by Sam West
How can they still be alive?
Maybe I’m tripping, this can’t be real.
Oh but it is, and you know it.
They swayed slightly in an invisible breeze, the white dressing that tightly bandaged what was left of their bodies streaked with red.
Mick pushed her into the room and she stumbled forwards, almost head-butting the guy on the left.
“Help us,” said the man over the other two’s muttering and whimpering.
“This is Fred, most resilient chap, I must say. He shouldn’t still be alive, he really is a little miracle.” He laughed. “Little being the operative word. The other two lost their minds along with their limbs.”
Hope watched in mute, dumbfounded terror as Mick went to the woman at the right of the macabre line-up. She gabbled nonsense at him, thrashing her head from side to side. Big, plastic looking breasts poked out between the gaps in the bandages, and wobbled slightly with the twitching of her torso.
“June here still has all her insides, but only for another ten minutes. When the doctor comes he will trim her down some more. The liver and kidneys will go, along with most of the colon. He shall make the cut here,” he said, tracing an invisible line across the woman’s neat waistline. “Her hipbones will go, as well as the bottom part of her spine. This is a very tricky operation, as I’m sure you appreciate. Less than one in a hundred survive it. Apart from Frank and James here. Although I don’t think James will be with us much longer.”
Hope looked at the middle guy. He appeared to have been severed at the waist and his bandages were saturated with blood. It dripped through the gaps in the wicker-basket and pattered on the slightly inwardly sloping, tiled floor. His eyes rolled back in his head and he seemed oblivious to his surroundings. He drooled and muttered incomprehensibly to himself, completely gone.
Frank, however was entirely lucid. “Please,” he said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Please kill me.”
Hope’s eyes locked with his. They really were quite beautiful eyes; chocolate brown and sorrowful, like a puppies. It struck her how handsome he was, his fine bone structure enhanced by the black hair elegantly greying at the temples.
Looks a bit like George Clooney.
The nausea rose up out of nowhere and she doubled over, heaving violently. The yellow sick slid towards the plughole, and she remained crouched over, tears and snot clogging up her face and airways.
Mick let out a hearty laugh. “Silly girl, why would you go and do a thing like that? Lucky for you there’s a drain in here, or I’d make you eat it back up again. Look at me when I’m talking to you. Stand up straight.”
Hope straightened up, trembling violently. The sight which greeted her made her want to throw up again, even though she was completely empty. Mick was groping the woman in the basket, palming her breasts like playdough and
(dearGodno)
actually kissing her on the mouth. The basket swung with his attentions and after a moment or two, he broke off the kiss.
“I am going to miss June’s cunt and arsehole. Still, never mind, plenty more cunts and arseholes in the world.”
He threw her a meaningful look and she cringed inside. He’s going to rape me.
Of course he’s going to rape you, why else are you here?
The moment passed, and Mick was all business again.
“Goodbye June, enjoy your surgery. The doctor will be here any minute now,” he said, checking his Rolex. He turned his attention back to Hope: “They are well looked after, my guests receive nothing but the best medical attention. Aha, and here is the doctor now.”
A man entered the room; a perfectly ordinary looking, middle-aged bloke with neat grey hair wearing a white doctor’s coat.
“Good Afternoon Mr Cooper, your staff told me to come straight through.”
“Afternoon, Doctor. Yes, yes, very good. Hope and I will leave you to it, the operating room is free.”
“Thank you. Will you be joining us today, Mr Cooper?”
“No, not today, Doctor, I’m entertaining my guest.”
“Very good. Enjoy your afternoon, Mr Cooper.”
Mick nodded and ushered Hope out the room with his hand in the small of her back. Outside, a beautiful woman in a nurse’s uniform, whose skirt was much shorter and tighter than the skirts usually seen on nurses in the NHS, wheeled a metal gurney over to the room they had just vacated.
Mick ignored her and led Hope to the next door along.
“Are you ready to see the next little project?”
“Please,” Hope said in a voice that sounded pathetic to her own ears. “I don’t want to see anymore. Please –“
Mick slapped her hard across the face, killing her words dead. She stared up at him, wide-eyed. The slap hadn’t hurt her, perhaps because of the numbing effect of the LSD, but it still had the desired effect. He was in charge, and unless she wanted to end up in a wicker-basket between Frank and James, she’d better start doing exactly what she was told.
“Now, Hope, you are hugely privileged to be here now, with me. You need to start showing me a little respect. Do you understand?” Ever so slightly, she nodded. “Good. Then let’s continue with the tour, shall we?”
Mick led her to the second hatch along, and slid it across. The rooms must have been soundproofed up to the nines because the second he opened it, the sound of screaming assaulted her eardrums.
As before, he grabbed her head and forced her to look.
The room was much the same as the room before it; small and bare, light and bright. This one too had a drain in the middle of the floor. But this room had no furniture in it whatsoever. Only chains.
“This project is one of my favourites. I love the idea of body modification, who knows, maybe I’ll do something similar to you. On second thoughts, why would I want to do a thing like that? You are perfect as you are.”
Hope could only stare at the poor girl in the room in horror. She was screaming and twitching pathetically, her ankles and wrists bound by metal cuffs, which in turn were attached to lengths of chain attached to the walls and ceiling. Her arms were stretched high above her head, and she was naked. Her body just looked plain wrong. Her breasts were oversized, like those girls with the obscene implants that sometimes made an appearance on late-night documentaries on Channel Four. Her skin was stretched taut, like a water balloon about to burst.
But her waist was the worst. If it hadn’t of been for the chains holding her upright, it was painfully obvious that the poor girl would bend in the middle and possibly snap in two. There was no way that a waist that small could support the weight of her upper body, even without the grotesque implants. Hope could only stare at the whittled waist in horror; it wasn’t even as wide as her kneecap.
“Beautiful isn’t she? Her waist is eight inches wide, which makes her measurements forty-seven – eight – thirty-five. Playboy would snap her up. Unfortunately for Sara, snap is about right. She can just about stand up by herself with the aid of a corset, but without one…” He made a snapping sound in the back of his throat, and smiled at both of them. “Six ribs were removed to achieve this shape and her internal organs were redistributed. Unfortunately, they were redistributed to such an extent that there is a high risk that blood supply will be severely impaired, thus, some vital organs may will wither and die… Still, she was pretty while she lasted.”
“You’re sick,” Hope said, unable to stop the words escaping and instantly regretting them.
The girl called Sara stared beseechingly at her, her puffed-up, collagen filled lips making Hope think of a fish…
…Which is exactly what the poor girl is. A fish on a hook.
The girl’s screams gave way to pathetic sobs. “Please, it hurts so much, just please, make it stop…”
“Shush, don’t cry,” Mick said soothingly, gently stroking the girl’s long blonde hair which hung down her back as long and as thick as a Barbie doll’s. “You have always been so vain, so obsessed with your looks. You’re th
e one that wanted to be a model, remember? Well, now I’ve made you more beautiful than any of them. And don’t you ever call me sick.”
He turned on her so fast that Hope barely had time to comprehend what was happening. One second he was cooing at Sara, the next he had shoved her up against the wall, both hands around her neck, squeezing the life out of her.
“Don’t you ever backchat me, bitch. I own you.”
Spittle flew from his lips and his face blurred and dimmed above her. Hope couldn’t breathe, her head felt like it was about to pop and bright lights exploded before her eyes.
He’s going to kill me, she thought calmly.
Just as the room dimmed around her and the girl’s screams and pleas for help grew more and more distant, he let go. She fell to the floor and curled up in a foetal position, clutching her bruised neck and gasping for air.
“I haven’t finished with you yet,” Mick said, his voice barely discernible over the ringing in her ears. The ringing eased and the woman’s screams resumed at full volume once more. “Get up.”
Hope got to her feet, retching and shuddering.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take…
She stared at Mick, who stood there placidly watching her, his expression unreadable. Without a word he marched her out the room and shut the door and bolted the hatch. Hope was relieved not to have to look at that pitiful woman anymore, or hear her screams.
It was silent out in the big room, or foyer, or whatever the hell it was. Her head still felt tight and strange, and black shapes swirled in the corner of her vision. It took a moment for her to realise that the swirling blackness wasn’t the after-effects of being strangled, but the shapes were in the room.
She spun round, trying to look directly at the swirling darkness, but she never quite managed to see it properly, it always danced just on the edge of her vision.
“Are you seeing things, my dear?”
Of course. She was on drugs, she’d forgotten that all-important fact for the briefest of seconds. As soon as Mick had posed the question, the swirling blackness intensified. Now she could look at it directly. It was like smoke, except it was the densest black. Her head tilted backwards when the almost-smoke curled upwards and engulfed the chandelier. As it touched it, the chandelier seemed to bend with the darkness. The light in the room flickered and dimmed, throwing shadows over the white walls and doors.
Hope flinched in a fresh rush of fear. Some of those shadows looked like people. No, not people. Demons.
The shapes crawled over the walls, as if seeking an entry into the room.
“Don’t let them get in the room,” Hope said, grabbing hold of the sleeve of Mick’s expensive grey suit, forgetting for a moment that he was the enemy. “If they find a way in, they will kill us.”
She didn’t know how she knew this, she just knew it to be true. Those shadows, those things were from the other side. From Hell. And once they crossed over, they wouldn’t ever go back.
“Tell me, what do you see?”
“I see… darkness. Darkness and shadows and devils.”
Mick laughed loudly, like she had just told a really good joke. “And you will be seeing a lot more of that in the days to follow. Come, we have one more room to visit before you may eat, drink, and rest.”
The shadows grew more frantic around her and she closed her eyes, still clutching the sleeve of his suit. “No, you don’t understand, they want to hurt us…”
“And you, my dear, are tripping. It will make what you are about to do all the more exciting. Come, he’s waiting for you.”
Ever so gently, like he cared for her and hadn’t tried to strangle her a few seconds ago, he prised her fingers off his sleeve and cupped her under the elbow. Hope allowed herself to be led to a door on the opposite side of the room. The shadows/demons danced on the walls all around her – a kaleidoscope of evil intent.
“Please, don’t make me touch the door,” she said when they had stopped. “If I touch the door, the demons will find a way in. Oh God, please don’t make me go into that room…”
She gasped and ducked when a black shadow whooshed over her head, bringing with it a gust of freezing cold air. She knew, that if she touched the door then the black shaped would flow through her and into the room. Once in the room they would take on their true shapes, and then Hope knew that she would surely go mad. It was not a human-being’s place to look upon the demons, she knew. It would make Frank, James and June in their wicker-baskets seem like an illustration in a children’s story.
“Get in,” Mick said, pushing open the door.
CHAPTER TEN
Hope lurched inside the third room of the tour. She screamed and covered her face, fully expecting the bad shapes to flow through her body and materialise before her…
To her relief, nothing happened. In fact, the shadows hadn’t even followed them into the room. They were safe in this room, for the time being at least. Relaxing a little bit, she forced herself to look.
This one was small like the other two, with the same tiled floor and white-washed walls. In this room, however, was a bed.
And on it lay Rohan. He was asleep, or unconscious and wore nothing but a pair of black boxer-shorts. He lay on his back, looking angelic beneath the harsh lighting, his blonde hair shining. His wrists were handcuffed to the metal headboard and he slept on peacefully, looking as innocent as a child.
The bed was a regulation hospital bed with no sheets. On top of the mattress was a wraparound plastic cover.
So the blood can be easily cleaned up...
The horror of the shadows waiting for her outside temporarily forgotten, she stared helplessly at Rohan.
“What will happen to him?” she asked.
“You are going to kill him.”
Hope stared at her captor in confusion. Surely she had heard wrong, surely he didn’t mean that…
“No,” she said, putting her hands to her ears. She thought of running out through the door but then the shadows would get her.
“Hope? Hope!” he shouted.
Effortlessly he prised her hands away from her ears and without warning, he brought his mouth down on hers. She was so surprised she didn’t resist and didn’t even flinch when his tongue fleetingly and delicately touched hers. Just as quick the kiss was over and he was pressing something cold and hard into her hand. When she looked down, she saw it was a knife.
A fleeting fantasy of driving the knife into his guts played out in her mind, then instantly vanishing again.
Kill him no I can’t kill him if I kill him the shadows will get me I have to kill him…
“Hope?” Mick said, cutting through her jangled thoughts. “If you even think about sticking that knife in me, you will be subjected to punishments that you couldn’t even conjure up in your worst nightmares. Even if you did stab me, and in the unlikely event you did manage to kill me, there are other employees of mine in the house that will see to it that your punishment is severe.”
Hope trembled before him, confused and very, very lost. Before she could even think of what to do, he was gone.
Like earlier out in the big room, he seemed to move in the blink of an eye. The door slammed shut and the hatch rolled across with a final sounding clack.
He’s the devil oh yes the devil the king of the shadows on the wall…
No! It’s the drugs yes the drugs the LSD...
Stop!
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, reigning in the crazed thoughts, forcing her mind to blank out. A part of her was aware that she was losing it, yet she was powerless to bring to a halt the sensation of sinking.
She had no idea how long she just stood there, watching the gentle rise and fall of Rohan’s chest.
“Hope!” a loud yet tinny voice boomed in the confined space. “You have to kill him, you’re not coming out until you do.”
“What the,” she gasped, spinning violently round on the spot like a demented ballerina.
“Above you, Hop
e. I’m watching you.”
Sure enough, when she looked up, a wall-mounted camera stared down at her from the corner of the ceiling. She waited for Mick to say something more, but all she could hear was Rohan’s soft snoring.
The knife shook in her hand. Maybe I could do it while he’s asleep. Just slit his throat, he’ll never know...
The knife slipped out of her sweaty hand and clattered to the floor. How could she even think such a thing? What was wrong with her? She was sick in the head.
I’m on drugs. It’s not my fault.
“Hope? Is that you? Where are we? What’s going on?”
Shit, he’s awake oh God what am I going to do I can’t kill him I can’t do that I’ll kill him yes I’ll kill him…
Her stomach lurched and cramped, but there was nothing left in her apart from bile and she forced it back down again until the sensation passed.
“Hope? Can you un-cuff me?”
“No Rohan, I can’t. I don’t have the key. Mick has the key.”
To her surprise, Rohan burst into tears. It wasn’t with compassion that she gazed down at him, it was with something nearer disgust. What the fuck was he crying for?
Probably because he knows he’s going to die. Because he knows you’re going to kill him…
“No,” she gasped, sliding her back down against the wall until her rump hit the icy-cold floor. She mashed her face into her knees, wishing with all her might that her nightmare would just bloody end.
“Hope, you have to try and slide the cuffs off the headboard. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”
At least he had stopped crying, she was thankful for that small mercy. Slowly, she raised her head and peered at him through the tangle of her hair.
“And why should I even try to help you, Rohan? You beat me You hurt me.”
“I didn’t want to do it, I had to. I had to make them think that everything was normal. Come on, Hope, you know I was trying to rescue you. And I would’ve done, if you hadn’t have gone and ruined it. Why would you do that?”