mundens | Dreamwatch : Riders on the Storm

I've put this one behind a cut, because I would suggest that those who don't like horror movies, or are a bit squeamish, don't read this one. It's nasty.

I was discussing techniques of child abuse with a guy whom I knew was a serial killer and abuser, not just of children. He was older than I, wiry, and wore a blue suit. His hair was wild, and looked out of place with the suit, as did the overly colourful tie.

We sat in a bar/cafe that had a vaguely Swiss feel to it. There were hills and pine trees out the window, it looked like one of those National Park road-side places that pop up so often in movies. The place probably looked more like Canada than the US, just like Stargate. Large four-wheel-drive vehicles and SUV's filled the parking lot

This was an important conversation, somehow I'd gotten him to trust me and I was finding out things about his contacts with other serial killers. I presume I was some sort of cop. We were discussing how some guy with the pretentious name of "The Shadowman" had been his mentor, and had taught him much of what he knew.

I was pretending to be a fan of his work, and we discussed various grisly and horrific acts

Somehow I got the impression that this guy was going to kill himself soon. I don't know why, but that felt like he was cheating, so I was going to do something about it...

Then I was moving through a complicated and cramped old house with lots of nooks and crannies and ladders and alcoves. I was searching for this guy. I thought he might have killed himself already, but I wasn't sure, and was wary in case he was still alive, because if he was, I was going to take him down.

I crouched down to get under a set of low stairs and search a room underneath them. It was dark and I had a torch in my left hand, a gun in the other. As I entered the room my eye was drawn to a large light-box on the wall, similar to the sort of thing used in hospitals to display x-rays. It had some pieces of a thin, translucent material hung on it so you could see through them, the shapes of which, rectangular and curved seemed vaguely familiar. One large piece had a design on it, sort of like a tattoo....

It was at that point I realized they were pieces of human skin, the rectangular pieces were leg skin, I could see the foot shape in them. I was drawn toward the board and found myself running my finger down the skin. I found myself admiring the work, it took a lot of skill to remove skin so cleanly like that. The skin was smooth and felt good to touch.

There was a muffled noise behind me and I swung the torch catching a woman's face in the beam. She was dark-haired, long straight hair, though matted with sweat now, and there was silver duct tape over her mouth.

I don't know why, but I said "Yours?", indicating the skin. She nodded.

I swung the beam down afraid at what I might find.

It was worse than I expected. Not only had she been flayed alive, but the killer had amputated all her limbs as well. She was a flayed bloody torso apart from her face which was untouched. It seemed impossible. How could he have done this and kept her alive?

My torch beam played over the floor and I saw a thigh, from which chunks of meat had been cut, as if it was ham bone. A bloody metal plate with a knife and fork lying next to the thigh removed any doubt.

The woman started sobbing behind the duct tape. Why was she still conscious? How was this possible? I put the torch beam back on her face. Her eyes pleaded with me for something. I didn't know what to do. This was far beyond my meagre first aid skills and I knew we were a long way from a city, it would take half an hour or more for even paramedics to get here by chopper.

I though about what would happen to this woman now. Surely she could not survive this. Surely she would be in great pain. Even if I got her to a hospital now, what would her life be like as a scarred torso? I could tell from the arms and legs on the floor that she had been athletic... I came to a decision.

"Do you want me to.. shoot you?" I asked, avoiding the word "kill".

She nodded vigorously, relief replacing the pleading I had seen before.

I raised the gun, aiming at her head. I was breathing heavily. Even if it was something she wanted me to do, even if it seemed the only humane thing to do, even if she was effectively (maybe) already dead, I was still killing someone, and there'd be hell to pay afterwards. Definitely not procedure.

I could see her eyes willing me to do it as I stared down the hard black shape of the pistol sight, and pulled the trigger, heedless of the fact that this would warn my quarry of my presence and location. A clean round hole appeared in her forehead and her eyes rolled up.

Then I felt him behind me. I didn't hear him I just knew he was there. I waited, senses straining, he had the drop on me, any move could trigger his action and I didn't know where he was or how he was armed.

He spoke.

"Now, you're one of us'

"Admit it. You like the feel of the skin. You wondered what it would be like to cut the skin from a living breathing person. You wondered what it would be like to eat fresh human flesh from the bone. You even wondered what it would be like to fuck a torso like that, didn't you?"

"Now you've killed. Sure, you're justifying it to yourself now as a mercy killing, and that she begged you to do it. But really isn't every such killing a mercy killing? And in the end they always beg for death. Always."

"You could have waited for the paramedics, you could have tried to do something other than put a bullet in her head. But you didn't. And now what's going to happen? The cops are going to find you here, your prints on the gun that killed her, your prints on the flesh, your prints on the knife on the fork..."

"But I haven't... "

And then he hit me. I felt myself going down into blackness struggling to get out, to not loose consciousness, the last thing I saw his grinning leering face and the words "I've got friends inside....".

***************
.
I awoke at exactly 3.17am by the red glow of the digital alarm clock and spent several minutes lying in the darkness listening to every noise made by the house in the blustery wind, listening to see if the killer was still there. The wind cause the door to creak and move slightly ajar. I wondered if I could make it to

panda_pitt's sword in the hallway, or would the killer already have that ready to dismember me as neatly as the woman?

I realized there was a weight next to me on the bed, larger than a cat, possibly about the size of a human torso by the feel of the covers against me. I was terrified to look at it, but in the end did so.

Phew! It was the two extra pillows with the duvet cover matching pillow-slips I had put there before going to sleep!

I was in the real world. There really wasn't a killer out there, or at least that's what I hoped. After some more nervousness, hardly wanting to close my eyes, as with them open I could see if anyone approached the room, I finally fell asleep again.

It can be scary sleeping alone in a big house surrounded by trees during a wind storm!