He stood and stepped back, watching the man clutch at his throat. A satisfying look of disbelief fell over the maniac’s face as he choked on his own blood.
The plan had been to send him to prison, but Aaron had lost it. Besides, he thought, even prison didn’t deserve a monster like this.
He looked over at his mom.
“I had to do it,” he said. “He would’ve been placed in an insane asylum, or worse, got off. After seeing what he did to you, to all those women…I just had to end him.”
His mother came over. “It’s okay, sweetie. You did the right thing.”
They shared an almost tender moment before their attention focused on the girl. She was no longer struggling. She sat still staring at the corpse, her face glistening with tears.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Kelly said.
Aaron walked over to the girl. He crouched and sliced the duct tape between her ankles and wrists, then helped her up. She swiped a clawed hand at his face, snarling like an angry demon. Aaron leaned backward, dodging the blow. The girl lunged at him. He tried moving out of the way, but she was fast and on him in seconds. He fell back and braced for the fall. The knife fell from his grasp. Before he hit the ground, the girl was on top of him.
“You killed my daddy!” she screamed, fingers clawing at his face.
Aaron batted her arms away, but she was relentless with her attack. It was as if she were possessed. Her swipes got through and gouged part of his neck and chin. Caught off guard no longer, he was about to send a hurting her way, when she was yanked off him. His mother had the girl by her hair.
“Let go of me, you fucking cunt,” the girl hollered.
Aaron sat up and was kicked in the face. His nose crunched under the impact as white-hot pain exploded across his skull. He crashed back to the floor, his head thumping hard against the concrete. Dazed for a moment, he heard his mother and the girl struggling. He couldn’t believe how strong and furious the skinny little bitch was.
“Aaron,” his mom called. “Help me.”
Aaron quickly got to his feet and saw his mother slug the girl in the stomach. The girl folded with the blow, but shot back up and smashed the top of her head into his mother’s jaw. Kelly yelped as she stumbled backward into the stage, vanishing between the curtains.
The girl dove for the knife, scooped it up and was back on her feet in seconds. She took off for the stage.
While her back was turned, Aaron crashed into her and wrapped her up in a bear hug. She screamed and kicked as he lifted her off the ground and squeezed. Her head shot back and smashed him in his already ruined nose. Pain migrated across his face and his hold loosened, but didn’t break. The girl brought the knife down and plunged it into his thigh. Aaron cried out, his leg feeling as if a hot iron had been pressed against it. Anger coursed through him. Enough was enough. This had to end.
Aaron squeezed the girl again, lifted her off the ground and slammed her to the floor, landing on top of her. She groaned as the breath was knocked out of her. The knife skidded away. Aaron raised a fist to strike her and realized she wasn’t moving. She was out cold.
Without wasting time, he dragged her back to the support beam.
His mom came from the stage, rubbing her jaw. “Is the bitch dead?”
“Grab that roll of duct tape,” Aaron said, motioning to one of the recliners. He held the girl’s arms around the pole. Her body was slumped, head back, throat revealed. His mother handed him the tape and together they bound the girl’s wrists and ankles around the beam.
“That will hold her,” Aaron said, still breathing heavily.
“So what?” his mother asked. “This is one of his daughters?”
“Must be. Can’t tell if she’s one of the girls in the pictures from upstairs, but it looks like she was being punished.”
“What are we going to do now?”
“Leave her. The police will deal with her. Child services. Whatever.”
“What scares me is how crazy she is. He’s got two more kids, one a little boy.”
“Some kind of demented family.” Aaron looked at the girl, shook his head. “The damage he must’ve done to this girl.” The phony cop obviously wasn’t hurting her physically. She looked healthy and was as strong as a bull.
Aaron turned and stared at the corpse. His mind was swimming. The reality of everything was sinking in. He’d killed someone—a monster—but still a human being. It was too early to tell how he truly felt about it, but for now he felt like he did the world a favor. Hell, he was a hero.
“We need to burn this place to the ground,” his mother said, then headed over to the stage and pulled back the curtain, revealing a plastic-covered area. Behind a Plexiglas shield was a steel table. Hung on the wall were whips, knives, surgical equipment, saws, hammers, clippers and a large red tool chest.
“The pictures…” Aaron said. “Those girls were entertainment.” Aaron looked at the recliners facing the stage.
“They watched the man with the scar torture people,” his mother said, then let the curtain fall back into place. “And his family…this bitch here…they enjoyed it.”
Aaron picked up the gun and knife, shoving the firearm into the waistband of his pants. He slid the knife into his back pocket. His mom picked up the lockbox.
Aaron headed over to the door in the corner of room.
“I don’t think I can take any more craziness,” his mom said. “I have a bad feeling about what’s behind there.”
“Yeah, me too,” Aaron said, and tapped on the door. It was solid steel. There were three protruding, cylindrical-shaped deadbolts above the handle—all Mul-T-Lock brand. Nothing good was going to be behind the door, yet he had to open it. He knew he’d see things that would haunt him forever.
He could leave and call the cops, but if someone was dying, the police might arrive too late. And if he had to admit it, he was a little curious. If the man with the scar was behind the door, hiding in his dungeon or whatever lay beyond, Aaron meant to kill him. Expecting it to be locked, he pulled on the door handle. It didn’t budge. “We need to get in here, but without keys, it isn’t going to happen.”
“Search the house again?” his mom suggested.
Aaron thought for a moment, his eyes landing on the dead body. “Maybe not,” he said, and hurried over to the corpse. Grabbing the ankles, he dragged the corpse from the pool of blood that had surrounded it, then searched the pockets and found a set of keys.
Standing back at the door, he tried the keys until one fit and unlocked the first deadbolt. “One down,” he said, and repeated the process until all the locks were disengaged. He pulled out the gun, racked the slide, then slowly opened the door.
A damp, earthy smell fell over him. Darkness unfolded, and then light bloomed as a string of overhead bulbs came to life, revealing a tunnel appearing to have been carved out of the earth. Wooden beams supported the walls and ceiling at five-foot intervals. The walls themselves were compacted dirt and rock. The sight reminded Aaron of an old mining tunnel.
“Oh my God,” his mom said.
“This sure didn’t come with the house,” Aaron said.
He stepped in and it felt like the temperature dropped ten degrees. His mom was right behind him. They proceeded forward, the tunnel curving to the right. Fifty feet later, they came to another steel door, identical to the first. The frame was held in place with thick, wooden beams, the beams encompassed by earth.
Aaron tried the door, found it locked and used the keys to unlock it. The turning of the tumblers rattled him to the bones. Anyone on the other side would know someone was coming. He saw no cameras, so if the man with the scar was on the other side, he’d most likely think it was the phony cop.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No, but let’s do this,” his mom answered.
Aaron pushed the door open. A pu
trid stench assaulted him, death and rot flooding his senses. He covered his nose and gagged. Light from the tunnel shone in the room, but it was not enough to make much out, save a concrete floor. There were no deadbolt locking mechanisms on the backside of the door. Instead, there were identically matched keyholes, indicating that the door could be locked with a key from either side. The door was designed to not only keep people from entering but from leaving as well.
Aaron swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. He took a deep breath and felt along the wall for a light switch. His fingers came into contact with the roughness of cold cinder block. He adjusted his hand a little higher and felt the plastic protruding from the wall and flipped it up. Light pulsed from above, as if waking from a deep sleep. A steady flow of illumination rained down from fluorescent bulbs, revealing the basement-like structure and the nightmare within.
A stainless steel table rested against the wall on the right side of the room. A mutilated and naked female lay on the table, positioned at a slight incline. Her bald scalp was decorated with small cuts, as if the person who had shaved her had rushed the job. Her limbs had been removed. The short stumps were sewn closed with thick black stitching, the resulting design an X. Tubes led from her neck, wrists and right thigh to IV bags hanging next to her. Her breasts appeared gnawed upon like Samantha’s, but this woman’s nipples appeared to have been melted off—the resulting wounds of raw flesh resembling cigar burns. Her shaved vagina was exposed, the labia sewn together. A catheter protruded from the stitching and traveled to a bucket half-filled with urine. There was a slight bulge to her stomach, making Aaron wonder if she was with child.
Seeing the woman on the table confirmed for Aaron that he had done the right thing when he killed the phony cop.
“What kind of animal does this?” Kelly said.
Aaron had no words.
“I wish we could kill that son of bitch over and over again,” she said, her voice shaky.
“Yeah, me too.”
His mom walked closer to the woman. She covered her mouth in shock. “Her stomach… She must be pregnant.”
“Yeah.”
“She is alive, right?” his mom asked.
“She’s breathing,” Aaron said.
He took his eyes from the woman and scanned the room.
Past the woman and along the same wall was a steel bedframe with a twin-sized mattress on it. The blankets were disheveled, leading Aaron to believe the bed had been recently slept in. Rows of metal filing cabinets with extremely wide drawers took up most of the wall space on the other side of the room. Along the top, resting in jars of yellow fluid, were human heads. Some appeared severely rotted while others looked fresh. At the back of the room were three jaillike cells, each one six feet by six feet and empty.
“We need to get out of here and call the cops, Aaron,” his mom said. “This girl needs a hospital.”
Aaron wondered if it would be better if she died. She was a mangled mess and was pregnant with her torturer’s child, unless she’d been abducted while pregnant. That was a possibility he hadn’t thought of until now.
He headed over to one set of cabinets and slid out a drawer. Glass jars of various sizes sat before him, each container with a name written on the lid. He picked one up labeled Melissa and grimaced at the sight. Surrounded by a clear yellow fluid was a heart with a pearl necklace wrapped around it. He returned the container to its place in the drawer, then picked up another one labeled Beth. The jar contained a hand, the ring finger outfitted with what had to be a two-carat diamond engagement ring. He replaced the jar in the drawer. It seemed the whacko fuck had saved a body part or organ from each of his victims. Some of the jars had the same name on them, leading him to believe the sicko kept more than one trophy from the same person.
Aaron shut the drawer. A wave of nausea struck. But he was also pissed, feeling as if he might explode. He opened another drawer and found more jars. Moving to the next cabinet, he opened a drawer and found it full of long, clear plastic bags containing arms and legs. Each one had a label attached with a person’s name. The body parts looked slightly shriveled, but preserved. Aaron slammed the drawer closed.
“He keeps parts of his victims,” Aaron said as he headed over to the woman on the table. Without hesitating, he pulled out her IVs.
“Hey,” his mother said, stopping him. “What are you doing? We shouldn’t touch her.”
“We’re leaving and taking her with us,” he said.
He unbuckled the straps holding her in place and was about to pick her up when her eyes shot open. Aaron paused, startled, then said, “We’re here to rescue you.”
“Kill me,” the woman whispered.
Aaron shook his head. “We’re taking you to a hospital.”
“Please, kill me. Kill me. Kill me.” Talking seemed to take all of her strength. “On fire. The pain. Please. Make it stop.”
Aaron’s skin rippled with goose bumps. He didn’t think the woman was all there, her mind not right. He wondered if she knew she was pregnant. He thought about telling her she needed to live for her baby, but the thought of birthing her defiler’s child might be too much for her.
He scooped her up.
“We should leave her for the paramedics,” his mother said.
“No, we’re burning this place down.”
“The cops need to find this place. Give the victims’ families closure.”
“And they’ll get it. The house will burn. This place won’t. It’s far enough away and protected by two steel doors. Now let’s go.”
They headed down the hallway and into the basement, having made sure to close both steel doors behind them. The mutilated woman continued in barely audible speech, begging to be killed. Her words tore at Aaron’s soul, making him fume with rage. He asked himself how someone could do such a thing to another person. He hoped when the woman was safe—even in her condition and with the hell she’d been through—she would want to live.
When they entered the basement, the girl duct taped to the support beam was awake and struggling to break free. She spotted Aaron and froze. Her face screwed into a mask of ugly. “You killed my daddy,” she growled. “You’re dead. I’m going to kill you. Cut you up into little pieces and eat you, then shit you out and eat you again. You’re dead. You and your mother and your girlfriend. All of you are marked. Dead. I’m going to rape your ass with my fist, make you fuck your mother this time, hard and deep, Aaron Dupree.” She started laughing like a lunatic, throwing her head back, mouth wide.
Aaron felt as if he’d been slammed in the gut with an anvil. She knew his name. The woman in his arms was trembling, her eyes locked onto the girl.
“You’re ruining everything,” the girl on the floor screamed, her laughter gone. Spittle flew from her lips, hair messed, covering half her face. She looked like some kind of child that had been lost in the wilderness. “Daddy was going to let me finish her, you know that? But then the bitch got pregnant. Daddy never got anyone pregnant before, said his insides were no good. But then she grew with his child. Our miracle baby.” The girl’s face lightened, went soft. “I’ve always wanted another baby brother or sister.” She stared off into the distance as if caught in a pleasant memory, then her face darkened and her eyes focused on Aaron. “There’s nowhere you can hide her. She’s ours.”
The hairs on Aaron’s neck stiffened.
“You…you did this to her?” Aaron asked.
The girl grinned, proudly. “Yes. I’d helped with others, but she was my first. We had such fun times together. Daddy found her so attractive without her arms and legs—”
“Shut up,” Aaron yelled.
“What are we going to do with her?” his mom asked. “We need to get out of here.”
“I think you better leave, and go far, far away,” the girl said. “Turn me in, and I’ll tell the cops everything. What you did to
Daddy, how you robbed that liquor store, killed that poor old man. And if they don’t believe me, I’ll show them the video. You’ll go back to jail, leaving your poor, whore of a mother all alone and ripe for the taking.”
Aaron’s head throbbed with anger-pain. The girl was evil, damaged beyond repair. The phony cop had ruined her for good. She was a member of the unhinged.
Before Aaron knew what was happening, his mom sprang forward and was choking the girl. The girl laughed, not bothering to fight back.
Aaron placed the woman on the couch and pulled his mom off the girl, who despite the marks on her neck, continued to laugh.
Kelly screamed, then turned and buried her face into Aaron’s chest.
“Boo hoo,” the girl said, mimicking like she was crying. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, her face went slack. “You better run. The both of you. You’ll never be safe again. We’ll find you and make you suf—”
Aaron pushed his mother aside and kicked the girl in the face. Her head jerked back. She rebounded, still laughing, her lips split and bleeding.
There was no way out of this. The phony cop might be dead, but the video still existed, and he had a sick and twisted family. The girl was a threat. He had no idea how young she was, but there’s no way she’d serve jail time. She’d be seen as a victim, get psychological treatment and be released in what…a few years, months? She’d tear apart any story he and his mom told, and the woman they’d rescued might not be sane enough to testify to anything.
Aaron pulled out the gun and pointed it at the girl.
“What are you doing?” his mom asked.
“What needs to be done. This place is a breeding ground for evil.”
The girl continued to laugh, showing no sign of fear.
The Unhinged Page 19