This Will Be Fun

"This Will Be Fun"

By Corey W Harland

He sat in his once-bubble-filled tub, the faint notes of lavender soap now fighting a losing battle against the heavy, copper stench of fresh blood. The bathwater was no longer a lukewarm sanctuary; it was turning a sickening, murky pink.

Even now, as he dunked the crumbs of his frozen Cheez-Its into another glass of the boxed Merlot he’d dragged from his barren fridge, he couldn't piece together the timeline. He crunched on the sharp cheddar, a salty sin blending with the cheap wine. Notes of plum, black cherry, and iron mixed subtly with the fading lavender as red ripples lapped against the porcelain. He stared blankly ahead, his mind fracturing. What? Why? It was so good, but now...

It was a bloody mess-terpiece. A serious, horrific mess of a masterpiece. If it weren’t for the white-hot, agonizing pain searing from his crown to his groin, he might care to acknowledge the rest of the room.

He was alright. Well, manageable. But by the looks of it, that was more than he could say for whoever had breached his sanctuary.

The bathroom doors were locked. The window was cracked, allowing the mid-afternoon autumn breeze to drift inside, carrying warm notes of oak and the heavy, earthy musk of corn being shucked. It was a beautiful fall day, and he didn't even know what day it was. What he did know was that these crackers were to die for. Maybe that's why they came, he thought with a detached, careless grin.

A sharp creak echoed from the floorboards.

He didn't look up, but his eyes tracked a dark, rhythmic drip, drip, drip coming from above. Over his shoulder, the crushed box of Merlot lay on its side, but the dark liquid oozing across the lid of his toilet wasn't wine. It was too thick. Too bright. It smeared down the porcelain throne, splattering across the cold, dead, and unrecognizable face of his landlord, whose head was slumped at an impossible, broken angle against the tank.

His heart lunged into a frantic, erratic gallop before dropping straight out of his feet.

His mind, his body—no, something more ethereal—floated off into the distance. Suddenly, he was looking down at himself from the dark corner of the ceiling. Detached. Empty. Watching a man in a red bath eating soggy crackers next to a corpse.

Then, the memories hit him in a violent, suffocating wave as the candles of his depression waned.

He remembered the crash downstairs. He’d ignored it, thinking it was just one of the cats. He couldn't have been more wrong. His rent wasn't due, and his landlord hadn't come for money. He had come with a blade.

The space-time continuum ripped open inside his skull. Blinding white light, the cosmos, hellfire—no, his head throbbed as if a thunderbolt had split his neck in two. His body flinched violently as he reached up to touch the source of the agony. His fingertips sank into a ragged, gaping crater at the base of his skull. A gummy, hot mess of half-coagulated blood and gray matter oozed through his fingers. The pressure release unleashed a fresh, blinding strike from the god of thunder, sending a spasm of pure, unadulterated agony straight down his spine.

He looked at his gore-coated hand, then at the bottle of rubbing alcohol on the counter.

A manic, dark smile split his lips. "Get the alcohol," he whispered to the empty room, his vision beginning to tunnel into blackness. "This will be fun."