by Ian Woodhead
Not these two though, for their intention was clear. Meaning that within the next couple of days, both Adam and Malcolm would be in my chamber. The trolley which so upset Adam came into my view as Malcolm attempted to wheel it over to the table. It was much bigger that I expected. For some reason, my mind pictured one of those narrow things that passed you in train carriage aisles, where you had to remortgage your house in order to purchase a packet of biscuits and a cup of tea.
This trolley contained a variety of surgical instruments, a collection of metal bowls and, of course, the main reason for its large size, black metal plate which took up half the surface. A small amount of onions and green peppers were already sizzling away on this plate.
Adam grinned when the other waiter stopped the trolley in front of the table, he then passed Malcolm a large bladed knife and they both set about, slicing into the trucker’s stomach as dozens of undamaged stomachs around me rumbled.
The Lord took me back to my congregation, while explaining to me that the trucker lived for several hours, while the two waiters methodically removed small pieces of the man’s soft insides, cooked them in front of the still conscious man before serving the dishes to the waiting customers. The Lord almost sounded as though he approved of such butchery, but I guess my traumatised mind misinterpreted his tone.
---
My destination was in sight and the owner stood next to his outdoor display, wearing his trademark light-brown grocer’s coat, the symbol of his profession. It looked like the man was waiting for my arrival. That gave me a pleasant feeling, to know that the locals were accepting me into their community. I strolled past Brutality’s only cinema, smiling at the titles of the two movies currently showing. Knowing now what I did about the make up of this place of sinners, you would expect to find a constant stream of badly made horror movies showing at their picture house. This week, the double feature was Sound of Music and Gone with the Wind. I knew from past observations that the place would be packed with each showing.
---
Allow me to return to the two waiters.
As you would expect from such a considerate deity, the Lord provided the motive, the means and opportunity to allow me to continue the Great Work. Malcolm and Adam arrived at the church, both claiming they had lost their wallets and who knows? Perhaps they might have dropped them in my last service.
It was odd to hear them say these identical words. The mechanical recital suggested to me that perhaps, the statement had been implanted and if they could only awake from their trance, the pair of them would discover their wallets were still in the back pockets of their jeans. Not that I wanted them to come out of whatever spell the Lord had cast upon their feeble minds.
I invited them in, displaying worry and concern over their missing property, vowing to turn the church upside down in my insidious quest to find these wallets. I took them into my office, allowed them to sit down before serving refreshments. I sat in front of them watching Malcolm and Adam drink the coffee that I had laced with my paralysing poison. It felt appropriate to use the same substance again. After all, it is what the other locals injected into David the trucker before both Adam and Malcolm got to work on the poor man with their sharp knives.
My office was only a few short steps from the chamber door so I exerted little energy dragging sinful their bodies down there. The Lord hinted that he was still a little miffed at my poor performance with Patrick, so I had to show the Lord that I had learned from my mistakes. I hoped that my plan for these two would prove that the hard work he had put into me, shaping my body and mind to become his force in this town was indeed justified. I might have even helped to put the Lord’s mind at rest by taking my time in the men’s journey into the chamber. You see, I made sure that the backs of their heads bounced of every stone step on my way down.
The poison I used on the two men was far more intricate than the flawed compound injected into David. After all, my ingredient list came straight from God himself. They only needed their victim to be unable to move whereas my compound gave me the freedom to move my victims into any position I desired. They were my own life-sized, fully poseable action figures. I undressed them and manoeuvred their bodies onto the slab.
I decided to position them by sitting them up and having them face each other before I tied their feet together with wire. Believe me; describing this action was a lot easier than the actual task. I was a strong man, but even so, lifting two men who weighed more than me and placing them into the desired position took me almost two hours.
I had my own trolley, which I placed beside the slab so both men could see its exciting contents. I selected the scalpel first and used it to slice off Adam’s left nipple then I repeated the same action on Malcolm.
I believe the men quickly deducted the simple rules of my tit for tat game when I picked up a pair of pliers and squeezed Adam’s right earlobe between the metal jaws and, again, I did the same to the boy’s companion. The Lord commended me on my ingenuity. Suffice to say when, I tore off both of Adam’s eyelids I had a huge smile on my face.
Using this technique, I was able to keep the two men alive for the whole night, while I sawed off their extremities, cut into them, broke bones and burned them.
As I am but a lowly priest with little medical knowledge, I cannot name which of their soft warm organs I cut out from under their ribs. Or course, I know about the heart and its function, so I left that alone.
I do tell a lie. I did recognise the intestine. Using both hands, I pulled that out from Adam’s open cavity, unravelled the wet rope-like organ and hung it around Malcolm’s neck, before repeating the process.
There were many techniques I learned from those two. Some were very effective, others not so much.
I satisfied myself, sated God’s lust for pain and justice, and I expect, pleased the monsters who dwelled beneath the church.
It did not sate my lust though, and that did concern me a little. I think this is why Edna is now fastened to my slab, her body convulsing in agony while my poison slowly dissolves her insides.
I do hope the old woman is still alive when I return. I would so like to perfect the techniques I learnt before I prepare my tea.
---
My next service in three days time promises to be spectacular, and I cannot wait to discover who else will find themselves in my chamber. Could it be the gentleman now grinning at me as I approach the outside of his shop? Personally, I do hope that the Lord does not choose this Mr Cartwright. He is the one individual in Brutality who has treated me with nothing but respect and politeness.
“Father Dickinson. I cannot tell you how it gladdens my heart to find you outside my shop. So once again, you’ve resisted the suspicious delights of the Shop and Save.”
I smiled back. “Sir, you are most kind.” I followed the man into the shop, my mind going over the list I made before setting off. I certainly needed potatoes and carrots as well as some bacon. Next year, I did intend to grow my own vegetables. The land around my church looked fertile enough to grow a wide variety of crops. I could even ask my congregation to help out. If that is, there were any of them left alive once the snows had melted.
The shop was not empty. I stared in confusion when I noticed the owner of the Cosy Diner in here, holding a box of eggs. Since when did Adam’s father shop in here? Still, I nodded a greeting to the man. I know that I had tortured and killed his son but I bore Adam no grievance. I nodded a greeting which he did not return.
I walked passed the next aisle and saw the three boys, all standing in a row, all three of them glaring at me. At this point, I began to feel a uneasy, which only grew worse at the sight of Mrs Brady, holding a copy of Women’s Weekly in her wrinkled hands, her usual look of jollity absent from her face.
I stopped, a few feet from the counter and asked the Lord for guidance. All I received for my plea was a few harsh dark sniggers which quickly faded away.
Mr Cartwright, reached his counter. He rested his big hands upon the
surface before nodding once. Before I could react, two men grabbed my arms and forced them behind my back and pushed me savagely over to the counter. I cried out in pain when one of them rabbit punched me.
“That’s enough, Geoff,” said the shop keeper. Let’s do this the proper way here.” He turned his attention to me. “We don’t appreciate uppity strangers coming into our town and upsetting the status quo.”
“But…” a heavy blow to my guts put paid to any other words of protest that I wished to express.”
“Best not talk again, Father. Geoff does like hurting people, you see. Now, I know you must have come to Brutality in the naïve gesture that you could save this town.” He leaned over the counter and grinned, exposing his big teeth. “Thing is, we like the place just like it is and we’ll do everything in our power to stop anyone and everyone from changing it.”
I began to cry when I felt something sharp pierce my neck.
“You ain’t the only freak we’ve had to deal with over the years and I doubt you’ll be the last. Brutality is like some big fucking magnet, you see. We get them all kinds in here. Murderers, rapists, perverts, to name a few. You’re the first avenging vicar we’ve had here though, so well done on that.” He looked over at the woman. “Mrs Brady, what’s the tally of out of town sickos still in Brutality?”
She folded up the magazine and deposited it into her inside coat pocket.
“I hope you’re go to pay for that!”
“Sorry, she said, blushing. “Force of habit.” The old woman unfolded the magazine and put it back on the rack. “Well, there’s Mr Johnson on Eve Street. He ate his wife before fleeing here. There’s also The Parker family who are still camping in the woods behind the church. I believe they robbed three banks before going on the run and ending up here.”
“What about Mary?”
“Yes, Geoff,” she snapped. “I haven’t forgotten about her. There’s also Mary Bennett,” she said, scowling at the man next to me. “She’s been here for over a year now. The only reason why she hasn’t ended up where you are, Father is because she keeps the rat population down.”
The man in front of me placed his thick fingers under my chin and lifted me up. I had stopped crying because my tear ducts no longer functioned. In fact, none of my muscles would obey my commands. I could not even blink.
“And then there’s you, Father,” he said. “Mrs Brady, do you have any words to say to the fiend who murdered your older sister?”
“To be perfectly frank, I’m glad the old bitch is dead. At least now she won’t be able to steal any of my Frank Sinatra records anymore.”
The shop keeper chuckled. “Okay, bring him round here.”
I silently howled in despair, unable to do anything, more helpless than an infant as the men carried me through the back of the shop, heading towards a large door. The shopkeeper pulled down the brass handles and ushered the men down a flight of stone steps.
They had brought me into a chamber identical to the one under my church.
I have never felt more betrayed in my short life. This body betrayed me, this town had betrayed me and most important, my Lord had betrayed me. He had deserted me to this dreadful fate. Right now, I wasn’t even sure that my soul would rejoin him once these evil sinners had done whatever they planned to my flesh.
The men deposited my body on the slab, turned my head to face them and moved back towards the stairs. The shopkeeper approached me. In his hands he now held a large hacksaw. I prayed to the God I no longer trusted to instruct this large man to end my life by beheading me.
“As you’ve discovered, the drugs now circulating through your system acts immediately. Oh, thank you for the new recipe by the way, I don’t know where you came up with that formula but it did make our chemists very excited.” He stopped in front of me. “They told me, your compound has opened up so many opportunities. They tell me that it’s a base product, a model that, with a slight tweak is able to take on additional new properties.”
The man raised his hand then slapped me viciously across the cheek, knocking my head over to the other side. I saw Mrs Brady’s contented expression before the shopkeeper turned my head to face the him again.
“There, you see? You felt nothing. We’ve made your whole body numb. How fantastic is that, Father?” The shopkeeper tied a leather belt around the top of my arm, tightened it then placed the hacksaw a couple of inches below the leather before he commenced sawing. “We don’t have any way of knowing how long this numbness will last, mind, and you have no way of telling us. Still, I guess that’s all part of the excitement.”
He was right, I could not feel anything. I watched him hack off my arms and legs one by one and did not feel any pain whatsoever. I did vaguely wonder exactly how he knew this compound would work. Like he said, nobody would be able to tell them.
I wanted him to finish this off by placing the blade over my throat but instead, he and his companions moved over to the stairs. They all left the chamber one by one until only the shopkeeper remained.
“I think it’s now time for you to meet some pals of ours. They’ll probably start on your dismembered limbs before they get to you, Father. You might get lucky and the drug’s effects won’t wear off before they eat you alive ” He pulled a small grey cube from out of his pocket and pushed it into a recess carved into the stone, beside his shoulder. I watched in fascinated horror as the circular area beneath the slab rolled back, revealing another flight of stairs which led into a blackness.
Freezing air blasted into the chamber.
“It’s time for me to leave now. It’s been fun, Father, it really has but I can’t allow my duties to build up. Besides, leaving Mrs Brady up in my shop alone is going to be very bad for my stock levels.”
I heard him ascend the stairs while I watched several dancing shadows creep into the chamber. I saw tiny grey hands grip the edge of the stone slab, moments before every light in the chamber went out, leaving an oblong of white light in the far top corner of the chamber. I tried once more to shout out, to beg my Lord to save me from this. Instead, I witnessed a flash of a mouthful of needle-like teeth before all light in the chamber disappeared.
Sounds of the movement, of feet splashing through my spilled blood, along with wet tearing of flesh and high pitched growling reached my ears. I also believe that some sensation in my sides was coming back.
I tried to prepare what was left of my body, to accept that while my final moments were going to be agonising that I was at least content in the surety that I did not have long to wait until I was once more reunited with my Lord.
Harsh laughter filled my head when a hot breath, stinking of rotten meat passed over my face. I heard his voice one last time, bragging that my God did not exist that no deity would ever own up to our creation and before every single nerve ending in what was left of my body detonated, that same voice whispered a single sentence into my ear. It said…
“Meet my children.”
The End
Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this rather gruesome tale, please seek out the other Tales From Brutality.
Dead Girl
By
Ian Woodhead
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright Ian Woodhead, April 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.
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Acknowledgements
A big thank you to the following people for taking time to beta read this little story. You all rock, seriously!
Lisa Redden
Leslie Whitaker
Amy Farmer
Erin Kelly
Nancy Spedding
Anna G
arcia
Deb Yarbrough
Becky Narron-Heath
DEAD GIRL
I killed my first person earlier tonight. Considering how much the other guys had taunted me about this in the run up to the dare, I kinda expected the whole ordeal to effect me more than it did.
The old guy’s name was Alan. At least, that’s what we called him. He’d been sloping around the back of the schoolyard, trying to get into the food bins for the best part of a week.
Sure, the teachers called the police a couple of times but, just like Brutality’s coppers, they told the headmaster to sort it himself and to stop bothering them.
Mr Allinson did exactly that. He collected twelve of the largest lads from the last year, gave them all a bucket of stones from what was left of the old wall behind the sports block and told the lads to pelt the old man. He said that if any lad managed to kill him, he’d give that boy a week’s free pass to the gym. With a prize like that on offer, it really did shock the hell out of me that this old guy managed to crawl away from the school premises suffering only cuts and bruises.
Good job they didn’t kill him, I guess. The lads would have had to choose another target for the initiation, one which might even fight back.
If I was Alan, I sure as fuck wouldn’t have stayed in Brutality after that. I mean, this fella had been hanging around for at least a week before he decided to try and steal food from school. Had he not realised by then that Brutality was not your usual run of the mill mid-sized English town?