The Worst Kind of Monsters

by Elias Witherow

  Daniel turned away from his tools to her. His expression was death made flesh.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” he said, walking to her. “You’re free to go.”

  The girl, her bottom lip trembling, looked at both of us again, then her sister. Then she bolted for the stairs.

  Daniel’s leg shot out and tripped her before she had taken two steps. She fell, her momentum bouncing her off the hard ground leaving splashes of blood as her nose crunched into the cement. She screamed and clutched her face, rolling.

  Daniel roared with laughter, clutching his sides and doubling over. He gasped for breath as tears of amusement rolled down his face.

  “Oh man, you crashed and BURNED!” he howled, pointing at her.

  She looked up at him, face a bloody mess, and realized she was never getting away from this nightmare. In a last-ditch effort, she summoned what little strength she had and began crawling toward the stairs.

  Daniel watched her, suddenly silent, all traces of laughter gone. He bit his lip and grabbed his crotch as she pulled herself away.

  “Seeing that does something to me,” he said, glancing at me. “I mean, damn, doesn’t she look good?” He licked his lips, suddenly yelling after her, “You’re turning me into a horn dog, girl! Well, bark bark, here I come!”

  He suddenly dropped to all fours, sniffing the air and crawling toward her like a dog. She looked over her shoulder and screamed, horror pushing every other emotion away.

  Daniel began barking and let his tongue roll out of his mouth. His eyes never left hers. He made his way in front of her, blocking the way to the stairs.

  “Maybe go a little faster next time,” he grinned. He then started to growl, still on all fours, only a few feet away from her.

  Terrified, she began backing away, crying and looking at me pleadingly. My eyes met hers and I felt my stomach turn. There was nothing I could do. Daniel was out of control and I risked him turning his tools on me if I interrupted. I looked away.

  Daniel bounded forward and hopped in a semicircle around her, loudly barking and lashing out like he was a rabid dog trying to bite her. She curled into herself, covering her head with her hands and screamed.

  Daniel quieted suddenly and began pawing closer to her, sniffing her. She shrunk away, her body shaking. He nuzzled his nose against her shoulder, then stuck his tongue out and licked a drop of blood from her skin.

  “Fuck, you taste good,” he said quietly, taking another lick. “Do you really not want me to fuck you?”

  She shook her head violently. “Please, stop it, I don’t want this! Let me go, please!”

  Daniel sighed dejectedly, then stood up suddenly, brushing off his naked chest. “Fine, fine. I won’t fuck you. But I need you to go and sit in your chair while I introduce myself to your sister, OK?”

  The girl said nothing. She just stared at him with wide, sad eyes.

  Daniel reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair, hauling her up. “Go! Do what I say or I’m going to make you suck off a chainsaw, you understand?!”

  Crying and clutching her head, she obediently went and sat down, pulling her legs up and hiding her face between her knees.

  Daniel pulled out a cig from his back pocket and lit it up. He blew smoke and looked at me. “I always knew it wasn’t going to be her. She’s got the body, but the attitude is all wrong.”

  I remained silent, just watching him from the couch. My mouth was dry and my palms were sweaty. I didn’t know who this was standing in front of me. I didn’t recognize his face, his voice, anything. This monster was a complete stranger, an evil shade of the devil’s shadow.

  “You don’t like the show tonight?” Daniel said, ashing his cigarette on the floor.

  I took a breath. “You know how I feel about this. Just get it over with, would you?”

  He took another drag. “You better watch how you talk to me. My patience for your sympathetic streak is growing increasingly thin.”

  “I don’t even know what you are anymore,” I said softly. I knew I was pressing my luck.

  He threw the cig down on the ground, stomping it with a boot. “Let me show you then.”

  He went over to his tools and picked up a baseball bat. It looked like he had replaced the one he had broken on his last victim. I watched as it twirled in his hands, his fingers running over the polished wood. He walked to the girl folded over the workbench.

  He stood behind her, his crotch pressed against her ass, and ran his hand along her bare back. With her face pressed against the cold surface and hands bound to the far corners, she could only sob into the sack covering her face.

  “Oh yes,” Daniel said quietly, almost to himself. “I think I want you.” His fingers ran under the band of her underwear and let them snap against her skin.

  He took a step back and assessed her position. “You seem to be in a prime position already…why let it go to waste?” He paused. “There’s only one thing…you see, I know you girls like them big…and I’m afraid I’m of quite average size.” He grabbed his crotch. “Surely not enough to please you. But I want to…and so I guess we’ll have to make do, yeah?”

  Horrified, I watched as he placed the tip of the bat to her ass and gently prodded her underwear. He looked at me and saw me watching. He smiled and I saw the Devil in his eyes. I saw every nightmare I ever had. I saw death.

  The girl screamed into her gag, feeling the intrusion prod and test her body. She squirmed and banged her head against the bench, knowing what was going to happen.

  Daniel pulled the bat away and pulled her underwear down. He licked his lips and smiled. “Perfect. Though I don’t think I can go in dry…I’m not an animal after all. I’m not going to force it in without some help. Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” He went to his pile of tools and began digging through them to find a lubricant.

  I was shaking, unable to believe what was about to happen. I couldn’t let it happen. I didn’t want to be a part of this. We had never done anything like this before. When we had killed the one girl before, Daniel hadn’t acted like this, hadn’t sexually humiliated them. He had barely even tortured her.

  Stop this, I thought. You can’t just sit here. If you let him do this, you’re never going to be able to forgive yourself.

  As I was about to stand, Daniel turned back. I froze, body halfway rising from the couch. He stared at me, his eyes bitter, cold darkness. I lowered myself while his gaze bore holes into my skull.

  And then I saw what he was holding.

  He had wrapped the baseball ball in barbed wire.

  I immediately felt sick as the anticipation of what was about to happen slugged me in the gut. I had seen him perform all manner of horrors on our victims before, but not like this. This was hatred. This was sadistic, brutal humiliation.

  My heart hammered in my chest, breath coming in sharp pulls as I watched him. I steeled myself. I didn’t want to have to listen to the screams, the high-pitched, heartbreaking shriek that only a female could produce.

  Daniel placed the batting end of the bat against her bare ass, the barbed wire pricking her skin, letting her feel what was to come. She started thrashing, screaming into her gag, frantically trying to free herself. Daniel wasn’t smiling. He looked like the angel of death, a dark haze rising from his body as the shadows painted him black.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he said, his voice rumbling like the gates of hell opening.

  He pointed to the girl in the chair. “Get over here.”

  Shaking, she looked up at him, fresh tears rolling down her battered face. She couldn’t move, her body paralyzed in crippling fear.

  “I’m not going to ask again,” Daniel snarled. She stood, hands wrapped around herself, and timidly walked forward.

  Daniel grabbed her by the back of the neck and shoved her to her knees. “Get the fuck down.” He shifted the bat in his hands and held it out to her, the end still pressed against the other girl’s ass.

  “Hold it,” he instructed
. She took the grip in her trembling hands and held it there, eyes cast down, sobbing.

  Daniel went to the tools and picked up a sledgehammer.

  He hefted it in his hand and went back to stand in front of the girls.

  “Don’t you fucking move,” he instructed both of them.

  Time seemed to slow down as I watched Daniel raise the sledgehammer and swing it with terrifying power. It connected with the bat and drove it like a stake into the girl bent over the table.

  I turned away as her screams erupted, tearing into my soul. My mind shook and my vision swam, cracks forming along the edges of my sanity. I felt vomit and bile crawl up my throat and I clenched my fists, feeling like I might pass out.

  I looked back at them.

  The girl on her knees had let go, crawling away backwards, screaming and crying. The one bent over the table had thrown up in her sack, the contents seeping through the fabric in thick, brown splotches. The baseball bat had been driven inside of her a couple of inches and just hung there, dripping blood, the barbed wire cutting into her flesh and gripping it for support.

  Daniel raised the hammer again and brought it down, driving the bat deeper. The sickening sound as it sliced and shredded her made me grit my teeth, my jaw popping. Her body jerked and spasmed, her vomit now mixed with blood as it pooled under the sack onto the table.

  Daniel brought the hammer down again, slamming the barbed wrapped wood deeper into her. The girl convulsed violently and her howls ceased. She flopped around, her body slapping against the bench and then mercifully…she was still.

  Blood ran down the handle of the bat, now visible by only a few inches. Daniel stood motionless, his bare chest heaving as he stared at the scene, watching the gore leak out of her. He had a hard-on as he dropped the hammer, letting it fall carelessly at his side.

  He closed his eyes and gripped his crotch, head rolled back. He was smiling.

  Slowly, he rolled his head over so that he was looking at me. “I did it. I found the excitement again. I fucking did it.” He sighed and closed his eyes again, taking in every moment, every sound, every smell, sucking it all up into his memory.

  The remaining girl was screaming, hands covering her face. She had backed herself against the far wall where she sat shaking and cowering in horror.

  Daniel looked at her like he had forgotten she existed. He looked at me. “You want to kill her? I think I’m done for the night.” His voice was soft and a smile danced on his lips.

  “No,” I croaked, voice coming out like a pulled splinter.

  He shrugged. “All right.”

  He walked over to her and picked her up by the hair. Without a word he twisted her neck back until it shattered like dry wood. Her body slumped to the floor, dead.

  The silence screamed at me. I sat glued to the couch, the unimaginable nightmare I had just witnessed howling through my skull. I swallowed back a mouthful of vomit and shut my eyes against it. I watched the darkness swirl behind my eyelids and prayed that when I opened them I’d be away from this, out of this basement, away from Daniel.

  “Aw, shit.”

  My eyes snapped open.

  Daniel was looking at me, shaking his head, a frown on his face.

  “W-what?” I managed to get out.

  He sighed. “There’s something I forgot to tell you.”

  I didn’t move, my whole body feeling like dead weight. “What is it?”

  He licked his lips and ran a hand through his long hair, “I might have twisted the truth a little bit when I spoke to you earlier.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.

  He looked at me with eyes that held no light, “They weren’t sisters.”

  A dawning, creeping terror began to squeeze my throat. “What do you mean? Who the hell are they, then?”

  He smiled sadly at me, “Just two coworkers. In fact, that one over there whose neck I just snapped wasn’t even supposed to be a part of this. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  My mind was screaming, my heart trying to tear itself from my chest. I felt dizzy and tears began to form as I opened my mouth.

  “Daniel, who is that?” I asked, pointing to the girl on the table.

  He smiled apologetically, “You know who that is.”

  I ripped myself from the couch and bounded over to the workbench. I placed a sweaty hand on the vomit-soaked sack. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I pulled the sack off her head.

  It was Kate.

  I fell to the floor, eyes bugging out of their sockets, a wave of darkness threatening to take me away. Her dead eyes slammed into mine, their gaze empty and glazed. No…No, no, no, God please no, not her, not her please, Jesus, no, NO!

  I screamed. I screamed until my throat went raw. I clawed at my face, trying to pull the sight from my eyes. My entire body shook as the horror blasted every fiber of my being like a shock wave. I vomited onto myself, my body trying to evacuate the twisted reality before me.

  Daniel leaned down and patted my head. “There, there. I know this is hard. I’m sorry it had to be her. I really am.”

  Shaking, vision blurry, my mouth tasting like bile, I looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, “W-why did you do this?”

  He sighed. “Because I liked her. I’ve never tortured someone I liked.”

  I looked at my sister, her dead, mangled body lying slumped against the bench. Tears ran down my face and I felt something click inside me.

  I saw every cut, every drop of blood. I saw every scrape, every bruise. My eyes traced up her body, forcing myself to take in every bit of gore, every detail of her mutilated flesh. And I felt her pain. I felt her suffering. I heard her screams, suddenly real and meaningful. That had been my sister screaming in agony. There was a person behind all that. There was a life behind all that.

  My eyes widened and it all came crashing down on me like a crumbling mountain. These were people. Every time we killed a person…there was someone out there who felt like I did right now. There was someone who felt like their entire world had been ripped away. There was a hole that we tore in their life that could never be filled.

  And we had done this for…fun?!

  “Are you OK?” Daniel asked, breaking into my thoughts. “I know this must be rough, but I’m back, man. I’m fucking back. I feel SO much better. I feel like myself again. Me and you, man, we’re back! It’s going to be how it used to be, I promise.”

  I stood slowly. My body shook as I looked him in the eye.

  “You did it…because you liked her?” I said, taking long deep breaths. “You killed my sister because you wanted to feel better?” Tears ran down my face as I took a step toward him, my voice rising. “You took my sister away from me and brutalized her because you needed to FEEL BETTER?!”

  He raised his hands to me. “I’m sorry! I thought you’d understand! I thought you wanted to get things back to the way they were!”

  I pointed at my sister’s body, hot tears dripping from my cheeks. “Not like this, you heartless motherfucker.”

  He took a step back. “You don’t need her! I’m you’re family! What we have together runs so much deeper, runs so much truer! We have these desires in us that no one understands! Me and you, we’re bound in blood!”

  I wiped my face, feeling my body grow cold, “I’ll show you blood.”

  I rocketed toward him, my body smashing into his. I came out on top, snarling, growling, feeling myself become lost in anger and hopeless fury. His head hit the hard ground and his eyes lost focus as I brought my fist down into his face.

  “How could you DO THIS?” I howled, raining blow after blow down upon him. I couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t allow my mind to comprehend what he had done. I knew then that I would never truly understand Daniel, what drove him, what part of his soul had been burned to charred remains.

  I stopped punching him, realizing that he was unconscious, his blood-smeared face empty of expression. I sat up on him, wiping my knuckles on
his shirt. I sucked in mouthfuls of air, my head splitting, feeling like I was miles underwater.

  I stood, hands gripping my temples, lost and confused. What the fuck was going on? What had happened? Daniel lay motionless below me, my sister dead on the table.

  I covered my face with my hands, feeling panic bring a new wave of tears. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I cried.

  I cried and then I began to scream.

  * * *

  I placed my sister in the back seat of my car, the dark clouds overhead emptying themselves onto me, a thick wall of rain washing the blood from my arms.

  I had removed the bat, weeping the whole time how sorry I was. How sorry I had let this happen. How sorry I was for what I was. If I wasn’t such a monster, if I wasn’t born with this desire to kill, she’d still be alive. And that burned me up until I thought my eyes would shoot flame from their sockets.

  I took off my coat and draped it over her, hands shaking. Thunder boomed as I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. My tears dripped into her dead eyes as I closed them, turning away, sobbing.

  I don’t know how long I sat in my car, listening to the frantic drum of rain on the roof. I gripped the steering wheel and forced myself to stop weeping. I gritted my teeth and drew in long, labored breaths, slowing my heart rate.

  I had bound Daniel to the workbench, laying him out on his back on top of it, tying his limbs to the four corners. Why did he do this to me? How could he do this? As I sat there, watching the night through a rain-blurred windshield, I realized something.

  Daniel didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Whatever he felt, he did. I had just followed along, happy that someone understood me, that someone accepted me. I had misinterpreted our activities as friendship, excited by the fact that he provided people for me to kill.

  “Tonight is the last time,” I said out loud as a bolt of lightning lit the sky.

  I sat in silence then, my heart thumping in my chest. I closed my eyes, listening to the rain. I listened to the way it rolled and tapped against my car. I listened to the thunder crack the sky open. I saw the lightning behind my eyelids. I listened to the way the trees screamed against the wind. I listened to them bend and crack like dry bone.