Dismemberment - A Collection of Horror Short Stories

Story 1: The Adulterer of the Rhapsody Ball

Everything she was saying was true--he was deplorable, monstrous and violent, but what he had done for our family was inconceivable. I had given up my sanity, my body, my heart and my everything for him. I belonged to him. I was tethered to him until death ridded me of his foulness. I could only hope he died soon. For my sake.

"B-but..." I stuttered, feeling as though I would weep.

"What's the matter Phia? Is he treating your poorly? Why were you so frightened by him?"

I looked back up at her, clenching my fists and ready to weep. I quickly pulled her back into the secrecy of my shadowy corner, behind the pillar. I pressed a finger to her lips, her eyes frenzied. I could see more of those questions forming in her eyes--the questions that made my best friend so well-informed. I brought her closer to me, our gazes unwavering.

"He knows." I whisper into her ear, as I press my face against her hair.

There was a small moment of silence between us, as Lucy took the time to process her next words. "Knows what?"

I choke again. The words bundle in a tight ball in my throat, taunting me with breathlessness. I can faintly feel the incessant, anxious thumps of my stuttering heart. I swallow back my fear and the words in my throat, trying in vain to let calm fall over me. There is no hope. My heart stammers for a bit--for only the slightest of a second as though it would regulate its pace--and returns to its prior, hasty beating. I'm once again struck with terror.

"I-I had an affair. Last night, with that man from Lancaster. He knows... He'll kill me!"

She gasped, stepping back from me. Lucy eyed me like I was trash--deplorable, disgusting trash beneath her feet. She put her hands up, falling back into the pillar. Her disappointment in me was obvious, but she looked... repulsed. Tears began to fall down my cheeks--hot and sobering.

She shook her head at me, steadying herself by placing her hands on the pillar at her back. "Adultery is wrong... I cannot keep your secret. You shouldn't have done that Zylphia... It's wrong and--"

I pulled her toward me. My fists clenched at her collar, and I used all my force to throw her into the wall beside us. She shrieked, but I quickly covered her any other shouts with my hand. I hissed for her to be quiet, watching as my knuckles went white by her neck. She stared at me with large, terrified eyes.

"You cannot tell!" I command, my voice thickly lined with a dark venom. "I should have never told you... You aren't really my friend! All the other girls know that you lie and cheat behind their backs! This was a mistake!"

I saw the fear grow in her as she registered my intense, blinding rage. I was being driven by my fear; burning so strongly inside me I felt almost faint. I was consumed by an anxiety that shook my core, beyond explanation or words. It was simply, terrifying. It was the kind of fear that drove any sane woman to do insane things. Betraying a man like my husband is something that no one sane person attempts--especially not a woman. The utter thrill of the prior night had diminished to ashes.

Lucy tried to mumble something beneath my sweaty palm, but I pressed down harder and put my lips to her ear. "SHUT UP!!" I spat, beginning to feel her warm tears pooling atop my hand. She shook like a leaf beneath me, nodding in agreement. I was shocked by myself--I had never, ever in my life been so violent and threatening to someone, little own my friend.

My mind instantly dismissed the sombre thoughts as I became over-run by those prior, animalistic desires that had been welling in me for so very long. Hide her.... Shut her mouth, before this whole ballroom discovers your secrets. Nobody can know. I curled my other hand around her waist, locking her tightly against my body.

"You can't run...." I whisper to her, sending her into fits of pathetic tears. "You shouldn't have known."

Backing up, I found a door concealed by the shadows that lead to an equally dark courtyard--the only light coming from the moon and the sprinkling of bright stars in the heavens. Lucy tried to voice her pleas into my skin as I quietly shut the door, but I quickly thrust her against another wall to silence her. I placed her hands in the arch of her back, pressing her cheeks as hard as I could against the rough brick.

"Shut UP!!" I screamed, holding the thick bone of her skull. Her whimpers created more noise, fuelling me with the incessant urge to end her. I ripped at her hair, causing her to scream, and slammed her head back into the wall. Stars danced across her eyes, and she swayed slightly before her body reflexively tensed.

"Please! Please, please, please, please!" She begged, but it just fueled me with more bitter, unsupressable anger. In the darkness, there was no one to see me sin--only the moon, the stars and the heavens would spy my crime. They didn't have voices to divulge my actions to anyone.

My hands seized hold of her neck, suppressing any air flowing between her windpipe. Her pulse beat at a hasty pace beneath my fingers, as her muscles tensed and her nails teared through the skin of my hands. I kneed her her in the back to cease her irritating clawing, her body arching into itself.

Her face was growing scarlet and warm. Her body started to slump with lifelessness, her heartbeat fading against my fingers. The rough brick wall was all that kept her upward as she chocked out her final, pathetic attempts at pleas. The whispers that escaped her mouth were quiet--incomprehesible slurries of foam and saliva.

Eventually, the muscles in her neck released and she fell onto the lush, damp grass. I grinned looking down at her with utter glee and relief. She was unmoving. Perfectly still and serene. She looked beautiful--like a sleeping angel. Sally is gone... I have nothing to worry about anymore. And then my mind fell upon another thought--one which had been shoved in the back of my mind when I was absorbed by my kill.

"My husband..." I murmered, just as I turned around to see that beady blue eye staring straight into my soul--the personification of death.