How can we judge insanity? How can we dub what’s sane and what’s not? Well, we could take one look at the man who destroyed the mindset that maybe all people can be good. This man is Nicholas Ruhkat, a human born from Hell. Before I go into detail as to how Nicholas became the Devil himself, lets begin on how we met.
It was May, my favourite month. I worked at a bookstore after getting done with classes at the local college. I had a routine, everyone does I mean, humans are creatures of habit afterall. He knew that all too well though. I had never seen him until one chilly evening. The bookstore ran late on Fridays, until 7pm to be exact. I was just about to close up when a man walked in. This man looked as if he should’ve been born in the 1940s. He dressed very nicely, a bit too nice if I should say. He gazed around and met my eyes.
“Were you just closing?” he asked.
If only I had said yes, maybe this whole thing would have never happened.
“Well if you need to pick out a book quick I could wait,” I called back.
He bowed slightly and went on his way looking around the bookshelves until he found his match. He brought it to the register for me to checkout. As I was handing him his receipt I noticed something about the book. It was just blank page after blank page. I kept staring at it until I watched his hand come into my vision.
“Well thank you miss Veronica, until paths cross again and I’m sure they will,” he said with a smile as he turned on his heel and left out the door.
I began to think how odd was he? I shut off the lights and began walking to the door when I saw my reflection in it. I wasn’t wearing my nametag since I was so close to closing up. How did he know my name? I shook my head, maybe I did have it on and recently took it off.
Weeks passed since I saw him again. Soon came time to close up again at 7pm. I locked the doors and began my walk to my home where waited my dad and three sisters. The book store was in a good part of town, hardly any crime so I was able to put my guard down. I began thinking of him again.
“What a strange man,” I mumbled as I made my decent up the stairs of the apartment.
It was odd, all the lights were out in the apartment, Dad always left the living room lamp on as well as the porch light for me. I thought nothing of it and went to unlock the door only to find I was able to push it open. Fear hit me like a brick wall. I tried turning on some lights only for them not to work. I pulled out my phone and called the police then began to search for my family with my phone flash light.
“Dad? Rachel? Jamie? Tamara?” I called for them.
No answer to my disappointment. I backed up to turn and go wait outside for police when I noticed something draped over the couch. When I got closer I smelled something kinda like sewerage and iron. I turned my phone light to it and became paralysed. Fear over took my body and I just stood there, mouth open, trembling. What was before me made me sick, nothing could describe the feeling I had. I dropped my phone and ran out the door, unable to scream, unable to do anything but get the hell away from there. The police arrived as soon as I got to the parking lot. I cried hysterically and couldn’t muster up anything correct to tell them what I saw. When I got the closer look I saw what use to a human. When I realised what was before me, it was a human pelt, skin made into a blanket, blood dripping onto our leather couch. It was later identified as my dad. I sat in the police car trembling with fear. The police searched the place and shut the whole apartment complex down and moved everyone out. They had found the eyeballs of my family boiling in a pot of hot water on the stove, blood stains all over the kitchen and hallways and the teeth of them all brewing with tea on the stove. This was sick. This was beyond anything I could imagine. I was taken to a shelter, protected by police. They thought whoever did it was likely to get me too. I quit my job at the bookstore and stopped going to my classes.
It had been almost a year since the massacre. I had been relocated and never left my home if I did it’d only be to pick up groceries I ordered at my door. I decided to walk outside for the first time. I walked into a cafe and sat after getting a coffee. I looked up and saw the man I had a year ago in the bookstore. I was confused. I had moved nearly 15 states away. He gazed over at me and smiled and motioned for me to come over. I had no choice, he was the only person who could know why that happened to my family. I sat across from him.
“Hello Miss Veronica, how are you feeling?” he asked.
“Who are you? How did you know my name in the first place?” I asked bitterly.
He smiled at me, I hated it.
“I’ve always known your name Veronica, wanna know mine? It’s Nicholas, Nicholas Ruhkat.”
I was creeped out. Why does he know me at all?
“You didn’t answer me! How do you know me?” I asked frustrated.
Nicholas hummed.
“I’m a man of mystery and horror if I would say so myself. You already know that right?”
I was really confused at this point. I stood up to leave when he grabbed my wrist.
“If you want to know why your family was slaughtered like pigs, give me a call,” he said slipping me a business card.
I looked down at it in horror and looked up to see him gone. I reported the number to the police with the story and they said they would look into it soon.
Later that night I called the number myself, being fueled with rage and was greeted with a chilling noise. It was the screams and cries of my family as they were being killed that night. I couldn’t move at all as the noise got louder and louder. When I tried hanging up it wouldn’t allow me to. I was bawling as I grabbed the nearest hard object, a meat tenderizer, and battered my phone until it died. I shakingly dropped the weapon and sat crying on my kitchen floor. I heard a small noise and saw a letter had been slipping under my door. I quickly got up, grabbed it and swung the door open to find nobody. I looked around and still no trace. I screamed out yelling it wasn’t funny, that it was a f****d up joke. I slammed it shut and walked in and opened the letter. On black paper with white font read,
“Rule number one. Don’t call for help. Play by my rules and you won’t end up like they did.”
Who was this Nicholas man?! Why was he doing this?! I just sobbed on my couch for hours until I passed out.
I woke up to find myself in a different house than my own. He got me, this is it. I stood up and looked for any exits only to find the door was bolted shut and there were no windows. It was almost pitch black in the room and smelled of sewage. That was until three TV screens came on. It showed my family. It showed them all sitting there casually enjoying dinner until their power was cut. As the video went on i watched as two men gagged and began to hurt them. I didn’t want to watch but I couldn’t help it. One of the men stood in front of my bloody beaten dad and sisters. He laughed sadistically as he announced they were going to play a game. If they lost one of them would be killed. I watched my dad try to beg him not to hurt my sister’s only for him to go to one of them and begin to cut her making her scream. This game of pain and fear continued until they were all dead and emulated. You could see the pure fear in all their eyes only wishing someone heard their cries. I watched in terror as the two men cut up and skinned my dad and dragged the rest of my sister’s bodies away. The screens cut out. The door opened and there stood the man of the hour, Nicholas.
“You b*****d,” I whispered.
“Let’s play a game Veronica, if you win, you live. If you don’t, you’re mine,” he said darkly.
I shook my head.
“You won’t let me live either way, I’m not stupid!” I called.
He chuckled and turned on some lights. I screamed as I saw the room was full of rotting bodies, buckets of organs, etc. He offered me a hand which I accepted. I would rather die than stay in there. He shut the door and looked at me almost lovingly.
“Now Miss Veronica, I like you, it’s why you aren’t dead. But don’t make me lose that feeling alright? Before we play our game I want to show you my lovely manor.”
I couldn’t refuse, it could mean death for me so I accepted. He showed me extravagant rooms and then the darker ones. This one in particular He called his art room was the most innocent I could see. He dipped white roses into buckets full of red liquid then set them to dry.
“I paint the roses here, for my dead mother, she loved roses,” he said a bit sadly.
But I had no sympathy for this corrupted man. It took every nerve I had not to lash out and attack him. He showed me to this room he called his study. I hated when we entered. Strapped to hospital tables were people from children to elderly. Many with bandages all over. Some were worse, all crying for help, some begging.
“My dear Veronica, I paint my roses with blood. I need at least 4 jars of it to paint one to my desire. These dear people give me that,” he said happily.
“But some talk back and they have to be punished,” he added as we walked past a few people with their mouths sewn shut.
I shook my head. I couldn’t take this. This was sickening. What’s worse is when we came to a room with a hospital table and cameras which he called the stage room.
“Sometimes, to make more money, I’ll record their death and have users from this website pay to tell me how they die. In anyway as long as I get the blood,” Nicholas said.
“Some ask me to rip off their limbs or burn them, they also request the age of the victim but I have no bias!” He added near cheerful.
I stood back from him.
“You’re twisted! How can you do this!” I shouted.
Nicholas frowned.
“Rule number two, do not talk back to me,” he said sternly.
“No more rules! Let me go!” I shouted.
“Bad mistake Miss Veronica,” he uttered.
I ran out of that room and tried finding the door to lead me out of here. I saw it, nearly there when I felt something hit the back of my head making me fall. My mind was spinning as I tried crawling towards the door only to be stopped by Nicholas. He grinned at me and grabbed me by my hair and started dragging me away somewhere saying sternly.
“I’ve never had one get away and you won’t be the first.”
After I woke up I had been tired in a chair and tortured by Nicholas. He cut my arms, my face and much more. I was kept in his art room and I guess I was treated better than the others. He claimed he loved me but I knew it was a lie. This wasn’t love, this was madness. He had explained to me how he had stalked me for quite some time, learning about my habits etc. He said that was the only reason he was able to catch me. So now I sit here, barely clinging to live, cuts that burn, blood that’s cold, and a heart that barely beats, all for Nicholas and his sick obsession with bloody roses. He tells me if I obey him enough, one day he’ll let me roam the manor. I’ve started acting like a damn dog to please this corrupt man, doing all he says. He gives me white pills everyday in the morning and at night. He never tells me what they do and I can’t tell you myself, it’s been so long. All I know is I need them or else this dark place becomes darker. The worst part about this place is when I hear him in the study. I can hear the screams and innocent cries of the children as he cuts them, rips off limbs, etc. Or his laugh as he puts on a show for that twisted audience of his. But the worst part about Nicholas is that nobody believed he was real when I told them. Nicholas let me go out of nowhere and dumped me on the street. I told police about the manor but when we got there, there was no house. Due to the twisted things I depicted and my condition they referred me to a therapist who judged I get sent to a mental ward upon thinking i did self harm during mental breakdowns. He was real! Do they not see the scars?! Or the bruises or anything?! But I can’t really complain, the nurses give me the white pills, kinda like Nicholas did. It made me feel happy. It gives me hope he’s still out there. It really seems he trained me to love him right? In a sadistic way, I missed the manor. It was where I felt sane, watching Nicholas paint the roses red.