Short Story Suspense – A Beautiful Day
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
It was a beautiful day for the girl. The sunrise poured in from her large bay windows, slowly and steadily. Like flames of pink and purple, the light crept toward the luxurious and very messy bed that the girl lay in. All too soon it was morning and the busy streets of New York got busier and louder, waking the girl. She blinked in the morning light like a newborn, her big brown eyes taking everything in at once. As she did every morning, she dug herself out from under her baby blue, silk and satin bed spread. Her perfectly manicured hands clawed at the air like a crazed animal.
Once she surfaced she executed a very clumsy Olympic leap out of the bed. More often than not, she would get her foot tangled and fall ever so ungracefully to the floor. Today was different though.
When she leapt she landed quite cleanly on both feet and remembered to strike a flattering pose for her audience. After her impromptu photo session, she proceeded to walk toward her bathroom like a member of the living dead. A leap like that so early in the morning can tire a girl out you know. In the bathroom she examined her morning self in the mirror. She checked out her bed head, lopsided pajama top, crusty eyes, and her unpleasant morning breath. Her carefully calculated conclusion was that she was, in fact, the queen of the living dead, (talk about your poorly monitored self-esteem levels).
Later she was nicely showered and dressed in her finest couture clothes, makeup, and jewelry. The girl then made her way down the marble stairs, taking a sharp left at the bottom, propelling herself into her kitchen. She was just in time to have her favorite breakfast. Her breakfast was absolutely scrumptious. There was sizzling bacon, cut thick and maple-smoked. She loved the way it crunched between her teeth. Her eggs were scrambled with spicy pepper jack cheese, and she had whole-wheat toast with warm butter and sweet peach preserves. The girl washed it all down with ice cold, fresh squeezed orange juice, pulp and all.
Throughout the day happiness seemed to envelop her like a blanket. All of her classes at school went wonderfully. The teachers were cool and understanding, which never happened. She and her friends were super funny all day. They were laughing so hard during math class that they couldn’t stop snorting. At lunch her best friend made her laugh so hard and so suddenly, that her extra-foam-non-fat-decaf-soybean-chai-mocha latte shot from her nose and got all over her Caesar chicken salad. Needless to say, she didn’t finish her lunch, but she was on cloud nine. At the end of the school day she started home.
The girl hustled down the busy New York sidewalk, ducking and dodging people and dogs. She also had to maneuver around the by-products of those dogs. She was trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab during rush hour. The cabs and other vehicles rushed past in a blur. She had stuck out her arm to catch the attention of an oncoming cab when she heard a rough voice scream “MOVE!” She turned, startled, towards the voice. In the split second that she saw his face she noticed that it was tan and weather worn, with a strong jaw and a fierce, demented anger. After that second passed she saw the man’s arms move. One reached for, and ripped off her necklace. The other moved towards her middle with a dagger. She felt the intense pain of his blade being thrust into her stomach.
She doubled over as the man wrenched the blade from her body and ran on. The girl choked and sputtered, in too much pain to scream. She fell to the ground and rolled onto her side, only then finding the strength to scream in agony. She felt and heard the commotion of people around her, but she was fading in and out of consciousness. Her surroundings were blurred, and she cried out in pain as someone grabbed her. She heard a voice through the pain. A deep, soothing man’s voice.
The man was an off duty RN who had, thankfully, seen everything. After he grabbed the girl he flipped her onto her back. The sudden movement accentuated the pain and she cried out, screaming and crying uncontrollably. The girl was struggling. The RN was trying to move her shirt out of the way so that he could see the extent of the damage the blade had done. She screamed and fought. The blood had soaked through the cloth, making it stick. The pulling just inflamed the wound. She heard a great number of voices as others came to help. They were soft and loud, fading in and out constantly. Swirling , whirling voices.
Someone held her down while the RN moved her shirt away from the wound. He grimaced at the sight of it. It was jagged, bloody, and very deep. He knew he had to try to stop the bleeding, so he wrestled his jacket off and pressed it firmly onto the girl’s wound. Those who heard her scream will never forget it. It ripped from her throat, piercing the normalcy of the skies around them with a psychotic howl. They say the sound had an unearthly likeness to curdled blood. She arched her back like someone who was possessed, and her vision blurred completely. She fell back to the earth with a thud, still writhing. Her last conscious thought was of the sunlight in her room that morning. The beautiful, soft sunlight that seemed to welcome in a day of such promise.
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