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

by Matt Shaw

  “All of it. I don’t like anything to do with eyeballs.” When she closed her eyes she remembered seeing the dead girl’s burst eyeballs through her peripheral vision. He’d taken her from the chair and placed her on the floor. From there he’d removed both nails and then reinserted them into what remained of her eyeballs, but this time both nails propped the eyelids open. She hadn’t been able to turn her head to see what he was doing but she hadn’t wanted to. She had closed her eyes as she heard the sound of his jeans unbuttoning. She heard them drop to the floor and his weight shift. She hadn’t needed to open her eyes to know that he’d be lying on top of the young girl. The squelching sounds had told her all she needed to know as he started moaning softly, fucking what was left of her ripped vagina.

  “Carry on reading,” he urged her. “There’s more.”

  “I know what happened. Please. You win. You made me feel ill and I know what happened. I was there, remember?”

  “I know you were but you couldn’t see what was happening. I looked at you and your eyes were shut. Even if they weren’t - you couldn’t have turned your head to me. You’d only have seen it from the corner of your eye. For closure, you need to carry on reading.”

  “She’s dead. What does it matter?”

  “I’ll let you skip to the last paragraph. How’s that? That’s the one I want you to judge. And then, as promised, you can put the book down and use the facilities,” he reassured her, insinuating she’d be able to use the potty as previously requested - unaware it had been nothing but a delay tactic.

  Emma looked down to the book. The last paragraph didn’t look that long. It was only a few sentences. A few sentences and then she could put it down for as long a break as he permitted before asking them to read again - whenever that time would be. “Just the last paragraph?” she checked. Chris nodded. Emma took a deep breath and started reading, “Her pussy felt wet. The moist slit of a turned on woman but I knew it wasn't the truth. I knew it was her blood lubricating my easy ride as it continued to spill from her ripped lips. It didn’t matter though. Blood, cunt juice… Both felt good, no doubt helped by the fact it had been a while since I’d felt the real thing.” Emma wished she were able to change some of the words as she read. The language written being something she found herself uncomfortable saying out loud. This was against the rules though. She knew that much. “I was looking at the mess I’d made of her eyes as I continued thrusting into her wetness. That curiosity burning through my mind once more - questioning myself as to the taste I’d experienced after fingering the clear sticky-type liquid from her socket to my mouth. What was that taste? It reminded me of something.” Emma stopped reading and looked up at Chris. She knew where it was heading.

  “Carry on,” he snapped.

  “I waited until I was close to climax and then - as the orgasm started to slowly brew - I pushed my tongue under the nail and into the previously made hole, coating it in the fluid from within. The taste was disgusting. Definitely salty. Definitely creamy in texture. Almost syrup like. I swirled my tongue around as much as I possibly could. It’s not a metal taste… Well, there is a metal taste, but it’s not from the liquid. It’s from the screw, tainting it.” Emma gagged. She looked up at Chris, “Please… No more?”

  Chris smiled, “Do you like it?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “It’s horrible!” Emma felt her eyes well up. That damned feeling of impending doom that always sunk in after reading from the book. The little voice in the heads of the beta readers asking how they think they’re going to appear in the book when their time comes. That little voice asking whether - when the sick asshole doing this is caught - their family will get to read it too, only to be forever haunted by the words implanted into their heads.

  “Then it is perfect! Thank you!” Chris jumped up and crossed the chamber. He snatched the book from Emma-Jane’s lap and put it on top of Hayley’s cage. “And what did you think?” he asked, giving the cage a swift kick.

  Hayley had stopped crying. More or less anyway. Just the odd little whimper and sniffle coming from her cage. She too had learned the game rules fairly quickly and also admitted to finding it horrifying. Chris laughed.

  “Do you know what else is horrifying?” he asked as he pulled the potty from underneath the leather chair Emma-Jane was perched upon. He looked Emma in the eye, face to face with her. “Well?” he prompted her for a reply.

  “What?” she asked.

  He breathed in her face. “I haven't brushed my teeth since I did all that,” he laughed. He handed Emma-Jane the potty. Before he had a chance to make his hasty retreat she screamed at him and smashed it against the side of his head. She jumped up from the chair and followed through with another hit, and a third, as Chris tumbled to the side, slamming against the side of the truck. The potty was only plastic. It was never going to do any real damage. It was never going to do what Emma so desperately needed it to. There was no way it could kill him. Not unless it shattered and she managed to wedge a sharp piece of plastic into his ear first and then his brain. She lunged at him again but was jerked backwards instead due to there being no more give in the lead holding her close to the chair; a funny ‘glerk’ noise from her throat as she did so. Hayley was screaming for her to stop. After all Emma had said about them escaping, she knew from her experience being tied to the chair that this was a huge mistake on Emma’s part. Chris caught his balance by resting a hand against the side of the trailer. He pulled himself to his feet and put a hand to his head. A quick look to check if it was bleeding. It wasn’t.

  “You’ve done it now, haven’t you?” he said, putting his hand back down to his side.

  Emma was frantically pulling at the collar around her neck; the one which kept her secured to the wall. She was shaking her head from side to side. Tears were streaming down her face. She had done it now. He knew it. She knew it.

  It was her turn to appear in the book.

  7.

  Chris was sitting in the front of the truck. The book was open in his lap. He didn’t have the pen out. That was safely tucked into the inside pocket of the thin jacket he wore; ready for him to grab it when he felt the muse. He was staring out of the windscreen, into the services’ carpark. The carpark was near empty now; illuminated only by a few overhead lights. Just one or two cars belonging to patrons of the nearby hotel, Chris guessed. Or maybe they belonged to someone in the services, even though they were shut? A cleaner or something? He’d been sitting there for over an hour now idly flicking through the pages of his book, reading what he had already done as he sought inspiration on how else to fill the blank, waiting pages. He was over half-way through the book now and he knew he needed to slowly build it towards a grand finale. Certainly get something in there even more gruesome than the last to give it some kind of climax, on the off-chance he didn’t get to finish the rest of the pages. The restaurant - what had happened there - that couldn’t be the climactic point on which to leave it. Not when what he had done to Frankie was that much worse. It would be backward steps. No, he needed to do something truly special.

  He closed the book and tossed it to one side. Clearly it wasn’t coming to him tonight though. No sense in trying to force the idea out. Especially when he was so tired. He’d been up for nearly twenty hours now. Twenty hours and hardly any rest. He was shattered. A little sleep would do him the world of good. A little shut eye to recharge the brain and put him back on course for more ideas.

  “Is this what writer’s block is?” he muttered to himself. He shook his head, refusing to believe in such a pathetic notion, and slid into the passenger seat of his truck. Releasing a catch under the seat, he swivelled the whole chair around so that it was facing the back.

  The design of the expensive rig was well thought out for a driver who’d be spending a vast amount of time on the road. When the chair turned around it was faced with a small table. On the side, where the table attached to the wall, there was a good-sized television which -
if needed - could be angled away to face other directions in order to maximise viewing potential. Above that, in its own little alcove, was a microwave oven; a handy little commodity to warm up the pastry foods purchased from the various service stations passed along the way. The other side of the table didn’t have a chair. That’s where the bed was positioned, with a curtain rail above which wrapped around the whole section to cocoon the driver in, should he wish to turn in for the night and not be disturbed by the headlights of passing vehicles. Scattered across the table were various maps and notes. On the maps were a series of crosses etched in biro at various points. To people looking it wouldn’t look like much. To Chris, though, it was the routes he’d traveled previously. Not all of them, mind, just the ones where he’d not be able to return. The spots where he’d acted upon curiosities and made new entries for his book.

  Irritated by his lack of imagination, with regards to new entries, he pushed the maps to one side and slid out from between table and chair. He climbed onto the bed and turned onto his side, staring ahead at the back wall of the truck. To him the rear of the truck wasn’t there. It’s not what he saw. As he stared dead ahead, he saw the girls. He saw Hayley, still crying and whimpering. A pathetic mess. And he saw Emma-Jane. The girl who had to die next.

  “You do,” he heard her voice in his head. A conversation they’d had just after he’d made his first introduction to the dazed girl. She’d not long since woken up from where he’d hit her unconscious, back at her house. She was in the cage. She was scared. She was answering his question. The question being, what scares her? Her answer wasn’t a lie. The man standing to the side of the cage she was locked in did scare her. But it wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He wanted more. He wanted her to answer the question as though he’d never met her. He wanted to know what scared her before him. Everyone fears something. Even he did. Not that he discussed it with people, certainly not those he’d taken for his road-trip.

  “Before me. What scared you before me?” he had replied, trying to get her to clarify her answer. She hadn’t answered immediately and he had to kick the cage to let her know he wasn’t going anywhere without the response he was looking for.

  Chris sat up on the bed as his mind continued to play through the rest of the conversation. He started to realise that he should have written these conversations down. Made notes at the very least, for times such as this. The moments where his brain wouldn’t work properly and he couldn’t think of a suitable punishment. At least having notes about their fears gave him something to work with. What was her fear though? What was it? How did the rest of that damned conversation go? He closed his eyes as he cast his mind back and concentrated hard on what had been said. There was a to and fro between them. She said she was scared of anything happening to her family. He told her that wasn’t a good enough response. She cried out how she didn’t know what he was looking for. He replied that it wasn’t a trick question and nor was it particularly challenging for her. He just wanted to know her most basic fear.

  “If you were watching a film, or reading a book… What would be the thing that freaked you out the most? What would be the part which gave you nightmares?” a question she still couldn’t provide a satisfactory response to. He’d pushed her further for an answer, “What would be the worse way imaginable that you could die?” That was it. That was the question he realised he should have asked first. That was the one which would get him what he wanted. Of course she hadn’t answered immediately. She wasn’t that stupid after all. Why would she trust someone whilst in this position? Here she was, caged up like an animal… And the man that held her there was asking what the worst way to die would be. No sane person would answer. Or rather, no sane person would answer without some kind of encouragement to do so. And that was exactly what she’d got. He’d leaned into the cage and ripped her top, exposing her bra. He’d pulled that down too. Her nipple was hard. The cold air being the cause, certainly not any level of excitement on her part.

  Chris smiled to himself as he remembered pulling a small, green disposable lighter from his pocket. He lit the flame and told her he was going to burn her nipple to a crisp if she refused to say what it was. Only when the lighter sparked a flame and moved underneath her breast did she scream what it was.

  “Suffocation!” Chris blurted out. It was suffocation. Emma-Jane didn’t want to suffocate to death. Yet that was exactly how she was going to pass. Chris reached over, on the desk, and pulled the notes towards him. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled his pen out. A second later and he was frantically scribbling notes; specific items for what he needed. A detour into the nearest town, and a quick stop off in the first Do-It-Yourself store he came across and then he’d fuck with her just as she’d tried to fuck with him this evening. He smiled to himself again as his rough notes started turning into fuller ideas. Monopolising all other thoughts bouncing around in his head until they too were drowned out by a single, even louder thought… This would make a good climax for the book, if push came to shove. If he was caught before having a chance to enter anything else, at least this would stick in the minds of those who’d possibly read it - for there would always be someone who’d be too curious not to.

  Notes done, he pushed them to one side and tossed the pen down next to the pages. He lay back down with his hands behind his head, propping it from the thin mattress slightly. Considering how he’d felt when he left the two girls caged back up again, he was feeling good. He was feeling optimistic. Tomorrow was to be a good day. A busy day, yes. But a good one.

  #

  What remained of the night, when sleep finally came, was filled with vivid dreams of what the coming days were to be filled with. In the back of the truck - it was a different kind of dream completely; broken ones from disturbed sleep. Both girls waking at the sound of the slightest bang or thud from outside of their claustrophobic chamber. Thoughts, pulled to the forefront of their mind, of loved-ones sitting up for them at home, praying for their safe return. A prayer which Emma-Jane knew would be unanswered, having crossed Chris for the final time.

  “Are you awake?” Hayley whispered, fearful Chris would - somehow - be listening to their conversation. A little light spilled in from the holes above them. They weren’t sure of the time now but at least they knew it was day. Early morning, no doubt.

  “Yes.”

  Hayley didn’t follow her question up with anything else. They both crouched there - bent over in their cages - in silence. Neither one knew what to do. Neither one knew what to say. Emma-Jane had spoken of escape but what chance was there whilst they were trapped like this? They both knew it was a pipe-dream. And just as Emma had been forced to listen to the murder of another, so would Hayley be made to endure the sounds too.

  “I’m scared,” Hayley said quietly, with a crack in her voice which broke the haunting silence.

  “So am I,” Emma replied, letting her strong attitude finally slip.

  “I don’t know what to do.” Hayley admitted. “He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?” This wasn’t a revelation to Hayley. She had known, from the moment she had woken and realised where she was, that she was probably going to die but - until now - there had always been a little hope that everything would work out in the end. That hope was crushed when Emma attacked the captor. That was the moment she knew Emma was going to be killed and - in all likelihood - she would follow. What made it even worse was knowing that it was going to be sooner rather than later. “What should we do?” Hayley asked, desperate for Emma to have an answer to both of their prayers.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” she said. All hope lost. Between thinking about her husband, and her children, she found her thoughts geared towards the final moments of Frankie. Was it a quick death? The screams suggested it lasted a few minutes at least but - when they stopped - was it over for her? Would it be equally as traumatic for her as it had been for Frankie? Would she have time to scream whilst the bastard did whatever he wanted to do? And the body? What h
appened to her body afterwards? Where did she go? What did he do with her? Was she cut into tiny pieces and scattered along the roadside? Buried in the woods somewhere? Did her family get to know of her death or are they still in the dark as to what really happened now? Emma-Jane coughed as her gut twisted and squeezed making her want to vomit. Hayley simply started to cry once more.

  The whole chamber shook as the lorry’s engine stuttered into life. A second later and they felt a jolt as it pulled away from wherever it had parked.

  “Do you think he’s…” Hayley stopped herself. Emma-Jane knew what she was wondering though. She wanted to know if she thought he’d killed anymore people. She wanted to know if either of them had the possibility of more reading to do.

  “I think he’d just parked up for the night,” she put Hayley’s mind at ease. An opinion backed up by the fact that, whenever he had someone else to write in the book, another girl was brought into the chamber first. That was how it went; he takes someone, he kills people, he presents the book to the new girl to read. No new cell mate, no new chapters.

  “Where do you think we’re going now?” Hayley asked. Her questions were starting to annoy Emma. On the one hand, they helped her distract herself from what was inevitably coming but, on the other hand, she didn’t have the answers. She couldn’t second guess the maniac. How could she? How could anyone get into the mind of a person who could do this to people? She bit her tongue so as not to further upset a woman who was clearly already frightened. Once again the pair fell into an uncomfortable silence as Chris re-joined the carriageway. Destination: the nearest town. “We need to think of a way out of here,” Hayley said eventually. Emma-Jane tried her best not to laugh at her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been trying to find a way out from the moment she had found herself there. Hayley wasn’t saying it specifically for her though. She was saying it as both a reminder to herself that that was what she needed to do and also to break the silence. Emma remained silent. She’d tried to think of everything she could. If this new cellmate could come up with anything better, she’d be more than keen to hear the suggestions put forward. But, for herself, even though death was imminent - she was fresh out of thoughts. “What if, when he lets us out, one of us tries to seduce him?” Hayley suggested. “I read in a book once how this man took a girl. He bricked the two of them into this house and she pretended to seduce him. He fell for it and she… Well. It wasn’t the nicest blow-job he’d ever had.” Hayley paused, waiting for an answer. “What do you think? Would that work?”