His Blood

by Laura Shell

He kept banging his head against the door at a breakneck speed. I could only imagine what that was doing to his head as I pressed against the other side, anxiety sending electricity through my whole body. 

"Please stop," I screamed.

He did. "Let me in." He kept trying the locked doorknob. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just wanna talk." 

Well, that was a lie. He had already hurt me. I felt every bruise from every wall he had slammed me against, and my throat was sore from his failed attempt at strangling me to death. How I had managed to lock myself inside this room was a major miracle.

"I said I was sorry, Richard. I don't know what else to say."

But I wasn't sorry.

The doorknob became still, and his breathing sounded labored, as if he were breathing heavily through his nose.

He chuckled. "I can't accept that. You need to pay for killing my father."

A loud boom against the door. He was throwing himself against it. Once. Twice. And then it opened.

Well, fuck. Now what?

He walked toward me with a bloodied forehead and a menacing snarl. I backed away, gritting my teeth, wishing I had one of my knives on me.

"WHY did you kill my father?"

I could have come up with some lame story about abuse, but I knew he wouldn't buy it. So I decided to own my shit.

I stopped moving and put my hands on my hips. After a sigh, I said, "Because I'm the Sayerville Slasher." 

He pointed at me and laughed.

"I can prove it."

He stopped laughing and took a long, hard look at me. "You're serious?"

I went to the floor beside the bed, lifted a loose piece of hardwood, and retrieved a Polaroid camera, along with some photos and one other item.

"Please sit." I patted the bed next to me as I sat. 

Sitting side by side, I showed him photos of my kills. "Mark Monroe. He was a student."

Richard recoiled at the state of what Mark Monroe had been left in—lying on the floor in a giant pool of blood. I looked at the photo with a grin, remembering the way the knife slit his carotid artery like butter. Mark had been unaware that he'd been sliced. I keep my knives that fucking sharp. I had watched him bleed out. I love the sight of blood, especially when it's oozing out of someone's flesh.

Next picture. "Jasper Oliver. He was a plumber."

Richard grimaced.

Next picture. "Gregory Chapman. Hotel manager."

Richard made a face again, then noticed the blood racing down his arm. His blood.

Laura Shell has been published in NUNUM, Maudlin House, and X-RAY, among other publications. Her first anthology of paranormal stories, The Canine Collection, was released in 2024. She's a prolific writer and submitter of flash fiction and the editor of the Flash Phantoms horror fiction site—www.flashphantoms.net. You can find more about her work at https://laurashellhorror.wordpress.com.