by Stuart Keane
An image of his wife popped into his head.
His wife was stunning, as always, and for the hundredth time today he thought how much he didn’t deserve someone so gorgeous, caring and loving. He pictured in his mind’s eye how her dark hair fell across her face, always graceful, giving her an air of innocence, but a sultry look at the same time. Her thin but fit body was to die for, her muscles enhancing her figure perfectly. He had liked her eyes on their first date and then grown to like other small parts of her body; like couples do. Her cheeks, her neck, her toes, the back of her knees and her shoulders. Many a time, cuddling up to her after an unsuccessful day’s job hunting he had thought to himself: As long as I can come home to this, who cares? And a lot of the time he also thought: How much longer can this last? As he stared into her eyes she probably guessed his thoughts, but she had not once complained, although he had heard her cry herself to sleep on occasion. He hated himself for upsetting her like that.
Francisco opened his eyes.
He saw her bound to a chair with a deep laceration across her forehead. Blood had curdled in her hair, making it stand up on the left hand side, and dry blood caked the right side of her face.
Seeing her like that made him want to take his Beretta and shoot himself.
The cruel gag across her mouth stopped her from even saying anything to reassure him and the rough rope that bound her feet to the chair legs and her arms behind her back, upset him even more. She wore only a set of white knickers and a bra to match: her sleeping attire. They had obviously abducted his family while they were sleeping. Her Caesarean scar was flecked with black specks of dried blood. He loved that scar, it gave her a vulnerable look. He thought he’d lost her that day. It was a reminder that they could overcome anything, against the odds. He remembered stroking it on many a night. He closed his eyes.
An image of his daughter popped into his head.
She had been the spitting image of her mother, with the same hair, the same eyes and the same bubbly outlook on life. The child had inherited his genes too though, her skin being a glorious bronze, which only made her look more radiant. He knew his daughter would grow up to break hearts and win awards. A girl who totally adored going to school, liked learning and getting the grades she came home proud to boast about. And she deserved all those good achievements. He knew the reason his marriage still survived was her. The love and adoration of her parents was obviously the reason she was performing so well in life. Why jeopardise that? He had planned to speak to his wife about it sometime soon. Now it looked as if he wouldn’t get the chance.
“Open your eyes, you fuck, look at what you did to your family!” yelled the intruder. “Take a good look.”
Francisco opened his eyes once more.
Seeing his daughter bound in the same way as her mother was made his heart ache. Her innocent face was almost hidden behind another tight gag that hid half of her face, and was probably partly smothering. Her legs were tied to the chair, just as her mother’s were. Thankfully she had been dressed in a blue set of teddy-bear pyjamas when she had gone to sleep. He noticed that they were ripped at the left shoulder, but at least she was dressed.
Their names? Amy De Goya, married, devoted mother and photojournalist, and Sadie De Goya, seven years of age, educational genius-to-be. Both of them were crying piteously.
Tears streamed down their faces, rolling over the gags and spilling onto their chests. Dirt was smeared into their faces and necks, and grime from rough hand marks was visible on their shoulders, on Sadie’s pyjama shirt and on Amy’s bare flawless skin. Sadie’s face was unharmed, but it looked as if Amy had put up a fight: her left eye was almost swollen shut, and the dried blood on her face made her look like a thug. The gash in her head worried Francisco.
“You motherfucking cunt of a fucker!” he shouted at his captor.
“I’d keep your tone down if you know what’s good for you…” The stranger slapped Francisco across the face. “…And don’t swear in front of the kid.”
Francisco’s eyes were adjusted now, but for the first time ever, he wished he was blind, that he didn’t have to witness what he was seeing. He stood up and leaned on the fridge. He looked at his intruder, trying to assimilate what he was seeing.
The man was dressed all in black, the only inch of skin visible was around his lips in the gap in the mask he wore. He wore black clothes covering every inch of his body and a leather jacket over that. He must have been boiling hot. The man just stood, behind his family, holding a knife in his hand. Francisco recognised the weapon as an army issue knife, one with a really vicious looking serrated blade. He gulped, but the saliva wouldn’t go down, his throat was too dry and restricted. He couldn’t even gauge his foe’s intentions, because his eyes were covered by a pair of slim shades.
“So what do you want with us, what is it?” the terrified father asked. “Money? Goods? Sex?”
The figure remained still.
“Money?” the mystery man replied. “No, trust me, I’m getting so much that I can retire in three hours’ time, when I’m done playing with you lot here. And I’d soon as piss all over your shitty possessions here then take any of them with me. Sex? Now that could be fun. Not a bad looking pair you have here.”
“You have no right to speak about my family like that,” Francisco shouted.
“I warned you about the tone, didn’t I?”
“You’re all about the threats, aren’t you?”
The figure stepped forward and slipped the blade of the knife under Amy’s bra strap and lifted it. The strap split effortlessly and fell down across her chest, the weight of her left breast pushing it down, almost setting it free. He then flipped the knife up in the air, caught it by the handle and slammed the blade deep into Amy’s back.
The punch of the blade was sickening.
She screamed loudly under her gag, tears streamed from her eyes as they bulged, then they closed, and blood erupted under her gag, splattering her chest. She buckled violently in the chair, her toes rigid, and her leg muscles stretched as she reacted to the pain. Her left breast fell out of her bra as a result of her violent struggle, the material flapping about effortlessly. The chair creaked under her weight.
“Fuck, no, God, no! Stop it!”
“What you reckon, shall I twist the blade? That means I can fuck her in the back…the wound will never close after that.”
“Leave her alone, Get off her!”
The man pulled the knife out, blood dripping from its blade. A geyser of crimson squirted him as the knife was withdrawn. He licked the blade. Then he smiled.
“Now, let that be a lesson to you, don’t fuck with me. Next it’s your kid, and I won’t be nice this time.”
He returned to his perch behind them and leaned against the worktop.
Amy was turning pale now, sagging in her seat, blood dripping from her back onto the floor and from beneath her gag. Tears were mixing with the crimson pool, sending pink rivulets streaming down between her breasts and between her legs. It looked as if she would pass out within minutes.
Tears streamed down Francisco’s face. He looked across at Sadie. Her eyes were wide, and she had stopped crying. She was in shock.
His family were falling apart in front of him.
“Take me instead,” Francisco managed to say.
“What?”
“Take me, let them go. They haven’t seen your face…they don’t know you. Let them go so they can go to a hospital. Take me instead, just don’t hurt my family anymore…..Please!…Just…just don’t hurt them!”
“No.”
“Dammit….Sorry….Let them go, please, they need help…..have a fucking heart….please….whatever it is that I did, they weren’t involved….There’s no need for collateral damage here….”
“That’s a mighty long word for you, coming from a Spic.”
“Aren’t you listening to me? She – my wife – could die….She needs medical help!”
“I know.”
“So let them go….it’s nothing to you, they haven’t fucking seen you!!”
“Are we really going to have this fight again? I don’t think your wife could stand another hole in her back.”
“No, you’re right…. I’m sorry. You have….have to understand the position I’m in here.”
“Oh I do, don’t you worry.”
“Huh?”
“I understand what you’re going through here.”
Francisco was confused for a second. “How’s that?”
The figure stepped across to Francisco and knelt down to his level. He laughed a little, the laugh of a demon with a gravelly voice. Amy moaned in the background.
“My wife lasted seven hours. She was hardcore, and I always knew she would be, the entire eight years we were married, she always was a strong bitch. I expected her to last longer, to be honest, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Francisco stared at the man.
“I started with nailing her hands to the chair she was strapped to, then I removed the straps and she still couldn’t move from the chair. Apparently it hurts like a bitch with nails through your hands and feet, saps your energy, makes your body shut down. But she didn’t protest, she didn’t even shed a tear, not even out of pain. I admired that so much I sat and watched her for an hour, doing fuck all, just watching. It got me kind of hot. Then I shattered a baseball bat across her head. I mean an hour was too long, she had worked the nails free from her hands - well, three quarters of the way free. I couldn’t have her escaping. That was the best bit, seeing her nailed down with blood gushing down her naked body from her head wound. But, guess what?”
Francisco didn’t say a word. He looked at his family, and closed his eyes to block out the horror before him.
“She still didn’t cry, just stared at me, and watched me too. Gave up on the nail release and just stared me out. I admired her then, and I could have beat myself off to it, but I decided not to. I wasn’t ever going to get sexual gratification from that whore ever again.”
The intruder stood up and walked away to the counter behind the De Goya family and picked something up. Then he turned back. He held up his hand.
Dangling from it was a human arm, just bone, clear of flesh and sinew. It was snapped at the forearm, nearer the elbow then the wrist, still barely attached. He swung it like a medal or a bribe to a kid. A sick grin lit up his face.
“She screamed when I did this, I finally got her to admit defeat. Man, I was proud of that, when she finally admitted she was the loser, that I was right. Ever seen a woman, nailed to a chair, covered in blood, with one arm snapped, and still struggling about? There are no words to describe it. I reckon it’s better than sex.”
Francisco was worn down now. He felt nauseous and sick and vile and dirty and was close to tears once again. None came, but his senses remained an afterthought. It was as if he was a puppet to all of them equally, none giving him any leeway to perform to any of them to the full.
“Please, just let…..let them go…..do whatever you want to me…..not them.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry, lad.”
“Just let us go!”
“Let me tell you this, Francisco De Goya, you’re not going anywhere, my son, and neither are Amy or Sadie, okay?”
“How the fuck?”
“Do you really think that if I can kill my wife with no qualms at all, that I’m going to reconsider you and your pathetic family?”
“Please….it’s not too late….”
“Just so you know, the pigs won’t be saving you, your wife and kid won’t be getting a funeral, and you certainly won’t be found once I’m done with you.”
“Let them go, please….I’m begging you!”
“Francisco, the only way any of you are getting out of here is in a fucking body bag.”
“You fuck, you sick fuck, fuck you!”
“Choose one.”
“Fuck you…”
“Choose one, your wife or your kid. Which one will live?”
“Huh? What?”
“You fucking heard!” The monster’s tone became deeper.
“I can’t choose that.”
“But you will.”
“I won’t choose, fuck you! Why should I believe you?”
The intruder pulled a gun from his belt and placed it against Sadie’s forehead. Her eyes looked up, the first motion she had made for several minutes. He clicked the gun’s hammer back.
Francisco was silent.
“What? Don’t, please, I’m begging you!”
“Choose, you Spic sonofabitch.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Choose!”
***
The final man was smiling.
He thought he should make a note of it, because he never smiled, at least this was the first time in years that he could remember doing so.
On his screen, he was watching a masterpiece develop before him. He was hooked on every minute of it. It had developed better than he could have ever imagined in his wildest dreams.
He swallowed a couple of Vicodin tablets and continued watching.
He was in first place, and he didn’t see that anyone was likely to beat him.
FOURTEEN
Rupert knew something was wrong the second he stepped out of the shower.
The minute his wet foot landed on the bath-side rug and started to dry he sensed something was wrong, there was an eerie atmosphere. He’d showered, he estimated, for a good twenty minutes, he wanted to make sure the dirt and grime from the day’s escapades was fully gone. He had scrubbed his fingernails with a wire brush, washed his hair three times and soaped himself all over four times in total. He’d even brushed his teeth twice and flossed and gargled mouthwash while soaping his genitals. He wanted to expunge the feeling of being defiled by filth, a result of the way he had been treated that day.
At last he felt clean.
But he didn’t feel alone.
He had lived alone in his home for years, and comfort was always the name of the game for the Reverend Rupert Shaw. He liked his own space, being alone, away from his daily life of constant meetings with throngs of parishioners, fellow church folk and others. He always felt wary around people, he had been born a bit of a loner, had never trusted other people totally. He could usually tell if something was wrong in his world, call it gut instinct.
He had that feeling, right now, in his own home.
And it wasn’t a good feeling.
Wrapping a white towel around his waist, Rupert moved through the archway to his bedroom from the en suite bathroom and headed towards his bed. Ducking down, he knelt and scrabbled around under it. His hand fell on the handle of his baseball bat. Gripping it firmly, he picked it up and stood.
Placing the bat on his bed, he tightened the towel around his waist, all too aware of how naked he felt. He wanted to put on some clothes, but he wasn’t dry yet. He wanted to be sure he was alone before he started drying himself. That was the only way he’d be able to settle his nerves.
He stepped out onto the landing and peered down the stairs. The front door was closed, and locked as he had remembered leaving it. The furniture was not disturbed. The air smelt normal, no aftershave or sweat that was alien or unusual.
Had he locked the back door? He wondered.
Terror gripped him for a second.
“You locked the front door,” he said to himself, “but did you check the back door, you idiot?”
Then, to his relief, he remembered that he always kept it locked.
Yes, he reflected, but you felt comfortable about the security just before you were kidnapped.
Rupert took firm hold of his baseball bat and held it out in front of him. He felt his penis dangling in thin air, and this unsettled him.
Let’s get this over with, he thought.
Then he was at the foot of the stairs. He looked into his kitchen. Nothing was disturbed from what he could see. He looked at the cupboards and the furniture. Nothing wro
ng.
Backing up beyond the stairs he headed for the utility rooms and the office at the rear of the house. The doors were just as he had left them. Nothing wrong here. His spaghetti-ruined tee shirt was still sitting on top of the dryer. Peering into his office, he noted that it was unoccupied, and in darkness.
He walked back to the lounge, holding the bat at his side. He ran a towel through his wet hair and breathed out with relief.
Then Rupert saw the chair in the centre of the floor. He looked back at the dining room, and saw from this different angle that a chair had been moved. Not by him. And now it had been placed sitting in the centre of his lounge with a variety of knives on the floor beside it. There was rope bundled on top of it too.
He walked towards the chair.
Then everything went black.
***
OUCH!
Home run!
To the observer sitting at his desk, that last episode was like watching a wrestling move, something that was over-choreographed and rehearsed. The second the bat had hit his Choice in the face, the impact made the guy somersault onto his lounge carpet in a heap. His genitals flapped in the air. His towel had whipped off to the left and he had landed spread-eagled on his front. He could have sworn he heard the crunch of his nose splattering across his face.
The figure that had attacked him had picked him up effortlessly and sat him down in the chair, tied him down and made sure he couldn’t move. Then he had kicked the towel away and sat opposite the Choice on the man’s sofa. He waited for the guy to regain consciousness.
The man at the desk found that his manhood was now fully erect.
It was only a matter of time.
FIFTEEN
Heather Mason was awake.
Awake and afraid.
She sat on the panelled flooring rubbing her head, not sure if she’d hit herself on the way down, but knowing for sure she had landed in the vomit below her. It was all over her front and face and hands.