Happy third

“Happy third babe!”

On the other end of the line Patrick laughed at my excited squeals just as a little boy sitting next to me on the subway turned to stare at me like I had grown a second head. Naturally I stuck my tongue out at him and he inched away as far from me as he could get on the seat.

“Happy third year anniversary Rose. Are you on your way?” Patrick asked.

“Yes! I can’t wait to see you!” I hadn’t seen Patrick for two weeks because of the trip he and the rest of his medicine classmates had taken to see some famous neurologist out of town. He’d only gotten back last night, just in time for our anniversary and I was on my way to his apartment to see him.

I dug through my purse and beamed widely when my hand closed around the little box with Patrick’s gift in it, anticipating the look on his face when he opened it. Zipping my purse up again, I gave Patrick my location and he promised to wait for me at the station. I hung up after screaming excitedly on the phone for the umpteenth time. I plugged in my headphones and settled in for the rest of the ride, bobbing my head to the music.

When I got to my stop, I hopped out excitedly and caught the little boy from earlier staring at me through the window. I waved energetically at him with both my hands and he waved back hesitantly. I looked around the station hoping to spot Patrick’s tall lanky figure and messy black hair but he was nowhere to be found. I debated calling him but then decided against it and just walked to his apartment instead since it was only a few minutes away.

I took the elevator to his apartment on the second floor and took the box out of my bag before I walked up to his door. Giddy with excitement, I held the box behind my back and knocked lightly on the door. To my surprise, the door swung in slightly and it was pitch black inside. I hesitated for a second, Patrick was always so careful about locked doors to the point of being paranoid so why was his door practically ajar? Maybe someone had broken into his apartment and attacked Patrick and that’s why he hadn’t come to meet me at the station. Maybe the intruder was still in there. Maybe…And now look who was being paranoid. I shook the thoughts off and pushed the door open further.

“Patrick!” I called, stepping slowly inside. My hand searched the wall for the light switch and flicked it on. The room remained dark, no matter how many times I flicked it. A slight feeling of apprehension gripped my chest and I froze in the middle of the room. I called out for Patrick again and like before, no response came. I dialed his number and waited anxiously to hear his voice on the other end of the line. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard ringing but my panic quickly turned to relief. If Patrick’s phone was ringing in here then it meant he was in the apartment somewhere, probably sleeping and that’s why he hadn’t answered me when I called out for him. I knew I was rationalizing but I didn’t want to imagine any alternatives.

“Patrick, where are you?” I shuffled forward in the dark towards his room, following the sound of the ringing phone. I caught the screen flashing from the night stand and made my way to it, cutting my call. The ringing stopped right away and I switched the torch on my phone on and held it over the bed.

The bed was a mess. Most of the blankets were on the floor and the sheets were balled up and sat in a pile on one end of the bed. One of the white pillow cases was half pulled off from the pillow and a pool of blood occupied the center of the bed, a stark contrast to the white sheets, dripping slowly over the edge of the bed to form another pool on the brown carpet. I froze as the site sank in and the metallic smell of the blood hit me leaving me feeling heady. I chocked down the nausea that threatened to have me hurl onto the dark red mass on the bed. My heart thudded as I realized that something bad must have happened to Patrick between the time I spoke to him and now. My hands were trembling so badly that I dropped the gift box as I dialed 911 and I sank to my knees, unable to stand any longer.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator said.

“I’m at my boyfriend’s apartment. He’s…I think he…” the words couldn’t make their way out of my mouth.

“What’s your location ma’am?” Before I could answer her, I heard the click of the doorknob. Someone had walked into the apartment and closed the door behind them. I immediately hung up the call and scrambled to find somewhere to hide in Patrick’s room. His attacker had probably come to clean up the evidence or something and if they found me, my blood would be next in line for exhibition.

I hid in the closet, peeking through the slits in the door and waited with baited breath. The heavy footsteps reached the bedroom and I saw the tall silhouette of a man as he entered the room. The darkness made it impossible to see his face and I held my breath, saying a silent prayer that he wouldn’t find me in here. I watched as he stuffed the bloody bedding into a huge trash bag before he tied it up and threw it in a corner. He picked up Patrick’s phone and pressed a button causing the phone to light up, illuminating his face.

For a second I thought I was hallucinating because the face I was looking at was Patrick’s but that couldn’t be because Patrick’s blood was on the sheets so he couldn’t be standing there without a single wound on him. Unless…No, no. I shook my head refusing to even acknowledge the thought that the blood belonged to someone else and Patrick could have…No. I shut the thought down again. My hand started vibrating and I looked down in confusion and realized my phone was ringing and it was Patrick calling. I hastily tried to cut the call before he could hear it vibrating but it slipped out of my trembling hands and clattered to the floor of the closet. Patrick’s head snapped up and he turned towards the closet. I had to get out of there before he caught me but my legs turned to lead and refused to move. I watched in horror as he approached the closet and yanked the door open. My attempts to blend in with the clothes proved futile as he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me out.

“Hello sweetheart. How long have you been in there?” he asked me in a cold voice that I barely recognized falling from the lips I had only ever known to whisper sweet and tender things.

“Patrick, please. Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t see anything, I won’t say anything,” I begged.

He smiled, a smile that sent shivers down my spine. “We can’t have you running around telling people stories with that big mouth. That simply won’t do.” I whimpered as he threw me on the now bare mattress and proceeded to dig through his drawers with his back turned to me. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon but I came up empty.

“The last girl was an unfortunate accident. I didn’t mean to kill her but she went too far threatening to report me to the school for selling those drugs. After all my hard work to get into medicine, I couldn’t have anyone ruining that for me and if the school had heard about my extra-curricular drug making activities; that would be the end for me. And now you’re an unfortunate witness. It’s a shame. I really liked you,” Patrick said standing upright again with a syringe in his hand. He tapped the glass lightly and turned to me. I looked around again desperately hoping for a way to escape.

“This will only hurt a bit and then sweet, peaceful death,” he told me. I scrambled away from him but he was too fast and he caught me and pinned me to the bed with his heavy body over mine. He covered my mouth with one of his hands and brought the syringe to my neck with the other. He pushed the needle slowly into my neck and I felt all my limbs weaken.

“Happy third sweetheart,” were the last words I heard from his lips as I sunk into oblivion.

***

I got the idea for this story on my third year anniversary which was yesterday. You know, as I say that, I realize how weird it would seem that my anniversary would inspire something so dark haha. But then again, I’ve never been known to be conventional! I was trying to write a #Horror piece for the #SelfChallenge but I feel like there isn’t enough blood, guts and death to make this a pure horror piece so I’ll work on another piece for that genre but in the meantime, this one will do. Also, it’s been way too long since I posted anything on here.