The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  and left her naked;

  and cut both breasts

  ending bloody;

  and amputate several fingers,

  of the hands, three of each;

  and hit punching;

  and leave her toothless;

  and split the two arms;

  and her legs fractured;

  and teared the lower abdomen,

  with the aerated entrails;

  and ended that horror

  with the head crushed.

  Some women, when listening to that rosary of barbarities, they put their hands to their faces and even gave a shout. The drawing of the wagon depicting the wife after Irene’s murder did nothing to soften the matter, for with thick black and red strokes it showed a jumble of flesh beside the cripple’s stiff leg.

  Irene was stunned. Her legend had reached a dimension out of control. The inventiveness of the populace was making it worse than it really was. Nothing good could bring her to carry on her shoulders with a similar legend.

  But such atrocity not,

  It could have been finalized here.

  Believing that the husband,

  before action so propagated,

  will react in his sadness,

  already with a warm rematch,

  already confessing to the guard

  the wrong done already,

  that wanted to avoid this trance;

  by his instinct he was in charge.

  A bad Friday of Dolores

  Without thinking, The evil,

  put an end to her way

  to this well-founded suspicion:

  of three shots kill them;

  his mouth remained sealed.

  The blind man gave three accurate shots —right in the center; as if his sight were as precise as that of an eagle— with his staff on a drawing that represented the scene of the romance where Irene was killing her husband.

  Then, she stole,

  of so valued house

  what cruised to her step.

  Nothing left in the dwelling.

  And feeling thirsty and gluttony,

  the disturbed murderer,

  absorbed from the pavement

  blood red,

  more ate arms and legs;

  were not even roasted.

  Sir Higinio’s eldest daughter, still did not believe what she heard but began to feel uncomfortable for another reason. The three guys approached her quietly, almost without any doubt of who this woman was. Irene finally noticed that she was being watched and, dissembling, she thought about the best way to get away from there, going unnoticed. For the moment, she lowered her head and pulled on her wide hood. The men positioned themselves directly behind her. In that moment, she knew they wanted to catch her.

  And not content with this,

  Nun-ripple cripple,

  Emptied the man's eyes.

  His ears torn off.

  She cut off his parts too,

  the nose and the double chin.

  Why such a carnage?

  Know that the crazy

  forged macabre chain

  of those beads adorned.

  And here ends this adventure

  of horrors unreasonable.

  Take care of everything,

  never trust anything,

  because one day, could bump into each other

  with the murdered Cripple.

  The drummer boy brought a saucepan to the people who were listening, in search of the alms that gave them sustenance. The people quickly dissolved avoiding the kid as much as possible. Irene, taking advantage of this disorder, walked towards the wagon with a firm step. The three men began to follow her. Irene could not explain how they could have recognized her, but this did not matter now. She threw herself on the ground and, rolling, went through the base of the wagon to the other side. She sat up cursing his stiff leg and all the agility he had lost because of it. Knowing that she had gained a few meters, she advanced among the locals as fast as she could towards a street. In some inexplicable way, his persecutors, who looked stupid and quarrelsome, knew that they had found the most wanted woman in all of Gurracam and they were not going to let her escape.

  Once on the street the men pressed the pace. She too. Several meters later they found themselves on another, wider and more open passage of people. The strongest of the pursuers pulled a sling from his pants a thousand times patched. The Cripple ran. The man picked up a good size stone from the ground, very sure of himself and his dexterity. He used his sling. A moment later Irene was unconscious on the floor with a gap in her head.

  3

  The owner of the only brothel in Pozorondo, Emeterio Rodríguez Martín de Ruedas, was an unscrupulous man, hairy like a bear and corpulent. He had shown himself to have the strength of a gorilla and, after being tanned in a thousand battles, knew perfectly how to impose his character, which was worthy of the worst villain.

  He had been missing an eye for ten years. It had been emptied by some enemies of yesteryear, which he himself was responsible for liquidating over time. The dirty and dark red hole that remained was never covered with any patch. Thus, his face, between the absence of the eye and a big scar that ran across the clear front from end to end, had a monstrous and fierce expression.

  That day, Emeterio was very happy. He always showed himself that way when he made new additions to his business. He opened the door of the room very slowly where his henchmen had left the woman. He saw her unconscious leaning against a corner. He looked at her naked body. She was sinisterly beautiful, despite having a half-bandaged head with a rag and her face stained with dried blood. Those breasts were worth a fortune if they knew how to use well...

  After a while, he left the room. Half an hour later, he came back with a bucket full of dirty water of a dubious light gray. With an agile movement of arms, he overturned the contents on top of the woman.

  Irene Lopezosa Quesada woke up with a strong headache, completely naked and soaked with water. Her clothes were wrinkled in a corner of the room. The man with the wildest aspect she had ever seen was in front.

  "Listen, woman," Martin de Ruedas said. “You are in my business. You've been hired forcefully," he said with a face that admitted no doubt. “But first, I have to prove if you're worthy.”

  Before the Cripple could say anything, she began to be fondled by Emeterio, but not as she was used to, but in such a disgusting and animal way that Irene tried to get away from him as soon as she laid a hand on him. But Emeterio did not allow it.

  “I said that I have to prove if you are worthy!” The one-eyed man grunted.

  “Leave me alone, you bastard!” Irene slipped out of the big hand that imprisoned the end of his arm and jumped to the corner where her clothes rested, ready to dress. She was completely stunned. She was cold and, although she did not understand anything about it or explain how she had come to such a situation, understood that the most reasonable thing, at the moment, was to cover her wet body.

  “Leave that there!” The man ordered, while he was giving her a huge slap in the face that Irene, although she tried, could not dodge. She fell to the ground violently. She looked at the beast that had hit her. She watched him with eyes that were not afraid, but disgust. She began to dislike the man deeply. Truthfully, even a blind man would have disgust without seeing him. Only with feeling that he was there.

  "Look woman, you're going to work for me, whether you want it or not," Emeterio ordered, who saw in that formidable lady the possibility of earning a lot of money. The prostitutes in his brothel began to be old, fat and have a big mouth. His clients were not demanding, but he was creating a reputation as a brothel for drunks and this prevented him from reaching those wealthy men who paid well for a beautiful woman who made them forget what they had at home.

  “He's crazy! Do not dream it... I'm leaving right now," Irene replied, getting up from the floor. Next time, she thought about giving her first. She tried again to take her clothes.

  “You will not go an
ywhere. You are the nuns-ripper.” The man paused. “I recognized you right away this morning. Nothing more to see you. As much as you put that beautiful head of yours in a hood, your stiff leg makes you walk in a way that is recognized a hundred meters away," he pointed out. “They look for you to lock you up or to hang you. Nobody is going to miss you and here you can be very useful. You are very beautiful, and you can exercise without any problems.”

  Irene Lopezosa was amazed. That stranger spoke about her normally, indicating who she was and what her nearest future would be like.

  “Look, I have your face there.” The one-eyed pointed to a drawing on a poster, which really had some resemblance to Irene's current face.

  The nuns-ripper began to think that the man was serious. He was not going to let her get out of there. She threw her clothes back on the floor and launched herself at Emeterio's face. Once she had removed the eye that was left with her long nails, he would not be so powerful, or talk so much. Then, she would leave that crazy place. But the man was faster and with a shove he threw her against the greasy floor, leaving her speechless with terror. Then, he threw himself on top of her, holding her with his big, hairy hands. She was completely immobilized, so her only defense was to bite his neck with all her strength in her teeth.

  “Daughter of a bitch!” The one-eyed protested, holding his hand to his neck.

  Irene spat a piece of flesh smeared with blood and then tried to escape, but the man shook her like a rag doll and gave her three colossal slaps saying:

  “That's how you think about treating the clientele, bitch!”

  Irene had never been hit so hard. Emeterio made her docile again with his punches and took the opportunity to take her two wrists with one of his hands. Now, she was totally trapped, because, in addition, the owner of the brothel was sitting on top of her. While Irene was thinking about what to do, the man approached her clothes, extending his arm. He looked for the famous wench that knew and feared almost all Gurracam.

  “Nuns-ripper, put this on!”

  “Don’t. I'm not going to obey you, you bastard!”

  “Very well, I will do it.” Emeterio shoved her head hard. “That way you're prettier. And now so you do not bite...”

  The man encircled Irene's head with both hands and, with almost enough force to break the neck, forced the wench until it was turned upside down. Thus, on the part of the opening, the hair and the nape of the neck appeared, instead of the face.

  Irene, with the man on top and her face covered, began to breathe badly. She had her own hair stuck in her mouth. Now, she was terribly scared and started to move violently.

  “Be quiet at once!” The one-eyed man yelled and endorsed another three bestial slaps, which Irene could not see where they were coming from.

  The beating calmed Irene. In fact, she did not move a muscle anymore. She was unconscious. Emeterio did not stop to find out the reason for the sudden stillness of the woman and took the opportunity to lower his pants and, quickly, penetrate her like a wild beast. Irene awoke in the worst way of her state of unconsciousness. The man made hurricane cries, which she barely heard because she was half deaf from the slaps. Each of the two enormous hands of the owner of the brothel —which looked like gags— grabbed Irene's chest, which could barely stand the strong jolts that her rapist gave, as her degree of arousal increased.

  When Emeterio finished, Irene was crushed and helpless, as if a hundred horses had passed over and inside her body. Her mouth was full of blood from Emeterio's neck mixed with hers, for she had bitten herself during the rape, on her tongue and cheeks.

  “Well, I've already tried if you're worthy... It has not been that bad, right?” The brothel owner commented after a while, laughing. Actually, there was nothing to check; it was simply Emeterio's habit to violate first the women he forced to work in his brothel.

  Irene Lopezosa could not articulate a word. She removed her wench from her head with difficulty, until she left it on like a hat. She could not do more to get rid of it. She had half recovered from the deafness of the slaps, but she still lay on the ground, barely able to move. Her parts were bursting, and her breasts seemed to have been, moments before, bursting with the pressure of the owner of the brothel’s hands.

  Emeterio Rodríguez Martín de Ruedas watched with concern Irene’s face. It was totally disfigured. He should have better measured the violence of his slaps. Now, he would have to wait until his face was no longer bulging so, he could offer her to the rich men of Pozorondo, who refused to be with his unappetizing whores. Resigned, he decided that, at the moment, he would use her as the others.

  “We are going to do one thing: I hide you from those who want to put you in a dungeon and you, in return, work for me” —Emeterio Rodríguez proposed, while covering the neck wound with a handkerchief that must have been red the day that it was clean.— “It's a good deal. Also, I am a man who knows how to reward the effort. Eventually, I might give you some silver Alexandrian... As long as, of course, you're a good girl and let yourself be done with something sweeter than today," he said, laughing at his own grace.

  Sir Higinio’s eldest daughter, who did not care what the man said, tried to incorporate with the intention of killing him whatever it takes and then leave that unfortunate place, but at the first movement, her head began to spin and she threw up remains of half-digested food, mixed with blood.

  “Holy God! Come on. Get up!! Emeterio growled, raising her with one arm. “You have become disgusted. Do not worry. Now, someone will take care of you. We also have to disguise your leg and paint your face. Do you not want any of the drunks who come to spend time with you to recognize you?”

  "Let me go, please," Irene pleaded, perhaps for the first time in her entire life.

  The owner of the brothel was carrying her around. She was dragging her feet, unable to take a step. She was absolutely destroyed.

  “Shut up! And smile, so you start working right now.”

  "No, please," she pleaded again in a whisper.

  Emeterio did not listen.

  4

  The following days were hell for Irene Lopezosa Quesada. She was not the owner of herself. She had to deal with deformed and subnormal men and with others of a brutality superior even to that Emeterio’s. She was transported by the owner of the brothel from one room to another to put an end to the urgencies of the lower abdomen of dozens of customers, drunk and pestilential, overflowing with wine of terrible quality, which smeared her with their hot and muddy breath. They arrived in such a pitiful state that they did not realize that the woman they had below was dead. This is how a month went by when she barely ate and, when she did, they were leftovers from the previous day and thanks to the other prostitutes providing her in secret, as an act of good fellowship and Christian charity. She spent the day prostrate on a cot, half asleep and suffering nightmares, waiting for ten or twelve untold and unknown individuals to use her services during the night. She became so sick that Emeterio Rodríguez Martín de Ruedas, regretting the bad business he had done with that woman, decided that she was no longer suitable to practice prostitution, so, one very early day, he rode her on her old black horse and the threw her to the Molonio River edge, two hours away from Pozorondo.

  Irene was half dead, but she could hear the river water, smell some plague that she did not know where it came from and feel the cold wind. What she could not do was move. She did not have the strength. She stayed for hours with the position in which Emeterio had left her when he pulled her off the horse, as if she were a sack of flour. A phrase came to her mind that tormented her more than she already was:

  Why is the bad guy going to laugh at God, saying in his heart: "He never punishes"?

  5

  Irene Lopezosa could manage to leave Gurracam and not lose her life thanks to Pietro Sbaratto Finocchiaro, an Italian merchant, who found her half dead on the Molonio River shore, which was coming down at very low speed and with very turbid and thick, almost lumpy water. That trail that once wa
s transparent and cold water, where tents of considerable size lived, now transported inadmissible quantities of rubbish, and sometimes even dead animals in full decomposition. The smell of the river was nauseating, capable of making people of delicate stomach vomit. So much so, that the surroundings were known as "The Rotten River", and many locals never knew his real name, nor did they dare to approach.

  The merchant Sbaratto skirted the pestilent tributary when he caught sight of Irene's body. It was not difficult to find it because a pair of black vultures drew wide circles, with their wings immobile, just above. One of them went down to observe more closely the alleged corpse. It did not realize that Pietro was coming to the place. The man climbed out of his wagon and with a stick frightened the vulture, which began to fly squawking in a disgusting way and hissing loudly.

  The woman had been lying by the source of diseases for more than a day, waiting for a quick death that had not yet been consummated. Pietro Sbaratto rode her in his wagon, cured and fed her during the three months of recovery. The daily contact caused the merchant to fall madly in love with her, despite his stiff leg, her sinister way of walking and her body torn and tortured by the month and peak of merciless and unbridled prostitution.

  Pietro and Irene were happy for some time, because the merchant seemed very attractive to the murderer as well, and although she did not remember it well, was grateful because she thought —with good reason— that he had saved her life.

  During the trip to the Italian Peninsula, Pietro never asked Irene questions about her past, perhaps because he did not want to tell his either. Thus, in complete ignorance, both loved each other in a journey without setbacks, full of clean and endless landscapes, dotted with villages and towns of healthy and prosperous people.

  Pietro was a man of unbreakable habits. In his travels, he had heard of hundreds of secret formulas to live longer and better and had formed his own list, discarding those he thought were pure chatter. Sometimes what they claimed was very good for the soul in southern Europe turned out to be deadly in western Asia. For this reason, he had given himself good scares throughout his life. So, as he had been recommended in Rome, he passed more than a year eating grapes and plums before lunch, always finishing it with walnuts and almonds. To his disgrace, he later learned in St. Josafar that in order not to have diseases, it had to be done the other way around.