Suffer Hard: An Extreme Horror Novella

by Sam West

  “Michael,” Margaret said as she doubled over once more. “The contractions are closer together, it will be here soon.”

  Michael put his arm around his wife and gently steered her towards the door.

  “No, no, no,” she said. “I want the baby here. I want Beth to see why we need her.”

  With that she howled in pain and grabbed hold of the footboard on the bed.

  Beth peered down the length of her body at the woman. Michael lifted up her long skirt and threw it over her back like a blanket.

  At least I’m spared the sight of the baby coming out…

  Margaret howled, gritted her teeth, and pushed with all her might.

  Beth watched the grotesque spectacle in wide eyed horror.

  Michael, who was ever silent, diligently rubbed his wife’s back and continuously peeked at her backside to check for the imminent arrival.

  “Oh God, it’s coming!” she panted.

  Michael crouched down behind her, and then the room was filled with the sound of a baby’s cry.

  He handed the baby to his wife, neatly wrapped up in his blood soaked apron which he had removed from his torso.

  Margaret cradled the infant to her chest, sitting next to Beth on the empty side of the bed by her head.

  Both mother and baby were blood soaked.

  Beth’s gaze was helplessly drawn to the child. It wasn’t just ugly. It was wrong. Its head was too big and lumpy, and even through the covering of blood and slime, she could see the thing was the colour of milk.

  Margaret struggled out of her billowing top, discarding it completely. Her saggy breasts hung down her fat, if slightly deflated stomach.

  “I’ve had myself plenty of babies,” she said, guiding the child’s mouth onto one brown, saucer like nipple. “and after a while it’s like popping out a big shit.” She sighed deeply, and critically eyed the child. “This one is the same as all the rest. Shame. Still, at least we have you now.”

  Beth was hyperventilating, she could barely catch her breath as the bawling infant was silenced by the nipple.

  “Darling, could you go and start dinner? Me and Beth are going to have a little chat.”

  The infant suckled at his mother’s breast and Margaret leaned her head back and closed her eyes for a second.

  Michael left the room, throwing Beth a final, hungry look that made her shudder.

  Margaret yelped, making Beth jump.

  When she saw why Margaret had screamed, she recoiled in disgust.

  The baby had drawn blood. Margaret’s nipple was ringed with red, and blood dripped from the infant’s mouth. But still Margaret let the baby suckle.

  Jesus Christ, are those fangs? What kind of fucking baby has fangs?

  When the kid lifted up its hand to stroke its mother’s breast, Beth saw that its fingers were webbed.

  “Like I say, we need you,” Margaret said, squirming with obvious discomfort as the kid sucked down the blend of milk and blood. “Our babies have a hunger of a different kind, and the older they become, the stronger their hunger gets. Don’t get me wrong, me and my family have always had that particular kind of hunger, but we knows how to control it. We ain’t stupid, it’s just a special treat and we have it when we can. But the kids, they can’t control it, they’d do anything to have it so we have to keep ‘em in check. And I love my babies, I do, but it’s real lucky they can’t have children. Heaven knows, they’ve tried...” she shook her head, as if too saddened to finish the sentence. “Look, I’ll be completely honest with you Beth. My family sticks to their own. And it’s never been a problem up ‘til now. It’s just the next generation that are suffering.”

  She fell silent, the sound of the baby’s suckling filling the room.

  Beth was having a hard time computing her words. “Is Michael your brother?”

  “Yes dear. My brother, and my father too. Oh, don’t look so confused, you’ll meet them all at dinner, and I’m sure you’ll be happy for your new role in life when you see the alternative.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “And you, my dear need to mind your mouth.” The blood trickled from her breast and she no longer seemed to care, staring wistfully into space. “It’s just such a shame that it’s all gone wrong for me and Michael. It’s like we’ve reached the end of the line, genetic wise. We need a fresh dose of genes to keep our family going.”

  “Just let me go,” Beth sobbed.

  “Don’t be like that, dear. I would love to stay and chat but I have just given birth. I’m going to go and lie down before dinner.”

  The woman got up, cradling her still feeding child to her breast and left the room.

  The second she was gone, Beth stared wildly around the place, searching for something, anything, that might help her.

  She saw nothing.

  God damn you, Craig, she thought, fresh tears of panic welling. She should never have agreed to come away with him on this stupid holiday. She should’ve listened to her gut instinct.

  The gut instinct that said Craig was in love with his housemate, Jessie.

  She hadn’t realised the full extent of his crush until she had come away with them. Which is why she had acted like a total bitch the entire time. He had made a fool of her, and Tim was a prick not to notice he was in love with his girlfriend. And as for Jessie. Wow. What a dumb bitch that girl was, because she genuinely didn’t seem to know.

  And now she was going to die for not listening to her good sense.

  Thank you Craig, you complete cunt.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. Panic would get her nowhere. There had to be a way out of this.

  The door creaked open and Beth shrivelled inside.

  Michael’s bulk filled the doorframe.

  “No,” she said, digging her heels into the mattress, uselessly trying to scramble away from him.

  He took a step towards the bed, his little eyes shining with lust.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  He smiled and closed the gap between them, sitting next to her and reaching out to tenderly brush a strand of long blonde hair off her face.

  His hand travelled lower to cup a breast and her sizable chest was instantly swamped by his outsized palm.

  His touch sickened her. More than that. It made her want to crawl out of her skin. If she could’ve chopped her own breast off in that moment so he wouldn’t touch her, she probably would’ve been tempted.

  All the while he stared at her with a little, beatific smile that made him look like a spastic child trapped in a giant’s body.

  She looked down at herself, at the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the way the breast that wasn’t being pawed by the man-monster was sheened in sweat.

  He smelt disgusting. As if it didn’t smell bad enough in here already. His white t-shirt was filthy and the rank odour that emitted from the dark patches under his arms made her tongue curl up atop a pool of mouth water.

  When he lowered his face to kiss her, she couldn’t hold back the wail of abject disgust and terror. She screamed through pursed lips.

  Oh God, the stench of him. His lips felt like slugs, pressing down on hers.

  The bed squeaked when he lay down next to her, pressing his massive body against hers. Those disgusting, rubbery lips edged round to her neck, where he snuffled like a pig. His hands roamed her body, surprisingly gentle but nonetheless abhorrent to her very soul.

  Through her haze of disgust, the thought occurred to her; he wants me to want him.

  “Untie me,” she whispered, thinking clearly for the first time since she had set foot in this fucking hell hole of a village.

  He hesitated, his huge body falling still.

  Going against every natural instinct she possessed, she lifted up a leg and ran her foot suggestively down the length of one tree trunk leg.

  He grunted, and it sounded approving.

  “Untie me, big boy,” she said again.

  He straddled her and she whimpered. She wrapped he
r legs around him.

  Oh God, what am I doing?

  Surviving, that’s what…

  His shovel hands engulfed her wrists. But he didn’t untie her, instead he just held his hands there and moved down to latch his mouth onto a nipple.

  Beth moaned in desperation, shuddering when his fat tongue circled the fear stiffened bud. Instantly her entire breast was wet with his slobber and there was nothing she could do to stem the tears.

  She forced herself to massage his side with her inner thigh. Every time the scratchy material of his trousers grazed her pussy she felt something inside her wither and die.

  His fingers hesitantly explored the knot of rope at her wrists as he made a meal of her tit. He was getting rougher by the second; she could feel teeth scraping her nipple.

  “That’s it baby, let me use my hands on you.”

  He fiddled with the rope some more, but then stopped to move further down her body.

  A moan of abject terror escaped her lips when his mouth went straight between her legs. His tongue stabbed at her labia, parting the dry folds with his slimy tongue.

  Her mouth opened in a silently inhaled scream of repulsion.

  She looked down over her heaving, spittle sheened chest to the bald head rammed between her legs.

  “Oh God,” she moaned, pulling with all her might at her restraints and writhing helplessly.

  She felt something give slightly at her wrists and instantly she stopped squirming.

  She tugged her hands again and she felt the rope slip slightly over her skin, chaffing her. When man-mountain was contemplating untying her, he must have loosened the knot.

  Her heart surged in fresh hope. Maybe she could whack him one over the head while he was eating her out…

  His tongue stabbed at her clit. Was he seriously wanting to arouse her? That thought was more terrifying than anything else he might do to her.

  His hands roamed back up to her breasts as he lapped at her clit. She winced in physical and mental pain at the onslaught to her senses. He squeezed her soggy breasts so hard he left finger marks.

  She couldn’t take much more. She was so close to ripping her hands free of the loosened rope and running for the door, for all the good it would do her. She knew it would be a mistake. She knew she wouldn’t get far, but if it meant a mere five seconds respite without this animal mauling her, then it was worth it…

  She was saved from making the most foolhardy decision of her life by a voice calling out.

  “Michael? Get down here and give me a hand!”

  The voice was familiar. The old fucker from the pub. The one that had offered the boys a lift to the main road…

  Although somehow she doubted very much that was where they had ended up.

  Michael paused, his tongue ceasing to swirl on her spit drenched vagina. With an almighty sigh, he rolled off the bed.

  Beth found herself staring in horror at the erection straining the crotch of the dirty grey trousers when he stood by the side of the bed. The bulge was huge, in proportion to the rest of him.

  Relief swept through her when he walked towards the door.

  At last, she was alone. Frantically she jerked and tugged at the ropes. Her entire body was a trembling, quivering mess but nothing would stop her straining at that damn rope. Not even when she scraped off skin and drew blood.

  Finally, the rope had loosened enough and she was able to tug her hands free.

  She sat up, a funny sounding, strangled sob of relief escaping her lips.

  She was free. Sort of. She cradled her bleeding wrists in her lap, wondering what the hell she should do next.

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  Bish had finished dismembering Jessie and Craig wasn’t faring too well. He shared his table top space with the love of his life, who was now in six pieces. Her arms and legs were slung over him, and her torso and head lay by the side of him.

  Craig slipped in and out of consciousness, the pain in his arm stump causing him to run a fever and black out sporadically.

  When he came too for the countless time, he found he was no longer looking up at the shed roof, but at a twinkling night sky. The moon was full, he duly noted, and his teeth rattled as Jessie’s body parts bounced up and down on top of him.

  His slow working mind realised that his table had wheels and he was being trundled by Bish down the same alleyway he had walked through with Tim on their way to the mythical car.

  They reached the end of the alleyway and came out next to ‘The Dirty Swallow.’

  Bish stopped the table. Or trolley.

  “I heard you and your fancy lady out here talking when yous first arrived. She was sayin’ it were a funny name for a pub, and I was up there listening,” the old man said, pointing up at a window above the sign. “I’ll tell yers why it’s called The Dirty Swallow. Ain’t got nothing to do with dirty birds. It’s ‘cause our family likes to eat a special kind of meat, if you know what I mean.”

  Craig just wished he would pass out again but the fresh, cool air was keeping him awake.

  Bish laughed.

  “A lot of folks might consider what we put in our mouths dirty. We like human flesh you see. Obviously, it’s better cooked, but I quite got a taste for it raw in recent years.” With that the old man picked up one of Jessie’s arms and slurped the bloody stump. “Ain’t put my teeth in today, so I can’t take a bite.”

  Craig’s eyes flickered back in his head and in that moment he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in to just die. The old man’s grotesque sucking noises filled his brain with madness.

  “Shit, no time for this now, we gotta get you inside and prepare dinner.”

  Craig expected to be wheeled into the pub. He wasn’t. Instead he was trundled down the road. They turned left at the end and went back up the little road with the boarded up cottage the four of them had come down when they’d first arrived.

  “We’re going to my place for dinner. And you ain’t never been to a dinner party like this one before.”

  Why was no one coming out to help him?

  “Help!” he cried, amazed at the strength of his own voice, it had been so long since he had spoken. “Somebody help me!”

  “Save your breath, son. Not that it matters. Ain’t no one that lives in this ‘ere village ‘cept me and the family. And the kids, of course, but they don’t get out much. Never during the day because of their skin complaints and only supervised at night.”

  Craig had no idea what the old fucker was going on about. Neither did he care.

  “Please,” he whimpered to no one in particular.

  The table wobbled from side to side as he was wheeled up the narrow path to the front door of the boarded up cottage.

  Bish opened the door and wheeled Craig in feet first.

  Now he found himself in a narrow hallway that the table only just fit down. A staircase was dead ahead and a few closed doors led off the corridor. Bish pushed him through one.

  Craig lifted his head.

  The sight which greeted him defied comprehension.

  “Tim?” he called out to the familiar, naked figure lying on his back in the middle of the long dining table.

  Tim didn’t stir.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Excuse me a moment,” Bish said, going outside into the hallway. “Michael? Get down here and give me a hand!” he bellowed.

  “Tim,” Craig frantically hissed. “Wake up, for fuck’s sake.”

  Tim groaned, and Craig breathed a sigh of relief.

  He’s not dead. Yet. But he sure as shit ain’t moving either…

  The dead weight of Jessie’s arms bore down on his chest and as much as he longed to shake them off, he didn’t dare.

  “Craig,” Tim called out in a hoarse voice. “I can’t move man, I’m fucking paralysed. I can’t feel my legs, I can’t feel a fucking thing. Where’s Jessie? Have you seen Jessie?”

  “Shit, man,” Craig replied, his heart breaking all over again.

&nbs
p; Craig assessed him. There was nothing obviously wrong with him that he could see. Apart from his fucked feet, that is. He was missing the toes of his right foot and the side of his left foot was a pulpy mess. But surely that was no reason for paralysis? In that split second Craig was just grateful that he wasn’t able to turn his head and see his dismembered girlfriend draped over him in segments. The long wooden table on which Tim lay on long ways was the same as the tables in the pub, complete with long wooden benches running either side of it. It must have been over twelve foot and almost ran the length of the room. At either end of it were two, plain, wooden dining chairs.

  The room itself was spartan and the window was boarded up.

  On closer inspection Craig saw that Tim was lying on what looked like the biggest, fuck off wooden chopping board he had ever seen in his life.

  Fuck man, that’s not good…

  “Craig. You didn’t answer me. Where’s Jessie?”

  Craig was saved from answering by the arrival of Bish, accompanied by man mountain Michael. Without a word Michael scooped up a leg and an arm of Jessie’s and exited the dining room.

  Three trips later and Jessie had been completely removed.

  Next Michael unbuckled Craig and effortlessly threw him over his shoulder.

  Craig screamed in agony, his stump bashing against the man’s chest.

  Humiliation mixed with terror when he felt his jeans and underpants being tugged down his thighs. Cool air hit his bare rump and inside he curled up and died of shame.

  He was dropped into a chair at the end of the table. He landed with a painful thump on his backside, knocking the blood curdling cry out of him with a hard whoosh.

  “Get off me,” he sobbed, fresh pain so extreme coursing through him his entire body convulsed.

  “Oh God man, I can’t feel a fucking thing,” Tim said, crying softly all the while.

  Craig had no idea what to say to him. He was sick to his soul of this grotesque nightmare that there was no waking up from.

  “What are you cunts doing?” he said.

  All he could do was sit there sobbing, mentally and physically exhausted as Michael proceeded to tie him to the chair with a length of thick rope.