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Close the Door

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I couldn't get the blood out of my bathtub.

I had poured every cleaner I could possibly find, mixing together bleach and ammonia and soaps and draino and mild acids. I scrubbed until my fingers were numb. But still, the spot was there.

The blood had pooled around the drain in the tub and dried that way. It wasn't a bright red puddle anymore, not like it had been when Nikkie's head was still there. It was a dry, crusty brown spot, dark and ugly against the light porcelain of the tub. It was like a rust on a scalpel, a cancer eating away at an otherwise healthy skin sample.

Maybe it was being trapped in that bathroom for so long, scrubbing at that same spot, inhaling the noxious mixture of chemicals until my lungs burned. Maybe it was because I could hear Nikkie's voice, her gentle sigh and sad, resigned words. Over and over again, I heard her whisper.
" Jack, why?"

But that was impossible. Nikkie was dead. I killed her last night.




Nikkie was the best thing that ever happened to me, which is unfair, because she happened so soon, and so fast. I was at the bottom of the food chain in high school, eagerly consuming books with the same intensity that the stoners consumed pot. To say I didn't have friends was a lie. There was plenty of people I sat with at lunch. I just didn't want to see any of them after school.

Most people drop out of med school. When paired with intense studying and the sudden realization that the cadaver you're sticking pins in was once a real living, breathing, walking and eating and screaming and dancing person, most students go a little nuts.

I know I did.

I wasn't anything special in college, either. I spent most of my time in my tiny dorm, doing homework until I feel asleep on my books. Tom, my roommate, would usually wake me up when he came in after three am from hooking up with some chick, and want to brag to me about his experience. The closest I came to touching a women was when the waitress at the diner spilled an entire cup of coffee on me and tried to dry me off with a towel.

Like I said, Nikkie was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I didn't quite believe she was real when I met her. She was one of those pretty girls, with long, dark blond hair pulled up into a bun and a tight sweater that clung to her round, delicate parts. I had been sitting on a bench outside that same diner where I had a pot of coffee spilled on me, reading those stupid college bulletins journalism major's made and passed out.

Featured on the front of the bulletin was a ghost story. Something about apartment 19 in the Woodson complex downtown. They could never fill the room. Weird stuff went on. The apartment was dirt cheap. That's all I could think about. It was cheap. I could afford cheap.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, a long slender finger with the nail painted pink. It was a real nail, too. Not one of those fake one's girls glue onto their hands to make them helpless.

I looked up at the most beautiful girl in the world. She was smiling, but it was an embarrassed smile, the kind of smile reserved for a person doing something so humiliating that it was physically painful to watch.

The most beautiful girl in the world looked at me, and then this is what she said:

"You do know that that bench was just painted, right? You're sitting in wet paint."

I stood up, and the most beautiful girl in the world looked at my ass. Imprinted on my pants was the face of the school's dean. He was winking. A car drove by us in a whoosh, bringing a burst of warm, fall air our way. The air smelled like gasoline. I looked up at Nikkie, and I shrugged, and then I winked, too. She laughed. I fell in love.

It was boy meets girl. It became boy kills girl.




Nikkie was the one who pursued me. I knew I didn't have a chance with her. I had seen a blond naked once. She was thirty five, and had donated her body to medical students. She was my first cadaver. Looking at her on a table, it was easy to forget she was once alive. Perfect breasts, perfect legs, perfect face with closed eyes. She was simply a specimen I was dissecting with a scalpel, picking her apart to learn her secrets like a kid on Christmas unwraps his presents. I could say 'breasts' when I looked at my cadaver because that's what they were.

Nikkie was alive. She had boobs. She had played volleyball in high school and ran track. She told me this on our first date, when I was admiring a scar on her knee. It was in the shape of a dragonfly's body, and she had wings tattooed on it.

I had a scar, too. On my side, from when I had my appendix removed. Mine didn't look like a dragonfly. Nikkie didn't cry when she hurt her knee. I sobbed like a baby because my stomach hurt when I was in the doctor's office, and he told me I had to have my appendix removed.

Nikkie wasn't afraid of anything. She didn't understand why I, acne and glasses and no muscles, would be afraid of her. Her, the most beautiful girl in the world. Why should she waist her time on me, when someone like my roommate with muscles and a charming smile and a voice girls swooned over, had told her she was hot when she came to pick me up for dinner?

I thought it was a joke at first, some more elaborate version of lead on the geek like the cheerleaders and chorus girls used to play in high school. I wanted to impress Nikkie. I wanted to make her proud.

"I'm going to rent out apartment 19." I took a sip of my Coke to seem casual. Nikkie was drinking pepsi. "You know, the one in Woodson Complex?"

Nikkie's eyebrows rose in surprise, and she looked up from her plate of spaghetti. "Seriously? Oh my god. That's awesome! You have to set up a camera! Tell me if you see any ghosts! It'd make an amazing story!"

Nikkie never said 'like'. It wasn't 'like, oh my god!' with her. It was just 'oh my god'. She was one of those blonds that defied the stereotype. She was smart, and knew how to speak well. She knew how to talk nerd. That night, I called Woodson Complex and told them I was interested in renting out Apartment 19.

Two days later, I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to Tom, and moved in to my new home.




Nikkie moved in with me five months later, on Valentine's Day. I had no problems with ghosts before she moved in. I didn't have any problems either. Not until she died.

I made Nikkie spaghetti that night, and it was like that cartoon with the two dogs. We kissed, just the barest brush of lips, and then the next thing I knew, dinner was forgotten and we were in my room, and Nikkie was on top of me, and she took her shirt off, and I remember thinking that she didn't have breasts, because she wasn't a cadaver, but that she had boobs, because she was alive, even though she was so damn perfect.

It was my first time. It wasn't Nikkie's.




I was a med student. I wasn't supposed to get any girls until I actually became a doctor. When I was rich and successful and saving people's lives, then I would be interesting, and girls would want to talk to me. Not when I was eating ramen noodles on the couch with the most beautiful girl in the world, while we listened to White Fang on audio tape because I spent all my money on books instead of a TV.

Nikkie and I never fought, but she did get jealous. The first time it happened, I was flattered. After all, the most beautiful girl in the world was worried that I would be looking at someone else. Me, who kept an inhaler in his book bag incase his asthma decided to act up.

I had decided to take Nikkie out to the diner were we met. After years of going to that place, I still don't know it's name. They didn't even have formal menus. I would walk in, sit down at the table, and the pretty red-headed waitress who poured the coffee on me would come up and ask what we wanted.

I liked soup. It was an easy, simple meal, and it was warm. But after a month of sipping at ramen that was barely flavored in an effort to reduce my sodium intake, I wanted something else.

"Will it be your usual, darling?" The waitress, Jenny, asked. I shook my head, and she seemed surprised.

"I'd like a grilled cheese." I said, and then thought about it. "And a hot chocolate."

This was new for me. I'd been avoiding hot drinks since my professor asked me to show the class the coffee burns on my chest.

"And how 'bout you?" Jenny asked Nikkie, and I watched Jenny's smile falter under Nikkie's sudden glare.

"The same, please." Nikkie sneered, lifting up her chin as the waitress left. She turned to me, and I remember being terrified, because Jenny was still within listening range, and she was the only other person who had been nice to me, but I was still scared, because I didn't know why I would be worried about Jenny when the most beautiful girl in the world was sitting across from me.

"What was that bitch's problem?" Nikkie shook her head. She tilted her head side to side, mocking Jenny's voice."Your usual, darling. Your usual! God, what's that even supposed to mean?"

And then she looked at me, and her eyes were cold again, and I remember thinking that they looked like ice. If I looked at Nikkie's eyes too long, it'd be just as stupid as walking out on a frozen lake. I would break through and drown.

I looked down at the table, wishing they had a menu I could flick through. Nikkie's fist slammed into the table. Her voice rose.

"What's that supposed to mean, Jack." She spat my name.

I said the only thing I could. "I usually order soup."




At home, things were good. We never fought, and there were never any ghosts. Every once in a while, I would wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat while my heart pounded against my chest. I would look around the room, trying to find any possible explanation for what could have woken me up.

There was never anything there. Nikkie was always laying on her side of the bed, her chest rising and falling slowly beneath the blankets she had stolen from my side of the bed. Eventually, I'd roll over, clutch the corner of a blanket to my chest, and try to fall back to sleep. Sometimes I'd lay awake longer, watching Nikkie sleep, and trying to fathom how she had come into my life.

I never thought about why my bedroom door was always opened in the mornings, even though I shut it every night. I always assumed Nikkie just woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or get a drink and never shut it on the way to bed.

One night, I was trying to fall asleep. Nikkie's breathing and her sweet, lilac and apple smell on my pillows usually helped me fall asleep. She wasn't here, though. She was going back to New York for the weekend to visit family. I was staying home.

I must have fallen asleep some point, because the digital red letters on my clock had changed from eleven thirty to three thirty. I was laying on my side, my face buried into Nikkie's pillow, thinking about surprising her with dinner when she came back. Something else besides ramen noodles. I had been saving my change and doing my laundry every week and a half instead of every Sunday. My arm was starting to hurt, aching from being laid on for so long.
I rolled over and watched my door open.

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, it was Eight a.m. My door was still open.



Nikkie and I never fought, and there were never any ghosts. I don't think I believe in ghosts. I can't be sure if I don't believe in them. It's true that I've never seen a ghost before, but it's also true that I've never looked for one.

When I was still in high school, some of the senior boys would sleep in the gym on home coming night. Apparently, a girl had drowned in the pool two years ago. At first, I thought this was nice, that boys still remembered her and wanted to hold a vigil.

It turns out that the girl had committed suicide in the pool. The same boys who stayed to watch for her ghost were the ones who bullied her. They stayed in the gym, screaming the girl's name, calling her fat and ugly, and daring her ghost to come and get them.

I don't remember what her name was. I used to sit next to her in Chemistry. No one ever told me she died. I just thought she moved away.

Nikkie had been popular in high school. She didn't understand why I never wanted to go to parties on campus with her. I couldn't expect her to understand. After all, she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and I was just a geek.

It didn't matter how many times Nikkie asked me to go with her. I wouldn't do it. Being a geek teaches you things, sometimes in painful ways. Survival of the fittest, for example, is one lesson that I had repeatedly beaten into me during high school. There's probably a locker with my body shape permanently dented into it at South Lincoln High, though by now it's probably been morphed into the shape of another geek. I never complained. I grit my teeth, and repeated my mantra to myself: In ten years, they'll be paying me hundreds to fix their blown out knees and broken arms.

There was a party on Valentine's Day this year. Nikkie asked me to go. I had made reservations for us at a restaurant downtown. A real restaurant. Not the diner. I didn't tell her, though. I wanted it to be a surprise.

I ordered roses, too, but they came early. I had hidden them in the back of my closet, hoping she wouldn't find them. I kept my closet door closed, but every morning, it was opened.

Nikkie was going to go to the party anyway. I couldn't tell her why not without ruining the surprise. I told her about dinner anyway. She laughed at me, told me I shouldn't have been so stupid, and that we'd have dinner some other time.

I thought this is what boyfriends were supposed to do. I had never been a boyfriend, though, so I listened to her. I canceled the reservations, and sat on the bed while Nikkie asked me if I liked the purple top or the blue top more.

I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I had been punched. It wasn't a big deal. I kept telling myself this over and over again. It was just dinner, we could have it any time. It was just a date. Our anniversary wasn't that special. Nikkie could have any guy in the world do these things for her. I should be grateful she chose me.

I kept clenching and unclenching my hands, like this would help any of the tension in my gut go away. I wanted to throw something at Nikkie. I wanted her to stay home with me, like a normal couple did. I didn't want her to go out to the party.

A sudden thought crossed my mind, but I brushed it aside. Nikkie would never do that. She would never cheat on me. I felt like I had two people in my head, arguing. My mouth felt dry. One voice, my voice, sounded feeble and weak. Nikkie loved me. She told me she did. She would never leave me.

But there was another voice, getting stronger every minute. What if Nikkie was just using me for the apartment? Using me as a cheap way to stay? Sex up the nerd once a week and then go out and bang your real boyfriend at those parties she's always at. She took trips to see her family all the time, little weekend trips up to New York.

What if it wasn't her family? What if that other voice was right, that she was just using me. It wouldn't be the first time. I suddenly felt warm, and frustrated. My clothes felt too tight. I couldn't decide how I wanted to sit. My back hurt.

"I'm going to go take a shower." Nikkie said. She left the bedroom, her hips swaying back and forth while one arm trailed behind her. She shut the door.

I sat on the bed until I heard the water run before getting up to open my closet door. The flowers I got for her were still behind my guncase. There were fourteen  roses in all, arranged nicely in a red vase. The card in the center was pink and had Nikkie's name written on it in a flourishing script.

I pulled them out carefully, trying not to bump them off the rows of hanging pants and shirt sleeves that dangled down like spider webs. When I got them into the bedroom, into better light, I felt my stomach sink like a rock.
The rose in the center was dead.

I carried the vase tucked under one arm so I could open and close my bedroom door. The water was still running in the bathroom, and probably would be for a while. Nikkie didn't pay the water bill. Why would she care how much water she used?

I didn't knock on the bathroom door. I just opened it. I set the vase on the porcelain counter that was damp with condensation. The whole bathroom suddenly felt too small. It was hot, and the air was thick with moisture. I could smell Nikkie's shampoo, sweet green apple, and I thought of the way it smelled on my pillow. Then, I thought of the way it would smell on someone else's pillow. I could picture her sweet green apple hair mixing with Tom's disgusting aftershave.

I could picture Tom waking me up to high-five me, bleary eyed and drunk, while he talked about some chick he banged. Was Nikkie one of them? I didn't want to know.  I felt sick. The toilet was right there, but I didn't feel like it was that kind of sick.

My stomach burned. Nikkie dropped something in the shower, and she cursed lightly. The bitch didn't even know I was there. I strode forward, my feet clopping off the floor heavily. I ripped the shower curtain open.

Nikkie screamed.

She fell.

I was watching a car crash happen in slow motion. Her arms flew out from her sides and her legs twisted up behind her. Slowly, with perfect detail, I saw her head collide with the faucet. Had it been a movie, it would have been the part where the hero opens his mouth and screams 'no!' in slow motion. Except I didn't have a script in front of me to warn me about the loss of the most beautiful girl in the world.  I didn't say anything.

I heard her head crack as it hit the faucet, and then heard it crack again off the bottom of the tub. Blood pooled out slowly, like syrup, thick and goopy until it mixed with the steady stream of hot water that still poured from above. The water hissed in my ears, a thousand angry snakes laughing at what I had done.

I knew that there was a lot of blood because it was a head wound, and head wounds tend to bleed a lot, because the vessels are closer to the skin. The faucet squeaked as I shut the water off. Somehow, I had managed to get a towel over her head. The blood oozed through it.

I didn't notice she wasn't breathing until it was already too late. I called the ambulance, but I could take her pulse easily myself. Still, the paramedics came, taking her out easily, shouting orders that sounded muffled to me. I waited until the left, assuring them that I would follow them up in my car, but that the sight of her blood made me feel sick, and that I needed a moment.

I kept a gun in my closet. I had hidden the roses behind the case, because Nikkie told me how disgusting guns were, so I knew she'd never look there. It was easy to load, easy to clean, easy to keep on hand in case someone ever tried to break into the apartment.

I loaded it. I bent my head over the bathtub. I fired.

Nothing happened.

        The bathroom door was open. I had closed it.

I can't get the bloodstains out of the tub.
At the original time of uploading, this is the rough draft entry for Teenage-Writer's Twisted Valentines Day Contest.

I'll be fixing mistakes as I go, but if anyone notices anything off/repeated/spelled incorrectly/tense mistakes/etc, let me know, please.

Anyway, some background about the piece.

I have no idea. I started writing, and just kept going. Writing from a whiny, geeky guy's perspective has become sort of normal for me lately. I started to write, and just kept going.

I wanted to make Jack an unreliable narrator, and hint at some tension between Nikkie and himself, and the fact that his apartment was haunted. There's some parts I might go back and edit
© 2011 - 2024 Canis-Angst
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xXxPunkPixiexXx's avatar
This was so...gah! I can't explain XD The way everything clicked, the pace, the characters, how much of them you reveal, how it flows, Nikkie's surprising scary side, everything was so perfect :D