by Lee, Edward
“Help me, Gus.”
Fuck.
| — | — |
Exclusive
————
Randy Chandler
Transcript:
REPORTER: This is Richard Decker, investigative journalist, formerly with The New Orleans Bugle, now freelance. Today is the 20th day of October, 2016. With me is a woman known to me only as Selene. She contacted me via email three days ago after reading an article I co-wrote with Gerald Horner (now deceased) on the subject of an underground phenomenon sometimes referred to as Painfreak. Also present is Selene’s, uh, escort—
SELENE: Bodyguard. Otto.
REPORTER: Otto, her bodyguard.
SELENE: And don’t forget my babies, Isis and Osiris.
REPORTER: And her two…Doberman Pinschers, sitting like statues on her left and right.
SELENE: Beautiful, are they not?
REPORTER: Yes, and maybe a bit intimidating.
SELENE: They are such sweethearts, our noble guardians.
REPORTER: [clears throat] Per prearranged agreement, I met Otto in the French Quarter where I was blindfolded and brought here to this apparently abandoned warehouse to meet you face to face. I was not allowed to bring my cell phone because of its GPS capability. The first obvious question is, why do you think such cloak-and-dagger measures are necessary?
SELENE: Like the fictional Fight Club, the first rule of Painfreak is: You do not talk about Painfreak, not publically. But Painfreak is not fiction. It is demonstrably, painfully real. The second rule of Painfreak is: Break the first rule and you will be silenced, permanently.
REPORTER: So, you actually believe that by playing the role of whistleblower and exposing the truth of Painfreak you will be placing your life in danger?
SELENE: Absolutely. No question about it. Painfreak has eyes everywhere. Eyes that see those things that want to remain hidden. Occult eyes that see deep into the dark, under the covers, behind the fog, beyond supposed stealth. They could be watching us right now, Mr. Decker. When your story appeared in the newspaper, you no doubt fell under their watchful gaze as well. If not before then. Your article revealed a bit more than has ever been brought to light, which is why I contacted you. Painfreak won’t be happy about that.
REPORTER: Why take the risk then? Why put your life in danger to further expose this thing called Painfreak?
SELENE: This patch over my eye? I don’t wear it to be radically chic or to appear dangerously fashionable. I wear it because they took my eye. Look. You see what’s behind the patch.
REPORTER: An empty socket.
SELENE: And that is not all they took from me. My left hand? How many fingers do you see?
REPORTER: One.
SELENE: Precisely one. The rest are stubs. And you see which one they left whole. The middle finger. My hand is Painfreak’s sign-language message for “Fuck the world!” And that is exactly what it does. Painfreak fucks the world by drawing the sickest fucks to itself, offering them all manner of perversions and depravities, giving it to them in spades, in blood, in pounds of flesh, titillation, mutilation, humiliation, castration, degradation. And when it suits, assassination. What most of the sick fucks don’t know until it’s too late is that they all have to pay the piper sooner or later. Painfreak takes it out in trade, and it trades in flesh. In blood and guts. Blood suckers and blood fuckers. Painfreak sucks the spirit dry like the psychic vampire it is. The ones that survive are the true Hollow People, empty inside except for their addiction to all the horrors Painfreak has to offer. And it always offers more. It is a veritable wellspring of carnal horrors, an ingenious source of darkest deviations, ever capable of devising unspeakably innovative methods of torturous atrocities.
REPORTER: So, your motivation is…revenge.
SELENE: What do you think, Mr. Decker? See what else Painfreak took from me?
REPORTER: You don’t—My God, that’s…they removed your breast.
SELENE: Only the one. They left the other as a lonely reminder, to mock me with its asymmetry. As you can see, I had lovely tits.
REPORTER: I’m sorry.
SELENE: And surely you can tell by this hideous scarring that this was not done by any kind of surgeon. No physician would botch an operation with this sort of butchery.
REPORTER: I should hope not.
SELENE: It was done by one of Painfreak’s own, a dapper man in a brown suit, expensive shoes, a butcher’s apron and a taste for torture. Not that I am a mere innocent victim of Painfreak. I dealt out my share of pain and suffering in my earlier excursions there. I saw much worse than I dished out and I confess I found all of it to be most stimulating. But after they subtracted vital parts of my anatomy, I had a very rude awakening. I didn’t so much mind losing my fingers but when they eventually took my eye and my breast, it was as if I’d come out of an epic trance, horrified by what was done to me and also at what I had done to others. In a sense, I could see better with one eye than with two. And I saw that this is what I have to do. I have to spill the beans about all the spilled guts and blood, the lives ruined, all of it. An atonement of sorts. You see?
REPORTER: Yes. I understand. But how exactly will you expose Painfreak? Won’t it take more than going public in an interview? What will you do to make anyone believe you? That Painfreak article I did was little better than filler for the Features Desk, rumors and unsubstantiated speculation about a bizarre urban legend. Nobody really took it seriously. My editor certainly didn’t. That’s why I left the Bugle. According to my editor, that piece was on a par with pure tabloid journalism. What can you offer as proof that it’s all true? Pardon the cliché but you have to show where the bodies are buried. Don’t you?
SELENE: That’s where you come in. Isn’t it obvious?
REPORTER: What do you mean?
SELENE: How far would you be willing to go for the most sensational story of your life? As you say, it will take more than an interview. With your consent, I will be your escort and take you into the bowels of the beast so you can see for yourself. Because you have good credentials as a respected journalist, people will be more apt to believe you. What do you say, Mr. Decker? Are you ready to experience Painfreak firsthand?
REPORTER: I, uh, I suppose I would have to be. But what’s the risk? Won’t it be dangerous for you to go back? What if they want to take more vital parts of your body? If they have eyes everywhere, what if they already know you plan to go public?
SELENE: That’s why I have Otto. Of course, Painfreak could easily dispatch him in a heartbeat if it so desired. I’ve seen bigger men than him mercilessly impaled. Christ, Vlad himself couldn’t have done a better job of it! But Otto is tolerated because he has a talent for mayhem. Unleashed, he’s a berserker on rampage. Painfreak brings out the unholy beast in him. But he is completely loyal to me. He would die to protect me. But he won’t have to. I honestly believe Painfreak has taken all it wants of me. I trust my instincts on that. And I would know if they were already onto me. I have a sixth sense for such things. And you, Mr. Decker, as a first-timer, should be fine. They didn’t start cutting on me until my tenth visit. That was when they took my fingers. The only thing you have to worry about is how you will handle seeing all the things you will see in there. It can be…extremely traumatizing for the average person.
REPORTER: I’ve been on assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve seen my share of slaughter.
SELENE: That may serve as something of an inoculation but I promise you that nothing in your experience has prepared you for what you will experience in Painfreak. No human is ever immune.
REPORTER: OK.
SELENE: But before we enter, I should give you a little more background.
REPORTER: Wait. You don’t mean we’re going today.
SELENE: Of course we are. The longer we wait, the greater the chance we have of being discovered. Sorry to spring it on you with no warning but this is the safest way. Do you mind if I smoke?
REPORTER: No, no, go ahead. I w
ould too if I hadn’t quit.
SELENE: Otto? Cigarette please.
[lighter clicks, a flame flutters, fanning air]
SELENE: [exhaling] Thank you. We are at a crossroads, my friend. Literally and metaphorically. This warehouse stands on the site of a legendary crossroads where several historic personages are said to have come in moonlight to make deals with the Devil. The Creole witch Marie Laveau is said to have found her way into Painfreak on this very spot. She later ran a brothel with a secret room that led directly to Painfreak. I don’t know if all that is fact or part of it urban legend but I do know that Laveau was more than a witch, she was a Voodoo priestess. And I know that door to your left is an entrance to Painfreak. But first, the background I spoke of.
The place—if it can be called a place—has had many names. Down the dirty years it was often called Mermaid Inn, after the alehouse in East Sussex, England, favored by bloodthirsty cut-throats and smugglers in the 1700s because of its secret passages and tunnels they used to escape the law. The original Mermaid Inn was a mysterious portal to this place we now call Painfreak. And we mustn’t forget the Hellfire Clubs in 18th Century London and Ireland. It was said they worshiped the Devil, but they maintained that they themselves were the devils.
In ancient times Painfreak was known in various languages as the Underworld. As I’m sure you know, many cultures have their versions of some form of an underworld, be it myth or religion—if there’s any difference. It wasn’t until late last century that the name Painfreak came into use, thanks in part to the works of a horror writer working the underbelly of his chosen genre. Odd thing is, he got an amazing lot of it right. No doubt his muse had Painfreak roots. No telling what it will be called a couple of hundred years from now. Something suitable to the times, but not too trendy. Something unexpected but apropos—apropos in unexpected ways. Whatever it wants to call itself, that’s what it will be.
It’s important to remember that Painfreak is not static. It changes moment to moment, time to time. You’ve looked into a kaleidoscope? The little telescope-like toy that shows you shapes in a variety of colorful patterns, all done with colored bits of glass and tiny mirrors? Painfreak is like that. It presents a kaleidoscope of carnage with ever-changing gut-wrenching displays of depravity and daemonic mosaics, interlocking the sacred and the profane. Unlike a kaleidoscope, it isn’t an illusion. Painfreak is not a smoke-and-mirror magic trick. It is an actual materialization. A dimensional manifestation. Or as I like to think of it: a metaphysical infestation. Which is how it can appear anywhere, at any time, with entrances all over the world if you know how to find them and gain access.
Sex is the usual hook for newbies. No matter what your perversion or weird fetish, Painfreak provides satisfaction. Whether you have a taste for pain or the desire to dish it out, you can get what you need. Gangbangs, rape, buggery, torture, bestiality? No problem. You like to fuck kids; you can do that without fear of judgment or incarceration. Snuff your thing? You can see it live. You can do the snuffing yourself if you find the right room. I once saw a woman fucked to death by a horse. That stallion’s huge cock tore her up. I wish I’d never seen that, that poor skanky chick disemboweled by a horse dick. I still have nightmares. That was when I was getting pretty deep into it.
The deeper you go into Painfreak, the more otherworldly it gets. Some believe it’s a playground for gods and demons and other unearthly beings. After all I’ve seen there I don’t doubt it. It would explain a lot.
REPORTER: If all you say is true, what good would it do to expose it to the public? Painfreak can’t simply be shut down. Can it?
SELENE: You do understand. And you are right, Painfreak runs itself. It doesn’t rely on any governing body or board members or such a thing. It isn’t run by people. It runs people, uses them to suit its needs as it satisfies the needs of those it runs. The most I can hope to accomplish is to simply warn people about it and make them understand how dangerous it is.
REPORTER: Yes, but by going public with all the grisly details, might you not also end up attracting more twisted souls to Painfreak? The sick fucks, as you call them, a new generation of sick fucks who otherwise might never have heard about it? Aren’t you concerned that you might be doing Painfreak’s bidding, playing right into its hands?
SELENE: Very good, Mr. Decker. I have thought of that. I weighed it carefully, for days, and in the end I concluded that it is a worthy tradeoff. Warning away the innocents is my main goal in this. Any twisted souls and sick sadistic fucks our exposé might attract will eventually be used up by Painfreak, in one way or another. I’ve seen more than one murdering sadist become possessed by demons. And trust me, Painfreak does not have on-call exorcists standing by to cast them out. Those possessed pawns burn brightly for a time, outdoing themselves in brutalizing others but in the end their own bodies are much worse for the wear and tear. The end up rotting in their own foul juices, their souls already dead, bodies falling apart piece by piece.
[a dog growls]
Hush Osiris! He always gets a little agitated when we are about to breach the realm to which he and Isis stand as guardians. There, there’s a good boy. Yes, he is.
I think that’s enough background for you. So, unless you have any further questions, Mr. Decker, shall we make our entrance?
REPORTER: No, I do have a few more questions.
SELENE: Fire away then.
REPORTER: The people—the victims—used in the, uh, killing rooms, where do they come from? How do they end up at Painfreak? Are they abducted off the street, out of their homes?
SELENE: I don’t have unlimited knowledge of the way Painfreak keeps things going. I doubt any human does. But based on what I’ve seen, it’s clear to me that some are lured in by deceptive means. With kids it would be easy. With hookers even easier. Junkies, ditto. What I’m saying is that I don’t believe Painfreak does what it does outside of Painfreak. All the wet stuff happens within. Though it may sometime spill over into the world outside.
REPORTER: Wet stuff? You mean—
SELENE: The sex, the torture, the bleeding, the killing. The spilled bodily fluids. Painfreak is supremely cunning. Seemingly supernaturally so. If it wants to lure you in, it will find a way. Everybody has a weakness.
REPORTER: And Painfreak finds just the right hook.
SELENE: Exactly. What’s the matter, Mr. Decker? You look worried.
REPORTER: Shouldn’t I be?
SELENE: Not if you do what I say. When we get inside, follow my lead. The less you say the better. You are my guest so I will be responsible for you. Whatever you may see, whatever you may hear, never interfere with anyone’s activity, no matter how shocking or disgusting it may seem to you. Understood?
REPORTER: Understood.
SELENE: Good! It’s time to go. Otto, the door please. Of course, this is not the door to Painfreak. It is the door to the door to Painfreak. You’ll see. The actual door is a thing to behold, an oak-and-iron beauty worthy of a great castle.
[loud click, door creaks open]
REPORTER: So…we just…
SELENE: Walk right in. I’m afraid you will have to leave your recording device behind. Such things are strictly taboo in there. And when you first enter, don’t be alarmed by the uncanny sensation of the world folding up around you. It passes rather quickly. Then you will receive your mark and we will proceed to the dark heart of Painfreak. And your life will never be the same.
[rustling, bumping sounds, as something brushes against microphone]
[dogs barking, then whining]
[footsteps echoing, fading to silence]
End of transcript
NEW ORLEANS BUGLE
October 25, 2016
More Body Parts Found Near French Quarter
Sanitation workers discovered human remains behind the Voodoo Lounge on Rampart Street Tuesday morning, and police say the severed foot and limbless torso may be matched to other body parts recently found several blocks away on Canal Street, including
a hand and an ear. Investigators said that the dismembered parts appeared to be that of a man and that the rate of decomposition indicated that the mutilation happened recently.
THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
November 1, 2016
Dismembered Man Identified After Severed Head Found
Body parts discovered in several locations in the French Quarter and the historic Tremé neighborhood have been positively identified as reporter Richard Decker. His head was found by a groundskeeper in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, at the tomb of infamous Voodoo queen Marie Laveau.
Investigators declined to speculate on the alleged Voodoo theme suggested by the fact that the victim’s limbless torso, severed foot and penis were discovered days earlier behind the Voodoo Lounge, adding that they had found no evidence that Mr. Decker was ever seen inside the nightspot.