Splatterpainting 

Derek thought about death all the time. He’d done the therapy thing, took the prescribed 50mg of Prozac plus the occasional Prazosin when the nightmares got bad. Yet he still found himself waking up early to see the sunrises, trying to make his last thought, when it came, something that meant more than the final words he’d said to his Father when he dropped him off at summer camp all those years ago: 

“Sure, Pop.” 

A whole lifetime finalised by two words, the context of which Derek never tried to recall anymore. Remembering had become a beast that lurked in the corner of Derek’s mind, holding his thoughts hostage whenever he wasn’t working; obsessively growing the empire his Father’s death left him, cultivating it until it was a thing with sharpened branches and flourishing leaves watered with blood and tears.

 

It was hot in the Mayor’s office that night, sweat pooling under the rims of Derek’s glasses as he reclined in his office chair, mouthing the words of the speech he’d present to the press tomorrow after weeks of protesters banging on his door. 

The shrill cry of the telephone made Derek jump, hand clapping down hard on the desk as he let out a groan.

“Christ, Elsie, what?”

“You missed dinner,” his wife’s resigned voice crackled through the speaker. Derek sighed, taking off his glasses and massaging away the first ebb of a headache.

“I’m busy.”

“You’re always busy, D. The kids want to know where their dad is,”

“I can’t do shit for the kids if I don’t complete this deal, Elsie. I’m putting food on their goddamn table,” 

“Don’t yell at me, Derek, you son of a bitch, I swear to G-,”

“Oh, fuck you.” 

If Elsie replied, Derek didn’t hear it as he smacked the phone back into its cradle. He took a deep breath, trying to force his eyes to focus on the speech in front of him through the red haze of rage that was dimming his vision. 

“Nobody understands the history of this place better than I,” he read, “but we can’t live in the shadow of tragedy forever. That’s why I’m proud to announce that the Cordes Mall will be built. This is a moment of great progress fo-,” 

Derek bit back another curse as the phone screamed again. His entire body flickered with rage as he grabbed it, smacking it straight back down. His mouth felt like it was filled with blood, teeth grinding in his jaw as his body trembled with the rage that had followed him since the night his family had been taken.
Once he got the campaigners off his back, Derek could sign the deal, and the land that had once caused him so much pain would be wiped away, forgotten under the unending need for consumerism. 

He took a deep breath, picking up the crumpled speech and clearing his throat before resuming his terse recital, projecting his voice as if performing for the ghost of an audience.

 

He meandered aimlessly to the window, eyes falling on the uncanny yellowish tinge spilt out by the old streetlights, illuminating rolling suburban housing. His gaze moved beyond the houses, in the direction of the pig farm – the place that had driven that woman to murder his family while he slept soundly at some cushy summer camp he’d begged to go to. 

 

Staring silently over the town he thought he must have loved once, Derek became aware, suddenly, of a heavy step in the room behind him. The melancholy spilled out of him, chased away by the bubbling heat of rage. He spun on his heel to confront them, the “don’t you know who I am” already blooming on his tongue like the head of a weed rooted in his throat. But as his eyes fell on his visitor, the words wilted as he choked on a shuddering gasp.

 

They didn’t look like they had in the newspapers, but Derek knew them in a part of his soul he’d have sworn he didn’t have anymore. The work boots and overalls singed and bloodied, the wooden pig sign melted into a scarred face, plasticky where it curled over an arched lip, revealing a set of blackened teeth. 

“What the fuck are you?” he breathed, despite the part of him that knew the answer. “Why are you here?” 

He knew that too. He could see the cleaver in their mangled hand, watched the light of a passing car flare along its rusted blade, illuminating fresh blood.  

Time passed in a bubble as the once-human thing stepped towards him, weight shifting awkwardly under their clothes like their body was something foreign even to them. Derek took a shaky breath, lungs swelling with terror; and then all at once, the bubble burst. The intruder lunged forward, blade sweeping through the air as Derek, snapping out of his trance, bolted to the window. His hands fumbled with the sash, shaky fingers finding no purchase on the smooth frame. With a stiff screech that pumped relief through his veins, Derek slid the window upwards, hesitating for only a moment before thrusting his upper body into the cool night air. 

It took him two thudding heartbeats to realise he wasn’t falling. His body was wedged in the window frame, evening breeze kissing his face from the front while the large, golden belt buckle affixed to his waist blocked any hope of freedom. 

“Fuck, no, come on,” he hissed, teeth gritted as he shoved his hips forward, trying to work himself free before – 

Before the intruder reached him, breath sharp and raspy like the squeal of livestock as their blood-slick hand found his ankle. Derek couldn’t even open his mouth to scream before his body was pulled backwards, stomach scraping over the edge of the window as the visitor grunted, gripping him close and submerging him in the sickly sweet stench of rotting flesh, battling the near-chemical odour of burning plastic, making his eyes water from disgust and terror in equal measure. 

“Please, I have a family, I have kids, I’m a good man -” 

His eyes fixed hazily to the wall that held the unfinished artwork of his brother, killed by the same hands holding a cleaver to his throat, forming beads of blood. The painting was framed ornately – an over-compensation for Derek not being there to protect his family when it mattered. 

But he was making up for it now. The cleaver sliced across his throat, splintering sharp agony through his body. His knees buckled with pain and relief in a confusing dichotomy as he fell to the ground in a heap of shaking limbs and gasping breaths; the final mechanism of a dying survival instinct. 

He lifted his arms limply off the floor, body shuffling forward like a slug in the summer sun as he tried to hoist his weight forward. By the time he heard the footsteps resume behind him, Derek didn’t even have enough strength to look back. He could hear his own breath against the floor, the buzz of artificial light above his head, and those heavy, reverberating boot-steps crashing ever closer. Derek shut his eyes, bracing for impact as the intruder moved closer, leg brushing his foot as they approached – and then nothing. 

They stepped over his body, not finding enough fight in him to even try and kill him twice. 

“D-don’t, I-I’m still-,” 

He wanted to say he was still alive, still worth the fight, a thing worth mauling again just to make sure he wouldn’t come back to haunt them. The killer didn’t seem to hear him as they wiped the blade on their overalls, letting out a noise halfway between a snort and a grunt. They left the room, leaving Derek’s body face-down in a growing pool of crimson that stained corporate white the colour of revenge. 

 

The phone on the desk above Derek’s body rang shrilly into the silence, and all he could do was listen to its final scream as he faded into the dark.