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Beating Transgressions

A Horrorfying Short Story

By Henry SheperdPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
1

1.

Jennifer was late for the party. She fumbled to find her car keys in the mess that was her overnight bag. It was filled with used tissues and empty vodka bottles bought from the cheap liquor store around the corner, she was drunk and it was time to leave.

"Damn it!"

Jennifer saw her keys drop into the sewage drain she had parked next to save time and run in and gather everything together and head out. Jennifer got down on her knees and tried to spot the keys in the drain with outstretched hands reaching for something familiar in the darkness below. It was cold and menacing and she didn't feel safe anymore.

"Hi there."

Jennifer whipped around to see a man standing over her but he wasn't a man. He had sunken in eyes and had no fingernails. She knew immediately she was in danger.

"Hi... um I dropped my keys down./."

He stopped her in mid-sentence and hit her across the face with the butt of his knife. It was happening and Jennifer didn't know how to stop it.

"You picked the wrong night to lose your keys tonight."

He grabbed a handful of her hair and started to drag her across the grass, Jennifer screamed and screamed but no one seemed to hear her.

"Stop it! You're hurting me you creep!"

He stopped in mid-track and wedged his blade into her backside, warm red liquid started to drip down and it drove him wild. He wanted to expose her brain and all her organs.

"Ah stop it! Please! PLE-"

Jennifer lodged her foot into his hip and he went down hard. She got up to run but the pain was unbearable.

"HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP! HE'S GOING TO KILL ME! HELLLPPPP!"

She screamed at the top of her lungs but nobody came. No porch lights went on, nobody etched back the curtains in dark living rooms to see what all the commotion was, not even a stray dog to look on in confusion. Jennifer was going to die and nobody cared.

"Somebody..." she trailed off as he slipped the blade into her heart. He placed her body on the sidewalk and began dismembering her, disfiguring the beauty no one would ever witness again. He made sure to eat her heart before he started on the inside of her brain.

They wouldn't find her bones until the following winter.

2.

"You're just not doing it right. Here, give it to me."

Allison reaches over Patrick's shoulder for the joint he had clasped between his skeleton fingers, his skin is cold and she feels goosebumps travel up and down her spine.

"Have you done this before?"

"Yes, I've done this before you just didn't give me a chance to finish lighting it."

"Honey, just stop before you hurt yourself."

She smiles her dry half smile and places the joint between her cherry red lips. He could hardly stand it any longer.

"Hey, Allison?"

"Yeah?"

He made sure to eat her lungs before he burned the body.

3.

"Can I stay awhile?"

Claudia's voice lingered on the last word. A while? What did that mean? He looks over to her and isn't sure how to answer. So he devises a plan, a map of sorts to push her into leaving. He honestly didn't mind her company, in fact, he liked her. She was an intuitive listener and never questioned where he left his shoes in the morning after coming home from another drunken stupor. He tried not to imagine her in the ways she wanted him to because it would make him a stereotype. She couldn't stand stereotypes.

"Hey."

He brushes his knuckles against her soft rosy cheeks. She had the body of a woman but the face of a teenaged girl, insecure and angry at the world for the mistakes she didn't understand. She unraveled when she was alone with him. But around other people they acted like overzealous cousins, trying to outdo the idiosyncrasies of the other. He felt it was better that way for the both of them and he could find no fault in it.

"Do you want to stay with me tonight?"

The words are a soft cooing inside of her. She almost wanted to die just then, it would be the perfect ending to an imperfect life of intrigue and guilt. He thinks of Jade at this moment. He liked to do strange things to her, malleable, gnarled, mysterious things that sometimes he himself couldn't tell if it left traces inside her inside of him. He remembers how she bled the first time he cut her with the blade he keeps hidden in his inner thigh.

"Are you going to cut me now?"

Claudia's eyes go wide. He would hide her body in the woods and be discovered in the morning. He would commit suicide thirty-five years later.

fiction
1

About the Creator

Henry Sheperd

Born and raised here in the Bay Area. 30. Artist. Cat Daddy. Button King.

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