The September Special Guest Story is by
John FD Taff
Please feel free to visit John HERE
WALL TO WALL
by John FD Taff
The carpet cleaner drifted in a powdery fall, becoming first pink, then bright red as it soaked up what the greedy bath towels hadn't. They sat in a heap on a plastic bag in the corner, sated and sodden.
Alan poked at the powder with the toe of his shoe. "Christ, who'd have thought the old bitch'd have this much blood left in her?"
Grabbing the vacuum, he ran it over the spot again and again. His dearly departed had purchased the large and ungainly machine along with the thousands of square feet of hideous, avocado carpeting that covered nearly every room in the house in a sea of baby-shit. She may have had the interior-decorating sense of Elvis, but he had to admit that she'd kept the house obsessively clean.
That was--had been--his wife. A real avocado carpet, Oprah, trips to the outlet mall, sterilize the house, bingo-playing, home-permed, National Enquirer gal. And he hated everything about her, but particularly the carpet and the vacuum she'd bought to clean it.
He'd hated her more, though.
So, she went first.
The spot where Brenda had hit the ground and stayed, roughly three feet in diameter, remained pinkish, defying the efforts of both powder and vacuum.
He pounded the remainder of the cleaning product from the canister. The powder turned the sickening color of a pureed frog on contact with the green carpet, though not quite as red this time.
Smiling, he popped the lid on the fourth can.
*****
"I don't think I can do it in here," Julie whined, squirming out of his reach.
Alan rolled his eyes, leaned back on the bed. It was new; its mattress firm and unyielding. He'd thrown out the soft and saggy mattress with the soft and saggy wife.
He'd moved his bedroom in here right after the murder, positioning his massive, king-size bed directly over the faded stain in the green carpet. When the police were finished with their search warrants and their questions, he'd replace the hated carpet, perhaps with Persian rugs or hardwood floors. Until then, though, he'd have to live with it. Getting rid of it right now would cause more suspicion than it was worth.
Not that he hadn't given them suspicion. Oh, he'd given them plenty of that. But no motive and nothing to seal up in their little plastic evidence bags.
And all for this, he mused, shaking his head.
Julie was twenty-five years old and a secretary in one of his offices. He wasn't sure which office or exactly how he'd met her. But he was willing and she was able, and their affair had begun nearly four months earlier.
It had only been the catalyst, though--not the reason--for his wife's murder.
Now, she stood in the doorway, nude and achingly, yet somehow dismissively, pert.
A cool, soft hand touched him, and he looked up into her breasts, bobbing like buoys on a rough sea.
"At least get the vacuum cleaner out of here," she whispered, pulling him closer.
"What?"
"The vacuum," she repeated. "It gives me the creeps."
He watched in the kind of fascination some men save for PBS science shows as a wave of goose bumps rippled across her taut, tanned skin.
"I mean, you used it to vacuum her up. I can't do it in here unless you..."
He lowered his forehead, drew in a deep breath.
"Fine," he said, slapping his knees and rising. He strode to the vacuum, grabbed it, prepared to throw it from the room, from the house, hurl it from the planet if that would shut her up.
He touched it, and it rumbled to life, lunged straight for him, rebounded off his shin.
"Shit!" He jumped away, rubbing his leg.
The thing moved in desperate arcs, straining at the electrical cord that leashed it to the wall. Alan sidestepped the machine, pulled the cord from the outlet. Again, he had to jump as it moved toward him, almost with intelligence.
For a brief moment, Alan believed that it wasn't going to stop, even with the power disconnected.
But it did.
Brenda's vacuum was thrown into a closet across the hall, where the door closed even before the machine careened to the floor.
Alan padded heavily back into his bedroom to find Julie more than ready, the past few minute's events forgotten.
To his surprise, he managed quite well in spite of his anger…or maybe because of it.
Alan's seriously distended bladder woke him, and he shuffled across the carpeting, stumbled into the darkened bathroom.
The large bathroom had been Brenda's idea, one that he'd originally rejected. "Why do you need a room the size of a garage to shit in?"
But he'd given in, even assumed the job of decorating it. It shut her up, and he was forced to admit that he rather liked it. Airy and spacious, with vaulted ceilings and huge windows overlooking his Japanese garden, it became the room where he spent most of his time.
He looked down at the cool, smooth expanse of white tile under his feet, sparkling like a hundred newly capped teeth. She'd wanted more of the hideous puke-green carpet in this room, but he drew the line here.
"Shoulda killed her in the bathroom," he muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Clean-up woulda been easier."
Tip-toeing back to the foot of the bed, he propped a knee gently on its edge, reached underneath the sheets. Slowly, teasing himself, he slid his hands up the length of the bed, waiting for the electric contact with some smooth, warm part of Julie's body.
When he felt nothing, his hand moved from side to side, gently at first, then sweeping the sheets to the floor.
He looked around the room for her clothes, draped over a wingback chair nearby.
In the kitchen, he smiled. She's cooking breakfast in the nude.
But the kitchen was empty.
He turned and crept back toward the bedroom. The thought of her scampering around the house naked really began to make finding her all the more urgent.
She wasn't there.
Confused and rapidly deflating, he stood for a moment in the doorway looking at the neat pile of clothes she'd left.
Maybe, he thought, she had something important to do at the office this morning and had caught a cab early. She kept clothes and toiletries here for that reason--and for the occasional afternoon quickie.
Disappointed at not being able to take advantage of a wonderful opportunity, he proceeded with the rest of his morning ritual.
*****
After his shower, he was sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoes when he heard a low, rumbling noise. He walked into the hall, cocking his head this way and that trying to locate it.
Toward the back of the sprawling house, there was a door that was slightly ajar. He pushed the door open onto a seldom-used guest bedroom, as plain and unadorned as a hotel's. The noise stopped and, noticing nothing untoward, he was leaving when he saw a shape in the corner.
The vacuum.
"What the hell's that doing here?"
Probably Julie, he thought. He pictured her moving the bulky thing down the hallway--clad only in the Victoria's Secret panties she had worn for a short time last night--into this forgotten room so that she'd never have to see it again.
His mind lingered over this image; partly laughing over wrestling it down the hallway, partly growing breathless at the way her tits swayed, her ass shook with each lurching step.
Oh well, it’s as good here as anywhere else.
As he turned to leave, though, he saw something on the floor, in the vacuum's enormous maw. It was glossy, liquid in the gray light.
He touched it experimentally with a finger, tugged it free of the vacuum, giving the temperamental machine a wary glance.
A scrap of silk, frayed and torn, with a pattern that he recognized vaguely.
His mind again wandered to the image of Julie, half-naked, lugging the vacuum into the room, and suddenly he knew why he recognized the cloth.
It was from Julie's panties.
She wasn't at her desk when he arrived at the office a half hour later. He asked several people, who all gave him a "How-should-I-know, you're screwing-her?" look, but hadn't seen her.
Dozens of scenarios played through his mind. Maybe she'd gone to the police and told them of the murder.
Sure, it dawned on him, that's why she hid the vacuum in the other room. To save it as evidence for the police.
Maybe she'd fled the country with another lover and was getting ready to make the phone call that would get the blackmail payments rolling.
God, it'd been a mistake to tell her about the murder.
A little early lunch--and a few drinks--would ease his nerves. Jamming his hands into his pocket for his keys, however, brought him to a halt.
He pulled the piece of fabric from his pocket and held it to the light. It shimmered like a sheet of water, and he rolled it through his fingers, delighting in its feel.
If she had gone to the police or left the country--that seemed ludicrous now for someone as studiously unworldly as Julie--why would her panties have been in the vacuum?
Lost in thought, he studied the pattern of the fabric. It was a paisley design, all browns and golds and burnt oranges. Julie had told him that she was an "autumn person," whatever the hell that meant, and had spelled out for him exactly what colors to get her when buying delicate underthings.
If she meant that these sorts of colors looked good on fabric that was stretched taut across her curves and valleys, he had no problem in limiting his selections to this palette.
He frowned slightly when he came across a flaw in the pattern on the small bit of cloth. He hadn't seen it before because it was brownish-copper and blended in well with the other colors. A stain, perhaps.
Wetting his thumb, he wiped at it absently. While some of it disappeared, the stain seemed stubbornly locked into the fabric.
Getting nowhere, he slid the scrap of silk back into his pocket when he saw a light smear of blood on his thumb.
Suddenly, he thought Julie may not have left the house.
*****
The house was quiet and dark when he arrived. It was late in the morning, but Brenda's vinyl shades and pink balloon curtains made sure that little light made it inside. He'd found this acceptable since he didn't have to see much of her decorating that way.
"Julie?" he called from the foyer, dropping his key ring onto a small table near the door.
The house had a violated feel about it that always made him uncomfortable when he came home early, especially when he and Julie visited in the afternoon to catch a quick grope. It had a way of feeling like his wife’s disapproving spirit was still hanging around.
He walked down the hallway, opening each door in turn.
"Julie?"
Coming to the room at the end of the hall—the one he'd found the vacuum in that morning—he hesitated. For a second, he heard something, the same sound he'd thought he'd heard earlier; a throaty, rumbling growl from somewhere in the house.
Shaking his head, he opened the door. The room was just as he'd left it that morning, bare and bland.
Except the vacuum cleaner was missing.
Just then, the growling returned, increased in volume.
He almost didn't see what hit him, it moved so quickly. A flash of chrome in the pale light. Then, it rammed into his shins, the handle finding its way between his legs and knocking the breath out of him.
The thing was heavy, and he fell backwards, slumping to the floor. A large, framed painting, dislodged from its nail, fell to his lap as he tried to regain his senses.
Instinctively, he grabbed it, held it out before him.
The roar filled his ears, and the vacuum hit him again, its mouth rising off the carpet. Light sparkled off row upon row of rotating blades where the brushes should have been.
It jostled between his thighs, its weight belying its small size.
He thrust the painting toward it.
The growl became a labored grinding, and Alan closed his eyes against a spray of paint chips and wood dust.
The electrical cord stretched down the hallway behind the machine, which was buzz-sawing its way through the painting, pressing toward him.
And it wasn't plugged in.
He kicked the thing squarely in its canister, careful not to thrust his leg down that mouth. It was heavy; too heavy for a vacuum cleaner, but his kick was well placed and had behind it the force of a man well on his way to hysteria.
The machine tumbled into the open doorway and rolled into the room. He could hear it there in the shadows, moving.
Trying to right itself.
Using the wall for support, Alan pulled himself to his feet. He took two tentative steps, reached out and slammed the door shut, then stumbled toward the front door.
He got as far as the den, across from the foyer, before he heard the machine slam against the door.
The sound of it ripping through wood.
As he tore himself away from the sight of the vacuum chewing up the door, something circled his ankles, tightened. He took a quick, nervous hop-step, and it yanked once, tripping him.
His head rebounded from the corner of the desk with a flat smack!, and there was a brilliant flash of light.
Stunned but not unconscious, he opened his eyes to look across the carpet fibers at the three-pronged plug of the vacuum's electrical cord as it snaked toward him.
Propping groggily onto his right elbow, he checked his head for blood. His free hand came away smeared with it, sticking in the webbing between his fingers.
The cord lashed out at him, whipping around his neck and circling tight. With a jerk, it pulled him to the carpet just as the sound from down the hall stopped.
His hand flailed, grasped for anything.
The vacuum was in the doorway, its shiny chrome canister dulled by a fine patina of wood dust. It growled at him once, a low, forbidding sound.
His free right hand closed around something long, narrow and heavy. With his remaining strength, he whipped it hard around his body, heard it whistle through the air.
The fireplace poker sliced into the vacuum's metal canister with the sound of a beer can being crushed. The vacuum emitted a terrible, high-pitched cycling noise, and it recoiled from him, rocking from the blow. It tore the poker from his hand, flung it across the room.
Alan crawled to his knees, but the cord held him close.
Blood gurgled impossibly from the wide and ragged gash inflicted by the poker, streaked down the chrome finish of the canister, pooled on the carpeting. Within the stream of blood, Alan could make out teeth, clumps of matted hair, a chunk of a finger.
Frantic, he grabbed the edge of the desk, pulled himself to a kneeling position, fumbled for the drawer pull. Pens, paperclips, and other debris scattered everywhere as he yanked it completely out of the desk.
The cord constricted further, began to pull him down, and he heard the heavy, muffled thud of the gun falling from the drawer.
He scooped it up, fumbled it into position.
The vacuum roared to life.
The gun felt heavy, wobbly in his hand.
With an earsplitting shriek, it rushed at him, its razors tearing up the carpet between them, throwing a cloud of green fluff into the air.
Alan fell over onto his cheek, the vacuum coming straight for him.
With a grunt, he slid the gun across the carpet, brought its barrel into line with the approaching machine.
His hand slid up to the wrist into its maw, and he felt the razors cutting into him, slicing down to the bone over and over.
But he held onto the gun.
Pulled the trigger.
There was a loud, hollow report, and the vacuum flew from him, pulling away with such force that the cord around Alan's neck burned a line in his flesh.
Alan gasped, pulled at the cord and flung it to the floor.
The vacuum lay in ruins on the other side of the room, smoking and whirring fitfully. A thick spray of blood fanned out against the wall around it, dribbled from its exploded canister. A lumpy, red mess spilled from its blasted insides, but Alan turned away as soon as he saw it.
The rest of Julie's panties.
He slid his mangled hand, which dripped blood steadily onto the carpet, under his armpit, pressed hard to staunch the flow.
A shower, he thought. I need a shower and a few drinks and some time to think about what to do.
Another death, although not his fault, and the police would find some way to pin them both on him. He'd have to clean this mess up fast, maybe get out of the country for a while.
Tip-toeing cautiously past the vacuum, he turned in the doorway to survey the mess.
"And all this fucking carpet goes, too."
*****
The remainder of a double scotch sat on the granite countertop outside the shower stall. An empty package of gauze, a roll of thick, white tape. A bottle of iodine.
Alan raised his face to the showerhead, letting the full force of its spray hit him. The effects of the past half-hour and the gulped scotch were catching up with him, and his legs threatened to give way at any minute.
He'd managed to stop the bleeding, but all the poking and cleaning he'd done to the wound had finally awakened the pain. And that was the reason for the scotch.
Although not a superstitious man, Alan shivered as he recalled what Julie had said about the vacuum.
I mean, you used it to vacuum her up.
Whatever the reason for the machine's single-minded pursuit of him, it was out of commission now. In fact, his life really seemed to be looking up. Brenda dead, the vacuum destroyed.
Even Julie being gone was no real reason to shed tears. He had plenty of other young, impressionable, able-bodied secretaries in his firm. Besides, she’d been becoming annoying anyway. The vacuum probably saved him from having to do it himself later.
Smiling, the pain in his hand beaten back to a dull thud by the scotch, he spun the handles on the faucet, shut the shower off.
The shower door swung open easily, and Alan fumbled along the wall for the towel.
As he did so, he stepped one foot from the stall onto the unfamiliar feel of carpet.
His hand found the towel, and something rough found his leg.
Something close by laughed, feminine and gleeful.
Through the fog of scotch and pain, the laugh sounded familiar.
He squashed the towel into his face, rubbed his eyes, screamed.
A section of the green carpet had crawled into the bathroom, humping hideously along the tile floor. It gathered in front of the shower, twisted around his leg.
Even as he took in all of this, it yanked him free of the shower, pulled him to his knees.
Another wave of carpeting pressed in through the bathroom door, flowed toward him. He saw something sparkle in the bright white light of the bathroom.
The edge of the wave hit him, and dozens of tiny carpet nails embedded themselves in his arm, his leg, his face.
The carpet dragged him down, rolled him over, muffled and silenced his screams.
It continued rolling upon itself, fashioning a tight, thin cylinder with one end worming into the shower stall.
Then, it constricted around the lump in its middle like a great snake. There was a final, distant shriek, popping and cracking. A freshet of blood, fresh and blue-red, spilled from it, swirled immediately down the drain.
The carpet unfolded, slid slowly back through the bathroom door and repositioned itself along the floorboards of the bedroom.
*****
She fumbled her key into the door, spinning the cylinder without realizing that it was already unlocked.
She flipped a light on in the foyer, maneuvered a large box into the room before her.
"Alan?" She knew he probably wasn't home. He kept all the lights in the house on, even during the day. It was one of those little things, he'd told her, that had really pissed off Brenda.
She scooted the box to one side of the foyer, opened her purse and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.
Alan,
Miss me this morning? Sorry for the way I acted last night. Been out shopping for a gift for both of us. Sort of got carried away and spent the day shopping. Hope you don't mind. I'm going out to pick up dinner, so don't eat! See you soon.
Love,
Julie.
Putting the note onto the small table near the door, she tugged uncomfortably at her pantyhose. She'd forgotten to bring a clean pair of panties with her yesterday, so she ended up having to wear just hose this morning.
She moved the box closer to the table, looking at the carton's color picture of the woman sliding the new vacuum across her carpet. She hoped Alan would like her present. They'd finally be able to get rid of the other vacuum cleaner and all of the unpleasantness it brought to mind.
Locking the door, her heels clicked down the stone path to the driveway, and her car backed away.
She didn't hear any sound from within the house.
Not the ripping open of a cardboard box.
Nor the whine of a motor as it cycled to life.
John F.D. Taff has more than 70 stories in publication, in such markets as Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Aberrations, Deathrealm, One Buck Horror and Big Pulp. He's also been published in anthologies such as Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Shock Rock II, Best New Vampire Tales, Best New Werewolf Tales and Horror for Good. Four of his shorts have been selected as honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror over the years. Recent sales have been to Dark Visions Vol. 1, Ominous Realities, Postscripts to Darkness, Shades of Blue & Gray, Edge of Sundown and Horror Library V.
Taff's collection of short stories, Little Deaths, has been well reviewed and made it to the Stoker Reading List. His latest novel, The Bell Witch, is out now, and a thriller, Kill/Off, will be out this fall.
Follow him online at johnfdtaff.com and on Twitter @johnfdtaff.
And coming soon!
Out October 2013 from Books of the Dead Press:
Kill/Off
