Halloween Horrors- Uninformed Consent

Here's yet another creepy little short story I wrote a couple of years ago:

Uninformed Consent

Donald McCarran threw a party. One last, lavish soiree before the semester was to break for the summer. The team had worked hard, and the work had paid off in that they had made the Division Two Final Four. No one had expected them to make the playoffs much less finish third in the country.

“Drink, Donnie, my man?” A large hand, belonging to the team’s starting point guard, Reg Manner, descended on Don’s shoulder with a resounding, companionable slap.

“Thanks Reg,” Don answered amiably, taking the proffered Heineken and tipping it back for a large swig. “Hey Reg,” Don called loudly as Reg smiled and began fading back into the crowd, wiping his mouth on the corner of his blue jersey. “We’re number three!”

The pseudo-cheer was greeted with general clamor and bluster from the rest of the frat room’s besotted occupants. “We’re number three! We’re number three! We’re number three!” A round of scattered applause swept the room like a small brush fire as the team and several dozen of its closest friends saluted themselves.

Don mingled with the crowd, calling out to different faces as he congenially swept through the room. “Peter! C’mere a sec, would ‘ya?” He signaled to his long-time friend Pete Wilson, one of the only three or four males present who was not a member of the team.

“Don, nice game,” Pete said excitedly as he hopped up onto the stool next to his friend.

“Thanks Pete.” He drained his beer in two enormous gulps, slammed the empty green bottle down on the counter, and swept up another from a cluster of pre-opened bottles. Leaning close, he said in a conspiratorial tone, “Pete, you see those three over there?” He gestured vaguely to the far side of the room with the neck of his bottle.

Pete craned his neck to see over the herd of jocks doing what was passing for dancing to one of those “Jock Jams” cds someone had recently put into the stereo. “Those guys?” He pointed to the far wall.

“You know them?”

“Nah. Never saw them in my life.” He took a long pull on his beer. “You?”

“No, but I’d like to. Look at that!”

Both of them focused in on the dance movements the female member of the strange trio had begun to do to a Sabrina Sang song called Supersonic. She was wearing a white half shirt and blue denim cutoffs that would have made Daisy Duke blush with shame.

“No kidding,” Don said as the girl made eye contact with him. She smiled, he smiled back. Or at least, he hoped he had just smiled back at her.

The girl toned down her dance, turning it into an ambling shuffle, as she began to slowly make her way across the room, melting through the crowd like a pat of butter on a hot skillet. “She’s coming over! No shit!” Pete jockeyed himself into a better position to intercept her path.

“Me, pal. Me."

“Don’t think so, jock strap." Pete ran his hand through his hair, smoothing out his ever-present cowlick.

“We’ll see... here she comes."

The girl had made her way through the crowd and was now a few feet away from them, the two guys she was talking with in tow. “Look at that,” Pete said under his breath in a disgusted tone. “Girls that look like that always have an entourage with them."

Don raised his eyebrows in mock-surprise at his friend. “Worried, Pete Wilson? The great Pete Wilson— worried?” He hit the last worried louder than was absolutely necessary, for emphasis and for embarrassment. It worked, as Pete began looking mighty uncomfortable the closer the Daisy Duke girl got.

“Not concerned at all, Donnie Boy," Pete said, a concerned tone creeping into his voice. “Proof is in the pudding.”

The girl had reached them with a glorious smile to Pete, who leaned forward, extending his hand. She took it, allowed him to pump her hand once, twice, three times. “Hi, I’m Pete. And you are?” Pete smiled sweetly.

“Dawn,” she said removing her hand from his grasp. “Dawn Reilly.” The last was said straight to Don. “Hi,” she said to Don around Pete’s shoulder.

“Thanks for doing the work sucker,” Don said to the back of his friend’s head. “Hi Dawn, I’m Don.” He took her hand and led her to the empty seat next to his. She leaned across the table and grabbed two fresh beers. Her friends had faded into the background a bit, but were still in the immediate area, present if only in spirit and the smell of lingering testosterone.

“Right. Nice meeting you, Dawn. Talk to you Donnie.” Pete swung away from the pair, gracefully accepting his defeat. He would get an earful later anyway, of that he was sure.

“See ‘ya Peter. Catch you in a little bit.”

Dawn gave Pete a practiced smile and a not-quite-believable demure wave.

“Shure.”

Don turned his attention back to Dawn, who was prettily bending over with her back to him to retrieve one of the beers that had slipped from her carefully manicured grasp and dropped to the floor. He took her in as she was turned away from him picking up the fallen green bottle, which had landed neatly on its bottom and had begun to froth over from being jostled. She took her time about it, which at that moment was ok by Don.

She was a pretty girl, about five feet seven, with long legs and long blond hair, of just the type to catch a fish at a party like this. There was something a little bit strange about her appearance, though, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it at the moment. His gaze swept over her, taking in her half-shirt, shorts, open-toed white sandals, and neat little purse, hung nonchalantly over her right shoulder by a long leather strap. The purse looked a little out of place with the rest of her, as it was a little large for someone of her age to be lugging to a frat party, but so what... in about an hour, just about everyone would look right in place to everyone else, so he passed it over with an unpretentious look.

She caught his wandering gaze, clicking her purse shut in time with his eyes as they passed over it.

“Do I know you?” he asked, leaning towards her.

She turned back to him, licking the foam seductively from the lip of the dropped beer with a cat-like grace. Offering it to him, she said, “No, I don’t think so, Don. I came in with Greg from Alpha Psi Tau.” She gestured vaguely behind her in the general direction that her earlier companions had faded.

He took the beer and tipped it back, taking a long drink, finishing off most of the bottle in one swallow.

Her green eyes met his and locked them in over the rim of the green bottle. The shades were almost identical.

“Alpha Psi Tau.” He leaned over and dropped the empty bottle on the tabletop. “Alpha Psi Tau... is that a new frat? I’ve never heard of it.”

Her left hand dropped distractingly to his leg, bare to the thigh in his basketball shorts, where it rested invitingly on his knee. “Yeh, they just got their charter last fall. It’s a business fraternity, more academic than anything else.” She smoothed over his knee with a soft caress, inching slowly upward. “That’s why we come to other frat houses for parties.”

He put his hand on top of hers, and was met with a radiant smile. “Oh, yeh— I guess that makes sense.”

“You’re cute,” she said to him, snuggling in closer on the opposing chair, taking a dainty sip of her Heineken.

“You’re pretty cute yourself, Dawn,” he returned the lean, halving the distance between them in one motion. The combination of drinking and the beautiful girl in front of him was making his head swim.

Dawn leaned into him, tilting her head up invitingly towards his chin. He took the cue and planted his lips squarely on her mouth. Their lips met and parted, the kiss becoming at once deep and passionate. She moved her hand up his leg and placed it on his hip, while he had snaked one of his own hands up behind her head, as if to subconsciously thwart off any attempt for her to escape the moment.

This girl is unbelievable, Don thought as he ran his fingers deeply into her luxuriant hair. He was quickly becoming aroused.

Growing at the back of his mind, like a small, dark seed— was the feeling that he was starting to become more and more intoxicated. His head was swimming more steadily or rather— more unsteadily— now, and he wasn’t very clear as to the reason why.

Yes— he was a little high from the game earlier, and yes, he was on his way to being very buzzed from the beer. Yes, he was sitting in his living room making out with a beautiful girl with whom he had not known ten minutes earlier. But his head...

Dawn pressed her body more tightly up against him, mashing her breasts into his chest with ardent passion. He could smell her perfume... very nice— faint impressions of honeysuckle. He could feel her breasts pressing up against his chest, and he was getting more rapidly excited. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he was beginning to perspire in the heat of the moment. He was getting so excited, in fact, he felt as if he could pass out. He was—

* * * * *

Don woke up with someone beating on his head. The cadence was in four-fourths time, if he recalled correctly. beaT! beAT! bEAT! BEAT! Almost— but not quite— a match for his own racing heartbeat. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut for fear of opening them and having to actually confront the dreaded drummer face-to-face.

He grimaced to himself as he imagined a savage, leering face with big blood-shot eyes and a wild tangle of hair hanging down into both of their faces. He imagined the barbarian— gleefully staring into his eyes— hammering out the awful, droning cadence on the top of his head. He imagined the beating he would have to administer to the brute in payment for this thoughtless treatment…

He raised his hand up out of the water and mopped it across his throbbing forehead. Water? Mopped?

Don’s eyes shot open to take in his situation with a little more effort. He was lying down, with his head propped up on a pillow— in a bathtub filled three-quarters with tepid, brackish-looking water.

Looking owlishly around the small room, he spotted his clothes lying in a crumpled pile in the corner of the small bathroom, gazing reproachfully at him from their perch. At some point he had been stripped down to his briefs.

Obviously overdid it just a wee bit the night before, Donnie boy, he thought as he peeled his tongue off of the roof of his mouth and tasted the taste of old shoe leather. Night before?

Dawn was creeping in though a window above his head, the beginnings of daylight proper. Dawn? Dawn... Dawn... Dawn! He had met a beautiful girl named Dawn last night at his frat house. He vaguely remembered that he had been engaged in some serious lip lock action, when the next thing he knew, he was waking up with the worst headache he had ever had, after obviously passing out for the very first time in his life— in a bathtub.

A faint breeze ruffled the curtain above his head, reminding him that he was lying in what was now a tub of tepid bath water. He shivered as he placed one hand on each side of the tub and hoisted.

Twin bolts of pain shot up through his back, causing blinding white flash bulbs to go off in front of his eyes. His consciousness swam away from him, and he fought to get it back.

What the hell was that? he thought to himself as he gasped for breath from the effort, the barbarian beating harder on the crown of his head. Jesus. He waited until the pain receded, then braced himself for another effort.

Once more, white-hot pain constricted his efforts as stars winked to life in front of his eyes and were extinguished for his amusement. Consciousness faded, slipping through his hands like a greased rope. “Holy shit!” he cried, barely audible over the thunder in his own ears as he fought the red-black haze of pain.

Grunting with the effort, Don hoisted himself up to a crouching position, where he squatted for a few minutes, water dripping off of the upper portion of his body, locked in a mortal battle of wills with the most intense pain he had ever felt in his life. When the agony receded to a more bearable level, he pulled himself up and over the rim of the tub, making a wet thump as he rolled over onto his side, tears streaming down his face from the Herculean effort.

He lay there in a puddle of bath water and tears for what seemed like twenty years, waiting for the pain in his head to recede to a more accommodating level. Taking a careful, cautious inventory of himself, he mentally probed his back. Slowly, slowly he pushed himself up into a sitting position, keeping the white-hot part of the pain at bay.

He felt a pulling, ripping feeling from the lower part of his back that extended hot fingers of fire around his sides, almost to his stomach. Molten bands of steel squeezed him in a vice-like grip as he finally managed to pull his legs up underneath himself.

He had to steady himself with both hands on the side of the bathtub for fear of descending into the inviting warmth of unconsciousness for the third time.

After several years, he was finally able to straddle the slick sides of the tub, sliding one leg over to stand on the dampened floor. He sat in that position for another decade or so, trying to clear his head enough to swing his other leg out of the murky bathwater.

Finally, he was able to lift his other leg out of the tub through the roaring in his ears. Overbalancing in his caution, he flopped over the edge of the tub, ripping the surgical-white shower curtain with him, to land with a wet thwap! on the floor.

He lay on his side on the floor, writhing for an eternity like a man-sized game fish freshly gaffed over the gunwale, flapping around— suffocating— on the stained teakwood mid-deck of a fishing boat.

Only the deck was ceramic, the stains were a mixture of tepid bathwater and human blood, and the fish was Donald McCarran.

He must have blacked out, because when he opened his eyes again, full daylight was streaming in through the window high above his head. He lay on his side, curled up instinctively into the fetal position. Slowly— slowly!— he stretched out his cramped legs across the floor, his knees popping like gunshots.

There was a steady throbbing coming from somewhere in the vicinity of his lower back. The sensation was muted at the moment, as if belonging to someone else. It felt like it had hurt, and that it will hurt again, but for the moment, it throbbed dully. A reminder of pain that was and pain that is yet to come.

My God, Don thought as he pushed himself up onto his elbow. What— He flopped back down onto his side immediately, the dull throbbing in his lower back igniting with the ferocity of a nuclear reaction.

He gasped, his body wracked with this new round of pain. The gasp expanded his lungs into his lower abdomen, causing pressure, causing an even more exquisite agony to rip up his back. Stars began winking in front of his eyes again. He bit his lower lip, startling himself to focus on his fading consciousness.

Think, Donnie— think. He tried to remember the night before, but for all of that he couldn’t. He took a slow inventory of himself as he lay on the tiled floor. Other that a whale of a headache— typical Sunday morning fare— the only other obstacle to an otherwise pain-free morning was whatever was causing his back to feel like it had been flayed with a rusty paring knife, and then left for picking over by a murder of crows.

“Hey,” he called, weakly. “Hey!” He knew his chances were slim that anyone would hear him. Most of his brothers would be passed out in the parlor, two floors below where he now lay. Some would be on the second floor, ensconced in one of the house’s many bedrooms, doors closed tightly with someone draped across their numbed arm, passed out from partying.

He was in trouble. “Shit!” he said to the pile of clothes in the corner, the only thing visible to him in his current position other than the toilet. He looked up as best as he could without actually sitting up, his back acquiesced placidly. He thought there might be something on the toilet lid that, amazingly, was down. He strained to the limits of ease, and saw— “Yes!” It was the cordless phone.

He must have brought it into the bathroom with him at some point last night, and set it on the toilet within easy reach of the tub when he decided to take a lukewarm bath in his underwear with Dawn, the girl he had met at the party. Dawn—

Don began a slow stroke-crawl towards the toilet, the wet tile of the bathroom making it easier to slide across than it would have otherwise been. Muted pain began to crawl up his back again. “Slow, Donnie. Take it easy.” He willed himself to slow down, lest he suffer the Wrath of Pain yet again.

He put his head down with a will, and pulled himself slowly across the floor. He forced himself to slow down, pushing to the very barrier of pain, waving across that barrier at the ferocious entity that lived there, and willing himself not to cross. Finally, the top of his head bonked into the bottom of the toilet.

He rested, for a moment, savoring his relatively pain-free crossing of the bathroom. Reaching up to the lid of the toilet, his hand bumped something, knocking it with a crash to the floor. It was the phone. “Yes!” He reached for the phone, knowing that salvation was a phone call away.

As he picked up the damp cordless, he saw a folded piece of paper speared through the antenna. What now? he wondered to himself as he tugged the paper off the phone. He pushed the send button to allow him to dial, when he noticed through the back of the paper that whatever was written on it was written in bright red. Curious, he shut off the phone and set it down. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he sighed as he unfolded the paper and read what was apparently a note left behind for him.

The drummer came back then, beating a cadence on the top of his skull. beaT! beAT! bEAT! BEAT! This time, the beat was a direct counterpart to his heartbeat.

Once again, he imagined a barbarian— gleefully staring into his eyes— hammering out the awful, droning cadence on the top of his head. He imagined the barbarian smiling at him, holding out the folded piece of paper. He imagined the barbarian pointing at the paper, at the large, childlike letters scribbled in what looked to be blood on the stark white paper.

The barbarian became a pretty girl, about five feet seven, with long legs and long blond hair. She wore a half-shirt, shorts, open-toed white sandals, and had a neat little purse hung nonchalantly over her right shoulder by a long leather strap. She beat on his head in four-fourths time— beaT! beAT! bEAT! BEAT!

And she smiled, knowing something he did not, but was about to. She smiled, and reached into her neat little purse that had been hung nonchalantly over her right shoulder by a long leather strap. She reached in and withdrew a small glass phial. The phial appeared to be empty, but he knew it wasn’t, or hadn’t been. She grinned at him, and he knew that it had contained a clear liquid, a clear drug liquid.

The beer! he thought, and she smiled angelically at him. He had a clear image from the night before— of her bending over with her back to him to retrieve one of the beers that had slipped and dropped to the floor. Idiot! He remembered how he had seized that opportunity to take her ass in as she was turned away from him picking up the fallen green bottle.

He saw now in perfect clarity how the beer had landed neatly on its bottom and had begun to froth over from being jostled. And maybe from something else…

She smiled again and pointed to the note. He read:

Call 911 immediately!
Thanks for the kidneys!
Love & kisses,
Dawn

With a final resounding BEAT! echoing across the top of his head, the world for Donald McCarran sunk beneath the blackened waves of nothingness.

© Ray Cattie