Gore Suspenstories

by Trevor R. Fairbanks

  “I am,” she managed to smile.

  “Then we must talk,” the man said. “My name is Mr. Gould. How would you like to make some money, April?”

  “If you want to fuck me then you need to call me Flower. If you want me in your movie you need to write me a check.”

  She looked around at them all, trying to judge their reactions. The leather boys were silent and so was the old man who paid them. Could she do it, she wondered? Was she capable of an orgy?

  “Of course not,” the man smiled grimly. Next to him the leather boys softened. One of them even smirked. April looked at him. There was something in his eyes, the softest hint of a bloody heart. “No. We need you to kill someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone you already know.”

  ***

  Her. Her and him. Her without him.

  He was driving too fast down rain slicked streets. He drove faster. A slight haze had come over the sky and fat droplets of rain hit the windshield like wet insects. The wipers were not working, and his visibility was shot. Kip was nearly blind behind the wheel. He was also so drunk that his hands twitched. They would not stop shaking. His mind swirled and swam through the amber fade. He was thinking of her. He saw her image and nearly drowned within it.

  Kip screamed a scream that tore itself out from his innermost hidden persona. The shout boiled up through his lung and sliced his throat like a mouthful of greased razors. It pierced his ears because there was no one else to hear.

  He waited.

  Behind him were other lights that also belonged to cars. He drove faster, hoping that one of those lights was attached to a police cruiser. But another part of him wanted the cops to be there. He wanted to get stopped. Someone had to pull him over and lock him away in jail for the night because if no one did he would surely die.

  And we all know that he is too young to die.

  It was the club. The club and her. It was too much for him. All of it had driven him to this. They had driven him right over the edge and into the nothing. He saw her in his head like an infection. She was there, and she was with him. The old man. The man with his leering eyes and his filthy money. He saw her laugh and listened to it in his head until it cut through his heart like a bayonet.

  Both hands left the steering wheel and he started hitting it. Hard, until his hands ached. He was trying to break his fingers.

  “Kill me. Please, God. Just kill me.”

  But Kip was not a religious man, so the prayer fell on deaf ears.

  Still, someone must have been listening. His prayer worked, and he made it back to his small apartment on the wrong side of town. The refrigerator was open and there was a fresh bottle inside. He lit himself a cigarette and started to drink. He poured it down his throat, trying desperately to put out the fire burning inside of him.

  “It will never, never happen. Alone forever. Forever alone.”

  And he looked out through the second story window. He looked at the sky and the few stars burning bright enough to poke through the fog. It was time to dance with that fog.

  “I refuse to live alone.”

  Kip drained the last of the bottle. He stood up and took a step back with every intention of throwing himself out the window. In his head he watched as his body fell. In his head he heard broken glass tinkling on the concrete. It would be the last sound he will ever hear.

  The concrete is unyielding, and his body is so soft. It crushes him like a fist. It squeezes him like a pimple. It caresses him like an angry lover and all that is left is blood. It is beautiful.

  So, Kip got a running start. He needed a running start to break through that glass. Drunkenly he takes another step backwards. He takes a deep breath, finishes his last cigarette, and stubs it out on the carpet.

  Then he began to run ...

  Only to stumble and fall backwards onto the same carpet next to his cigarette. The bottle rolled from his hand, empty. He fell onto his back.

  And Kip passed out.

  ***

  April was holding the knife that they had given her, and it was long and sharp. She thought that it might be a bayonet from an old war. That was okay. She always liked antiques. There was more style in antiques.

  She watched his chest rise and fall as he slept. She looked at his beer gut covered in body hair like some weird pale mountain. She watched him breathe in and out and she heard him snore. She did not want to be here anymore.

  When they told her who she had to kill she felt relief. The old man and the leather boys represented a studio that had invested a lot of money in the Vietnam Comic. They wanted him to have a hit show on TV so that their investment would pay off. They wanted him to be famous so that they would get rich. But all the Vietnam Comic wanted to do was

  drink.

  So, he had to die. That was how Mr. Gould explained it. And she had to kill him. She was the only one close enough to do it.

  “You need to do this April,” one of the leather boys had told her. He was cute. His name was Toby. “It is important.”

  Suddenly there was a strength inside her that she did not know she had. This was a strength that they could not touch. It was a strength that they could not take away. It was a strength that ...

  Drove the knife deep into his chest.

  The blade went down past the rib cage (splintering). It broke through the skin tissue (tearing). It found the still beating heart (killing).

  His eyes sprang open. For a moment he stared at her and his mouth gasped like a land bound fish. The Vietnam Comic groaned. He coughed. Blood trickled from his lip.

  Then he fell silent forever. It was his final joke. Like his other jokes it was not very funny.

  April pulled the knife out of his body. She wiped the blade clean on the bed sheets that had just come back from the laundry. Then she went to take a shower. She made sure it was a long one and hot. When she came back out she cut his head off then made the call.

  “I did it.”

  ***

  At night Utah was beautiful. A slim snow had fallen, covering everything in a soft white. Through her eyes it looked like cocaine. The entire world was made of drugs and she was high.

  April had been here for a few weeks. She was learning her lessons and trying to get better. They were teaching her how to fight. They were teaching her how to kill. Once they knew that she was capable of such things they had to teach her how to do them better.

  She was laying in his arms.

  Toby was not like them. Toby was not a leather servant of the network but rather a boy with a very lascivious mind. And though they tried to drown out their feelings, though they tried to make everything natural and dirty, they knew the truth. April and Toby were in love.

  “You’re getting good,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve never seen anyone handle a needler the way you do. It’s like watching a maestro.”

  That made her proud. Because she wanted to be a maestro, and April liked the needler. It was an elegant weapon, like a slim gun, almost feminine. It was filled with hundreds of tiny quills and in seconds she could cover a man in spikes. She could turn a human being into a porcupine in less than a minute and if those needles were poison tipped then it was all over.

  “I like the needler. It feels good to penetrate a man,” she laughed.

  “You want to smoke some violet?”

  “Sure.”

  He took a tiny pipe out from under the mattress and packed it with purple plant. He sparked it and inhaled. He held it in before exhaling with a smile. The room filled with a deep haze.

  “So, I don’t get you guys. Do you really work for the networks?” she asked, accepting the pipe he offered. She took a solid hit of violet and felt her mind swim. Around her his arms felt strong and powerful. She never wanted to leave them.

  “We do. There is a lot of money in the industry. We just make sure that things go the right way, so that the rich stay rich and the poor never get something they don’t deserve.”

  “Like fame?”


  “Among other things. Tell me, do you think the Vietnam Comic deserved to be famous?”

  “Of course not. He was a racist prick.”

  “And now he never will be. Because you,” he leaned forward and kissed her nose. “Did such a good job killing him. After a few years he’ll be nothing but a footnote at the back of some book. If he’s lucky he’ll be completely forgotten.”

  “Someday we’ll all be forgotten,” she whispered, but that might have been the violet talking.

  ***

  “You are going to be famous.”

  Kip sat in the office, surrounded by men he did not know and did not trust. They were telling him things. He was signing things. Checks were issued. He no longer worried about money.

  He had met them in the video store. The man had liked his look. He wanted to hear his story. The next day Kip met with them at a very expensive restaurant and he told them his story. They did not like it but that was okay. He had the look that they needed.

  The book had been written. The story had been told. Now he was here at the finishing line only he was not done yet.

  Kip drank from a glass of very expensive, well-aged scotch. It tasted smooth and rich. There was a sting as it went down but he could handle it. In fact, he could get used to it.

  “I still think about her. In my mind she is a giant walking vagina. I have these dreams where I am being swallowed by her pussy and inside everything is bloody and I am choking to death on her come.”

  “You are a great artist,” the unknown man grins. It makes Kip feel good. He had just pulled that out of his ass. It didn’t even make sense, but it sounded good. That was the secret to writing. Make sure it sounds good.

  Another check is issued before he even finishes his glass of scotch. They are saying that his life story is going to sell hundreds of thousands of copies, possibly even millions. “I just need you to sign here.”

  He scratched out his signature on another piece of paper. This, he suddenly knew, was exactly how April felt when she had signed the contracts for her first adult film. That feeling that a line has been crossed and there is no going back.

  Kip took another drink of scotch. He handed the papers across the desk and saw this man’s claw-like hand close on them. In that moment he looked like Satan. Kip had just lost his soul.

  “Now, go home and finish that book.”

  ***

  It is morning over Utah. The sun is up and sprinkling light over the snow drifts that sat here and there and everywhere like lost souls waiting to melt and flow into Hell. April shivered a little from the cold. She clutched her sweater closer, holding it like an old lover. It had not been washed in some time and smelled like her and him. She could smell him and liked that smell. The sleeves were ripped, and the collar was loose, but she did not want to throw it away. It was the only thing she had.

  They told her that it was more than she deserved. A little girl sat across from her. She was shivering as well. They were in a giant playing field that seemed to stretch on forever. She was only twelve years old. April knew her name. It was Keri. Keri had large eyes that were made of beautiful glowing amber and they shined in the morning sun like lost stars. They never messed with the eyes, ever. The eyes always stayed the same.

  Only the body told another story. April knew that Keri’s body was corrupt. She could see it in the way she stood and the way she walked. She could see it in the way she fought. Keri was not like her. She had been born into this life. She never had to be initiated, the way April had. This was all she knew, and April knew what she was going through.

  It was them. The tall men in the leather pants with the white shirts and the blue ties. April knew about the parties. She knew about the violet. She knew about the orgies and the needlers and everything. Toby did not keep secrets from her.

  Keri was an orphan. The studios owned her. She had been raised and beaten. She had been abused. Her childhood had been stolen by sex. She had made movies with genetically enhanced dudes. Those movies had been seen on the dark web by the men who could afford to watch them. Her soul was gone.

  Now there was nothing else in her mind but a hatred of all men. All of them. And April could not help herself. Toby told her not to. She should not feel anything. But she did. She felt sorry for this little girl.

  And she hated the world.

  ***

  It was a slow night and the beer was going down quickly. Kip had reason to celebrate. Earlier he had told his boss to fuck off. He no longer needed that stupid job at the video store where everyone knew his name.

  Now no one knew him. He was just another rich man in a sea of wealth. Dark lights and girls in skimpy outfits, flaunting enhanced breasts, drifted around him. He was alone in the corner, waiting for her.

  But she was not coming.

  This fact was starting to sink in like a great weight buried in his stomach. This fact was a worm made of lead that was burrowing deeper into his bowels. It was a brick covered in slime that he had to swallow and keep down. It was the truth and he could not ignore it.

  “All alone, cowboy?”

  The voice made him look up. A slight lisp put him off slightly. It made him look past certain things. Her skin tone was sandy which made dark eyes glow bright in the neon darkness like nuclear flares. She was a little heavier than the other girls here, but not unattractive, and dressed in a billowy button down white shirt with matching black shorts. The collar was too large, arching out from her neck like twin spikes. Underneath the shirt was a lithe body that moved like a serpent as she pulled out the chair beside him.

  “I guess so.”

  “Handsome guy like you? This is a surprise,” she said with an accent that sounded Spanish. Kip shrugged. “What is your name?”

  “Kip.”

  “Kip? Oh, too cute.”

  There was a way her eyes shined. They glistened as they looked at the prize and Kip realized what was happening. He had been marked. In her eyes he was nothing but a walking wallet. His soul was only an ATM trip away.

  In the corner two other men sat alone. They were dressed in leather pants and had on white shirts with blue ties. They were also giving Kip the eye. She looked at them. He got the feeling that they knew one another.

  Suddenly it felt like he was surrounded by eyes. They were all staring at him. All of them were hungry.

  “Listen, I’m not really interested,” Kip told him. “I am very flattered but I’m here for someone else.”

  “You are here for me,” she replied in a stern voice and let her hand fall on his wrist. He tried to squirm away but could not escape. “Let me buy you a drink and we’ll see what happens. You might be surprised.”

  “Really, that’s all right.”

  “But ...”

  “I think maybe you should go back to your friends,” Kip said, nodding at the table where the other leather boys were. “Leave me alone.”

  The girl turned. She looked at the corner. With a sigh she finally stood up. “Have a nice night.”

  Kip said nothing. He finished his beer, got up and left.

  ***

  It was the drugs. They were making her sloppy. The man should have died days ago. He was a studio exec who had turned down a film that went on to become a summer blockbuster. The company did not like that. They did not like that at all, so they hired her because she was the best.

  Once again, they had made the wrong decision. She snorted some more crushed violet. It went down her throat and collected in her stomach. Moments later the memories began to unfold.

  She could remember getting off the plane and her first night back at the 20/20. She was dancing, and the man was there, right where they told her he would be. He was at the stage, flanked by casual body guards. He was going to be difficult, Toby told her. He knew the score. She was going to have to really get inside his head. She did. She smiled at him.

  Hundred-dollar bills rained down on her naked body. He said that he loved her when they got back to the limo. He wante
d her, and he made his promises, the same promises every man makes when they want to get a girl into bed. He promised her money and drugs and everything that went along with them.

  Now she was lost somewhere in the hills of Hollyweird. The home was palatial. Homes like this, she knew, made people soft. It felt so far away from the real world it was too easy to lose the soul here. Once that soul was gone it would never be found again.

  All she could think about was him.

  The mission, she told herself. Concentrate.

  She got out of a soft bed. April was still dressed in a silk outfit that accented everything about her that was best. She looked at the studio exec. He had fallen asleep in the jacuzzi and now it was scummed over with his shit and snot and semen.