Splatterpunk Fighting Back

by Bracken MacLeod

  “That’s right, Isaac. Go sleep it off.”

  When she turned back to the desk, her face had gone stern. Her green eyes were mesmerizing. Caleb tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. His nerves were all over the place.

  The corners of Anne Marie’s red lips turned upward.

  He was frozen. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his neck.

  The lobby doors rattled open.

  Donna held up a six-pack of Bud Light.

  “Hey, stop eye-fucking that boy and come drink these with me,” she said.

  Anne Marie gave him a wink and turned.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  Caleb tried his best to focus on his computer, blindly scrolling through his Facebook feed, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off Anne Marie. It was like his brain and his body were betraying him. He’d hated this bitch since the first day their company placed them at the hotel. He’d overheard Isaac and Donna mentioning that this was their last week at this job. Caleb surmised that the group was heading elsewhere, and he couldn’t wait. But was it possible that he’d wanted Anne Marie the whole time? The thought repulsed and excited him.

  And tonight, “you could be cute….” That wink and the smile. “See something you like?”

  By 9:30, now joined by Lizzy, the three women headed for the elevator. Only Lizzy said good-night. He collected their cans from the table and wiped down the area.

  Anne Marie said good-night to Donna and Lizzy, and headed for Isaac’s room. He’d want to fuck her one last time, especially with them parting ways in the morning, but she had other plans. She knocked on his door.

  He was smiling as he let her in.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  He tried to snake his arms around her, but she slapped him hard across the face, and repeated the command.

  Isaac, holding his meaty hand to his reddened cheek, looked ready to cry.

  Pussy.

  “I get it, all right? I have a family, but we should—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.”

  He fell silent, his shoulders slumped.

  She set her red handbag next to him.

  “We’ve had some fun, haven’t we? Don’t answer that.” She took a seat on the bench against the wall. “All this time, and you never once told me you loved me.”

  “I…”

  He tried to say it, but she knew he couldn’t. Which didn’t mean shit to her; she’d never felt a thing for him, either.

  “That’s okay, Isaac. I know you’re incapable of loving anyone besides yourself. Your poor wife. Does she know what a slut you are?”

  He went to open his mouth.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  She stood and walked toward the bathroom.

  “Isaac, there’s someone I’d like for you to meet.”

  “What?”

  Anne Marie flicked off the room’s main light.

  Molly’s silhouette stood before the room’s window. Something gleamed in her hand.

  Anne Marie smiled and went to Isaac. She pulled his chin up and kissed him.

  His hands found her ass.

  She lowered her lips to his ear. “Okay, big boy. Put your hands over your head.”

  “I knew it, hell yes, I knew it,” he said.

  Anne Marie produced a set of handcuffs from her bag at the end of the bed.

  She cuffed his wrists and trailed a finger down his chest.

  “That’s so fucking hot,” he said.

  She felt his big prick press against her thigh.

  “I can’t believe we waited so long to role play.”

  She grabbed a second set of cuffs and a piece of rope from the bag.

  “Oh, baby. Don’t you even worry. I took a shit ton of Viagra. I’m gonna cum and cum again.”

  Anne Marie held the handcuffs in her teeth as she undid his khaki’s and pulled the waistband of his underwear down, releasing “Kong.”

  She teased him, letting her lips drag across his jizz-drooling cock.

  He moaned and pressed himself against her.

  On the floor, she cuffed his ankles and tied the rope through the chain. She tossed the rope under the bed and felt it pull taught.

  Anne Marie crawled back up and took him in her mouth.

  “Hey, who…oh, god, you are so fucking good. You, oh….ah…hey, wait? What the fuck? Who is that?”

  Her lips made a loud smacking sound as she came up for air. She reached into her bag of tricks and brought out the role of duct tape. She stretched out a piece, tore it off, and slammed it over Isaac’s mouth as he struggled, the cuffs on his wrists now tightly bound beneath the bed to the ones at his ankles.

  She lit the candle he kept on his nightstand,

  Molly sat beside him. He was horizontally stretched across the bed, bound and at their mercy.

  His eyes looked ready to explode from their sockets. He began squirming and flopping, a dying fish frying on the hot concrete, knowing something was about to go exponentially fucking wrong.

  “Isaac, Molly. Molly…make him scream.”

  He turned his gaze to Anne Marie, mumbling something beneath the tape.

  Anne Marie stepped back and watched as Molly, knife in hand, slid off the bed, and quiet as a mouse, slid the razor-sharp blade across Isaac’s Achilles tendons.

  Isaac’s top half thrashed in overdrive. Tears spilled from his horrified eyes.

  “Molly’s wanted to meet you for some time.”

  He tried to speak, but it was useless.

  “Oh, dear Isaac, you’ve never had anything to say, why bother now?”

  Molly climbed from beneath the bed and stood at her side.

  Molly craned her head up. Anne Marie nodded. The doll, holding the blood covered blade, started toward the bed.

  Shaking his head back and forth, trying to buck himself free, Isaac squirmed in terror as the doll pressed the blade to his throat and drew a crimson smile across his tanned flesh.

  “Molly, can I trust you to take care of the girls?”

  The doll looked back and nodded.

  “Good. I’m going to have a little fun of my own. Meet me back in the room in an hour.”

  Anne Marie left Molly to take care of Isaac. She headed toward the elevator.

  Caleb slammed the phone down.

  Fucking Stephen, that piece of shit.

  Thanks to that jerk off, Caleb would be pulling a double. The asshole claimed he’d broken his ankle while trying to help a man from being attacked in Capitol Park. That was bullshit. The guy didn’t have a brave bone in his body. More likely, the fucking loser twisted his ankle trying to catch a fucking Pokémon with his phone. Caleb couldn’t count the times Stephen had tried to engage him in conversations about that ridiculous waste of time app.

  Caleb was about to pick up his comic when Anne Marie sauntered up to the desk.

  She held her room keys at chest level, her cleavage redirecting Caleb’s brain.

  “Sorry, my keys aren’t working. I feel like an idiot. I might have had them next to my phone.” She reached into her blouse and freed the phone from her bra. Her nipple reappeared.

  “Oh, my god, I am so…” she fixed her bra and shirt.

  “It’s all…it’s all right, I can make you new ones,” he said.

  He couldn’t stop his eyes from returning to her chest as if he had a .44 kissing his temple.

  “Actually,” she said, placing her hand on his, “I was hoping you’d bring your master key up. Just to make sure I get in. I don’t want to have to come…back down again.”

  Holy shit.

  He fumbled for his master keys and gave it a half second’s thought: escort her to her room with the intentions of promptly returning to the desk and keeping this job, or follow her into her room, see what she has to offer, and, in the worst-case scenario, get canned.

  “Yeah, of course. Lead the way,” he said.

  As he came around the desk, she hooked his arm.

  “I thought you di
dn’t like me,” she said.

  “Nah, what? You’re one of our best guests.”

  They reached the elevator. Caleb pressed the button.

  Her perfume was intoxicating.

  “I probably wasn’t so nice myself,” she said.

  Arm-in-arm, they entered the elevator. Before the doors even slid shut, she threw herself on him, slamming him against the wall. Her tongue in his mouth, her hand pressed against his dress pants, he kissed his job good-bye.

  Fuck it.

  Thank you, Stephen.

  Donna whispered, “Sixty-nine” into Lizzy’s ear.

  Lizzy didn’t hesitate to crawl around the bed and place her wet pussy to Donna’s face.

  Donna let her tongue go to work, somewhat shocked but equally turned on by how quick her padawan had plunged into the world of girl-on-girl. And goddamn was she a fast learner. Donna squeaked as the young woman pressed into her and flicked away at her clitoris like a snake in the grass.

  She had Lizzy’s delicious juices all over her face when the door to the room opened and the lights died.

  Donna eased away from Lizzy, Lizzy did the same, as both women scurried to cover themselves with the bed sheet.

  The door closed and left them in complete darkness.

  “Hello?” Donna said. “Anne Marie? Is that you?”

  She couldn’t think of anyone else it could be, but how and why she would have a key…

  Lizzy yelped as she disappeared from the bed. The coolness left in her wake sent a shiver up Donna’s spine.

  “Lizzy, are you all right?”

  The silence of the moment was shattered by thick, gurgling sounds coming from the floor

  “Lizzy?”

  Donna prided herself on having the upper hand in every situation she encountered, like with Lizzy, like with any man she chose, even with Anne Marie, letting her co-worker believe she was the Queen Bee in their hive, but Donna knew better. Now, that confidence was seeping out at warp speed.

  She reached for the lamp on the nightstand and felt something sharp puncture her wrist. She gasped. Whatever it was went in one side of her wrist, came out the other, and then was pulled back out. It happened in seconds. She pulled her arm to her chest and felt the warmth of her blood spill between her tits and down to her navel.

  “Please, who’s there?”

  She heard someone shuffle around the bed. She didn’t dare reach for the light again.

  “Lizzy, she whimpered. “Help me.”

  She was stabbed just beneath the ribs.

  She moaned and tumbled toward her assailant, falling to the floor.

  Her face smacked against the thin rug, her body crumbled down.

  “Please,” she cried quietly.

  She was punctured like a pincushion, over and over, in the breast, the shoulder, the neck, and finally, before she could scream, there was a blinding wave of pain as the blade entered her eye and shoved through to her brain.

  Anne Marie let Caleb open the door and then tackled him to the bed.

  Caleb’s body tingled from head to toe in anticipation as she opened his pants, and slipped her hand past the waistband of his underwear, wrapping her hand around his stiff cock and stroking him to the point of madness.

  “Oh my God, fuck,” he mumbled through his gritted teeth.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You like that?”

  “Fuck, yes.”

  “I’m going to give you a night you’ll never forget,” she said.

  He felt like he was going to explode in her hand. He crawled back, trying not to cum too fast like a goddamn chump.

  She freed her hand, slithered down his body, pulled his cock free and took it in her mouth.

  Caleb had never felt such intensity in any of his previous sexual experiences. His mind spun, his thoughts flew from corner to corner, as his hands clenched the comforter beneath him, he cried out in ecstasy, delirious as he spurted again and again.

  She swallowed every drop, leaving him spasming on his back, his eyes closed, a smile smeared to his face, sweating and on the verge of giggling like a schoolgirl.

  He put his hands over his eyes and breathed a sigh. He didn’t look up until he heard the door open and close.

  Sitting up, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “What the…?” he said.

  The doll reached up and took Anne Marie’s hand.

  “Caleb, meet Molly.”

  She’d talked about this doll since the first week she began staying at the hotel. Molly was a bit of running joke around the back office. Even Justin and Angie had fun with it. They’d claimed to have seen Molly, but Caleb never had until now.

  He stared at Molly. She was the “child” he’d seen in the window, the silhouette next to Anne Marie last night. And she was alive.

  “Jesus, what is she?”

  Anne Marie, ignoring his question, bent and met the doll’s dead gaze.

  “Molly,” she said. “He’s all yours. Just remember, you need to clean up your mess.”

  With that, Anne Marie opened the door, offered him one last sinister smile and left them alone.

  Caleb’s psyche could not get around the vision standing before him.

  The fucking doll was alive.

  Then he noticed the bloody knife in Molly’s hand, his gaze travelled to the crimson splotches on the doll’s filthy white dress.

  Caleb hastily buttoned his pants, and crawled across the bed to the phone on the nightstand. Who the fuck was he going to call? He was supposed to be at the desk. He heard shuffling and looked back at the entrance.

  Molly was gone.

  Holding the phone like a weapon, he scanned the room.

  This was fucked.

  He was fucked.

  How many times do you hear never get involved with your guests? And he never had. The one time… he still couldn’t believe it had even happened. He hated that Anne Marie, and yet…

  “Fuck!” Caleb cried out as the knife sunk into his thigh.

  The goddamn doll was going to kill him. He reached down to snatch the thing by its yarn-like yellow hair when it pulled the knife free and swiped at him. The blade ran across his wrist, splattering the wall by the phone with his blood. He drew his hand back and flung himself across the bed and to the floor.

  I’m gonna bleed out.

  Trying to get up, his leg buckled. his attempt to catch himself failed, thanks to his bleeding wrist. Caleb hit the floor and wanted to cry. He was feeling woozy and weak. Everything was happening so damn fast.

  Molly appeared above him. Her button eyes had changed. The plastic pieces that had been sewn there had melted into two black pools, pulsing and swirling with death.

  He had just enough time to bring his good arm up as she dropped down. The knife clutched in her hands entered one side of his forearm and came out the other, and drove into his chest. Her weight was impossible. It felt like there was a boulder on top of him. He felt the tip of the weapon pierce his pectoral and prayed it wouldn’t hit his heart or lungs. Despite the pain, he forced himself to roll. The move knocked Molly off balance and to the floor. Gritting his teeth, Caleb stood. The tip of the blade came free from his chest as he hobbled toward the door with the knife sticking through his arm. He glanced down at wet stain blossoming beneath his light blue work shirt.

  I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die.

  He reached the door, and tried to press the handle with his elbow.

  A sharp pain exploded in the back of his calf.

  Caleb fell backwards, the door handle racing away from him.

  The wind was knocked from his lungs as he hit the floor.

  Molly stood. Blood, his blood, smeared across her face. Moaning, his head swimming in a fog of blood-loss, Caleb watched as the creature’s mouth opened wide and slammed its needle-like teeth into his throat.

  Anne Marie went behind the front desk in the lobby. She pulled up Isaac’s room and hit the checkout button. She did the same with Lizzy and Donna. The ladies were single and
wouldn’t be reported missing for a few days. Isaac was a different story, his wife would be a mess, but all three would have checked out from the hotel and disappeared together. Prime suspect? The missing front desk agent that checked them out.

  Anne Marie grabbed a cup of Sleepytime tea from the coffee station and took a seat in the empty lobby; Molly needed time to finish Caleb. There would be nothing left of his body or the others. Molly never left so much as a fingernail behind. The group’s meager travel belongings would eventually be found strewn across the field out back of the hotel, but that would be another dead end. They always were.

  Anne Marie and Molly had a Caribbean Cruise to catch tomorrow. A long overdue vacation, just the two of them. What kind of fun could they have out to sea? The possibilities were endless.

  Only Angels Know - George Daniel Lee

  No. Never, never right; never the way it's painted inside my eyes. I try...everything. I promise, I threaten; I kiss and scream until I can barely move, until they abandon me, abandon the art...none of them...none of them understand. If they did, perhaps they'd do as I ask, be as I require. None of them can, no matter what the magazines say; the mewling, empty praises of critics, the professions of love, the scented, seeping letters...it doesn't matter. None of it right.

  Painting with bodies, making art from the living...almost impossible. The dead? I tried that already; donated corpses, barely cooled; men, women, children...one who'd been in a car crash, another a suicide, flung before a train, another burned alive, charred of distinction. They love me, they hate me; call me prodigy and pervert; monster and messiah. This... the driving imperative, the first inspiration. Everything else...echoes; fumbling foal's steps. I'm nearly there, so close, so close, to seeing it, making it real.

  We came close today, so close I dared to believe; offering a prayer of thanks to whatever masochist muse, whatever flayed God, ripped open my mind and bled dreams into me. Premature; a child hacking its first and only breath. The breakdown taking a little slice of my soul with it, leeching me away. So tired, but I won't sleep; not yet. How many days has it been? I remember Monday...the rain, the protests outside the studio. Some Christian group, I think, the images on their signs and placards a thousand times more gruesome than anything I've ever created: