Welcome to an informal gathering I call Blood Drops, a random dose of horror flash fiction (1,000 words or less) coming at you from out of the darkness. For this inaugural post, I’ll introduce you to the first piece. I call it, ‘The First Prick’. Give it your attention and response, please. I encourage my fellow Threads authors to do their own in good time.

THE FIRST PRICK

Janet had the itch. At work, no less. It came in a nervous twang, a sordid chord from a bad country song vibrating in her right wrist. Putting the day’s paperwork on hold, she chanced a scratch. That’s it. A single, harmless, calm down skin, massage with two fake nails painted lime green.

“Ah!” She knew what ecstasy felt like. A coworker, Rob, watched her from the left cubicle. He grimaced. Damn, Rob! Always nosing, never working. Janet squished her face at him. He hid.

She shook her head and returned to the papers. Stacks more like it. Pure white loads of unending data streams. True horror. She had to have half this mass done by four. Janet let out a sigh.

It was then. Right there. She saw a bulge rise and fall near the tenuous vein of the right wrist. It stole all thought and reason for a minute.

“That’s not the vein,” she whispered, a fast glare to make sure there wasn’t a Rob in sight. She held her stomach with the left hand. The sight. The icky vibe now in her right hand, a falling asleep illness creeping into the pinky. “What in the…”

Whatever slithered up and down renewed the anxiety in the flesh. Janet put those lime greens to work.

Hot scrapes across the skin, over the plump vein. Back and forth. Friction saw. She bit her bottom lip hard. This wasn’t doing it. The itch grew, spread down the forearm like plague.

And on the second, bitter scratch, she felt the tear. A single, bold dot of red bubbled. “Damn it all.”

Janet shot up. She looked around the office, its labyrinth of cubicle dead ends. The bathroom. 

Cool water. Run some over the wrist. That’ll do it.  She stepped away form her workspace and walked, double time, for the ladies’ room. 

“Hey, Janet, can I get a–”

“Not now, Ed.”

Janet hit the door hard. A hasty look down under the stalls, no heels or flats in sight. She made for the sink. The slither form reemerged. She let out a soft gasp and grabbed the countertop. Light-headed. Hold on. Keep control. This doesn’t make any sense!

She ran her wrist under the cool water and closed her eyes. Peace. The nerves relaxed.

Janet opened her eyes. Water flowed over her forearm and down the drain. A little longer, then back to the desk. Normalcy. Must be the lack of sleep. Making her antsy. Yes.

Reddish crop rows formed in the forearm. They bulged. Janet, leaning on the sink, could only watch, stunned. “What is that what is that what?”

Itching flared to a panicked high. Janet tensed her arm to alleviate it. But itches elevated. The nerves signaled something else. Pain.

Janet returned her arm to the water. Better. 

No. Worse.

The crop lines bulged. Slithering in four locations. Rising. Throbbing. Like her muscles struggled to break free to a life all their own. The skin split. She cried out. Tears flowed. Lacking the sense she had til now, Janet staggered backward into a random, thoughtless stall. Her backside hit the toilet. 

Skin wiggled as if it lost all connection to the muscles beneath. It stretched. Moved.

Split.

Red microdots crowned her chin. The spray made her squeal. Distended skin grew bore holes. Form the holes, worms entered the free world. Worms with pained human visages gasping for air. Her fingers went numb. Oh God what is this please no please don’t let the vein rupture oh God–

Worms caressed her spotted, broken, bleeding skin. Blood adorned her beige pencil skirt, stained a perfectly good frilly blouse. Janet tensed up as the forearm bulged and formed more holes.

Too much pressure. Pain. She had to scream.

She began slapping, smacking, pounding the forearm against the stall to make it stop. Her eyes couldn’t stop seeing the fields of hell lowed in her skin, feeling the raw exposure to the air, the worms squiggling with delight in her torment. But as Janet flinched, fought against it, her other limbs felt the fateful itch.

Weak. Weaker. Weakness.

Melinda rushed in after no one else dared to. She flung open the stall door to find Janet Malvern, age forty-seven and a half. Data entry master. Trainer. Yoga instructor. Gardener.

Both forearms and the calves were exposed fields of puffy holes, dozens upon dozens of them. Very little blood, all things considered. Her body, still. Breathing, nil. Heartbeat, stilled. 

All Melinda had for clues, multiple blood trails down the violated arms and calves. All of them leading to the drain behind the spotless toilet.

“Janet! Oh my God, what happened?”

Janet had little left in her to give, but she managed a response.

“Everything…washes out…in the rain.”

(FINIS)

I hope you liked that little taste of the uncomfortable. This clocked in at just under 800 words. Let me know what you think.

And, if you want more.