There he was! Just outside, waiting for me. I’ve been so excited for this date with him all week. He took me to the nail salon yesterday to have them looking good for tonight. “Get any colour you want.” he told me, so I got a dark red. Red has been my favourite colour since I was a little girl, I was telling him as such while I was getting my nails done.
I slipped into my new white dress, being careful not to ruin my freshly curled hair. The dress was silk and hugged my body in all of the right places, i’d been looking for a chance to wear it.
When I opened the door he was standing there, a dashing suit on and his hair styled neatly, with flowers in hand. It was such a lovely gesture that we could’ve ended the date right then.
After I put the flowers in my prized vase (it’s been in my family for generations). He walked me to his car and opened the passenger door for me, but as I sat inside, a foul stench hit my nostrils. I can’t explain what the smell was, but it wasn’t something I dwelled on for long, I was too excited about what he’d planned for this date.
When he turned one car on I reached for the a/c, but he stopped me before I could. “open a window, i’m saving energy.”. Weird but okay, so I rolled down my window, the smell of fresh, clean air hitting my lungs. I looked out the entire trip, only peeling away from the outside world to ask him questions, to which he replied with short and dry answers.
“Okay”
“Yeah”
“Nope”
“Totally”
It was really out of character for him to act like this, but I bet it’s just nerves, he’s probably just as nervous as I was for this date.
We pulled up to the restaurant but he refused to use valet and insisted on parking his car, cursing at the valet driver when driving away.
We walked into the restaurant, his arm around me. When we sat down he was back to his normal, sweet self. We started talking about our futures and what we want to do when we’re older.
He paid for my dinner, and we then just sat at the bar together, talking, drinking, laughing. Eventually, he asked me back to his place, and I, being 6 drinks in, said yes.
He had his arm around me as he was walking me to his car. This time, it was so I didn’t trip over my own feet. He opened the door for me again to the passenger seat and as I climbed in, I smelt that foul stench again, but I was too many drinks deep.
click
I knew where his house was, so as we were on the highway, I lazily looked at where we were going, familiarising myself. I was waiting for him to take the turnoff, but he missed it. I turned to him, his stoic face illuminated by the moonlight. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to..”
I woke up, slowly. My head was pounding. Where was I? It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and that putrid scent graced my nostrils once again. Where did he go? I sat up, holding my head and trying to look around, but it was pitch black. Is this a dream?
I reached for my phone out of my pocket to shine a torch but quickly realised I didn’t have any pockets, my phone was gone. I stood up and started scuffling around to find a light switch to no avail. Without warning, the lights turned on, it was so bright that I was temporarily blinded. Once my eyes focused, I stifled my cries.
Corpses. I was looking around at all these bodies piled up together, in a room with no natural light and a singular door. I finally realised what that smell in his car was.
My whole body started trembling and all I could do is look around at all of these people, laying motionless in pools of thick, red blood. As I kept looking around, dreading what might happen to me, I looked up towards the doorway and saw him standing there, his once neat and tidy hair now messy and haphazard. His suit jacket gone showing his blood stained shirt.
“You’re awake!”
“What the FUCK is going on?” I shrieked
“You told me red was your favourite colour, so…” he gestured around the room.
I was speechless as he stalked towards me, holding something behind his back. I was slowly backing away from him when I stepped on a hand. I slipped and fell on my back into a pile of soft, lifeless bodies, blood getting on my new white dress.
He took this opportunity to use what was behind his back. A knife. He towered above me and held the knife in attempt to stab me. I screamed as loud as I could and rolled onto my side, out of the way of his knife. He fell onto his head, knocking him out cold. I crawled up off of the pile of limbs and ran as fast I could out of the basement door.
Wading through hallway after hallway I finally found a way out, the front door. I’m a stroke of luck, my phone was on the coffee table right next to the front door. I reached for it and dashed out of the door, not bothering to close it behind me.
I ran to the bus stop not far from the house and as I waited anxiously for a bus, I realise this isn’t even his house, it’s rundown, unkept and looked like it hadn’t been lived in for years. At last, a bus came.
As I got on the bus, the driver saw me in my blood-stained white dress in disbelief and asked me if I was okay, I just told him to drive and he surprisingly obliged.
We eventually got to the stop near my house. The bus driver tried to help me and call the police but I refused, I didn’t want to get anyone else caught up in this mess.
As I entered my house I made sure to lock the door behind me. When I was finally inside I used my phone to call the police, they told me they would send someone to my house to pick me up to take me to the station and question me. I finally felt a small sense of relief that I’m safe in my own home and that the cops are on their way.
While I was waiting for the police to show up I walked to my bathroom to take a shower, took off my once beautiful dress, now ruined, and hopped into the shower, scrubbing the dried blood off my body. Once I was out of the shower I got changed into normal clothes and took off my red nails, I couldn’t look at them the same anymore. Not when I imagined his blood-encrusted nails are stained the same shade.
I walked into my bedroom and start to close the curtains, pausing for a minute, looking out at the beautiful view of the moonlight.
Then I looked down.
There he was, just outside… waiting for me.
I shut my curtains and haven’t left my room since, writing this post. I’ve been trying to get a hold of the station but any signal I had before is gone. The police haven’t shown up yet and I heard noises downstairs not long ago….