A Life To Waste

by Andrew Lennon

  The truck started to slow down, Dave couldn’t see where they were going with his face pressed to the back. But he could feel they were slowing down. They must be close, he had to be ready to jump off and hide before bigfoot came around to grab him.

  Chapter 17

  The truck slowed right down, almost to a stop. Dave chose this opportunity to jump off, he quickly ran behind a group of large red bins. He crouched down and peeked over the bins. Was he seen? It didn’t look like it.

  “Thank god!” he thought.

  The ice cream truck crawled forward at a snails pace, like an old man driving round a red light district looking for a hooker. Eventually it stopped, it was only one building away from where Dave had chosen his hiding space. These building were huge though so it was still quite a distance down the other end of the dark street. Dave looked around.

  “Where the hell am I?”

  He was surrounded by huge, old looking buildings, they looked like factories of some sort. He could smell something horrible, it was almost like sea air but it was mixed with smog and rubbish. He looked further down the street, he could see water. He was at the docks. There were huge industrial estates at the docks, they had massive old building which had been used as factories. As far as he knew they had been abandoned for years now, at least ten years. He has always wondered why they hadn’t been demolished or reconstructed. The recession had it every area of industry so there was no money to build any businesses up, everything had been left to go to waste. Which was evident by the rows of derelict buildings.

  The bald giant got out of the truck, it was so dark that even at the other end of the street Dave could still hear the freak whistling that haunting tune.

  “If.....you.....go.....down.....to.....the.....woods.....today”

  He strolled to the back of the truck, unlocked the door and threw it open. Dave saw the boy run at the freak, he had his arms raised in the air screaming. The giant man didn’t even flinch as the boy ran at him, he grabbed him with one hand around his throat, lifted him up in the air and then slammed the small body back down to the floor of the ice cream truck. The sound the impact made echoed through the streets. Dave began to tremble as he watched the boy’s body go limp.

  “Oh shit, he’s killed him now”

  The giant threw the lifeless body over his shoulder and strolled towards the building, still whistling, as though he were plodding along with his nine to five job.

  “You’re.....sure.....of.....a.....big.....surprise.”

  Dave’s view was partially blocked by some more bins and protruding walls further down the street. He heard a loud bang, like a metal fence being punched. He leaned around the bin to get a better look. The freak had gone. He must have gone through a door in the next building.

  Dave’s heart began to beat like a humming birds, he was struggling for air, he tried to calm himself as began to hyper ventilate. He knew that he was going to have to follow that freak into the building. He had come all this way, he had to go and find his mum. He walked slowly and as quietly as he could down the dark street, the street lights were lit but they were spaced lengths apart and the street was very narrow with tall buildings either side. This left a lot of black spots on the street. Dave thought he could use these to his advantage, as he crept down the street, he thought if that guy comes back out he can hide in one of these black spots.

  H

  He continued his walk, almost holding his breath, waiting for the moment this giant emerged from the darkness, standing over him with a meat cleaver, or a chainsaw. He reached the ice cream truck, it had been left in the middle of the road. Dave knew that no one would be coming near this building anytime soon, it was just him, bigfoot and whoever was being held captive inside. Unless......unless bigfoot had friends inside. Dave hadn’t thought about that, what if he got inside and there was a gang of these crazed killers? What would he do then? He wouldn’t even stand a chance hiding, let alone fighting if there were a lot of them.

  He stood outside looking up at the tall abandoned factory thinking that this would probably be his final act, this would be the place he was going to die. He could see a sign half way up the front. “Windas Development” It had a picture of a conservatory next to the writing. It was a window factory, it had obviously been left abandoned a long time ago. For a window factory it had surprisingly few windows, Dave thought. He could see some further down the street but they were quite high up. It didn’t matter, he had to have a look inside before even attempting to go in there. He needed to have some idea of what he was up against.

  He ran down the street until he was stood underneath the raised windows, there was no way he could reach them. He needed something to climb on. He rolled one of the big bins from the side of the road until it was placed under the window. The top of the bin itself was high up, it was just above Dave’s shoulder in height, so getting up on that wasn’t the easiest task. Finally he was there, stood upright on the bin, he still had to really stretch himself up to see in the window. It was really dark, it looked like the window had been painted. There were some spots were the paint didn’t appear as thick as other, Dave cupped his eyes and tried to look in. He couldn’t tell if it was dark inside or if it was just the paint on the window making it look that way. He strained to see something inside, to see anything. He couldn’t all he could see was the dark floor. But wait a minute, the floor was moving. There was movement all over the floor, he couldn’t see what it was. There were shadows raising and dropping all over the span of the factory floor. It looked like a giant carpet that was being shaken from side to side in the dark. There were things in that factory moving around on the floor.

  He didn’t know what they were, maybe they were guard dogs? Couldn’t be, not that many, anyway these thing weren’t moving like they were walking, these things were squirming along on the floor. But what were they? And how many of them were there?

  Chapter 18

  “I need to find a way in” Dave whispered to himself.

  The window he had been looking through, apart from being too high up, was locked. He would have to smash it to get through and then it would be at least a ten foot drop, probably face first. No he didn’t want to choose that route. There had to be another way, there had to be more windows somewhere. Maybe round the back? Dave ran down to the end of the street and then across to the next street behind the building.

  “Shit!” He said.

  He didn’t need to go any further up to see that the window factory was joined at the back to another building. Probably another old factory, there were definitely no windows at the back.

  “There has to be somewhere.”

  He ran back up the street passed the factory, ducking and diving in the shadows, stopping every now and then to crouch behind another big red bin. He had to be ready to hide if that freak came back out. When he reached the end of the factory he noticed that there was a low roof connecting it to the next building. Perhaps it had been an extension added on years ago? Perhaps it was a toilet block or something? It didn’t matter what it was, it might have a window or a sky light that he could get through.

  He spread his arms and legs either side of him and began to shimmy up the narrow walls that were protruding either side of the low roof. He remembered doing this sort of thing when he was a kid. It had seemed a lot easier back then. After a lot of climbing and a lot of grunting, he reached the top of the roof.

  “Yes!” he said.

  There was a window on the connecting wall of the factory, it wasn’t very big, probably only used to let a bit of light into a bathroom or something. But maybe, just big enough if Dave could break it and then climb in. He tip toed across the roof and knelt down next to the window, he was surrounded by darkness, crouched in the narrow gap on the small roof between the larger buildings. He leant over to try and see into the window, he wanted to see if it would be a safer route than the high one he had been looking in before. As he leaned forward he was stopped about an inch short of the window
when something pressed against his forehead.

  “Fuck!”

  There was a metal grate, or metal bars of some sort nailed to the outside of the window. He had seen the checked lines when the window first came in sight but he thought it was just a pattern. Looks like this route wasn’t going to work either. He snuck back across the low roof and lowered himself down. He tried to drop quietly but the drop was bigger than he anticipated and he made a loud thud, he dropped hard onto his knee, smacking it against the concrete floor.

  “Ow! Shit! Mother fucker! that hurt!” he cursed

  Then thought to himself “There has to be a way in, to be a way in, there has to be”

  He prowled around the front of the factory once more. There were three large sliding metal doors. But they had pad locks on them, big industrial pad locks, he wasn’t getting through them without bolt cutters. He knew there was only one way in, it was the only way he hoped he wouldn’t have to go through. He had to go through the door that big foot had entered earlier.

  His thoughts returned to all the different ways that the giant freak was going to kill him. He was going to open the door and that bastard was going to be waiting on the other side with a shot gun. He would blow his brains all over the wall. No, he would open the door and be impaled with a big spear. No it would be an axe to the head. No, he had to stop these thoughts again, he had to be brave, he had to go and save his mum.

  His legs were trembling as he shuffled toward the rusty metal door. His hand shaking as he reached out for the handle. He turned the handle, it was unlocked. The door creaked as he opened it, he flinched with every movement, each creak seemed like it was as loud as fireworks in the silent dark night.

  “Shhh, shut up shut up shut up” his thoughts racing once again.

  After a second, but what seemed to be a lifetime of these creaks, the door was open. There was no one there, thank god. He crouched down, hurried through the door and ducked into a dark corner directly ahead of him. The place was lit, but only just. All the lights seemed to be a kind of dull orange colour. The colour a light bulb goes just before it’s about to blow. This wasn’t the case with these bulbs, they were just covered so much that the dirt and dust on them had effectively masked the light.

  Dave was faced with two doors, one at the end of the corridor and one to the left. Either side of the door to the left where large windows, overlooking what Dave had assumed would be the factory shop floor. He needed to see what that stuff he had seen from outside was. He needed to see what it was that had been squirming on the factory floor. He had to check the killer wasn’t there before he went storming in. He crawled to the window and lifted his head just enough so his eyes were peeking through the bottom of the window. He still couldn’t see properly. He lifted himself more almost to a standing position. No, it was too dark, that guy couldn’t be in there, if he was, he couldn’t see anyway and Dave would be able to sneak passed in the shadows, hopefully.

  “Shit, this is crazy, I’m gonna die.” He thought.

  He shimmied over until he was directly in from of the door to the shop floor. He opened it.

  “holy shit what is that smell!”

  Dave gagged.

  Chapter 19

  Dave covered his mouth and nose with his hand in an attempt to mask the awful smell. It didn’t work, the smell was too strong. He imagined it crawling through his fingers and creeping into his nostrils. It was the most disgusting thing he’d smelt in his life. He didn’t know exactly what a rotting corpse smelled like, but if he had to guess, it would smell like this.

  He made his way down the metal staircase leading to the shop floor. He flinched with each step, even trying as he was to be quiet, it still rattled when his foot touched the next step. The staircase ended at the far left corner of the room. When Dave reached the bottom he turned and started to walk to the centre of the room.

  “Oh my god!” he shuddered.

  Now that Dave was on the shop floor he could see the things that had been squirming on the floor. The covered almost the whole factory shop floor, from wall to wall. He didn’t know exactly how many there were but he knew what they were. They were people.

  “Jesus, how many are there?” He asked himself.

  “How long have they been here?”

  Dave stomach turned at the site of these people. He couldn’t see them all, it was too dark, but when he crouched down he could see the ones nearest to him clearly. The first person he looked at was missing an eye, he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman, the face was too messed up. The bottom lip looked like it at been ripped from the face, the teeth left bare only one or two left hanging in. Embedded into a jaw that looked dislocated. Dave put the back of his hand close to the mutilated mouth. There was no air coming out, this person wasn’t breathing.

  “Poor bastard got tortured.” He thought.

  He could see that this persons leg was facing the wrong way, the hip must have been broken or dislocated. There was a huge lump on the bottom of the leg. Dave leaned over to see what it was.

  “Oh fuck! Oh holy shit”

  It was an arm. The hand had been severed but Dave could clearly see that there was an arm attached to this other persons leg. It had been sewn on or something. His eyes followed the arm along past the elbow leading to the shoulder, the arm was still attached to its owner. The face that had been half sewn onto the other arm did not belong.

  Dave leaned over and puked. He couldn’t hold back anymore. The sight was too horrific. What type of sick human being could do something like this? This was worse than the things you see on horror films, he didn’t in his wildest dreams imagine anyone could do this to people.

  Dave walked slowly along the floor, having to step over various limbs and torsos. The bodies were spread all the way across to the other side, each one was sewn onto the next. Making one huge patchwork of skin and different body parts.

  The further along Dave walked he noticed that the bodies had not started to waste away to the extent the ones at the other end of the room had. Perhaps the ones closest to the stairs had been there for the longest. This freak must have just added bodies onto his sick work of art as and when they came in. Almost like a production like.

  “mum” he thought.

  If his “production line” theory was correct, that meant his mum would most likely be at the far end of the factory, and hopefully not in as bad a state as the earlier victims.

  Dave started to rush toward the end of the factory, careful as he was going trying not to fall over into to any of the mutilated patchwork victims.

  “help me” he heard a whisper

  Dave stopped.

  “hel....help....me” he heard again.

  When Dave looked down he could see that the people surrounding him now had definitely not been there for as long as the ones he’d seen prior. There was more colour to their skin, their clothes didn’t look quite as bad, their blood seemed more, fresh.

  Dave turned away and puked again.

  “help....please”

  He looked down, he could see movement, not from just one person but from quite a few. He could see a face, it’s lips moving.

  “help me”

  He couldn’t see exactly where the body was though, there were four or five bodies moving. Obviously one of them belonged to this person, but it had been sewn to the others. So when it moved, they all moved.

  “It’s ok” Dave said in a whisper “I’m here to help you”

  “Help....me”

  “yes I’m here to help you, how long have you been here?”

  “please.”

  “do you know if there are anymore alive?”

  “help”

  “have you seen a woman come in, in the last few weeks”

  “me”

  Dave began to get frustrated, this person’s mind had left them already, they were completely oblivious to what Dave was saying. They were left with nothing but their survival instinct. To ask for help.

  “pl
ease help me” the face attached to multiple bodies said again.

  “I promise you, I’m going to try.....but”

  The lights turned on.

  Chapter 20

  “If.....you.....go.....down.....to.....the.....woods.....today”

  It was the whistling again. The freak was coming! Dave needed to find a place to hide and fast. His eyes shot in every direction, there were plenty of things he could hide behind. Machinery, old unused PVC doors, a big furnace or kiln looking thing. He couldn’t get to any of these things fast enough though, the door at the top of the stairs opened. Dave dropped to the floor.

  Keeping himself as still as possible, he used just his feet to push him into the human patchwork quilt. He tucked his chin to his chest so his head was pressed against the floor and then push his body forwards, further and further. Until eventually he was covered by the bodies. To anyone looking from the outside they would not notice him, he was underneath parts of five different bodies, all sewn together to camouflage him.