by Stephen Hand
She was on the verge of dropping the knife when she heard the sound of someone moaning. Her first thought was that Andy had somehow survived being stabbed, but he couldn’t have. One grudging look at the pallid corpse confirmed this: Andy was dead.
Erin shook her head. Maybe she was hearing things, or perhaps the noise was coming from upstairs.
But then she heard it again, and this time there was no mistake. It was a moan, and it came from around the corner of the room.
There was no doubt that she was hearing more pain. It sounded like a wounded animal. There were no half-words or human qualities to the whimpering at all. It was more like a beaten whine. Nevertheless, Erin couldn’t bear to witness any more scenes of raw brutality. She didn’t care if it was a wild hog—she didn’t want to find any living thing suffering the way Andy had suffered.
And she didn’t want to have to . . .
She couldn’t kill again.
The creature’s moaning was louder now, as if rousing from unconsciousness, and the clearly audible undercurrents of pain and misery in the cries were lamentably familiar—but this did nothing to diminish their horror.
Everything Erin had seen down here led her to think that she was about to find yet another mutilated victim of the Hewitts. She knew that if she went round to see where the cries were coming from she would discover one more repellant denial of freewill, one more barbaric mistreatment of life. And she didn’t know if she could cope.
She was terrified of what she might see and was afraid of being attacked. What if this was all part of the game, to lure her nearer and nearer to her death? For all she knew, there could be more of them, some maniac she hadn’t yet encountered down here waiting for her. Or there could be another way into the basement and Old Monty could be hiding in the darkness, watching her with his fat psycho-spastic son.
But then she heard more whimpering and reached a decision: if she denied the tortured creature her help, then the Hewitts had already won. She couldn’t just walk away. So, clutching the knife for self-defense, Erin crept towards the corner of the room.
Most of what scant light there was in the basement seemed to be coming from here. Fiery shadows flickered on the walls and she could hear the faint crackling and snapping of hot wood and charcoal.
Her feet were still submerged in the cold stinking water but she tried not to splash or make any sound whatsoever. She didn’t want anyone to hear her approach—though once she turned the corner, there was no way she could remain unseen.
The plaintive cries grew louder, more frequent.
Erin took a deep breath, then stepped round into the furnace area.
More horror.
More degradation.
More despair.
Just as with every other part of the basement, Erin found herself looking at a crazed collage of heavy rope, hooks, crisscrossing beams, old dirty clothing, chains, buckets, and butchery tools—all covered in wet blood and shit, as if someone’s bowels had been ripped open then hurled around the room.
There were pails of stuff she couldn’t even begin to guess at—one looked like it was holding three knives, left to stand in a foamy bucket of blood and puke. If there was any kind of logic to this hellhole, Erin couldn’t begin to see it.
The furnace itself was a decorative standing-stove made of cast iron. It threw light into the room and gave off enough heat to make the ambient stench even more pungent and gut wrenching.
Sitting in front of the closed furnace grille was a bathtub. It stood in the middle of the room like a lighthouse in a sea of pulleys, sawtooths and shit. The sides of the bath were coated with the same indefinable body crap as the rest of the room—only more so—and in the bath sat not an animal, but a human being.
Erin’s mistake made her feel guilty, as if somehow she had been responsible for the destruction of this person’s identity. She should have known it was a human making that pathetic noise. She should have known.
The groaning from the figure slumped in the bathtub was strangely muted and the person showed no sign of being aware of Erin’s presence.
For her part, Erin was too frightened to say anything, but she forced herself to step forward to take a closer look. If there was any way she could help, if there was anything she could do, anything except . . .
It looked like a man, though it was hard to tell. There was a large bloody gash in the middle of his back which Erin immediately recognized from the meat hook injury she had seen on Andy. His hands seemed to be tied together, but his face was difficult to make out. They’d left him in a bathtub halfway full of brown murky, bloody water packed with ice cubes.
The bastards were keeping him fresh!
Erin took another step closer. The flickering light of the furnace shone straight at him. His head was pitched forward and he rocked gently side-to-side as he moaned. She was sick of this. Sick of all this hatred.
The man looked up and she screamed.
His face was another skin mask—the very same mask that Leatherface had been wearing before he took Kemper’s face. Only now, the eyes and mouth had been sewn up, leaving more erratic stitches to disfigure the mask’s deathly countenance. The stitches stopped the wearer of the mask from seeing anything other than the decaying eyelids of a dead man, and they also subdued the sounds of his moaning. But the mask was too large for the victim’s head, so it had become a bulbous, puffed-up distortion of a corpse.
“Oh God,” cried Erin, revolted by this further demonstration of obsessive dehumanization.
The man in the bathtub had been forced to wear a face of human skin—a face peeled off the head of a terrified murder victim—a face Hewitt had fondled, played with and sewn tightly into a mask—a face Hewitt had worn over his own cancerous features while he’d butchered Kemper and Andy. The prisoner’s identity was submerged beneath four fibrous layers of mutilation.
Suddenly he bolted upright, flinging his head back and splashing the ice-cold puke-swill over the sides of the tub. His chest billowed as the shock of the freezing water cut into his waking bones. He lashed out with his legs and, when he threw his head to the side, the mask fell off.
Morgan!
He was still wearing the handcuffs Sheriff Hoyt had slapped on him up at the old Crawford Mill. His mouth was swollen and disfigured. His lower jaw was broken. Some of his teeth had been smashed out and his eyes were bulging under the pressure of extreme terror.
Erin hurried forward, “Oh my God . . .”
Morgan wasn’t trapped like Andy had been and it looked like he could move, despite his horrible injuries. But even if he survived this nightmare, what kind of future could Morgan look forward to?
He seemed quite conscious now, but totally lost. At first, he wanted to get up out of the tub. Erin tried to help, neither of them saying a word, but he fell and she slipped screaming back onto the ground beneath a torrent of bloody bath water. She looked up; Morgan was extending his bound hands out towards her like a helpless child.
He was watching the two of them through a hole in the furnace room ceiling. He saw her help him. Saw her—saW—SaW—SAW!
* * *
Morgan stood beside the warm furnace, fighting for clarity of thought. His mind was adrift on a sea of pain, and he even had to struggle to remember who he was. But each second he was growing stronger.
And now there were two of them, Erin had found new hope.
Once she was sure she had gotten through to Morgan, she quickly set about finding somewhere to hide. Given that the basement was full of alcoves, shelves and wooden supports, it should have been easy, but she found nothing.
Erin was pleased to see Morgan come and join her—though the sight of his beaten face was soul destroying—and together they looked for another way out, but again it looked as if they were going to come up empty handed.
The basement shook with the ferocious cyclone impact of the sliding metal door.
They looked at each other in panic. They both knew what that resounding crash meant:
it meant death.
“Over here!”
It was a kid’s voice. Jedidiah! But where—
There were heavy footsteps coming down the staircase, and they could hear the pull-starter being yanked . . .
“Hurry!” shouted the boy, and now Erin could see him. His head was poking out from behind an old crate and he was waving to her.
Pull once!
She ran over towards the boy, Morgan close behind her, and now she could see that the crate was concealing a large hole in the wall, leading to a tunnel.
Pull twice!
Jedidiah urged them on as Erin pushed the crate aside and helped Morgan through into the tunnel—his handcuffs were a real problem.
Three times and ROAR! Praise the Lord and pass the gasoline!
Erin could hear Leatherface hurtling down the narrow staircase. He had the chainsaw in his hands and was revving the two-stroke shit out of it.
They were in a passageway made from brick and cinderblock, interspersed with sections of crude wooden panels lashed together with rope. Jedidiah was already way ahead of Erin, his whole body aching for her to catch up.
She didn’t know what to make of the boy. He had survived a brutal attack on his family, but for what? The Hewitts seemed to treat him as if he were one of their own. What if he was? And why should the boy help Erin and Morgan? Just whose side was he on?
Behind her, Leatherface broke into the furnace room and came screeching towards the tunnel.
The chain with the cutting blades turned and turned and turned, breaking the crate up into severed wooden limbs.
Soon Erin was with Morgan and Jedidiah. The small boy flashed her a brief smile, then ran ahead down the underground passage. They could hear the engine of the chainsaw raging in the tunnel behind them—he was coming.
The tunnel ended in a small square room made of concrete—a tornado shelter. There were no lamps in the storm cellar, but seams of moonlight filtered in through the cracks in a wooden hatch above them, casting just enough illumination for Erin to make sense of their surroundings.
A couple of the walls were lined with shelf racks stacked with rows of mason jars, and there were a few boxes of junk scattered on the floor, but no weapon and no way to stop Hewitt coming into the shelter. But then, that was never the plan.
Jedidiah stood at the bottom of a stepladder that climbed up to the hatch and waved for Erin to lead the way.
She ran up the first couple of steps, but the third snapped in two beneath her, making her cry out as her leg dropped straight down. Morgan reached up to steady her, both his hands still linked by the steel handcuffs.
In return, Erin tenderly put an arm around his back and helped him up the ladder with her, and together the two of them made their way up towards the weather-beaten hatch, their ears almost bleeding from the oncoming fury of the chainsaw.
Above ground, one of the storm doors flipped open. Then another. And suddenly they could taste sweet, fresh air. Erin was still only halfway up the stairs but had helped Morgan to climb out ahead of her.
She watched him disappear through the hatch and then turned down to hold a hand out to Jedidiah. But the boy was still standing at the bottom of the steps. He just looked at her, not moving—then Leatherface entered the cellar!
The chainsaw raged like a burning scab inside the close quarters of the bunker.
And still the boy refused to come.
Erin was about to beg Jedidiah to join her, but she’d run out of time. She could see Leatherface without thought or pause making straight for the stepladder. Jedidiah tried to get in his way. He ran straight at the maniac and tried to push him back, but the boy was nothing against the killer and was easily swatted aside by one powerful offal-stained hand.
Clouds of exhaust smoke rose up the steep wooden stairs as Jedidiah crashed into one of the shelves and brought the whole lot down on top of him. Dozens of jars fell forward and broke upon the stone floor, shaking Erin out of her shock at the scene of mindless cruelty she’d just witnessed.
Leatherface had reached the foot of the ladder. He held the chainsaw in one hand, never once disengaging the cutting chain, and screamed at her, howling to be heard through the five horsepower engine.
Erin turned and scrambled up towards the open flat shutters. With only a few creaking steps to go, she reached up and grabbed hold of the sides of the hatch and began to haul herself out. Morgan, grimacing from the agony of the hook wound in his back, bent down and held out his manacled hands to help her, pulling her up.
She was almost outside, when she felt a soft clammy vise close around her left ankle. Leatherface had got her.
“No!” she raged, kicking her legs. But the sweating, dirty clamp wouldn’t let go. And now it was shaking and pulling her down towards the gasoline chain cacophony. Erin knew what would happen to her. He’d do what he’d done to Andy: slice her leg, disable and subdue her, bring her back under his power so that he could dress her up in dead skin and then kill her.
But Morgan wouldn’t let go. He was in agony, Leatherface was much stronger than he was, but he wouldn’t let go of Erin’s hand. And now the cuffs were helping him, supporting his wrists as he locked both his hands around her and pulled. His muscles tensed, and he cried out in pain, yet still he held fast.
Erin was being torn between the two of them, but it was clear who was winning. She was sliding down and Morgan was being dragged ever closer to the lip of the hatch. Her leg was being brought within full dismembering range of the chainsaw. There was only one way this could end, and yet they’d come so close to being free again . . .
“AGGGHHH!”
The cry came from Hewitt, only it wasn’t his usual demented hollering, it was more like the shrill wheezing of a poisoned rat.
Erin looked down and saw Jedidiah’s teeth sunk firmly, deeply, doggedly into the burly fetid hand holding her ankle. The boy had come up to help her. And at last Erin knew: Jedidiah was not family!
Suddenly, the crushing weight pulling on her leg was gone, and she was almost flying up through the open hatch, propelled by this unexpected release of momentum.
Outside, Erin saw just how bright the moon was; the whole area had become a patchwork of silver grass and long black shadow.
Morgan painfully helped her to her feet and then they stepped back and watched to see what was happening.
The chainsaw had fallen silent and neither could they hear any more fighting or voices. Everything within the storm cellar had grown unnaturally and abruptly quiet.
Erin peered down through the hatch and saw Jedidiah emerge from the darkness.
He was smiling. He had Hewitt’s blood on his lips and he stretched out his arms so that they could help him up.
Morgan took the boy’s left arm, Erin took his right, and they began to lift—AS THE CHAINSAW POWERED INTO LIFE AND TORE INTO JEDIDIAH’S BACK.
The tip of the chainsaw broke out through the boy’s stomach, flinging blood and child intestine onto Erin’s face.
Morgan cried out and let go of Jedidiah’s hand.
Erin realized there was nothing they could do for the boy now. She took one last look at Jedidiah’s weeping, agonized face, dripping with blood, then slammed the storm hatch shut. Jedidiah had sacrificed himself for her—and she could never do anything to repay him—but she was determined he wouldn’t die in vain.
Through the closed hatch, they could hear the lifeless ruptured body of Jedidiah fall down the stairs—followed by fast heavy footsteps and the victorious revving of the blood soaked chainsaw.
Morgan had already left Erin behind, but she had no trouble catching up with him. Together they hurried down the grassy ridge away from the farmstead.
There was no point taking the road from the house because Hoyt had the patrol car. Nor was it a good idea to follow the trail back to the mill; the van was out of action and the access road led straight back to Luda May’s. So Erin veered in a different direction and helped guide Morgan towards the cover of some nearby tree
s. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, but she didn’t care as long as it was away from—
The storm hatch broke open, spewing Leatherface out from the earth. And almost immediately the stillness of the night was raped and butt-fucked by the grinding chainsaw.
Neither of them spoke as they ran through the dark thicket. Morgan wasn’t even sure if he could talk any more; his mouth hurt too much to try.
Leatherface was coming after them.
By now Erin was getting used to charging through woodland. She was used to all the scratches and bruises as she tripped and blindly pushed her way through stuff. Only now, she didn’t give a damn. All she cared about was that she didn’t fall over.
Morgan, on the other hand, was in a bad way. He managed to keep pace, but every footstep sent pain tearing through his body, and he couldn’t help but cry out.
Erin took the lead and tried to knock all the branches and creepers out of her friend’s way. But it was slowing her down, and she could hear the chainsaw getting closer. She didn’t stop to look, but she was sure that Leatherface was howling through the thicket behind her, stomping on all the green shit like he was a little baby retard.
Suddenly they came out of the grove and staggered into a clearing.
Hundreds of stars twinkled on the ground before them, and immediately they knew they were looking at the myriad reflections of the moon on the chrome and broken glass of the automobile graveyard.
And another vehicle had been added to the collection. When the van had come off the factory line, it had been a plain-old production standard Chrysler Dodge A-100 Wagon. But to look at it now.
The van had been toppled and was lying on its side. The wheels had been removed, doubtless for sale at Luda May’s. The roof was a confused tangle of chainsaw gashes. But all this bloody coating would have meant Jack Shit if Kemper hadn’t already been dead.
It struck Erin that every smashed-up car in the clearing was actually a tombstone; each vehicle rested in silent testimony to the butchered and the dead who were just passing through.
Morgan gripped her hand and looked at her imploringly. She couldn’t believe just how badly battered his face was, yet he’d survived, God bless him. The meaning of his gesture was clear. They could both hear the chainsaw coming. They had to get out of there.