No Happily Ever After (The Fairytale Diaries #1) (15 page)

Part XI

Spinning

Chapter 30

B
enjamin Bar was only three years old when he discovered the "special" room in the basement.  The door to it had been locked then, but he was a resourceful child and easily earned entry unbeknownst to his parents.

He remembered it clearly.  He'd wandered into the room, wide eyed and open mouthed.  Perhaps if he'd been a normal child, he would've instinctively known, even at such a young age, to be frightened of such a place.  Perhaps he'd have turned and ran away screaming.  However, by that time, Benjamin already had a history of butchering woodland creatures and had set several rooms in the house on fire.  He was already far from a normal child.  And so, when Benjamin walked into the fascinating place, he suddenly felt at home.  He knew he was where he belonged.

When Madre Bar walked in that day to find Benjamin happily playing on the floor among a collection of restraints, syringes, and knives, she clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. 
Because she knew.
  Of course, she'd already had suspicions, but she'd denied them to herself.  Seeing him there confirmed her worst fears about her young son.  The same evil darkness that infected his father infected Benjamin as well.

Times ten.

She'd only been married to Abraham for a year when she'd discovered what he was all about.  She'd found remains of a victim of Abraham's in the garden shed outside the house they'd shared during those early days of their life together.  And
Abraham
had found
her
finding
them
.  She'd spun around when he entered behind her and caught the dark look on his face.  The threatening look.  A look of pure evil.  He didn't have to speak his threat; one look into those bottomless eyes told her that she was no longer safe.  She would never be safe again.  And the look of terror on her face told Abraham that he
was
safe.  This spineless mouse of a woman would never be brave enough to betray his secret.

For a time, she'd seen no more traces of her husband's sinister double life.  As time passed, she successfully tricked her brain into forgetting the rotting body parts she'd once discovered.  Mr. Bar saw success after success in the business world, and soon they were living in high style and had moved into Bar Estate.

Throughout the first year there, Mr. Bar spent a lot of time down in the basement that he said he was remodeling.  Though years had gone by since her discovery in the garden shed, and she'd all but forgiven and forgotten, something inside her had warned never to go into the basement.  But eventually, Mr. Bar proudly informed her that his work was finished and he had something to show her.  Madre would never forget the sick feeling of dread as he'd happily lead her down to the basement, and how she'd wept when she saw what he'd built.  She was married to a rich and powerful man.  He informed her he was ready to take his games to a new level of enjoyment.  And that she would help.

Three years later, Benjamin came along.  She was able to refocus her efforts away from the activities that periodically took place in her husband's basement, onto her beautiful new baby.  Abraham seemed content to leave her and the baby alone.  She spent every available moment on Benjamin.

All the while, trying to ignore that same vacant look in the baby's eyes that she saw in his father's.  Trying to pretend that Benjamin wasn't far too quiet and sullen.  Trying to believe that all of his inappropriate behaviors, even as early as infancy, meant nothing.

As Benjamin grew, she further told herself that the disemboweled birds, squirrels and cats turning up all about the yard were victims of nature.  Tried to tell herself that other children were just rude, not that they shied away from her child because he triggered their instincts to be afraid.

But the day she found him in the torture chamber, happy as a lamb, the truth came crashing in.

"Benjamin?" she said softly with a shaky voice.  The little boy continued playing and ignored her, as he often did.  "Benjamin?" she said again.  "You…  You aren't frightened in this place?"

His eyes snapped up.  He gave her a beautiful smile.  This was only the third time she'd ever known her toddler to smile.  The other two times had been when he'd proudly carried a bloody squirrel carcass to her in the yard, and another time when she'd thought he was in bed and he'd snuck into the family room and found his parents watching a violent, gory slasher movie.

"No, Mommy!  This is WONDERFUL!"

So that was it, then.  The only two people she loved in the world were monsters. 

***

For the longest time, Benjamin didn't realize he was different.  He didn't know that it wasn't normal to think about blood.  To love the warmth of it on his hands.  To love the taste of it.  He didn't know he wasn't supposed to see violent scenes behind his eye lids, every time his eyes closed.  He didn't know nightmares weren't supposed to make him happy.

He didn't know that killing was bad.

After the day his mom found him playing in Dad's special room, she started teaching him.  By the time he reached kindergarten, he'd been trained not to speak of the things he thought about.  Not to draw pictures.  And most of all, not to hurt people, where other people might see.  It made it kind of hard for him.  He couldn't find much to talk about with people around him since he wasn't allowed to say what was on his mind, so he didn't talk much at all.  And his mind was constantly so busy with his bloody imaginings that he found it hard to concentrate on mundane school work.  Luckily, he was super smart about boring stuff like that so he could just quickly do it and then set it aside.  Therefore, his teachers didn't hassle him much.  His mother promised him from the first day she sent him to school, that if he followed her instructions carefully, that she would always make sure he had something to play with down in the basement.  Because if he didn't trust her to take care of his needs, then he'd have to go away and never be allowed to play again.

Often time it would just be a dog or some other wild creature that his parents brought to him in the basement room.  On rare occasions, his father brought one of his own findings down; a vagrant or prostitute, someone from the dregs of society who wouldn't be missed.  And then they indulged in their bloody hobby and disposed of whatever remained. 

Abraham could go for much longer than Benjamin in waiting to satisfy his dark tastes.  And as Benjamin grew, Abraham grew more and more satisfied to just live vicariously through his son.  He let Benjamin take the reins.  Benjamin's tastes changed as well.  He became full of hate toward the world around him.  He came to love toying with his victims for a long while before the final show.  He loved playing games with their minds and watching their torment.  He couldn't grasp why they didn't think the same way that he did, so he wanted to punish them.  To make sure they know what evils exist in the world right around them, before they died. 

Benjamin Bar's love of his macabre slow dance with his victims was the only reason that his classmates were still alive.  He enjoyed coming home from school and going down to the basement.  Watching their faces and hearing their whimpers when he entered the room.  Each day he had a new game to play with one or the other of them.  He'd remove one at a time from the cells to impose some sort of bloody torture on the victim in front of all the rest.  Then he'd return that victim to the cell, bleeding and terrified.  He fed and watered them just enough to keep them alive.  And he spent his days trying to decide how they would meet their maker. 

This bunch was the first he'd ever taken victims straight from his own town.  He'd looked upon their faces nearly all his life.  Maybe that's why he hated them so much more than victim's past.  Maybe that's why he was so attached to the game with them; so unprepared to part with them.

But the familiar anxiety was mounting in him.  That electric, tense energy coursing through him.  When it was time to end them he would know by a decided shift in his mood.  He would suddenly feel unearthly calm, and he would meticulously and peacefully murder them one by one.  And then, all that anxious energy would subside and he'd feel better.

The time for that was near.  He could feel it.

Chapter 31

"P
lease, let me stop," Ella moaned weakly.

Benjamin Bar stood outside the bars of her cell and had demanded for the past hour that she spin in circles.  It was one of his games.  He would wander into the chamber and make any of the prisoners he chose do ridiculous things for apparently no reason other than to sit piously and giggle at them.  Ella felt thoroughly ill and didn't know how much longer she could go before collapsing.  Nicholas and the others growled menacingly at Benjamin, but the psycho seemed not to notice their complaints.

"No stopping, spin spin spin!" he said in his impish sing song way.

Moments later, Ella vomited on the floor.

Benjamin groaned irritably.  "Alright," he sighed.  "You can stop.  Let's play a new game!"

He moved slightly closer to the cells.  "Come sit here close, kiddies!" he demanded.  The prisoners dragged themselves to where Benjamin motioned and took seats on the floor right behind the bars of the front of their cells.  They all peered up at Benjamin through bitter scowls.

"Let's play, guess my name!"

Nicholas stared at Benjamin darkly, pure hatred apparent on his sallow face.  "We know your name, psycho," he snarled.

Benjamin looked down his nose at Nicholas and tittered, seeming oblivious to Nicholas' murderous rage.

"No you don't," Benjamin insisted playfully.  "Now guess!  Guess my name!"

The classmates all glanced back and forth at one another, having no clue what Benjamin wanted.  They had all learned the hard way that it was critical to anticipate what Benjamin really wanted or expected with his "games" which was often difficult because he spoke in some sort of code that nobody understood but himself.  Cailyn Pure sighed and began to speak, but was saved from possibly saying the wrong thing by the door to the chamber swinging open.  Mr. and Mrs. Bar strode in.

Benjamin hopped up and down gleefully and turned to hug his parents.  "Mommy!  Daddy!" he exclaimed.

Mrs. Bar hugged him lovingly, but Mr. Bar refrained, instead giving his son a disgusted look.

"Mommy," Benjamin said, his face falling into a childish pout.  "I want a new toy."

Mrs. Bar grimaced.  "Ben, honey…"

Mr. Bar interrupted her with a frustrated sigh.  "Enough, Benjamin," he thundered.  His voice was so abruptly angry that every person in the room jumped.  Nicholas made his way to his feet and leaned against the cell bars.

"This has gotten out of control, Benjamin," Mr. Bar said darkly.  "We've gone too far this time, you're out of control!"

Benjamin's lip trembled, and a look of heartbreak crossed Mrs. Bar's face as she watched her son suffer.  "What do you mean?" Benjamin asked.

"I mean SIX!  Six is too many, Benjamin.  And you've kept them all far too long!"

Benjamin stomped his foot petulantly.  "I'm not DONE WITH THEM!" he screamed.

Mr. Bar reached out quicker than anybody anticipated and delivered a devastating backhand to Benjamin's face.

"Benjamin, we have a real mess on our hands," Mr. Bar growled.  "A real MESS.  Thanks to YOU.  Not only are we not getting more, we have to get rid of these SOON!  We will need to lay low for a while.  You must control your…  Appetite…  Until all of this blows over."

"I. WANT. ANOTHER. TOY."

Benjamin stomped his foot again, this time so incredibly hard against the stone floor that it jostled him with a bone jarring pain.  He screamed but stomped his foot yet again.  And again.  And again.  The prisoners all watched in horror as he stomped his foot so hard, so many times, that his right leg eventually snapped.  His parents as well, looked on in horror.

When Benjamin's tantrum resulted in a broken leg, he stumbled back and crashed into the bars of the cell where Nicholas Monarch rested.  Nick didn't even stop to think for one second; he saw his opportunity.

He reached through the bars of the cell and placed his fingers around Benjamin's head and across his face.  He jerked Benjamin's head hard into the bars, provoking another shriek of pain from the lunatic.  With a deep rooted sense of animal fury, Nicholas dug his hands into Benjamin's eyes and exalted as warm blood and fluid began to course over his fingers.

Benjamin wailed and writhed furiously against the attack.  But Nicholas had come undone.  He linked his fingers into the corners of Benjamin's mouth and began to rip the boy's face in half.

As Nicholas' survival instinct fully consumed him, his assault happened so rapidly that Benjamin's parents weren't able to act quickly enough to get their son out of the prisoner's grasp.  Even as Nicholas squeezed and ripped, and Benjamin let out inhuman sounding screams, Mrs. Bar rushed forward to grapple with Nick's hands.  But forces of nature were at work that were utterly beyond the control of anyone in the room and in under a minute, he released Benjamin, who crumpled and slid to the floor. 

Bloody, eyeless, horribly disfigured, and dead.

The girls had all leapt to their feet and backed across their cells, cowering against the wall.  They all stared dumbstruck at their sadistic captor, dead on the floor.  Mr. and Mrs. Bar stared at him as well, open mouthed and in complete shock.  The tomb like cellar was utterly quiet other than the grunts of Nicholas' labored breathing.  For an endless seeming time, nobody said a word.

And then Mrs. Bar burst into tears.  She fell to her knees, weeping over her dead son.  Mr. Bar glared angrily at Nicholas Monarch.

"If you come in here," Nicholas said, loud enough to be heard over Mrs. Bar's cries.  "I'll kill you too."

They stood locked in a stare down and then finally Mr. Bar's attention snapped to his despondent wife.  "MADRE!  THAT'S ENOUGH!"  he raged.

The weeping woman mournfully looked up at her husband.  He raked his fingers through his hair, a desperate look taking over his handsome face.  He reached down and grabbed Benjamin's ankles.

"Help me," he spat.  "We have to dispose of this body first."

As the prisoners watched the parents wrestle the body of their dead son out of the chamber, they all wondered about Mr. Bar's "this body" comment, which could naturally lead one to believe that there would be "other bodies" soon.