Some little way off of the main road stood what must once have been a pleasant home. It was modest enough in size, but had the advantage of land and privacy. It stood two stories tall in a sizable garden, shielded from the road by a line of trees and straggling bushes. The lawn was overgrown, long grass competing with high weeds for the soil, while fallen leaves and twigs lay strewn about, unheeded. The house was at an awkward stage in its decay, being clearly abandoned, but not yet decrepit. The windows were dark and lifeless, some bereft of their screens and storm windows, others playing host to the thick, sticky strands of the local arachnid population. Blinds hung in crooked and gap-toothed disarray in the windows, and across the tattered sheer curtains of one downstairs room, a light flickered, betraying the presence of some intruder. Both front and back doors had been padlocked to prevent occurrences such as this, but one of the capacious rear windows stood open, the snib having been forced back. From this aperture there came a cornucopia of sounds, muffled by a closed door which separated it from the curtained front room. There was a drum beat, the melodic grinding of electric guitar, and a singing voice, but beneath these was the sound of whimpering, an occasional scream rising up to mingle and drown the music.
A half-sobbing voice sounded through a lull in the song, “Please, just stop! I’m not-”
“ ‘What I think.’ ” a voice interrupted, raised in mockery. “You’re just a paltry little nobody called Maggie. Do I honestly look that gullible to you?”
Inside, the stale air was cold, smelling of dust, wood, and rotting leaves. Riding on that smell, a strange, high note in the musky scent, was a sharp, metallic tang. The source of this was a woman seated in an old-fashioned kitchen chair, intact despite its callus abandonment, and quite sturdy. Her arms were secured to those of the chair by chords at the wrists and the elbows. A rope passed under her arms, circling around her torso and the back of the seat, before being capably knotted. Her ankles were likewise tied to the legs of the chair, leaving her completely helpless. She could neither move, nor gain enough leverage to wriggle loose. Her mouth was free and hung open, sucking in air and issuing moans and little, choking sobs. The long blondish hair was frizzled and matted with the blood oozing from a cut and a rising lump under the hairline. It lay in clumps and wisps all about her face and head, getting stuck on the moistened trails about her eyes, nose, and lips.
Over her stood another woman with a miner’s light strapped to her forehead, short red bristles of hair sticking up from where she’d pushed them out of the band. She wore military cargo pants and a black sleeveless T-shirt that showed the toned muscle of her shoulders. There were dark stains on her clothes, and speckles and smears of bright, rusty red on her arms. On her left hand there was a sparkle of metal which sent shimmers around the room whenever the light caught it. A thick metal cuff on her wrist sent five chains snaking down to a broad ring on the middle section of each finger. These rings in turn each sent two thinner, more delicate chains to the thimble-like objects fixed to the tip of each finger, and protruding in sharp, metallic points. The blood upon these was fresh and gleaming, forming droplets across the polished, golden lattice-work.
A cylindrical wireless speaker sat on an old dresser in one corner of the room, pouring forth the music. Next to it was a soft leather tool satchel of the kind that rolls up. Now it was unfurled, and knife-handles of various sizes protruded. Beside this was a towel upon which the redhead carefully placed a medium-sized knife, it’s golden blade covered in gore. She moved away from the dresser and back to her prisoner, who gave a great, wracking sob.
“Why are you doing this?” choked Maggie.
“Because I want to,” said the woman, her voice clipped and cultured, and a smile in her tone. She knelt down and looked critically at one of her captive’s forearms, wiping away the blood which had flowed there from the long, glistening, raw strip on her upper arm. She sounded engaged, musing, and interested all at once, as if she were taking part in some philosophical debate. “It’s my belief that Man is really a very simple machine. There are certain things he has to do - eating, sleeping…”
Having chosen her spot, she began to trace one of her pointed fingertips slowly along the skin, leaving a trail of raised furrows from which blood began to bead. There was a hiss of indrawn breath which she ignored.
“Everything else is optional. Most people don’t realize that, not really. In spite of all the winging and whining about circumstance, there’s no one who could stop them from doing exactly what they wanted, if they tried,” she paused her tracing, and gesticulated with a claw. “I have a theory that people like being miserable. It’s the only explanation for the snowflake generation.” She frowned, and stuck the claw back into Maggie’s skin. “I could never understand the pleasure of it, myself. Torment now! Fear. Pain. Those I like. Much like you, I suppose.”
The woman had completed the light tracing of a perfect rectangle in her victim’s flesh, and was looking, with a critical eye, at the bleeding lines as she spoke.
Maggie shook her head. “No. I’m not like that. Please let me go!”
A bubbling little giggle escaped the rust-smeared face as it leered close to the bound woman, its attention diverted from the wounds to the eyes of the victim. “Hahaha! Oh tut! You of all people should realize the futility of pleading! Nothing can take the fun out of sadism like a stoic mindset, so please! Beg. Barter. Struggle. Scream! Hurt me, if you can! It won’t do you an atom of good, but it will make things a lot more entertaining for me!”
At the last word she dug her index claw back into the inflamed lines of the rectangle and began to go over it again, her victim’s breath coming in gasps and half-screams as the golden point tore through dermis and membrane.
With the rectangle complete, and the blood now flowing rather than beading, the redhead stood up from her squat and walked leisurely over to the dresser, wiping her hands on a rag as she went. After a little consideration, she pulled a tiny golden blade from the roll. It was shaped almost like a cheese-knife. As she turned back toward her captive, the song changed. A tight, high-pitched marching snare pattern began, accompanied by a bass melody and acoustic guitar.
The satisfied smirk which had gently twisted the torturer’s mouth widened into a full-toothed grin, and she reached back to turn up the volume to its loudest extent. A deep female voice began to sing, a slight reverberation making her sound unreal as the music bombarded the room.
One pill makes you larger / And one pill makes you small
The redhead half hummed, half sang the words as she squatted down and, her clawed left hand pressing firmly down to keep the arm still, began to delicately insert the knife under the hypodermis.
And if you go chasing rabbits / And you know you’re gonna fall
Maggie screamed and tried to thrash, but her voice was lost in the bass and the voice, which grew in volume as the song progressed. It was the work of a minute to slice the perfect rectangle of skin from the arm. It came away, caught between the woman’s thumb and the blade like an apple peel, and she flicked it into a tin pail with the matching strip from the upper arm. Next she cut a flap from Maggie’s jeans and began tracing the hollow outline of several curly, rune-like symbols into her thigh with a claw.
She had just taken up a long-handled, scalpel-like implement with a golden blade, and was about to slice the skin from within the outlines, when the music faded out prior to changing songs, and a faint thump echoed through the momentary silence. The woman instantly rose and turned off the speaker, leaving a bloody smudge on the silver button as she did.
Turning back to the hapless captive, she pressed one delicate looking claw against her lips, and passed a blood-grained finger across her own mouth.
Terrified eyes stared up at her. Maggie could not move her head because of the claw, around which blood was already seeping from punctured lips, but she rose her eyebrows in assent. Her tormentor was not paying attention, however. She had her head cocked to one side, and her eyes looked vacantly at the floor as she listened intently. Then, evidently having made up her mind, she strode over to the door and opened it, revealing the beams of two flashlights, and drawing a startled exclamatory from one of the men in the hallway.
There were two of them, roughly the same in height, though not in girth. Bulky vests and light blue shirts betrayed them at once as policemen, but the vest could not disguise a certain chubbiness in the younger one. It made him look about twelve. Their guns were not drawn, and their looks of shock turned quickly to bewilderment and horror as they took in the blood-caked figure in front of them.
The redhead’s mouth shifted a trifle, her lips compressing for a split second. Then, before they could say anything, she raised her hands in front of her and extended the claws toward them slowly.
“This is strapped to my wrist. I’m going to take it off. There are knives in that room,” she tilted her head toward the door from which she’d emerged, “but I have none on me. I’m unarmed.”
As she spoke, she slowly undid the clasp of the metal cuff, and slid the contrivance from her fingers before placing it on the ground. The tight rings had left white bands on her fingers, which stood out, ghastly against the streaky patina of bright red and dark rust.
By now the policemen had drawn their weapons, realizing that this was not the junkie squatter situation that they had expected. As they edged toward her, still not really masters of the situation, there came a cry from the room. The policemen glanced sharply at the door, and the older one nodded to his junior to have a look.
“There is a woman in there,” said the woman calmly, as the first man stepped toward her. “Whatever you do, don’t untie her. I’ll explain it all, very carefully, but on no account is she to be released.”
Even as she spoke, the younger of the pair gave an exclamation, and she heard the mingled sounds of her victim’s frightened and grateful whimperings, and the boy’s comforting assurances that “everything was alright,” which it clearly wasn’t.
“I don’t know why I bother,” said the redhead, shaking her head as she listened to the boy struggling with her efficient knots.
She had put her hands out, meekly, to be cuffed, but as the man snapped the first bracelet in place she grabbed the collar of his vest and struck him hard on the nose with her forehead. He crumpled at once, but as she was freeing her hand there was a ragged, high-pitched scream, and a startled yell from the boy. She snatched up the golden cuff and ran into the room, brandishing it like an exceptionally short flail. Her captive was loose from the chair, struggling with the boy on the ground. A swift blow to the back of the head elicited another scream, as a kick shifted her off of the boy. As the screaming form scrambled to her feet, the redhead snatched up a knife from the soft-leather roll. The two lunged at each other, one snarling as if her throat would burst, the other perfectly silent. The knife shot forward, a steel streak in the gloom, punching through muscles, veins, and cartilage until it was hilt-deep in Maggie’s neck.
The scream stopped, and a hollow, gurgling, liquid-like choking sound came from the gaping mouth as the body staggered back under the momentum of the thrust. The redhead didn’t stop to watch, but bent over the boy. His face was riven with deep scratches, and one ear was horribly torn, but his throat, much to her surprise, was intact. He was staring straight ahead with unfocused eyes, his breath shallow, his limbs beginning to tremble.
She slapped him hard across the face, restoring purpose to his gaze, and forced his head up to face her.
“Hey, you’re alive,” she said, bruskly, her eyes flickering to his neck where a crucifix hung on a short golden chain. “That makes you lucky.”
He looked at her dumbly, and then his gaze slid behind her, the lids widening to expose the whites of his eyes. The hissing gurgle in the background grew more urgent, then ceased. The redhead turned to see the bleeding blond rising to its feet. The knife was grasped in its hand, and the wound at its throat was closing rapidly, leaving only a vivid red splatter on its collar. Its teeth were bared, and a manic grin suffused its face. More blood was trickling through its hair from the unhealed wounds that the makeshift flail had inflicted, but it didn’t seem to care. A malevolence, wholly human in its intensity, yet without the associated restraint, radiated from the creature in perfume-like clouds.
“Hypocrite!” it hissed through newly repaired vocal chords.
“Absolutely,” said the redhead.
“You try to kill me, and you defend that slug, when you admit that we’re alike.”
“Alike. Yes. Well that’s the point, isn’t it? What would I want with slugs when I can have an equal, like you?” With those words, she drew a hand from her cargo pocket and threw a handful of sparkling dust with all her might, straight into the blonde’s face. It inhaled on reflex and instantly choked, falling to its knees as it tried to suck air into gold-encrusted lungs.
The redhead snapped her fingers at the policeman. “You! Keep her still!” she barked as she returned to the dresser and picked up the scalpel.
He didn’t move.
“Now!” she snapped, grasping the slobbering figure by the shoulders. “Before she coughs it up!”
He flinched and moved forward as she threw the monster onto its back.
“Put your weight on that leg and keep it as still as you can.”
He obeyed dumbly, and sat on the calf of the leg on which the sigils were traced. He placed his hands on the knee joint and leaned forward, preventing the leg from bending.
“Good,” said the redhead, as she sat herself on the monster’s stomach, crushing it to the floor.
It took about two minutes to carve out the flesh from the traced outlines, but it felt like more. The struggles grew stronger and stronger, and by the time the last squiggle was hollowed out, they could barely keep her pinned down.
“Ok, let go!” yelled the redhead.
The boy was sent flying by a kick as soon as he shifted his weight, and the redhead was instantly flipped onto her back with a set of vice-like hands wrapped about her throat. The grip lasted only a split second before the monster screamed in pain and rage and jerked away, the scalpel embedded in its hand. It yanked it free and began raining down blows upon the redhead pinned beneath it. The ragged, gasping breath became more and more labored, and after half a dozen punches, it fell forward, sprawling across the other woman.
“My round, I think,” said the redhead, softly.
It was a few minutes before she collected her scattered wits and pushed the corpse from her. When at last she staggered to her feet, she found the boy unconscious against the wall. Within twenty minutes both he and his older colleague were locked in the mossy remains of the bathroom, safely out of the way. By the time they had both come around and broken out of their temporary prison, the only signs remaining of their adventure were a headache, several deep scratches, some disturbances in the dust, and the smell of bleach in the front room.
