I've been doing some experimentation with the horror setting. As you all know, I'm something of a Lemony Narrator. (A narrator that makes wise-cracks about the story as it goes.) That's just how I tell stories, and I'm completely addicted to making the narrator a sort of character in and of itself. I can't fucking help it. Now, I thought that would make any horror story I ever wrote virtually impossible to tell without going cheesy and writing in first person, or going default and writing with a narrative voice caught somewhere between The Bible a fucking robot. But recently, I read Bloody Horrowitz, which convinced me that a Lemony Narrator could pull off a halfway decent horror story. Not scary, of course, but decent. Maybe even tense. Not that I could ever hope to get to that point, because fear and sadness are so much more subjective than humor is, but... Well, fuck it, here's what I wrote so far, is it good or not!?
Now why'd you have to go and do that?
That was the first thing that came to mind. You don't know exactly whow you were addressing with that thought. Were you questioning yourself? Or the poor thing in the dirt? Or rather, the mud. It sure was rainy out tonight, you shouldn't have broken your umbrella on that pretty little head. You were sure she was pretty. She had to be, women who wear their hair down like that with such tight red dresses in the graveyard are either very rich and in mourning, or very horny and chronically depressed.
She certainly had some nice skin on her. I mean, as far as skin goes, right? It was on the pale side, but other than that, it looked too smooth to be true. Smoother than anything you've ever seen, and free of any suggestion of a blemish. Hell, it might have shined without the rain pouring on it. You really couldn't believe your eyes, she had a body-type you never thought was real. A perfect curvaceous hourglass, and of course large portions of flesh just above her diaphragm, and some more above her thighs in back. She was, by all accounts, a perfect 10/10... Except she was dead. And bloody. And the pointy part of an umbrella had made its home in her brain. The fact that she didn't have a face was sort of a turn-off too, now that you think about it.
Wasn't that the reason you had to try and convince yourself she was attractive?... I hope you were only trying to make a dead body look attractive out of pity. Really, I do. We can't go right from murder to necrophilia, can we?... How low can you sink in one night!?
You sneeze. It's very cold out here, in the rain.
You had to call the police. Maybe they'd hear your case better if you turned yourself in, if you had some sort of remorse. A murderer you are not, but she only stabbed you in the stomach once while screaming hysterically. You have to be hit three times before it's self defense, right?
... Oh god, that scream. It was so clear... so horrible... It was as if she had a mouth... But she didn't.
"Did you know her?" You ask your brother's grave.
You visited him every night after dinner until the sun went down. He went off and joined the army. He went mad and hanged himself wit the tie you sent him for Christmas. You didn't just send him the tie, of course. You sent him mint oreos, his favorite, and a nice letter telling him about how things were going at home. You always gave him the wackiest ties you could find for Christmas. He was an avid collector. He loved novelty ties. It kind of hurt your feelings that he hanged himself with the fish tie, but what can you do? He was still your brother. You received the news a month ago, and he was just buried here. He would have been buried with the rest of the veterans at DC if he hadn't written in his will that he wanted to be buried next to his parents. And there he was, buried. Right next to his parents.
Then it hit you like a ton of bricks. Real people have faces, you live alone, your family is dead, and you've been grieving in a less-than-healthy way for a month now. You're just insane! You didn't really kill anyone! You probably broke your umbrella on a scary-looking grave or something! You're overcome with joy! You can check into a mental institution and live a relaxed life until you're all better again. But you should probably call the cops first, just to be safe.
Damn, it's cold. And your stomach really hurts. Thunder flashes.
You're surprised it hasn't soaked through your jacket. Then again, leather jackets aren't the most water-penetrable of clothing. It was a biker jacket your brother left to you in his will. It was an awesome biker jacket, with a few gashes in it. Your brother would tell the greatest stories to you about how those cuts came to be. Knife fights, construction work, wild animals. Now you had a story you could tell. Except there wasn't a cut on the jacket, you were wearing it open down the middle. You felt let down that you only have a story to tell about a bloody stab-wound on your shirt.
The water was washing it away, and you were very cold and in serious pain.
The water made it look like there was more blood than there actually was. Ridiculous blood. Runny blood. Monty Python blood. Bloodbloodbloodbloodblood. Icky, red, red, red blood. You poked the horizontal puddle forming on your stomach and cringed, wiping it off on your pants. You had to get out of the graveyard, out of the rain. You were going to die of hypothermia if you didn't do something.
