Don't Look Behind You-A Collection of Horror (Chamber of Horror Series Book 3)

by Billy Wells

  “You bastard,” Breedlove screamed in agony.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do,” Pacifico continued. “If you want to sell me your business, I’m willing to pay ten cents on the dollar. Are you interested? It’s better to be ruined financially than dead. What do you say?”

  “Fuck you! My brother will make you pay. You’ll never get away with this.”

  “Your brother. Ooh, now you’ve got me shaking in my Gucci shoes. Your big bad brother is coming after me. Hey, Breedlove. Do you like rap music? People in Jersey can’t get enough of this shit.”

  Suddenly, a booming drumbeat that shook the entire structure emanated from a humongous speaker system. Breedlove placed his hands over his ears to diminish the imploding sound so loud he thought his eardrums would explode. The freezing cold and the penetrating throb of each downbeat were driving him to the brink of insanity, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  After what seemed a lifetime of excruciating pain, the music and the cold air stopped simultaneously, but even after more time elapsed, Marty could still hear the pounding decibels in his mind. Blood trickled from both earlobes onto his shoulders. His head throbbed with a catastrophic migraine.

  Lying in a fetal position, he sobbed uncontrollably, slamming his fists into the immovable floor. Why on earth had he dared take on the New Jersey mob? Truth, justice, and the American way did not work here. The police he thought would set things right had to be in Pacifico’s pocket.

  After a time, when the reverberation in his head subsided, he realized he couldn’t hear anything in his left ear and almost nothing in his right. The prolonged bombardment of the rap music had deafened him, and he doubted he would ever hear normally again. As he peered in all directions, there was not a glint of light anywhere. He had no feeling in his fingers and toes.

  For all practical purposes, he believed his life was over, and he would never see his family again. He couldn’t bear to think of what Pacifico and his thugs would do to him next.

  Two hours later, he heard a dull calliope of squeaking noises in his ravaged right eardrum. He sat up and peered into the blackness, straining to identify the scuffling high-pitched sounds rushing toward him from all directions. He bundled himself into a tight ball on the cold floor still damp from the blood running from his ears and braced himself for whatever came next.

  In only a few seconds, he felt the sharp teeth of the gigantic rats ravaging his arms and legs and then his face. He tried desperately to fight them off, but they covered him like a blanket. After several minutes of unparalleled agony, he heard another sound of hissing and screeching in the hole that was once his right ear. The rats had stopped feasting on him and had scurried away, chased by what sounded like an army of large cats.

  After a time, all motion stopped, and Breedlove lay in a pool of his own blood. With the little feeling remaining in the stubs of his fingers, he felt his face and grimaced in horror when he found almost no flesh on the right side. His nose and his lips were gone, and his teeth protruded from a gaping cavern in his left cheek. The rats had left him a monster that no human being would be able to tolerate. His mind wandered to the horrible picture of the woman on the Internet who had lost most of her face from a chimpanzee attack.

  A month later, the police found what was left of Breedlove crawling around the trashcans in a Newark ghetto. All four stumps of his arms and legs had been cauterized with a blowtorch. He was barely alive and almost unrecognizable as a human being. He had no idea who he was and never would again. His wife, daughter, and his brother could not bear the trauma of visiting him in the hospital. Finally one night, someone dressed in black donning a ski mask mercifully pulled the plug on him.

  * * *

  Three months later, Pacifico left Sparks Steak House after an exquisite meal fit for a king and was on his way home in his stretch limo when an SUV shot from an alley and ran his car off the road. The driver of the SUV ran to the limo and put two bullets in the brain of the chauffer and tasered Pacifico into submission before he could reach his 45. The authorities had no leads on identifying the perpetrator since the gang lord had a long list of enemies.

  When Pacifico came to, he found himself strapped to a metal table. Sitting in a chair beside him, he saw a middle-aged dark haired man who appeared to be working on a crossword puzzle. The man seemed familiar and reminded him of Michael Madsen in Species.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Pacifico barked.

  “I’m John, Earl Breedlove’s younger brother.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re the motherfucker who tortured and killed my brother.”

  “Your brother was a moron with a death wish. He came to New Jersey to die. I’m sure you know he tried to set up a concrete business in Newark to compete with me. What did he think I was going to do? Welcome him with open arms. And by the way, I did not kill him. I messed him up some, but I left him where the cops were sure to find him.

  “I’m his brother, and I couldn’t recognize him and neither could his wife and daughter. They still cry every night from the memory of seeing him that first night in the hospital.”

  “Look, I begged him to go back to North Carolina or whatever shithole he came from. I offered him a fair price for the business. I tried to work it out with the stupid son of a bitch, but he wouldn’t listen. He might as well have put a gun to his head and blown his brains out. I even threatened his wife and his kid, but he still wouldn’t play ball. He was an idiot. You must know that. Have you got a cigarette?”

  “Don’t you know those things will kill you?”

  “Look, if you think you’re gonna kill me or mess me up to get some payback, you’re gonna die a worse death than he did. You can’t fight my organization. If you kill me, my boys will kill everyone you know including your dog and your cat. If you have a hamster, they’ll kill him, too. They’ll also kill your brother’s wife and daughter and whatever pets they have. Be reasonable. Let me go, and I won’t retaliate. We’ll just consider your brother was a moron with a death wish and leave it at that.”

  “You really have a way with words. You should have been a comedian, you’re very funny. To start with, I never said I was going to kill you. I just want to mess you up a little like you did my brother. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That’s fair. Don’t you think?”

  Pacifico’s expression changed as if struck by a lightning bolt as he finally began to comprehend the magnitude of Breedlove’s words. “Whatever you do to me, my boys will do to you three times worse. You can’t win. Give it up. Go back to Shitsville or whatever rock you crawled out from, or you’ll end up like your brother.”

  “It won’t be that simple. Your scumbags won’t know who is responsible. You have more enemies than you can shake a stick at. I’ve been very careful, to cover my tracks, believe me.”

  “You must be even stupider than your brother. If you leave me drooling at a dumpster in Newark, you don’t think my boys can put two and two together?”

  “I checked around and found twelve other poor bastards you tortured and left a vegetable on the streets of Newark. You’re a sick motherfucker, and you definitely need some payback. As soon as I finish with you, I’ll probably re-up and be on my way to a tour in Afghanistan for Uncle Sam. I’m a demolitions expert and before I leave, I thought I’d practice my craft on your chamber of horrors. I understand the dome off Market street is where you show off your handiwork to your goons before you turn the poor bastards you’ve tortured loose.

  Pacifico started straining at the duct tape that held him on the table, and for the first time, a look of fear lined his face, and sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “And it’s my good fortune you’ve planned a cocktail party and a side show for your entire organization tomorrow evening.” John Breedlove pulled out an expensive embossed invitation detailing the event from his coat pocket. A bloody splotch soiled the right corner of the envelope.

  “You son of a bitch. You’re gonna
wish you were never born when my men get through with you.”

  “Settle down, Pacifico, I have a speech I wrote for you to read so I can record it and play it through the sound system at the party tomorrow night.” John rolled out an easel with the script written on a whiteboard next to the table and held a microphone close to his mouth.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m gonna read that,” Pacifico spat.

  ‘It’s up to you how much pain you can stand,” Breedlove said, holding up a pair of pruning shears. After John snipped off three of the gang lord’s fingers, he sang like a canary.

  John couldn’t stand the constant blubbering after Pacifico gave his uplifting speech, so he gave him a healthy jolt with the taser. His eyes rolled up into his head, which lolled backwards and thumped on the table.

  Afterward, John rolled four large laundry tubs on casters into the room and positioned each of them on a corner of the metal table where Pacifico lay sleeping like a baby. Methodically, he placed each of gang lord’s hands and feet in the containers filled with water and piranha fish. Breedlove watched the hungry fish feast for several minutes and then tied off each of the bloody stumps with a tourniquet. He wanted to be sure Pacifico would still be alive for tomorrow night’s extravaganza.

  The next evening, two hundred guests arrived at the Dome. The enormous structure was lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree. The entire top of the curved glass roof glittered like diamonds in the night and had more lights on it than a Vegas casino. It could be seen on the skyline for miles.

  Pacifico’s gang members assembled in the center of the space at pre-assigned seats at twenty tables for ten facing a gigantic portable stage covered with a red velvet curtain. Waiters delivered cocktails and hors d’oeuvres to the beefy guests and their wives. Mammoth shrimp had been flown in from Hilton Head just for the occasion.

  Pacifico had always stressed that the members in his organization arrive on time at these spectacular events. To make this perfectly clear, he had wasted one of his right hand men who arrived late at the last affair. Consequently, on this night, every chair was occupied at the stroke of 8 p.m. when the music from 2001 A Space Odyssey signaled the beginning of the show. The lights in the dome went out, and only the large spotlights on the rectangular stage remained.

  Suddenly, Pacifico’s voice resonated from the humongous speakers, “I am happy all of you are in attendance and on time. We have a spectacular evening of entertainment planned along with the finest in superb dining and premium liquor to put you on your asses by the end of the night.” A roar of laughter arose from the shadows as Pacifico continued. “In order to dispense with the most graphic part of the show so that everyone can enjoy their dinner about a half an hour from now, I want to remind all of you what happens to someone who crosses Rudy Pacifico.”

  After a drum roll, the red curtains opened on a black platform standing erect in the middle of the stage in the beam of an intense spotlight. Two scantily clad prostitutes with enormous boobs, reminiscent of those who display ring cards at professional boxing matches, turned the display on wheels around so that the back of the platform faced the audience.

  After several of the women at the tables uttered a shocked cry of horror when they saw a man with no hands and feet strapped to the black canvass. Shreds of ravaged, raw flesh hung from the ugly wounds surrounding the missing extremities. A murmur of disgust and disbelief resonated from the guests witnessing the gut-wrenching sight.

  “Christ!” someone said. “I think the boss has outdone himself this time. What’s a guy gotta do to deserve this kind of punishment?”

  Another voice from the shadows shouted, “Can you believe the poor bastard is still moving?”

  Another cried out, “I don’t recognize this schmo. He doesn’t look like that Todd fellow we done the other night. Who is he?”

  The head of the bound figure rose and stared blearily into the crowd. When the lips began to move, a pained, but familiar voiced cried out, “It’s me, you stupid morons. Run for the exits, the entire building has been rigged with C4.”

  Suddenly, the stage lights went out, and an unfamiliar, triumphant voice boomed from the loudspeakers, “This is for my brother, Earl Breedlove, motherfuckers!”

  An enormous explosion split the colossal dome into four pieces and brought the massive ceiling down on Pacifico’s entire organization, incinerating everyone in attendance in a ball of flame and obliteration. After the dust and debris settled, the stars shone down on the rubble and the burned bodies strewn about the multimillion-dollar heap of collapsed concrete and twisted steel.

  John Breedlove said, placing the detonator on the seat of his pickup as he drove away, “Maybe rather than a tour in Afghanistan, I should retire from the Army and start a concrete business here in Northern Jersey. There seems to be an opening that needs filling.”

  THE TAXIDERMIST

  After bagging a twenty-five-point buck, which was the highlight of his hunting career, Louie Shafer decided he had finally brought down a deer worth mounting. He could already visualize the head and shoulders of the beautiful beast over the fireplace in his cabin in Nashville.

  Surprised, he could not find a local taxidermist on the Internet, he dusted off a dog-eared copy of the yellow pages he kept in the garage. Again, he was disappointed to find only a tiny ad for taxidermy services on a page entirely devoted to tax preparation. The shop was located in Sharpsburg, which was a one-stoplight town twenty miles away. He had hoped to request bids from several vendors since he had no idea what he should pay for the mounting. He also wanted to see examples of the work of various taxidermists to compare the quality. Unfortunately, with only one supplier, a Mr. Osgood Blood, the point was moot.

  Looking at the small ad in the bottom corner of the yellow pages, the name “Blood” stuck in his craw like a bitter pill. Did he really want to hire someone with the distasteful surname of “Blood” to mount his most prized treasure from twenty-five years of hunting? He wondered what nationality would have such a frightful name. He had certainly not met anyone with that name before.

  He was planning to invite about twenty of his closest friends to his cabin to celebrate his fortieth birthday. He could picture their jaws dropping when they feasted their eyes on the awesome rack above the fireplace. Twenty-five points! None of them had even seen such an animal before, and neither had he. He picked up the phone and called the number.

  On the third ring, a weird voice that reminded him of Lurch, the butler from the Adams Family, answered with a deep “Hello, Blood’s Taxidermy.”

  “Hello, my name is Louie Shafer. I’d like to ask about having you mount a twenty-five-point buck. I bagged him early this morning and placed the head and shoulders in ice in the back of my pickup as soon as I could. I need your advice on what I should do to preserve the specimen until I can get it to you.”

  “Twenty-five points! You don’t see an animal like that very often. How far from my shop are you?” Blood said with an odd accent Louie had never heard before.

  “I would guess about twenty miles”

  “The sooner you can get the deer to me the better. It’s important to fold the skin inside the carcass in a certain way before it goes into cold storage.”

  “It’s a mountain road with a lot of hairpin turns, but I think I can make it there in forty minutes, tops.” Louie replied.

  “My shop is behind the petting zoo, which I also own. It’s a long rectangular building on the right side of my home. I’ll be waiting for you.” Louie marveled at how every word Blood spoke resonated in the earpiece.

  “But before I make the trip, can you give me an estimate of the cost, and how long the process will take?”

  “The price for a head and shoulders mount is $750, and based on my current backlog, I can start on yours in about nine months, so...I’d say I can have it for you by September 1. How does that sound?”

  Louie couldn’t believe what he had heard and shot back, “I had no idea it would t
ake that long. I’m having a birthday party for a group of friends June 5, and it’s critical I have it by then. If I pay double your fee, can you put me higher on the list?”

  Blood replied with no hesitation, “I’m sorry. I’ve already promised nine other hunters a date on their mounts, and there’s another one standing at the counter right now trying to make up his mind. I’m sorry, but I can’t modify these prior commitments. An alternative might be to offer to pay for one of the mounts already scheduled. I’m pretty sure one of the hunters will wait longer if you pay their fee.”

  “Can you recommend someone else for the job?”

  Blood hesitated. “I can give you some names, but I can’t say I can recommend any of them. Once you see my work, I am confident you will not want anyone else to work on such a rare animal. Why don’t you bring what you have to my shop? It’s an extremely hot day, and I want to be sure the remains are preserved correctly to insure maximum quality.”

  “Okay. I guess I’m sold. I’ll see you in about forty minutes.”

  Louie removed three bags of ice from the backup refrigerator in his laundry room and added them to the twenty bags he had purchased at the 7-11. To make sure the carcass didn’t slide around during the trip, he placed two cinder blocks on the corner of the black tarp he used to shield it from the sun.

  In forty-one minutes, Louie pulled his pickup into the parking lot of the address he had jotted down from Blood’s ad in the yellow pages. He could not believe the number of cars in the lot. A large sign on a ten-foot high fence read “Pigley Wigley’s Petting Zoo.” There were acres and acres of fenced in areas housing all types of animals. A surprising crowd appeared to be having the time of their lives. Carnival games and many upscale rides bustled with activity. Gigantic balloons of every color of the rainbow decorated the concourse.

  “Granted, this was no Disneyworld,” Louie thought, “but it was a thriving enterprise.”

  Looking in all directions, he finally noticed a small sign with an arrow pointing around back that read, “TAXIDERMY SERVICES.” The rectangular metal sign was so small, he was almost on top of it before he saw it.