Last Night

HEATHER BONCEY won a scary story contest by Wokingham Writers’ Group. Here’s her horror tale

Iopened my eyes slowly. My head was pounding. I couldn’t remember anything from the night before. There was a sickeningly sweet, metallic smell in the room. My hands felt sticky. I looked down and saw they were covered in blood and so was I.

I didn’t feel any pain, just hangover-rough. I turned my head and realised there was someone next to me. I sat up in panic.

Lying beside me was a young man with his face all caved in.

His blood was splattered everywhere, on the sheets, duvet, pillows, even on the walls. Who was he?

I stumbled into the ensuite and was violently sick. I cleaned my teeth, splashed my face with water in an attempt to wake myself up.

I walked back into the bedroom and sat on the chair. My bedroom looked like a crime scene. Just like the ones you see on TV, I thought, quickly realising it really was a crime scene.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of events from the night before.

Vague visions of a bar, club, dancing, knocking back shots, came into my head. I opened my eyes but sadly the man was still there, dead.

An image of me waking up to the sound of birds sprang into my memory.

“You looked so much younger last night,” the man said. “Oh my, you’re older than my mother!” Then he fell back into a drunken sleep.

I remembered grabbing my grandmother’s old, heavy, brass bedside lamp and hitting him, over and over again. Oh, well, I thought, he won’t get a chance to say that to anyone else.

I started to laugh, slowly, unpleasantly and sardonically at first. With tears rolling down my cheeks, I threw my head back, laughing wildly, hysterically and uncontrollably. I couldn’t stop.