Our Romantic Horror Story

I

Alex

Staring down at the man squirming in pain on the floor, I tilted my head and let my eyes drag across his writhing body slowly. His light brown hair was matted in places from the blood that was beginning to dry in his hair from where he had pulled at it with his blood-stained hands. Fresh tears cascaded down his pale cheeks; they were barren of all colour with the early signs of death.

He was muttering entirely incoherent words and grunting in pain as he pathetically pulled his knees up to his stomach, curling into a ball to protect himself. To protect himself from me.

The knife I had used lay by his side in a pool of what seemed like eternally pouring blood coming from the wounds in his thighs and stomach. Red was everything I touched.

The boys wound looked deep which, I admit, were quite impressive to me. I admired the work, ignoring his cries for help that were becoming more and more strained as he lay at deaths door. The red liquid trickled down from his mouth, making him gargle on his words as he screamed with everything he had. It left dark trails down his chin and neck before disappearing into his soaked, newly red shirt.

It wasn't much longer until the squirming stopped and his body relaxed, his struggled and gargled breathing ceasing to make a noise. His eyes went blank as if he was staring off into the distance, no longer looking at me with an expression of pure fear. Still, the blood continued to pour.

I picked up the knife from where it had been left in the pool of red liquid and with one last look to the body, strode over to my mark.

"That's a cut! Great job as always, Alex. Tommo, you did fantastic! Go get cleaned up." The director praised the child actor.

The boy, Tommo, peeled himself off of the sticky floor and out of the puddle of fake blood before he rushed off of set to get the special effect makeup off of him. Today had dragged and we had ran way over schedule; it was long hours of perfecting scenes and testing lights, camera angles and props.

My hands were practically permanently stained red lately with all of the filming we had been doing involving this fake blood stuff, so I was glad that we had wrapped everything up. At least, all of my parts were done. They had to re-film some scenes with the other characters, including Tommo, but the perks of playing the killer was that I didn't have many lines to mess up on.

Wandering off of set, I accepted a wet-wipe from my assistant, Jenny, and followed her back to my trailer. She was a sweet girl, but she was very enthusiastic about working in this industry because it had always been her dream. It was admirable most days, but sometimes it feels draining to listen to somebody be so zealous about a job I dread most days.

"You did so good, Alex!" Jenny beamed, peeling her headset off of her head and placing it on the charging dock in my trailer.

"Thank you, Jenny." I tried my best to not be a dick to Jenny; it would hurt her feelings.

Admittedly, I hadn't done a good job, but that didn't really matter. I was tired after a long day and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where my watch had gone, not that I would admit that aloud. Jenny would spend the rest of the night here searching for it and it wasn't really very important. She had done it once before when I had complained that I had left a ring somewhere on set. It took her hours but she, of course, found it.

I wished Jenny a good night and held the door for her, reassuring her it was fine for her to leave before me for once. Usually she hung around in the off-chance that I needed something. She was a good assistant, but after a long filming season she needed an early night.

A little printed out sign brandishing 'Alex Hill' was stuck to the outside of my trailer and every time I entered I felt my eyes settle on it for a moment too long. It felt surreal to see my name up on a sign like that, but I wasn't sure it was in a good way. When I was younger, I would have been overjoyed to see my name up on a door like that; even on a shitty printed-out sign. Those days were long behind me, however.