I watched as he looked down to his left. When I’d fallen off the ladder, I’d been in too disoriented to notice that he’d left his weapon of choice on the floor. He picked it back up now, and let the cold, steel head of the sledgehammer rest neatly in his opposite hand.
My back finally hit a wall, and I had nowhere to go. All I could do was look up at Hank the Huntcher, as he was sure to have something painful in store for me. As he approached me, I turned my head toward my shoulder and curled up, crying into my right bicep as I awaited the guaranteed swing of the sledgehammer.
With nowhere to go, I’d accepted my fate.
“Do it,” I mumbled.
The Huntcher stopped, and cocked his head to the left as if he was confused.
“Do it.” The words were a little bit louder this time.
Still, he stood there with his head slightly leaned toward his shoulder and stared at me. But I was more than ready to accept my fate, and for this devilish nightmare to finally be over.
“Do it! You retarded fuck!”
This time I’d yelled, and he dropped the hammer to the ground beside him, then reached down toward me, and wrapped his large hand around my neck. His strength baffled me. I felt my body involuntarily begin to rise as he lifted me off of the ground. Gasping, I waved my palms through the air in front of me, slapping him on his forearms and connecting a couple of times with his face, which only irritated him. I wiggled my toes against the wooden floor as my feet completely pulled away from it, and I was hanging in the air, swinging my legs. He groaned, and his grip became tighter around my thin neck. The more time that passed, the less I had the ability to punch the air in front of me. The Huntcher’s vulgar breath covered my face, and at least one of his unkempt fingernails dug into the side of my neck as he squeezed my throat.
My airway was almost completely shut off, and I’d begun to feel my conscious fading. The Huntcher continued to groan and his veins bulged from his arm, as he worked to bring me to my last breath.
I let my head fall toward my right shoulder and began to pass out.
Then, I heard a yell and the grip around my neck slightly loosened. With a cloudy landscape in front of my fading eyes, I was able to just roll them up to see the Huntcher look to his right toward the large double doors, as the accelerated footsteps of someone headed toward us.
The strong grasp around my neck released, and I fell to the ground, now sitting with my back against the wall. I gasped for air and coughed a repeated dry heave, massaging my neck to try and soothe the place where his large hands had had such a tight hold around it.
When I looked up a few seconds later, I saw Blake on the Huntcher’s back with his arms and legs wrapped around the hooded figure. Blake was trying to choke him out, but Hank was resisting. He swung his arms at Blake, trying desperately to force him off of his back by connecting with an elbow, but Blake had a tight hold on him, and it was only getting tighter.
Near the middle of the room, a bail of hay was stacked on top of another. In his attempt to shake Blake off, the Huntcher slammed into it, knocking the top bail of hay over onto the ground. I watched as it fell on top of the handle of the pitchfork and the men continued their struggle.
As weak as I imagined he had to be, I have no idea how Blake was winning the fight. Hank had begun to slow down, and looked as if he could fall down at any moment and pass out. Blake’s legs were wrapped tight around the abdomen and his forearms stretched across the killer’s neck, a pressure Hank was resisting, trying to wedge his fingers under Blake’s arm to loosen or break the chokehold. While Hank had managed to deter some of the restraint around his neck, Blake still had a tight grasp on him.
I remained on the ground, my hands massaging my own neck and trying to calm myself.
Hank had been looking at me, but something else had caught his attention. He was looking down at the pitchfork on the ground. Hank began to change his position, turning around to where Blake’s backside faced me again. Then, with methodical steps, the Huntcher crept toward the pitchfork.
My eyes went wide as I began to connect in my head what was about to happen.
At first, I tried to move toward them, but my back and my legs were still screaming at me from falling from the second level. I waved my arms toward Blake and yelled out, but he didn’t turn around. In all my confusion, I hadn’t yet realized that no sound was coming out of my mouth. My throat had been constricted enough from being choked by Hank to where my voice had failed to come back, at least as of yet.
“Blake, you’ve gotta jump off his back. Blake!” But it came out sounding like air passing through a hollow pipe.
The pointed tips of the forks faced me, curving up toward the ceiling. As he reached where it lay, Hank turned around to face me again.
Blake looked over his shoulder and saw me waving, and a stark look of sudden confusion passed over his face. The feeling in my back started to return, and I worked to move into a crawling position before covering my eyes with my right hand, catching the tears as they rolled down my face..
I love you, Blake.
Hank grunted. His boots slipped across the floor, and the loud slam was immediately followed by the most painful scream I’d ever heard in my life.
26
It felt like it took forever for me to finally build-up the courage to look. I could only imagine his face in my mind as he’d screamed, crying out like a helpless newborn, and even now, I still couldn’t open my eyes.
The sound of the steel forks piercing through Blake’s back with such force played over and over again in my head. Hank had purposely dropped backward onto the ground, sending the sharp blades of the pitchfork into Blake’s back. It had happened so fast that when their bodies had settled, the weight of the Huntcher on top of Blake had caused the forks to slide further into him, making a slick, wet sound that had resonated in the air between bellowing screams. The impalement was followed by a heaving cough, and I heard the gurgling of iron red liquid spewing from Blake’s mouth.
When I finally opened my eyes, I went mad, screaming and slapping myself in the face.
Their bodies were contorted awkwardly on top of one another. The bail of hay was heavy enough to where the pitchfork was fully supported underneath it, and must have had very little give when they’d slammed onto the tips of it. There was a slight arch in Blake’s back, and Hank’s body matched the shape, bending almost perfectly over Blake’s naked body. Blood had shot out from both sides of them and was pooling on the floor, forever staining the surrounding straws of hay.
I tried to stand up from all fours, but still didn’t possess the strength to. So, I began to crawl toward them.
A few feet away, I stopped.
The Huntcher had begun to move. As he shifted his weight off of Blake, Blake screamed louder, and I heard more ripping and tearing sounds as the forks jostled around inside of Blake.
Hank had managed to roll off of Blake, and I noticed the pool of blood on his back. Looking over at Blake, I saw that the forks had stabbed all the way through him, the tips exposed outside of his stomach.
“No,” came crumbling out of my mouth through tears, over and over again, as I got my first look at just how badly Blake had been injured.
The Huntcher clutched his back, and I realized the fall had happened with so much force that the forks had pierced his back as well. That was the additional tearing sound I’d heard as he’d moved off of Blake; the sound of the forks coming out of Hank’s own skin. But Blake had taken the majority of the blow, and there wasn’t much of the pointed steel left exposed to have stabbed into Hank.
The Huntcher was on his hands and knees now, and I had to think that he’d be looking to kill me if he could stand up. On the ground a couple of yards to my right, past Hank, lay the sledgehammer. With big wet eyes, I began to crawl over to it as fast as I could.
Hank was up to one knee.
When I was almost there, I yelled out. Gripping my hand quickly and looking at it, I saw a large splinter stuck i
nto my palm from the old wooden floor of the barn.
The scream had drawn Hank’s attention, and he turned, seeing that I was heading for the hammer. I yelled out again involuntarily, and crawled the extra few feet to the handle of the hammer just as the Huntcher stumbled fully to his feet.
It was in my hands, the splinter rubbing raw against the hard wood of the sledge’s handle.
Hank was behind me. I could hear him grunt and I could feel his presence. In one fluid movement, I turned and swung the hammer.
Much like when I’d hollered out and heard nothing while trying to warn Blake to jump off of Hank’s back before the horrific drop on the pitchfork, I saw and felt nothing as I swung the hammer through the midnight air that was trapped inside the barn.
The slam of a body hitting the ground took me out of my trance, and I realized that I’d connected.
The Huntcher rolled on the ground next to me, throwing horrific, unintelligible noises into the air. He clutched his knee, and I looked down to see that there was almost nothing left of it. I’d connected with the joint, completely shattering his knee cap.
For the first time, his hood had come off, and I was finally able to see the fully unveiled face of my stalker.
He was bald, and the scars on his face extended all the way to the top of his head. I’m pretty sure I’d been correct about his age, though the scars made him look much older than a young man in his twenties or thirties.
But his eyes were the thing about him that I’ll never forget.
One of them was a sky blue; his left, if I remember correctly. And the other was nearly as red as the crimson blood pooling on the wooden floor around Blake. It looked like it had been that way for a very long time, though I’m not quite sure what could have caused it.
We all have scars. Some are inside, and some are outside. They stay with us through life, and I believe through death as well. Hank had scars that bled from his tattered black soul and had worn through his pale leather skin.
Watching him, I’d come to realize the sledgehammer was still in my hand, covered with blood spreading from my right palm where the wound around the splinter was leaking.
My feeling and overall strength felt as if it had returned to my legs, and I used the sledgehammer to slowly push myself back off of the floor. The metal head of the sledge rested against the ground and I gripped the handle, standing up and making sure that my lower body could hold its own before I ceased to hold onto the wooden shaft for support.
Hank stopped writhing when I stepped over him. He looked up at me with a blank stare, showing no emotion, compassion, or fear. He was still holding onto his knee, but his eyes remained locked onto mine. The moon shined down into the middle of the room through the hole in the roof, illuminating the old cuts on his face well.
I took a look over at Blake, who was still crying, and had now placed his hands around the wound on his stomach. I knew that I needed to get to him, but I couldn’t turn my back on the Huntcher.
My eyes refocused on Hank.
“Who are you?” I asked. My voice had more life to it now.
He didn’t respond. Just continued to look up at me, and I could almost swear that he never even blinked his differently colored eyes.
Again, I looked over at Blake, and the reality that he was probably going to die in this barn set in. I thought back to the mornings we’d lain together in his bed, and to the time we’d first met at that party.
“Why are you doing this to us?” I yelled at Hank, surprised that I was able to finally scream out again.
Again, he just lay there and looked back at me.
My eyes were full. And I’d begun to have images in my head of walking down the altar with Blake looking so handsome in a tuxedo, standing next to our church’s pastor, Mike. Pictures of our unborn children crept into the front of my mind. How happy we would have been to be married, parents, and spending the rest of our lives together creating new memories, forgetting about the nightmares of the past few days.
But it wasn’t going to happen.
I took every ounce of sadness, despair, hate, and agony, and used it to grip the wooden shaft of the sledgehammer. Biting my lower lip, I moved closer to Hank. I was fueled by my hate, and didn’t consider that he could attack my legs if he’d really wanted to.
But he didn’t try to do anything. He just continued to look up at me with his empty expression.
I pulled the sledge up, dropping the bloodstained steel head into my hand.
Swung it back over my head.
The Huntcher still didn’t move. He didn’t even brace for what was about to happen.
“Fuck you,” I said, spitting on him.
And for a moment, I hesitated. His crimson eye had begun to well up. But only that eye. I cocked my head, taken back by the sudden show of emotion.
Then, his face tightened up and, for the first time, showed true emotion.
Hank the Huntcher was smiling at me.
It covered his face and was so big that it looked like the side of his mouth extended all the way up to his temples.
It was an evil grin.
And the thin, arched line of emotion on his face made the perfect target as I screamed, swinging the hammer down like a golf club.
27
When the hammer connected with Hank’s face, it sounded like a car had slowly run over a frog. The “smoosh” sound sang through the air, and when I looked down, his body convulsed on the floor and his eyes were still open above his sunken cheeks. His entire body shook for a few moments.
And then it stopped, and the Huntcher was dead.
My attention finally shifted to Blake, who was hardly conscious on the ground a few feet over from me.
The sledgehammer fell from my hand, but I never heard it slam against the wooden floor, almost as meaningless as if a pin or a single rain drop had fallen from the roof above us. Kneeling down next to Blake, I began to run my hands through his curly blonde hair. His eyes were bloodshot and tears had continued to come out of them, some now dried on his face. His lips trembled from a mouth covered in blood as he looked me in the eyes, and I felt his shaky hand reach up to grab mine. I scanned his body and looked down to his stomach to observe the wound. The pitchfork protruded from him, and the massive wound was surrounded with a mixture of blood, bile, and pieces of his intestines. My eyes refocused back to his, and I stroked his cheek, moving through his hair and repeating the motion over and over again.
“Blake.” It was the only word I could get out before I completely began to fall apart. My head sunk over and I closed my eyes tight until they almost hurt. Tears still made it through my locked eyelids, and they fell down onto Blake’s face below me.
Blake took our clasped hands and moved them toward my face, opening his palm and stroking my cheek with my hand still resting on the top of his.
“R-R-Rebecca,” he said. Blake rarely called me by my full name, usually opting for Becca, or Becky, or a pet name. “Y-y-you…”
He’d begun to cough, fading faster now. I tried to urge him not to speak, but he refused.
“Y-you’ve gotta get outta this place. G-go live your life.”
“But I can’t live my life without you, Blake.”
He gave me a slow nod. “Yes, you can. You have to. There is so much left for you, Becky.”
The coughing intensified, but he continued.
“G-go live your life. Find someone. Have children.”
I bawled after hearing him say that. The past few years of my life, every single day, the only future I could think about was a life with Blake. Getting married, buying a house, having kids. Watching him come home each day from work, our little boy and girl running over to give him a huge hug and kiss. Sleeping with him every night for the rest of my life.
But none of that was going to happen now, though I’d still not fully accepted it.
“We’re gonna get you out of here, Blake. I’m going to find help and come back.”
Blake slightly shook his h
ead.
“You have to run, Becky. Run and don’t come back to this fucking Hell. Never come back. Not even in your dreams if you can help it.”
Everything hit me in one moment. Blake was right. He wasn’t ever leaving. He would die in this place, and there was a good chance his body would never be found. Though, I’d do my best to make sure that didn’t happen. That at least we could give him a proper burial, hopefully along with Michael, Allie, and Rob.
“Hey,” Blake said to me, and I ran my hands through his hair more and looked into his eyes.
“You remember the first time we walked the river walk together, downtown? You remember that?”
I nodded my head, and my eyes began to bubble with wishful tears. “Of course.”
“We sat down on that bench, just on the other side of the aquarium, and watched the pelicans swoop down and play in front of us. And even though it was crowded, it felt like we were the only ones there. You remember?”
I nodded and gripped his hand tighter.
“That was when I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with you.”
My head sunk again and I’d begun to involuntarily tremble.
“I’m so thankful that I met you, Becky.”
He gripped my hand tighter, and I ran my free hand through his hair. All I wanted now was for his pain to cease.
“Go to that place, baby,” I said to him. “Imagine that we are sitting there on that bench, watching the river swim by.”
Blake looked up to the roof, and I believe that he’d begun to feel as if he was there, down by the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans, cuddled up next to me while the birds flew all around us.
A smile came across his face, and I knew that he’d gone to that place. He’d removed himself from this barn in the middle of nowhere and imagined he was somewhere happy.
“I love you, Blake.”
But he didn’t respond, and I felt his grip loosen.
The Witness: A Slasher Horror Novel Page 11