Water Wets the Needle’s Thread
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
The fly lands on the mirror’s edge, the glass stained with grime, its corners green with gunk, cracks splintering through all but one corner, the frame crudely pieced together with glue and nails, paint flecks exposing the swollen chipboard beneath.
The water spits and surges from the shower head, splashing across the tiled floor, its cold fingers clawing as it spirals down the drain beside a gentle wash of red.
His pale arm lies lifeless at the water’s edge, scarred flesh pulled tight around fresh wounds sewn together in crooked lines. Thread hangs uncut, knots tightened taut against the wrinkled flesh.
Fingernails drift gently across the pale flesh, tracing the scars stretching from wrist to elbow, dozens resting in different stages of recovery.
A giggle dances around the room as she burrows her head into his side.
His stomach is drowned in ink—satanic sigils, naked women, flayed bodies and burning pyres sprawled across the flesh. The tattoos crawl from beneath his belly button, up over his chest and around his throat.
His wet goatee clings to him, his teeth bared as every breath drags from his lungs, strained and uneven.
Her fingers trace the veins along his biceps and disappear up into his shoulders. She looks at him, amusement dancing across her lips as her eyes widen and she digs her fingernails into the space between muscle and sinew.
A fresh stream of red squeezes free as she slowly pulls the exposed vein out through the torn flesh with her fingertips, like a worm dragged from wet earth.
She holds it there as his body convulses, pinning the vein to the skin with a safety pin while tears run down his face and her grin softens as she kisses him passionately.
She grabs the back of his head by the hair, pressing their naked flesh against each other before slamming his head into the tiles with a wet crack.
She sits cross-legged and threads a strand of her hair through the eye of a needle before carelessly sewing the flesh back together, keeping the vein perched outside the skin.
He trembles.
She slaps his face, grabs him by the lips and forces them together before placing a finger softly against her own, shushing him while a murky sea of red spreads beneath his head.
Her eyes are empty voids swallowing the room around them. The lights flash, and the room collapses into darkness. A deafening beat tears through him like a scream. He blinks through the fevered madness and finds himself staring at a mirrored image of himself, a grotesque doppelganger standing across from where he lies, laughing with her.
They both point at him, mocking him.
Then they’re kissing, their bodies grinding together in front of him.
He’s drowned in the musky smell of sweat and sex, his lips quivering with arousal as he grabs at himself, only to find a mound of sewn flesh instead. He looks down and gags, the lower half of his body severed and lying a few feet away in a congealed pool of crimson.
He chokes on a breath, his eyes widening as he convulses violently, his head smacking against the floor with grotesque wet cracks as thick streams of red spill beneath him.
He rocks as he feels her hands on him again while she purrs into his ear, then bites it gently.
“It’s time now, David. Choose your fate.”
“M—My fate?” he stammers.
“Uh-huh,” she hums.
“W—What d—do I have to choose?” he murmurs as she gently blows into his ear.
“To stay here with me, forever, or,” she purrs.
“O—Or?” he mutters.
She pulls away from him and stares into his wide, petrified eyes while the room hums softly around them.
“Or you wake up.”
Did this one sink its teeth into you?
Then feed it. Share it. Let it loose on someone else.
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