S.O.S (Guest Submission Special)

It has been 527 days and the 528th began with blood dripping from the ceiling. It tasted vaguely human, but the atrocious color of it meant it came from a rat.

The clock showed 7:04 am, then 7:05, then 7:04 again and again until it decided it would show no time at all. Rather the display ran through all its combinations before blasting a red-loud ‘HELLO!’

She was chipper today. Maybe-maybes, I thought in my room, maybe she’ll be nice, then inattentive, then maybe it would be my chance. But maybe-maybes she does not do, not with those eyes, not with those arms.

A cleaver above and chop-chop it went, then chop-chop went the steps downstairs. An eager pitter-patter to mirror the droplet dripping.

‘Morning dahling!’ she said from behind the shards left of the door. I saw the shadows tremble with her movements, she was fixing up her collar and hair.

Creak, crumble, fall, rage, and then she blinked twice and she was happy again.

So happy, while I was staring at her with numb eyes and a hand behind me, clenched, prepared, but nowhere near steady enough. I’ve seen her 527 days and even on the 528th, her presence abhorred me.

Claire spilled into the room with her rusty-dagger smile. Her figure zig-zagged as did her torso, as did the bloodied strands lose from her dress’ grip, but her eyes remained strong and pointed, squealing and twitching.

‘Did you sleep well, dahling? I’m surprised you can with how musty your room stinks.’

Her shoulders and elbows popped and her forearms extended towards the boarded up window. She cracked the planks like toothpicks and the crimson light of filtered sunset poured into the room.

‘I can’t help it. You’ve locked it 163 days ago.’

‘That’s when you misbehaved! You act all buddy-buddy, then you go all leapy-floppy out the goddamn window!’

Claire’s hollow glare poked me. Black irises gleaming anger-yellow, then love-pink. She stretched and collapsed like a primadona on the bed, striking a Juliet pose.

‘Do you still love me, dahling?’

‘Forever and ever.’

‘Did you like what I made you last night? I spent hOuRs on it and I never heard a word of praise from your mouth.’

‘It was too good for words. I had hoped I could show how much I liked it, but you left in a hurry…’

It’s easy to bait her into lust. Like a hellhound beckoned, her tongue lolled out as she clawed closer to me.

‘I’m so, so, so sorry dahling! If I had known, please do tell me, quickly, right away, in an instant as I want to hear it! I’m fragile, you know, heart of brittle bones! I spent so much time cRyInG on the floor!’

Her arms surrounded me twice, a spider’s cocoon of an embrace neared. Her breath smelled nice – for once not rancid – and her intoxicating fragrance weighed on my eyes. It was strawberry, her eyes, last meal and cheeks.

I shuddered when her bony wrists clenched me and our chests drew closer. She looked nowhere near as deranged from up close. Her rapid, nervous sighs made her sound little and she was warm like a radiator. A plump grin with blood for lipstick whispered in my ear.

‘I wAnT you. It makes me so happy you’re gonna tell me how you feel.’

I would’ve told you, Claire; if I saw you today for the first time. But it’s been 528 days.

‘You’re shivering.’

I was. So much so that when I slit her neck with the blunt knife I snuck from yesterday’s dinner, the cut was sloppy, a butcher’s nightmare.

She flinched, flew back and roared like an abattoir and I leapt off and ran towards the flickering hallway.

‘D-dahling…’

‘I’m sOrRy…’

‘I pRoMiSe I’ll make it up to yOu.’

And I hoped I wouldn’t see it.

My footsteps tick-tick-ticked on the floor. Right and left, caved-in doorways, ripped wallpaper and squeaking. She’s made rearrangements, for sure, today like everyday, her maze grew wider and more confusing.

Ding went the elevator and the shaft opened. Her dog, Mamut, a hulking abomination of stitched flesh and cardboard limped out. Can’t have a Tartarus without a Cerberus. He snorted once and at twice I was hiding.

The doorway was moist and trembled as he clopped and panted, clopped and panted. He stopped right where I was, his head craned towards me.

Nostrils flared and tail wagged, it was her blood he loved, poor blind beast. I threw the knife and he ran down the corridor, his acid drool leaving a black trail behind.

I didn’t know what floor I was on, nor where the stairs were. The exit was at the bottom and at that thought my adrenaline drained.

‘Dahling? Oh, dahling?’

Her singy-songy trills were beautiful as they were bone-shaking. I leaned on the wall for support and carried forward.

I counted 5 doors before the 6th one looked different and I barged in. Another corridor, indistinguishable from the last. At the end of it lay another elevator shaft, door open, lights on.

‘Why are you hiding, dahling? I’m not mad, no, no, nO! You’ve hurt me, but I must’ve hurt you too! Please, don’t let’s go further!’

She was nearing. My heart drummed against my chest boom-boom-crack! went something tumbling in the shaft. It had broken through the elevator ceiling, shook itself off, then rose in the air.

Her eye, bloodshot, became pink once more. It evaporated after taking note of my location.

‘Not there, dahling, not there! It’s dangerous, very, very dangerous!’

I didn’t listen to her. She might’ve trapped it, but her nearing footsteps were fuel enough for the fire in my ankles. It was hard to breathe and harder to think past moving from point A to point B. The world was a red blur.

I pressed the button for the ground floor and her claws dug into the doorframe at the other end of the hallway. She had stapled her slender neck together with splinters. The bed didn’t survive her coping.

‘You’ll get hurt!’

‘I know!’

The doors closed on her exaggerated expression of worry. Her features drew further and further down her face as she approached and the doors wouldn’t close and her glare was sizzling me and I hurt my finger smashing the button so that the doors would close.

They didn’t close. Not in time. Her hand was stuck, but the elevator didn’t care.

It flailed, trying to reach me and I stuck my back to the wall with the mirror. The elevator departed and when her palm hit the ceiling, it writhed and she let it go.

It stayed on the floor and it looked as if it was searching for me. And without eyes to see, it couldn’t find me and flopped dead on its side.

I grabbed it. It was soft, her skin and shiny, her claws. The whole thing wasn’t bigger than my own hands and it fit snugly when I tried to hold it. My touch brought it back to life, but it stayed warm only for a second, as if to bid me farewell.

A piercing wail shot through the walls. Long, forlorn, drawn out, pathetic and echoey.

‘Did I do something wrong? Don’t you love me anymore?’

Metal rubbed against metal in her words. The whole cabin shook as if the cables it dangled on were toyed with in a fit of rage.

I was trapped. The emergency exit was locked from the outside. The elevator descended slower and slower under the heavy moaning of girders being twisted out of their place.

She had fashioned a saw. That’s what I soon deduced the grinding noise was. Back and forth, over and out, severing the cable fiber after fiber.

I could only imagine what the bumper at the bottom would feel like and how she’ll scold me tomorrow morning. I wonder if I’d wake up with bite marks on my cheeks and wrapped up in moldy gauze.

It snapped and the fall reignited the apathy inside of me. It was the 528th day, the 528th failure. I could escape, she had shown me how several times.

It had been an even day. Tomorrow will be odd and I’ll take the odd path. Maybe our plans overlap and stop conflicting.

We can’t both be happy, we can’t both be sad, one must always triumph and oppose the other.

I was floating, weightless. Her hand was next to me as if reaching out and I took it and hugged it close to my chest.

She had this quality about her flesh to cushion every blow, so when the ceiling became one with the floor, I only felt a nudge here, a nudge there. The rubble hugged the wounds.

‘Dahling! No, no, no!’

I could see nothing, only hear and feel. She pushed and pulled, displaced and scrambled all the metal and all the wood off me. She wiped my forehead with kisses and caressed my hair with her breasts.

‘Why did you have to do something so sTuPiD? Don’t you love me anymore?’

‘...’ I tried to speak, but my tongue was swollen and my mouth swam in blood.

She brought my head next to hers and I felt her concern drill into me.

It was sudden, her kiss, but not unwelcome, because it drained everything away. Blood, spit, mucus and air.

In the diffuse light, caught through eyes like slits, I saw her fair skin glistening. An impure joy as she realized I was still alive, still hers, still in her hotel.

‘Tell me,’ she said in a languid lullaby, ‘do you still LoVe me?’

‘I… do…’

‘Oh, that’s so, so, so great! But still… maybe it would be best if you sLePt on it.’

Her hug, comfortable and grateful, became constrictive and overbearing. I could feel her heart pulsing as her lungs filled more and more in dry, heaving sobs. A tear slid onto my forehead, weaving together with my sweat.

528 was the day she cut my rope.

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Thank you to Bubbles for your story as well as my readers for continuing Knock Knock. I am not sure how often I'll be posting guest submissions but if anyone ever wants to contribute you're welcome to send a script to me and I can decide from there, thanks!