Bloody Story

Genniva couldn’t wait to take a shower. After drama practice all of her sticky makeup was running down her face by the time she got into the house.

“Mom!” Brian rushed in before Genniva even got through the door, “Is my costume ready?”

“Do you really think you should still go out in this hon?” Thunder rolled off in the distance.

“Mom, I can’t miss Halloween!”

Genniva heard echos of the ensuing argument as she hurried up the stairs and into her room.

‘Anything to get out of these wet clothes!’

In no time the water was running and she was getting ready to hop in. Some tangles in her long red hair kept her occupied.

‘I hate these stupid bobby pins! I never remember where they all are.’

Finally after some struggle she managed to steep her cold, wet, aching body into the steaming tub. She laid there in complete relaxation for a few minutes letting her hair wave back and forth around her head, which was only a nose length above the water.

‘I suppose I should shave, now’. Hearing sounds of bustling outside the bathroom, she knew her brother would need a ride and her mom wouldn’t possibly go out on a night like this. Her mom was pretty superstitious about silly stuff. Ever since they had moved to this house her mother had complained of strange nightmares that only happened when it was storming.

‘I just know I’m going to die during a storm. It might not happen until I’m old, but one day a storm is going to kill me.’

‘Ah man, I left my razor.’ Unfortunately, her stash of razors was in the downstairs bathroom, and she didn’t really feel like getting out of the comfortable tub. She looked around as if some solution to this problem would come to her with enough concentration. Surprisingly enough it did, or so she thought.

“Oh cool!” She picked up the razor that had been lying on the tub’s edge. It looked old fashioned, like the ones from the fifties. It was fairly hefty for a razor, made completely out of metal.

“I bet mom got this, she gets the weirdest stuff.”

She applied the shaving cream and carefully swiped once up her leg.
“Wow, that is sharp, it got everything in one swipe.”

She kept swiping around her leg and was nearly done with the first leg when she heard something. It seemed to be coming from the drain, some kind of strange gurgling noise.

‘Odd. Oh well…’

She continued on her shave and had nearly finished the other leg when she nicked herself on the corner of her angle. At first she didn’t really concern herself but when she glanced back at it, she noticed that it was bleeding fairly heavily. A small stream of blood kept pouring out of it. She pulled the leg up out of the water, but the stream continued to dribble down. She grabbed the washrag that was on the nearby toilet and tried to stop it with that, but the blood began to leak through her fingers. A great amount of blood now was in the tub and she quickly called for her mother and pulled herself out of the tub.

She began to rummage through the medicine cabinet above the sink for the first aide kit. The blood was now making a large pool on the floor. She became exasperated when she couldn’t find it on any shelf, and now she was bleeding on the bathroom rug and on her clothes.

“Mother! Come here!”

When she turned back to the bathroom from yelling for her mom she was forced to use her lungs again but not for yelling; this time for screaming. In the tub the pool of blood, which had fallen to the bottom by the drain, was now, as if driven by some evil force, strung out to make a word in the water.

‘BLOODY’

As soon as she recovered from her terror she turn to run out, but the bathroom door slammed in front of her.

“Mom! Mom!! Come HERE!!!!”

She accentuated her scream as the gurgle in the tub began again but this time intensified into an alien voice.

“No one’s coming… no one.”

“MOM!!!”

It began to call her, “Genniva… Genniva…”

Terror stricken she thought if she screamed loud enough she could make the voice go away. “SHUT UP!!!!”

“Bloody… you’re all bloody.”

Pain unthinkable seared her entire body. There wasn’t a part on her that didn’t burn. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t move, she could do nothing but feel pain. Finally, blackness came and then all was quiet.

“Genniva, Genniva… wake up dear. You’re having that dream again.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear, everything’s alright.” She heard her mother’s voice quiver on the last word.

“Mom what’s wrong, why can’t I see anything?”

“Hold on, let me unwrap you.”

She waited and her mother’s hands came across her face and seemed to pull away dressing of some sort. In her mom’s eyes she saw great fear and pain. Brian was sitting at the foot of her bed hunched and silent.

“What’s wrong with me.”

“Well, it’s… your face.”

“I want to see it.”

Her mother looked sharply at the bathroom nearby where the door was open and the light was on. “No, don’t say,” and then she began to silently mouth, ‘NO!’

She began feebly to change the subject, “It stormed really bad while you were sleeping, Genniva.”

The drain began to gurgle anyway.

“I shut all of the windows, and did my best to keep it out, but I couldn’t.”

The drain gurgle began to get louder.

“I knew it would kill me.”

“What!” Genniva jumped out of bed, surprised that she didn’t feel any pain from her wounds. She looked straight into the bed room mirror and screamed the most blood curdling of all screams because there before her was her face. It was slashed up and down with blood curled and dried all around it.

“I’m dead! I’m a corpse!”

“A corpse! Now Genniva don’t go jumping to conclusions here, it’s just a scratch.”

“A scratch! It looks like I got chopped up with a machete!”

“An axe dear, an axe… but really a corpse! I don’t think you can qualify for that until you’ve been dead for at least a week.”

“Besides,” Brian chipped in, “I love watching the beetles tap dance. It tickles some times.”

Genniva thought she’d be sick.

“What about roaches, please don’t let the roaches get me!”

“Oh don’t worry, it’s only the water beetle jurisdiction here, and I think they have some kind of trade agreement with the worms, and fire ants as well.”

“Fire ants!”

“But don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.”

Brian closed his comic book, “You know I really think there’s just something rather fun about watching your own body decay. It’s kind of like watching a forensic science show, and you’re the main character.”

“And the best thing is,” her mom sat down next to Brian, “I don’t have to worry about storms anymore. We had a big one, and yeah it tore my body to bits but now it’s gone. I mean really who needs a body anyway.”

“I do.”

“No Genniva,” her mom leaned forward to make her point, “you’re just being vain. You’re just a product of watching too many underwear commercials, after a couple of days you’ll learn that being bodiless is way more comfortable than wearing Haines or Fruit of the Loom.”

“Yeah man,” Brian stretched out his pants and looked down as if inspecting something, “When these beetles get done with my colon I’ll be nothin’ but breeze, if you know what I mean.”

“I can’t handle this!”

“Oh Gen…”

She pushed herself back from them…”Get away from me!”

Immediately her arms flailed in the water splashing the entire bathroom, and she took a deep gulp of soapy water.

“Gen! When are you going to be done, people are going to be turning off their porch lights!”

“Oh,” Genniva struggled to realize what had happened and struggled to get out of the tub and grab her robe, “Brian I’m so sorry. I’ll be right out.”