One Love
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
He swings the shovel wildly towards the two men, sending blood and dirt spraying from the blade and splashing into the rain-soaked ground.
“I told you to go! I won’t tell you AGAIN!” he yells.
“Samuel! For fuck’s sake, son, she’s gone, and what’s left ain’t her ANYMORE! You have to let us do what must be done. Can’t you see you’re endangering everyone with this madness?” his father yells back, narrowly avoiding the edge of the shovel as Samuel swings it violently towards him again.
“You’re WRONG! You’re all wrong! She’s still in there, I can see it! Just leave us ALONE!”
“We can’t do that. This is for the best, little brother. I hope someday you’ll understand why we had to do this!” his brother yells as he launches himself forward, tackling him into the mud.
They both go crashing into the soaked earth with a splash. His father makes a mad dash for the door as the two struggle in the mud. Samuel fights frantically against his brother, but as he screams in terror, two deafening shots ring out from inside the house, followed quickly by silence.
The two brothers come to a stop, both staring towards the doorway. Samuel forces his brother off him, scrambles to his feet, and rushes frantically towards the door before a scream erupts from inside, freezing him in place. His mind explodes with panic, fear, desperation, and finally hope as he realises the scream was not hers, but that of his father. His brother slowly makes his way to his side, and they trade a nervous glance before a sea of red bursts from the doorway, drenching them both.
They stand there in silence for a few moments, frozen in fear. Then his brother lets out a cry of anger and rushes into the house. Samuel stands there as he hears his brother’s cries grow louder, shifting from anger to pain, and then into something deeper, something more primal. How long he stood there he can’t remember, but it was well after the screaming had stopped and the chewing began.
He looks up into the bleak night sky and lets the rain swallow him whole, masking the tears that stream down his face as he collapses to his knees.
Looking towards the doorway, peering into the darkness of the house, he hears it again, the wet tearing of flesh, the snapping of bone.
Slowly he gets to his feet and reaches into the doorway, pulling a control pole from the darkness beside it. He swallows a dry mouthful of air before uneasily making his way into the place he calls home.
“It’s okay, honey, time to go back to bed, you’re still not looking the best,” he says to her. She looks at him, her face covered in blood, her once soft blue eyes now a cloud of grey with only a hint of the colour they once were. She growls at him, then rushes forward, but he manages to hook the noose of the control pole over her head and quickly tighten it down, forcing her back against the wall.
“Now come on, honey, you know I need to clean this mess up. We don’t want either of them coming back to cause us problems like the last ones did.”
She grunts furiously at him as he forces her towards a stairway leading up to the next level of the house. She fights him the whole way, hissing, spitting, and growling at him, but he keeps his eyes locked on hers, smiling all the while.
“I know, honey, it’s okay. I know I promised you we would, I just need to get it all ready,” he says as he calmly guides her down a dimly lit hallway towards a room at its end. “You just get some rest, and when you wake, I’ll have it all ready. I promise.”
She stops fighting him and stands there staring at him, her head tilting to its side as if for a second she understands his words.
Slowly her mouth opens as if she is preparing to say something, then she lunges forward again aggressively.
He shoves her into the room, where an open cage sits in its centre.
Wildly she flails about trying to break free, but after a few tense moments, he gives her one last almighty push, and she goes tumbling backwards into the cage.
Quickly he releases the noose from around her neck and slams the door shut behind her.
She lunges forward, trying to grab at him, banging ferociously on the cage while he locks several padlocks in place.
Once done, he throws a blanket over the cage and collapses against the opposing wall.
He sits there for a few minutes or more, fighting back the tears, muttering words of prayer, of hope, of forgiveness.
But the sound of movement from downstairs brings him back to reality. He forces himself to his feet and tightly grips the handle of the control pole as he rushes downstairs. Before he reaches the bottom step, he spots his father, blood dripping from his torn face, his jaw hanging from his skull, held in place by fatty tissue and flesh. His father gargles, letting out a low growl. Samuel drives the control pole down into his head viciously, knocking him to the floor.
Quickly he leaps over the reanimated corpse of his father and makes a mad dash for the shovel that still leans up against the doorway. In one fluid movement, he spins around as his father tries to get to his feet and buries the shovel into his skull over and over until it’s nothing but a mushy pile of blood, flesh, and bone. He feels something brush against his leg as his brother begins to violently spasm on the floor. Samuel doesn’t let himself think about what he’s doing, or what he’s already done, and drives the shovel down into his brother’s skull. As he does, he screams incessantly, demanding answers, pleading for reasons, but there is only silence in response.
The candles burn brightly throughout the room, the blood washed from his hands, the bodies buried with the others. He slides the cassette tape into the player and presses play. An upbeat soft rock song begins and muffles the sound of the rain striking violently against the roof. He places a hand on the blanket before quickly pulling it away. She lets out a ferocious scream, violently shaking the cage, but he simply sits in front of it and smiles at her.
“Remember this song?” he says as he removes one of the padlocks from the cage door. “God, it feels like a lifetime ago now, all the crazy shit that happened when we first met. I mean seriously, can you remember it? Your dad hated me the moment I walked in the door, your mum tried to hit on me, and so did your brother,” he says with a laugh as he removes another of the padlocks.
He stops for a moment, his lips trembling, as he stammers in a breath. “T-They’re never going to let us be alone, they’re never going to back off, and I’m tired, honey. I can’t keep this fight up anymore. God, I’ve killed so many people, people we loved, and I’ve done it all for you,” he says as tears run down his cheeks while he removes the final padlock and the door swings open. “I just want to live life together like we planned,” he says as he holds out his arm towards her, turning his head away in preparation.
Softly and slowly she takes hold of his hand, allowing moments to bleed into minutes. After what feels like an eternity, he uneasily turns back to face her. They sit there in silence, staring into each other’s eyes as their song plays its final fading chords.
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