The Tell Tale Dance

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-Transcript-
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Are you Agent Pike?

The name’s Arnold, Arnold Wesley.

You’re not a cop?

Excuse me?

The Blackridge Society? Never heard of it.

You deal with the strange and paranormal - huh? No wonder you want to hear what happened.

I was told cooperation can get my sentence lowered. Is that true?

Okay…

Now is it going to get lowered whether you believe what I say or not?

Can I get that in writing?

Well, because the events are unbelievable.

Only a crazy person would believe stories about a…

…Tell Tale Dance.

----

We never had a honeymoon phase.

After the wedding it was straight back to work.

And I mean, I work hard.

I provide well.

She got whatever she wanted.

Yet, whenever I’d get back home, there’d always be some sort of issue.

I’m not doing this; I’m not doing that.

The woman never had a pause button.

Constantly putting me in the hotseat…

I’m sure you know why I’m in here.

I mean… You’ve likely read my files.

Or seen the news reports.

One day I got back home after a 14-hour shift, and from the bedroom…

…I hear her with another man.

Giggling and moaning.

I was as jealous as I was angry.

When I bust the door open, sure enough I see her fooling around with the mailman.

What do you think I did?

I chased the kid out of the apartment.

Can you believe that SHE was actually mad at ME?

I mean… off she went. Like every other day.

You never take me out. You never do anything romantic. I wouldn’t have to look for it elsewhere if you just did your job as a man.

I tried to get some space and calm down, but she’d just follow me room to room and go on and on and on.

Real specific stuff too. Just salting the wounds.

I was in the kitchen. She just wouldn’t stop.

I wasn’t thinking.

The knife was out.

So I stabbed her.

The ease at which… the blade… cut into muscle… didn’t really match the gravity of what I just did.

I was just… I was just so mad.

They say I stabbed her fifteen times?

I don’t remember anything after the first one.

You know, that’s what temporary insanity is!

You’re just not in control of your actions!

Something sets you off, and you go blind!

When I came to. There was blood everywhere.

It pooled in the uneven dips of the floorboards, seeping down between the cracks.

There was so much of it that the air in the kitchen smelled like rust.

At first, I didn’t know what to do, the situation hadn’t fully set in.

But self-preservation took over and the autopilot kicked in.

I dragged the corpse into the bathroom, letting it bleed out in the tub.

Then I started cleaning.  

I used every towel in the house, my blanket, even the curtain to soak up the mess.

Most of the time I would just push it around.

It started to congeal.

I was practically scooping it up like jello, dumping it in the toilet.

Then came the bleach.

Poured an entire gallon over the floor and began scrubbing with steel wool until my hands were raw.

But the stains weren’t coming out. The floor remained blotched red.

So, I took the electric sander.

And just started sanding away at the wood.

For hours.

Neighbors probably thought I was renovating.

In the end, you could still see it spotted around. Seeped into the grain.

But I had bigger issues.

I had to get rid of the body somehow.

What happened next?

I… I rolled her up in a carpet.

Why?

Well, I mean… They do it in the movies.

I rolled her up and dragged the entire thing into the elevator.

Propping it up in the corner.

I’m on the seventeenth floor, so the stairs were out of the question.

Of course, leave it to luck to have Ms. Beatrice, the seventy-year-old retiree, get in the elevator on my way down.

“Nice carpet you have.” She said.

“They don’t make them like that anymore.” She said.

“Good thing you’re taking it to get cleaned, it kinda smells a little.” She said.

The lobby was empty as I dragged the thing down the center of the foyer.

Much to my luck, the security guard on duty was asleep at his desk.

First time I’d seen that in all my years living here.

It’s like the stars were aligning for me.

After a short struggle, I managed to get it to the car.

To… her car.

Small little Volkswagen.

At first, it wouldn’t fit.

But… with a little effort… and some sort of crack… I got it in.

And I drove off to the local forest preserve.

The rest was easy.

Buried the body and drove the car into the lake.

Then I started walking home.

----

The hike back was around two hours on foot.

Plenty of time to have a man think about his actions.

That’s when it started.

As I approached the outskirts of the city, I heard the patter of feet behind me.

Naturally, I glanced back, curious who was following me, and I see her…

My heart stopped.

…she had been covered in fresh dirt. It clung in patches to the bloody spots on her dress.

She stood upright; one arm dangling shattered at the side.

That must have been the crack.

Her paling cloudy eyes locked with mine.

A ridged smile bearing muddy teeth stretched across her face.

Then she collapsed, folding over herself like an accordion.

Lifeless once more.

A hot flash hit me, everything started spinning.

“How?” was all I could think.

Blank-minded, my body instinctually lunged at the corpse dragging it off the sidewalk.

She was heavy. No way would I be able to get her back to the forest without a car.

I figured stuffing her in a bush was good enough.

By the time anyone would find out, I’d be off on the beach in Morocco or something.

Besides, then I thought there was a chance it was all in my head.

It was as I made my way through the strip, towards my apartment.

That in the reflection of the storefronts, I saw her once more, this time animated.

Dancing in step behind me.

Her movements were… graceful.

She’d bend and stretch, twirl on her toes, and jump up like a ballerina.

The one broken arm grotesquely flopping along.

She glid with such rhythm I could almost hear music playing.

As I passed a donut shop, the door swung open, and a couple of cops walked in front of my path.

I made the mistake of turning around and making eye contact with that… zombie… and instantly it fell to the ground like a bag of bricks.

I panicked and grabbed her by the waist, propping the corpse upright against the diner wall with my body weight.

The commotion caused the cops to face us, their skeptical stares burning a hole in me.

I had to act fast…

…so, I kissed her.

She was cold.

Her skin was ridged.

There was a faint smell of rot lingering around.

And as I held the body in my arms, our mouths against each other’s, she was eerily motionless, except for a slight twitch off the corner of her lips.

Something that resembled the buzzing vibration of a trapped fly.

“Get a room you.” One of the cops said as they turned to leave.

The instance they got in their cruisers and drove off, I dragged the limp corpse off to the side of the building and jammed her into one of the restaurant’s dumpsters.

But not even a block later, I once again saw her image in the reflections of windows and mirrors.

The dance becoming more complex.

But as she pirouetted and dipped past people, I can see her brushing against them.

Yet their stares were all focused forward, almost as if ignoring her.

I waved a taxi down. I had to get away from that thing.

But as a cab approached me, parking against the curb, I glanced back at her by accident.

And of course, she froze, my stares causing life to flee from her.

I could see the corpse’s legs wobble; I could see people starting to look.

She was about to collapse.

So, I grabbed the dead weight by the hip and ushered it into the taxi.

The driver looked at us skeptically in the mirror.

I made up some story about her being drunk and paid him in advance to take her home to the furthest made-up address I could think of.

He almost didn’t accept the offer.

But then her head turned towards me.

Those dead eyes stared into my soul… burning at me like flames.

The accompanying grin chilling the fire.

The movement was enough for the driver to shake his head yes and lose interest.

So, I closed the door and took off.

I was in front of my apartment when I heard the whine of breaks and the crash of a sudden impact.

Across the street, I saw the taxi wrecked against parked cars.

Its driver ran around hysterical, yelling something in a foreign language.

The backseat of his cab… empty.

So, I darted into my complex’s lobby, jamming the elevator button.

The doors slid open, inside was Ms. Beatrice again.

But as I stepped forward in the decorative reflective paneling, I saw that thing standing behind me.

I panicked and with one swift motion, pushed the corpse in, slapped the basement button, and ran up the stairs as its doors closed.

I could hear that poor bat’s screams echo throughout the building.

I hope I didn’t give her a heart attack.

----

I burst into my apartment, already packing in my mind, but was stopped cold when in the kitchen, from between the floorboards, hundreds of crimson flowers budded like weeds.

They sprouted in the spots the blood seeped through…

They smelled of iron and bleach.

That’s when the front door flew open, and in the entryway, there she stood.

Hair hung bedraggled over her face…

Her body language hunched over, contorting in painful angles.

She no longer collapsed on eye contact, instead erratically inching forward, spasming with each step.

I was cornered.

The only way out was the window.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to stay and find out what it wanted.

(Sounds of window shattering.)  

Then I woke in a hospital, handcuffed to the bed.

The police officer told me they found the car, the blood, and the body…

…still buried in the woods.

----

Is that it?

You’re going to put in a good word for me?

Good… good… Thank you. Thank you!

With this sentence reduction, I should be out in 6-7 years with good behavior.

Wait. What?

What do you mean the corpse is missing?

It’s not in the morgue?

Wait.

Hold on.

You have to help me!

I’m trapped in here!

No. Stop. You don’t understand.

She’ll find me in here.

You have to help me!

You have to-

(Prison door shuts.)