Horror Piece

Here is the entire piece. It is as yet unfinished.


She woke to pain.

She felt beaten and broken from top to bottom. Her toes had throbbed all night in those sky-blue Christian Louboutin candidate pumps she had worn, so she wasn’t sure if that particular suffering was new or not. She ached inside as well. Her dress! Her gasp changed to a grimace as a sharp pain lanced through her side. She had never broken a rib, but she had suffered through many Sundays of watching football with her fiancé and remembered the agony he reminisced about after every injury on the screen. She was pretty sure it was the same. She cracked open an eye, crusted with blood. The other eye wouldn’t open at all. An aroma of metal, sweat, and drying blood drowned out her Chanel No. 5. Her mouth felt sticky and dry. Her tongue worked around clumps of some viscous substance and several new gaps in her once perfect smile. She sobbed then. From the pain and the silly little thought of the years she had worn braces and headgear to get her teeth all neat in a row. Ruined.

Somewhere in the tears she rested her chin on her chest and escaped the world for a while.

She tried to move when next she woke. Nothing wanted to cooperate. Her elbows and hands were lashed down, her knees and legs securely bound by ropes as well. It was almost a relief. If she wasn’t bound, surely she would have fallen onto the floor by now. She couldn’t kick if she wanted to. Her head rolled weakly to the side and her one good eye spied her left pinky finger bent out at a wide angle. The glimmer of blue nail polish on her pinky looked oddly out of place, so far away from the others. That’s not good. Luckily, she couldn’t feel that particular pain at the moment, though the absence worried her in a different way.

More agonies checked in from all over her body as she found enough energy from somewhere to look around. She was tied to a chair in a concrete room, maybe a basement. There was a vent fan on its last legs high in a corner, occasionally sputtering air in or out, she could not tell. A metal table against a far wall drifted in and out of focus as her mind continued its slow climb back to full consciousness. She felt dizzy, the uncontrollable motion of her head making her carsick. Bile rose in her throat and joined the other unpleasant tastes in her mouth. A hint of champagne in there as well. She closed her eye for a while, trying to convince herself she did it on purpose. It hurt to blink. A scan of the table’s surface exposed some of the instruments of her torture. Pliers, a small blowtorch, a hammer, hand saw, car battery with leads, …and her left shoe, colorful as a peacock amidst all the industrial gear. With her foot and ankle still in it. The expensive sole was still red, thankfully. The sky-blue sides were now red as well.

That was what finally made her scream.

A door screeched open somewhere behind her. She tried to swivel her head, to desperately seek with her one open eye, but her neck did not allow it. A man she didn’t recognize soon stumbled into view. Well groomed, short, hard to tell since she was seated, but not even five foot tall. Sharply dressed in a black Armani. His faced hinted at dark thoughts no manner of good clothing could hide.

He came closer, invading her personal space. He reached out and ran a finger along her cheek, tracing a ragged tear and making her wince anew at the feeling. “I like damaged goods.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I’m going to love you!”

She shook as memory returned. Pliers. Blowtorch, electric shock. Hacksaw. Flashes of her torture flooded through her and washed away her sanity.

She felt his wet tongue scrape the torn and raging skin of her cheek. His breath revolted her with its freshness.

Her mind tumbled back into the sweet embrace of oblivion.

This is where my life ends.

The sudden crack of gunfire shocked her awake. The smell of gunpowder overwhelmed the other acrid odors of the deathly room. Her eyes wouldn’t open. Over the ringing in her ears, she heard several male voices. “She’s still breathing. Looks like we got here just in time Cap’n.”

She passed out again.