Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked

by Christa Carmen

She scrolled back a photo. “The picture on the steps of the hotel was at one twenty-six.” She stared hard at Caleb. “How did it get on my phone?”

  Caleb’s expression of surprise was almost cartoonish. “What do you mean? How do you think it got there? You must have fallen asleep with the phone in your hands and screenshotted something you were scrolling past on Facebook.”

  Marci looked momentarily relieved as she considered this. She reanimated the phone, which had fallen dark, and inspected the mysterious photo. “It can’t be a screen shot,” she said, pulling up Facebook for comparison. “If it was, there’d be text, or a white border around it, and there’s not.”

  “Then you screenshotted it from a Safari browser or something. I don’t know, Mar. What’s the alternative? That someone snuck into our bedroom after we fell asleep, took your phone, snapped a photo of a room covered in blood, and returned the phone to your nightstand without either of us waking up?”

  He slid from the bed and stretched, the t-shirt he wore riding up on his stomach. Marci turned away from the exposed skin. “Maybe someone uploaded it to your phone at the reception as a joke.” he continued. “Or there was a glitch in the iCloud and some stupid still from a bad horror movie ended up on your phone.”

  With one quick motion, he flung open the curtain on the slider door. Sunlight glinted through the slats of the deck and fell across the master bedroom. Marci shrank from the bright light and moaned.

  “I need a coffee,” Caleb announced, ignoring Marci’s distress. “Or better yet, a Bloody Mary.” He moved toward the door.

  When Marci did not follow, Caleb looked back, derision marring the conventionally-handsome features. “Forget about the picture, Mar.” His fingers drummed against the doorframe. “Or, don’t forget about it. Tell everyone at the BBQ today how you fell asleep with your finger on some torture porn site, accidentally saved it to your phone, and got all paranoid that someone was out to get you.”

  He turned and started down the hall, humming some tune he’d cut a rug to the night before, and chuckling to himself.

  —

  The second photo appeared one week later, discovered when Marci went scrolling through photos of her overweight cat over her morning tea and toast. The timestamp on the image read 3:19 AM; the red room was at the end of a long, dark hall and the two men from the first photo were present once again.

  They dragged something along the ground, a body that, where the black-red patina of light from the room ahead did not extend, was shrouded in shadow. It was the flash of the camera that illuminated the captive’s hands and feet, bound by rope, the layers of tape wound tight behind the head. There were no clues as to the photographer’s identity; neither did it seem likely that the captive would find reprieve from his or her trip toward the red room before… what? Before they met their fate of being chopped into pieces, their blood used to bathe the walls as thickly as newly-applied paint?

  Marci found Caleb playing Xbox on his throne: the worn leather armchair of the living room.

  “Look,” she said, shoving the phone under his nose. She took a deep breath and held it, quelling the slight trembling of her hands.

  Caleb batted at her arm, his voice rising in anger. “What the fuck, Marci?” He threw the controller onto the coffee table, where it upset a framed photo of the two of them on vacation in Hawaii the previous year.

  “It’s a video game,” Marci said. “Unending lives at your disposal. I need you to look at this. Another picture appeared. The same two men are in it, only, I swear it was taken just before the one I got last week. I think it’s a photo of someone being dragged down the hall toward that horrible room. It’s like… it’s like I’m getting clues to a murder in the opposite direction or something.”

  Caleb choked on the soda he was guzzling. “You’re joking right? Even if that wasn’t completely ridiculous, I saw on the news that there was a worldwide cyber-attack last week. Major corporations from pharmaceuticals to the tech industry got hit.” He slammed the can down on the coffee table. “Your iCloud got hacked, simple as that. I don’t understand why you’re hell-bent on playing Nancy Drew.”

  “Because I didn’t get hacked!” Marci protested. “I know I didn’t. Something about these photos seems real. Call it a hunch, or female intuition, or whatever you want to call it, but it’s like I know something bad is going to happen if I don’t figure out where these photos are coming from.”

  Caleb unearthed his phone from a crack in the armchair and typed with quick, furious jabs. He turned the screen toward her, and Marci watched the news site load, saw the headline proclaiming, “Global Ransomware Attack: What We Know and Don’t Know.”

  “Call Apple,” he said. “Call them right now so we can put this thing to rest.”

  Marci returned her attention to the picture on the coffee table. When she spoke, she dispensed with each word carefully, as if laying stones to cross a rushing river. “Why don’t you believe me?” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “You never believe me. You didn’t believe me when I told you I was happy not being married. You didn’t believe me when I said I could be committed without wearing a ring. And you don’t believe me about this.”

  She stood before he could answer, and collected her purse from the back of a chair. “I’m going to the police station,” she said. “To show them the photos.” Caleb tried to interject, but she cut him off. “I’m going, Caleb. End of story. Who knows… maybe they’ll believe me.”

  —

  Caleb was back on his throne when Marci returned, though he’d traded the Resident Evil video game for an equally sinister-looking horror movie. Marci walked past him with no intention of stopping when he lowered the volume and said, “Don’t be mad at me, Mar.”

  She paused, and turned to look at him. “I’m not mad.”

  “What did the police say?”

  Marci sighed. “They asked if it was possible someone was playing a joke on me. In other words, they believed me about as much as you do.”

  Caleb at least had the diplomacy to feign being sympathetic. “You want to come watch this movie with me? It just started.”

  Marci wrinkled her nose. “No, thanks. I’m going to bed.” The sound of ramping-up horror revving its engine came from the speakers and Marci turned to watch the action unfolding on the screen.

  “Shocking,” she said after a moment. “A woman trying to convince a cabin full of people they’re all gonna die and no one believes her.”

  —

  Marci woke in the blackest part of night. She was short of breath, suggesting some nocturnal torment that had fragmented upon waking, and her t-shirt was damp. She reached out, but only rumpled sheets were present where Caleb should have lain. She listened for the telltale sounds of the television from the living room, but the house was still, airless, mausoleum-quiet.

  Until it wasn’t.

  A noise; the creak of a floorboard from inside the closet.

  All the details Marci had missed in her post-nightmare disorientation became apparent, then; the motionless ceiling fan that had been on when she’d gone to bed, the blank face of the alarm clock, the black pit outside the slider where a floodlight should have burned.

  “Gizmo?” Marci whispered. But no corpulent cat materialized from the open closet; rather, another creak, followed by the very distinctive, very human sound of someone releasing a deliberate, measured breath from amongst the dress clothes and winter sweaters.

  Fear driving her to recklessness, Marci darted a hand from beneath the sheets and felt around the nightstand for her phone. Her heart beat like a spooked herd of horses, but amongst the mound of books, the Kindle with its textured purple cover, the dish of rings and earrings, the bookmarks and pens and empty seltzer cans, there was no phone to be found.

  Reaching further from the sanctuary of the covers, her breath coming in shallow gasps, Marci turned the switch on the bedside lamp—once, twice, three times—to no avail. She’d replaced the lightbulb mere weeks ago. The power wa
s definitely out.

  The sound of a wire hanger sliding over metal rod, and panic overtook her. Marci bolted from the bed and tried to scramble for the door. Her foot caught in the tangled bedsheets and she hit the floor hard, a yelp emanating from some primal place within her and escaping through trembling lips. More hangers slid across the rod, like nails on a chalkboard, or a coffin grinding against steel planks as it’s lowered into the ground. She got her feet beneath her and tore from the room, her footsteps muffled on the hallway runner as she ran for the living room and the prospect of Caleb’s aid.

  Through the kitchen and into the living room, where the flicker of the television had been doused when something (or someone) had tripped the powerline. Marci rushed forward, whacking her thigh on the couch in the dark, repeating Caleb’s name over and over until Caleb woke with a start.

  “What’s going on?”

  Marci could see the general outline of his body in the haze of the open curtains, saw that he was in his boxer shorts and little else, his skin sheened with the thin layer of sweat that came with falling asleep on the uncomfortable leather couch.

  “There’s someone in the house,” Marci whispered. “They took my phone. They’re waiting in the closet, and the power’s out.”

  Caleb’s sleep-slowed brain kept him from registering her words and he stared at her, perplexed.

  “Caleb!” She shoved him to get his attention. “Did you hear what I said? There’s someone in the bedroom. My phone’s gone.”

  Understanding flickered across Caleb’s pillow-creased face.

  “There’s someone in the house!” she repeated.

  Caleb shook his head, clearing the last of the cobwebs of sleep, before lumbering into the kitchen and rummaging in a drawer for a flashlight. Makeshift bludgeoning device in one hand, he slid the butcher knife from the block on the counter with the other.

  “In the bedroom?” he clarified.

  “Yes,” Marci whispered back.

  With clumsy steps of exaggerated stealth, Caleb crept down the hall, Marci following close behind. The hallway seemed to go on forever. Marci wrapped her arms around her t-shirt-clad torso to keep from shivering.

  A pronounced crack! came from the room ahead. Both Caleb and Marci froze.

  “What was that?” Caleb asked. He sounded little more than eight years old.

  “I think it was the slider door slamming shut,” Marci whispered.

  They remained rooted in place another ten, twenty, thirty seconds. When no further sound came, Marci poked Caleb in the ribs and he lurched forward. They traversed the final three feet with Marci clutching the hem of Caleb’s shirt, Caleb’s shaky grip on the flashlight causing the strobe to tattoo wild patterns on the closed door before them.

  “Did you shut the door?” Caleb asked.

  Marci shook her head, eyes wide. They held each other’s gaze a moment longer. Marci moved close, and whispered in Caleb’s ear, “I’m scared.” He only looked at her in reply, the whites of his eyes the most pronounced thing in the reflective glow of the flashlight. Marci reached out and gripped the doorknob. Caleb nodded his acquiescence, holding both flashlight and knife aloft, and Marci turned the knob and pushed open the door before she could change her mind.

  The heretofore useless lamp at Marci’s bedside turned on at once, throwing the room into brightness. The clock radio came to life, blaring music at an impossible volume, the English synthpop band, The Human League: “Don’t… don’t you want me? You know I can’t believe it when I hear that you won’t see me…” The manufactured piano chords and eighties techno beat plunged the room into something surreal, a scene from a home invasion horror film, the characters so distracted by the too-loud music they don’t see the masked men sidling up to the slider door.

  Marci spun to regard the curtainless slider. There was no one there.

  Caleb shouted, “Turn this shit off!”

  “You turn it off!”

  “There’s no one in here, Marci!”

  “There was someone here before! I know there was!”

  “Oh yeah? And they took your cell phone too, did they? Took your phone to snap more of their scary fucking pictures? Then why’s your phone on the fucking nightstand, Marci? Why’s it right fucking there where you put it?”

  Marci was about to yell back when she saw her phone, perched atop the mound of books where she’d left it to charge the night before. Nevertheless, she persisted. “The phone was gone. The power was out! I heard someone breathing in the closet, pushing the clothes aside to make his way into the room. Why won’t you believe me? They’ve been sneaking in, taking pictures to document the horrific tortures they’ve inflicted, have targeted me next, and you won’t believe me!”

  Caleb circled the bed and snatched up her phone, brandishing it at her like a weapon. “I don’t believe you because you’re fucking nuts, Marci. Paranoid, hysterical, and nuts.”

  He withdrew several steps, his back to the slider, still waving the phone as if he were trying to get the attention of a dog or a small child. “The pictures were some goddamn glitch, the things they showed weren’t real, no one’s out to get you, and most importantly,” he threw the phone at her, and out of reflex, she caught it, “you’re out of your fucking mind!”

  The glass pane shattered behind him in a shrieking blast, the imploding glass shooting into the room with such ferocity that Marci didn’t immediately realize a pair of black-gloved hands shot forward too. Out of the dark and into the room, they circled Caleb’s chest and pulled him back so suddenly, the only thing he had time to do was drop the knife.

  The second man stepped forward, boots crunching over shards of glass, the sound melding with the maddening blare of music and the screams Marci hadn’t realized she’d been emitting. He swiped the flashlight from Caleb’s hand and bashed him dispassionately over the head. Caleb went limp in the first man’s grip. The second man grabbed Caleb’s legs, and together, they carried Caleb off the porch and into the night, the hoot of an owl punctuating their disappearance.

  By the time Marci had stopped screaming and rushed out onto the deck, there was nothing visible beneath the moonlight but cold, black pavement and the cold, black void of a night that had swallowed Caleb up.

  —

  The last police officer had departed at four AM, leaving Marci to steal a few hours of fitful sleep on the living room couch, as far away from the boarded-up slider door as she could get.

  Caleb was gone. The police had found no trace of the intruders, but were at least obliged, now, to take Marci’s concerns over the photos seriously. She retrieved her phone from the coffee table, where it sat beside the frame she’d righted before falling asleep. Marci had thought the police would have taken the phone as evidence, but the young officer had been satisfied with Marci sending the files to his department email address for analysis.

  Marci scrolled through the images again, searching for something she might have missed, some clue to the location of the red room, or the identities of the men who’d come for Caleb. When she reached the final photo, she backed out a screen. There was an additional photo, waiting, unviewed. Marci peered over her shoulder, but the big bay window harbored neither cryptic shadow nor alien shape. With shaking fingers, Marci opened the photo.

  The red room’s inflamed hue seemed to have grown redder with the grease of fresh blood. The room’s newest occupant sat in the red-slicked tub, against the red-washed wall, where black-red plasma dripped from the ceiling, and rose-red lakes covered the floor. The space where the victim’s head had been was red gore, and red muscle, and other red things that glistened and twitched in the red room’s light.

  Caleb’s head sat atop the chair, splintered bone where the vertebra had severed setting him slightly askew, waiting as one of the men assembled glittering rows of silver-red tools, the only objects not entirely red in the expanse of red-swathed room. Even the man’s dark clothes simmered red in the fever-dream miasma of the swinging bare bulb.

  The
second man was absent from the shot, having been enlisted to aim the camera.

  The expression on Caleb’s face was one of immense pleading.

  His eyes said, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you…

  SOMETHING BORROWED SOMETHING BLOOD-SOAKED

  The fire gave an inviting crackle as Bella’s new husband locked her in a fervent embrace.

  Bella pulled back. “We should get going. Everyone will be wondering where we are.”

  “Chill, Bel,” Luke said. “No one expects the bride and groom to appear right after the wedding. Besides,” he pressed his face obnoxiously into the bodice of her gown, “it’s your fault we’re so late.”

  Bella pulled away again and started across the lobby of The Stanley Hotel, catching her reflection in the window along with dozens of candle-lit Jack-o’-lanterns. This should feel romantic, she thought as Luke pushed past her out the door. And anyway, it wasn’t my idea to spend the last hour trekking to the edge of the forest with such a heavy load.

  Ghost hunters peppered the patio, wielding EMF meters and handheld audio recorders like picket signs, hoping the historic hotel would cough up a paranormal phenomenon. Maybe this will be their lucky night. Bella didn’t believe in ghosts, but if anyone was stubborn enough to come back and haunt The Stanley’s halls, it would be Aunt Louise.

  At the concert hall, a wart-nosed witch took their tickets. “Oooh!” she squealed. “You’re the bride and groom who were married here this afternoon. And how cute! You’ve covered your wedding dress and tuxedo with blood for your costumes.” She squinted at them over the ticket booth. “It looks so real!”

  “Right,” Luke laughed. “Now we’re Corpse Bride and Groom!”

  Bella looked down at her dress. The splatters of blood were such that she could never have duplicated the pattern a second time. It called to mind the incomprehensible squiggles of her great-aunt’s account ledgers, and Bella’s feeling of powerlessness the day she’d announced her engagement to Luke. Louise’s response: “Married! To a boy with the Devil in his eyes?”