The Manheim Horror

by Brett Williams

  “Come back here! I mean you no harm, only help.”

  Sound of a door creaking shut.

  At Level 4 Gordon Manheim used a key to enter. There he witnessed the craziest juxtaposition of high-tech gadgets and medieval torture devices he could imagine.

  Large flat-screen displays mounted on walls and suspended from the ceiling offered various textual information about performing sacrificial rites. Jets of flame fired a Brazen Bull; Scavenger's Daughter operated by hydraulics, computerized for pressure (depth) and speed; Pear of Anguish, electronically controlled; the Harpsichord Synthesizer, attached via fishhooks; to name a few. Manheim had seen these exact devices during his on-line travels. Seeing them here made him a firm believer. The poor girl had been mutilated to melody, digitized for download, and most likely tortured in other ways, raped, and photographed for profit.

  “Please, little girl, you must show yourself so that I may help you. I want nothing more than to leave now with you. You must believe me, dear.”

  “You must believe me, pig,” a girl's voice mocked. “Oink, oink. Let me see. Let me watch. The camera loves you. Leave me alone, piggy-pig!”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  Manheim heard crying in the stairwell. How had the girl got behind him? He saw no place save the Iron Maiden or other torture devices in which to hide. Even bloody altars and the like offered no concealment.

  Manheim followed her cries to Level 3, the only level he had yet to see. He flung open the door, braced for what he might find in this maddening museum of modern civilization's sickest horrors. Cages upon cages of young boys and girls, mutilated teen-age girls, and a veritable zoo of caged animals. The entire level reeked of urine and fecal matter. These people were dirty, barely clothed, apparently starved, and hungry for escape.

  “Let us out!”

  “Please!”

  “We beg you!”

  Manheim wasted no time fitting key to lock, although shaking hands made the going slow, as did cycling through keys on the ring. He had released a dozen or so prepubescent girls when he reached a cage containing a teen-age girl. She wore a soiled tank top and mini-skirt: a mock cheer-leading outfit. Her long hair hung in damp ropes, her flesh slicked with sweat. Her navel had been pierced by a safety pin. The piercing looked infected.

  “What have they done to you?” Gordon Manheim thought out loud.

  “What are you going to do to us, pig?” the teen replied.

  “Nothing, I swear.”

  A voice mocked: “Nothing, I swear.”

  A chorus of “I swear” and “piggy-pig” erupted all around him, followed by oinking. Keys were stripped from his hand. More cage doors began to swing open, while the growing mob of children closed in around him.

  “Ouch.”

  One of the kids had bit him on the leg.

  “Shit. Stop.”

  More kids started biting him. Horrible pain shot through his arm. A little boy had clamped on like a bull terrier with a bone.

  “Stop, damn it!”

  More teeth dug in. Arms wrapped around Manheim's legs. And the cheerleader climbed onto his back.

  “Take the pig downstairs,” she urged the others.

  But Manheim refused to cooperate. He rode the wave of stinking bodies to the stairwell, where he began kicking and punching to get free. The mob, however, proved relentless. Hunks of flesh tore from his arms as he flailed. Untrimmed fingernails clawed at his slacks as he fought his way up, instead of down, the stairs. Each step proved a struggle. He used aching arms to pull his way up the banister.

  When his legs were pulled out from under him Manheim looked back. Several dead-eyed wraiths were wading through the mob, obviously intent on murder. He might be able to break free of the children, but those long bony fingers looked powerful and deadly with their pointy black nails.

  “Leave me be, damn it. Piss off,” Manheim shouted. It seemed so surreal, except for the burning hot pain tearing through his body.

  Manheim, pulling his way higher along the bannister, much like climbing a rope, he swore he'd get back in shape, start going to the gym again, give up donuts – hell, carbs altogether – if he could just somehow make it out alive.

  Teeth clamped onto his now-bare legs. Kicking at heads, he propelled himself higher. He was swimming through a sea of the damned. Let them burn, if he could just escape. But no. No, he'd still call the authorities, still get them help. For these children knew not what they did, could not be held responsible. After all, they had been conditioned by this god forsaken environment, and the world it catered to.

  “Oink oink!”

  “Piggy-pig!”

  “We'll show you what it's like, old man.”

  The wraiths drew closer despite Gordon Manheim's frantic progress. Somehow he reached the top of the staircase before those things could reach him. He thrashed painfully to regain his footing, and rushed to the door.

  He raced through it before being tackled by the mob. Kicking and crawling, Manheim made it to the front office. A neon EXIT sign marked the front door. If he could just somehow make it through that door...

  Again, his legs were yanked back. Fingernails bent and ripped out as he clawed for purchase on the tile floor. His blood slicked the surface and he knew he wouldn't make it outside. His breathing grew labored and he imagined the burn in his lungs akin to inhaling mustard gas. A glance over his shoulder confirmed his greatest fear. Two of the wraiths had caught up to him. Stitches in their mouths strained then popped free, cutting through their lips. Their bloody lips opened wide to display needle-fine teeth. The things dived down to join the children in their rabid attack.

  Tears flooded Gordon's eyes it hurt so bad. Wraiths chewed hunks of meat from his legs, their bloody maws dripping gore on the heads of children. But with each bite the C.E. broke free. Inch by bloody inch his blood- and sweat-slicked body slithered closer to the exit.

  Please God let me escape. Let me live.

  As if making it to the door would stop the madness. He must be delusional from blood loss. If he didn't reach safety soon he'd collapse from exhaustion.

  Near the door he kicked free. Somewhere along the line he had lost one shoe. He used the other to gain traction, and lurched for the door handle. Had it been a knob he would have died. But the handle pulled down with his weight and unlatched the door. Manheim fell to his knees, rolled, and swung the door open a crack before the tide of little girls could stop him.

  A wraith bit into one foot while he kicked with the other.

  “Damn you all! Damn you to hell!” Gordon Manheim said as he kicked his way free and crab-walked backward out the door. Metal clanged as the door shut before him, effectively silencing the mob. A solitary giggle echoed from within before fading away. He fell down a two steps to land on the sidewalk.

  Shockingly, he found physical pain gone. Only exhaustion remained. He now wore both shoes. His slacks, though dusty and grimy, were intact, no blood on them. All bite marks on his arms were gone but replaced by the night chill biting into his sweaty skin. His teeth began to chatter before a maniacal laugh burst free. He had left the drive inside, along with his jacket.

  Screw it. He didn't care.

  A fleeting thought of Chester Winfield's early retirement passed through his mind. No, Gordon Manheim would not quit his job. But if he ever was asked to place a service call here again, he'd refuse.

  They could fire him.

  Deaths Before

  An introduction to

  Legend of Kill Creek Woods

  Available April 28, 2014 from Comet Press

  Deaths Before

  He buried his eldest son behind the house. It had taken his wife nearly a year to conceive their first child. The boy they named Tate made his father's heart swell, as the boy embodied everything the man wanted in a son. Tall, broad shouldered, solid, just like his father. When Tate became old enough he began helping in the fields, working from dawn 'til dusk in the summer. When he wasn't busy tending crop
s Tate helped his mother, a woman named Mary, whom the man had married at a tender young age.

  Mary taught her son to read and write. In the winter evenings Tate could often be found curled up in a corner with a book or his journal. The boy also learned to hunt and fish. Many a day did the boy help put meat on the table.

  So it was heavy heart, that after fourteen short years, the man buried Tate behind their house. Mary wept for fourteen long days – a day for each year of her firstborn's life – and ate nary a bite. Their boy had contracted a virus, which settled in his heart. A doctor had been unable to save him. He died quickly.

  During his wife's period of grieving, and subsequent depression, the man toiled long and hard fashioning a headstone to commemorate the life of his son. Although untrained in the art of stone carving, the man, nevertheless, remained determined to carve one. He used stone located in the woods not far from their home, and, after much trial and error, eventually completed the marker to his and his wife's satisfaction. Mary brought fresh flowers to the grave daily, until, when spring came, she planted flowers all around.

  The void left by Tate could never be filled by his younger brother. Jared, two years his junior, died six months later. The boy had always possessed an independent streak. Rarely a week passed that his father didn't ask him to pick a switch to be lashed with. It wasn't until the last shovelful of dirt had been tossed onto Jared's grave that his father realized that he admired the tenacity of his younger son. The boy didn't want to spend one minute more in the fields than was required of him by his father and Mary fought with the boy to sit still long enough for proper schooling. But the young boy loved to help his father with the terriers.

  The man chose to breed a bitch but once per year, in the spring. And every year men came from miles around to offer top dollar for the offspring. Breeding dogs and raising them, the man thought, took a keen eye and steady temperament to bring out their best. While Jared and the man had their differences, together, working with the dogs, they acted as one. In the spring of Jared's third year, a bitch went into labor. At first the man was reluctant to allow the boy into the barn. However, Jared had never annoyed the bitch. In fact, the two got along well, and the feisty terrier didn't seem to mind the boy's occasional pokes or prods. The man fully expected the pain and blood of birthing to frighten away the boy. If anything the intensity of the situation galvanized the will of the toddler, and he helped the bitch to open her birthing sacks.

  From that day forward Jared, as far as the man was concerned, became one of the pack. He spent countless hours feeding, watering, and training the pups, only to watch them be sold off to good owners, owners who promised to use them to hunt or to guard or run free, as terriers are apt to do.

  On more than one occasion father and son denied sale of a pup, citing improper placement of the pup to a home. It did not matter if the prospective owner upped his price; no sale occurred. Each completed transaction brought a smile to the man. Money meant clothes for his children and an occasional trifle or trinket for his wife. His son also smiled. The man believed it was because his son knew the pup would enjoy a fulfilling life.

  After the sale of the last pup during the spring preceding Jared's death, the man placed his arm around his son in a rare display of affection. Only a few months had passed since Tate's death, and it would be the last time Jared and the man seemed at peace together before the boy's untimely demise.

  He had run off hunting or fishing or some damn thing a day after a bloody switching by the man. Although the punishment had seemed to fit at the time, once the man found the mauled remains of the boy in the woods the next day, the indiscretion appeared trivial in hindsight. The man supposed the boy had stayed out too late or perhaps all night in defiance, only to be eaten by wolves. The man buried the boy's remains beside his brother. He fashioned another, somewhat more refined, tombstone. Mary wept twelve long days. Their youngest, a five-year old daughter named Emily, cried much longer, distraught at becoming an only child. Also, Mary claimed, because Emily had formed a tight bond with Jared, who regularly spent time with her, unlike their older brother.

  Over the years the man buried more than just his sons. Nearly a decade before breaking ground on Tate's grave, the man, due to a tax issue, began burying jars filled with money around his house. The government had seized assets of his account and the man swore never to trust a bank again.

  Not that the man earned much money. He did, though, allow the land to provide for his family, thus gaining, increasingly over the years with the help of his sons, a meager surplus which went into the ground for safekeeping, typically in the form of coins. Emily loved helping fill the jars with coins. Her delighted laugh at the ring of coins dropping into glass jars brought joy to her father's heart. She loved helping with this task even more than doting on a doll she carried nearly everywhere she went.

  After the deaths of Tate and Jared, the man was forced, on several occasions, to dig up money to help make ends meet. The man and his wife soon decided to try having another son. Although Mary and Emily worked hard to help the man, the backbreaking work in the fields required another male. The man was reluctant to hire help, instead working twice as hard himself.

  In time pregnancy took hold and Mary's belly swelled. She carried the baby low, an indication of a male infant on the way. Mary and the man were elated, as was Emily at the prospect of becoming an older sister. The little girl expressed, on numerous occasions, how she would help care for the baby. Mary suspected the child would give up her doll in favor of a real baby.

  But the infant arrived stillborn, and Mary died of complications during childbirth. It took all the man's strength to dig a grave for his dead wife's body. Emily dug a shallow grave for her dead brother, whom she named James. The man deepened the hole and buried the two. Tears from both father and daughter consecrated the ground, and though the man questioned why his family was being taken away from him, he never questioned his faith. Emily demanded much affection and comfort for her outpouring emotion in the weeks to come and the man found his heart softening. Soon he began doting on his daughter nearly as much as she doted on her doll, and more so than he had ever doted on his wife, sons, or terriers.

  However, his limited time stretched thin. The work he performed proved too strenuous, too dangerous, at least in his mind, for the young girl to assist. He feared the worst for his youngest and only remaining family member. The girl deserved a mother. As much as he had loved, and now missed, his dearest Mary, the man began contemplating taking another wife, for the child's sake, of course.

  He never got that chance. He had taken to the occasional drink since the passing of his wife in childbirth, and on one particular night had indulged a bit too freely. The following morning he woke to a chill in the house, a throbbing in his head. Emily was nowhere to be found. The man assumed she had went to pick flowers or tend to the dog, which was one of her chores. When she failed to return he pulled on his coat and trudged off across the snow-patched earth of an early spring. He didn't find Emily in the family cemetery, nor could she be located in the barn. The bitch, now carrying a litter, followed the man into the woods, eventually setting out ahead of him to help search for the girl.

  The dog led the man to a dwindling drift of blood-splattered snow in the woods by the creek. His heart plummeted. The terrier then followed him along a muddy trail of footprints – paw prints – and smears of what, to him, could only be caused by a dragged body. Some foliage along the trail appeared broken and oddly burned. The man found his daughter's remains, much like his son Jared's, ravaged. Her corpse lay beaten, broken, and bloody in a pool of red melted snow, a circle of blackened vegetation surrounding it. No pack of wolves had done this. This had been caused by one very large animal. Gauging by the tracks it left, the man guessed its size as twice that of himself. The terrier sniffed the child's body before standing defiantly between it and the whatever had disappeared into the woods. The dog growled and barked its warnings, and only ceased its vocaliz
ation to join the man. He wept, carrying the last of his family to be buried behind his house.

  Also from Brett Williams and Comet Press:

  HIGH OCTANE DAMNATION

  THIRD EYE HIGH