BONES

by Yolanda Olson

  A quick glance down at Verona’s chest shows me that she’s slowing down. Her life is draining from her, most likely because of the suffocation, but I’ll let Laura believe that she granted her mercy by fucking her faster than I wanted her to. I’ll let her believe that in all of the blood and madness, that she did a good thing.

  Another minute ticks by. Laura is getting tired, Verona is almost cold, but I enjoy watching, so I don’t tell her that she’s left us already. Instead, I let her continue for another thirty seconds, before I wave her back.

  “Enough. It’s over,” I say quietly.

  “Get this fucking thing off of me!” she screams as she frantically starts to undo the straps.

  “Did you enjoy it?” I ask her curiously as I run my hands over Verona’s hair.

  “No, I didn’t fucking enjoy it!” she shrieks at me. “You’re completely sick! You’re crazy!”

  And that’s all it takes really.

  I move Verona’s head gently off of my lap and kiss her forehead. I climb off of the side of the bed and walk toward the end where Laura stands, arms wrapped around herself, and body shaking terribly.

  I reach down for the device from where she’s dropped it on the ground and stand quickly. A handful of her hair is now wrapped around my fist.

  “I’m not crazy,” I reply calmly as I ram the soiled blade down her throat.

  Chapter Twelve

  My hands are folded behind my head as I lay on my bed. It took me about twenty minutes to get back home—much faster than it took to get there—and I’m taking the time to reflect on what I saw moments ago.

  Priscilla is angry with me. Not for what I’ve done to Verona, Joseph and their mother, but for what I’ve done to Laura. She scolded me like a child, telling me it’s hard to find trustworthy people to work for her and that it had taken her about a year to find Laura.

  I promised her compensation before I left in any manner she wanted, which she promptly took me up on. I still feel dirty from how quickly she dropped onto her knees, wrapped her slimy lips around my cock, and sucked until I exploded in her mouth.

  I did it as fast as I could. Normally, I enjoy little sexually gratifying things like that, but not from her.

  Not ever from her.

  I decided as soon as I got home that it would most likely be years before I’d go back. The shame of letting her touch me in the way that she did to pay off a debt that really shouldn’t have been mine to bear, completely fucked with my head and I hated it.

  So, as I lay here, I close my eyes and attempt to keep those thoughts away. I want to fill my head with the artistry of a slaughtered family. The birth of a beautiful child that I was able to hold for a few moments, and the end of a girl that held no love in her heart for anyone other than herself.

  Verona’s screams will stay with me for a while, but I can always take solace in knowing that Joseph went into the afterlife loved and with a name. I can assure myself that I fulfilled the mother’s wishes and gave her what she wanted; an exquisite death.

  I run my hand roughly over my face. I can’t get the thought of Priscilla, or the feel of her mouth wrapped around me to secede. Maybe I should begin with the bricks now. Maybe I should just give up my hopes of finding her.

  But I can’t and I won’t.

  Not yet.

  The time hasn’t come to wall myself into my home with my collection of skulls. It wouldn’t come until I was able to bring her in and make her my masterpiece. But the thoughts ... they won’t stop. They tell me that the world will be safer when I decide to stop myself. They tell me that she’ll reject me, and that if she trusted me, I would already have her here.

  Trust is fragile.

  My eyes open and I sit up. There has to be some way to get her to trust me. There has to be something I can do to prove to her that I’m not an ordinary man and that she would enjoy more than the small conversations we have when we see each other.

  With a frustrated grunt, I reach into my front pocket and pull out another cigarette. If this continues, I’ll become a regular smoker, and I’ll be forced to remove my own lungs before cancer forms to stop me.

  But that would take years.

  It won’t take me that long to find her. I just have to go out and look for her. I try to remember where I last saw her, and I’m pretty sure it was at the small organic grocery store near the strip mall.

  It makes me smile that she likes to eat healthy; she takes care of her body like I do. I ignore the fact that she had a brown fast food bag in the front seat of her car when she pulled away because it doesn’t make sense to me.

  I need things to make sense.

  Inhaling deeply, I pull my legs up to my chest and rest my arms over my knees. I try to focus on the rushing sound of blood that poured so freely from Verona.

  Was she a virgin?

  Probably not; a girl with a mouth like that, with total disregard for her family had most likely taken a cock or two in her day. Most likely at the same time.

  I should probably try to get some sleep. Maybe if I close my eyes long enough and let the visual stimulation wash over me in the darkness, when I wake up this evening the world will seem safer.

  Things might make more sense, and I can go hunting again. I can go out and find her and somehow convince her that the safest place in the world is with me.

  I can put her where she belongs, and I can stop the ever-swirling, maddening thoughts that fill me every day. I can be normal again, and once I’ve made sure that I finally have everything I’ve ever wanted, the bricks will go up.

  One by one.

  Until even the sun refuses to look at me anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Somewhere in my home there’s a phone ringing. I rarely make contact with the outside world unless I purposely choose to leave my home, so I always forget that I have one.

  And if I don’t get off of this fucking bed and find it, it will send me into one of my frantic states. It’s bad enough that I’m already fighting a spell from being awoken so rudely by the shrill sound, to lose myself into the madness so quickly wouldn’t serve to do anything but keep me locked in my home for an ungodly amount of time.

  Time is not something I care to wager on; not when there’s so much at stake. Not when there’s a world to save, a skull to take, and a tomb to encase myself in.

  Where the fuck did I put the damn thing? I’m getting closer because the ringing is becoming louder the more I walk through my home, but I have no idea where one would even put a phone they rarely use.

  Standing in the doorway of my living room, I look around and sigh heavily. Usually, I’m not one to quit anything, but when I realize that I had apparently turned on the television on the way to my room, for whatever reason, I find my enigma has resolved itself.

  I walk in and grab the remote control from the coffee table and use the power button to turn it off before I sit in my usual place on the couch. The place where I can look at my accomplishments thus far and reflect on what I’ve done, and hope for the possible future ahead of me.

  I’m becoming frustrated and that won’t do. I just need to sit here, relax, and look at cabinet. I need to focus on what I know I’m capable of doing and just do it.

  I’m almost in my zone when there’s a knock on the door. Who the fuck could that possibly be? No one I know ever comes to see me, not that I know many people who can tolerate being around me for too long.

  Most of them think my cabinet houses macabre props and for the most part, they don’t ask questions. I haven’t seen my mother in years and I’m not exactly sure who my father is; not that I care.

  Actually, now that the thought is walking quietly through my mind, I’m pretty sure I have an idea who he is, but that serves no purpose to me so I leave it be.

  The knock comes again, louder this time; more persistent in its rhythm and I stop walking.

  I don’t like to be rushed.

  Whoever is on the other side of the door will now have to wait an extra t
en seconds.

  Patience is a virtue.

  I possess the virtue of patience, and I expect those that wish to be near me to have the same. Once I’ve counted to ten, I proceed walking toward the door. I could glance out the side curtain to see who it is, but as I’ve stated before, I like surprises.

  I wonder who it is.

  I pull the door open quickly and groan inwardly. It’s Priscilla. I don’t want to know why she’s here, because if she’s come for another go at sucking my cock, I’m going to snap, take her skull, and crush it under a hammer. I didn’t want her in my home, let alone in my cabinet.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, stepping out and blocking the doorway.

  “I was debating about whether I should come here at all,” she starts slowly and so quietly that I almost lean forward to hear her better.

  “Okay. So why are you here?” I repeat.

  “I have a bill. For what it will cost to clean your room after what you did in there. I didn’t know the extent of it until I walked in, Mr. Burress. It looked like an animal had mauled them to death,” she said, her eyes darting up into mine nervously.

  “I’ve already paid you,” I replied through grit teeth.

  Deep breath in. And out.

  In.

  And out.

  “That wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough for what you did to that poor family,” she says as she takes a step back and darts her serpentine tongue over her thin, slimy lips.

  It takes me a moment to control myself. It takes two more to keep myself from cringing and remembering how late last night, that mouth I detested so much had been wrapped around my dick sucking vigorously.

  “Just give me the amount and I’ll come by later and pay it,” I reply irritably. I had subjected myself to her grotesque mouth for no reason. I’d pay her alright; in pain and blood.

  Priscilla shakes her head sadly. “I not sure that I can allow you back into my establishment, Mr. Burress. It’s a shame because you were such a great addition, but if you can’t learn to control yourself, I can’t let you come back.”

  I smile.

  I had no plans of going back anytime soon, but now she’s issued a challenge. One that I’ll gladly accept.

  “Then allow me to invite you into mine,” I reply, turning to the side and gesturing inside my home.

  She hesitates, but only for a moment.

  As she walks in, I close the door securely behind her, turning the lock into place. I still haven’t decided if she’ll walk out as she walked in.

  Whole.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I subdue her almost immediately. I don’t appreciate her being here, and I don’t think she’ll have much to say once I’m done with her anyway. She’s already seen what I’m capable of, and what I plan on doing to her will make her too afraid to talk anyway.

  I already know how to keep her from screaming, which is always the first task of any burden I undertake. But with Priscilla, it will be much more meaningful.

  Her body is not something I care to preserve as I drag her, unconscious, through my home and toward my cellar. I’ve missed my freezing room, and it only pains me that she’s the first to be there in months. That room has only ever been used when I planned on keeping a treasure to place in my cabinet, but it would have to do for now.

  While I have said that I don’t work in my home, or let blood be spilled in it, I don’t consider my underground freezer to be part of my home. It’s my room to fulfill secret desires that no one else would ever understand and, as such, I have learned to separate the two.

  With a sigh, I open the cellar door and roll her body down the stairs. Maybe she’ll snap her neck on the way down and save herself some pain. Maybe she won’t. Either way, I plan on going through with what’s already dancing through my mind.

  I pull the door closed behind me as I walk down the wooden steps. I tell myself for the hundredth time that I have to rip the stairs out and replace them with concrete but I also must find the time to allot for that.

  It’s definitely not today.

  My project is already lying on the dusty cement floor moaning. I roll my eyes as I walk toward the freezer door and use my strength to pry it open. There’s a simpler way to do it, I’m sure, but I like to assert my standing as the man of the house in front of whomever is going in. No better way to do that than to show that I’m much stronger than they would most likely assume me to be.

  “In you go,” I say as I walk over to her crumpled body and lift her up into my arms. I take my steps into the freezer and kick the door closed behind us.

  I do hope the door opens when I attempt to leave. I’ve almost been stuck in here once, but that was because I wasn’t careful with how I closed the door; much like I just did now.

  I’ll worry about that when I am done with her. Placing her on the cold, steel table, I put my hands on the edge of it and wait for her to come back to the current moment at hand.

  I never begin unless they’re aware of what’s to come. They need to feel every ounce of pain to fully appreciate the art they become, and even though she’ll never be a favorite work of mine, she’ll be remembered.

  They all are.

  “Priscilla,” I say softly, “It’s time to wake up now.”

  She groans again, her head rolling from right to left. I find myself wondering why they do that. What about pain makes us roll our heads on our necks? Is it a coping mechanism? Is it just something to do? Why does it annoy me so much?

  “Priscilla,” I say in a sterner voice.

  She begins to blink rapidly, trying desperately to focus her eyes. I don’t mind waiting, because as I’ve said, patience is a virtue.

  Her eyes squint at the hanging light above her. I never turn it off, even when I’m done in this room. I like the illumination, and it helps sometimes when I have a headache, as strange as it may sound.

  She rolls her head again before finally letting her eyes travel up my body until they reach my face.

  “Are you awake now?” I ask gently.

  She attempts to sit up and then tries to roll off the side of the table. She doesn’t realize that there’s nowhere to go. But they all do that.

  It’s the basic human instinct—to survive.

  And it’s my basic human instinct to kill that hope as quickly as possible. However, I will allow Priscilla a few moments to try to find her way out of the room.

  I have to prepare myself after all.

  “I’ve always hated your mouth,” I say as I turn my back to her. Somewhere in this old, wooden tool chest should be some twine. Ah! There it is!

  “Your lips remind me of two slugs that have had salt poured onto them and are curling up and dying. Has anyone else ever told you that? How unpleasant your mouth is?” I ask as I continue to look in the tool chest for ...

  Got it.

  “Mr. Burress! Just tell me what I have to do to get out of here in one piece. I promise I won’t go to the police, and I promise I won’t tell anyone anything,” she tries to bargain.

  I chuckle.

  They all have bargains.

  “You’ll live through this if you decide to play along,” I reply as I turn around to face her. It takes me a moment to find her cowering in the far left corner and I shake my head.

  “Please come back to the table,” I request softly. I find that using a kind tone usually helps; not always, but usually.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she asks, holding her hands up.

  I’ve never seen a larger display of cowardice from someone who makes a living on pain. It’s starting to frustrate me, but I can control it this time.

  “I’m going to help you,” I reply simply, setting the twine, the shears, and some gauze on the table. “But you have to come back to me right now before I lose the moment of generosity I’m feeling.”

  Priscilla gets to her feet. Her eyes are wild as she scans for an escape. I can’t fault her. I wouldn’t show fear in a moment like this, but she’s nothing li
ke me. She’s a pretender to pain—a false prophet of unimaginable pleasure.

  I’ll show her what it’s like to worship in a true moment of ecstasy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fifteen minutes. That’s how long it’s taken me to coax her to the fucking table, and I’m able to contain my livid feelings quite well. I intend to keep my word and let her live, but there are some alterations that are needed before I let her go, and I will not let her leave until I’ve been able to make them.

  “There you go. Sit on the table facing me, please,” I say as patiently as I can. Her lips are trembling; they taunt me as they quiver, and I take pride in knowing that I can control my urge to use the shears to impale her against the table.

  It would be an unnecessary thing to do, and I only act out of necessity.

  “I want you to know something before I do this,” I say to her as I pick up the sheers. “I’ve always had a distaste for what you do. Yes, I enjoy going there from time to time, but to have such intimate and beautifully tortuous moments come with a price tag is uncouth. No one should ever have to pay for experiencing a rapture as such.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, her lips trembling slightly harder, and I cringe.

  “Your apology is well received. Now I need you to do your best not to scream,” I reply kindly as I put a hand under her chin. “And try not to move too much; God knows where these will end up if I slip.”

  A blubbering sob escapes her mouth. I sigh and give her a stern look.

  “I’m rather low on twine and don’t want to have to sew your lips together. Now please sit still.”

  Priscilla closes her eyes tightly as I place the sheers around the edge of her mouth. It should only take one snip ... Ah! Easier than I thought.

  Her lips tumble down her chest and land on her lap—a bloody mess, but at least in their full respectable pieces. You should probably know that they look worse when they’re not connected to the rest of her face, but I’ll remedy this shortly.

  I won’t look at her.

  Not yet.

  I don’t want to have nightmares of what a face looks like without lips attached. I imagine the hole that she spews her words out of are now baring her teeth and that’s enough for me. Looking at it would only serve to do one of two things: either I would vomit, or I would become engrossed in what she looks like and proceed to flay her.