Don't Read: A Novel of Extreme Horror, Sex and Gore

by Matt Shaw

  “I want you inside of me,” Sara said. Her eyes were scrunched shut in tight little balls. Her legs were shaking and there was a tone of dread in her voice. A means to an end, though. If she could buy herself some time, as much as possible, there’d be a chance someone else would come along and see that everything wasn’t as it should have been. If having him fuck her was enough of a delay to allow the opportunity for an alarm to be raised - she’d do it. “Do it,” she begged, eyes still closed.

  “I’ve always wanted to,” Chris sighed as he continued pushing the hilt of the knife up against her arsehole.

  “So have I,” she said in the false belief Chris was referring to anal sex. In her private life, it wasn’t something which had ever crossed her mind. Previous boyfriends had asked, some had even tried, but she always flat out refused fearful of the sting her more adventurous friends had described. But - again - if it bought her some much needed time… “Do it. I want you to.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “It will hurt.”

  She had already braced herself for some pain. “I’m prepared.”

  “If you’re sure….” Chris didn’t wait for her to respond. He pulled the knife away from her twitching arsehole and flicked his wrist, making the blade face outwards as opposed to how it had been facing inwards previously. With no words he thrust forward, pushing the tip of the blade into her arse. She screamed as the knife sliced its way up her anal passage until only the handle was sticking out.

  Screaming, Sara pushed herself up from the counter only to be slammed back down against it by Chris. Keeping her squirming body pinned with one hand - and a fair amount of strength - he slipped his spare hand into the waiting oven glove. Once in, he grabbed Sara by the hair and lifted her back from the kitchen work-top. He slid her along the shiny metal surface until she was in line with the fryer. He grabbed the basket, sitting in the fryer, and threw it across the room and then - with no remorse - dunked her head into the sizzling fat. The screaming didn’t continue for long as he used all of his strength to hold her body - and head - in place, watching in awe as the skin immediately started to blister. The screaming soon stopped and the body went limp but Chris didn’t release his weight from holding it in place as he gagged at the scent of burning flesh. When he did finally release his hand from her head, he shook the oven glove off and took a hold of the knife handle before pulling it from her rectum. A blade covered in both faeces and blood as gore and shit continued to leak from the wound he’d cut. He dropped the knife and looked around the room at the carnage he’d created, a strange feeling of both satisfaction and revulsion at how - once again - he’d managed to get carried away with his actions. Sara’s body slumped to the floor. Most of the flesh burned from her once pretty face that was now a vision of blisters and bone.

  “One for the book,” he muttered as he pushed the door open, connecting kitchen to restaurant, stepping back into the room where his evening had originally begun. In the restaurant, he unlocked the front door and stepped into the still night beyond, casting a casual glance to the side - towards the bins - where he’d earlier met the nice, young waitress named Hayley.

  DON’T

  READ

  Plot Minimal, Carnage Everything

  M A T T S H A W

  3.

  She looked angry as I approached her, a broad smile on my face. Her hostility wasn’t geared towards me. Muttered words hinting they were directed towards her ‘asshole’ of a boss. A sentence from her lips she should have just slept with him and been done with it. I asked her if she was okay as I neared her. Two reasons, the first being that it was the polite thing to do and the second because I didn’t want to make her jump as I got closer. Despite my best intentions I still managed to startle her. She looked embarrassed at her reaction almost immediately and it took a lot of effort not to laugh at her. Of course, being polite, I apologised to her. I told her I hadn’t meant to frighten her. I told her I’d come over to see if she needed a hand. From the comfort of my lorry I had been watching her struggle with the bins she’d carried from the restaurant. The first bin went into the dumpster easily enough but the second got caught on the ridge before falling back towards her. Now, standing near her, I could see it had emptied its contents at her feet with some of the rancid bin juices splashing her white canvas shoes. The next sentence that escaped my mouth most likely did nothing to help her mood as I pointed out how disgusting it was. She didn’t say anything to my comment but she did give me a ‘look’. Again, I had to try hard not to laugh.

  I picked the black sack up, spilling more slop in the process, and tossed it - and what remained inside - into the dumpster. She asked what I was doing as there was mess on the floor to clear up.

  “I’m used to cleaning up spillages,” I pointed her towards my lorry and informed her that I had the right tools for the task at hand if she wanted to help me fetch them. She seemed keen and I can’t say I blame her. Anything to get out of cleaning the mess by gloved hands only, especially given the foul stench of rot that it was giving off.

  “Really? You’re a life-saver!” she’d said to me. I’ll never forget those words, the first time anyone has ever called me a life-saver I believe. I couldn’t help but laugh. I smiled at her and told her that it was my pleasure to be helping a damsel in distress. We shared further conversation as I walked her to the rear of my lorry; parked in such a way it looked to be in plain sight of everyone and anyone yet - if you stopped and paid attention - you’d realise the back was hidden in the shadows from all prying eyes. Parked that way on purpose.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her as I undid the latches in order to open the back of the lorry.

  Her name was Hayley.

  I write the name as though she is dead but that isn’t the case. At least it wasn’t at the time of writing. She is alive and well. Her name is Hayley. I told her that I liked the name. I said it suited her. Truth be told I was indifferent to it and - had it not been the fact I jotted it down - I’d most likely have forgotten it over the years. I introduced myself as Chris. We didn’t shake hands and I opened the rear of the lorry.

  “What do you transport?” she had asked as she took note of the many boxes seemingly filling the space revealed.

  “This and that,” is always my response when people question me. It is easier than making up a consistent lie and less alarming than the truth. She nodded, satisfied with my vague answer and I punched her square in the face, flooring her in the process. The first punch dazes her, the second sparks her out. I do feel bad but it’s the only way I can get them in the back of the lorry without much fuss; to have them unconscious. And, yes, it is a shame to mess up their faces - especially when they’re so pretty - but bruises fade given time. Regardless, she’ll feel them when she wakes up but I shall be on hand with some painkillers and a bottle of fresh drinking water to wash them down with.

  I lifted her crumpled body from the concrete floor of the carpark and dropped her into the back of the lorry before climbing up there myself. There is a small gap between the left hand side of the lorry and the boxes, big enough for me to drag her down towards the other end. If you were to jump up on the back, you’d think the cargo stretched the whole way back and you would be right - technically it does. What you wouldn’t notice is that, after the first boxes, the rest are fake. My own design, they hide a small soundproofed chamber behind them and that is where I will be putting my new friend, Hayley.

  I grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her down the narrow gap towards the secret door I’ve had installed; opened by pressing the bottom right hand corner of one of the nearby boxes, with my foot, where the words ‘fragile’ appear. A lock is released and the doorway opens a little, allowing me the opportunity to push against it opening it the whole way.

  I stepped into the secret room, pulling Hayley with me, and closed the door behind me. This is done out of a necessity rather than a choice. If I leave the door open, I do not have enough room to move
around within. No sooner is the door open do I hear the cries of another woman I’d previously taken; a young woman by the name of Emma-Jane Law. Her cries are for freedom which I shall not grant. I am not through with her yet by a long shot, nor am I in a position to continue her story. Despite the way she cries and demands I release her, not everything is about my dear Emma-Jane.

  I continued dragging Hayley down towards the row of small cages. She is to go into the third one, the first being for Emma and the second being empty after what happened to… Well, for the sake of the story, that isn’t important right now. I squeezed her into the metal cage reserved for her and closed the door. With her shut in, I took a hold of one of the many padlocks hanging from small hooks just above the cages; large silver locks with a combination code on them of four digits. The man in the shop who’d sold them promised they were the best on the market and I had no reason to doubt him. No one had broken out from their cell yet, not that they had much room to shift around once closed in. The women were forced onto all fours with their arms tucked in against their chests, their heads were twisted at an awkward angle and - in this position - they only just managed to fit in their new homes.

  “Please let me out!” Emma shouted to me as I walked back towards the door. I ignored her. I’d previously said the more she shouts the more she will fail to get a response from me. The door was operable via a handle on this side; an effortless tug and I’d leave the room shutting them in again before jumping down from the back of the lorry and closing it back up, a quick check around to make sure no one had seen what I had done.

  As per usual all was quiet.

  Normally when I have taken a new plaything, I jump into the front of the cab and drive from the scene before many (if any) people have a chance to take note of me. Today had been different though as a hunger unsettled my stomach with deep rumblings. There were no other customers around and no cameras in the carpark so it seemed rude not to make use of the restaurant’s facilities. From the way it looked outside, a run-down greasy spoon cafeteria, I have to confess to not expecting much but whatever they had to offer was going to be better than the stale sandwiches waiting for me in my lunchbox. Convinced eating was a good idea by another deep rumble within my gut and a lightheaded feeling making the world spin around me, I decided there and then to chance the restaurant’s unknown menu.

  #

  Sitting in the front of his cab with a book in his lap and a pen in his hand, Chris dropped the biro into the centre of the A4 manuscript book and closed it (as much as the pen would allow). He sighed heavily as he tossed the book onto the seat next to him and rubbed the back of his neck with a tired hand. It had been a long night filled with enough activity to have realistically been spread across two days and still referred to as ‘busy’. He wasn’t done yet either. He still had to finish writing up what had happened during the night and then he had to check on Hayley and Emma-Jane. Maybe even get them to read his work in progress to check he was still on the right course with his goals; to make the best damned horror book anyone had ever read. Not that he planned to let anyone else read it; a fact backed up by the big, bold letters scrawled across the front of the blue book which simply read ‘DON’T READ’. A keen horror fan of both film and literature, nothing had met Chris’s warped expectations. He wasn’t sure when exactly but he was reminded of the old saying ‘if you want something done well, do it yourself’ and so he set about making what he perceived to be the sickest book in existence; something to satisfy his sick cravings for blood and gore. Plot was minimal for him, carnage was everything. Within a month of deciding this was his fate, he turned his rig into what it was today: a torture chamber on wheels. His plan was simple: travel the country for as long as possible until he was finally caught or his book was full. Today, a month in, the book was already half-full of sordid stories of what he had accomplished. The violence from the night being nothing but two condensed pages filled with his own personal horror.

  It was nearly morning now. Chris had driven through the night, a mixture of dual carriageway and country roads to get to where he was now. The sun was slowly making its presence known, forcing the night into a hasty retreat. Some birds were singing in trees in the field adjacent to the lay-by he had parked up in some three hours away from the setting for the night’s horrors. Chris yawned as he flung the cab door open, letting in a rush of cold morning air. A shiver ran down his spine. The sun had been super-heating the cab through the windscreen giving a false impression of a warm morning. Undeterred Chris jumped down from the comfort of his transport and landed, heavy-footed, on the asphalt. The crisp morning air would probably do him some good. The temptation to move from the driver’s seat to the bed - set up in the rear of the cab - was almost too great to ignore despite knowing he couldn’t rest yet. Not until he had put more miles between the roadside cafe and himself. He stretched his arms out in front of him first before reaching for the sky. A satisfying series of cracks and clicks worked their way down the length of his spine. He reached behind him, interlocking his fingers and stretched again. Another loud click.

  As a driver, this was Chris’s favourite time of the day. With the exception of one or two, most vehicles were off the road. It was the calm before the storm. The storm being the morning rush-hour. The irritating few hours where quiet roads found themselves annoyingly congested with people rushing to work or heading out to drop the kids to school; the time of day where Chris could find himself sitting in traffic for what seemed to be hours at a time. Knowing time was against him, if he wanted to get past the traffic hotspots before they got really congested, he knew he didn’t have as much time to relax as he’d have hoped. In hindsight he’d wished he’d just got back into the front of the cab and driven off earlier after picking Hayley up. The restaurant was an ill-planned turn of events which he didn’t really have the luxury of time for - not that he regretted it. After all, the last time he had had that much fun was when he met Emma-Jane and that seemed like ages ago. Speaking of which…

  He walked to the rear of the lorry and froze, listening for the sounds of any movement from within. There was nothing. He smiled despite knowing it didn’t mean they weren’t screaming within the chamber. In all likelihood he knew they were probably attempting to scream the roof down; two loud voices now as opposed to one. Despite heavily sound-proofing the room, he still had a pang of paranoia rush through him whenever he introduced someone new to their cage. A little voice in his head telling him that, despite his efforts to keep them a secret in there, everyone could hear them and nothing was silenced. He nodded to himself, satisfied no one would hear them, and returned to the front of his lorry. He climbed into the cab and made himself as comfortable as possible on the driver’s seat. He yawned again and closed his eyes for a second or two. It felt good. There was no doubt about that.

  “Open your eyes,” he told himself. “Open your eyes!” he repeated a second time. His weary body listened to the second instruction and his heavy eyelids opened. Another thought - darker than the last - bounced through his mind: what if he were to cut his own eye-lids off? Would that make it easier not to fall asleep? Stupid. He shook his head and started up the lorry. Just drive to the motorway. Stop at the next service station and rest there. There’s nothing inconspicuous about a lorry parked up in a service station. He will be one of many.

  4.

  There was screaming. The outside world was shielded from it by the heavy padding, soundproofing the small chamber in the back of the lorry but - yes - there was screaming. Hayley had woken up. The last she knew of anything, she was chatting to a seemingly polite man in the carpark of her work place. The bin bag had split when she’d tried to throw it into the dumpster and he had come along, offering tools to clean it up without having to get too messy in the process. No sooner had she opened her eyes had panic set in; confused as to where she was, scared as to the motives surrounding why she was there, so many questions flitting around her mind. Emma-Jane had called out to her in an effort to calm
her. She knew the likelihood was Hayley didn’t know she was there. Emma’s own head was cramped in the too-small cell in such a way she was unable to turn it in either direction so there was no reason to believe Hayley wasn’t in a similar position.

  “You’re not alone,” she called out. “I’m here with you.” She knew it was silly suggesting as such but she still continued, “You need to stop screaming. He doesn’t like it when people scream at him.”

  Fighting through tears, Hayley asked, “Where am I?”

  “We’re in the back of his lorry. That’s all I know.”

  “Who’s lorry?”

  “I don’t know him. I only know his name: Chris.”

  “What does he want?” Hayley continued.

  Emma-Jane wished she had the answers Hayley craved. She wished she could say something to make her feel at ease but she knew - in this situation - there was nothing she could say to take away the fear and worry. She changed the subject, “My name is Emma-Jane,” she said. When Hayley didn’t offer her own name up so easily she gave her a little push, “What’s your name?”

  “Hayley.”

  “We’re going to get out of this,” Emma said, “you just need to remain as calm as possible.”

  Hayley didn’t respond to her.

  “Did you hear me?”