way that it might make for an interesting story. While I never did anything solid with the idea, I did slap down 2 and 1/2 pages of random stuff. I figure, it being October and near Halloween, I might as well share it with you.
Read on, think on your dorm days, and be creeped out. Or not. Enjoy either way. =P
(Untitled Piece)
“I was disbanded.”
“What?”
He looked at me. “Kicked out of the medical service – they took away my license.”
I sure as hell didn’t feel sorry for him. I sneered instead. “Yeah? What did you do? Kill someone?”
“I stole a heart.”
“What?”
“I stole a heart that was meant for some rich lady to put inside a little boy whose parents couldn’t afford the transplant. That woman didn’t do anything. She ran around with her fake body parts, buying $300 shoes. She’d step on that boy’s face if she saw him in the street.”
Was I supposed to start feeling sorry for him now? As though he had done some noble thing? Could I even believe him?
“So I stole the heart that was meant for her and put it inside him, free of charge. What could they do? They couldn’t take it back out again.”
“What, so you just let her die to save him? You like playing God is that it?”
He stomped over and peered into my face, hints of anger showing through his expression. “Money buys a human heart – it fucks the system. Do you have a thing for the rich? Are you one of those girls who goes shopping when she gets depressed? That would really make things a lot easier for me.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled and then turned my head, pressing the side of my face into the pillow. I didn’t want to look at him anymore. “I fucking hate people. Everyone is so goddamn twisted these days.”
* * *
I felt like the man in the Pit and the Pendulum – strapped down and waiting while impending death swung ever closer. But he had said, “I won’t kill you unless I have to.” Had to? What was that supposed to mean? What other purpose did he have in mind besides killing me? Why else would he infiltrate my room amidst so many other people and simply handcuff me to my bed? He hadn’t done anything – yet. It was the impending “yet” that I feared. “Yet” could be anything. I immediately labeled him as a psychopath, and you never knew what psychopaths were capable of or happened to be planning. Maybe that was his flawed way of telling himself what he was doing was okay. He wasn’t going to hurt me, just tie me up for a while, make himself at home, and then at the last minute – slash! My blood would be soaking into the comforter, turning it the color I had been searching for four years ago. And he’d be on his way out, locking the door behind him, still telling himself he hadn’t done anything wrong or some other psychopathic bullshit.
I realized I was sweating profusely and it was cold.
How long would it be before someone noticed I was gone? Or worse – how long would it be before someone discovered my dead body? I hadn’t done anything for two days now and no one had done a thing. I’d be lucky if someone called my cell phone or my room phone. The fact that I was offline made no difference – just my luck to decide to quit using my instant message program off and on the past several weeks. Everyone probably thought I was going through yet another one of my hermit stages where I simply secluded myself in my box of a room and wrote and read. Would they ever wonder what I was doing? Did they? Would it be the stench of rotting flesh that would bring everyone running to my door, like it happens in movies? What would I look like when they finally broke it down? Would the blood have turned black-brown by then? I suddenly remembered the victim of Sloth in the movie Se7en. Jesus Christ.
I hated that fucking movie.
* * *
“Yes,” he said, examining what was unmistakably a scalpel, “finally I have everything I need.”
It was all laid out on my tiny space for writing – hardly even a desk – more like the top of a bookshelf. I loved books.
He turned to me, his eyes sliding down my form. I thought of moving, squirming around in one last ditch effort to fight, but I knew it was useless, stupid, make me look pathetic. So instead I opted for staring at him with every ounce of hate I’d ever possessed. I made my body as still as stone, hoping that if looks could kill, they would, and it would be his body bleeding all over the floor for people to find when he started to rot.
He walked over to my bed – a few steps at best – and looked down into my face, silver scalpel still in hand. Shivers roiled through me.
“I told you,” he said as my teeth chewed in hatred and fear at the cloth in my mouth, “I wouldn’t kill you unless I had to. Well, I didn’t have to, and you’ll be fine if you live through this.” He turned around again and went back to the neatly organized tools and picked up a syringe filled with an alien liquid.
If I live through this? Every curse ever known to man popped into my head. If only I could get free I’d transform into an Amazon – a crazed female berserker he’d probably never faced before and I’d wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until I heard his neck snap or his windpipe crushed. All the instruments he had, all the gauze and needles – was I looking at the new Jack the Ripper? The single thought of Maybe I should tell him I’m a virgin swept through my mind. Did it matter? He might only get angry, tell me I was lying, poke me with needles and cut me open slowly anyway. I was sure he was some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and I simply hadn’t seen Mr. Hyde yet.
He was beside me now, sitting down on the bed next to my hips, looking sad. As if he had any right to. That sad face looked at me and for a moment neither of us moved. I wanted to say something, anything – preferably the worst possible thing that could enter my mind that might damage his intentions. But the gag would have reduced it to growls and mumbles, the same level as a muzzled dog. His right arm moved and came to rest on the other side of my body; he was leaning over me now, his face looking into mine and for a moment I couldn’t control, the briefest of moments, I felt depressed for him. He might have been handsome if it were any other situation. A man I would give my phone number to while blushing like a fool. The depression transmuted into hatred again. A man I might willingly give access to my life – that’s the part that made it so goddamn frightening.
“I promise I’ll be careful,” his tone was soft, and whatever his intentions may have been, the softness of it drove fear into me almost more than if he were a raving lunatic. At least then he would have made more noise and attracted more attention. “I’ll leave the door open but you’ll have to contact them yourself.”
Contact who? The hell was this guy talking about? He lowered his head, all the muscles in abdominal region tightening so much they began cramping almost immediately; his forehead was nearly touching my chest. Don’t touch me, you bastard, don’t touch me…
He looked up again. “I’m sorry about all this.”
Fuck you.
Sitting up, he clinked the glass of the syringe, letting any excess air escape before leaning over again and carefully slipping the needle into a vein in the crook of my elbow. I watched as he returned to the array of instruments, feeling heavy and losing hope, my own human water eking out around my eyes. Fuzzy darkness crept in and I could see him standing there, waiting against the short bookcase, silvery scalpel waiting patiently to begin what it was created for.
* * *
I found out what he took hours later after I woke up. I had called the police, woozy, in a strange near-absence of pain, a distorted version of my room. All I knew was that he was gone, my door was ajar, the phone was there, working, and another human answered the number of 911.
They arrived and took me to the hospital immediately. I don’t remember a lot. I think all my thoughts were consumed with how I was alive, alive and relatively whole, as far as I knew. I remember mumbling it aloud a few times.
When I was finally coherent and my parents had been called, I begged them to tell me what he had done and they finally relented, explaining that I was in good condition, but a part of my liver was missing. I was aware of the neat stitches that now graced my side but never even entertained the idea that something had been removed from my body.
Happy Halloween
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