short gory fiction
Her hands were
shaking. Slowly, she stepped
backwards and away from the open
cupboard. Her eyes didn't want to
focus, her head and her feet felt amazingly light. The
small of her back thumped against the kitchen sink. In front of her, the open cupboard revealed a
dimly lit tunnel, blocked by a severed human head.
She was completely disgusted, and she didn't know what to do. If she closed the cupboard
door, the tunnel might
disappear, and she would never know where it might go. The thought of moving that head, however,
repulsed her. It wouldn't have been so bad if it were completely
bloody, or even if it were mostly clean. It was laying on its
side, staring up at her from the
flower lined shelf. It had blood
leaking slowly out of its mouth and nose, and the
point of severance was a mangled mess of bone,
gore, and blood. The
forehead had a few glossy black clumps of hair stuck to it, but the rest of the face was
disturbingly clean.
Pale and
yellowy under the
fluorescent light of the kitchen, muddy
brown eyes leered at her knees. Keeping her eyes
locked on the contents of the cupboard, she began to move left. Her
right hand hung
slack at her side, while her left
fumbled wildly, feeling for the broom. Once she had it in her hand, she slid slowly back toward the cupboard. Nothing had changed. The
blood on the head hadn't moved, the puddle of
claret hadn't grown, and the tunnel hadn't gotten any brighter. She turned the
broom upside down and watched one
manicured hand flip the dustpan off of the brush end. No longer
quivering, she moved closer to the open cupboard. The water on the stove was
boiling, but her ears heard nothing. Stealthily, she moved closer to the head and the tunnel behind it.
The broom was an olive green
rapier, and she
stabbed into the cupboard directly at the
roman nose of the head. The head met with considerable
resistance, and it simply rocked to face skyward, then thud back down onto it's
right cheek. The nose was now bloodier, and she was horrified at what she'd done. The broom now had blood on the end of it, and a
bit of some clotted
substance that she couldn't identify. She dropped the end of it onto the contact paper of the cupboard and sat down on the tile of the
kitchen floor. The coolness of the floor brought some sensation back to her
shocked body. Steam poured up from the gas range, four quarts of water bubbled merrily and left sizzling droplets on the
enamel.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and began to rock back and forth, staring at the
head. The tunnel was still behind it, frustrating her beyond
comprehension. If she couldn't get the head out of the way, she would never get down there, she just knew it. Her rocking
quickened, her tailbone punished by the cracks in the ceramic tile. Her eyes never left the eyes of the head,
glazed over and thick with death. Before she knew it, her foot
shot out and slammed the cupboard door
closed. She gasped and froze. Her right foot was numb, still
poised to kick. As it lowered, she used it to
shove herself away from the door. She sat, staring at the door, for what seemed like forever.
When she finally got up, the broom was already back in the corner, no trace of blood or gore betrayed its position. She put her hands to her temples and turned around. The water was
still boiling. White mineral deposits made rings around the
inside of the pan, showing her that about half of the water had evaporated away. She turned off the gas and left the kitchen.