I’ve been working up to penning some short stories for the next Underdog Anthology, Dear Reader, due out for Halloween. Writing horror doesn’t come easy for me, so today I dipped into The Articles of Dume (written by my good friend the Doctor), during my lunch break, for instruction and inspiration…

*Fuck! I hope it doesn’t take forever, Clicky, the submission deadline is the end of September…*

Anyhoo… I thought I’d post the last of my three stories, but the first that I wrote, for Volume 1. The other two can be found here and here…

*Not yet, Clicky, but I’m trying…*

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Succulent Sardines

by Roo B. Doo

During daylight the faded grandeur was all too apparent but in the evening the flickering lamplight transformed the interior of Crossgate House into a Gothic nightmare.

‘Well, this is spooky as hell,’ Helena whispered to herself as she lightly skipped up the stairs toward the darkness of the top floor.

Paul was up there, waiting. All she had to do was find his champagne glass and then they would have a few precious minutes to indulge in the most dangerous aspect of their relationship – risky sex. Helena shivered at the prospect and wondered at the audacity of the man the financial media blithely referred to as ‘Golden Sacks’. Getting your rocks off during a game of Sardines at the company’s weekend retreat, was the epitome of risk-taking.

Helena paused as she reached the landing to duck under the heavy, velvet rope barrier and sign firmly stating, ‘STRICTLY OUT OF BOUNDS’. Big bucks can buy use of historical dumps with disturbing histories, but some areas remained firmly off limits. Especially to drunken financiers with little understanding of the meaning of priceless.

She risked a look over the handrail, but Helena couldn’t detect anybody else on stairs; the sound of muffled laughter in the distance below confirmed that only she and Paul were in his part of the house. The rest of the party were searching for him elsewhere. Only she knew where he’d be hiding in a ‘fuck ugly, black wardrobe’ that he’d discovered whilst snooping about earlier.

Slipping her phone from pocket, Helena shone its bluish white light down either side of a corridor until she spotted a fluted glass on a side table beside a heavy, wooden door. The champagne bubbles inside danced and popped as she approached. Helena downed it in one and gripping the cold brass door handle. Part of her hoped it was locked – they had been told these doors were locked – but it swung open effortlessly under her touch. With a final quick glance back the way she’d come, Helena quietly slipped inside the room beyond.

“Paul?” she hissed as she scoured the room for a glimpse of him. “Paul? Where are you? This must be the most stupidest idea you’ve had yet.”

Helena put down the glass and lifted her phone again to take in the dust sheet covered contents of the room. Along the back wall she spotted a large, black wardrobe. Creeping forward, she could make out grotesque figures carved ornately into the pitch coloured wood. Helena grimaced; the wardrobe was indeed very ugly.

“Paul, let me in,” Helena whispered urgently. She flinched from touching the door knob, a carved fist clutching a human heart. Closer still, the carvings appeared to cavort in the cold blue light streaming from her phone.

“We don’t have long. Fuck! It’s doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know you’ll be hiding exactly where you not allowed to. It won’t take those drongos long to figure it out. Let me in.”

There was a metallic click and the wardrobe door noiselessly and smoothly swung open. Helena sharply stepped inside and her lover closed the door behind her.

“You’re a bloody nightmare, this place is creepy.” Helena lent up and pressed her lips against Paul’s neck as he ran his hands down her back. She felt his fingers dig into her arse cheeks pulling closer toward him. “But, I can feel that you’re already hard. That should save some time.”

Helena slid to her knees and swiftly unbuckled his belt. Within moments she’d freed his throbbing cock from it’s rich trappings and greedily began to suck. After a while Paul sighed.

“You’re a wicked child. So, you liked my game suggestion? No, don’t stop.”

Helena redoubled her efforts. In the oppressive darkness, the sound of her slurping suddenly filled her with disgust. This felt like a risk too far, she decided. She wanted to get it over and she didn’t want her attentions reciprocated.

“You really are very good. He’s hopelessly wrong about the most important things, but he’s quite right about you.”

Helena paused and looked up into the blackness. “Who’s quite right?” Her stomach made a queasy roll. “Paul, I’m not feeling too good. Can we stop?”

“Him. Your banker boss.”

Helena stopped and leant back, putting distance between herself and Paul’s engorged penis. The curve of an expensive leather shoe press into her inner thigh as she sat back. Reaching between her legs, Helena groped the familiar texture of Paul’s exquisitely tailored trousers. Shoe and fabric where linked by a cold, bony ankle encased in a silk sock.

“No, don’t scream. Not yet. And no stopping. Please continue.”

With a cruel yank of her hair, Paul pulled Helena back into a pleasing position. He pumped her head back and forth, pinioning it in his hands.

“They won’t be able to hear you scream in any event. None of you heard his shrieks earlier,” he grunted and sped up. “Two hundred hungry years of solitude. You know, I was beginning to think nobody was left alive out there.”

Helena gagged at the forced pressure in her mouth. Bewildered tears ran from her bulging eyes. Please let someone come quickly, she thought as she succumbed to the darkness.

“As. You. Wish.”

Paul groaned long and loud as Helena’s body slumped onto him. He cocked his head at the sound of someone smashing the champagne glass in the outer room. Heaving Helena’s unconscious body away from him, Paul licked his lips and grinned.

“Yes, you’re very good and we will do that again. But for now, best to make space for the others. Now, I think it’s my time to gobble.”

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Right then. I’d better get on with it and get down to writing…

*/puffs out cheeks and blows… Got a suitable Song to finish with Clicky?*