Mack the Knife

A scary story based on a prompt with a song for a story title. Writer's Cramp entry.

They were all bitches, I thought to myself as I stumbled out of the bar and headed to my car two blocks over. If they were going to spend all night teasing a guy with tight clothes and pretty smiles, the least they could do was accept a compliment and be a little grateful that somebody was interested in letting them come home with him.

Then, after teasing and laughing at me, I show one of them what happens when you don’t show me the proper respect and the bouncer throws me out of the bar and threatens to call the cops?

Whatever. First and last time I’ll ever spend my money there.

I tried to remember where I parked. The alcohol-fueled fog in my head wasn’t exactly helping. The bouncer tried to take my keys, but I’d driven home plenty of times way drunker than this. And sure, I may have a suspended license and my bumper might be a little worse for the wear thanks to the other cars, mailboxes, walls, and fences I’ve bumped on the way home from past benders, but it’s not like I’d actually ever hurt anybody.

As I shuffled down the sidewalk, I heard the tap-tap-tapping of a pair of stiletto heels on the wet pavement behind me. I turned around and looked behind me, but the street was empty.

I started walking again, and the tap-tap-tapping resumed. It sounded like it was getting closer, so I picked up my pace. It was awkward trying to fast-walk while impaired, but for some reason cold tendrils of fear were wrapping themselves around my insides and I felt the urge to break into a run.

Stopping abruptly, I swung around again. In retrospect, that might not have been the best idea because even though I stopped, the world didn’t. By the time everything settled down and I could look behind me, there was no one there.

“Where are you?” I said in what I hoped was my most intimidating, manly growl. In reality, it sounded a little slurred even to my ears.

“Hello, Raymond,” said a familiar voice from the shadows.

“Who’s that? Show yourself!” I demanded with more courage than I felt.

A woman stepped into outer edge of the halo of a streetlight and I would have recognized her instantly, even if I had been twice as tipsy.

“Mackenzie?” I asked, the syllables sloshing around in my mouth as I tried to get them out. “What are you doing here?”

“Just checking up on my miserable excuse for an ex-husband,” Mackenzie said, coming into the full light of one of the street lamps. She was wearing a dark trench coat and a pair of patent leather stilettos that immediately drew my attention, along with the way her coat clung to her curves in all the right places. I licked my lips at the slight flare of her hip as she put one hand on it, the other held behind her back.

“We’re not married anymore,” I retorted. “I don’t owe you shit.”

“The problem is, Ray, that you don’t seem capable of change. I thought it was enough to rid myself of you, but it’s become abundantly clear that you can’t be trusted around anyone. You’re on the wrong side of forty and still getting hammered at bars, abusing women, and driving drunk. You’re a danger to everyone around you.”

I took a swing at her, aiming to smack that self-satisfied smirk off her face. I must’ve been drunker than I thought, though, because she didn’t even have to move and I missed her by a good six inches, my momentum spinning me around in a full, staggering circle.

“Look at you,” she said. “You’re pathetic. Your first resort is always to hit someone, and you can’t even do that right half the time.”

I lunged at her again, this time managing to get my hands around her throat. I closed them as tight as I could, trying to constrict her airway as I pushed her up against the lamp post. I could feel her struggling and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get me a little aroused.

Mackenzie was a fighter and that always turned me on.

“Bet you regret making fun of me now,” I gloated, squeezing a little tighter.

She gurgled something in response that I couldn’t understand. I decided to let up a little to hear her out. Maybe she’d beg me to take her back. Maybe she’d apologize for being such a stupid whore.

“I don’t regret anything,” she said, a smile spreading across her lips.

“Huh?”

She inclined her head to her left. I followed her indication to the security camera mounted on the wall of the building next to us. It was pointed in our direction.

“I just needed you to sell it for the camera. It’ll really help my self-defense plea.”

I looked at her confused. The confidence on her face brought those cold tendrils of fear racing back with a vengeance. Before I could even step away, I felt warmth on my chest. Looking down, I stared, dumbfounded, at sticky, hot blood pouring down my front.

I let go of Mackenzie and put my hands to my throat, feeling the open gash from which blood was pouring. It was only then that I noticed the butterfly knife in her hand, its blade coated red and gleaming in the streetlight.

Feeling lightheaded, I tried to sit down but ended up collapsing into a heap on the sidewalk.

“So long, Raymond. At least now I know you’ll never be able abuse anyone again.”

Helpless to do anything but lay there, I was getting weaker by the moment. Bleeding out while staring at her patent leather stilettos while she called 911 and pretended to be concerned for me.

One last, fleeting thought went through my head as a lost consciousness.

They were all bitches.


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1,000 words

Prompt: Using a scenario from "Note: *Skull* Saturday Night Horror Prompt ...", build upon it for a scary story (1,000 words max). The genre must be Horror, and the title should be a song name. (I chose dragonwoman 's scenario, and " Mack the Knife

" by Bobby Darin as the song.)

Originally written for "The Writer's Cramp"  and "I Write in 2018" .