A terrified and weak man sits in a chair with worried eyes and wet cheeks, fish hooks were embedded into his bruised skin starting from his forehead trailing down his belly and to his feet, in two parallel lines. The rustic hooks were attached to thick wire drilled into the wall from behind. A slick red groove was slit down the center of his body, not a fatal one but the use was coming to light.
“Karla stop, please don’t come any further!” The man pleads.
“Why not? Dad what are you doing here? What’s going on!” She only wants to hug him and go home, to have one more family dinner and talk about their day, but life doesn’t always have happy endings.
“Please, I don’t have much time left. Just hear me out, you’re paying for our sins. I’m not the man you thought I was. I’ve lied to you, I protected Maddie’s father, Jerry, for years. He’s a sadist and r****t, he drank thinking it would kill his desires turning into an alcoholic. One night he had r***d a girl with his friend, Donald’s dad. I couldn’t let them go to prison so I paid off our friends and we devised a plan to solve it but it didn’t go as planned. I couldn’t turn my back on him, he was a childhood friend and family by that point.”
Her phantom hand clenches as she thinks of that night her limb was taken from her. “Why can’t I come closer to you? I already know of that, the woman told me!”
“There’s more!” He spouts. “We used to have a neighbor, he was demented. Took a liking to you shortly after we brought you home, I wanted to protect you, you were my princess. I caught him trying to kiss you when you were just an infant. I hated him but couldn’t murder him, Jerry was desperate for money, and with enough alcohol in his system he agreed to solve my problem. That sin created a silent bond between us meaning I would have to be there for him no matter what the situation was after that. He was supposed to have been dead, but he managed to escape half alive. Jerry hid the secret from me and eventually he found us, found you.”
“Why have you never told me any of this?” Karla yells, her feet motion to move forward but she restrains to her dad’s wishes of being still.
“Because he was a sick man, he worked at a slaughterhouse years back and grew a fascination with torture and pain. I never thought it would unfold into sexual perversions and hate. I thought he was dead, until the night they caught you. I hadn’t heard from you and went looking for you, in your home he was waiting for me. I didn’t know who it was behind the mask until he spoke.”
He gasps as a grinding sound starts from behind the wall, the wires begin to slowly retract recoiling the loose strands laid out onto the floor. Quickening his pace he continues, “I thought I saved you, that I could protect you. His hate is for me, for Jerry, he’s letting it out on us and everyone we know, everyone we love. Please, forgive me Karla. I only wanted to keep you safe, I love y-”
He swallows his words as the hooks veer back stretching his skin back over his body, raw wet muscle is exposed while the hooks slide back with the strands. Ferocious and swift, the pallets of skin peel back. The hooks rip through certain sections of skin allowing varied chunks left behind clinging on. Phillip chokes on dry air and tries to say something, words dribble out in bubbled saliva with no coherent sentences flowing between.
Karla lunges forward in an attempt to save him somehow. Stepping off her concrete slab molded to the base of the stairs releases buckets of salt and a liquid substance. The smell hit her almost immediately after it hit him, lemon juice. Phillip shakes his head while his body jerks in seizure clusters. Going into shock he slumps into the chair, his breathing becoming shallow until finally it stops.
Karla bawls while running to him, her one hand rubs across his warm cheek as she rubs her stump against her eyes. Her heart couldn’t take much more, everyone she knew and loved was being taken away, piece by piece. All for the perverted love of a sick individual.
A latch clicks open while a hidden door creaks open. She steps forward pushing it out with little regard if traps or devices were set up. Anger bubbled up inside in rapid bursts ready to overflow. Stepping into the new room she recognized the scenery. It was displayed as a tattered warehouse, rusted chains dangled from the ceiling, dirt and grain scattered across the floor. This was the setting for pig pie.
A stained crate sat in the middle of the room, brownish-red spots leaked through the wood. Slowly she approached the box and places her hands on the edge of the rough top, it slides off easily toppling to the floor. To her horror she faces Mya’s head glaring back at her, resting on top of mangled and mostly eaten body parts. Inner parts and oozing fluids filled the lower half of the enclosure making an illusion that the limbs were floating in a murky substance.
An audio file begins to play from the speakers in the corners of the room.
[A man is heard giggling]
“Go on, tell your mommy goodbye, you ain’t gonna see her in this world. Hell she ain’t even awake yet, still asleep in the first room!”
“Mommy where are you! He’s trying to kill me! Momm-”
[Various slaps are heard]
“And thus begins another episode of Pig Pie, and they is starving.”
[Pigs can be heard squealing along with a young girl screaming]
The audio cuts off. Karla dropped to the ground before the tape could start, anguish had stirred her soul into a puddle of misery and despair.
The porcelain man comes around the corner, his one eye glares at her with the other side of his vision nothing more than a scar now. Smiling devilishly he waves a gloved hand at the sobbing mess curled on the ground.
“We meet again,” he says.
Karla faces the crate shuddering, rage fills up every crevice in her system. The mask gripped to his smiling face, he continues to walk towards her with no fear. She wanted him to suffer, to die as slowly as possible, to feel what she’s been through.
Wrapped in his hands was a scythe, instead of a blade at the top, replaced was a bloodied bone shaved down at an angle.
“I have no reasons, no emotional trauma, no abuse. I liked you, and that was taken from me. If I can’t be happy, then neither could you. I get pleasure from this, I have found my calling in the deep web. And the people have spoken once more, Reapers Blessing.”
Karla stands up with trembling knees, she wanted nothing more than this man to suffer. Everything has been taken from her, she literally had nothing more to live for. Bracing herself, she runs towards the masked man. He swings the weapon missing her leg as intended but strikes her left ankle ripping it open. Adrenalin took over her brain evicting any common thoughts, pain was far away for the moment.
Karla slams into him knocking him down onto the rough floor, she begins to head b**t him while placing her hand onto his forcing the weapon to stay lowered. She hits his mouth with full force, with a balled fist knocking she knocks his front teeth loose. Phantom arches his legs upwards throwing her off of him. Blood spills from the mask as he staggers to his feet and swings once more. This time the bone digs into her stomach exiting out the other end, deep layers untie opening up her inner organs. The cut wasn’t enough to make them spill, but enough to reveal them slightly.
Karla screams out, he swings again while she loses her balance this time hitting her left breast. The blade swipes halfway through and pulls back causing part of it to hang down with a river of blood streaming down. Karla collapses onto the floor, her brain felt as it was on fire by the time her shoulder cracked in half, wedged in the weapon tugs as Phantom strains to rip it out again.
Karla’s vision begins to fade, motivation and strength leak out in different lacerations. He looks down and drops the blade, placing both knees to the sides of her belly he climbs on her and grips his hands to her throat. Applying pressure he groans, “I want to finish this myself, makes it more personal.”
Karla’s lungs tighten, her throat straining to inhale anything that his mitts were taking away. She glances over to see the weapon on the floor just within reach. Stretching out her fingers she touches the edge and beckons it closer. With the bare strength she fought to hold onto to, she drives the stick into his other eye. Phantom yells out but doesn’t let go, he begins to furiously pound her head on the hard ground while she forces it deeper. Her hair becomes thick with syrup building up behind her, Phantom begins to slow down. With one final blow he slams her head down and falls over next to her. Both covered in blood they face each other for the last time as they take their final breaths.
“Woah did you see the new kill?”
Jenny turns to her friend Samantha as both of them huddle around the computer screen, the vision begins to fade as the cameras zoom away from the two corpses lying on the floor.
“Is this real?” Samantha asks.
“I don’t know, I mean it looks real but who knows?”
A bleep sound is heard from the computer, catching their attention. A message appears on the screen from a user called Darkness 1476. The message simply said.
“Enjoying the show?”
Thank you to all who read this, thank you for the comments and opinions!