by Aj Estelliam
‘I’m not a fucking queer,’ he growled, his muscles bunching tightly under his blue shirt.
‘Yes, you are. I can see inside you remember, Fraser? I know what you are.’
‘I’m not a poof.’
‘No, you’re not. That’s an offensive term. You’re gay, pure and simple.’
‘Shut…up!’ he shrieked and lifted the back of the gun and hit me full force with it. I fell back on to the floor, head ringing in my ears. I lost consciousness quickly, the world becoming black.
When I next awoke, I was tied to a chair in a strange room which was decorated as if it was the 1970’s. I lifted my aching head and squinted out into the garish room, frowning to myself.
It took seconds to remember what had happened and when I did, I was swiftly looking around in horror, trying to see where he was.
‘Took your time to wake up,’ he commented, when my eyes finally laid eyes on him.
‘You hit me,’ I murmured groggily.
‘I did, yes.’
I looked at the manic look on his face and wondered at his intentions. By now Vaughn would be long gone, and hopefully would have alerted the authorities to Fraser’s whereabouts. I hoped this wouldn’t be endured for too much longer.
‘What are you planning?’ I asked him.
He cocked his head at me and looked confused. ‘You’re psychic, aren’t you? Surely you know?’
‘I only know what I see. At the moment, my head is fuzzy…after you hitting me, it’s no wonder!’
He laughed aloud. ‘I can’t wait to show you…’ he grinned, laughing hysterically.
I glared at him, feeling hatred for the evil man. He crossed over to the four-poster bed which stood in the middle of the room. It was garishly decorated with pinks and oranges, and the sides were covered with drawn curtains. I wondered what he had behind there…I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to appreciate it the way he did.
‘I have someone for you to meet…’ he grinned, standing beside the poster and putting his hand to the curtain.
I winced in preparation. My stomach had turned with sickness so I was pretty sure it was one of his creations.
The curtain was drawn back in one foul swoop and I gasped I horror before leaning forwards to vomit all over my lap. I heaved and was sick again, expelling everything inside me at disgust over what I saw.
In the middle of the bed was Fraser’s mother. She was dead, and had been for a long time. Her mummified face stared out at me with glassy eyes. The skin was blackened and mottled and the smell foul.
‘Don’t be sick in front of Mother! How rude!’ he declared, and then laughed with glee.
‘You’re the sick one,’ I murmured.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m keeping her alive!’ he exclaimed, his eyes wide and mad.
‘Alive? She must have been dead for months!’ I declared, my round eyes staring at the vile creation.
‘Well, I have to say I’m disappointed,’ he said, feigning sadness, ‘I thought you’d appreciate my art.’
‘This isn’t art. This is crime.’
‘Shut up, you interfering bitch. If it wasn’t for you, my fun wouldn’t be ending. As it is, I have to wrap up all my loose ends. That way, I’ll never be convicted…they can’t put me away if I’m dead, can they?’
‘You plan to die?’ I asked him quietly.
‘Everybody dies, Alex Hope,’ he said, with a low sinister voice. ‘It’s just how and why that matters. Now lucky you! You get to watch me work!’ he declared. ‘I’ll be back soon!’
He ran off down the stairs of the dark, wooden barn and I was left staring at the mummified corpse of Fraser’s mother. She looked terrifying, and yet I felt a deep sadness when I gazed upon her. She looked back at me with her gaping mouth wide. I grimaced but tried to connect with the woman behind the gruesome sight.
‘Why did he do this to you?’ I asked her.
Her voice slowly came to me. ‘He’s very disturbed…’ she said softly. Her voice was a near whisper. It was if she was scared he could still hear you.
‘I can see that. Did he hurt you in life?’
She sighed. ‘It didn’t start that way…I was a disciplinarian,’ she informed me. ‘My husband and I ruled our children with an iron rod…’
‘It backfired?’ I questioned.
‘Fraser began to act out as soon as he was able. It was just his instinct. He had tortured family pets by the age of three and was caught killing wildlife from five…it was there from a young age.’
‘What did you do?’ I questioned.
‘We punished him. We were very hard on him as a boy. We would lock him in his room, we force fed him…we would beat him and whip him for his crimes.’
I just watched her.
‘Back then, there was nothing considered wrong with that…people did hit their children if they were out of line. It was deemed normal.’
‘I know,’ I said, trying to understand. ‘Did you try and get help for him?’
‘There wasn’t ‘help’ to speak of back then. These days he would be sent to mental institutions, given counselling and so on…back then…well, it was different. We dealt with it as we saw fit but that all went awry when he killed those boys.’
‘You knew?’ I asked, amazed.
‘Not initially no…not the first boy.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘A mother knows,’ she told me from the side of her dead body, looking down at her gruesome form with disappointment. ‘He came back that night filthy…and bloody. I demanded to know what he had done and then when he admitted what he had done, his father beat him black and blue.’
I stared at her, listening intently.
‘Well, and then things had to change…’
‘How did they change?’ I asked with trepidation. She sounded fierce and I could only guess at the punishment for a boy who had killed.
‘We kept him chained,’ she told me in her quiet voice. ‘For so long we kept him chained…to make him realise his crimes and atone for them.’
‘Did it work?’
‘He stopped killing, didn’t he?’
‘I think so,’ I nodded.
‘He did…up until recently.’
‘So-you can’t have chained him for all those years in between. How did you control his urges?’
‘I didn’t,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Then what happened?’
‘I became disabled,’ she revealed. ‘He became my main carer. When his father died-of natural causes I may add-he had to help me. Without him there, he knew I would die. By this point he felt obligated to help me…so many years he did just that…’
‘Until?’ I questioned.
‘Until he began medical school…’ she revealed.
‘Oh,’ I replied.
‘Well, I think the work in the morgues became too much for him. It evoked the urges he once felt all those years before. He’d come home excited and tell me about the parts he had dissected and the death which he had witnessed. He loved it. It excited him.’
‘I see…’
‘It was fine until he admitted his other urges.’
‘Which other urges?’
‘The urge for homosexuality,’ she told me.
‘Why was that a problem?’
‘Because it’s abhorrent. A sin against God, and I told him so.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, predicting the rest.
‘Well, yes…’ she sighed. ‘And that was what make him lose control.’
‘He killed you?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘He struck me repeatedly until I died. The blow to my heart was too strong. I was weak anyway and infirm from so many years in a chair. I am reviled by what he has done to my body since though…’ she said, looking at herself.
I grimaced. ‘Why does he keep you?’
‘Because he needs me to tell him what to do, dear,’ she said softly. ‘He believes I control him. Whil
e I control him, his sins are not solely his own. Do you see?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘You’ll want to brace yourself…he’s on his way back,’ she told me.
She disappeared and I heard footsteps approach.
Chapter 19
Fraser came back up the stairs, but he wasn’t alone. He dragged Billy alongside him, who was bound and gagged.
I stared at him, wide-eyed. He looked terrified. I didn’t know how to help in that moment and yet knew that I would in some way.
‘Two little prizes,’ Fraser sung to himself merrily, shoving Billy onto another chair and tying him to it tightly.
I watched as he used rope and plastic to imprison him against the chair, as he had done to me when I was unconscious. When he was done, he headed off again. I didn’t know what he had planned, but I felt sick which wasn’t a good sign.
Footsteps clomped down the wooden stairs and my eyes flew to Billy as soon as he was gone.
‘Are you alright?’ I asked him urgently.
‘Umm!’ he moaned, against the gag. His mind screamed at me that he couldn’t talk!
‘Relax…calm down. I can hear you, Billy-in my mind. Think it slowly and I will hear you…breathe…’ I said, in calm tones.
He closed his eyes for a split second and inhaled before letting out the breath slowly. ‘Alex, he’s mad. He’s going to kill us. I’m so scared, Alex.’
‘Billy, stop it,’ I said softly, hoping to calm him. ‘Remember I’m psychic? Nothing awful happens here today, okay? We’ll get out of this-I promise.’
‘Are you sure?’ he questioned in his head.
‘I’m sure. We’re going to live through this, Billy. Trust me.’
His eyes scanned the room and the horror which lay within it.
‘What the fuck has he done?’ he said, meaning his mother.
‘He killed her and mummified her to keep her from completely decaying. It’s sick, right?’
‘It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘Has he hurt you?’ I asked.
His eyes grew wider and I saw his throat work as he swallowed hard. ‘I’m alright…’
‘Billy, what did he do to you?’ I asked, and although he didn’t answer in his head, the images popped into my mind just as they did in his. He had raped him, and sodomised him using other instruments. He had threatened parts of him with a knife and told him what he would do with his body parts once dead. It was sick; and Billy had been terrified.
‘I’m not going to let him do any of those things to you again, Billy,’ I told him frowning.
‘I don’t know how you think you’ll stop him!’
‘Jess will be on her way by now! She’ll find us…I’m sure of it.’
‘How? We’re at the end of nowhere! No-one could find this place.’
‘Maybe Vaughn will get help for us…’ I mused.
‘Vaughn?’
‘Yes. He was in the van too but he escaped when we arrived. He ran off into the forest.’
‘Really? Well I hope he gets to safety and gets help for us!’
‘I know,’ I nodded. ‘That was my thinking too.’
We fell quiet as there was a slam and thump, then footsteps. They sounded heavy on the wood and I felt my sickness rise. It didn’t help that I was covered in vomit already, let alone the death that was everywhere in the room.
Fraser came up the stairs dragging black bin bags behind him. They thumped against each step heavily and I knew what was in them instinctively. I didn’t need to see.
‘Time to share in the creation!’ he announced, stopping to grin at me maniacally.
‘I’d rather not,’ I told him, without a trace of humour.
‘Oh, now now…all work and no fun makes Alex Hope a boring little cunt!’ he yelled. ‘Now shut the fuck up before I rip out your throat.’
I frowned at the thought but didn’t speak. I didn’t want to rile the man, who was already as mad as any of the killers I had previously met in my life to date.
‘Right…here we are,’ he said, uncovering the first bin bag. It contained a torso, which had been hacked at. The torso ended at the legs and neck and I felt the bile rise in my throat. ‘He was a pussy,’ he told me as he lifted his axe and began cutting into flesh. ‘He played the big man-wanted to dominate when he dated me…I showed him who the boss was.’
‘James?’ I asked, looking at the size of the chest of the man. We had only recovered other parts of James, so I presumed this was him.
‘That’s right,’ he said looking up. ‘Found some bits of him, didn’t you?’
I met his crazy eyes. ‘Yes, we did. Why did you leave them?’
‘Breadcrumbs, my dear,’ he told me, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. ‘It’s good to leave a few clues-plus I didn’t need those parts. My latest creation has a head, so I chucked his out. Also, I chose the best parts from each person. Some parts aren’t worthy of being in the art I create.’
‘Do you consider yourself an artist then, Fraser?’ I wondered.
‘Of course, I’m an artist!’ he exploded, bringing the axe down hard into the chest of the dead man. ‘Didn’t you see what I created! My skill is my macabre design! It’s meant to shock but impress! The work is immaculate! You must have noticed my precise sewing of the joins?’
I hadn’t noticed anything of the sort, but I was beginning to realise he was looking for praise. He wanted the glory of what he had done, not for people to be appalled. ‘I did, yes! Very accurate and tight work.’
‘Exactly,’ he smiled. ‘Only trouble is-that kind of accuracy and skill gets noticed…that’s why Vaughn knew it was me.’
‘He figured it out?’ I asked, shocked.
‘Just yesterday, yes…but the man has his own secrets he hides, Alex Hope. He won’t be divulging my crimes when he himself is a dirty, fucking pervert.’
‘What do you mean?’ I questioned.
‘No, no…not for your ears…my dear, we have work to do.’
I stared as he stood and headed for a wardrobe which was large and wooden. He reached for his pocket and drew out a key. He then turned to smile at me; and it was as if he moved in slow motion.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked.
I grimaced at the nausea which filled me. I was pretty sure I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see. Nothing yet had been pleasant so I was sure that this wouldn’t be either.
He unlocked the wardrobe and then opened it up wide on both sides. I gasped and shut my eyes tightly as the image reviled my senses. I swallowed against the sick, but couldn’t stop it. I heaved and threw up once more, vomiting liquid into my lap and floor before me. I coughed and spluttered, unable to clean my mouth from the vile taste. I spat out the sick and coughed some more.
‘Oh really? That stinks you know? No taste, some people,’ he said, looking upon his work with adoration.
I lifted my head once more to look upon the disgusting and macabre human creation he had made. There was a centre to the piece; containing five heads…all sewn together by the flesh. I gaped at the staring eyes of the ones who had eyeballs remaining. Some had been gouged out, leaving fleshy holes in their place. I felt myself gag some more. Coming out from the heads were random and varied body parts, all sewn together with expert hands. The parts intertwined but everything was wrong. It was a mismatch of body parts and it was revolting.
I looked over to Billy who looked as white as a sheet. He knew what I knew. We were intended to be added to that monster’s ‘art.’ There was no escaping that knowledge now.
‘So, here’s what I’m thinking…’ Fraser began. ‘I’ll add his arms here and here,’ he said, indicating the positions, ‘and then his penis would be shoved in here…with his balls cut up and placed in the eyeballs. Marvellous, right?’
I gulped.
‘You are inappropriate for this piece,’ he told me, frowning. ‘But poor Mumsy dear is looking a bit worse for wear so I’ll carve off your face and give her nic
e skin again and cut off your tits to give her womanly flair. Sound like a plan?’ he grinned.
‘It sounds like you’re a fucking lunatic,’ I told him coldly, hardly caring if I riled him now. If he was planning to do the things he said, I was past caring trying to keep him calm.
‘Shut up bitch!’ he said, lifting his axe and stomping over to where I sat tied to my chair. ‘You clearly have too much to say!’
‘I have much, much more to say, Fraser! Try this-you’re a repressed homosexual male who has Mummy issues and a sick penchant for cutting up gay men. That sum it up okay?’
He lifted the axe to my throat and held me with his other hand. ‘Prepare to die, bitch…you’ve just fucked with the wrong man.’
‘No, Fraser-I haven’t. I’ve just distracted you enough to get you caught,’ I told him quietly as from behind a taser struck him and brought him down easily. All hell broke loose around me as the police swarmed the room and apprehended Fraser into custody. Paramedics instantly began helping Billy and I and sheer relief filled every little part of my system.
Jess arrived at my side moments after Fraser was carried away.
‘Oh Alex, I’m so, so sorry,’ she said, crying as she held my shaking body close.
‘Don’t get too close…I stink of sick.’
‘I don’t care if you stink of shit, sick or worse…I thought I was going to lose you.’
‘Me? Nah…I think I came pretty damn close though this time,’ I said shakily.
‘You did,’ she nodded, glancing around the room with horror filled eyes. ‘His playground?’
I nodded. ‘Yes. That’s his mother,’ I told her unnecessarily.
‘Yeah…I assumed.’
‘It turns out I can talk to the dead,’ I told her, wide-eyed. ‘I had a chat with her earlier, and found out a lot about him.’
‘No way! Well, tell me later…right now I just want to get you home.’
‘What will they do with him?’ I asked, frowning as I looked up at her.
‘They’ll take him in and put him in a cell for now. We’ll give him plenty of time to stew before we question him.’
‘Plenty of time,’ I nodded. ‘His mind will drive him crazy so do it! It’ll be the best way to taunt him.’
