The Sludge Beneath the Blood in the Bathtub
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
His knees dig into the bathroom floor as laboured breaths escape his chest. He looks up at her, his face a bloody mess of torn flesh and missing teeth, blood spilling from his lips and splashing across the cracked tiles below, a sea of red spreading beneath him.
Katherine stands above him, her fist clenched at the ready, broken teeth sticking out from her knuckles like trophies, glistening thick with crimson. She squeezes her fingers tight as pain shoots up her arm. She snarls down at him, fighting the urge to swing again.
A wispy smile flutters across his lips. He closes his eyes and arches his back, euphoria washing over him as he braces for it.
“Again. Again. Spill more of me,” he pleads through cut lips.
Katherine hesitates. Her nose scrunches as she bares her teeth, her fist raised high and trembling, ready to fall.
“Jardo… w-what happened to you? W-When did you become this?”
His eyes open and meet her panicked stare with a whimsical, almost vacant gaze as his smile slowly spreads into a full ear-to-ear grin.
“I’ve been like this forever. It just took you until this moment to finally see me for who I am… and what I’m truly capable of. Now punish me! Make me bleed!”
He stretches his arms out wide, palms facing the heavens, his forearms washed in red almost to the elbows.
Her eyes drift to the bathtub, its crimson water now perfectly still. No more bubbles. No more ripples. No more signs of life. Just the odd fleshy bone breaking through the murky depths here and there, and a mop of black hair floating just beneath the surface.
She swallows a stuttered breath and looks back down at his broken face.
Her lips quiver as she chews at them, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks.
“W-Who’s in the b-bath?”
His eyes widen, and his grin twists into something sharper, mocking both the moment and the question itself.
“There’s no adventure in just tel…”
His words are cut short as she hits him.
Then, without losing a beat, she hits him again.
And again.
And again.
She stumbles blindly backwards, her breaths exhausted and desperate.
“W-Who’s in the bathtub, J-Jardo? W-Who?” she screams, her fist a bloody mess of torn flesh and dislocated fingers, with more teeth buried deep in her knuckles, wedged between joint and bone.
He clumsily sits back up, his face an autobiography in pain. One eye sunken into its shattered socket while his nose lies broken and folded across his face in a smear of red, his jaw dislocated and hanging loose.
He breathes bubbles of red while a haggard laugh trembles beneath it all.
“What will it take for you to stay down?” she spits as she throws another punch, knocking him down again.
He hits the floor with a wet, grotesque slap.
Katherine barely has time to drag in a breath before he plants a hand against the tiles and pushes himself upright.
A second later he’s on his feet and grabbing wildly at her head.
Slippery fingers smear thick ribbons of congealed red across her face as he tries to force his thumbs into her eyes.
She bites and pulls, claws and punches, but it’s the knee she drives into his groin that finally makes him fold with a guttural gasp. As he goes down, she drives another knee into his face. A crack tears through his skull and he drops to the floor before her.
She staggers backwards, using what remains of her torn shirt to wipe blood from her face while hysterical cries spill from her lips, but her eyes widen as he starts getting up again.
She screams and stomps his head into the tiles until it splits apart like an overripe watermelon, the bathroom floor washed in a sea of red, rotten grey matter and a writhing colony of maggots twisting through it all.
For a moment, everything falls still.
Then small hands curl around the rim of the bathtub, and her breath catches in her throat as she reels back in horror, tears streaming down her face.
The shattered body drags itself from the crimson water and spills onto the floor. For a moment she lies silent before awkwardly climbing to her feet and turning to face her mother.
“M-Mummy… w-why am I so cold?” she cries.
“B-B-Beth?” Katherine whispers, her hand trembling as she fights the urge to reach for her.
A twisted smile spreads across Beth’s pale, broken face before she rushes at her screaming.
Katherine barely has time to react before Beth slams into her like a freight train and sends them both crashing into the wall with a grotesque wet thud. Stars burst behind Katherine’s eyes while white flashes tear across her vision as they collapse to the floor in a tangled heap.
Screaming like a wild animal, Beth mounts her and bites deep into Katherine’s shoulder. A sea of red washes over her.
Katherine screams in agony, clawing and shoving at Beth until she finally breaks free. She grabs her by the head and slams it against the wall again and again before throwing her across the room in a sprawling heap.
She falls back against the wall, clutching at her shoulder as blood pours through her fingers.
Before she can catch her breath, Beth is back on her feet and rushing at her again.
Katherine swings desperate punches until one connects with a sickening crack, sending Beth crashing down once more.
Katherine follows after her, throwing herself on top of Beth and pinning her to the floor. She bucks violently beneath her, teeth snapping at the air as she fights to break free.
Tears stream down Katherine’s face as she drags in a sobbing breath. The world stutters and blurs around her while Beth’s screams fade into the background, washed over by a high-pitched ringing that severs her connection to everything around her as she drifts into her own world where the sun is shining and all three are playing happily in the park.
Then a wet gurgle cuts through it, dragging her back to reality.
She swallows as a spasm of cold quivers up her spine and turns her head to find Jardo awkwardly pulling himself back to his feet. Green sludge spills from the gaping hole where half his face used to be as he sways for several uncountable moments before clumsily starting towards them.
Katherine gasps, a breath stuttering through her lips as her grip on Beth loosens and the world collapses into a myriad of blurry images.
Before the moment even has time to become the next, Beth lunges up and buries her teeth deep in Katherine’s throat, showering herself in a warm gushing river of red.
Did this one sink its teeth into you?
Then feed it. Share it. Let it loose on someone else.
