Blood and Bramble

Blood and Bramble

By: Spencer Salokar

Gabby was eating dinner one night when her friend Nancy called her. She was sobbing, and through her tears she told Gabby that her and her boyfriend Daniel had gotten into a fight. He had just snapped, hit her, and then left after she had refused to go to bed with him. It made no sense, she told Gabby. They had both agreed to save themselves for marriage, and he had always been nothing but patient.

Gabby called her husband, who was on a business trip in D.C., and he agreed that she should go stay with Nancy for a few days in case Daniel came back. She wasted no time packing up a bag and hopping in the car. The sun was just beginning to set when she started down the road. Nancy’s house was only about an hour away, but she figured she could make it there in 45 if she hurried.

A light snow began to fall as the sun set, and the temperature began to drop dramatically. It seemed as though it was dropping all too fast, in fact, especially since it was only the middle of autumn. Gabby cranked the heat, but it didn’t seem to help. The cold seeped through her jacket and into her bones and she began feeling as though something was very, very wrong. She told herself not to be ridiculous and turned on the radio. It was just winter in the midwest, nothing more.

She turned off the highway a few miles from Nancy’s house and suddenly found herself all alone on the roads. All of the other traffic had just disappeared, and a moment later, the radio crackled and died. The engine sputtered to a halt soon after.

Gabby turned the key in the ignition frantically, but it was no use. The car refused to start. She tried her phone, but whatever had fried the radio and the engine had fried that too. It was dead, even though it had been fully charged when she left her house. 

The cold was only getting worse. She had no choice but to grab her bag and leave her car on the road. Nancy’s house wasn’t far, she told herself. It was only a mile away at most. The cold bit into her the moment she stepped onto the snowy pavement. Beneath her boots she could feel that a thin sheet of ice had already begun to form.

She waddled along down the road, careful not to slip and fall, all the while keeping her hands wrapped around herself to help conserve heat. It was no use. She soon began to shiver. She was freezing and all she wanted was to stop, just for a moment, just one, little, second, but instead, she kept trudging along and made it to Nancy’s driveway where, upon turning onto it, she did finally stop. Shining under the moonlight before her was a winding line of bloody specks that led in a perfect trail right up to the front door of Nancy’s house. 

Gabby felt as though she was being watched the second she began to trudge up the driveway. It was a dark, heavy presence, and she knew it wasn’t coming from the house. All of the windows were filled with candle light, and if someone had been at one of them watching, Gabby would have seen them in an instant. No, this thing that was watching her was somewhere else. Somewhere among the deep shadows of all the trees that lined the driveway.

She kept her head on a swivel as she walked along, but it wasn’t until she was almost there that she spotted it. One moment there was nothing, and in the next it was just there, a tall, dark figure that was standing near the treeline at the corner of the house and staring at her with burning red eyes. It took a step toward her and she screamed before beginning to run, almost slipping as did so and just managing to catch herself with one outstretched hand that felt as though it froze the second it touched the ice below.

She made it to the door just as Nancy threw it open for her. She bolted inside and Nancy slammed it behind her, thumbing in the deadbolt. 

“Gabby!” She cried in relief at seeing her friend.

“There’s something out there!” Gabby said breathlessly.

“I know,” Nancy said. “It’s him. It’s Daniel.”

“What?!” Gabby asked.

Nancy explained to her what had happened as the both of them huddled together near the stairs and took turns watching the front door and the windows. It had all started when her and Daniel had been going on a walk around the neighborhood. She had spotted something metallic beneath one of the bramble patches near the side of her driveway and had tried to move some of the branches aside when she had slipped and cut herself on one of the thorns. Daniel had taken her hand to see if it was okay, and then had kissed it to make it feel better. Nancy had thought the gesture was romantic, but then Daniel had looked up with a strange look in his eyes and blood on his lips. He had grabbed her by the wrist and begun dragging her back towards the house, demanding that they go to bed together that very instant. His hand had been like ice, she said, and it had left a mark on her skin even through her jacket. 

She stopped the story for a moment to pull up her sleeve, revealing an icy blue handprint on her wrist. Gabby, whose hand hadn’t been feeling quite right ever since she used it to stop her fall, removed her glove and brought it up between the two of them. The entire hand had been turned the same color of icy blue.

He had hit her after she had pulled away and told him no. She had thought he was going to keep hitting her, but in that moment it was as if he returned to his old self. He had told her to run, and she had ran. Once she was back inside the house she had locked it and had called Gabby first thing. Daniel had only started stalking around the perimeter after she had hung up, and she would have called Gabby to tell her to stay away, but just then all of the electronics had frozen up. Gabby told her that the same thing had happened to her and her car.

“What do we do?” Nancy asked, but before Gabby could say anything there was a knock at the door.

“Oh Nancy, dear Nancy, won’t you please open the door? It’s so cold out here all alone,” Daniel’s voice said from the other side. “Please, my dear, all I want is more blood.”

“Go away!” Nancy yelled, and the thing outside began to cackle.

“I give you this choice. My word is my bond,” it said. “Give yourself to me, or someone you love will die this night.”

“No!” Nancy yelled, and all at once the presence at the door vanished.

They sat in silence for a long while until Nancy finally said, “I’m sorry, Gabby. I never meant to drag you into this, and I don’t want to die, but if it comes down to it, I can’t let him hurt you.”

“And as your friend,” Gabby said, “I can’t let you do that”.

Just then there was another knock at the door. “Once more, this choice. My word is my bond,” the thing said. “Final chance. Your willing blood, or an unwilling love.”

“If you want us, come in here and take us!” Gabby shouted.

The thing cackled, and then all fell silent. A minute passed, and then two. Finally, into the quiet darkness, it spoke, “So be it.”

The presence disappeared once again. Gabby and Nancy sat together in anxious silence, watching and waiting as the night passed them by. Neither of them slept.

A knock broke through the silence as the lights of the house flickered on alongside the light of the morning sun, but it was not the knock of the thing with the red eyes. It was the knock of a police officer. The two of them opened the door cautiously, but deep in their hearts they knew what it meant.

The officer was kind and patient, but nothing could soften the news. Gabby’s husband had been in an accident on his way to the airport. His body had been found on the steps of his hotel where he had slipped and broken his neck. 

The two women thanked the officer and spent the day in mourning. That night, there was a knock at the door, followed by a voice that said, “I give you this choice, my word is my bond…”