by West, Sam
“Oh, you fat bitch,” he grunted, wiggling the weapon out of her thigh before swinging the axe one more time.
This time it was a success, and the axe made contact with the table top. Not being a real butcher’s table, and just an ordinary wooden table-top painted to look like stainless steel, the axe-head wedged firmly into the surface. Her leg plopped onto the floor with a heavy thump and he kicked it to one side.
“Not the type of legless you thought you’d be tonight,” he quipped.
He was glad that Fay was still alive to hear that distinctly cool, ‘James Bond’ kind of line. He moved round the table to her other leg and repeated the process so that so she was, indeed, fully legless.
Her cunt poked out between the two bloody stumps, hairy, pouty and sheened in blood. He felt his cock stir and he rubbed himself through the apron. So intent had he been on the job at hand, he hadn’t realised quite how blood-splattered he was.
There’s no way I’m walking out of here tonight, he thought in a moment of sadness.
No, come on, buck up. You wanted this, remember? You have nothing to live for.
With a renewed vigour, he lifted the hem of the apron which came down almost to his knees, and tucked it into itself at the neck.
Unzipping his black jeans, he freed his cock, stroking himself as he stared at the heavenly sight. Grabbing her hips, he pulled the headless and legless corpse down the table.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” he said, laughing.
He let out a howl like a wild animal as he gripped her stumps and drove into her. She was still warm and wet with blood.
“You enjoying this, whore?” he panted. “You’re so wet.”
After just four, good thrusts, he was dangerously close to coming and reluctantly pulled out. Fucking Claire felt like a lifetime ago and he was so damn hot for more pussy.
His gaze locked onto the terrified Fay and he felt the smile tugging at his mouth. “Are you ready for some girl on girl action?”
Her eyes bulged above the electrical tape as she frantically shook her head and made funny gurgling, growling sounds.
“You are? Well that’s great. Let’s get to it.”
Ignoring the weird noises, he hooked his hands under armpits and heaved upwards, almost putting his back out as he did so.
“Christ, you really need to go on a diet.”
Sweat broke out on his forehead and his arms trembled with the effort, but somehow, he managed to dump the screaming, violently shaking girl onto the table without breaking his back.
She lay on her stomach on top of the corpse, her face parallel with Louise’s cunt. Her nostrils flared and her eyes rolled back in her head, the electrical tape bulging.
She sure looks a funny colour.
“Shit,” he said, lunging for the gag as soon as he realised what was happening, ripping it off in one fluid motion, only to be hit square in the face by projectile vomit. It was luminous yellow and smelt of rank, vegetable soup left to congeal overnight in a saucepan. “Fuck,” he spluttered, “you disgusting fucking pig.”
It dripped off the end of his nose to mingle with the blood which saturated his apron and clothes.
It stinks like a fucking abattoir in here.
Piss, shit, blood, vomit – the general stench of human innards curled around him, a smell he hadn’t really noticed until this moment.
Maybe I should’ve doused my mask with fucking lavender oil like the Broadgate Butcher…
But the smell didn’t really bother him. In fact, now that he thought about it, he rather liked it. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and flicked his fingers.
“Have you eaten sweetcorn today?” he asked, flicking a bright yellow lump that was stuck resolutely to his finger like an unwanted booger. “You probably haven’t, it’s just one of those weird things, isn’t it? I mean, why do people always sick up lumps of sweetcorn even if they haven’t touched the fucking stuff for years?”
But Fay wasn’t listening. Now that her mouth was free, she was taking full advantage of the situation and screaming like a fucking banshee, peppered by the most repulsive retching noises. Despite her bound hands, she had also managed to prop herself up on her elbows, balancing precariously on Louise’s corpse.
This irritated him no end. If she rolled off the table he’d have to pick the fat cow up again, and he really couldn’t be arsed.
He shook his head. “Women. Always moaning.”
His ears were beginning to ring, so he punched her in the face, a neat right-hook that snapped her head sideways and quietened down the screams nicely. She flopped back down on the corpse of her friend, sobbing and gurgling deep in her throat.
He walked round to the other end of the butcher’s table, to where her splayed legs dangled ungainly off the edge.
“This could get infected,” he said, holding up her ruined left leg. “We need to amputate immediately.”
“Get away from me,” she gurgled and sobbed.
Although she might not have said that; it was hard to know for sure, given how slurred her speech was.
Retrieving the axe which was propped against the table, he swung it high above his head and brought it crashing downwards with a good, hefty swing. It connected nicely with the back of her left leg, just above the knee.
He pulled out the axe and was hit in the eyes with a hard spurt of blood. Wiping it away, he assessed the damage. Her leg was about three quarters off. He had chopped through the thigh bone, but the leg remained resolutely attached by the front, thick layer of flesh that had once wrapped generously all the way round her chunky thigh. Her body convulsed on the slab, reminding him of a flapping fish in its death throes.
He raised the axe once more. This time was the charm, and her leg thumped to the floor. Unintentionally, he had also managed to halfway sever the dead woman’s arm as well.
God, the noise she was making, it defied belief. She continued to spasm and jerk, and Paul wondered if she was dying.
“You can’t die yet, we haven’t even started.”
He did want her to shut up though, or at least dial it down a notch. The place was still filled with spooky music and the OTT screams of the tortured, but Fay’s was a little too authentic for comfort. When the boys came down here, he would be rumbled in a heartbeat, and he didn’t want that, so he taped her mouth back up.
Reaching down for the holdall, his hand curled around the instrument he sought. The blowtorch blazed into life in his hand and he admired the long, blue flame.
“Hold still,” he said. “This may sting for a second.”
Her body convulsed and she screamed into the gag as he cauterized her stump. It blackened and smoked, and, as if by magic, the bleeding stopped dead. The sweet smell of barbequed flesh hit his nostrils and he deeply breathed in the pleasant aroma. His stomach growled again, and he wondered what cooked human flesh would taste like.
It suddenly occurred to him that she had stopped screaming. The bitch was out cold. He reached out to feel for a pulse at her neck, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt the faint flutter of her still-beating heart beneath his fingertips. He didn’t want her to die yet, there were still lots of fun times ahead for them.
He stepped back to admire the smoking stump, satisfied that she wasn’t going to die from that wound alone.
Laughter coming from the top of the stairs snapped his attention away from Fay.
They’re here!
The Broadgate Butcher display wasn’t visible from the top of the stairs, and he figured that so long as he kept still, they would just think that the display was ‘supposed’ to look like this. That was if they didn’t look too closely, of course…
Paul stroked Fay’s blood soaked hair off her gleaming, red forehead, whispering lovingly in her ear: “Shush, now, we’re here to have fun, remember? You look gorgeous, I’m sure Ryan will fancy you. You never know, you might even get lucky.”
But she didn’t hear him because she was out of it. A little giggle escaped his lips; s
he looked so ludicrous with her chin resting atop Louise’s pubic mound like that, her plump, taped-up, bloody face framed by those bloody stumps...
With the three severed legs scattered around him, he straightened his diabolical apron, raised the axe above his head, and resumed his stance as the waxwork of the Broadgate Butcher…
He was ready.
CHAPTER TEN
The low rumble of distant, male voices grew clearer as the two boys thumped down the stairs. They were laughing at something, Paul didn’t know what, and the old, all-too-familiar feeling of being left out slammed into him.
Not fair. This is my special night.
The axe wavered slightly above his head. He was being stupid, now was not the time to fester over his life-long insecurities.
Because now it’s their turn. Now those cunts will know what it’s like to be ridiculed, to be the ones on the outside looking in.
They approached the centre of the walkway, stopping dead when they saw the shambles that was the blood-splattered, crumpled picnic rug and the scattered, plastic bowls of crisps.
“Where are the girls?” Mike said. “Smells like shit down here. Are the fucking toilets broken or something?”
Ryan shrugged. “Beats me. Could be a bust sewer pipe, I guess.”
Or at least, Paul assumed that the other lad was ‘Mike’ because he didn’t recognise him. He looked to be around twenty, with brown hair pulled back in a short pony-tale and a strong nose that was not altogether unattractive, giving him the appearance of a young Tom Cruise. He was short like Tom Cruise too; he couldn’t have been more than five foot six. Good-looking short guys were the worst, Paul thought. What they lacked in height they usually made up for with a cocky attitude.
“Hey,” Ryan called out. “Where are you?”
His cries were met by the wall of ‘mood music’ that bore more than a passing resemblance to the musical score of the seventies’ flick, ‘Halloween’. The recorded screams mingled seamlessly with the music, and if Fay were to come round right this second, it would just add to the overall ambience.
Paul watched Ryan in fascination. Do we look alike, he wondered? Jealousy twisted in his guts – Ryan was way better looking than him.
I guess he takes more after his mother…
“They can’t be far away,” Mike said.
Both guys stood there next to the picnic rug, turning slowly round on the spot. Their eyes swept over him a couple of times, but they didn’t see.
“They’re playing a trick on us,” Ryan said loudly. “And they will fucking pay when we catch them.”
In the gloom, Paul watched Ryan smile. Something about it was intensely familiar. He recognised that smile for what it was, he saw the cruel intent behind it.
Takes one to know one, I guess. It must be in the genes.
“Do you know where the main lights are?” Mike asked.
“Nope, not a clue.”
“You’re kidding me, right? Your dad runs this fucking place.”
“So? I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been in this fucking dump. Besides,” Ryan said, extra loudly so the girls would hear him from their hiding place, “where would be the fun in that? They want to play? They want to be hunted? So let’s hunt them.”
He walked away from the picnic rug, completely ignoring Paul and the bloody mess that was his would-be girlfriend. He rounded the corner, leaving Mike standing where he was.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” Ryan said, his voice diminishing as he disappeared into the bowels of the Chamber of Terrors.
“Mate?” Mike called out, but Ryan didn’t reply. “Don’t…”
Paul smirked. Mike may have stopped himself, but Paul knew exactly what he was going to say.
Don’t leave me.
Christ, what a fucking pussy. What a mouthy little prick, what a typical short man. He bet the arrogant son of a bitch would scream like a fucking girl and shit himself if he jumped out at him…
He hopped nervously from foot to foot, hugging himself like a complete fucking pansy.
“Ryan?” he shouted, followed by “for fuck’s sake,” under his breath. He turned for the stairs. “There’s gotta be a fucking light-switch somewhere.”
Paul laughed loudly, and Mike spun round. “Ryan? Louise? Is that you?”
Mike looked right at him. Or right through him. As soon as his back was turned, Paul laughed again, louder this time.
“I’m gonna gethcha,” he said gleefully.
“Okay guys, quit fooling around, this isn’t funny. It’s getting really boring.”
Paul disagreed most wholeheartedly.
“Boo,” he said, when Mike was looking in his direction once more.
Even in the dark, Paul could see the way his eyes widened. He staggered backwards, clutching his heart like some hammy actor from a B horror movie.
“What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the Broadgate Butcher,” he said in his best growl. “And I’m gonna chop you up.”
As predicted, Mike did, indeed, scream like a girl and turned and ran for the stairs.
If Ryan was all the way over by the swinging body-bags by now, there was a good chance that he wouldn’t have heard Mike’s screams. Paul had turned on all the music and sound-effects and, depending on which part of the exhibit you were in, the noise in your immediate, surrounding area tended to drown out everything else.
Besides, what was another scream, anyway?
Paul wasn’t interested in hunting Mike. He wasn’t gay and he had bigger fish to fry. So it was with very little ceremony that he pulled out his gun and shot him in the back. The shot was barely audible over the music thanks to the silencer, and Mike went sprawling, looking very much like he was performing an ungainly belly-flop into a swimming-pool.
Paul strode over to him, the axe in one hand, the gun in the other. Amazingly, he was still alive.
Paul kicked him onto his back, watching in fascination the way the blood pooled in his opened mouth and dripped down his chin. He was making the strangest rattling sound, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish.
“Mind if I borrow your head?” he asked.
Without waiting for a reply, he swung the axe down at his neck, severing his head in one fell swoop. His arms and legs convulsed comically, like he had been electrocuted, and then he was still.
Paul picked up his head by the pony-tail, laughing to himself.
Now it was time to find his dear, long-lost brother.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Paul paused by the ‘heads on sticks’ display, admiring Mary’s head in the line-up. You really couldn’t tell the real head from the fakes.
I wonder if Ryan noticed his mum’s head?
Probably not, which was good. He wanted to see his face when he saw it for the first time. He prised the head off the spike next to Mary – a bald-headed guy with his mouth twisted wide open in a scream and his eyes rolled back in his head – and threw it to the ground, shoving Mike’s head in its place.
There. Much better.
Tucked under his arm as he did this was Louise’s head. He placed her head on the spike next to Mike’s, and stepped back to admire his handiwork.
Pleased with this adjustment, he resumed his search for his brother. Up ahead, the body-bags were swinging. He smiled.
Gotcha, motherfucker.
Sure enough, Ryan’s tall form emerged from the maze of body-bags, and Paul pressed himself into the darkest spot on the wall, merging with the shadows.
Paul watched him in fascination. Unlike his sissy of a friend, he didn’t look remotely frightened by his surroundings and Paul couldn’t help but admire his cool.
Shame he has to die.
Opposite Paul, and just down from the ‘heads on sticks’, was the ‘medieval torture wall’. Ryan stopped before it, his back to him. On this wall were five life-size, scarily emaciated, wax figures, cuffed to the wall by their ankles and wrists. Their clothes were nothing m
ore than rags, hanging off their skeletal frames.
It was as if he were admiring the exhibits, like an art collector in a gallery. Paul watched as he reached out to touch one, noticing how it was almost with reverence that he trailed his hands over the jutting ribs.
“I know you’re behind me,” he said suddenly, loudly and clearly, still with his back to him. “I don’t know who you are, but I saw you in the shadows. You’re not the only one that likes to play games.”
Paul jumped at the sound of his voice. He hadn’t been expecting that at all.
Creepy little fucker, he thought with grudging respect. Neither man moved and Paul bit down any possible retort. He was curious. What, exactly, was this guy going to do?
“I mean, what happens in The Chamber of Terrors, stays in The Chamber of Terrors, right?”
He spun round to face him, the light from the ‘torture wall’ throwing his silhouette into stark relief, his face nothing more than a black smudge. Paul stood stock-still, quietly assessing. The bastard was looking right at him.
“What’s the matter? Are you playing hard to get now? Come out of the shadows. Show yourself,” he said with mock gravity, like he was quoting some cheesy line from a movie. “What’s the matter, are you scared? All these games are getting me horny. So, Fay, you wanna play? I’ll show you how it’s really done.”
Yes, there was no doubt about it, Paul was impressed. But he had to nip this in the bud now, especially as he was heading right for him.
“Stop,” he said. “I have a gun.”
Ryan faltered. “Who is that?”
Still no trace of fear, just a mild curiosity.
Paul stepped closer, out of the dark spot. He pointed the gun at him and swung the axe from his other hand.
Ryan didn’t so much as flinch.
Why isn’t he scared?
“Hello, Ryan,” he said, speaking at last. “I’m your brother.”
“Did the girls put you up to this? Because I don’t like being made a fool of.” He raised his voice an octave. “When I catch them, they’ll be very, very sorry.”