The Gift

You're making love. Is that what it's called? I thought we had love, but we never had...that. Arms intertwined, sweat, and rhythmic, hot breathing that sounds like muffled tribal music. Fingers clutching and grabbing desperately to be deeper, be closer...I never saw that side of you. The side your showing him right in front of me. You need him. Never needed me... Only need could have driven you to take my life Kara. My life. My precious life used to be all I had. But there's more waiting for us...for you than just...my life!

The panels on the wall shook like the space shuttle launched unannounced. Kara didn't even notice she was so close to orgasm, quaking and quivering with pleasure on top of Mark...but he did. "K! K? Hold on!"

"No baby! Keep going! I'm close!" Kara moaned.

"Babe!" Mark lifted her weight off of him deftly.

"Goddammit Mark! What the hell?" Kara spit venom and shook sweaty on the bed with interrupted anticipation. Mark stood, eyes wide, and groped in the dark for his Calvin Klein's without taking his eyes off the wall.

"Bbb...baby...someone's in here," the lug stammered.

"Oh fuck, then go and be a hound dog then Fido. Go on! Get the scent boy!" Kara mocked while lighting her Camel Light. "That's what all those hours in the gym are for, right bucko?" Kara pursed her lips wondering if one of his pre-workout drinks were making him go limp again. Some ruse genius, least his ass looks good from this angle.

"I...I'm not kiddin' babe! There was a-" The muscle clad underwear model shot ten feet off the ground, as if lifted by hurricane wind, and his head splintered through the hard wood ceiling, crushing his skull instantly. Kara tried to shriek, but the shock made her vocal chords convulse, producing a husky cough at best.

The weight of Mark's body stretched his neck after a few seconds, until the cracked wood sliced through the flesh and the body gave way, clumping to the ground in a decapitated writhing mess, pumping warm dark liquid all over the wood floors. In the dark it looked like a deep ocean oil spill, seen from a great distance. "Huuuh...kak. Hhhow?" Was all Kara could make out before he appeared like a wraith. The ghostly visage of her recently buried fiance hovered, electrified in the darkness by the crimson blood beneath him.

"Kara, you took my tomorrow, now all of yours are owed me, and I'm a collector now." The specter breathed in a dusky growl.

"Bbbaby...I'm...sssssoo ssooorrryyy..." Kara quaked in terror, nude and visibly rocking.

The ghost rushed to her, enveloping her form in an empty, visceral, chill. "You killed me to have a connection...so now, I'll let you live, but any connection you ever make again will end up as Mark did. It is my gift...to you."