by Jack Bantry
“You’re finally up,” he said, and she trembled at the sound of his voice, unable to stop, dread manifesting like a series of electrical charges throughout her nervous system.
I’m terrified, she thought. Can’t you tell? Can you feel it? She pushed it toward him… made him feel it as well.
“Hungry?”
She shook her head.
“Sure you are. Don’t lie.”
Hunger wasn’t a concern. She couldn’t have kept anything down anyway.
Even without seeing she knew he stood in front of her, felt his towering presence. “This is my body,” he said. “I give myself to you. Eat so that you may be saved.”
“Daniel…” She was barely able to force his name out. Tried to say another word but her tongue felt thick and heavy.
He shoved a cloth into her mouth and tied it to the back of her head.
She felt his hand on her thigh… massaging the outer muscle, fingers probing the flesh. Hand now caressing the inside of her thigh, stroking, fingers nearing her groin. Legs tied wide, feet tied to the chair legs.
His hands slowly traced back down her thighs toward her knees, fingers squeezing, poking, massaging the flesh, but strangely not in a sexual way, certainly not in a tender way. Hands lifted one thigh, holding it from beneath as if weighing it.
She felt him move away and then felt his return. She tested the air around her with her nose; the hairs on her body felt electrified, and his movements were somehow detectable by her heightened sense of awareness.
He fondled her thigh again and this time dragged something along the flesh, something sharp. Her body went rigid, and sweat trickled along her spine. What the hell was he doing? A pattern was forming on her flesh… hard to tell what it was with the blindfold… a rectangle? Then the sensation of wetness… she panted heavily into her gag. Oh, God… wetness not on her but from within. Like blood.
And when he peeled back the rectangular section of skin, she felt the skin separating, lifting, felt the movement, epidermis separating from dermis… felt nauseated by the ripping sensation of flesh rendered from flesh.
And then the pain struck. Air assaulted her nerve endings. She screamed into the gag, threw back her head, smashed her calves against the chair legs. Movement was limited, would not allow her expression of agony.
“Flesh of my flesh,” he said, palm on her forehead. “You seek forgiveness. I can feel it. You can give yourself to me: mind, body, and spirit. Then maybe there can be forgiveness.”
Her head jerked wildly back and forth, tears and spit and blood oozing from the damp rags blocking her sight and speech.
He removed her gag and her screams exploded, as if the flimsy material had contained them. She screamed her pain and outrage, screamed until her throat ached, felt torn from her mutilated body.
“Fuck you!” she shrieked.
“Be quiet!” He pressed something against her lips, forced it into her mouth. She jerked her head back again, trying to avoid it. The object followed her movements.
He slapped her thigh and the pain exploded, tearing the breath from her lungs, stealing her screams.
“Eat it,” he said through gritted teeth, shoving the object into her mouth, working her jaws with rough fingers, forcing her to chew.
There was no doubt what he was feeding her, though she tried to pretend it was something else. But her mind concentrated on him, on the now, wouldn’t allow itself to wander. Her focus was that chunk of thigh he had gouged from her body, a piece of her now resting against her tongue as if her body had betrayed her. She chewed it, that rubbery, salty strip of flesh, unable to stop herself. Unable to stop him.
“Chew. Chew and swallow.” His lips made smacking sounds… and she realized he was consuming her flesh as well. “This is my flesh. I give myself to you. Isn’t this what will save us, Rachael? Isn’t this what you want?”
“Go to hell,” she growled.
He snorted and pressed another chunk of meat against her lips. She refused to open her mouth. Her stomach roiled, violently protesting its force-fed meal, and she fought to keep down the contents. Her thigh wound pulsed with hot, liquid pain.
He again tried to push the flesh into her mouth and she squeezed her lips tight, clenched her jaws. He pinched her nose shut, and this test of wills didn’t last long. Her mouth popped open, and he shoved the rest of the thigh meat in. He slammed her bottom jaw shut with his palm.
“Eat it, goddammit!” he screamed.
She tried. After a few feeble chews the meat no longer wanted to stay in her mouth, or in her stomach, and she vomited all over herself. Barely chewed chunks of thigh climbed back up her oesophagus, burned its way up her throat; small bits of flesh partially digested by stomach acids stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“Goddammit,” he muttered. “You’re a fucking pig.”
Something swiped her face, cleared away the puke. Wiped it from her breasts and stomach, from the parts of her legs and feet where her projective vomit had splattered.
What small relief she had felt quickly vanished as he jammed that same rag into her mouth, holding it tight against her face and holding the back of her head with his free hand. Grinding it against her mouth, slimy streaks of vomit smashed against her lips, clawed up her nose. She opened her mouth to breathe and he shoved it in farther, pushed it to the back of her throat.
Head thrashing, limbs straining madly against the restraints, fighting for air, for life.
The room was spinning, dots dancing beneath the lids of her blindfolded eyes. Gasping, sucking in not air but chunks of vomit, bile soaked into the rag.
“Don’t you puke!” he cried.
She stopped struggling, slumped forward, and he pulled the rag out of her mouth. Lungs that had forgotten the taste of air sucked deeply, and she choked from the obstructed airway, coughed up what was lodged in her throat.
“Swallow it.”
No more, she said but realized she hadn’t said it, had only thought it. When she opened her mouth only bile spilled out. Her throat was raw and her stomach churned.
His hot breath was against her ear now as he leaned in closer. “I don’t think you’re learning. I don’t think you’ve suffered enough yet. Not the way you made me suffer.”
“Please…” she moaned, swallowing the stinging bile that still coated her throat. “I never—” Hard to talk. “Never meant to hurt you.” Had she hurt him? Maybe. There had been problems, sure—but hurt? Maybe she had… but she never expected this reaction. She didn’t think he had it in him.
“I know what you came for,” he said. “I know what you want.”
So he knew. Of course he knew. Why else would he have kidnapped her, brought her here? He wanted to play. Wanted to end this.
His fingers moved along the back of her head and the blindfold fell away.
The room—basement, apparently—was brightly lit, too bright, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly she opened them, allowing them the chance to adjust, and she blinked back dust particles and bits of headache.
“I thought, ‘What would really wound the bitch?’ And I could only think of one thing. You don’t respond well to torture—you cave too easily, though I know why—but where’s the enjoyment in that? Do you think I’m stupid? I know what you’re doing!”
He paced in front of her, hands clasped behind his back, head ducked. He abruptly stopped and whirled to face her. “I promised myself I wouldn’t enjoy this, that I wouldn’t be the inhuman thing that you are. But after what you’ve done to me, I can’t help myself. You really are a vicious twat, aren’t you?”
She stared at him, assuming the question had been rhetorical.
“Answer me!” he yelled.
She cocked her head and spit a chunk of flesh out of her mouth.
He exhaled noisily through his nose and began again, only quietly, calmly. “I had a better idea. I can’t beat you at your game, but I can break the rules just like you.”
He disappeared through the only door she
could see.
Dread oozed from her pores like sweat, filling the room with the scent of vomit and musk. Feel me, you bastard. Only this time the fear was real, and she wanted him to absorb it.
Moments later he returned, trailed by something he dragged along the ground. At first Rachael thought it was a bag of trash, or a sack of potatoes, all grays and blacks bumping and sweeping across the concrete. But—
Like razor wire Rachael’s breath sliced into her chest, stealing her words, her screams. Icy daggers stabbed her brain. The veins in her temples pounded, the pain so bad she thought her head would explode. Facial muscles contorted and crunched and tried to express the horror she felt.
The physical pain she had endured at Daniel’s hand had been nothing.
“No!” She shrieked so hard and loud her chest hurt. “No, oh, God, no, no! You didn’t. Oh please tell me she’s okay,” she sobbed. Flailing against the bonds was useless, only raised bloody welts that she barely felt. Muscles strained, trying to loosen the ropes, desperate now the attempts to escape. This was no longer about her. This was no longer a fight for control.
He just raised the fucking stakes.
Daniel dropped the sack by Rachael’s feet and pulled the plastic bag away. He licked his lips before pursing them and shook his head. He leaned in close. “Now you’ll understand real suffering.”
But Rachael was sobbing, could barely hear him over her own sounds. “Please,” she begged, voice hitching. Trying to get the words out. She stared at the child lying too still at her feet. Prayed she was alive. She hadn’t bargained for this; hurting the child wasn’t part of the game.
“Why?” Rachael shrieked. “How could you?”
The little girl on the cement floor twitched, unable to move or speak—legs bound, arms tied to her sides. Gagged, blindfolded. Her cries were muffled by the gag.
Daniel pulled a chair over and lifted the child, sat her across from Rachael. The girl tried to slide out of the chair and Daniel slapped her across the face, warned her not to move.
“Leave her alone! She’s just a baby.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake the kid’s six. She’s hardly a baby. Besides—we know what she is.”
Rachael glared at him. She lowered her voice. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Daniel shrugged. He untied the girl’s hands and retied them to the chair. Then he removed her blindfold.
The girl screamed something into her gag.
“Sounds like she’s calling her mamma,” he said.
“Bastard!” Rachael yelled. “Why would you do this to her? To her? She’s—”
“Shut up!” He slapped Rachael hard across the face and her head snapped back. “Open your fucking mouth again and she suffers for it.”
He knelt beside the girl. “Sarah, stop crying.”
Sarah was unable to stop.
“Knock it off or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
The cries became whimpers, tears running down her filthy cheeks.
“That’s better. All right, Sarah. Wanna play a game?”
She shook her head no.
“No? Why not?”
Daniel’s voice had become too sweet. Rachael’s bowels cramped.
Sarah’s head slumped forward, and her chest hitched with the tears she was trying to contain.
“Two games, kiddo. Two games for the price of one. The first one I call ‘Make Mamma Suffer.’ You probably don’t know that one, though we’ve been playing it for days, and now you’re part of it. I’ll bet you know the other game though.”
He slipped something out of his pocket and stepped behind Sarah’s chair. He yanked her head back by her ponytail and then grabbed her face, held it back by her chin, fingers digging into the child’s tender flesh.
“This game,” he said, “is called Got Your Nose.” With a sharp swiping movement, he sliced away.
For several seconds nothing happened. Rachael stared in shock, her brain refusing to accept what she had just seen. Waiting to recover from the nightmare, waiting for her grey matter to explain because this isn’t happening, this couldn’t possibly be happening.
How had she so easily lost control?
Sarah remained still until the wound began to spurt, until the fluid soaked her gag and ran back into her exposed nasal passages, until she began to choke on her own blood. Panic set in and she screamed into her cloth, coughing and retching, blood saturating the material.
Daniel untied the gag, and Sarah vomited the blood she had swallowed. She tried to scream, to cry, but there was too much blood.
Rachael panted, hard, the air dancing, weaving a kaleidoscope of spots before her eyes. Wanting to shut down. Wanting it all to go away.
Daniel pressed a towel against the gushing hole in Sarah’s face.
“Untie her, Daniel! She’ll go into shock!”
“I told you to shut up.”
“Please!”
Daniel charged Rachael, the bloodied rag still in his hand. He pushed his forehead against hers, and she smelled stale tobacco on his breath. Some other smell assaulted her that she hadn’t detected before and she shoved it out of her brain. Not important. Why had she even thought about it now?
“You don’t love her,” he said, fingers digging into her shoulders. “You’re not capable of love! I know what games you play. You’re a monster and so is she!”
“No, Daniel, that’s not true. You have to untie her. She’ll bleed to death.”
“Then let her.” He whirled around, faced the child.
Sarah’s head was slumped forward, the blood spilling onto her filthy clothes.
He stared for what felt like an eternity to Rachael, and he finally lifted the girl’s head and pressed the cloth against her face again.
Sarah opened her eyes and they rolled back, exposing only the whites. She opened her mouth and coughed out a bubble of blood.
Fatal mistake. She knew he’d make one. He always did. “Please, Daniel,” Rachael said. “Let her lie down. Untie her.”
He dropped the rag and pressed his palms against his temples. “No,” he moaned. “Get out…” But he moved behind Sarah and used the butcher knife from the kitchen to cut her bindings.
Sarah tumbled forward and caught herself on her hands and knees and fell the rest of the way to the floor.
“Good, Daniel. Very good.”
Sarah grabbed the bloody cloth that Daniel had dropped on the floor and pressed it against her face. She looked up at him.
“No!” he cried. “I-I… no! I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” Rachael said. “I understand.”
Sarah dropped the rag. “It’s okay, Daddy.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“But you’re her daddy,” Rachael said. “And you’re a good daddy. You’d never harm Sarah.”
“Fuck you!”
“And I’m her momma. You know I’d never let you hurt her.”
“You tricked me,” he moaned, hands pressed against his head. “Get out of my head. Get out!”
“I didn’t trick you. I can’t help it if you’re weak. Untie me, Daniel. Untie me now.”
He shook his head fiercely, spittle flying from his lips.
“Untie me, Daniel. Do as I say.”
He sobbed, lifted the switchblade, fell to his knees, and stared up at Rachael.
She spoke softly, gently, soothing tones she knew would have a hypnotic effect. They always had before; Daniel was easy to manipulate. Now that Sarah was safe, nothing else mattered. “Do as I say, Daniel. Come on…”
“No!” he screamed, fingers digging into his eyes. “Get out of my head!”
The whispering never stopped; the incessant direction Rachael gave him. He tried to crawl away but she wouldn’t let him. Now she was inside him, was tickling his brain with her feather whispers.
“Good try, Daniel. You almost had me this time. But you never should have taken my gag off.” She had made him forget her power… had done what he�
�d asked because she knew he would succumb. Made him believe he was in control. But she knew she would win.
She always did.
Daniel tried to crawl away.
“You’re not getting away that easily,” Rachael said.
“Go to hell,” he whispered, and with trembling hands he landed heavily on top of the butcher knife, forcing it into his chest. He slumped forward on top of it.
“Damn,” Rachael said, shaking her head.
“Is he dead?”
“No, not yet. But almost. It’s too late for him.”
“Oh.”
“Be a good girl and pull the knife out of Daddy so you can cut me loose.”
Sarah pushed her father onto his side and wrenched the blade from his chest. He moaned and his fingers twitched, but other than that there was no movement.
“You knew I was here the whole time?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, but I couldn’t tell where. And he wouldn’t let me talk. I think hurting you sent him off the deep end. It finally opened his mind to me.”
“Ohhhhh,” Sarah said, as if discovering the secrets of the ages. “Did he do mean things to you too?”
“Yes, sweetheart, but it’s over now, and—” Rachael massaged her wrists, which had gone numb from being bound. She checked Sarah’s wound. A good chunk of the nose had been sliced off, but it would heal. It would be as if had never been injured at all.
Rachael finished the thought. “And he can never hurt us again.”
The child stared at Rachael’s damaged breasts. She pointed where the nipple had been. “That didn’t grow back. Why did you let him do those things to you?”
“I had to, so he would lead me to you. He had to believe I was afraid, that I felt I was in danger. I had to create a comfort level for him. Believe me, it was disgusting. But I’ll heal. The nipple… call it collateral damage. Sometimes things don’t grow back. But you’re young; you’ll heal.”
Rachael examined Daniel’s body. Daniel stared at her through one open blood-tinged eye. “Damn. Still not dead?”