Ruthless: An Extreme Shock Horror Collection

by Shane McKenzie

  She spun around, dropping the phone. Her breath caught in her throat like a sharp fish bone. But no one was there. A cold chill ran through her and she shuddered.

  Quickly she bent down and picked up the phone, nearly grabbing onto a fat rat in the process, and dialed 911.

  “Now...You’ll die...” rasped that same grim voice from behind her. A voice she knew all too well by now. It was his voice. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was coming from the kitchen. But she turned anyway.

  “911 Emergency. How may I help you?” a woman’s voice said from the phone.

  Cindy couldn’t answer. She stepped forward, eyes wide and focused on the archway leading in to the kitchen. Her heart sped to an alarming pace in her chest.

  “Hello? Anyone there? Hello?” the woman’s voice called out from the phone, sounding a bit concerned now.

  “Gonna getcha, Cindy. Gonna eat your ovaries. Yum-yum,” the voice from the kitchen hissed.

  “No,” Cindy moaned.

  “Hello? Hello? Who is this please? You’ve reached 911 Emergen—”

  But Cindy no longer heard the woman on the other end of the phone. All her attention narrowed towards the kitchen where his voice spoke from.

  But there’s no way he got out without me hearing. No way at all, she thought absently. She waited for a long time, just standing there and staring at the archway. The 911 dispatch woman had hung up a couple minutes ago and now the phone was braying at her in that annoying tone.

  Something clanked in the kitchen. A pan, perhaps, being set on a stove. Or, and Cindy feared this most of all, a knife being set out for cutting purposes. Cindy gulped down a whine in her throat and took an unconscious step forward.

  “Oh Cindy, you’ve been a bad, bad, little girl...” hissed that maddening voice.

  She snapped out of her little trance and by that time she had nearly made it to the archway. She had been walking unconsciously towards that voice. The phone was still making that irritating racket and she pushed the TALK button again. The phone turned off. Backing away from the archway now, she realized she was sweating. Sweating badly by the feel. A rat skittered between her feet without notice. Shaking her head she pushed the TALK button and dialed 911 again. This time it was a man’s voice that answered, strong and very stern sounding to her left ear.

  “911 Emergency. Please identify—”

  Cindy cut the man off in an explosion of panic.

  “You got to help us! Please! We’re trapped in this house. He’s...He’s—”

  “Cindy...” that familiar evil voice taunted. “Oh, Cindy. I’m so hungry. So hungry...So—”

  “Hello? Miss? You there? Miss?” The man’s voice on the other end of the phone sounded more than frightened now. All that authority seemed to have been vaporized.

  Both voices reverberated inside her head, mingling and merging and then bouncing all over.

  “No.” She moaned again and hung up the phone without realizing it.

  “Oh so tasty you’ll be…Those juicy ovaries...Yum.”

  A shadow passed across the archway and the phone fell from her trembling left hand. She shrieked in terror at what she had just seen. Laughter, his laughter, cackled out at her from somewhere in the kitchen. Another clanking noise then everything fell quiet. Cindy sucked in a breath, gritted her teeth, and walked to the archway, her eyes darting. Her fear was at its undeniable peak, but still she kept moving. It was time to face her fate. It was either that or insanity.

  She stepped into the kitchen cautiously, preparing herself for a fist in the face or worse, a knife in the neck. Her eyes tried to dart everywhere at once. But there was nothing in the kitchen. Nothing but the boiled body parts and that rank smell.

  “What—” she began and a freezing chill blew into her. She whirled in its direction, but again nothing was there. I’m losing it. She thought. I’m losing it.

  ***

  She gave in to her curiosity and opened the bathroom door. A large meat cutting knife she had swiped from the kitchen held shakily in her left hand. But he lay as before. His face smashed against the grimy tiles, his body sprawled and lifeless. She was pretty sure he was dead now. Unless she had managed to knock him completely comatose, which she doubted, but yet had her suspicions. She waited for maybe two more minutes just staring down at him, ready from him to spring up and get her. But he lay limp on the floor and still his back did not rise and fall to indicate breathing. Yes, he had to be dead.

  Cindy closed the door and locked it again with the deadbolt, unaware she had done it at all. Dead and harmless now.

  Remember that, girlfriend. Dead and harmless, she thought to herself. But the fact remained she really didn’t know if he was dead or not.

  Trying to find a way out of this house was like trying to find ones way out of a giant labyrinth. She searched the house again, still finding nothing to help her open the doors. Trapped like a rat. She had heard the phrase used many times before and only now she knew the true meaning, the true feeling, of it. She had forgotten again about the phone.

  After an hour or so of pacing the house she found herself sitting down at the kitchen table, her weary eyes transfixed to the boiled human body parts. How do they taste? She wondered. Like pork? It smells a little like pork. Her stomach growled savagely at this thought and she shuddered.

  What seemed like hours, but was only about twenty minutes, passed. She heard them down there in the basement. Their voices hoarse and dry from shouting too much. It was amazing some of them could shout at all. They’ll never leave that dungeon. She thought. They were doomed from the beginning. They are already dead. Dead and doomed like she herself would be in a couple days or so if she didn’t eat or drink anything. Her eyes fell to the body parts again without thought. Her stomach growled unnoticed this time.

  “Gonna eat you, bitch. Gonna eat you all up...” rasped his voice for the hundredth time since she heard him the first.

  Cindy shook her head and lifted her eyes from the human parts on the table.

  “Think of it as exotic pork…” whispered some other voice. A new voice she had trouble placing.

  Her gorge rose and it took a tremendous effort to swallow it down.

  Pork? she thought. Oh, that’s sick. It’s just wrong, and she tried to push the thought away. And again she found herself staring down at the boiled body parts. As her eyes narrowed she noticed the prickles of black, coarse hair sticking out of the forearm. She grimaced at the sight of half cocked and yellowed toenails. These were man parts. Could they be from the man in the basement? She wondered. Did he finally die? Or did he kill him? Cindy thought the latter to be the closest.

  A cold wind blew into her and she shivered. A loud clanking noise sounded behind her. She jumped and spun around in the chair. A shadow, dark and hunched, lurched towards her.

  “I’m gonna eat ya, Cindy. Oh… I’m so hungry...” growled the shadow.

  No matter how much she wanted to get the hell out of there, she couldn’t move. She was frozen by fear. And the shadow came for her, its clawed hands clenching and unclenching. The right corner of Cindy’s mouth twitched and her face fell slack.

  “Give me those ovaries, Cindy…” snarled the awful shadow as it advanced on her.

  All she could do was close her eyes. A very sudden, frigged wind blew in to her. There was a moment of cold terror that shook her from the inside out and then...it was gone. Just like that it was gone. Her eyes popped open and she began to laugh. Then the simple laughing turned into pure hysterical gales. She pushed away from the table, doubling over and holding her thin stomach. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she barked humorless laughter at the floor. She laughed so hard she began to dry heave again.

  The insane laughing ceased as if it had never happened. Now she was all too aware just how hungry she was. Her stomach had shrunk, sure, but that didn’t mean she needed less to eat exactly. It felt as if there were a billion king crabs inside pinching at her guts. She began to giggle again at the thoug
ht of crabs. She put a sudden stop to the giggles that would surely turn into that awful barking again.

  Could they hear her down there? she wondered. Did they just hear that crazy laughing? Sure, they might have. But so what? What could they do for her? What could she do for them? Nothing, that’s what. And they could think she has gone totally coo-coo all they want. Yeah, coo-coo and then some, huh? What did it matter? Again, nothing was the answer.

  Cindy glanced around. There was nothing to eat. She hadn’t even found the bread he had fed her earlier today. She thought that he might have hidden it all away somewhere, but no matter how hard she looked she still came up with nothing. Nothing to eat, but—

  Her eyes fell to the body parts on the table. And her gorge rose once again. No. Not that. Anything but that, she thought. But then her stomach growled again.

  “Go on Cindy, eat it. Eat my food or I’ll eat you.” His voice so close to her ear she felt the heat of his breath on her lower lobe.

  Cindy whirled in the chair. But again, he wasn’t there and she didn’t notice the shadow that moved near the refrigerator. A hulking, grotesque shape that stood watching and waiting.

  She stared at the body parts now, utterly fixed upon them. Saliva welled in her mouth and her eyes widened.

  ***

  Four hours later the police finally broke through the thick steel front door and came billowing inside, shotguns and side arms drawn. All of the six that entered stopped in their tracks just a few feet from the front door. Some began waving a hand in front of their faces and grimacing. Others held their nose closed with their free fingers. The smell in the house was one of burnt flesh, hair, and a rank whiff of something they could only really associate with boiled pork...and puke of course. All these smells mingled together in one rancid stench creating a sickening soup. Even their eyes began to water because of it.

  “Ha! Gotcha, you lil’ wiggly!” screeched a woman’s dry, crackling voice up ahead, just down the short hallway in front of them.

  “Yum-Yum!” the woman cried and then came the smacking and slurping sounds.

  “Good shit!”

  The police advanced slowly, preparing themselves for what might be waiting for them past the short hallway. They all had been told it was a woman that had called in and they knew it took them longer than they thought to trace the call. For that they were at a loss. They were carefully keeping their eyes peeled for this woman who had called in. But somehow, deep inside of them, they knew the worst.

  They kept moving, their guns raised and ready. They all passed slowly by a door on both sides. One steel and the other wood. And from the steel door to their right they heard very faint shouts for help. Those people would get help soon enough. First thing first. They didn’t realize it then, but would later, that they were stepping through a pool of blood that had evidently seeped out from under the wooden door with the single deadbolt. Their focus, the small archway to the kitchen, looked too close but still they kept moving.

  Loud and raspy coughing blew out at them from the kitchen, then came several braying belches. Then the sound of thick liquid slapping to the floor.

  “Fire it up!” the woman in the kitchen screamed so suddenly some of the men jumped.

  The awful aroma grew worse with every step forward. It was like stepping into a strange dimension or another world. Each man’s heart quickened as they came forward. This was it.

  When the first three snuck to the archway they were stuck in an almost trance like stare. Mild grimaces furrowing on their faces. One, the youngest of them all, backed away, turned, and ran all the way back down the hallway and puked up his supper. Never in their entire careers had they seen such a disgusting and horrifying sight. Never. And some will leave the force because of it, unable to handle the nightmares and having to work the job at the same time.

  The woman in the kitchen paced back and forth from the stove to the table, table to stove. Her hair had been burnt off, her scalp blistered and black in most places. Her head was still smoldering. She was completely naked and smeared with blood from head to toe. Her right hand was missing and from the stump more blood spurted. Blood was everywhere. She grinned and gnawed on what looked like a human finger. Perhaps her own.

  On the stove, in a large steel pot, human body parts, feet, hands, and various other extremities, boiled and frothed. And on the table was a feast only suitable for Hannibal Lecter. A hand, fingers, what looked like a man’s bicep and toes. And laying near a blistered and boiled finger lay something half eaten. Something they would later discover as a penis.

  And still the woman with the smoldering, burnt head continued pacing back and forth, never even noticing the police officers standing and watching with disgust in the kitchen’s small archway.

  The woman, who turned out to be Susan Bright—a missing teen who had been gone for over two months, simply fell dead when one of the officers touched her. They got the other people out safely, all were horribly dehydrated. And behind the wooden door with the single deadbolt, a man, cut to pieces. Most of the pieces, and most certainly the penis, were to be the woman’s feast for the night.

  Yum-Yum.

  Your Tender Loving Touch

  By Danny Hill

  Police were baffled on responding to a call from a worried neighbor regarding the whereabouts of James Collinwood of Hartington Road, Staffordshire. The worried neighbor, an elderly lady naming herself as Mrs. Wilshaw, had remarked over the telephone that she had neither seen nor heard from Mr. Collinwood for nigh on two weeks. What worried her most, she explained, is that poor Mr. Collinwood had only lost his wife—that poor, poor man—to a dreadful illness just weeks before. The police-operator thanked Mrs. Wilshaw and commended her for her show of concern, before assuring the thoughtful neighbor that the matter would be dealt with promptly.

  Later that evening, due to a lack of response from Mr. Collinwood’s property, and also due to the concern for his mental and emotional safety, the police applied a ram to remove his front door from its hinges.

  By then, however, it was far too late.

  The team of officers, highly trained in these scenarios, searched the house and found Mr. Collinwood in his upstairs bedroom, blatantly dead. One senior officer, experienced in these matters, surmised that Mr. Collinwood had been dead for three or four days. He didn’t need the pathologist’s professional opinion to guess as much. The only light in the dingy bedroom offered itself as a pale drift from the slight gap in the dark, thick curtain fabric.

  The deceased was positioned on a double-bed, arms spread out on either side in a gesture of acceptance, dressed in light-blue-and-white striped pajamas. From the deceased’s mouth a thick blue tongue lolled out obscenely; the eyes bulging from their sockets, eternally frozen in grave terror.

  Police would later go on to report the nauseating stench of rotten meat, the overall stuffiness of the room, as though air had not been let in for days, and the copious amount of litter strewn across the carpet. It seemed as though Mr. James Collinwood had been living reclusively in the room for weeks prior to his death.

  Perhaps the most alarming thing about the scene was the discovery of a severed arm lying next to Mr. Collinwood. From where the severed limb should have met with its shoulder, the humerus bone protruded repulsively, to the other end, the hand’s nails had been manicured carefully. Beneath the nails, however, seemed to be an abundance of dirt. On witnessing the tableau, one younger officer turned distinctly pale and promptly vomited. Detectives would later discover the arm had once belonged to the deceased’s dead wife.

  But perhaps the most baffling aspect of all to detectives investigating the case was the subsequent coroner’s report, which delivered a verdict of death to Mr. James Collinwood by strangulation. There had been no evidence of any third-party involvement at the scene: no signs of forced entry, no statements from any residents of Hartington Road that indicated Mr. Collinwood had any other friends visit his house over the course of the few weeks leading up to his death.
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  Baffled, after weeks and weeks of intense investigation, fruitlessly trying to fit together the pieces of the last weeks of Mr. Collinwood’s life, the police delivered the verdict of suicide by manual strangulation and closed the case. But certain questions remained open, and the mystery would cloud Staffordshire Police’s detectives for years to come.

  ***

  Grief can be highly underestimated. Although the death of a loved one affects all of us, for others the absolute grief can mean the final weight to tip the balance into insanity. Words of comfort and well-meaning platitudes simply do not cut it. Some people will go to strange and extraordinary lengths to regain what has been cruelly taken away.

  It had been almost a week since the death of his wife. James Collinwood stared down at the dead body of his wife, positioned elegantly in her coffin. The funeral director had done a remarkable job. Barbara’s peaceful expression in death seemed so appropriate, thought James, such a faithful testament to the woman she was in life. Barbara had eventually lost her brave year-long battle against a particularly virulent brain tumor. During the latter days of her fight, Barbara had seemed almost unrecognizable from his wife of twenty-four years. It had pained him just to look at her.

  Yes, the undertaker had done a remarkable job preserving her. James reached for her hand, noted its coolness, the alabaster complexion of them; her nails had been manicured and painted immaculately red, just as he‘d specifically required. James lowered his head softly and lifted his wife’s hand to the side of his face, closed his eyes.

  Close family members and friends, all dressed in black, lowered their heads in respect. The coffin was placed in the center of James’s cluttered living room. The well-wishers sat around the perimeter of the room on sofas, cramped together on armchairs and perched on hard-backed plastic chairs borrowed from the nearby village hall, balancing delicate teacups and saucers on their knees precariously; the rattle of china and the hum of nearby traffic the only distractions to a tenuous air of tranquility. The pale afternoon sunshine forced itself through the room’s tiny window; dust motes danced frenetically in its glare.