Gabe Redel's Blog: FRYING POTATOES BLOG - Posts Tagged "thriller"
The Guy Who Gets Killed
Author's Note: This short story is from a collection of short stories titled, "The Guy Who Gets Killed Series." Each story in the series is about the guy in the story who is about to die. Usually that guy is just a small character because he or she is going to die anyways. Not anymore! The series aims to give the guy who has to die his time in the spotlight. This suspense short story is the cover story of the series, appropriately titled:
"The Guy Who Gets Killed"
by Gabe Redel
Brent smashed into Aiden with his shoulder so that he could get through the door before the dogs snagged his leg and tore him to pieces. Stevie slammed the door.
Aiden had a worried look on his face. He rubbed his shoulder because he had banged it against the wall when Brent rammed into the back of him. Brent stood up and immediately yelled at Aiden for blocking the door on him.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Block the door so I couldn’t run in. Those dogs almost got me.”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear.” Aiden’s eyes were large and worried.
Brent just shook his head and muttered something unpleasant. He grabbed the door handle and tried opening it, but it was locked. The room had no windows either and the door was solid.
“So what are we going to do now?” Brent ask, trying to control his temper.
“How should I know? You’re the great leader of the group,” Aiden said.
“Shut up, Aiden. We wouldn’t be trapped in this room if you hadn’t let those dogs loose. What were you thinking!”
“Guys, stop yelling.” Stevie got between them to hold them off of each other. Brent listened to her, because she was his girlfriend. She put her hand on his chest and said, “he’s still out there. We are still his targets, and we will never escape if we keep acting like this.”
“Yeah, he searches for hate. He can feel it, so stop yelling at each other,” Carrie said.
“That isn’t true and I’ll never believe it.” Brent shook his head. “This isn’t some ghost that’s chasing us. It hasn’t come up from the grave like some spirit. It’s a guy in a costume. That’s all it is. No, that’s all he is! He invited us here to this freak-mansion so he could play his games, and now he’s tormenting us for his sick fun. That’s all. I say we beat him at his own game. I say we torture him back.”
“Some game, Brent. Eddie’s gone. He might be dead.” Carrie’s voice shook as she tried not to cry.
“Yeah, so maybe we should kill him.” Brent thought about it. Then he said, “But Eddie isn’t dead. Don’t you ever say that!” At this point, Brent was growling though his teeth he was so angry. He tightened his jaw and searched the bedroom for something to smash. The wall was next to him, so he kicked it. A few pieces of plaster broke loose and shattered on the hard wood floor.
“We can’t kill it if it’s already dead.” Aiden said, but Brent paid no attention to him. That made Aiden mad. This time he yelled at him, but Brent continued to turn away. With that, Aiden lost control. He ran up behind him and punched him hard in the back of the head. Brent’s head snapped forward, but that did little to impress the muscled-up man. Brent retaliated quickly by swinging around with a back fist that drove into the side of Aiden’s mouth. He was sent spinning away, blood spilling from his lips, but Brent had no intentions of leaving it at that. He took a long stride toward him, winded up his rear leg like he were about to kick a soccer ball, and took both of Aiden’s legs out from under him with one giant sweep. Aiden’s feet snapped out from under him. The back of his head bounced off the wood floor while the rest of him folded over his chest. Brent was about to put a few more blows into his face until one of the girls intervened.
“Brent, stop! You hurt him.” Carrie ran to Aiden’s aid.
Brent rolled his eyes. He did his best to ignore the fact that Carrie felt sorry for Aiden when it was Aiden who had attacked him first. It wasn’t his fault that Aiden was small and scrawny and couldn’t take a punch, or throw one for that matter. He laughed through his nose before he brought up the subject at hand once again. “He can be killed, because he is human. And if he feels hate, then he can take these and shove ’em were he can feel them the most.” He held up both middle fingers at the door that had locked them in.
Aiden staggered to his feet. A serious look of hatred was bent into his face.
“If he is only human, then how does he disappear like that?” Stevie asked. She did her best to say it as calm as she could so that she wouldn’t get the guys anymore riled up. “I see more than a guy in a costume, Brent. I see a spirit who is more powerful than all of us together.”
Brent spit from his lips and waved off her comment.
“It isn’t human,” she said again, still calm. “It can’t be. I felt it. It felt like it wanted to burn me up from the inside out. It felt like . . . I don’t know. It was evil. That’s all I can say.”
“I believe you, Stevie. I’ve never seen something that big disappear like that before,” Aiden said. He was still breathing heavily and his voice had grown hoarse.
“Whatever it is, I’m still going to try and kill it,” Brent pounded his fist into his hand. He had a far-off look in his eyes. “And nobody is changing my mind. It’s dead, and that’s final.” He looked around the room and saw a sturdy looking wooden rocking chair in the corner. For what he wanted to do with it, it would work perfectly. He picked it up with both hands and raised it over his head. Aiden nearly fell backwards because he thought Brent was going to smash him with it, but he didn’t. Instead, he took a running start and threw it at the wall as hard as he could. He grunted like a pig as the chair smashed through the brittle plaster.
Everybody’s eyes lit up at the gaping hole the chair had put in the wall. They were free, but they all first listened for dogs. None of them were there. Aiden peeked through the hole. He could see that it opened a pathway to a completely different part of the mansion. One they had never been in before. He stepped through and the others followed.
The hallway glowed with the fire of candles that hung on hooks. Their orange flames flickered off the red paint. Strange figures of tortured men lined the walls like trees in a forest. Some were gigantic statues that reached the ceiling while others were only figurines. The ceiling of the hallway was tall, more than fifteen feet. Some of the statues almost looked like they were made from real human body parts. Others were holding weapons and dressed in full armor. Aiden took hold of one of the smaller ones that was on a shelf. It was made of stone and it was heavy. He held it in his hand like a club. “Here, Brent,” he said. “You can kill it with this.”
Brent wondered why Aiden had suddenly changed his attitude toward him, so he questioned, “Why don’t you keep it? Do you want me dead or something?”
“What, no. If I wanted you dead, why would I hand you something to protect yourself?”
“You said that you believed Stevie. You believe that this thing isn’t human and that it sees hatred. You want me full of hate so it attacks me? Is that what you’re doing?”
“What?” Aiden asked, trying to sound innocent, but he wasn’t a very good actor. Everybody could tell by the sound of his voice that something wasn’t right.
“Don’t lie to me, bro.” Brent raised the stone figure in his hand in a threatening manner.
“Brent, no way, man.” He put his hands up and waved them to try and calm him down. “I want all of us to get out of this alive.” He wiped a patch of blood from his lip. “I don’t want anybody dead. I’m not a murderer.”
But Brent didn’t listen. He took steps in Aiden’s direction.
“Brent, stop!” Carrie yelled.
“Brent!” Stevie yelled, and that got him to stop.
“No, I’m not going to kill the little worm, but I’m definitely not going to trust him.” He set the statue down where it had been and turned to lead them through the hallway. Aiden followed along, but he was so nerve-wracked from the incident that his lungs were vibrating. He was shocked that Brent had caught on to him. The next time he tried to get Brent killed, he had better be more discrete about it.
Their trek continued. The smell of rotten wood permeated the air. The hallways only led to more hallways. Not one of them had ever been to this part of the mansion before, and because there were no windows, they didn’t know if they were in the basement or in the attic. The place was huge, and it seemed to them as if they were in a labyrinth that only led them deeper into captivity.
“Shhh, did you hear that?” Stevie asked.
They all stopped. Carrie turned her candle in Stevie’s direction. “What?”
“Shhh, that.”
Aiden took a deep breath. “It sounds like mumbling.”
The mumbling was soft, but it was definitely there. It almost sounded like a wizard was chanting incantations.
“Oh, no, man, what is that?” Aiden started to shake he was so scared.
“Where is it coming from?” Carrie whispered.
“Here.” Brent pointed to a giant painting that was hanging on the wall. The painting was of a tree and moon, and under the tree was five different colored flames. He grabbed the thick wood frame of the painting and tried removing it, but it wouldn’t budge. Then the mumbling grew louder, and that gave them a better understanding of where it was coming from.
“Look!” Carrie said, “on the ceiling!” She raised her candle up as high as it would go. “Something is moving around on the ceiling.”
“That isn’t something. A person is tied up there.” Brent gazed at the man hanging in a ball of ropes.
“It might be Eddie,” Stevie said.
With the sound of his name, Eddie began twisting and mumbling as hard as he could to get them to come get him. He was all wrapped up in ropes like a mummy and hanging from a large ring that was attached to the ceiling.
For most of the group, the hope that Eddie was still alive was welcomed, but Aiden didn’t feel the same. He had hoped that Eddie had died. It wasn’t that Aiden disliked Eddie in any way. It was because Aiden knew that someone had to die first. This spirit, this thing that was chasing them, he was certain that it would kill one of them. And he believed as the outcast of the group that the odds were highly in his favor to die first. That’s why he had been trying to get Brent killed. If Brent died, maybe he wouldn’t.
“Damn,” Aiden whispered to himself.
“What?” Carrie had heard him.
“Oh, uh, climb up the painting to get onto that statue. You could probably reach him from up there.” The statue that was next to them was a massive Scandinavian warrior dressed in metal and holding an axe that stood over twelve feet tall. It nearly reached the ceiling.
Brent nodded and took hold of one of the human figures carved into the wood of the frame.
“Eddie!” Stevie cried with joy. “Hold on. We’ll get you down.”
Brent stepped foot onto the large arm of the warrior and then climbed the rest of the way up from there. He sat on the statue’s shoulders and stretched out as far as he could to try and reach his friend that hung precariously from the ceiling. He could just barely reach far enough out to push him and make him swing. Once he had him swinging back and forth, he was able to grab the ropes and hold him in place. Then he slipped out his pocket knife and cut him free.
Within minutes, Eddie’s arms were untied. He removed the ropes from his face and saw Brent for the first time.
“Brent!” he said with great enthusiasm. “Bro, get me down, bro!”
“Pull yourself to me.”
He did, and Brent cut him out the rest of the way and eased him onto the statue. They climbed down together and fell to the ground. They rolled over the top of each other while they laughed and cheered and patted each other’s backs as they hugged. The girls jumped on top to join in. As they cheered, Aiden stood back and watched the statue that was standing over the top of them come to life. First, an arm began to move. Then the weapon that it was holding, the giant axe, lowered. Aiden could see that it was aimed to drop and cut all four of them in half.
“Hey!” He yelled for their attention, but then the axe stopped moving. He saw that it had gotten caught on a piece of armor on the statue’s leg. He saw that all he had to do was bump the statue to knock it loose and then the blade would drop and sever them in half, but first he wanted to get everybody out of the way except for Brent. So he ran up to them and began pulling them up one by one while pretending to take part in their celebration. He first got the two girls up. He made sure Stevie was the farthest away. Then he jumped on Eddie and pulled him up.
Nervously, he said, “Eddie, I missed you so much!” Aiden hugged him around the body and slung him wildly so that he would bump into the statue and knock the axe loose. It worked, and nobody suspected a thing because they were blinded by their own joy.
The axe was free and lowering slowly once again, but then it stopped. Aiden watched it wondering why it wasn’t killing the man that he hated with everything in his heart. He cursed to himself because he wanted Brent dead and the axe wasn’t going to do it, but then something in the statue clicked. The group froze. Brent was still lying on the floor. He was erect on his elbows and listening carefully. “What was that?” he asked.
“I don’t . . . ,” and that was all Aiden could say before the floor gave way. The two girls, Eddie, and Aiden jumped back in time, but Brent was swallowed up. And to make Aiden even happier, the axe then followed along with the floor. It dropped too, slicing down into the hole that Brent had fallen into. They heard him scream and then nothing.
Eddie was the first to jump toward the hole to try and save his friend. The girls were next, but Aiden stayed back so that he could revel in the moment. A sleek smile was spread tight across his lips and a hard stare was over his brow. He gloated to himself while having corrupt thoughts of victory flooding his mind.
The two girls were beside themselves in terror and sorrow.
“Eddie, do something!” Stevie cried over her crush.
“I can’t see anything. It’s too dark.”
“How far down is it?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie slid deeper into the hole. Aiden searched the room for some other boobie-trap to let loose, but there was nothing. Then he searched for another excuse to try and kill Eddie without making it seem like he did it on purpose. If Eddie died too, his chances of survival would surely increase, because in stories like these, one man and one woman were always destine to make it out alive. And Aiden desperately wanted that man and woman to be him and Stevie. He loved Stevie with every ounce of flesh in his body.
“Stevie,” he said, “come stand by me and let me hold you so you don’t get hurt.” She glanced back, but didn’t respond to Aiden’s call.
“Brent!” Carrie screamed into the hole. “Brent, say something. Eddie, where is he?”
“I don’t know. Give me that candle.” But then Eddie began to scream as he too was slowly getting dragged deeper into the hole.
“Eddie!” Carrie jumped on his legs to try to stop him.
Aiden sat back watching anxiously. It looked as if he wouldn’t have to try and kill Eddie after all, because Eddie was about to kill himself.
But Eddie’s screams soon turned into shouts of joy when he learned that the thing dragging him into the hole was Brent using him to climb out. Brent popped up and pulled Eddie to his feet. As soon as Aiden saw that Brent was still alive, he knew that he was in trouble.
“Man, I hate that guy,” he whispered just before a large blade slammed into his back. The front of the blade broke through his chest. He twitched and gagged on his own blood. Then his feet began to smoke like an acid had been spilled over them.
The group spun around and saw that the floor under Aiden’s feet was now glowing red-hot. Flames rose over his body, burning his flesh black. Other than his screams of agony, his last words were, “I knew it would be me.”
The group was terrified. They wanted to help him, but the spirit that had been chasing them through this horrible mansion, making their nightmares come to life, was hovering above the flames. They took off running as fast as they could.
"The Guy Who Gets Killed"
by Gabe Redel
Brent smashed into Aiden with his shoulder so that he could get through the door before the dogs snagged his leg and tore him to pieces. Stevie slammed the door.
Aiden had a worried look on his face. He rubbed his shoulder because he had banged it against the wall when Brent rammed into the back of him. Brent stood up and immediately yelled at Aiden for blocking the door on him.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Block the door so I couldn’t run in. Those dogs almost got me.”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear.” Aiden’s eyes were large and worried.
Brent just shook his head and muttered something unpleasant. He grabbed the door handle and tried opening it, but it was locked. The room had no windows either and the door was solid.
“So what are we going to do now?” Brent ask, trying to control his temper.
“How should I know? You’re the great leader of the group,” Aiden said.
“Shut up, Aiden. We wouldn’t be trapped in this room if you hadn’t let those dogs loose. What were you thinking!”
“Guys, stop yelling.” Stevie got between them to hold them off of each other. Brent listened to her, because she was his girlfriend. She put her hand on his chest and said, “he’s still out there. We are still his targets, and we will never escape if we keep acting like this.”
“Yeah, he searches for hate. He can feel it, so stop yelling at each other,” Carrie said.
“That isn’t true and I’ll never believe it.” Brent shook his head. “This isn’t some ghost that’s chasing us. It hasn’t come up from the grave like some spirit. It’s a guy in a costume. That’s all it is. No, that’s all he is! He invited us here to this freak-mansion so he could play his games, and now he’s tormenting us for his sick fun. That’s all. I say we beat him at his own game. I say we torture him back.”
“Some game, Brent. Eddie’s gone. He might be dead.” Carrie’s voice shook as she tried not to cry.
“Yeah, so maybe we should kill him.” Brent thought about it. Then he said, “But Eddie isn’t dead. Don’t you ever say that!” At this point, Brent was growling though his teeth he was so angry. He tightened his jaw and searched the bedroom for something to smash. The wall was next to him, so he kicked it. A few pieces of plaster broke loose and shattered on the hard wood floor.
“We can’t kill it if it’s already dead.” Aiden said, but Brent paid no attention to him. That made Aiden mad. This time he yelled at him, but Brent continued to turn away. With that, Aiden lost control. He ran up behind him and punched him hard in the back of the head. Brent’s head snapped forward, but that did little to impress the muscled-up man. Brent retaliated quickly by swinging around with a back fist that drove into the side of Aiden’s mouth. He was sent spinning away, blood spilling from his lips, but Brent had no intentions of leaving it at that. He took a long stride toward him, winded up his rear leg like he were about to kick a soccer ball, and took both of Aiden’s legs out from under him with one giant sweep. Aiden’s feet snapped out from under him. The back of his head bounced off the wood floor while the rest of him folded over his chest. Brent was about to put a few more blows into his face until one of the girls intervened.
“Brent, stop! You hurt him.” Carrie ran to Aiden’s aid.
Brent rolled his eyes. He did his best to ignore the fact that Carrie felt sorry for Aiden when it was Aiden who had attacked him first. It wasn’t his fault that Aiden was small and scrawny and couldn’t take a punch, or throw one for that matter. He laughed through his nose before he brought up the subject at hand once again. “He can be killed, because he is human. And if he feels hate, then he can take these and shove ’em were he can feel them the most.” He held up both middle fingers at the door that had locked them in.
Aiden staggered to his feet. A serious look of hatred was bent into his face.
“If he is only human, then how does he disappear like that?” Stevie asked. She did her best to say it as calm as she could so that she wouldn’t get the guys anymore riled up. “I see more than a guy in a costume, Brent. I see a spirit who is more powerful than all of us together.”
Brent spit from his lips and waved off her comment.
“It isn’t human,” she said again, still calm. “It can’t be. I felt it. It felt like it wanted to burn me up from the inside out. It felt like . . . I don’t know. It was evil. That’s all I can say.”
“I believe you, Stevie. I’ve never seen something that big disappear like that before,” Aiden said. He was still breathing heavily and his voice had grown hoarse.
“Whatever it is, I’m still going to try and kill it,” Brent pounded his fist into his hand. He had a far-off look in his eyes. “And nobody is changing my mind. It’s dead, and that’s final.” He looked around the room and saw a sturdy looking wooden rocking chair in the corner. For what he wanted to do with it, it would work perfectly. He picked it up with both hands and raised it over his head. Aiden nearly fell backwards because he thought Brent was going to smash him with it, but he didn’t. Instead, he took a running start and threw it at the wall as hard as he could. He grunted like a pig as the chair smashed through the brittle plaster.
Everybody’s eyes lit up at the gaping hole the chair had put in the wall. They were free, but they all first listened for dogs. None of them were there. Aiden peeked through the hole. He could see that it opened a pathway to a completely different part of the mansion. One they had never been in before. He stepped through and the others followed.
The hallway glowed with the fire of candles that hung on hooks. Their orange flames flickered off the red paint. Strange figures of tortured men lined the walls like trees in a forest. Some were gigantic statues that reached the ceiling while others were only figurines. The ceiling of the hallway was tall, more than fifteen feet. Some of the statues almost looked like they were made from real human body parts. Others were holding weapons and dressed in full armor. Aiden took hold of one of the smaller ones that was on a shelf. It was made of stone and it was heavy. He held it in his hand like a club. “Here, Brent,” he said. “You can kill it with this.”
Brent wondered why Aiden had suddenly changed his attitude toward him, so he questioned, “Why don’t you keep it? Do you want me dead or something?”
“What, no. If I wanted you dead, why would I hand you something to protect yourself?”
“You said that you believed Stevie. You believe that this thing isn’t human and that it sees hatred. You want me full of hate so it attacks me? Is that what you’re doing?”
“What?” Aiden asked, trying to sound innocent, but he wasn’t a very good actor. Everybody could tell by the sound of his voice that something wasn’t right.
“Don’t lie to me, bro.” Brent raised the stone figure in his hand in a threatening manner.
“Brent, no way, man.” He put his hands up and waved them to try and calm him down. “I want all of us to get out of this alive.” He wiped a patch of blood from his lip. “I don’t want anybody dead. I’m not a murderer.”
But Brent didn’t listen. He took steps in Aiden’s direction.
“Brent, stop!” Carrie yelled.
“Brent!” Stevie yelled, and that got him to stop.
“No, I’m not going to kill the little worm, but I’m definitely not going to trust him.” He set the statue down where it had been and turned to lead them through the hallway. Aiden followed along, but he was so nerve-wracked from the incident that his lungs were vibrating. He was shocked that Brent had caught on to him. The next time he tried to get Brent killed, he had better be more discrete about it.
Their trek continued. The smell of rotten wood permeated the air. The hallways only led to more hallways. Not one of them had ever been to this part of the mansion before, and because there were no windows, they didn’t know if they were in the basement or in the attic. The place was huge, and it seemed to them as if they were in a labyrinth that only led them deeper into captivity.
“Shhh, did you hear that?” Stevie asked.
They all stopped. Carrie turned her candle in Stevie’s direction. “What?”
“Shhh, that.”
Aiden took a deep breath. “It sounds like mumbling.”
The mumbling was soft, but it was definitely there. It almost sounded like a wizard was chanting incantations.
“Oh, no, man, what is that?” Aiden started to shake he was so scared.
“Where is it coming from?” Carrie whispered.
“Here.” Brent pointed to a giant painting that was hanging on the wall. The painting was of a tree and moon, and under the tree was five different colored flames. He grabbed the thick wood frame of the painting and tried removing it, but it wouldn’t budge. Then the mumbling grew louder, and that gave them a better understanding of where it was coming from.
“Look!” Carrie said, “on the ceiling!” She raised her candle up as high as it would go. “Something is moving around on the ceiling.”
“That isn’t something. A person is tied up there.” Brent gazed at the man hanging in a ball of ropes.
“It might be Eddie,” Stevie said.
With the sound of his name, Eddie began twisting and mumbling as hard as he could to get them to come get him. He was all wrapped up in ropes like a mummy and hanging from a large ring that was attached to the ceiling.
For most of the group, the hope that Eddie was still alive was welcomed, but Aiden didn’t feel the same. He had hoped that Eddie had died. It wasn’t that Aiden disliked Eddie in any way. It was because Aiden knew that someone had to die first. This spirit, this thing that was chasing them, he was certain that it would kill one of them. And he believed as the outcast of the group that the odds were highly in his favor to die first. That’s why he had been trying to get Brent killed. If Brent died, maybe he wouldn’t.
“Damn,” Aiden whispered to himself.
“What?” Carrie had heard him.
“Oh, uh, climb up the painting to get onto that statue. You could probably reach him from up there.” The statue that was next to them was a massive Scandinavian warrior dressed in metal and holding an axe that stood over twelve feet tall. It nearly reached the ceiling.
Brent nodded and took hold of one of the human figures carved into the wood of the frame.
“Eddie!” Stevie cried with joy. “Hold on. We’ll get you down.”
Brent stepped foot onto the large arm of the warrior and then climbed the rest of the way up from there. He sat on the statue’s shoulders and stretched out as far as he could to try and reach his friend that hung precariously from the ceiling. He could just barely reach far enough out to push him and make him swing. Once he had him swinging back and forth, he was able to grab the ropes and hold him in place. Then he slipped out his pocket knife and cut him free.
Within minutes, Eddie’s arms were untied. He removed the ropes from his face and saw Brent for the first time.
“Brent!” he said with great enthusiasm. “Bro, get me down, bro!”
“Pull yourself to me.”
He did, and Brent cut him out the rest of the way and eased him onto the statue. They climbed down together and fell to the ground. They rolled over the top of each other while they laughed and cheered and patted each other’s backs as they hugged. The girls jumped on top to join in. As they cheered, Aiden stood back and watched the statue that was standing over the top of them come to life. First, an arm began to move. Then the weapon that it was holding, the giant axe, lowered. Aiden could see that it was aimed to drop and cut all four of them in half.
“Hey!” He yelled for their attention, but then the axe stopped moving. He saw that it had gotten caught on a piece of armor on the statue’s leg. He saw that all he had to do was bump the statue to knock it loose and then the blade would drop and sever them in half, but first he wanted to get everybody out of the way except for Brent. So he ran up to them and began pulling them up one by one while pretending to take part in their celebration. He first got the two girls up. He made sure Stevie was the farthest away. Then he jumped on Eddie and pulled him up.
Nervously, he said, “Eddie, I missed you so much!” Aiden hugged him around the body and slung him wildly so that he would bump into the statue and knock the axe loose. It worked, and nobody suspected a thing because they were blinded by their own joy.
The axe was free and lowering slowly once again, but then it stopped. Aiden watched it wondering why it wasn’t killing the man that he hated with everything in his heart. He cursed to himself because he wanted Brent dead and the axe wasn’t going to do it, but then something in the statue clicked. The group froze. Brent was still lying on the floor. He was erect on his elbows and listening carefully. “What was that?” he asked.
“I don’t . . . ,” and that was all Aiden could say before the floor gave way. The two girls, Eddie, and Aiden jumped back in time, but Brent was swallowed up. And to make Aiden even happier, the axe then followed along with the floor. It dropped too, slicing down into the hole that Brent had fallen into. They heard him scream and then nothing.
Eddie was the first to jump toward the hole to try and save his friend. The girls were next, but Aiden stayed back so that he could revel in the moment. A sleek smile was spread tight across his lips and a hard stare was over his brow. He gloated to himself while having corrupt thoughts of victory flooding his mind.
The two girls were beside themselves in terror and sorrow.
“Eddie, do something!” Stevie cried over her crush.
“I can’t see anything. It’s too dark.”
“How far down is it?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie slid deeper into the hole. Aiden searched the room for some other boobie-trap to let loose, but there was nothing. Then he searched for another excuse to try and kill Eddie without making it seem like he did it on purpose. If Eddie died too, his chances of survival would surely increase, because in stories like these, one man and one woman were always destine to make it out alive. And Aiden desperately wanted that man and woman to be him and Stevie. He loved Stevie with every ounce of flesh in his body.
“Stevie,” he said, “come stand by me and let me hold you so you don’t get hurt.” She glanced back, but didn’t respond to Aiden’s call.
“Brent!” Carrie screamed into the hole. “Brent, say something. Eddie, where is he?”
“I don’t know. Give me that candle.” But then Eddie began to scream as he too was slowly getting dragged deeper into the hole.
“Eddie!” Carrie jumped on his legs to try to stop him.
Aiden sat back watching anxiously. It looked as if he wouldn’t have to try and kill Eddie after all, because Eddie was about to kill himself.
But Eddie’s screams soon turned into shouts of joy when he learned that the thing dragging him into the hole was Brent using him to climb out. Brent popped up and pulled Eddie to his feet. As soon as Aiden saw that Brent was still alive, he knew that he was in trouble.
“Man, I hate that guy,” he whispered just before a large blade slammed into his back. The front of the blade broke through his chest. He twitched and gagged on his own blood. Then his feet began to smoke like an acid had been spilled over them.
The group spun around and saw that the floor under Aiden’s feet was now glowing red-hot. Flames rose over his body, burning his flesh black. Other than his screams of agony, his last words were, “I knew it would be me.”
The group was terrified. They wanted to help him, but the spirit that had been chasing them through this horrible mansion, making their nightmares come to life, was hovering above the flames. They took off running as fast as they could.
Died On A Farm
Died On A Farm
by Gabe Redel
Life was everywhere on the farm. Ash had passed it a few times in his Mercedes on the way to the hideout. In the summer months it stunk like hell. He believed he could drop off his victims in the back river and let them rot away. Nobody would notice. He had thought about it, but he never did. Something inside wouldn’t let him. He hated animals. Well, he hated animals with four legs. His kind of animal had two legs. They used their other two limbs to grip pistols and pour gasoline.
Children rode quads around the property in the afternoon. Every time he drove past on his way to the hideout, he saw children. His son could never cut it on a farm. He was in deep with the life— the clubs and the whores. The only time he lifted a finger was to slap one of them or chop a line. The little poser. If his mother weren’t dead, he would have killed her with the way he acted. His mother was a beautiful woman. She had died when he was nine. Ash could never find another woman to replace her. Nobody was good enough to replace her. Maybe that’s why Anthony grew up so rotten.
When he got to the farm, it was dark. He could hear the coyotes hunting him, trailing his footsteps like the cops, smelling the blood that pooled down his pants. Those blood thirsty roaches. Awe hell, his leg was a mess. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was bad. Must have nicked a main artery. Good chance there was three bullets in it. That son of a bitch Trig had the nerve to call him a rat. Fifty years with the family and now he was getting accused of being a rat? He gave them his life, his sanity.
He’d always fight. Nothing in this world could keep him from fighting. He was a protector. The enemy knew that about him. That’s why they struck when they did, when he had his pants down and his nuts on the smasher. He was this close to retiring, to getting the hell away from those two faced shits. He had already picked out a cottage on a reclusive beach. A life was there. His life was there. Now he was on the run, gimping through the mud like a broken pig.
He fell into the fence and doubled over the top of it for relief. His gun was at his hip. One clip was left. He didn’t know how many bullets were in it. It couldn’t be many. They were everywhere. They had him surrounded. Benny. Curse it, they shot Benny. His body had shook as the bullets tore through his chest. The image of his friend collapsing at the feet of that double crossing Jack Johnny was sick. He wanted Johnny’s heart. He wanted to rip it out of his chest and crush it under his foot while he watched. Who was going to lick whose boots, Johnny? Now who’s licking whose boots? He imagined the blood squishing out of his heart as he stamped it, spraying across Johnny’s dying face. His fists pounded the fence with the rage that swelled in his chest. He needed to stop the bleeding in his leg before he died. His white buttoned shirt was all he had, so he ripped it off and tied it tightly around the wound. His bare chest showed under his suit coat. As he toppled over the fence, blood smeared from the pant leg onto the top board.
The cows slept. He couldn’t think straight, and he knew that. Going directly into the herd wasn’t the smartest idea. The manure that was splattered all over the ground in the pools of piss and mud got in his wound. He could feel the filth crawling up his skin.
He needed a place to hide. Walking any farther on his leg wasn’t an option. The barn, he could hide in the barn, but the door was jammed. He pried on it with both his hands, but nothing. It didn’t move, and his leg was weak. He was weak. Johnny’s boys didn’t follow him into the woods. Why would they let him get away alive? That’s why Johnny’s organization was a pit of shit. The idiot didn’t know how to run a mob. He couldn’t run an ice cream stand.
Ash lit a cigarette. The tobacco crackled as he took the first drag. If he wanted a man dead, he’d chase him relentlessly. He’d stuff his guts in the sausage grinder.
Sirens blared over the pasture. They were far away on the road. They would probably find his car punched up with bullet holes. The car was stolen. They couldn’t pin anything on him unless they let the dogs search the woods. Then they would smell his blood, like those coyotes. One of the bullets was lodged deep in his thigh. What a lucky shot. Through the trees, down a hill in the dark. The shot must have been magic. He tried to laugh but his throat was dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He was going to die. The hell with it. He thought about Benny as his eyelids dropped. He let his back slide down the wall of the barn until he sunk into the mud. Benny was gone, like his wife. Life was gone.
He coughed up blood with part of the cigarette, so he flicked the rest of it into the air and watched it streak an orange arc. It never hit the ground. It stopped two feet above the earth and sizzled out fast. The stars reflected off the surface of a water trough. He stood up and looked into it. A hose, was there a hose around here? It was too dark to search. He was drunk from the loss of blood, from the exhaustion. If he had been able to think, he would have never done it. He ate at the best restaurants. His house was immaculate. The women he dated were goddesses. No way would he have lowered his head into a filthy cow trough and taken large gulps if he wasn’t drunk from the blood draining out of his body. While he drank, he hallucinated that it was cool and that it tasted like a spring. The water gave him life. When he lifted his head out of the trough, it fell from his soaked hair onto his bare chest, cooling his body.
The barn door slid open easier the second time. He could move faster now that he had something to drink. A light was on in the barn. It hung over a table that had papers and pencils on it. This barn was filled with tractors and other equipment. He found the ladder that led into the loft, climbed it and fell onto a mat of straw.
In his sleep he wept. He never cried. It had been years since he last had cried. His face was iron, but in his sleep, he wept. The dreams bombarded his rest until he broke. He woke in the middle of it. Forgiving himself for crying would shatter his principles, even if it happened in a place that he had no control over. His eyes hung like the barn door. Heavy, stuck shut and flopping at the bottom. All he wanted was sleep—deep, unhindered sleep, but the dreams wouldn’t leave him alone. They attacked all night long. They swirled in from the open window at the barn’s highest peak, racing toward his body. He ran in his sleep. He ran as fast as he could. The environment around him never changed. Faces burned like white metal on the edges of his thoughts. They didn’t have legs. They appeared when they wanted, where they wanted. Their lips tormented him. He fired bullets into their eyes until he had nothing left. His gun emptied; his legs ran without moving a single step forward. The faces disappeared and his body was locked in a trunk again. The same trunk in all his nightmares. The first time he had been in it he had felt paralyzed. He had fought himself to wake. Other times he relaxed and waited out the drive. The trunk never opened for him.
He woke to the sound of barn swallows building nests. The loft heated up as the sun penetrated the roof, forcing the first drops of sweat to appear on his brow in the early morning. He wiped it off, looked around and saw the piles of junk and broken tools he had settled in.
The sun cooked him from the window, but he didn’t move. Voices walked around the corner and opened the door below him. He put his hand on his gun. He didn’t move. They fired up one of the tractors and pulled it out. The door remained opened as the voices trailed into the pastures. Nothing in this loft looked useful. It was a bunch of busted up, useless, trash, like him.
The urge to move pounded in his head. His leg was numb, and standing on it took three attempts. He pushed himself up with his arms and tried to bend it. The skin around the wound felt like it was tearing down the middle, but after five minutes of sharp pain, it loosened up. He listened for people. He listened at the top of the ladder, but the barn floor was silent, not a peep that he could hear. Dust was floating through the sunlight. It snorted into his nose, and he had to sneeze. He caught the sound in his two hands the best he could. Three more came. He put his hand on his gun.
A woman sat at the table with a pencil in her hand. She didn’t know who was watching her. He was a mass murderer, killed hundreds. His eyes focused on her hair. It was blonde and it shined. Her forearm brushed against the table as she wrote. He waited. He wanted to move out of this barn before they trapped him in it. His silver hair was crusty with mud from sweat and dust. He could take her hostage. That would give him a way out. Was someone at the house? He needed to find out, so crept back up to the loft.
Three horses grazed at the side window. The cow pasture was at the back. The front window revealed a gravel driveway where the men had parked their trucks. He couldn’t see the house, but he knew it was on the other side of the barn. The woman moved into the pasture. She was beautiful. He checked the other window looking to see who he should kill first. He writhed in pain, grinding his shoulders. He needed to get out of there, but to leave, she was going to have to die.
She slipped a halter on one of the horses and patted its muscled shoulder and ran her fingers through the horse’s main. The two other horses stretched their heads under the electric fence to reach the grass-line. The woman put her hands on her hips and tipped her hat toward the sun. She pulled two carrots out of her shorts’ pocket and made clicking sounds with her tongue.
She worked just like Sarah, his wife. She would wash Anthony in the sink, dabbing his back with a wet cloth, squeezing the soap over his head. The water would stream down her arm and soak her shirt at the elbow. He had married her young. They were only seventeen when they married. She didn’t know who he was. He couldn’t tell her what he did and have her still want to marry him. His lies kept something good in his life. He needed someone good.
A roll of twine hung on the loft wall. The ceiling of the loft was coated with thick cob webs. He felt trapped, robbed. He felt weak, dying. The twine was a quiet weapon. He lifted it from the nail and made the painful flight down the ladder. The trough of water was next to the large barn door. Clumps of hay and dirt floated at the surface. It nearly made him puke. He crept toward the horse pasture thinking about what he had to do until children called from the stable, freezing him.
He couldn’t off the mother with her children watching, or, at least, he would give them an hour before he did it. A water spout was next to a horse stall. Clean water for his thirst. It pumped easily, and the water spilled into the thick dust. It filled his mouth and rinsed his hair. A pool seeped over the floor. Someone had already run the water this morning, so nobody would notice. His legs were weak. He could barely stand. The loft was a welcoming thought. He climbed the ladder and fell into the hay until sleep pulled him under.
It wasn’t until hours later that he woke. Breathing was difficult. The air suffocated him. It was hot. The face of the evening sun poked through the window, blinding him. The men were parking the tractor underneath. The engine vibrated the floor, like his wife’s old Lincoln had vibrated his room when it passed over the driveway. On the winter mornings, she’d leave the engine warm up next to his window. That made him nuts. She had let Anthony drive the car at eight years old. The first thing he did was hop the curb at The Drop. They had the best pizza burgers in the country. Maybe Anthony would like to go to The Drop for a pizza burger when he got home? Anthony loved to lick the grease off the bun when he was a child.
Only seven bullets left in his clip. Eddy would have killed the whole family by now. It would have been the first thing he did. He would have slit the farmer’s throat and tied up the children. The woman, he would have killed her too. It would have been a merciful killing, nothing grotesque. The house and the food and the medicine would have been his by now. Eddy killed without thinking. Lives vanished at the sight of him. He was an animal programmed to murder. Ash murdered plenty, but he murdered with a purpose. He was good at what he did. Those lives Eddy took, they didn’t mean a thing to him. They were trash to him. They were numbers that added to the total level of anger he could reach. Ash, respectfully, could name half of the men he had gunned down, knifed or put in the ground alive. They had names, and he knew them. Maybe there was one person he regretted killing. He wasn’t living the life. He was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He remembered the look that man had given him before he struck the match. His eyes said he was innocent. Even as he burned alive, his eyes didn’t stop saying he was innocent. The man didn’t scream, not once. Ash never knew how the man didn’t scream.
Two squad cars pulled into the driveway of the farm. The woman saw them and met them at their cars. Ash sat under the window listening. They asked about him. They said they found his blood on the fence. He had to move. She told them they could look around and pointed them into the cattle barn. The officers put their hands on their weapons. He moved downstairs and poked his head around the door that led to the driveway.
A man in a suit was crouched behind the silo. It was Eddy. He made eye contact with him. Eddy smiled that shark tooth smile of his. Ash signaled for him to move around to the backside of the barn by the cow pasture.
When he entered, they hugged. Eddy checked his leg over and poured a bottle of whisky on the wound.
Ash wanted to know what happened to the rest of the gang. Apparently Eddy didn’t know, and that made him mad. Eddy was holding something back. He didn’t want to tell him what had happened at the hideout. Maybe Eddy thought he was a rat, too. Maybe Eddie was coming to kill him, but he couldn’t do it in front of the cops.
The police officers walked back to the woman who was leaned against a truck. They wanted to check the other barn—the barn where they were hiding—so the two mobsters crouched behind the stalls. They were prepared to gun them down. When the officers appeared within range, they shot. Their bullets tore into the unsuspecting officers. Their bodies flew backwards into the deep dust of the barn floor.
Eddy ran out to make sure they were dead. He looked up and saw the woman frozen in fear. He raised his pistol and took aim. He had her in his scope until Ash kicked him in the back of the knee. The bullet sailed out of his gun and struck the woman off target. Eddy took aim at Ash next, but Ash was too quick. He put three bullets into Eddy. One in his head and two in his chest.
The woman lay hurt on the gravel. Her blood coated the gray stones. Ash ran toward her and put her head into his lap. The bullet had entered her shoulder and got lodged at the joint. He threw off his suit coat and tore out the inner lining and used it to put pressure on the wound. He apologized to her. He called her Sarah and told her that he shouldn’t have killed her. He told her that he was sorry that all of this had to happen and that he didn’t mean for Anthony to turn out this way. He knew she wanted better for her child. He knew she wouldn’t have married him if she knew that he was a murderer. It was his fault she died. He killed her. He was sorry. He was so sorry. Everything that had happened to her and to Anthony was his fault.
He scrambled to heal her wound. The woman told him to run to the first aid kit by the table in the barn. He scrambled as fast as he could. He opened it and grabbed the bottle of alcohol. A roll of tape fell out and hit the table. It rolled onto the piece of paper the woman had used earlier to write him a letter. It read Take as much water and food as you like. I won’t tell him you’re up there. She knew. She had known the whole time.
He ran back to the woman with his weapon drawn, pointing it at her face, and accused her of calling the police. Her note said that she knew he was up there and that she wouldn’t squeal, but she did squeal. She denied it. But the cops showed up! She didn’t know who he was. She thought he was just another hobo, and her husband didn’t like it when she gave the hobos a place to stay. He asked her what husband she was talking about.
A bullet entered Ash’s back. It raced through his lungs and out of his chest. He flopped over and spilt the alcohol on the ground. The boy who had shot him with the rifle ran up to his momma to protect her. Ash saw that the person who had shot him was a boy. He observed the child, staring deeply into his eyes. The boy looked back without making a face. Ash’s mind twisted. He wanted to plead with the child with everything he had, but he could only choke out a few last words. “Never start killing, boy! Never kill!” The boy stared at him without a word. Ash grabbed him by the collar and yelled into his face. His chest had a hole in it the size of a hoof. His lungs stopped breathing and his eyes shriveled up like crab apples. He said, “I’m crying. I’m crying and I’m awake.” The boy saw that the mobster’s face was dry as a bone, but he nodded anyway. He nodded his head and watched Ash’s body slip into the breeze.
by Gabe Redel
Life was everywhere on the farm. Ash had passed it a few times in his Mercedes on the way to the hideout. In the summer months it stunk like hell. He believed he could drop off his victims in the back river and let them rot away. Nobody would notice. He had thought about it, but he never did. Something inside wouldn’t let him. He hated animals. Well, he hated animals with four legs. His kind of animal had two legs. They used their other two limbs to grip pistols and pour gasoline.
Children rode quads around the property in the afternoon. Every time he drove past on his way to the hideout, he saw children. His son could never cut it on a farm. He was in deep with the life— the clubs and the whores. The only time he lifted a finger was to slap one of them or chop a line. The little poser. If his mother weren’t dead, he would have killed her with the way he acted. His mother was a beautiful woman. She had died when he was nine. Ash could never find another woman to replace her. Nobody was good enough to replace her. Maybe that’s why Anthony grew up so rotten.
When he got to the farm, it was dark. He could hear the coyotes hunting him, trailing his footsteps like the cops, smelling the blood that pooled down his pants. Those blood thirsty roaches. Awe hell, his leg was a mess. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was bad. Must have nicked a main artery. Good chance there was three bullets in it. That son of a bitch Trig had the nerve to call him a rat. Fifty years with the family and now he was getting accused of being a rat? He gave them his life, his sanity.
He’d always fight. Nothing in this world could keep him from fighting. He was a protector. The enemy knew that about him. That’s why they struck when they did, when he had his pants down and his nuts on the smasher. He was this close to retiring, to getting the hell away from those two faced shits. He had already picked out a cottage on a reclusive beach. A life was there. His life was there. Now he was on the run, gimping through the mud like a broken pig.
He fell into the fence and doubled over the top of it for relief. His gun was at his hip. One clip was left. He didn’t know how many bullets were in it. It couldn’t be many. They were everywhere. They had him surrounded. Benny. Curse it, they shot Benny. His body had shook as the bullets tore through his chest. The image of his friend collapsing at the feet of that double crossing Jack Johnny was sick. He wanted Johnny’s heart. He wanted to rip it out of his chest and crush it under his foot while he watched. Who was going to lick whose boots, Johnny? Now who’s licking whose boots? He imagined the blood squishing out of his heart as he stamped it, spraying across Johnny’s dying face. His fists pounded the fence with the rage that swelled in his chest. He needed to stop the bleeding in his leg before he died. His white buttoned shirt was all he had, so he ripped it off and tied it tightly around the wound. His bare chest showed under his suit coat. As he toppled over the fence, blood smeared from the pant leg onto the top board.
The cows slept. He couldn’t think straight, and he knew that. Going directly into the herd wasn’t the smartest idea. The manure that was splattered all over the ground in the pools of piss and mud got in his wound. He could feel the filth crawling up his skin.
He needed a place to hide. Walking any farther on his leg wasn’t an option. The barn, he could hide in the barn, but the door was jammed. He pried on it with both his hands, but nothing. It didn’t move, and his leg was weak. He was weak. Johnny’s boys didn’t follow him into the woods. Why would they let him get away alive? That’s why Johnny’s organization was a pit of shit. The idiot didn’t know how to run a mob. He couldn’t run an ice cream stand.
Ash lit a cigarette. The tobacco crackled as he took the first drag. If he wanted a man dead, he’d chase him relentlessly. He’d stuff his guts in the sausage grinder.
Sirens blared over the pasture. They were far away on the road. They would probably find his car punched up with bullet holes. The car was stolen. They couldn’t pin anything on him unless they let the dogs search the woods. Then they would smell his blood, like those coyotes. One of the bullets was lodged deep in his thigh. What a lucky shot. Through the trees, down a hill in the dark. The shot must have been magic. He tried to laugh but his throat was dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He was going to die. The hell with it. He thought about Benny as his eyelids dropped. He let his back slide down the wall of the barn until he sunk into the mud. Benny was gone, like his wife. Life was gone.
He coughed up blood with part of the cigarette, so he flicked the rest of it into the air and watched it streak an orange arc. It never hit the ground. It stopped two feet above the earth and sizzled out fast. The stars reflected off the surface of a water trough. He stood up and looked into it. A hose, was there a hose around here? It was too dark to search. He was drunk from the loss of blood, from the exhaustion. If he had been able to think, he would have never done it. He ate at the best restaurants. His house was immaculate. The women he dated were goddesses. No way would he have lowered his head into a filthy cow trough and taken large gulps if he wasn’t drunk from the blood draining out of his body. While he drank, he hallucinated that it was cool and that it tasted like a spring. The water gave him life. When he lifted his head out of the trough, it fell from his soaked hair onto his bare chest, cooling his body.
The barn door slid open easier the second time. He could move faster now that he had something to drink. A light was on in the barn. It hung over a table that had papers and pencils on it. This barn was filled with tractors and other equipment. He found the ladder that led into the loft, climbed it and fell onto a mat of straw.
In his sleep he wept. He never cried. It had been years since he last had cried. His face was iron, but in his sleep, he wept. The dreams bombarded his rest until he broke. He woke in the middle of it. Forgiving himself for crying would shatter his principles, even if it happened in a place that he had no control over. His eyes hung like the barn door. Heavy, stuck shut and flopping at the bottom. All he wanted was sleep—deep, unhindered sleep, but the dreams wouldn’t leave him alone. They attacked all night long. They swirled in from the open window at the barn’s highest peak, racing toward his body. He ran in his sleep. He ran as fast as he could. The environment around him never changed. Faces burned like white metal on the edges of his thoughts. They didn’t have legs. They appeared when they wanted, where they wanted. Their lips tormented him. He fired bullets into their eyes until he had nothing left. His gun emptied; his legs ran without moving a single step forward. The faces disappeared and his body was locked in a trunk again. The same trunk in all his nightmares. The first time he had been in it he had felt paralyzed. He had fought himself to wake. Other times he relaxed and waited out the drive. The trunk never opened for him.
He woke to the sound of barn swallows building nests. The loft heated up as the sun penetrated the roof, forcing the first drops of sweat to appear on his brow in the early morning. He wiped it off, looked around and saw the piles of junk and broken tools he had settled in.
The sun cooked him from the window, but he didn’t move. Voices walked around the corner and opened the door below him. He put his hand on his gun. He didn’t move. They fired up one of the tractors and pulled it out. The door remained opened as the voices trailed into the pastures. Nothing in this loft looked useful. It was a bunch of busted up, useless, trash, like him.
The urge to move pounded in his head. His leg was numb, and standing on it took three attempts. He pushed himself up with his arms and tried to bend it. The skin around the wound felt like it was tearing down the middle, but after five minutes of sharp pain, it loosened up. He listened for people. He listened at the top of the ladder, but the barn floor was silent, not a peep that he could hear. Dust was floating through the sunlight. It snorted into his nose, and he had to sneeze. He caught the sound in his two hands the best he could. Three more came. He put his hand on his gun.
A woman sat at the table with a pencil in her hand. She didn’t know who was watching her. He was a mass murderer, killed hundreds. His eyes focused on her hair. It was blonde and it shined. Her forearm brushed against the table as she wrote. He waited. He wanted to move out of this barn before they trapped him in it. His silver hair was crusty with mud from sweat and dust. He could take her hostage. That would give him a way out. Was someone at the house? He needed to find out, so crept back up to the loft.
Three horses grazed at the side window. The cow pasture was at the back. The front window revealed a gravel driveway where the men had parked their trucks. He couldn’t see the house, but he knew it was on the other side of the barn. The woman moved into the pasture. She was beautiful. He checked the other window looking to see who he should kill first. He writhed in pain, grinding his shoulders. He needed to get out of there, but to leave, she was going to have to die.
She slipped a halter on one of the horses and patted its muscled shoulder and ran her fingers through the horse’s main. The two other horses stretched their heads under the electric fence to reach the grass-line. The woman put her hands on her hips and tipped her hat toward the sun. She pulled two carrots out of her shorts’ pocket and made clicking sounds with her tongue.
She worked just like Sarah, his wife. She would wash Anthony in the sink, dabbing his back with a wet cloth, squeezing the soap over his head. The water would stream down her arm and soak her shirt at the elbow. He had married her young. They were only seventeen when they married. She didn’t know who he was. He couldn’t tell her what he did and have her still want to marry him. His lies kept something good in his life. He needed someone good.
A roll of twine hung on the loft wall. The ceiling of the loft was coated with thick cob webs. He felt trapped, robbed. He felt weak, dying. The twine was a quiet weapon. He lifted it from the nail and made the painful flight down the ladder. The trough of water was next to the large barn door. Clumps of hay and dirt floated at the surface. It nearly made him puke. He crept toward the horse pasture thinking about what he had to do until children called from the stable, freezing him.
He couldn’t off the mother with her children watching, or, at least, he would give them an hour before he did it. A water spout was next to a horse stall. Clean water for his thirst. It pumped easily, and the water spilled into the thick dust. It filled his mouth and rinsed his hair. A pool seeped over the floor. Someone had already run the water this morning, so nobody would notice. His legs were weak. He could barely stand. The loft was a welcoming thought. He climbed the ladder and fell into the hay until sleep pulled him under.
It wasn’t until hours later that he woke. Breathing was difficult. The air suffocated him. It was hot. The face of the evening sun poked through the window, blinding him. The men were parking the tractor underneath. The engine vibrated the floor, like his wife’s old Lincoln had vibrated his room when it passed over the driveway. On the winter mornings, she’d leave the engine warm up next to his window. That made him nuts. She had let Anthony drive the car at eight years old. The first thing he did was hop the curb at The Drop. They had the best pizza burgers in the country. Maybe Anthony would like to go to The Drop for a pizza burger when he got home? Anthony loved to lick the grease off the bun when he was a child.
Only seven bullets left in his clip. Eddy would have killed the whole family by now. It would have been the first thing he did. He would have slit the farmer’s throat and tied up the children. The woman, he would have killed her too. It would have been a merciful killing, nothing grotesque. The house and the food and the medicine would have been his by now. Eddy killed without thinking. Lives vanished at the sight of him. He was an animal programmed to murder. Ash murdered plenty, but he murdered with a purpose. He was good at what he did. Those lives Eddy took, they didn’t mean a thing to him. They were trash to him. They were numbers that added to the total level of anger he could reach. Ash, respectfully, could name half of the men he had gunned down, knifed or put in the ground alive. They had names, and he knew them. Maybe there was one person he regretted killing. He wasn’t living the life. He was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He remembered the look that man had given him before he struck the match. His eyes said he was innocent. Even as he burned alive, his eyes didn’t stop saying he was innocent. The man didn’t scream, not once. Ash never knew how the man didn’t scream.
Two squad cars pulled into the driveway of the farm. The woman saw them and met them at their cars. Ash sat under the window listening. They asked about him. They said they found his blood on the fence. He had to move. She told them they could look around and pointed them into the cattle barn. The officers put their hands on their weapons. He moved downstairs and poked his head around the door that led to the driveway.
A man in a suit was crouched behind the silo. It was Eddy. He made eye contact with him. Eddy smiled that shark tooth smile of his. Ash signaled for him to move around to the backside of the barn by the cow pasture.
When he entered, they hugged. Eddy checked his leg over and poured a bottle of whisky on the wound.
Ash wanted to know what happened to the rest of the gang. Apparently Eddy didn’t know, and that made him mad. Eddy was holding something back. He didn’t want to tell him what had happened at the hideout. Maybe Eddy thought he was a rat, too. Maybe Eddie was coming to kill him, but he couldn’t do it in front of the cops.
The police officers walked back to the woman who was leaned against a truck. They wanted to check the other barn—the barn where they were hiding—so the two mobsters crouched behind the stalls. They were prepared to gun them down. When the officers appeared within range, they shot. Their bullets tore into the unsuspecting officers. Their bodies flew backwards into the deep dust of the barn floor.
Eddy ran out to make sure they were dead. He looked up and saw the woman frozen in fear. He raised his pistol and took aim. He had her in his scope until Ash kicked him in the back of the knee. The bullet sailed out of his gun and struck the woman off target. Eddy took aim at Ash next, but Ash was too quick. He put three bullets into Eddy. One in his head and two in his chest.
The woman lay hurt on the gravel. Her blood coated the gray stones. Ash ran toward her and put her head into his lap. The bullet had entered her shoulder and got lodged at the joint. He threw off his suit coat and tore out the inner lining and used it to put pressure on the wound. He apologized to her. He called her Sarah and told her that he shouldn’t have killed her. He told her that he was sorry that all of this had to happen and that he didn’t mean for Anthony to turn out this way. He knew she wanted better for her child. He knew she wouldn’t have married him if she knew that he was a murderer. It was his fault she died. He killed her. He was sorry. He was so sorry. Everything that had happened to her and to Anthony was his fault.
He scrambled to heal her wound. The woman told him to run to the first aid kit by the table in the barn. He scrambled as fast as he could. He opened it and grabbed the bottle of alcohol. A roll of tape fell out and hit the table. It rolled onto the piece of paper the woman had used earlier to write him a letter. It read Take as much water and food as you like. I won’t tell him you’re up there. She knew. She had known the whole time.
He ran back to the woman with his weapon drawn, pointing it at her face, and accused her of calling the police. Her note said that she knew he was up there and that she wouldn’t squeal, but she did squeal. She denied it. But the cops showed up! She didn’t know who he was. She thought he was just another hobo, and her husband didn’t like it when she gave the hobos a place to stay. He asked her what husband she was talking about.
A bullet entered Ash’s back. It raced through his lungs and out of his chest. He flopped over and spilt the alcohol on the ground. The boy who had shot him with the rifle ran up to his momma to protect her. Ash saw that the person who had shot him was a boy. He observed the child, staring deeply into his eyes. The boy looked back without making a face. Ash’s mind twisted. He wanted to plead with the child with everything he had, but he could only choke out a few last words. “Never start killing, boy! Never kill!” The boy stared at him without a word. Ash grabbed him by the collar and yelled into his face. His chest had a hole in it the size of a hoof. His lungs stopped breathing and his eyes shriveled up like crab apples. He said, “I’m crying. I’m crying and I’m awake.” The boy saw that the mobster’s face was dry as a bone, but he nodded anyway. He nodded his head and watched Ash’s body slip into the breeze.
A Monster's Fairy Tale
A Monster’s Fairy Tale
by Gabe Redel
Author's Note: The following is the opening chapter to my latest thriller novel, "A Monster's Fairy Tale." It is a story about a monster who falls in love with an actress. It takes place in 1895 and then moves into 2055. The novel will be published in the coming months.
Chapter One
May 3rd, 1895 New York, NY
Their alcohol soaked minds smeared the yellow glow of the moon.
At the far corner, just on the edge of the darkest part of the city, Sully urged his friends to keep quiet. He put his whiskey stained finger up to his lips and shushed them between pissy sounding laughs and snickers.
A set of stairs led to a long wooden patio that ran behind the backside of a strip mall. Just beyond the wood walkway was a set of train tracks that snaked out of the woods and entered into town. On the patio was where one of the local homeless took refuge for the night. They inched up the stairs careful not to wake him.
Francis and Hershel were too drunk to recognize that Sully wasn’t joking about wanting to kill the homeless man. He was laughing a lot about it, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t serious.
“I can see that idiot’s feet.” Sully pointed between two benches where his legs were stretched out. “Now all you have to do is wait for a train.”
“Why do we need a train? Are we skipping town because the whores have bigger tits in the west?” Hershel rubbed his chest as if he were massaging the breasts of a female.
“If you don’t do it, I will,” Sully said.
“Do what? What is it that you want me to do?” Francis asked.
“You said it would be hilarious if we threw the village idiot under the train. Those were your exact words in the pub.”
“That would be hilarious.” Hershel hissed through his lips because he didn’t want to laugh out loud.
“The old cuss deserves worse. He does nothing all day. Always begging. Always smelling like raw fish and sun-baked rodent.” Sully’s face lit into a thin smile. “It would do him service to die. It would do the world service for him to die.”
“Yes, it would, but we are not murderers. It is not our decision to take a man to death regardless of what position he stands,” Francis argued.
“Then why did you say it?”
The thought was sobering. Francis could hardly see three feet in front of his own face, but seeing the truth about his loose words dried him up. “That was something I said to give the old boys a good chuckle you fool!”
“To hell with you, you fool. You said it and I liked the idea. Make good on your word coward.”
“I gave no word.”
“You knew where we were going. You followed me out here.”
“My house is at the top of the hill. I thought we were going there,” Francis said.
Sully took a hard stare. His eyes looked like black holes under the starlit sky. Yellow stains had worn into his shirt. Francis could smell the sour of his breath. Sully tightened his lips and squeezed his hands into fists just before he broke out into hysterics. “I was just putting one on you.” He said as he gave Francis a smack across the shoulder. Hershel joined in the laughter. “Lighten up.”
“I knew you were joking.” Francis chuckled a few times to join in, but Sully had suddenly stopped laughing and his eyes had become hard, drilling holes. Francis knew that look. It was of insanity, and he had seen it on Sully’s face one too many times. This time, to Francis’ dismay, was the first time the look was aimed to push him into the insanity.
To break the chilling silence, Hershel said, “But we should still have a little bit of fun with him, eh friends?”
“Of course. We can give him a razzing,” Francis said to try and ease the tension.
“Then we shall go to have fun.” Sully’s voice was sharp. Not an ounce of fun could be heard from his tone. His brow was bent into the shape of a Z.
Beyond the city out among the trees they could hear the first vibrations of the steam engine making its way toward them. Sully dug into his pocket, and with a distant wink, he slid out a knife and popped it open. The blade was long and thin and was still glazed with the bacteria of a prostitute’s vagina. He said he left the juices on it because he liked the way it smelled—of dirt and fear.
Sully stood over the top of the homeless man smiling. He flicked the man’s boot with his finger, but he didn’t wake. Sully turned and grinned and then snapped into a twisted state of mind. This time to wake him, he decided to stomp hard on his knee with the heel of his boot. The man immediately screamed from the pain. Clutching it with both hands, he rolled around groaning.
Sully lifted the heel of his boot three more times to jam it into the man’s body. The first two blows didn’t connect square, but the third one drove deep between his ribs. Francis heard them split and break. “Easy old boy,” he said to try and get his friend to come back to sanity, but it wouldn’t work.
Sully spun in behind the man and put the knife up to the under side of his throat. He gouged it in deep enough to draw blood. “Keep that shit hole of yours shut,” he threatened. “One sound out of you and I will pin your tongue to the train tracks and make you kiss the passing wheels.”
“Ever make out with a locomotive?” Hershel asked.
The man tried to plead for mercy, but he could only gag on his words from the pressure Sully had put on his Adam’s apple.
“What do you eat to keep your disgusting life afloat below the pisser? You stink like piss and I can smell your rotten teeth through your lips you filthy shit.” Sully dragged the knife across the underside of the man’s chin deep enough to split it in the shape of a U. He screeched in pain and clutched his throat. Blood squeezed around his palm and soaked into the dirty gloves on his hands. “Never say I didn’t make you smile. Stand up, pig!”
To make him stand up, he stuck the knife deep into his armpit. The pain drove him to his feet but he tripped on his swollen knee and fell off the wooden walkway. The drop was a good four feet down and he didn’t land feet first. His head dug into the stones of the railway yard. Both Hershel and Sully chuckled and poked fun at the way his body folded as he speared into the ground.
Francis tried to rush to his rescue. He had seen enough.
He jumped down and unfolded the homeless man’s arms from under his body. “I think he’s dead,” Francis said, shocked.
“The lowlife pig isn’t dead. He was too stupid to breathe before I had a little fun with him. Get off! I want to see for myself.”
Sully hopped down from the walkway. Stones pushed out from his feet when he struck the ground. “I can see the pig is breathing from here. Get out of the way.”
“He’s had enough, Sully.” Francis shoved him back.
“Getting sensitive for this drain on society? This poor bastard who spreads laziness and gluttony? This begging fool?”
The man began to moan.
“You’ve already gone too far.”
Sully leapt over the top of the homeless man. His knife was drawn. He stomped into the stones inches in front of Francis and stood up firm, nose to nose with him. “I say he hasn’t had enough!”
Francis wanted to gouge into his friend’s eyes with both hands but the knife aimed at his bowls kept him still.
“Hershel.” He turned to face him. “I could go for a pig roast. Be a pal and find me some fuel.”
“Where do you want me to look?” Hershel asked.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have asked you.”
Hershel darted his eyes around the area before hustling toward the stores behind him. He put his hands on the window sills to check for a key. After finding nothing, he quickly shifted to another area of the walkway and patted the underside of a bench. Sully shook his head at his nervous friend before giving him direction. “Are you that dull?” he asked. “I can see Francis’ house as plain as I can see this pile of . . .” As he spoke, he turned to the man he had been accosting and saw that he was on all fours attempting to make a run for it. Sully snickered at his hobbled attempt to flee. A trail of blood drops was behind him. He watched him stumble a few times for his own amusement before he pounced. With two large steps, Sully leapt through the air once again. This time he folded his legs and rammed both knees into the man’s torso. He was knocked over sideways into the train tracks. He didn’t holler out in pain until the weight of Sully crushed down on top of him shins first.
Sully chuckled again. He kept one knee on the man’s chest. “Go to the Gutierrez estate and grab a can of lamp oil! I have a match.”
Hershel nodded and jogged toward the house at the top of the hill.
“Good try, piggy.” He grabbed his coat collars and pulled him up to his face. “Try it again and I will draw out your life to endure more torture than I had intended to give you. I’m not sure you’re worth my energy, but I’ll put in the work. Because that’s what humans do. They work to earn their keep. They don’t suck off others like a leech.”
The man’s neck was still oozing blood from having been cut by Sully’s blade. His ribs were cracked and his knee was torn. For the first time, the man tried pleading with his attacker. “What have I done to you to deserve this?” he asked under a frail, shaky voice.
“What have you done?” Sully’s black eyes narrowed. His lips split into a grin. “Francis, he wants to know what he’s done to deserve this.”
“I would like to know the same,” Francis said.
“Then you are as bad as him. No, you are worse. You have sympathy for shit like him.”
“Do not speak to me that way, or this poor man won’t be the only one leaving with broken bones.”
“Is that a threat?” Sully cocked an eyebrow.
In the distance, the train blew its whistle. This time, they could tell that it wouldn’t be long before it would pass.
Francis took a step forward. “It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.”
Sully put his hand on the man’s head and stroked his greasy grey hair. “Well, I believe I have gone too far. I’ve upset my friend. I was only having a little fun with the little piggy.”
“Then leave him alone.”
“Not yet! Not until I answer his question. I don’t want to be rude. But I must rephrase it. It isn’t what you’ve done. It’s what you haven’t done. So I’m going to give you the chance to make up for your sloth. Stand up!” Sully took his knee from the man’s chest so he could get to his feet. He stood up. His dirty coat was drenched with blood. He wobbled on his torn knee. The man kept his eyes on the stones. “Look at me.” He looked up. “I’ll let you keep your pants on . . .”
“What?” he whimpered through cracked teeth.
Sully took an open hand and slammed it across the side of his head. “Don’t speak!” The man crumbled to the ground holding his ear. “Get up!” Sully yelled as he drove his heel deep into his ribs once again. He yelped on impact, but he knew that he had better get to his feet or the next blow would be worse. “As I was saying, take off your pants.”
The man was confused, but he didn’t waste time. He removed the many layers of pants that he had on until he was down to his undergarment.
“Very nice,” Sully complimented. He grabbed the man by the hair on the back of his head and snapped out his knife. He positioned the knife near his genitals, pulled back on his head hard enough so that it forced his hips to project outward, and then dug the blade under his scrotum. “Now, I will let you keep your manhood if you can perform one simple task.”
The man was shaking. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Sully leaned in close and put his lips against his ear. “Do you think you can do one simple thing for me? Hmmm, my little piggy?”
“Yes, anything!” he pleaded.
“Good.” Sully brushed his lips against his ear. “Walk over there and pick up one of those logs.” He pointed to a stack of railroad ties. The man nodded, but he didn’t move because Sully still had the blade wedged under his genitals. Sully enjoyed the man’s fear as he dug the blade in a little deeper. “But remember, don’t try anything stupid. I’m just itching to dismember a worthless idiot like you, so don’t give me any excuses.”
The stack of railroad ties was a good twenty feet from the tracks. The man limped toward them not wanting to know what Sully was going to do to him next. He put his hands under the top one and tried moving it. The tie was heavier than he had expected. It gave him a lot of trouble.
“This is why you’re a worthless drain on society. You can’t even lift one of those logs!”
With Sully riding him once again, the man found the strength to lift it and lug it back. With much agony, he dropped it at Sully’s feet.
“Did I say you could set it down?” He slapped him across the face. “Pick it up, now!”
As he bent over to pick it up, Sully took the opportunity to gouge the point of his knife into the man’s back a few times. The man flinched but continued heartily toward completing the task he was given. After a few attempts, he was finally able to gather the heavy tie in his arms and pick it up. His legs strained under its weight so bad that he quivered.
That’s when Hershel trotted down the hill and joined them. He had the jug of oil in his arms.
“Just in time,” Sully said to Hershel. “Now, put the log across the tracks.” He did as he was told. “Now, get underneath it.”
“How?”
“You complete idiot. Get under the log!” Sully raised his fist so that he would punch the man in the face if he wasn’t under the log in time, but he was able to lift the log and slide under it without punishment. It lay across his chest.
“Here’s what I want you to do with it.” Sully walked up and put his foot on the tie. “I want you to push the log above your chest one hundred times over. And here’s the game. If you can lift this log one hundred times before the train comes, I might let you live. But if you fail, I will leave you on the tracks to die.” Horror spread over his face. The look of terror in his eyes and the tears streaming down his cheeks made Sully split another grin across his lips.
Around the hill and over the trees, they could hear that the whistle of the coming train had grown louder. “You better get pushing,” Sully said.
The man positioned the log over his chest and pushed it up. He struggled to press even the first three.
Sully watched the man participate in his cruel game with pleasure. He nodded at Hershel who also seemed to be enjoying the cruelty. “You better go faster, piggy. You’re running out of time.”
The man did his best to continue pressing the tie, but he was quickly losing strength until finally he could no longer carry its weight. Sully didn’t like to see that he had given up. He stepped up next to the man’s head and stomped down. The man’s head bounced off the stones as Sully’s foot flattened his face. “Get working free loader!” Sully screamed at him.
The man shook off the sting in his face and mustered all of his strength to try and lift the tie. He pressed it two or three more times before his arms began to quiver. Sully watched him struggle with disgust. As soon as he saw him want to give up, he reared back and stomped down on his face. The man spit pieces of teeth and blood and managed to press it a few more times. But eventually he would lose the strength again, and as punishment, Sully would stomp his face and throat even harder. He stomped the man so many times that his entire face was purple, his nose was smashed sideways, and blood was running off the side of his forehead in wide swaths. The stones under him were painted red. The man got to fifty presses before Sully grew tired of stomping his face flat.
He said, “Hand me the oil, Hershel.” He took the jug of oil and uncorked the top. “What number are you on?”
The man was so dazed from being kicked in the head so much that he hardly knew where he was.
“Are you on one-hundred?”
The man moaned and nodded.
“Bullshit!” Sully stomped down on the log. Its weight pressed against his broken ribs. “You have fifty more! But I will give you a break. I will give you a break like every good, hard working man deserves. You only have to do ten more and then I will let you off these train tracks, but there’s a catch. You have to do these last ten with your foot on fire.”
Francis didn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you crazy?”
“Shut up, Francis Junior!”
Hershel snickered and handed the jug of oil to Sully. He held it up to his nose, took a whiff, and then poured it over the man’s shoe. The oil splashed onto his leg all the way up to his knee. When he finished pouring the oil, he slid the box of matches out from his pocket. “Are you ready to prove your worth?” he asked. The man begged him to have mercy. Blood spat from his lips like mist. “If you speak once more I will take pleasure in removing your scrotum. Now, get ready to do some work! In three . . .”
The man was terrified, but he braced his arms under the log so that he could pump out as many presses as quickly as possible.
“Two.” Sully lit the match.
The man was heaving his breaths. His lungs sounded like tin cans with nails rattling around inside.
“Three!” Sully yelled as he dropped the match onto the man’s oil soaked foot. His leg immediately burst into flames. He began screaming. He tried rolling out from under the log so he could save his leg, but Sully stomped down on top of him once again. He held him in place as his flesh burned.
“Do the work, pig!” Sully yelled. He then stepped over the top of him and stood next to his head. He lifted his heel and was about to stomp down onto his face until Francis charged in and rammed him away.
The man threw the log from his body screaming in misery. His foot was blazing. His skin was bubbled up and beginning to char into a black crust. He kicked the boot from his foot and brushed the flames from his calf and knee. Once they were out, he rolled screaming in pain.
“You’re done, Sully. Stand away from him and leave him alone.”
Sully could feel the vibrations in the tracks from the closing train. Its whistle blew again. This time they could see the nose of the engine move out through the tree-line and curve around the track toward them. He pulled out his knife and pointed it toward Francis. Once Francis saw the knife, he backed up. Sully moved close to the homeless man and knelt down beside him. He sniffed the air so that he could take pleasure in the smell of his cooked leg.
“Of course, I’ll stand away.” Sully cupped the man’s cheeks and squeezed. Blood squeezed out from his fingers. His cheeks were so swollen he could hardly get a good grip. “Did I hurt you, little one?” He asked as if he were speaking to a baby. “Is your leg sore? You’re face isn’t even as purple as it should be.”
Blood was streaming from his eyes and mouth. He was quivering violently. He had nearly broken his arms in the stones he had thrashed so hard.
“The train will be here in less than a minute. Get him off the tracks, Sully!”
“Yes, sir,” Sully said. “But first, just this.” Sully held the man’s collar with one hand and balled the other into a fist. Then he began throwing hard punches into his swollen, purple face. The man’s skull crunched under the blows. His eyebrow split and his lip was nearly torn from his chin. Clouds of blood sprayed from his head. Sully landed five or six punches before Francis could grab his arm and keep him from landing again. He dragged Sully from the top of him and shoved him away.
By the time Sully had finished, the homeless man was either dead or nearly dead. He was sprawled out on his back on the train tracks and the train was within thirty seconds of arriving. Francis ran up to him and grabbed his arms. He pulled to try and free him from the train’s path, but dragging a limp man across boards and through deep stones wasn’t as easy as he might have thought.
The man’s shoulders got caught on the steel of tracks. He only had about ten seconds before the train would cut the two of them in half. He jumped across his body and lifted his shoulders above the steel. That did it! He freed him, and he had done it with plenty of time to spare. Once he knew that he had him completely clear of danger, he stood up and tried to step away from the tracks himself, but something was keeping him from moving out of the way. It was Sully. He was behind him, and he wasn’t letting him off the tracks. Francis tried to fight him, but it was too late. All Sully had to do was give him a little nudge and step back.
Because the engine had no bumper, Francis was sucked under the cars. He was ground up underneath. His body bounced from the stones to the steel, rolling over and over. His arm was caught under the wheel and torn from his shoulder. It flung out from under the train and spun to a bloody stop. Francis was finally spit out from underneath the coal car along with his arm. The sharp corner of the car tore into the flesh across his belly. His guts spilled over the stones and sprayed the train as his body was flung. By the time he stopped tumbling over the stones, he was missing an arm, his leg bones were splintered, and his guts were spilled out of his belly. Half his face had been torn off.
Sully and Hershel looked on in amazement. Before they ran off into the woods, Sully put the blade of his knife into the homeless man’s throat to finish him off. He dropped the blade next to Francis’ body.
by Gabe Redel
Author's Note: The following is the opening chapter to my latest thriller novel, "A Monster's Fairy Tale." It is a story about a monster who falls in love with an actress. It takes place in 1895 and then moves into 2055. The novel will be published in the coming months.
Chapter One
May 3rd, 1895 New York, NY
Their alcohol soaked minds smeared the yellow glow of the moon.
At the far corner, just on the edge of the darkest part of the city, Sully urged his friends to keep quiet. He put his whiskey stained finger up to his lips and shushed them between pissy sounding laughs and snickers.
A set of stairs led to a long wooden patio that ran behind the backside of a strip mall. Just beyond the wood walkway was a set of train tracks that snaked out of the woods and entered into town. On the patio was where one of the local homeless took refuge for the night. They inched up the stairs careful not to wake him.
Francis and Hershel were too drunk to recognize that Sully wasn’t joking about wanting to kill the homeless man. He was laughing a lot about it, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t serious.
“I can see that idiot’s feet.” Sully pointed between two benches where his legs were stretched out. “Now all you have to do is wait for a train.”
“Why do we need a train? Are we skipping town because the whores have bigger tits in the west?” Hershel rubbed his chest as if he were massaging the breasts of a female.
“If you don’t do it, I will,” Sully said.
“Do what? What is it that you want me to do?” Francis asked.
“You said it would be hilarious if we threw the village idiot under the train. Those were your exact words in the pub.”
“That would be hilarious.” Hershel hissed through his lips because he didn’t want to laugh out loud.
“The old cuss deserves worse. He does nothing all day. Always begging. Always smelling like raw fish and sun-baked rodent.” Sully’s face lit into a thin smile. “It would do him service to die. It would do the world service for him to die.”
“Yes, it would, but we are not murderers. It is not our decision to take a man to death regardless of what position he stands,” Francis argued.
“Then why did you say it?”
The thought was sobering. Francis could hardly see three feet in front of his own face, but seeing the truth about his loose words dried him up. “That was something I said to give the old boys a good chuckle you fool!”
“To hell with you, you fool. You said it and I liked the idea. Make good on your word coward.”
“I gave no word.”
“You knew where we were going. You followed me out here.”
“My house is at the top of the hill. I thought we were going there,” Francis said.
Sully took a hard stare. His eyes looked like black holes under the starlit sky. Yellow stains had worn into his shirt. Francis could smell the sour of his breath. Sully tightened his lips and squeezed his hands into fists just before he broke out into hysterics. “I was just putting one on you.” He said as he gave Francis a smack across the shoulder. Hershel joined in the laughter. “Lighten up.”
“I knew you were joking.” Francis chuckled a few times to join in, but Sully had suddenly stopped laughing and his eyes had become hard, drilling holes. Francis knew that look. It was of insanity, and he had seen it on Sully’s face one too many times. This time, to Francis’ dismay, was the first time the look was aimed to push him into the insanity.
To break the chilling silence, Hershel said, “But we should still have a little bit of fun with him, eh friends?”
“Of course. We can give him a razzing,” Francis said to try and ease the tension.
“Then we shall go to have fun.” Sully’s voice was sharp. Not an ounce of fun could be heard from his tone. His brow was bent into the shape of a Z.
Beyond the city out among the trees they could hear the first vibrations of the steam engine making its way toward them. Sully dug into his pocket, and with a distant wink, he slid out a knife and popped it open. The blade was long and thin and was still glazed with the bacteria of a prostitute’s vagina. He said he left the juices on it because he liked the way it smelled—of dirt and fear.
Sully stood over the top of the homeless man smiling. He flicked the man’s boot with his finger, but he didn’t wake. Sully turned and grinned and then snapped into a twisted state of mind. This time to wake him, he decided to stomp hard on his knee with the heel of his boot. The man immediately screamed from the pain. Clutching it with both hands, he rolled around groaning.
Sully lifted the heel of his boot three more times to jam it into the man’s body. The first two blows didn’t connect square, but the third one drove deep between his ribs. Francis heard them split and break. “Easy old boy,” he said to try and get his friend to come back to sanity, but it wouldn’t work.
Sully spun in behind the man and put the knife up to the under side of his throat. He gouged it in deep enough to draw blood. “Keep that shit hole of yours shut,” he threatened. “One sound out of you and I will pin your tongue to the train tracks and make you kiss the passing wheels.”
“Ever make out with a locomotive?” Hershel asked.
The man tried to plead for mercy, but he could only gag on his words from the pressure Sully had put on his Adam’s apple.
“What do you eat to keep your disgusting life afloat below the pisser? You stink like piss and I can smell your rotten teeth through your lips you filthy shit.” Sully dragged the knife across the underside of the man’s chin deep enough to split it in the shape of a U. He screeched in pain and clutched his throat. Blood squeezed around his palm and soaked into the dirty gloves on his hands. “Never say I didn’t make you smile. Stand up, pig!”
To make him stand up, he stuck the knife deep into his armpit. The pain drove him to his feet but he tripped on his swollen knee and fell off the wooden walkway. The drop was a good four feet down and he didn’t land feet first. His head dug into the stones of the railway yard. Both Hershel and Sully chuckled and poked fun at the way his body folded as he speared into the ground.
Francis tried to rush to his rescue. He had seen enough.
He jumped down and unfolded the homeless man’s arms from under his body. “I think he’s dead,” Francis said, shocked.
“The lowlife pig isn’t dead. He was too stupid to breathe before I had a little fun with him. Get off! I want to see for myself.”
Sully hopped down from the walkway. Stones pushed out from his feet when he struck the ground. “I can see the pig is breathing from here. Get out of the way.”
“He’s had enough, Sully.” Francis shoved him back.
“Getting sensitive for this drain on society? This poor bastard who spreads laziness and gluttony? This begging fool?”
The man began to moan.
“You’ve already gone too far.”
Sully leapt over the top of the homeless man. His knife was drawn. He stomped into the stones inches in front of Francis and stood up firm, nose to nose with him. “I say he hasn’t had enough!”
Francis wanted to gouge into his friend’s eyes with both hands but the knife aimed at his bowls kept him still.
“Hershel.” He turned to face him. “I could go for a pig roast. Be a pal and find me some fuel.”
“Where do you want me to look?” Hershel asked.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have asked you.”
Hershel darted his eyes around the area before hustling toward the stores behind him. He put his hands on the window sills to check for a key. After finding nothing, he quickly shifted to another area of the walkway and patted the underside of a bench. Sully shook his head at his nervous friend before giving him direction. “Are you that dull?” he asked. “I can see Francis’ house as plain as I can see this pile of . . .” As he spoke, he turned to the man he had been accosting and saw that he was on all fours attempting to make a run for it. Sully snickered at his hobbled attempt to flee. A trail of blood drops was behind him. He watched him stumble a few times for his own amusement before he pounced. With two large steps, Sully leapt through the air once again. This time he folded his legs and rammed both knees into the man’s torso. He was knocked over sideways into the train tracks. He didn’t holler out in pain until the weight of Sully crushed down on top of him shins first.
Sully chuckled again. He kept one knee on the man’s chest. “Go to the Gutierrez estate and grab a can of lamp oil! I have a match.”
Hershel nodded and jogged toward the house at the top of the hill.
“Good try, piggy.” He grabbed his coat collars and pulled him up to his face. “Try it again and I will draw out your life to endure more torture than I had intended to give you. I’m not sure you’re worth my energy, but I’ll put in the work. Because that’s what humans do. They work to earn their keep. They don’t suck off others like a leech.”
The man’s neck was still oozing blood from having been cut by Sully’s blade. His ribs were cracked and his knee was torn. For the first time, the man tried pleading with his attacker. “What have I done to you to deserve this?” he asked under a frail, shaky voice.
“What have you done?” Sully’s black eyes narrowed. His lips split into a grin. “Francis, he wants to know what he’s done to deserve this.”
“I would like to know the same,” Francis said.
“Then you are as bad as him. No, you are worse. You have sympathy for shit like him.”
“Do not speak to me that way, or this poor man won’t be the only one leaving with broken bones.”
“Is that a threat?” Sully cocked an eyebrow.
In the distance, the train blew its whistle. This time, they could tell that it wouldn’t be long before it would pass.
Francis took a step forward. “It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.”
Sully put his hand on the man’s head and stroked his greasy grey hair. “Well, I believe I have gone too far. I’ve upset my friend. I was only having a little fun with the little piggy.”
“Then leave him alone.”
“Not yet! Not until I answer his question. I don’t want to be rude. But I must rephrase it. It isn’t what you’ve done. It’s what you haven’t done. So I’m going to give you the chance to make up for your sloth. Stand up!” Sully took his knee from the man’s chest so he could get to his feet. He stood up. His dirty coat was drenched with blood. He wobbled on his torn knee. The man kept his eyes on the stones. “Look at me.” He looked up. “I’ll let you keep your pants on . . .”
“What?” he whimpered through cracked teeth.
Sully took an open hand and slammed it across the side of his head. “Don’t speak!” The man crumbled to the ground holding his ear. “Get up!” Sully yelled as he drove his heel deep into his ribs once again. He yelped on impact, but he knew that he had better get to his feet or the next blow would be worse. “As I was saying, take off your pants.”
The man was confused, but he didn’t waste time. He removed the many layers of pants that he had on until he was down to his undergarment.
“Very nice,” Sully complimented. He grabbed the man by the hair on the back of his head and snapped out his knife. He positioned the knife near his genitals, pulled back on his head hard enough so that it forced his hips to project outward, and then dug the blade under his scrotum. “Now, I will let you keep your manhood if you can perform one simple task.”
The man was shaking. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Sully leaned in close and put his lips against his ear. “Do you think you can do one simple thing for me? Hmmm, my little piggy?”
“Yes, anything!” he pleaded.
“Good.” Sully brushed his lips against his ear. “Walk over there and pick up one of those logs.” He pointed to a stack of railroad ties. The man nodded, but he didn’t move because Sully still had the blade wedged under his genitals. Sully enjoyed the man’s fear as he dug the blade in a little deeper. “But remember, don’t try anything stupid. I’m just itching to dismember a worthless idiot like you, so don’t give me any excuses.”
The stack of railroad ties was a good twenty feet from the tracks. The man limped toward them not wanting to know what Sully was going to do to him next. He put his hands under the top one and tried moving it. The tie was heavier than he had expected. It gave him a lot of trouble.
“This is why you’re a worthless drain on society. You can’t even lift one of those logs!”
With Sully riding him once again, the man found the strength to lift it and lug it back. With much agony, he dropped it at Sully’s feet.
“Did I say you could set it down?” He slapped him across the face. “Pick it up, now!”
As he bent over to pick it up, Sully took the opportunity to gouge the point of his knife into the man’s back a few times. The man flinched but continued heartily toward completing the task he was given. After a few attempts, he was finally able to gather the heavy tie in his arms and pick it up. His legs strained under its weight so bad that he quivered.
That’s when Hershel trotted down the hill and joined them. He had the jug of oil in his arms.
“Just in time,” Sully said to Hershel. “Now, put the log across the tracks.” He did as he was told. “Now, get underneath it.”
“How?”
“You complete idiot. Get under the log!” Sully raised his fist so that he would punch the man in the face if he wasn’t under the log in time, but he was able to lift the log and slide under it without punishment. It lay across his chest.
“Here’s what I want you to do with it.” Sully walked up and put his foot on the tie. “I want you to push the log above your chest one hundred times over. And here’s the game. If you can lift this log one hundred times before the train comes, I might let you live. But if you fail, I will leave you on the tracks to die.” Horror spread over his face. The look of terror in his eyes and the tears streaming down his cheeks made Sully split another grin across his lips.
Around the hill and over the trees, they could hear that the whistle of the coming train had grown louder. “You better get pushing,” Sully said.
The man positioned the log over his chest and pushed it up. He struggled to press even the first three.
Sully watched the man participate in his cruel game with pleasure. He nodded at Hershel who also seemed to be enjoying the cruelty. “You better go faster, piggy. You’re running out of time.”
The man did his best to continue pressing the tie, but he was quickly losing strength until finally he could no longer carry its weight. Sully didn’t like to see that he had given up. He stepped up next to the man’s head and stomped down. The man’s head bounced off the stones as Sully’s foot flattened his face. “Get working free loader!” Sully screamed at him.
The man shook off the sting in his face and mustered all of his strength to try and lift the tie. He pressed it two or three more times before his arms began to quiver. Sully watched him struggle with disgust. As soon as he saw him want to give up, he reared back and stomped down on his face. The man spit pieces of teeth and blood and managed to press it a few more times. But eventually he would lose the strength again, and as punishment, Sully would stomp his face and throat even harder. He stomped the man so many times that his entire face was purple, his nose was smashed sideways, and blood was running off the side of his forehead in wide swaths. The stones under him were painted red. The man got to fifty presses before Sully grew tired of stomping his face flat.
He said, “Hand me the oil, Hershel.” He took the jug of oil and uncorked the top. “What number are you on?”
The man was so dazed from being kicked in the head so much that he hardly knew where he was.
“Are you on one-hundred?”
The man moaned and nodded.
“Bullshit!” Sully stomped down on the log. Its weight pressed against his broken ribs. “You have fifty more! But I will give you a break. I will give you a break like every good, hard working man deserves. You only have to do ten more and then I will let you off these train tracks, but there’s a catch. You have to do these last ten with your foot on fire.”
Francis didn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you crazy?”
“Shut up, Francis Junior!”
Hershel snickered and handed the jug of oil to Sully. He held it up to his nose, took a whiff, and then poured it over the man’s shoe. The oil splashed onto his leg all the way up to his knee. When he finished pouring the oil, he slid the box of matches out from his pocket. “Are you ready to prove your worth?” he asked. The man begged him to have mercy. Blood spat from his lips like mist. “If you speak once more I will take pleasure in removing your scrotum. Now, get ready to do some work! In three . . .”
The man was terrified, but he braced his arms under the log so that he could pump out as many presses as quickly as possible.
“Two.” Sully lit the match.
The man was heaving his breaths. His lungs sounded like tin cans with nails rattling around inside.
“Three!” Sully yelled as he dropped the match onto the man’s oil soaked foot. His leg immediately burst into flames. He began screaming. He tried rolling out from under the log so he could save his leg, but Sully stomped down on top of him once again. He held him in place as his flesh burned.
“Do the work, pig!” Sully yelled. He then stepped over the top of him and stood next to his head. He lifted his heel and was about to stomp down onto his face until Francis charged in and rammed him away.
The man threw the log from his body screaming in misery. His foot was blazing. His skin was bubbled up and beginning to char into a black crust. He kicked the boot from his foot and brushed the flames from his calf and knee. Once they were out, he rolled screaming in pain.
“You’re done, Sully. Stand away from him and leave him alone.”
Sully could feel the vibrations in the tracks from the closing train. Its whistle blew again. This time they could see the nose of the engine move out through the tree-line and curve around the track toward them. He pulled out his knife and pointed it toward Francis. Once Francis saw the knife, he backed up. Sully moved close to the homeless man and knelt down beside him. He sniffed the air so that he could take pleasure in the smell of his cooked leg.
“Of course, I’ll stand away.” Sully cupped the man’s cheeks and squeezed. Blood squeezed out from his fingers. His cheeks were so swollen he could hardly get a good grip. “Did I hurt you, little one?” He asked as if he were speaking to a baby. “Is your leg sore? You’re face isn’t even as purple as it should be.”
Blood was streaming from his eyes and mouth. He was quivering violently. He had nearly broken his arms in the stones he had thrashed so hard.
“The train will be here in less than a minute. Get him off the tracks, Sully!”
“Yes, sir,” Sully said. “But first, just this.” Sully held the man’s collar with one hand and balled the other into a fist. Then he began throwing hard punches into his swollen, purple face. The man’s skull crunched under the blows. His eyebrow split and his lip was nearly torn from his chin. Clouds of blood sprayed from his head. Sully landed five or six punches before Francis could grab his arm and keep him from landing again. He dragged Sully from the top of him and shoved him away.
By the time Sully had finished, the homeless man was either dead or nearly dead. He was sprawled out on his back on the train tracks and the train was within thirty seconds of arriving. Francis ran up to him and grabbed his arms. He pulled to try and free him from the train’s path, but dragging a limp man across boards and through deep stones wasn’t as easy as he might have thought.
The man’s shoulders got caught on the steel of tracks. He only had about ten seconds before the train would cut the two of them in half. He jumped across his body and lifted his shoulders above the steel. That did it! He freed him, and he had done it with plenty of time to spare. Once he knew that he had him completely clear of danger, he stood up and tried to step away from the tracks himself, but something was keeping him from moving out of the way. It was Sully. He was behind him, and he wasn’t letting him off the tracks. Francis tried to fight him, but it was too late. All Sully had to do was give him a little nudge and step back.
Because the engine had no bumper, Francis was sucked under the cars. He was ground up underneath. His body bounced from the stones to the steel, rolling over and over. His arm was caught under the wheel and torn from his shoulder. It flung out from under the train and spun to a bloody stop. Francis was finally spit out from underneath the coal car along with his arm. The sharp corner of the car tore into the flesh across his belly. His guts spilled over the stones and sprayed the train as his body was flung. By the time he stopped tumbling over the stones, he was missing an arm, his leg bones were splintered, and his guts were spilled out of his belly. Half his face had been torn off.
Sully and Hershel looked on in amazement. Before they ran off into the woods, Sully put the blade of his knife into the homeless man’s throat to finish him off. He dropped the blade next to Francis’ body.
New Book: A Monster's Fairy Tale
My new slipsteam thriller novel is now out. Click the url link to purchase it on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Fairy...
https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Fairy...
