Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Naked Samantha Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

NAKED SAMANTHA

Amber liquid in squat tumblers with ice cubes. Green felt tabletop, cut octagonal. Poker settings in chalky white paint. Five chairs. Four men, trim with jaws cut from stone, hair gelled like turtle shells. Suit jackets cast aside, ties opened, top buttons freed. Two crystal ashtrays cradling four skinny cigars, handcrafted, Dutch. Three of them gone out.

“Better be worth it.” Don Hammond is the eldest at thirty-four, spins a diamond-studded pinky ring with an index finger. “Better be worth it.”

“My guy, he’s good.” Terence Winter leans back, eyes on the rustic ceiling fixture as the smoke rises from his mouth to the lightbulb—ghost moth seeking flame.

The building is stone. Has one large bed. Has a kitchenette. Has a simple washroom with a toilet and shower stall. Has windows. Has bars over the windows. Has one door, heavy steel with a keyed deadbolt next to a brushed steel handle. More like a bunker, but not constructed for safety, constructed for the opposite in fact.

“What’s the deal? Your guy come here, too?” Clive Murray touches himself through the thin silk of his expensive trousers—Brioni. The shape is clear, sausage under cellophane. “Ready to fuck one of you here in a minute. Your guy always bring ‘em here?” Clive focuses a fingertip on the damp spot at the tip of his penis.

Terence Winter shrugs, doesn’t want to tell them he doesn’t know know the man. Spoke in a chatroom. Something about hopeless victims coming right up for help, no work needed. “Calm down, it’s not a circle jerk.”

“Did that once at Deerfield. Mr. Hanson caught us, but only watched until—”

The door bursts open, cutting off Richard Murdoch’s story from high school. A man in black slacks and a black Oxford with a little green Starbucks mermaid over the left breast—told to call him Charlie—pushes a youngish-looking teen through the door. She has on a coat with a fur collar, cheap, polyester. Puffy lips, so sexy they’re unbefitting of her innocent visage. Tear streaks cut damp paths down her cheeks. Eyes on the floor. A barista teddy bear wearing a green apron tight in her hands.

“As I promised.” Charlie smiles beneath what appears to be a fake beard. Eyes scrunched, authentic pleasure. “Boys, this is Samantha and she was killing time until the bus comes, tomorrow morning’s bus, told her she’d be more comfortable here than there.” Charlie takes a step backward after this, not waiting for acknowledgement from the Wall Street section, and pulls the door closed. The keyed deadbolt locks from outside.

Terence whistles and stubs out the cigar. Doesn’t want to offend their guest.

Clive gets to his feet and unzips the girl’s coat. “You don’t need this. Warm in here.” His hands are rough and busy. He tosses the bear to the floor.

“I’m ‘sposed to be at the Rochester station at nine.” Samantha lets Clive take her coat, hardly notices the bear. “I’m thirsty. Those candies were bad.” She sticks out her tongue after saying this, reveals a bluish skunk stripe. Eyes like saucers.

“A drink, sure.” Clive sets her coat on the back of a chair and climbs his hand up her shirt, kneads the small right breast beneath the lightweight bra.

Samantha squirms.

“Be cool.” Richard gets to his feet, reaches for Clive’s shoulder. “We got all night. Dude ain’t coming back ‘til morning. Fucking be cool.”

Clive unzips his trousers’ fly and Samantha’s eyes go wide looking at what he’s pulling out.

“Cool the fuck out!” Don has Clive by the neck, reefs him back to the bed. “You nasty bastard, you’ll scare her.” Don turns his face to Samantha. “You okay, honey?”

Samantha shakes her head. Of course she’s not.

“Get her one of those.” Don snaps his fingers, pointing at the Bacardi coolers, ignoring the hard sneer coming from Clive on the bed.

Terence holds out the orange bottle. It’s cool, drinkable if you have a taste for candy. “Here, girl. We won’t let Clive do anything—”

“Like fuck! I paid! Same as all you!” Clive is up to his feet, fly open, but penis stowed.

Don turns, furrows his brow, his forehead a plowed skin field. “What’s wrong with you? You psycho. We can’t break her. We gotta put her back.” Don faces Samantha, leaning a bit for a shared eye-level. “You’re safe. We’re just gonna drink some drinks and all have a good time, promise. Do you believe me?”

Samantha’s bottom lip and chin quiver. Her hands wrap around the Bacardi Breezer bottle. She shakes her head.

“Girl. Samantha. You can trust me. We’ll all have a good time. Even you. I know you’re scared, but trust me, okay?” Don holds out his right hand, palm up.

Samantha pauses, makes a crying face, but shakes it off, takes Don’s hand.

“Good. Sit. You like games?” Don takes his spot while guiding Samantha into the spot made vacant when Clive lost his head. “You like cards?”

Samantha shrugs.

“Take a sip.” Don motions to the bottle.

Samantha looks at the men, checking every face twice in a rotating half-circle. She isn’t going to drink. She’s too scared. She’s…she sips. The tension falls.

Terence picks up the cards. “Let’s keep it easy, Texas Hold ‘em. How much money you got?” He’s grinning at Samantha.

She makes the cry face again.

“No worries! Simpler yet. So cozy in here, we can bet clothes and won’t get cold.” Terence is shuffling the deck, the crotch of his pants swelling in anticipation.

“No way, no way. Can’t strip.” Samantha takes a fourth sip. Her cheeks are rosy.

“Guess you better win, eh?” Richard winks at her.

Clive’s sneer has his upper lip curled, eyetooth unhidden. “Yeah, you better.”

“Cool it.” Terence starts dishing, dealing Samantha’s hand from the bottom. Flips junk but for an ace on the flop.

“Finish that and I’ll grab you another.” Don is already halfway to standing.

Samantha doesn’t argue and drains the stuff. Tastes like Creamsicle. She hasn’t picked up her cards, too out of it to observe that the men have. “I like it.” Her belly is warm as her cheeks, warmer even. Tingly all over.

Don sets down a new bottle and then freshens all the tumblers with whiskey, but not ice. The ice is in the kitchen on the other side of the table, ignored. Like the cigars. The cigars have become room dressing. “Look at your cards.” He points to Samantha’s hand. The neck of her second Bacardi is empty.

“Minimum, one piece of clothing.” Terence holds the card stack and drops a second ten, this one hearts. “Bets?”

Richard wraps knuckles on the table.

Clive stands. “Raise one.” Opens the button on his pants.

Don waves. “Drop ‘em when you lose.”

Clive tuts.

Don tosses his cards. “Fold.”

The focus is on Samantha. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll help.” Don leans over, looks at Samantha’s cards, smirks at Terence. “You’re gonna want to call him.”

She shrugs and drinks, holding her cards willy-nilly against the glass. Only Clive across the table can’t see.

Terence tosses his cards.

Richard tosses his cards.

Terence flips the river card, another ace, spades.

Clive doesn’t even consider the offering, his cards face down flat, his palms on the table. “Raise.”

Samantha turns to Don, serious concern knitting her girlish features—helplessness incarnate.

“Take him down.” Don nods at Clive. “Show ‘em.”

Clive, still sneering, flips two tens. “Four of a fucking kind. Take it off, you little tease.”

The others erupt into laughter. All knew what was what. Don takes the two aces from Samantha’s hand. “Oops.” He takes off his shirt, leaves the tie.

Terence takes off a sock.

Richard takes off his tie.

Clive strips to his boxers, socks, and button-up.

The clothes sit in a mound in front of Samantha and she’s smiling, lips orange, cheeks aflame. “I won? I won! Woo!”

Richard, less adept at stacking a hand, still manages to keep the good times going. Samantha reaps the benefits.

Clive plays with his slightly engorged penis below the table. He keeps on his socks and tie, sick of the foreplay, but being cool. When it’s his turn to deal, no hand is stacked.

“You’re a thirsty girl.” Don gets up and grabs another bottle.

“It’s good. I’m all hot.” Samantha rubs between her thighs in the Y shaped shadow at the crotch of her jeans, like the booze knew where to go, where the men needed it to go so they didn’t have to get rough. Not too rough anyway. “I’m spinny.”

Terence nods at the bottle. “Take that one slower.”

Samantha smiles at him. “You’re hairy. Is it soft?”

Terence sticks out his chest, runs fingers through the hair, smiles. “Pretty soft. Feel it.”

Samantha reaches over and plays two fingers down almost to his bellybutton. She giggles. “It is soft.”

“Let’s go.” Clive’s dealt and waiting.

Samantha bets to the end. The pile of winnings is halved.

Don deals.

Samantha bets to the end. There’s no pile left. “Oh. I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Don’s shuffling the cards.

“I can’t lose my clothes. I need them, okay? Maybe we played enough. I mean. Okay?” Samantha pulls at her shirtfront for emphasis. Lips puckered small and eyebrows raised.

Don shakes his head. “Sorry, girl. Not fair.” He tosses cards before her.

Samantha doesn’t understand folding. She’s tipping to and fro, her eyes glazed, looking swimmy. She huffs, angry when she has to lose her coat and socks.

The dealer spot skips her. The men have their clothes back, but haven’t put them on.

She loses.

Don puts a hand on her knee.

She loses.

Terence smells the seat of the pants he’s won.

She loses.

“Stand up.” Clive is tugging himself below the table, his voice a hiss, heartbeat in his words, hummingbirding. “Stand up and show.” The sounds from under the table are wet and smacky.

Samantha’s crying, shaking her head. No. Has on only white cotton panties. Has her arms folded over her nubbin breasts.

Don waves to placate Clive, deals Samantha trash. His hand goes back to her thigh, higher up. The heat coming off that secret space has him hard as a rock. “Don’t worry, you can bet with kisses and clothes.” He squeezes a little, has to bite his lower lip to reel it in some.

The cards come out and Samantha loses. She’s crying and shaking her head as Terence helps her to her feet. Don has his nose between her thighs, rolling the panties down, savoring.

“Three kisses to the winner, and I pick where. I wanted all-in, but we can play slow. We can.” Terence pulls down his boxer shorts and a stiff red penis springs free.

“No. No, but…no.” Samantha is shaking all over.

“Yes.” Clive is on his feet, really pulling himself, about to release on the cards and the green felt of the table.

“No!” Samantha has hands on her, feeling the merchandise. She starts convulsing, more like a cat with a hairball than a scared little girl vomiting up Bacardi.

Don backs a step.

Terence leans away.

Richard has wide, patient eyes. Into watching more than anything else.

“Bring her here. I wanna cum on her face.” Clive’s body is rigid and cords are sticking out in his neck, in his arms, and in his legs. “Hurry. Hurry.” He’s panting, ratcheting his arm like a piston.

Samantha falls back into her chair as a pale pink balloon spreads her lips wide open and slides to the table. The balloon is flesh. The balloon, it moves. The veins and arteries, the steady in and out of the impossible breaths.

“What the fuck?” Terence pops in reverse, sending his chair over.

Samantha isn’t finished, but she no longer looks helpless or sad. Something’s changed. She reaches a hand down her throat and pulls out the other balloon, other lung. “With the underwear, that’s three. All-in?” The lungs breathe steady on the tossed card pile. “How much I owe? How much? All-in?”

Clive shakes, too far along, and starts cumming on the table. “What the hell?” His words are high, whining, tailing into a dog whistle. “What the hell?”

“All-in?” Samantha spreads her legs, revealing what the men had plans of tenderizing, that veal steak. She digs to her elbow and pulls. Pink and red. The shiny flesh spills. Uterus. Bladder. Urethra. Cervix. Some of it holds steady to her, dangles. A pink sock. The floor is glossy with guts.

Don breaks for the door and starts pulling. The deadbolt needs a key. “Fuck this. Fuck this.” The windows are barred and his eyes bounce to the options that aren’t options at all.

Clive is on the bed. Curled.

“All-in!” Samantha digs fingernails into her breasts and tears the flesh in huge strips that coil off her, leather cinnamon buns, but massive. “All-in!” She reaches around muscles and her ribcage and pulls free her still-beating heart, tosses it to Richard, who catches it and hot potatoes it at Terence. “All-in!”

The men are screaming. They’ve retreated to corners, helpless little boys playing a game they weren’t prepared to play.

—

The moon out the window shows midnight. Samantha is all bones and eyes and brains and hair. The men are on the bed, mostly naked, huddled together. They’ve said little since they’d stopped screaming. Since she’d stopped digging around muscles and started stripping them away instead.

“I’ll fucking sue you.” Clive has his knees up, his shrivelled scrotum poking out between his thighs above the hairy crack of his ass. He’d covered his face when Samantha slammed a kidney on the tabletop, almost an hour earlier, and then pointed at him. Hasn’t quit shivering, knowing something. Knowing there’s more coming.

Richard nudges Clive. “Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, you goddamned tool.” Hardly a whisper, trying to avoid the attention of the thing sat on a chair at the poker table.

“This can’t be real.” Don rocks gently.

Terence lights a fresh cigar off the one he’s just finished. Chain relief. But not really relieving at all. “What are—?”

The deadbolt tumbles and the door opens. The men’s faces lighten when they see Charlie but darken when he locks the door after entering.

“You’re dead.” Clive is peeking out from the crook of his elbow.

Charlie shrugs. “No. Not me.”

Samantha’s skeleton, her eyes—above their trailing nerve tendrils—follow the man’s movements.

The spleen is first. Charlie digs through the mound of wet tissue and picks it up. He presses it to his lips, his fake beard going pink around the mouth—zombie Santa lookalike. He sets the organ inside Samantha’s bone cage. “I love you one.” It floats in the exactly right spot. He picks up the stomach, kisses it. “I love you two.”

“What in the fuck?” Don’s teeth chatter around the words.

Charlie ignores him and keeps going. Picks up a kidney, sniffs it, makes a face, and tosses it aside. “Rotten.” Pulls a knife like an oversized scalpel within a leather sheath from a deep hip pocket.

Samantha points to Clive.

The blade salutes. “You want to live, you’ll hold him down.”

The men exchange glances.

Clive jumps. “No!”

They grab him.

Charlie cuts. Crude. There’s too much blood.

The other men still hope. Each still hopes.

Don loses a lung. Wheezing. “Going to sew me up. Right?”

Terence loses his small intestine. The large intestine coils in his lap, his hands greedy with need to shove it back in. Too slick.

Richard is scared. Samantha needs a new heart. “No. I’ll die.” His hands wave and swat.

“Behave.” Charlie pins him and plunges the blade.

Whines. A death rattle. Wheezing. The bed, puddled red.

Charlie continues the good work. Putting Samantha back together, doing the ritual that completes not only her, but him too.

An abdominal oblique. “I love you twenty-one.”

The rectum. “I love you three hundred.”

Her lips. “I love you eight hundred and nine.”

Samantha runs that tongue over her lips. “I love you, too.” Those lips shift into something playful, her childlike visage momentarily flashing, but is then stolen away. “I hope you survive for days. I really do.”

“What?” Clive is on his knees, bloody hands out, begging. “You can’t. Please, I’ll do anything.”

“That’s the problem with your kind.” Samantha plucks items of her wardrobe from the floor. Then her barista bear. Charlie takes her hand and they step to the door.

She’s out first, he’s following, glances over his shoulder. “You think you’re suffering now?” He locks the door. The sound of the shouting men trails them to the car, but no further.

Samantha takes Charlie’s hand and kisses it. “Thank you.”

“Thank you.” Charlie kisses her back, starts the engine, and rolls.

XX