Added to that was the knowledge that this time there was no escape, no end, nothing. I was damned to suffer at the hands of my own choices forever, waiting for them to tear me apart over and over again.
And knowing Jess might be going through the same thing…
What evil had I done to deserve this?
You’re no saint, a dark voice hissed from the empty holes in my mind, you know what you’ve done. What you’ve thought…
I gritted my teeth through the pain. Shut up…shut the fuck up.
But the voice continued: You never wanted children…you never wanted a family. That’s why you never married her, isn’t it? You were too afraid to commit, to start something real. You wanted her unwavering devotion, but were too selfish to give her the same.
“That’s not true,” I said out loud, lip quivering.
Oh yes, it is. You can’t hide from me. I know all there is to know about what goes on up here. When Jess miscarried your son, you were relieved. Oh, how you were relieved.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered fiercely, “I died alongside that child.”
Your sadness wasn’t brought on by the baby’s death…it was brought on because you saw what it did to Jess. It tore her apart. And THAT made you sad. It made you sad because she couldn’t be the person you wanted her to be. You’re a piece of shit. You deserve this place. You didn’t want a child, you wanted your girlfriend’s attention, her love, her everything. You were afraid the baby would take her away from you. Well I hope you’re happy, you miserable fuck, because she DID give you her everything, all the way unto death.
“Stop it!” I screamed, sitting upright.
I winced as my body exploded in pain, my head rocking as stone fists pummeled at me from the inside of my skull. I pressed my palms flat against my temples, tears flowing down my blood stained cheeks.
The voice didn’t respond.
“Nick?” a weak voice called.
Groaning, I turned toward the source and saw Megan, now hanging, limping from chains on the wall. Her naked body was a mess of bruises and cuts, her face swollen and bleeding. Her chest rose and fell with quivering effort as she looked at me through sweaty, clotted strands of bloody hair.
“I’m here,” I called to her, “Still here…”
She shifted painfully, “Don’t you leave me alone…don’t you leave me here…”
I gripped the bars and pulled myself to my feet, body screaming in protest. My legs trembled and I sucked in hot breath as a gaping halo of fire engulfed my backside. Finally, I was able to stand straight.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I don’t know…not here…but he told me he was coming back…soon…”
The thought of reliving the hell I had just endured shook me to my soul. I couldn’t take another round of brutality. Both physically and mentally. I would break like a splintered twig in the dead of winter.
Megan whimpered, a pathetic sound that reminded me of Jess during those last days together.
“You have to kill me,” Megan begged. “Please…it’s the only way out of here.”
I just stared at her, miserable.
Her head fell to her chest, sobbing, “Don’t let him hurt me anymore, Nick…please…I can’t…I can’t…”
Suddenly, footsteps echoed down the tunnel towards us. Heavy, deliberate footsteps. Muck was returning. Megan immediately fell into a state of broken hysteria, pleading, screaming, weeping as our oppressor came into view.
I slunk to the ground, crawling towards the back of my cell. My heart was racing, my body howling, and my mind rocked with the terrifying anticipation of what awaited us.
Muck didn’t even look at Megan, instead marching to my cage, his pale, fat gut bouncing past his bloated waist. His one eye gazed hungrily at me from the cut in the bag that covered his head. As he unlocked my cell, his tongue slid across his greasy lips and a sound like glee escaped his mouth.
“Don’t,” I croaked weakly, holding my hands out in front of me as he advanced on me. He knocked my arms aside and grabbed me by the back of the neck. His fingers dug harshly into my skin as he dragged me from the cage, detonating every slumbering pain I hadn’t yet awoken.
He tossed me to the floor in front of Megan and then went to his bench. With his back turned to me, I desperately began to crawl towards the entrance, pulling myself through the dirt one panicked breath at a time. My heart was thundering against my bruised ribs, horror ripping through me. When Muck turned back around, I was halfway to the tunnel.
He stared at me for a second and then angrily snatched something from his bench. He stomped toward me, bleeding hostility. I howled as he grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed my face into the dirt, stunning me.
In a daze, I suddenly felt needle-like agony press around my thighs, then knees, then calves. With what breath I had, I screamed as I looked down and saw Muck wrapping my legs tightly with barbed wire, binding them together. The razor sharp teeth sliced into my skin as he coiled the wire around itself, securing me.
When he was finished, still ignoring my cries, he took me by the arms and pulled me back toward Megan. He tossed me at her feet in a heap where I lay gasping. A second later, he chucked a hammer down to me. It landed in a puff of dirt, the particles floating into my exposed, lidless eyes and bringing with it fire. I pressed the back of my hand against the exposed sclerosis and fought to regain some kind of control.
“Hit her,” Muck’s gurgling, raspy voice called down to me.
I rubbed my eyes vigorously, not even registering his instruction.
Muck kicked my bleeding legs. “Hit her.”
I slowly reached out and gripped the hammer, its rusty head a grim weight in my hands. I dragged my eyes up to meet Megan’s and my own torment reflected back at me. I couldn’t do this. I refused to. We had both suffered so much already…
If I could have stood, I would have tried to end her pain with one swift blow to the head, freeing her from this nightmare. But the barbed wire kept me on the ground, biting me, gnashing at my flesh.
I turned my head and saw Muck behind me, his massive, ruined cock in one hand, already stroking it in anticipation. I clamped my teeth together and tossed the hammer aside in defiance.
With a frustrated growl, Muck stormed away from me back to the bench. I knew more pain was coming, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to hurt Megan for his own sick pleasure. It was the only freedom I had left.
From the way Megan began to sob, I knew Muck was returning with something especially nasty for me. I pushed my face into the dirt and awaited whatever sentence this monster had chosen.
I felt a weighty foot stomp down between my shoulder blades and my breath was instantly crushed from my lungs. I snarled and cried, heart a wild drum in my chest as Muck grabbed my left arm and extended it. He stomped down on my hand and pinned me in position, his slobbering, angry grunts dripping down onto my head.
Then he began to saw my arm off at the shoulder.
My world creaked and shattered as pain beyond anything else ruptured my howling body. The hacksaw easily churned through my flesh and began to screech against bone, each pull of the blade darkening my vision.
With a sickening tear, Muck ripped the last strands of skin away as he pulled my arm from my shoulder. He tossed the useless limb into the fire pit behind him. Through my screams, I smelled my own flesh cooking.
Muck took a burning stick from the fire and readjusted his position over me. Then he stabbed the wound, the fire licking at my gushing nub. My back arched as new agony greeted me, a sick popping sound announcing the cauterization of my severed limb.
Just when I thought it was over, he picked the hacksaw back up and began to severe my other arm.
I launched into absolute hysteria and before the gnawing teeth even hit bone, I passed out.
5
Back in the cage. I was becoming sickeningly familiar with its dirty angles and hard edges. I was on my back, lost in m
y own world of growing hell. The stumps jutting just inches from my shoulders were an alien nightmare, a shocking terror that filled my lungs with howls of fear. Upon waking, I had screamed and wriggled, lost in myself, unable to cope with the absence of my limbs. I could still feel them, could still feel my fingers reaching out to press against the ruined flesh.
Megan was gone. Her shackles were empty, a trail of blood staining the dark dirt that led towards the vacant tunnel. I was alone in the silence.
My eyes burned, drying out in the open air. Tears ran down my face, a desperate attempt to bring moisture to them, but I knew I was already severely dehydrated and soon my eyes would shrivel up like snake skin.
My thoughts returned to me in my broken state. They came creeping in like darkness over the setting sun. They bared their teeth and sliced at me with sharp claws, pounding across the shores of my mind like frothing waves.
Helplessness…pain…they weren’t just words anymore. They were all I knew. They filled every crack of me, poured down my throat, drown me in their cold, unflinching assault. I didn’t have the strength to feel sorry for myself. I didn’t have the energy to dissect each thought. I just lay bound in barbwire and listened to the screams inside my head.
At some point, I tried to focus on Jess, to let her image fill my mind with a desire to break free from this hell…but it was useless. She wasn’t here. And if she was, there was nothing I could do to help her. What could someone like me do to protect her from such evil? I couldn’t even protect her from my own selfishness.
She’s better off without you, that voice whispered, she deserves someone better than you. She deserves someone who will commit to her. Someone who actually wants a family. Someone who respects everything she gives to them. But not you…no…
I shut my eyes then remembered I couldn’t.
If you had actually wanted that baby then maybe you would have handled the loss differently. Maybe you could have related to her agony more. Maybe you could have fucking actually been there for her. Maybe you wouldn’t be here.
“I was there for her,” I whispered.
No, you weren’t. You completely disconnected. Sure, you were a shoulder for her to rest her head on, but it wasn’t real. Not in the way she needed you to be. You were more concerned about getting your girlfriend back to paying attention to you. And when that didn’t work, you got sad. Oh, poor Nick, no one’s wiping his ass for him.
“That’s not how it was,” I hissed weakly.
Once you realized she wasn’t getting better, you let your own selfish sadness take over. You let it pull you down into the same pit she was in. But you did it for you, you selfish fuck. You deserve this cage. You deserve this pain.
The words bounced off the inside of my skull and I let them die. I gritted my teeth and turned my head to the side, chest hitching.
“I-I’m sorry…” I whispered, “I’m so sorry…”
“You should be.”
I jumped as Muck’s voice cut through the silence. I whipped my head around and saw him watching me through the bars. I hadn’t even noticed him approach. His pasty, fat stomach squished around the iron, the bag over his head fluttering as he pulled in wet air.
“Kill me,” I begged, my body squirming on the floor as I wriggled towards him. “Just fucking kill me.”
Muck snorted, “No.”
I turned my head towards Megan’s empty chains. “What did you do to her? Where is she?”
Muck was fiddling with something in his meaty hand, “Took her to the Needle Fields. Bitch broke like a dry twig. Found her a nice place next to the rest of you Suicidals.”
What remained of my heart broke. “Why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to you?”
Muck just stared, still fumbling with whatever he was holding.
“Look at me!” I suddenly cried, wriggling my mutilated body at him. Every nerve screamed in protest, bolts of lightning shooting through my spine. “I’m nothing! I’m NOTHING! JUST KILL ME!”
Muck tossed something into my cage. It landed with a thump in front of my face. It was dark and resonated warmth. It looked like a piece of meat. I recoiled immediately, the barbs around my thighs licking hotly at my skin.
“Eat,” Muck instructed, “Eat or I fuck you.”
I knew that wasn’t an empty threat. I knew he would do it. The recent memory tore through my sudden aggression and I collapsed back into shuddering fear. I tried to pick up the meat but only wriggled my nub, the ghost of my hand just that. My eyes were burning in the dust, but it barely registered through the other pain.
I inched my face to the meat and sniffed it.
Please don’t be human, I thought.
I closed my teeth around the warm cut and bit down. The meat was tough, impossibly tough, and I gnawed uselessly at it. Vile grease coated my tongue and I gagged, recoiling from it and spit the taste from my mouth.
“Eat!” Muck growled, “Eat and stay strong. Can’t have you starving on me. Not my pet.”
His words chilled me and I turned away from him, slinking my body towards the far side of the cage, “I can’t. I-it’s too tough. I can’t chew it.” With my back to him I couldn’t see his reaction, but I could feel a sudden heat emitting from where he stood.
“Then we will give you sharper teeth,” He snarled, throwing aside the chain and pulling the door to the cage open. Before I could even scream, he was on me, his rough hands dragging me across the floor and over to his workbench.
I felt like I was slowly being run over by a train, every bump and scrape of dirt causing my bleeding, broken body to flare and howl. I didn’t know how I was still alive, the familiar black sparking dangerously around my vision as my senses screamed. I begged for the darkness. I prayed to the black.
God…please kill me.
Muck leaned down and gripped me by the throat, hauling me up and slamming me across his bench. I screamed as he bent me over backward across the lip so that I was staring up at him, my bleeding feet dangling inches from the floor.
He reached behind my head and snatched up a pair of pliers. With one fat finger, he pried open my mouth, his naked body pressing against mine, holding me in place against the bench.
The hard metal clinked against my teeth as he lowered the pliers into my mouth. I thought I would begin to vomit blood I was screaming so hard. But my cries were nothing compared to when the grips wrapped around a molar and Muck began to pull.
The pain was immediate and overwhelming. I gagged as blood began to squirt from my tearing gums. My head rattled as my molar was pulled free with a sickening crack, filling my mouth with the warmth that ran down my throat. I tried to stop Muck, but he moved on effortlessly to the next tooth.
And the next…
And the next…
And the next…
I stayed awake for the entire operation, drinking down mouthfuls of my own blood. When the final tooth was pulled free, I ran my tongue across my ruined gums, quivering as it was met with jagged edges and empty craters.
Muck grabbed my head and pushed it to the side, allowing me to empty my mouth of pooling saliva and thick blood. I coughed and sputtered, my mouth alive with prodding agony. Muck pulled me back into position and I realized that my torment wasn’t over.
He tossed the pliers aside and snatched up a handful of screws. He pulled my jaw apart and selected two of the screws. I begged for darkness as he fit the sharp tips in my mouth along the backside of my flaring gums.
Then he pressed them through like he was pushing nails through a cupcake. I felt them pass through my flesh and poke out past my lips at an angle. My screams were met with more pain as the sharp tips nipped at my lower lip and chin. Muck selected another two and continued his torment.
As I thrashed, body bound with barbed wire, a thought came crashing through the red: He’s replacing my teeth with screws.
It was such an awful, shocking moment, an accumulation of everything I had suffered up until this point that I vomited. The bile rock
eted past my new teeth and splashed against Muck’s bare chest. An amused chuckle escaped the bagged man’s head, his one visible eye appraising me through the hole in the cloth as he continued his work.
Muck’s pace never slowed, his hands working with careful precision and cruelty. I don’t know how many screws jutted from my mouth by the time he was finished. My mouth and jaw felt bloated like a million hot fingers were digging and scraping around my sensitive ruin.
Again, I begged for darkness. I begged for this to end. My head swam and I didn’t know why I was still awake. Every ounce of my being howled for some kind of relief, but I knew that I wouldn’t find any here.
Muck tossed me to the ground and I fell uselessly. My face bounced off the floor and my new teeth came shooting into my shredded lips. Gasping, I watched as Muck went and picked up the piece of meat he had offered me earlier.
He tossed it at my face and pointed, “Now eat.”
I didn’t know what his game was, why he was insisting I consume this slab of cooked flesh. Did he just want to see me struggle in pain some more? Of course he did. This monster got off on suffering and violence.
As if to affirm my thoughts, Muck grabbed his penis as I wriggled my face toward the meat. My mouth was in a permanent gape, the rough screws rising from my gums like fractured rock formations. The sharp barbs pressed into my thighs, my seared shoulders cracked from the movement, and I sobbed as I settled my new teeth around the meat.
I tried to bite down, but the slightest touch was excruciating. Snot mixed with blood that mixed with tears. I tried to bite down again, but my mouth screamed in protest.
I looked up towards Muck with shining eyes, blood dripping from my chin, “I con do ih!” My words came out a garbled mess and pushed more oozing liquid from my mouth.
The Black Farm Page 6
