Individually Wrapped Horrors

by Eric Joel Kleinschmidt, Sr.

  “What mice?” he shot back.

  “The dead ones that they found after you had experimented them to death!” Now it was his turn to look down at the floor thinking hard.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “The goddamned mice you had done dissections on and injections and so on. The ones you had labeled with some of the popular kids’ names, boys and girls. The male ones usually had nasty sharp things inserted into them. You didn’t know they had found them, did you? It wasn’t until you were in the hospital that they made the discovery.” She was breathing very hard again. Careful, Jamie, she thought, keep it up and he IS going to kill you! The whole reason you never came back is because you had been expelled. Your parents gave you some bullshit about the violence in that part of town, but you had to move when you did. You were facing juvie otherwise. I almost felt bad for you when we did what we did, but when they found those mice…I knew what we had done was right. You are the one with sins to pay for. Now you have even more. Let me go and you can at least try to make up for what you’ve done.” He seemed to mull this over, then that dark smile returned.

  “They never found the cat though. That one I had hidden away special. That one was special. We had a lot of fun together, she and I. In the end, she was just too far gone. She had clawed me in pretty sensitive places and the scratches got infected. It was all very painful and difficult to hide. So, I had to end it.” He paused, still smiling, and a string of drool escaped from his lips. “She had sins to pay for, too. She paid dearly. Her name was Jamie…”

  From outside of the deserted building, a woman’s shrill screams and shrieks of pain could be heard, echoing through the would-be industrial complex that had been begun, but never completed. Empty streets lined with piles of building supplies, both abandoned and weather-beaten, wove around through a decimated field of empty lots and partial building structures. No one else heard her scream.

  ****

  Driving away from the scene of the cleansing—as he thought of it—Christian reflected deeply on the conversation leading up to Jamie’s departure from this mortal world. The one key phrase that kept repeating in his poor stuck brain was not something she had said, rather something he himself had said in the heat of the moment. “The sins that we commit in life and get away with follow us around like a bad scent. They wait for the appropriate time and then demand we be held accountable for what we have done. We all have such sins in our pasts.” “And when the debt can’t be paid, someone like me is sent in to settle the debt.” A chill crawled its way up his spine and sent goosebumps down his arms and legs. He really had to get his mind off of it. Time to move on, as the new agers say. Let it go. “Free your mind and the rest will follow,” as some old song once said. Mile after mile of his long drive home, it stayed with him, stuck on repeat in his brain. His poor tired brain that may or may not have a few little peccadillos, but then, hey—whose didn’t? Everyone was a hot plate of messed up shit in this day and age so why should he be special and different? He was no better than anyone else, so fuck it, right? Right! He turned his car into his gravel driveway and drove up to the house. It was dark and silent and welcoming. No parents left—they had died a few years ago. Car accident. Tragic. Pfft! He felt happier without them. No other known relatives, no friends, no girlfriend or boyfriend, no roommate, no sweat. Alone at last. Even the small amount of contact he had to endure while shopping and such was a hassle and a headache. He did most of everything he had to do online so there was very little human interaction. But, on occasion, it was necessary. Tonight for instance—very necessary! He went in, closed the door and headed for the shower.

  ****

  It was right around two months later when the knock at the door came. He never got visitors here, but was cordial enough when he did. Christian opened the door smiling, but the smile soon faded to the sight of two police detectives standing out on the walk. The smile reappeared and he invited them in. For the next two hours, they asked him a long series of questions regarding his whereabouts and his relationship to the deceased and the length of time since they’d seen each other. They confided in him that the murder and rape of young Jamie Roberts was so heinous in nature that there were a great many details of the crime that were being withheld from the press and John Q. Public. He was a person of interest, but not really a suspect at this point. They were talking to everyone from her school with any association to her whatsoever. They found the juvenile report of his beating as senior and discovered the two had been together that night at the time of that crime.

  “Maybe we have a common enemy,” he said lightly. The detective in charge of the case made a note on his iPad and then switched it off.

  “We’ll let you know if we find out any further information, Mr. Halstrom.” The two detectives stood and gave Christian a card. “Call us as soon as possible if you know anything or can think of anyone who could be behind this. Lock your doors, think about getting some type of home protection. Don’t leave the area until further notice. We may need to come calling on you again in the near future.” He politely shook their hands and showed them to the door. They drove off with no more idea of a lead than they had come out with. That didn’t come until a few weeks later.

  The results of the DNA testing on the fluid samples finally came back and the evidence was irrefutable. Christian had made no attempt to hide his identity in this matter. The thought had not in fact crossed his mind as he did what he did to her. The other victims had all been different. When he discovered that the other women were not Jamie and he had falsely abducted someone else, he killed them mercifully. Bullet to the back of the head. Nothing else. He had seen so much red when Jamie told him all those things about himself that he just couldn’t believe that he had had the ability to make it slow with her. He took his time and his pleasure with her—knowing she was the last. Now, it was just a matter of what he knew was coming. The check. Time to pay the piper. He wasn’t ready the day the two detectives came to his door to question him, but now he felt he was. No more hiding in the shadows. As the long line of police and detective cars came up his driveway, he saw the dust rise and blow sideways from their tires. He thought, what a beautiful sunny day with such a gentle wind for me to go out on. A soft little sigh of regrettable acceptance escaped his throat as he walked out the front door, hands clasped behind his back. Each hand held a small black handgun, fully loaded. The cars all slid to their stopping positions several yards away from the house and the men all jumped out and crouched behind the vehicles, guns drawn. He stood silently, patiently, breathing in the good morning air. Taking one of his very last breaths, the guns came out from behind his back and began their barking. The officers ducked behind their cars as the bullet holes popped into existence in the sides of their cars. A few of the officers crouched down under the cars and took their low shots. One caught Christian in the right foot and he went down like a sack of potatoes. On the ground, he bled and moaned, reaching for his dropped guns, when a bullet caught him high in the left temple. The world finally went away…

  ****

  Christian woke on a hospital bed. He sat bolt upright and looked all around at his new surroundings. What the fuck is this shit? he thought bitterly. He got up out of bed and went over to the window. Looking back over his shoulder, there was no one in the room with him. Looking out the window to the entire town of—well…wherever he was—below, he saw no people down there either. He cautiously walked over to the door and tried the knob. Locked. Shit. He went over to the window. Also locked. Double shit! He sat down on the bed. Throwing something through the window was next on his agenda when the door to the room opened and a doctor walked in. He was studying a chart and heading over to the chair beside the bed—the same chair that very nearly went through a certain locked window.

  “OK, doc. What’s the deal? Am I under arrest?” he said dryly. The doctor looked up with no trace of amusement on his face and said:

  “N
o, they have something else planned for you. It says here that you get the”round the world” treatment plan.” Christian smiled nervously.

  “The fuck is that? What is it?” The doctor finally flashed a small smile in his direction.

  “Atonement, kid. That’s all I know. Someone will be in to see you soon. Sit tight. Oh, and don’t think about busting out the window. I promise you won’t like it if you try. Sit tight, OK?” He patted Christian on the shoulder and walked out. The door locked behind him Christian found out. He sat back down on the bed and waited.

  An eternity later, or so it seemed to the restlessly bored, the door knob turned and another, more severe-looking doctor strolled in. Christian was lying on the bed, head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. “You know, I know I’m in trouble here, but you guys could’ve left me with a magazine or something. I’ve been bored out of my mind for the last several hours!” The new doctor sat down and crossed a leg.

  “Hm.” He said, smiling with a chuckle. “You have no idea just how fucked you are right now, do you?” Christian’s look sharpened and he sat up. “Son, you are fucked more than most of the poor fucked souls we get coming through this place. You just don’t know it yet. But I’m here to help you understand.”

  “Look, doc, I’m alive at least. That’s good, I guess. This state doesn’t have the death penalty so you can’t inject me or shock me to death. So what else can you do here? Come on, man. Scare me a little, I dare ya.” The doctor looked at him, grin widening, teeth now showing white all the way across.

  “OK, man. OK Boy, you got spirit, I’ll give you that. Here it is in a nutshell. You are damned. We’re gonna run a new experiment of torment on you called”round the world.” I’m not going to bore you right now with all the details, but you are going to fucking hate it!” he said gleefully. “Man, this is going to be the worst thing you have been through and I can’t wait. Are you ready for a little hell in your life?” Christian smiled and standing up off of the bed, he lunged for the bedside lamp and flung it hard at the window. The window shattered outward with what almost sounded like a mournful cry of agony. He didn’t hesitate. Christian ran toward the window and stopped with his now bleeding hands stuck to the broken glass in the frame. He was paralyzed with fear. The doctor nonchalantly stood up and walked over to him. Putting an arm around Christian’s shoulder, the doctor looked outside with him. He smiled as he took in the sights that had terrified Christian to the point of his hair going straight white. Christian’s mouth was open and slack.

  The world outside was a nightmare wonderland straight out of Dante’s Inferno. Fire licked everything in sight. People were naked and on fire, but still running and being chased. Large, horned goat demons were ripping people in two or tearing off body parts and eating them. Blood was flowing through the streets like a river. The smell of sweet roasted pork wafted in through the broken window. Some of the torments he witnessed were sexual in nature, grotesque and obscene. A man was forced to give anal sex to a pig demon that was eating a screaming baby. A woman was carving what could only be understood as her husband apart piece by piece and feeding him to a snake that greatly resembled a long, twisted erection. Skin was sizzled from screaming faces and sliced neatly away with great knives and eaten by others, who then suffered likewise. The sky was volcanic lava, bubbling and dripping on the naked people beneath it and melting into their skulls and brains. Enormous terrible birds swooped through the skies. Similar to pterodactyls, their razor-sharp beaks viciously lopped heads from the squirting stumps of necks they previously occupied. Children running through the streets with bloody Easter baskets collecting human parts and carrying them off to who-knows-where. A woman with no skin clawing violently at her breasts and vagina until she has torn them free of her body, then goes to work on her own eyes and nose. Men, women and children, elderly and young, all races, all nationalities, tearing each other apart and being torn apart. A fat man with a long grey beard was bent over backwards until his back crackled and snapped with a loud gut-wrenching pop, then in that same position, raped by the very jackal-faced demon that broke his back. Eyes were plucked out of sockets and chewed like bubble gum. A woman of about fifty ran screaming down the street like a Tomahawk warrior brandishing a butcher knife in one upraised hand and an obscenely long and large male phallus in the other. Swarms of insects and bugs of all variety swarmed over the unfortunates down below and carried many away to be devoured at a later time. Screams! Oh, God, their screams were deafening. Their laughter was sickening. Christian turned from the window and found the trash can. He vomited hard and retched even harder after. The doctor put a sympathetic hand on his arched back.

  “You know, some might say that’s an awful strange name you have for someone who ended up in a place like this, but Christians have always been my favorite to torment. They are so self-righteous and sure of themselves and what they believe in and what they think they can get away with. I get a little giddy when I think back on some of the things I have done to your kind. But I digress. Your reaction to the scene outside is very normal and we’re going to take care of that. Come on, let’s get you up onto that bed. You’ll feel better up there.” He helped Christian up. The madness and the dire certainty of the situation were finally hitting home with him. He didn’t survive the encounter with the police at his house. He wasn’t a good person who had bad things happen to him. He also didn’t see Jamie out there anywhere. The doctor looked up suddenly. “So, there it is. The truth about our Christian boy after all. It’s OK if you’re in hell as long as Jamie is, too? I do so love the wickedness in men’s hearts. Well, Christian, I’m going to give you one moment of relief in the eternity you have in hell. She was, in fact, a real nasty character. She has had three abortions before finally giving birth to the two she kept, did you know that?” Christian smiled gruesomely. “Take a look at the TV over there.” The doctor grabbed the remote and turned on the tv. It clicked to life and the image was immediately of Jamie being raped, impregnated, and giving birth to demons with very long claws. No c-section needed. Then, her torn open wound of a body would bring itself back together and life would again beat in her chest. The next demon in line would step up and so it went, on and on. She screamed and bled and bred. It seemed she was made for it. Good for her, he thought sadistically. The doctor snapped off the tv.

  “All right, Mister Christian…” he paused for effect, laughing at his own joke, then stopping sheepishly. “Sorry, bad taste? I just crack myself up sometimes. All right, Christian, time to go. Let’s get on with your eternity. I’ll check back in with you from time to time to make sure you’re not doing all right, OK?” He smiled, only there were now some pretty gnarly fangs in that smile. Christian closed his eyes and waited for the nightmare to take him.

  ****

  He woke up in bed, all snuggled up tight next to the warmest, smoothest, sexiest body he had ever felt. He opened his eyes and looked down under the covers. His flaccid yet long and girthy penis lay similarly snuggled up to a warm and soft pair of female butt cheeks. His hand found itself caressing the heavenly skin of the woman lying beside him. She purred softly while coming out of a dream. Her body gently moved and wiggled against his, bringing about the most desirable effect. He began to thicken and grow hard. Lord, but he was big down there. When the fuck had this happened? The sweet smell of her skin and perfume and other womanly scents mingled in his nostrils and lit his soul up for the first time ever. She partially rolled over to face him, his erection even tighter pressed to her bottom, and whispered:

  “What’s the matter, tiger, didn’t get enough last night?” She began kissing him. Their tongues flicking madly inside each other’s mouths, she fully rolled to face him and the tip of his rigid penis found the warm wetness of her sex. He grinded into her gently, feeling the parting of her lips at the quivering touch of his manhood and hearing her moaning of nearing ecstasy. She slid one leg over the top of his body and straddled him. Now her full form was in view, nude and riding him. She l
ifted up slightly, then came back down on his cock. He slid easily into her, thrumming and throbbing all the while. He thought, if this is hell, sign me up. She slid up on down on him, dripping and moaning. “Don’t cum yet, lover. Wait.” She gasped as he brought her to climax and then a quick second following that. She moved up and slid slowly off of his hardness and he moaned loudly. She slid down his body, kissing his nipples and licking his hairy navel. When she got to his exclamation mark groin, she winked at him and began to kiss and caress the tip. This drove him into wild throes of passion. His back was arched and he was clutching the sheets as she took all ten inches of him deep into her willing throat. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out or how much longer she wanted him to.

  “I’m going to…” he managed and she sped up her pace, sucking and stroking. The sensation of an eruption began to overtake his thinking mind and just at the moment of total and titanic ejaculation, she began to bite down on the head of his cock as hard as her sharp teeth would allow. He screamed in sudden agony. Screamed and screamed, beating at her head with his closed fists. She bit down harder, twisting her head this way and that, until finally, the large chunk that was formerly the last four inches of his manhood came free. Blood and cum both together ejaculated out of the jagged end of the stump. Pain and pleasure, the mixture, the confusion, mostly though—the pain! Fire seemed to burn the stump that he now held firmly in both hands. She squirmed her way off the bed and ran from the room. The next moment, he heard the faint sound of what could be nothing else besides the garbage disposal. She was grinding up something tough in there and he knew exactly what it was. He mourned the sound with every fleeting ounce of energy he still possessed. He continued to writhe in pain as she re-entered the room with a rather large steak knife. He tried to lift his head to look, but the blood loss was taking its toll. He grew weaker by the second. A coughing fit hit him and blood spurted from the stump. A misty fountain of urine erupted next, spraying down the bloody bedspread. He wheezed and whispered: