TORTURED: A Novel of Psychological Horror

by Matt Shaw

  “She’s probably just walked out,” Ryan said, “could even be on some nice beach somewhere.”

  “You think?”

  Ryan nodded. The more people kept making reference to the serial killer out there - the more he couldn’t help but think along the same lines as them. She’d been taken and was most likely dead already.

  “I have to talk to the police,” she continued, “what do you think they’ll ask?”

  Ryan shrugged, “Probably just ask about Vanessa. Whether you noticed anything unusual. Or, at a guess, whether you noticed anyone hanging around the bank acting suspiciously. That kind of thing. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” he said finally.

  The young woman smiled at Ryan; comforted by his words. She left the room and walked down the stairs and towards her appointment with the officers. Ryan hung his coat up on one of the wall pegs. A little part of him couldn’t help but wonder whether he should phone home and warn his family that the serial killer could be moving closer to their lives. He dismissed the idea. Vanessa has probably gone away - just as he told his colleague. She’s probably fine. No point worrying Dee - and, besides, Claire and Jen didn’t know about the bodies being found. Neither of them had an active interest in the news so it was easy to hide it from them. Definitely no sense worrying them.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “What’s your name?” I asked her. She told me it was Stacey. She told me she didn’t want to die. She told me other things too, but by that point I had more or less zoned out. I told her, before I removed the gag, I didn’t want conversation so my lack of attention should come of no surprise to her. I took hold of her hand and patted it. A little reassurance, I thought. I picked the pliers up from the floor under her seat by the other tools of my trade. “This is going to hurt,” I told her as I gripped the end of the nail with the pliers. She begged me not to do it. She begged until she was blue in the face. I didn’t listen. I didn’t even look her in the face any more. I just looked at her nail gripped between the tips of the pliers. With my second hand, I gripped her hand before I pulled on the pliers. She screamed. Music to my ears.

  * * * * *

  Ryan was greeted by Dee as he stepped into the house at the end of his day’s work. She gave him a kiss on the cheek - one which he returned.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  He shrugged, “How was your day? I’m guessing by how red your face is - you got some reading done in the garden.” He passed her and walked into the kitchen where he started to prepare himself a drink of squash. Dee was talking to him but he didn’t hear any of what she was saying. He was transfixed by Jen playing in the back garden. She was with Kara. The pair of them sitting on a blanket - a couple of Barbie-type dolls next to them. Ryan smiled. There was something beautiful about the innocence of children. It was just a shame it faded over the years.

  “Kara’s staying for dinner. I hope that’s okay,” Dee said when she noticed Ryan watching the two girls playing. “Are you okay?” Dee asked. She realised he wasn’t listening to a word she’d been saying. If he had been listening - he’d have heard her discussing the colour scheme she’d chosen for the house. Ryan put his glass down and turned to her.

  “Girl at work,” Ryan said, “she’s disappeared. We had the police in today asking questions about her.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Failed to turn up to work. The manager phoned them to report it after he wasn’t able to get hold of her family. I thought his reaction was a little over the top but given what the police were saying today - I don’t know…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They think she’s been abducted. There’s a chance she may even be one of the unidentified…” he stopped, “…You know…I don’t actually want to talk about it.”

  “They think she’s dead?”

  “One of those days,” Ryan sighed.

  “Who’s dead?” Claire asked from the kitchen doorway. Her voice made both Ryan and Dee jump; neither of them had been aware she was standing there. “Is this to do with the stuff on the news about the missing girls coming back in pieces?” she asked.

  “How do you know about that?” Dee asked.

  “How could I not know about it? It’s in all the papers and all over the news.” Claire walked over to the cupboard and pulled out a packet of crisps.

  “And you can put those back - dinner isn’t far off from being ready,” said Dee as she took the crisps from her daughter.

  “So come on - who’s dead?” she asked again.

  Ryan remembered what he had thought about the innocence he had seen in his youngest daughter. How beautiful it was and yet how quickly it disappeared as evident by his eldest. Seven years between them and yet, as much as he hated to admit it, his eldest daughter’s innocence was all but gone.

  “No one is dead,” said Dee.

  “Someone from work has gone missing,” said Ryan. “She’s not dead.”

  “They think she’s dead though?”

  “They’re not sure what she is,” Ryan said, “other than missing.”

  “Go and get your sister,” Dee interrupted them from their conversation, “I’m about to dish dinner up. And don’t say anything to her!” Although dinner wasn’t ready right at that moment it wasn’t going to be long. Dee was just trying to give Ryan a break from all of the questions. No doubt he’d be tired of them and - even if he wasn’t - she was sure he’d be bored with talking about the missing girl after a whole day of having to do it with various people.

  Claire muttered something under her breath and walked from the kitchen, via the back door, which she slammed shut behind her.

  “They’re growing up fast,” Ryan said - more or less to himself. He turned to Dee, “Things were different when we were younger,” he said, “safer…Do you think - if we knew what a shitty place this world was going to be…Do you think we’d have still had children?”

  Dee smiled, “Of course we would have.”

  “Dangerous place out there,” he said.

  “It’s always been a dangerous place out there. We just weren’t as aware of it when we were young. Our parents protected us from it just as we’re supposed to protect our children from it.” She cuddled in close to Ryan, “I’m sure your work colleague is fine. She’ll show up.”

  “I hope so,” he said. Ryan wasn’t particularly good friends with Vanessa. He liked the girl but not enough to want to socialise with her outside of work, but that was irrelevant. She was a fellow human being and he wouldn’t wish any harm upon her. Also - to have a girl taken from his place of work by some demented psychopath - it just made things even more real than the various reports on the news station and in the papers made it. It made it closer to home. If someone from his work was able to be taken then there was nothing to stop one of his daughters being taken - or even his wife. A cold chill ran through him again. Second time that day.

  “Come on,” said Dee, “go and get washed up. I’ll dish up dinner.”

  He gave her a peck on the cheek and left the room. “Want me to take next door’s girl home before you dish up?” Ryan called through.

  Dee rolled her eyes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She was begging me to kill her. She begged me to do it quickly. Begged. I told her - one time only - that I was going to kill her. I’ll oblige her on that one. Her second plea; I told her that wasn’t going to happen. I whispered in her left ear, moments before I bit it off, that she was going to suffer. I wanted her to suffer. I longed for her to suffer. Just as I did with the other girls. And what I want - I get. I thought she was going to scream the house down when I bit her ear off. I didn’t mind though. No one will hear her. No one ever hears them. I positioned myself until I was face to face with her and then I smiled. Blood trickling from my mouth and down my chin. I flashed her a cheeky wink as I started to chew. It’s tough. I won’t be swallowing it. Just curious about the taste and texture of it on my tongue. And curious to see if it’s even easy to chew it into
smaller pieces. Not the first time I’ve bitten an ear off someone but it is the first time I’ve chewed on it. A dirty habit which I won’t be repeating. I spat it onto the pretty girl’s lap and sat back, a moment, to admire the mess I’d made of her face. I wonder - if I let her go - would she ever want to take another selfie with her phone camera again? That’s the problem with girls of today; so vain. If only they knew that their vanity made them appear to us men as this girl appears to me now. I laughed. She was looking at me with soulful eyes. She wasn’t talking anymore. Just crying in pain. She wasn’t talking but her eyes were saying everything. They were doing the talking. They were begging me to release her. They were begging me to let her go or just get it over with. Her eyes. I think I’ll take one. Just one. I don’t want her being completely blind to what is coming.

  * * * * *

  Dinner was finished now and he had been relaxing in the living room with his feet up on the sofa. Claire was lying on the floor. The two girls were upstairs playing in Jen’s room and Dee was cleaning the dishes away in the kitchen. Dee and Ryan usually shared the cleaning duties. One would cook and the other would clean. But whilst she was off work - she tended to do everything. It was only fair - what with Ryan being out of the house all day working in the stuffy bank. Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. The News, playing on the living room television set, started it’s bulletins with the announcement that another body had been discovered in the woodlands close to the edge of town - about six miles away from where Ryan now lived with his family. It wasn’t the story, as such, which made his heart jump. It was Vanessa. The thought of the dead girl being her.

  “Can you take Kara home now?” Ryan asked Claire. She was on the floor, surfing the Internet on her laptop for nothing in particular.

  “It’s just next door…” Claire started to put up a fight.

  “Now!” Ryan didn’t usually raise his voice as it wasn’t something he usually needed to do but - when he did raise it - whatever was being asked was done without further argument. Claire sighed under her breath and slammed the lid of her laptop shut before scrambling up to her feet. As she left the room, Ryan leaned forward with the remote control and turned the volume on the News up. His heart beating hard in his chest as he waited for the story of the dead girl to come back round when they’d finished running through the other stories.

  A picture of a pretty schoolgirl was shown on the screen. A young redhead with freckles and braces. Light brown eyes. Not Ryan’s work colleague. Not Vanessa. He breathed a sigh of relief and - almost instantly - felt a pang of guilt. Just because it wasn’t his work colleague, it didn’t mean it wasn’t someone else’s daughter, or friend.

  The news lady explained over video footage of woodlands that the dismembered girl was found in a clearing just off the path. No attempt had been made to hide the body - just as there hadn’t been any attempts to hide the victims on the previous occasions either. The brazen killer not even trying to cover his tracks. The news anchor stated that the police were appealing for any witnesses to come forward and even offered up a confidential line if they were too afraid to go public with potentially seeing something strange taking place. Ryan looked towards the door when it opened without warning. Dee walked in.

  “They’ve found another one,” he told her as she looked at the television set to see what had made him sit up. “It wasn’t the girl from work.”

  “Well that’s good,” said Dee. A strange choice of words - she knew it and Ryan knew it but neither of them said anything. They both knew what Dee had meant. Good that it wasn’t Vanessa but not good they’d found another body. She took a seat next to her husband. “Do you think they’ll catch the person responsible or whether he’ll just stop?”

  The killings had been going on for weeks now. It wasn’t the first time the town had made the news (local, national and international) due to bad things happening. A couple of years ago it had been in the news too. Children had been taken from a shopping centre only to be found with smiles cut into their faces like something straight from a horror story. Reports stated a group of clowns were going round turning unhappy children into happy children - snatching the children from their parents and scarring them for life. Ryan remembered worrying about the state of society then too. The driving force of a group of individuals pushed into doing such atrocities.

  The latest bout of murders on the television - although not involving young children - were just as horrific as what’d taken place in the shopping centre. This time - a new body being discovered every couple of days or so. Always found in the same woodlands with the exception of one occasion when the pieces of the body were found in a small bag in a shopping centre’s car park. On no occasion had anyone stepped forward to state they’d seen anything suspicious. For all intents and purposes these dead girls just appeared out of nowhere. Ryan had already considered the possibility of the culprit getting away with it. Perhaps they’d wake up one day and just stop before the police had enough leads to get a trace on them? Part of Ryan hoped that’d be the case and another part of him hoped they’d catch the son of a bitch and bring back the death penalty. Make them suffer just as they made their victims suffer.

  “They’ve said police have stepped up their patrols but that’s all they’ve really said. I wouldn’t be surprised if vigilantes don’t take to the streets, and woods soon to see if they can fare better with catching the sick son of a bitch,” said Ryan. All the time the story had been playing on the television - his mind had already started playing its own movie in his head; what he’d do to the killer if he caught him. Dee didn’t say anything. “The world is a cruel place,” Ryan continued. He picked up the remote control and killed the television. The screen went black. They sat in silence for a moment, or two.

  * * * * *

  Thomas was standing in the doorway of the neighbour’s house with a smile on his face. It wasn't the smile of someone being friendly. It was the smile of someone being sarcastic. “Well thank you very much for bringing her all the way home,” he was saying to Claire, “we were all sitting in here worrying that she might have got lost on the way - what with it being so far away.”

  Kara had already pushed past her older brother and run inside (and straight up the stairs) so Claire didn’t feel too bad when she returned Thomas’ sarcastic smile and said, “Asshole.”

  “Now come on, that’s not very neighbourly. Okay. I’m sorry. Thank you. I mean it.” He hesitated for a moment, just long enough for Claire to maybe think he was being serious, before he finished up with, “We were genuinely concerned something may have happened to her from your front door to our front door…Those forty steps, or so, are pretty treacherous.”

  “If you want to be a dick about it, my dad made me bring her so - if you want - I’ll go and fetch him so you can show him your amazing talent for wit and sarcasm? I’m sure he’ll be just as impressed as me.”

  Thomas laughed at how easy it was to wind Claire up. For someone who didn’t have many friends (what with being considered the outsider at school) he had a somewhat unhealthy trait of enjoying being able to rub people up the wrong way.

  “What are you doing standing on the doorstep?” Jackie asked. She’d walked through from the living room to see who was at the door. “Did you want to come in? Thomas - why haven’t you invited her in?”

  “No - no…It’s fine,” said Claire. Unlike with Thomas she tried her best to be pleasant when speaking to Jackie. “I was just bringing Kara home.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come in?” Jackie asked. “It’d be nice for Thomas to actually make a friend…”

  “Mum…”

  “No really, I can’t. But thank you for the invite.”

  “And thank you for bringing Kara home,” Jackie smiled.

  “I think my dad was worried that she may have been snatched by that guy on the news if I didn’t,” said Claire. Thomas’ ears pricked up. “One of his work colleagues was taken by this person,” Claire continued (even though it wasn’t c
onfirmed her father’s work colleague was in the hands of the murderer), “and now I think he’s worried we could all be taken.”

  “Well, tell your father I’m sorry to hear that and I hope they find her…” Jackie was cut off mid-sentence.

  “…They’ll find her okay - in pieces,” Thomas interrupted.

  “Thomas…”

  “No, it’s fine. He’s probably right…Anyway, I best get back before dad sends out the search party for me.”

  “Did you want Thomas to walk you back?” Jackie offered.

  “Mum….”

  “No, it’s fine,” Claire repeated. “Not exactly far is it.” She turned and walked away from the house as Jackie shouted out goodbye to her as well as asking to say ‘hello’ to Claire’s mother for her. Seconds later and they closed the door. Claire stopped at the end of their garden. A strange sensation washed over her - the feeling she was being watched. She turned back to her neighbour’s front door. Closed. She shook the feeling from her mind and hurried the last few steps to her own (open) front door. The feeling of unease replaced with a feeling of stupidity for being sucked into her father’s own paranoia.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Reports of my work were on the news last night, which made me happy. The police, led by a Detective Andrews, appealing for witnesses to my crimes. I’d gone to bed in a good mood. The progress I had made on the young woman and the thought of someone finding the other girl - all pleasing to me. I even woke up in a good mood too but that soon changed. My girl, the new one, she’d bled out during the night. She had wanted me to let her out of the restraints last night. She had wanted me to undo the ropes around her wrists. I told her I wasn’t very good at undoing knots. Good at tying them but not so good at removing them. So I took her hands off with an axe which had been hidden under the chair she was sitting on. I should have known that would have caused a lot of blood loss. I should have thought it through more carefully. Carried away by the moment again. Her face, when I slipped the ropes over the bloodied stumps, was priceless. The sight of her dead, knowing I wouldn’t hear her screams anymore - that was the start of my bad day and my mood continued to dive further south when there was a bulletin on the television about another missing girl. Some young girl who worked in a bank, close to the city centre. She’s nothing to do with me. She’s not one of my dolls. She’s no one to me. It wasn’t the fact she was missing that bothered me. It was the fact she was being linked to my crimes. The police fear for her safety and are asking people to step forward with information, if they have any news on sightings. The main thing, which pissed me off, though, was the fact someone out there might be abducting girls in an effort to do what I do. Someone out there might be copying me, and claiming my work as their own. They say it’s a form of flattery when someone copies you, but it’s not. It’s far from it and if it turns out someone is attempting to carry on with my work - even though I haven’t finished yet - I’ll spend every waking hour I have in trying to find them. And when I do…They’ll find themselves on my red-stained chair before being found, dumped, in the woods. This is my game. These are my rules. I do not play well with others.