Welcome to the Splatter Club (Welcome to the Club Book 1), page 1
Copyright © 2020 by Blood Bound Books
All rights reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Artwork by K. Trap Jones
www.theevilcookie.com
Interior Layout by Lori Michelle
www.theauthorsalley.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
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ALSO FROM K. TRAP JONES:
The Sinner
The Harvester
The Big Bad
The Drunken Exorcist
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
SPLATTER PARTY
John McNee
THE BIG BAD BOY
Patrick Winters
GRINDER
Nikki Noir
I HANG MY HAT AND THERE’S NO BLOOD
Robert Essig
CODE BLACK
Matthew Weber
DICKEY DYKSTRA
Airika Sneve
23 TO 46
Paul Stansfield
SPLATTER IN SPACE
Matthew Vaughn
HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME
C.M. Saunders
SOMETIMES THE PENGUIN EATS YOU
Brian Asman
NEUTERED
Chandler Morrison
THE WOMAN IN THE DITCH
Joshua Rex
CHEESE
KJ Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
SPLATTER PARTY
JOHN MCNEE
Nadia was theone who answered the door the first time.
She had gone to the bathroom to escape Kyle and the others. She knew it wouldn’t be long before someone came looking for her, maybe only a few minutes, but at least that would be some respite.
She was dizzy from the alcohol and stumbled a little as she sat down on the edge of the bathtub, nearly falling in. A bottle of beer was in her hand and she stared at it sadly while trying to decide whether to put it to her lips. She’d been drinking all night and this was as far as it had gotten her–drunk enough to fall down, but not drunk enough to enjoy herself.
Nadia set the bottle on the floor and took her phone out of her pocket. From the wall behind her, came the pounding electronic bass of a new song. Her phone told her it was 3:05am, but the crowd in the next room sounded like they were only just getting started. She scrolled through her contacts, looking for someone who could come save her from the tedium, but she knew in her heart it was pointless. It was too late–or too early–and they were much too far from town. She could either call herself a taxi she couldn’t afford or wait until Stacy and Declan decided they’d had enough and hitch a ride with them.
But how long might that take? Two hours? Three? Four? Maybe, she thought, I’ll get lucky and they’ll burn themselves out in one.
A massive cheer from the lounge suggested this was unlikely to be the case.
Rising to her feet—back up onto the stupid high heels she was resolutely still wearing—she crossed to the sink and took a long look at the girl in the mirror. Little red dress and black leather jacket, big blonde hair already looking like it had lost a third of its volume, and smeared make-up. She’d laid it on thick, intentionally. At the start of the night it had looked striking. Now it looked like it was pulling her down, weighing so heavy on her eyes and lips they might slide right off her face into the sink. Topping the whole image off was the setting—a cramped, stained and dimly-lit bathroom in a council flat, painted the color of regurgitated spinach. The ideal place, she thought, to find a wilted flower like her.
“Well,” she told herself, “You wanted a party.”
This was true. After the week, month, year she’d had, she was desperate for a party. A real party with cheap drink and big laughs and dancing and drugs and maybe a little sex, who knew? But Saturday came and nothing was happening. Friends weren’t keen. Suitable venues were unavailable. She’d accepted an invitation from Stacy and Declan to hit the town with them, in the hopes it might lead somewhere. But it had led here.
A fist hammered at the door. “Nadia! You all right in there?” Stacy’s voice.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “Give me a minute!”
“Okay, but hurry up. Shug needs a piss!” Stacy laughed and Nadia heard Shug yelling at her to shut up from the kitchen.
Ah yes, Shug. The one who liked her. The nice one. Nicer than the other one, in any case.
She had been introduced to him at the club Stacy and Declan had taken her to a half-empty dive whose DJ couldn’t even feign enthusiasm. Shug was a friend of a friend, there with other friends who promised a real party was just getting started across town.
It was already late, but Nadia let him get her hopes up that a great night could still be had. They went in two taxis—her with Stacy, Declan and Shug in one, his friends in the other. All Shug asked—and no-one minded—was that they make a quick stop at his flat on the way, where his drug-dealing flatmate could provide all they needed to ensure the party went with a bang.
A quarter of an hour later they were standing in Shug’s living room, being introduced to Kyle, who sat—shirtless and skinny—in a leather sofa on the other side of a coffee table littered with pills and powders in plastic bags.
“There’s beers in the fridge,” he said, speaking to everyone but staring directly at Nadia. “You’ll stay for one drink, won’t you?”
One drink became two—it wasn’t smart to reject the hospitality of drug dealers after all— and Nadia had already realized they wouldn’t be going anywhere else long before Shug got the text to say the party had been canceled.
“No worries,” Kyle said, as he cranked up the volume on his sound system. “We can have our own party right here, eh?”
Now Nadia shook her head at the reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Oh, you silly girl,” she said. “You know nothing good ever happens after 3am.”
Turning away from the sad sight, she bent down to collect the beer. It was still full, still cold. She knew she had a decision to make as to how best to navigate the coming hours. She could sober up and wait it out, playing nice but keeping her guard up. Or she could commit to the madness and the danger and hope that in the midst of whatever was to come, she found some measure of enjoyment. There was a certain satisfaction to be found, she knew, in willingly making bad decisions.
She was still in two minds on the matter as she put the bottle to her lips, tilted her head back and drained it.
She walked out of the bathroom to the opening strains of a new song and Stacy’s cry of “I fucking love this”, which was very nearly enough to persuade her to turn around again. She didn’t, but then, while she was still in the hall, making her way back to the living room, there was a knock at the front door, surely too quiet for any of the others to hear.
She opened it and was met by a small, middle-aged man, clasping his hands, as though in prayer. “Please,” he said. It was the only thing he said for several seconds as he stood staring at her, a pained smile on his face, emphatically shaking his hands. He had gray hair and a long, tanned face, and was wearing a knitted jumper beneath a brown polyester suit that might have been older than he was. “Please!” His lips trembled as he strained for another word. It was clear English wasn’t his first language, but his next sentence confirmed it. “Da muzica,” he said. “Da muzica mai incet te rog!”
Nadia said nothing.
Sighing, then cursing in his native tongue, the man pointed at the floor and tried again. “I . . . down!”
“You okay, Nadia?” Stacy asked, coming to her side, regarding the man like an overzealous beggar who’d accosted them in the street.
“Muzica!” The man was pointing to the living room now, in the direction of the music. “Too big. Please. My mother..!”
“Who is it?” Shug called.
“I think it’s your neighbor,” Stacy answered and pulled Nadia away, leading her into the living room.
Shug passed them on the way and Nadia did her best not to listen in. Easy enough, with the music cranked up so high. Stacy joined Declan on the couch opposite Kyle, while she perched on the arm. There was room to sit beside Kyle, but she wasn’t about to take advantage of that.
“What’s going on?” he asked, not looking up from the joint he was rolling. He’d put a shirt on since she and the others had arrived, but that was the only concession he’d made to civility.
“Your neighbor’s complaining about the noise,” Steph said.
Kyle scoffed. “Fuck that prick. Some nerve coming up here and telling me what to do. Cunt only moved in this week and thinks he can shout the odds.”
“Maybe it’s a bit loud?” Declan suggested.
“Is it fuck!” Kyle leaned down to the speaker at his side to turn it up higher. “Now it’s too loud!”
He laughed and so did Declan
She heard it slam and then Shug reappeared. “I told him to fuck off,” he said. “I think he understood, but he wasn’t happy about it.”
“Polish prick.” Kyle sneered.
He’s not Polish, Nadia wanted to say, because she knew. But she said nothing.
“You want another beer, Nadia?” Shug asked.
She didn’t, but smiled at him and nodded.
“Fucking wanker comes over here and thinks he can boss me around, tell me what to do,” Kyle continued, flicking his lighter on as he put the joint between his lips. “But if he doesn’t like it here, living in my fucking country, he can just leave! That’s the difference between me and him. Cunt doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
Nadia frowned. “Why can’t you leave?” She had to shout to make herself heard.
Kyle gave her a look like he’d forgotten she was there and was delighted all over again to see her, his eyes roving over her from head to toe. Then he reached down to his ankle and pulled up the leg of his tracksuit bottoms to reveal the electronic tag. “Can’t go more than 200 meters away during the day. And I can’t leave the house after dark.”
Nadia nodded. “Because of drugs?”
He smiled. “A few different things.” He lit the joint and took a long drag, then held it out to her.
She hesitated, only because she felt the eyes of her friends on her. As if they’d never seen her smoke a joint before.
Ignoring their concern, she stood and crossed the room to take it. And as her fingers brushed against Kyle’s, he shuffled, rather theatrically, over to one side of the sofa—a gesture that could only be read as strong encouragement for her to sit down beside him.
It wasn’t the drugs Stacy and Declan had been worried about, she realized now, too late. She knew they both liked Shug, who at this moment was still fetching beers. They liked him so much that they would have been delighted if she was to hook up with him. But they were scared of Kyle. And she had just walked into his trap.
Knowing she couldn’t well take the joint—which he had left dangling between her fingers—and go back across to the other side of the room, she sank down into the spot beside him, maintaining as much distance as she could, which wasn’t much. She did her best to look at ease while he gave her a close-quarters inspection, gaze lingering on her thighs.
“So what’s your story?” he asked. It wasn’t hard to see what the others found so frightening about him. Everything about him looked sharp and mean. His smile, when he showed it to her, looked meanest of all.
Before she could say anything, there was another knock at the door. Much louder this time, more insistent, perhaps more desperate. At least that’s how it sounded to her.
“Aw for fuck sake!” Kyle said. “Has this prick got a fucking death wish or what?”
No-one else in the room was up for voicing an opinion on the subject.
The sound came again—two fists hammering rapid-fire against the door.
“Fuck this,” Kyle said. Then he was up on his feet, out of the room and striding down the hall.
“Uuuhh?” said Declan, on behalf of everyone left behind.
Nadia heard Shug call from the kitchen, then the sound of the door being thrown open. She turned the volume down on the speaker and maneuvered herself into a position where she could see what was happening out in the hallway.
She could see Kyle at the doorway and the hands of his neighbor, shaking, fingers splayed, as he yelled, “My mother sleeps! Da muzica! Da muzica mai incet te rog! Please! My mother! Stapanul meu trebuie sa doarma!”
“Fuck your mother,” said Kyle. Then he grabbed the man by the collar and head-butted him in the face. The attack was delivered with such force that, despite the roar of the music behind her, Nadia could hear the crunch as his forehead connected with the man’s nose. She heard his awful cry as he collapsed to his knees.
“Oh my God,” she said, putting a hand to her mouth.
“What’s happening?” Stacy asked. Neither she nor Declan could see from where they were sitting.
“He hit him. I think he broke his nose.”
“Fuck off,” said Declan, grinning in disbelief.
The front door slammed and Kyle re-entered the living room, wiping at his forehead then checking his fingers for blood. “Cunt.”
“What did I miss?” asked Shug, appearing behind him.
“Kyle just kicked the shit out of your neighbor,” said Stacy, reaching over and snatching a beer from his hand.
“Seriously?”
Kyle shrugged. “A wee warning, that’s all.”
“He broke his nose,” said Nadia, eyes on Kyle.
“See what I break if he comes back,” he said. There was no threat in his voice. It was a calm statement of truth. “Who turned the music down?”
Shug and the others were laughing as Kyle bent to the speaker and cranked up the volume. They were at the stage of intoxication and sleep deprivation where everything seemed hilarious.
“You’re fucking mental,” Shug yelled. “What happens if he calls the police?”
“He gets deported?” Kyle suggested. “He’s not going to call the police. Right now, he’ll be crying to his mum.”
No, Nadia thought. He won’t. She said nothing, but while the others were arguing, laughing and joking, she was thinking about what the man had said. Stapanul meu trebuie sa doarma.
She didn’t like to tell people she was Romanian. Her family had relocated when she was eight-years-old and she had worked intensely in the subsequent years to eradicate her accent, assimilating fully into the fashions and culture of the west of Scotland.
People liked to pretend this country didn’t have a problem with racism or xenophobia, that it welcomed and accepted immigrants. Nadia had seen enough as a child to know this was bullshit. Bigots were everywhere. Overt and covert. If she could conceal her true ethnicity from them, she would. She didn’t need the hassle.
She still slipped up, every now and then, not so badly that anyone noticed. The voice in her head was still Romanian and there were certain English words it seemed she would always have issues with, for as long as she lived. She still sometimes said own when she meant owe. She still sometimes said coach when she meant couch.
Kyle’s neighbor clearly had a very limited vocabulary, but still made the same kind of errors, mistaking one word with another that sounded similar.
“My mother sleeps.” Those had been his words in English. But when he’d spoken in Romanian, he hadn’t said mother.
He’d said master.
She could have asked him what he meant. The first time he came to the door, when she answered, she could have translated for him. But that would have meant exposing herself. Now she could only wonder at what he’d really intended to say and what it implied.
And what did it imply?
“Here,” Shug said.
She blinked and realized he was in front of her, holding out a beer. She snatched it, put it to her mouth and did her best to drown her thoughts in alcohol.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, gasping as she took the bottle from her lips. “But I wish I wasn’t.”
“What?”
“I hear you!” Kyle clapped, grinning wide. He grabbed some bags of pills from the coffee table. “Who’s ready to get fucked up?”
His last word was spoken in the same moment the lights went out. The music stopped. Darkness and silence seized control of the room.
Stacy screamed. Declan laughed. Nadia said nothing. A hand brushed her arm and she grabbed at it. Shug. “It’s okay,” he said.
“What’s happening?” she asked, shouting before realizing she didn’t have to. Everything was quiet now.
“I don’t believe it,” Kyle said. He remained where he was—a jagged silhouette among the shadows. He laughed and Nadia imagined she could see his grin, slicing white and sharp through the darkness. There was no humor in the sound. A laugh of disbelief, twisting to fury. “I don’t fucking believe it! That Polish cunt!”
“He did this?” Stacy’s voice, though Nadia couldn’t see her.
“Of course he fucking did,” Kyle snapped back and began marching out of the room, down the hall, finding his way through the gloom as confidently as if he’d been blind all his life.
