Welcome to Paradise: A Short Story of Brutal Love Read online

  “Ahhhh fuck!”

  Blood spurted from the wound like a hellish fountain, bringing a painful smile to her face. He dropped the blade and threw his hand over the wound, stumbling sideways.

  She couldn’t fuck around. She needed to end this fucking bastard before he decided to kill her first. She had a Glock under the mattress. She normally liked to pick her victims apart using less traditional methods, but she had to get this guy immobilized first, then they could play. She jumped up, feeling the ache in her side, goddam busted rib or two no doubt, and she’d make him pay all right. She managed to pull the gun from its hiding place, but the fuck was on her again. She wasn’t going to blindly shoot, not if she didn’t want the police showing up. She clutched the gun to her side as he collided into her, knocking them both into the bureau. This time the TV took the fall, landing with a thud in the kitty-corner space behind the furniture.

  “You think you’re gonna put a bullet in me, huh?” He grabbed her wrists and twisted it until the gun fell. “I was gonna fuck you one more time for good meas--”

  She headbutted him in the nose, bringing a fresh coat of blood to their party.

  “Fucking cunt…”

  She followed up with a knee to his balls and a right hook to his face. She snatched the gun up as he hit the floor, grabbed the pillow from the bed using it as a cheap silencer, though the devil knew it was gonna still be loud as fuck, and popped the asshole in the knee.

  He howled again. She brought her leg up and dropped her heel onto his already busted nose.

  Naked below the waist, Veronica snagged a bottle of Jim Beam from the mini-fridge, took two big swallows, and slammed it down on the tiny table below the window. The burn in her wounded lips made her knees weak. She gritted her teeth and breathed through it. “This was supposed to be a bit more routine,” she said. “But…you have definitely made things interesting, I ‘ll give you that.”

  “If you’re not gonna off me, you wanna give me some of that booze? Or are you just gonna try and talk my ear off through that pretty little mess you call a mouth?”

  He was a fierce little fucker, she’d give him that. Hell, she’d be full of shit if she didn’t admit to almost liking him for it. She grabbed the bottle and walked over to him.

  His shirt was soaked with blood. His beautiful face looked even better dressed in ruin.

  “You want this?” She held the half-empty bottle above his disaster of a knee.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  She tilted the bottle and let the auburn remedy pour onto his leg.

  It was his turn to grit his teeth. He laid back, slamming his hands on the ground, grunting, the cords in his neck taut, pushing against his crimson painted neck.

  “Oh, you’re gorgeous when you’re hurting. Here.” She handed him the booze. He sat up and took it with shaky hands. Guzzling it down like a man lost in the desert.

  She reached down, grabbing the pack of smokes poking out his jacket pocket. She was blindsided by the bottle as it crashed against her skull.

  She dropped down, sprawled out beside him, the world around her disconnected, drifting out in space, muffled and muted.

  “You’re good, honey, but overconfidence can kill ya.” She heard his voice like it was broadcasting from some far-off planet…her ears were ringing, she might have a goddam concussion. Worse than any fucking hangover. Her world returned to full color as she managed to roll over on her side. He took another swig and set the bottle down next to her and nodded.

  She sat up and took it.

  “You’re one tough cookie. You do this sort of thing regularly? Or is this some kind of one-off-lost-all-my-reason-to-give-a-shit-so-I’m-going-out-with-a-bang-type of gig?”

  “It’s more of an annual thing.”

  She took a swallow, clenched her eyes against the pain, and handed it back to him.

  He pulled out two cigarettes from the crushed pack, they were kind of cock-eyed, but still intact. He found his lighter on the floor and lit them together, handing one over.

  “You believe in anything?” he said.

  She thought of her sister, bald and fading away.

  “Death,” she said.

  He nodded. “Hard to argue with that one.”

  “You?”

  “Might sound stupid.”

  “Fuck you. Spill”

  “True love.”

  She was too tired to laugh. And frankly, she felt it, too. It wasn’t often that the universe, that cruel hard bitch who loved to suck the souls out of the living, threw a set of broken people something fucked up and beautiful to share.

  “If I come over there and kiss that bloody mouth of yours, are you gonna whack me with the bottle again?” she said.

  “That depends. You gonna put that gun to my head ‘til it goes click?”

  She hadn’t even realized the gun was still in her hand.

  “Guess this is our first trust test.”

  He made an effort to get closer to her, wincing from his multiple wounds.

  “Fuck off,” she said. She crawled over to him, gun in hand, shoved him flat on his back, and straddled him. That old Aerosmith song played in her mind. Back in the saddle again. He let go of the bottle of Beam, and closed his eyes.

  She put the gun to his temple.

  “Mr. Pete?”

  “Yeah, Miss V?”

  “I think this is the start of the most incredibly fucked up love story in American history.”

  She knew it was gonna hurt like hell, but she kissed him anyway.

  When the coppery taste of their lips parted, she laid her head on the unblemished side of his chest and gently traced her finger around the initial knife wound.

  “We’re gonna need to get up and get the fuck outta here soon.”

  “You got a place in mind?”

  “I’m supposed to be back in California in two weeks. I was thinking a cold-blooded road trip sounded pretty stellar.”

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “To death,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and grinned.

  “To true fucking love. Merry fucking Christmas.”

  Glenn Rolfe is an author from the haunted woods of New England. He has studied Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, and continues his education in the world of horror by devouring the novels of Stephen King and Richard Laymon. He and his wife, Meghan, have three children, Ruby, Ramona, and Axl. He is grateful to be loved despite his weirdness.

  Find Glenn on Twitter @grolfehorror

  And be sure to follow his blog: https://glennrolfe.com/

  Look for these titles by Glenn Rolfe

  Slush

  Out of Range

  The Haunted Halls

  Chasing Ghosts

  Abram’s Bridge

  Things We Fear

  Blood and Rain

  Becoming

  Coming Soon:

  Land of Bones

  The light of a full moon reveals many secrets.

  Blood and Rain

  © 2017 Glenn Rolfe

  Gilson Creek. A safe, rural community. Summer is here. School is out and the waters of Emerson Lake await. But one man’s terrible secret will unleash a nightmare straight off the silver screen.

  Under the full moon, a night of death and terror re-awakens horrors long sleeping. Sheriff Joe Fischer, a man fighting for the safety of his daughter, his sanity and his community, must confront the sins of his past. Can Sheriff Fischer set Gilson Creek free from the beast hiding in its shadows, or will a small town die under a curse it can’t even comprehend?

  One night can—and will—change everything.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Blood and Rain:

  Blood and Rain

  Glenn Rolfe

  Prologue

  Spring 1997

  Stan Springs stared at the curse in the night sky. His curse. He clenched his jaw, and bit back the grunts that demanded release from within his sweat-covered body. His muscles tightened, and took turn
s throwing fits. He could feel his heartbeat’s thunderous barrage at work inside his heaving chest. It was only a matter of minutes before the changes would come.

  He ripped his gaze from the clouds, moved away from the window, and knelt down next to the bed against the concrete wall. He slipped one shaky hand beneath the mattress and found the small incision he’d made when he first arrived at the institution. He had traded a guard, a heavy-set fella by the name of Harold Barnes, his prized Ted Williams rookie card in exchange for a copy of the key. Parting with this gold mine had been necessary. Stan Springs had nothing else of value with which to barter. Harold trusted him enough to make the swap; he told Stan there were crazies here by the dozen, but that he could tell that Stan was not one of them.

  No, Harold, I’m something far worse.

  Key in hand, Stan stepped to the door, and cracked it open. The hallway was clear. He moved down the corridor, as stealthy as his heydays working on the force in New York. Hearing footfalls ahead and to his left, he fell back and pressed his large frame against the custodial door. Hidden by the entryway’s shadow, he watched Nurse Collins– a tall, thin woman with a dark complexion– pass fifty feet from where he stood, before she disappeared into the nurse’s break room. Barefoot and dressed in only a Red Sox t-shirt and his sleeping shorts, Stan made a break for the staircase across the hall. His breaths were coming faster now. If he didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t make it outside. He crept down the steps leading to the main hallway. Through the small window on the stairwell door, he could see Harold Barnes’s haunted jowls illuminated by the laptop screen set in front of him. The old man’s eyes were closed, his mouth open. Harold didn’t even make it an hour into his shift before he was out. Stan knew Harold also ran his own antique shop in the neighboring town of Hallowell. He’d told Stan that working both jobs on the same day, which was sometimes unavoidable, made it difficult for him on the nightshift. It was another shared nugget Stan had stored away for nights like this one–the nights the beast in him needed to get out.

  Easing the door open, Stan skulked his way along the shadows on the wall, and tiptoed to the main entrance door. Despite the cramps now rampaging through his calves and thighs, he slipped the procured key into the lock, slow and steady. The door clicked open, and he stepped out into the night. As the cool breeze brushed against the sweat of his brow, the tendons and bones in his face began to shift. The rest of his body followed suit. He dropped to one knee, and cried out. His skin, his scalp, his eyes, his muscles were all too tight. He reached behind him and managed to push the door shut.

  If you could see me now, Harold.

  The private road out front was deserted. He launched from the building’s stairs and landed on the lawn below, making a beeline for the woods to the left of the large property. He was twenty feet from the forest when the change hit him like a massive wave, crashing him to the ground. His muscles clenched and squeezed and tore, while the bones of his face continued to crack and grow. Down on all fours, he crawled to the tree cover and vomited. A mix of last night’s cafeteria meat loaf, black coffee, and blood splashed the ferns before him. Stan’s fingers extended as his claws dug into the soft soil of spring’s floor. He moaned and grunted his way through the rest of the fluid process.

  In full beast mode, Stan Springs stood and howled at the cloud-covered sky. The creatures of the night became ghosts among the trees. He felt the strength flowing through him, and the hunger begging to be sated.

  He burst forward, headed north. Despite Stan’s best effort to control the beast’s killing zone, he found himself heading home.

  Read the rest of Blood and Rain.

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