Voices of the Damned

by Barbie Wilde

  Gaia stopped moving. The big dark god she’d always feared had finally arrived, not from the sky, but out of a beat-up Chevy Vega. He’d called her a maenad, one of the crazed female followers of the god Bacchus. Abraxas had declared this was meant to be and who was she to question him?

  Abraxas breathed ouzo into her face as he took his hand out of her mouth and put it between her legs, ripping her panties off. He entered her and it was a short, nasty, painful experience, but Gaia didn’t scream. She just bit her lip and looked up to the skies, praying that, for once, the old gods would come and suck her out of this life and up to Olympus. Unfortunately, the contemporary world continued on in its dirty, squalid way. The sounds of her family enjoying themselves inside her parent’s house accompanied her ordeal; their laughing and jokes mixed with Abraxas’s grunts of pleasure.

  He zipped up his pants and whispered in her ear: “Not a word to your mother, maenad, or worse will befall you. This is between you and me. And she’d never believe you anyway.” Abraxas pulled back to look in her eyes. “After all, I am her Golden Boy.” He flashed his devilish smile at her and went back into the house.

  Gaia stood there for a while, trembling with shock. The pain almost made her faint, but she willed herself to pick up her panties, walk into the house and scurry up the back stairs so no one would see her. She locked herself in the bathroom and ran a bath. She took the ripped panties, wrapped them up tightly in toilet paper and placed them at the bottom of the wastebasket, underneath some other stuff, so no one would find them. She stripped and carefully lowered herself into the bath—lying back and closing her eyes.

  The internal pain dissipated gradually. Gaia looked down and saw tendrils of blood coming from between her legs—spreading gently through the water like red ivy. A tear made its way down her face. So, this was the end of her childhood.

  She contemplated just slipping under the water and ending it, but then a furious anger rose up inside her. Why should she? She had done nothing wrong. Her uncle was a sick pervert and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of doing away with herself.

  So Gaia, like the earth itself, endured.

  * * *

  Abraxas was arrested a couple of years later in New York State for sex offences regarding a minor. Six months later, he was stabbed in the kidneys with a homemade shiv in the men’s showers in Dannemora, dying in agony. Gaia felt great satisfaction, although she had to hide it from her mother, who was devastated: first by the “totally untrue” charges against her little brother, then by his murder.

  Gaia kept her head down, went to school, got a degree, never had a date, helped out with her parent’s dry cleaning establishment, sat by her mother’s bed as she died, sat by her father’s bed as he died. After a meeting with her parent’s lawyer, she realized that, due to their frugal lifestyles and good business sense, she’d inherited enough money so she never had to work again. In fact, she’d never have to leave the house again, if she didn’t want to. And that was her dream.

  Gaia hired some builders to construct a room in the basement for her: a totally secure room that no one could enter without her permission. No windows, just air conditioning to keep the room fresh. The walls were painted red, like blood, and she decorated it with luxurious and plush furnishings that made it look like a womb: dark, warm, protected. She had everything she needed, even a kitchenette, bathroom and toilet. No sky god could touch her there. No man could touch her there either.

  And yet, if she had to go out, the anxiety, the palpitations, the fear, still accompanied her at every step. Sometimes, when her nerves overcame her, Gaia would stop underneath a tree and peer up through the branches, trying to see if Uranus was coming after her.

  The bed in her room was very comfortable, but after a while, she started to feel vulnerable again. She dragged some pillows underneath the bed and slept there.

  So Gaia’s miserable life spun out its course. She lived in the red room, had her groceries delivered, did everything else online on her computer, exercised religiously in front of the television and felt that she was, if not happy, then at least safe. But someone else had different ideas.

  * * *

  Nat and Genko were typical disaffected youths. They wasted more time and energy trying to commit crimes than being employed in any other useful activity. They’d heard rumors about some rich weird woman who lived at 16 Pandora Crescent, so they plotted a break-in.

  The plan was pretty simple: go to the weird lady’s house one night, walk around to the back, jimmy open the kitchen door, and rob the joint. They weren’t particularly bothered if she was there or not. Both Nat and Genko had fairly unevolved ideas about women. If she woke up and squawked, then they’d rough her up a bit. They’d punched elderly ladies, battered old guys, tortured kids for their mobile phones. A little ultraviolence was never far from their agenda and was, in fact, a big part of the charm of their lifestyle.

  One dark, rain-swept, April night, Nat and Genko arrived at Gaia’s home, which was cut off from the neighbors by large trees and luxuriant shrubs. Cautiously going around to the backyard, they crept up the steps. They forced the door open with some tools they had stuffed into the waistbands of their tracksuit pants.

  Once inside, they produced two Streamlight 88031 flashlights that they’d lifted from a hardware store. Nat and Genko thought they were cool, because the guys on CSI: Miami used them. They walked around the kitchen, and then moved into the dining room, pulling out drawers, checking the contents. Their frustration grew as they proceeded into the living room. There didn’t seem to be anything of value in this deserted, neglected nuthouse. They went upstairs and checked out the bedrooms: zero, zip, nothing—just the smell of damp and dustsheets everywhere.

  They had a quick whispered conference. Their informer, Jerry the delivery guy, brought groceries to the weird lady every week, so where the hell was the bitch?

  “Could she be so buggy that she’s living in the attic?” Genko asked.

  “Hey, man, maybe she’s in the basement. Creepy,” Nat replied.

  “Fuck it, let’s split up. You take the basement. I’ll check out the attic,” Genko ordered.

  Genko searched the top floor for access to the attic while Nat clumped down the stairs to the ground floor. By this time, they were both angry that their victim was putting them to so much trouble, and they were past caring whether she’d heard them or not.

  * * *

  Gaia had heard them all right. The house resonated with their footsteps. She was terrified by this invasion of her sanctuary. Had Uranus finally come to pluck her up to the stars, or had he sent his minions to kill her? But then an overwhelming rage rose up inside Gaia. How dare these interlopers break into her home?

  She slid out from underneath the bed, rose to her feet, and ran over to her kitchenette. Gaia picked up the biggest and sharpest knife she could find, along with a hefty rolling pin and some additional weaponry. She slipped out of her room into the darkness of the basement, locking the big door behind her.

  She could hear noises at the top of the stairs and a naked bulb spluttered into life, casting a weak, watery light throughout the basement. Gaia hid behind the boiler and held her breath. For a moment, she wondered why she’d made this dangerous move. She could have stayed for days in her safe room, daring the intruders to break through the steel-plated door, but her anger pushed her fear away.

  Gaia heard someone coming down the stairs. She saw a man walk through the mess that littered the basement, right up to the door of her room.

  “Shit, she must have a panic room. Fuck the bitch!” the man muttered to himself. He fumbled around his clothes and produced a crowbar from under his sweatshirt.

  He went to work on the door. Gaia tried to decide what to do. He was a young guy, fit and strong. How was she going to overpower him? Then she remembered her mother talking about the genius of Alexander th
e Great, and how he would use his enemies’ stupidity against them. This guy, a poor mortal envelope for the most brutal of gods, certainly seemed stupid enough.

  Gaia found a small empty jam jar on a nearby shelf and threw it into the far corner of the basement. The man whipped around in a panic—his attention instantly drawn to the corner. Gaia dashed out into the center of the room, leapt up and smashed the light bulb with her rolling pin, then retreated behind the boiler. The man cursed and scrambled around, feeling for his flashlight.

  Gaia, who knew her territory even in the pitch dark, circled around the basement, hugging the walls. The man carefully moved towards the corner, using his flashlight to investigate. She crept up behind him and whacked him on the head with her rolling pin as hard as she could. He fell down to the floor. Gaia picked up his flashlight and illuminated his face. He was out for the count: still breathing, but unconscious.

  Gaia found some plastic ties and secured the man’s hands behind his back. She paused for a moment, smiled, and decided to send the god of the heavens a little message. Gaia pulled down the intruder’s sweat pants. She gingerly retrieved his genitalia and lassoed them with a plastic tie. She pulled the tie as tightly as she could, effectively cutting off the blood supply to the man’s penis and testicles. Her prowler would have something to scream about when he woke up.

  * * *

  Genko was still up in the attic, going through some photographs that he’d found in a battered old trunk. The woman who lived here used to be pretty hot when she was young, that’s for sure. Then he heard something: a high-pitched, animalistic wailing sound that made the little hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. Genko realized he’d been wasting precious time looking at stupid useless shit when he was supposed to be searching for treasure. And what the fuck was that racket?

  Genko dashed down the stairs to the kitchen. The noise grew louder. It was coming from the basement. He tried the basement light switch, but no luck. He started to rush down the stairs, but stopped halfway, suddenly cautious.

  “Where the fuck are you, man? What’s going on?” he shouted into the darkness.

  “Jesus, Genko, help me! Get your ass down here. Someone’s fucked with my Johnson!”

  Genko, although alarmed, still didn’t budge.

  “Are they still around? Who did it?”

  Nat screamed, “For fuck’s sake, how should I know?”

  Genko ran down the stairs, moving with his flashlight through the darkness in the direction of Nat’s inconsolable moaning. He found him in a corner, lying amongst some broken glass. Genko was horrified to see Nat’s genitals looking hugely purple and swollen, but at least they were attached.

  “You’re still intact, man. Someone’s just cut off the blood supply, that’s all. How the fuck did it happen?”

  “Just get me loose!”

  Instead of kneeling down to help his friend, Genko suddenly turned and swept the light around the basement, surprising Gaia as she crept up behind him, knife at the ready. Genko swung the heavy flashlight and cracked her on the side of the head. Gaia dropped to the floor.

  “Well, fuck me. Look at this,” Genko said.

  Nat, however, was still crying with pain. Genko turned back to his friend and cut the plastic ties, paying special attention to the one looped around Nat’s genitalia. The last thing he wanted to do was to accidently castrate his friend.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Once the blood goes back inside of it, it’ll be fine,” Genko said, although he was no doctor and Nat’s member looked a bit worse for wear.

  Nat rolled on the floor, cradling his penis, panting: “Fucking bitch, I’ll kill her. Fucking bitch, I’ll kill her ...” over and over again.

  Genko glanced over at Gaia, lying helpless on the floor. “We won’t kill this one. Yet. She’s got some things to tell us. And hey, it’s free pussy.”

  * * *

  Gaia struggled back into consciousness, but she didn’t moan, she didn’t open her eyes. She just became aware. She was sitting on a chair, with her arms tied behind her back. So, Uranus had triumphed. His messengers had taken her prisoner and now they would torture her and cut out her liver, but not without dishonoring her first. Her rage rose up again and it took all her resources not to struggle against her bonds.

  * * *

  Nat and Genko observed their prize. They were looking forward to torturing some information out of the bitch.

  “Hey, crazy lady, wake up,” Genko said, slapping Gaia hard on the cheek.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at them. Nat and Genko involuntarily took a step back. Man, this woman was insane. Her witchy eyes burned into them, her hair was everywhere, and blood was trickling from her mouth, staining her teeth red. For one millisecond, Genko thought they should just get the hell out of there, but that was nuts. She was the one tied up, not them. They were in control and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it. How cool was that?

  Genko leaned into Gaia’s face. “So, little lady, tell us where your money is. Where are the keys to that door over there? And while you’re at it, give us your pin number for your credit card, or I swear, we’ll mess you up so bad that not even your mother will recognize you.” Genko hit her again to emphasize his point.

  Gaia looked at him dispassionately and spat in his face. Genko was outraged. He moved forward and ripped her nightdress open, exposing Gaia’s breasts. Nat whistled in appreciation. Genko grabbed her nipples—twisting them as hard as he could, trying to get a reaction. Gaia bit her lower lip until she drew blood, but she wouldn’t give these slaves of Uranus satisfaction.

  “Shit, she’s a tough little whore,” Nat said, as he lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag and then casually placed the lit end on Gaia’s shoulder, grinding the cigarette into her flesh. The men were astounded when she didn’t scream.

  “Man, maybe she’s got some kind of nerve disease,” Nat observed. Genko was flummoxed. He hit her a couple more times, but the bitch still didn’t react. He felt cheated, frustrated and angry by not hearing those delicious female screams.

  “Fuck it. Untie her. All this torture shit is making me horny,” Genko said.

  Nat went around to the back of Gaia’s chair and untied her. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the center of the basement, throwing her down on the cold cement floor. He ripped off what was left of her nightdress. She lay there, passively staring at the two men.

  “Maybe she’s a retard,” ventured Nat.

  Then Gaia smiled at them. A crazy, sexy smile. She opened her legs wide, exposing herself, and lifted up her arms, mutely beseeching them to come to her. The men looked at each other in astonishment. Wow, this was really out there.

  When they turned back to her, Gaia was masturbating, stroking one of her nipples with one hand, pleasuring herself with the other.

  Genko got instantly hard. He pulled down his sweatpants and underwear, and lay down on the cement next to her. Nat moved off, as he wasn’t really into threesomes. Let Genko have his fun, then he’d have his, then they’d find out where she kept her stuff.

  Genko tried to take Gaia’s hand away from her pussy, but she was surprisingly strong. She was really going for it: mouth wide open, panting like a dog in heat. Did this wild bitch get off on torture and pain?

  Genko was desperate to get inside her hot, wet pussy. He grabbed her hand and pulled it out, not noticing until too late that there was a small sheathed knife in her hand. Gaia pulled off the sheath and stuck the knife into Genko’s throat, then ripped it across—disabling his larynx and cutting his carotid artery. Arterial spray fountained out of Genko’s neck as he rolled back, trying to stop the flow, but it was too late. The crazy woman was smiling at him again. He was choking on his own blood. He tried to call out to warn Nat, but darkness was coming in fast from all sides.

  Nat heard some strange sounds coming from
the center of the room, but he ignored them. He was too busy looking at a really nice Black & Decker tool set. He searched the shelves; maybe the crazy lady had hidden her keys there. Then he heard a noise right behind him and he whirled around.

  Nat screamed at the sight of a naked, demented, blood-drenched Gaia holding up Genko’s severed head by the hair in one hand and a knife in the other. Nat had seen a lot of bad shit go down in his lifetime, but the sight of his friend’s decapitated head totally freaked him out. And it wasn’t helped by one additional gruesome detail: Genko’s penis was stuffed in his mouth. This woman wasn’t human and he wasn’t going to hang around to see what she had in store for him.

  Nat turned and booked for the stairs. Gaia dropped Genko’s head and followed at a run. Nat stumbled on the fifth step and Gaia grabbed him by the ankles and brought him down, crawling up his body, stabbing as she went. Nat screamed, trying to get this creature off him, flapping his arms at her like a little old lady. He pissed in his pants as Gaia straddled him on the stairs, stabbing him in the chest over and over. The screaming eventually stopped, but she didn’t. Gaia was a killing machine, getting hooked on the rhythm. The rocking of her body, the motion of the stabbing, the rubbing of her genitals on Nat’s zipper, all cumulated in a final orgasmic frenzy. She screamed her pleasure as she slashed at Nat’s throat, finally cutting through the spinal column and severing his head from his body.