Slasherazzi (9 page)

I crouched low, hiding myself behind a patch of undergrowth as a middle-aged man opened the doorway of his cabin to investigate the jagged rock thrown at his door. The orange glow of a lantern that hung from the porch glinted off his shotgun.

That voice. More than two decades on and it still brought back awful memories. I screwed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, steeling myself to control the burning maelstrom of emotions that ran hot through my veins with every loud thud of my heart.

The man ventured only a few feet from the steps of his abode, then paused, squinting his eyes as he scanned the surrounding area. “I know you’re out there!”

My pulse calmed, I stood slowly and inched out from my hiding spot. I held my hands high, and he turned in my direction, leaving me to stare down the bottomless barrel that could easily have taken off my head.

His eyes narrowed. “Who are you? What’re you doing on my land?”
“Are you David Ashcroft?” I asked.
He sneered and took a step forward, inclining his head toward the shotgun. “I’m asking the questions here,” he replied. “Now, who are you?”
I chuckled quietly, meeting his eyes and gazing straight into them without blinking. “I guess you don’t recognize me anymore. But I recognize you, Dad.”
His appearance hadn’t changed much from the image burned into the back of my mind, though the skin on his face had begun to sag and wrinkle and the once black bristles above his upper lip were speckled with flecks of gray. The whites of his green eyes showed, and all color left his face.
“No. It…it can’t be,” he stuttered. There was no doubt about it now; this man was my father. I took a step toward him. “Don’t move,” he shouted, his aim wavering. “I’ll pull the trigger.”
“Dad,” I said, almost pleading with him. “Please, I got help. I got better.”
“Why did you come?” he asked, snarling. “You should know you’re not welcome here anymore.”
“I just want to talk.”
“Well, start talking.”
I reached into my jacket pocket, wrapping my fingers around a thin gold chain. “And I wanted to return something.”
“I said don’t move,” he yelled.
I ignored his warning and pulled the locket out, dangling it in front of him.
“That’s…I thought it was lost forever.” He closed the distance quickly between us and snatched at the necklace, holding it in his open palm.
“I took it before I ran away. I wanted to keep a piece of Mom with me.”
His fist snapped shut, and I fought to keep the anger welling up from within from showing on my face. To see his grubby fingers touching the only memento I had of my mother made my breathing shallower. Heat flushed my cheeks. But I’d have it back soon enough. That one thought was all that allowed me to keep my cool, even as the sickly stench of whiskey on his breath caught my nostrils. Same as always.
“Don’t you speak of her,” he growled. “It’s because of you that she’s gone, or did you forget that?”
I hung my head, grating my teeth. “How could I forget such a thing? I have to live with that every day of life, and I know you’ll probably never forgive me, but please, just hear me out. A couple of minutes then, if you want, I’ll go and never come back.”
David sidestepped around to my back, pressing the gun up against my spine. “Inside. You got three minutes.”
I walked inside the musky cabin. A layer of smoke hung in the air, stinging at the corners of my eyes. David trailed closely behind, kicked the door shut after him and shoved the shotgun into me once more. Amateur mistake.
I turned and grabbed the barrel, snatching it clean from his hands. With a wide grin, I smashed the stock into his face, and his body crumpled to the floor. I knelt down next to him, prying open his filthy fingers and retrieving the locket. Fumbling with the clasp, I opened it to reveal a small picture of Mom in sepia tones. I smiled, and a single tear trickled down my cheek.
My gaze darted back to the unconscious bastard in front of me, and the moment was gone. I snapped the locket shut and placed it back in my pocket before hauling his body onto the nearby table in the center of the room. I dropped the backpack from my shoulder and rifled around the contents for the roll of duct tape and my knife, which had been cleaned and sharpened after my last adventure, the surface of the blade as smooth as a mirror reflecting the dull cabin light. Minutes later, I had my father stripped bare, his clothes haphazardly tossed to the floor. Then I began to wind the adhesive tape around his body and the table, binding him in place but leaving more than an ample amount of flesh left exposed for what I had planned.
With there being no chance of him escaping, I set my tools neatly across the counter at the edge of the room. My gaze roamed over the shining set of metal, my mind bombarded with images of all the wonderful things I could do with them. The body parts I could cut and chop, stab and slice…my blood raced at the mere thought. I closed my eyes, clutching my right hand around the necklace in my pocket, and I shivered. Finally, it was time for my payback, and I was going to enjoy every damn second of it.
On a whim, I rummaged through the nearby drawers until I found a length of string. I tied one end to the gold chain, then climbed up on a chair to attach it to a rafter, letting the locket dangle above my father’s face. I opened it and stared at it for a moment until a groan caught my attention.
He blinked a few times, then flexed the muscles in his right arm. The tape allowed for only the barest of movements. He panicked and struggled, clenching his jaw as he fought against his bondage. He gave up not long after and turned his head toward me.
“What do you want?” he asked. “I’ll give you anything.”
“What I want…” I started, walking around to the head of the table. I slammed my hands down on either side of his face. He flinched, letting out a pathetic whimper. “What I want is to make you understand the pain and suffering you put me through.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he said quickly.
I shook my head. “Do you know what it’s like for a child to be sexually abused by his own father?” I asked, folding my arms and digging my nails into the skin of my forearms. “To be blamed for his mother’s death? To be beaten unconscious every week? To live in constant fear?”
“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “It was the alcohol.”
“No,” I shouted, slamming my hands down again. My palms burned from the impact. I took hold of his head and held it steady, fixing his gaze upward so he could see the locket. “Tell her! Tell her what you did to her son.”
He screwed his eyes shut, and the first drop of liquid meandered down the sides of his balding, wrinkled head.
“Tell her!” I screamed, but there was no answer. My chest rose and fell faster and shallower. Blood roared through my body, almost deafening as it pounded past my ears. It was all I could do not to kill him right then and there…to tear his body apart with my bare hands and choke the life out of him. My fists clenched, eager to beat him into a bloody pulp for every punch and kick he’d given to me. The only thing stopping me was the promise of pain. His screams. His bloodied confession. His realization as he witnessed the beast he himself had created. It would be worth it in the end.
I took a deep breath, then another. They did little to quiet the bubbling rage within. I stormed across to the counter and took hold of my knife.
I turned and brought the blade down point first. It easily broke through the skin and muscle of his hand, hitting the wooden surface beneath. He cried out in pain and blood seeped from the wound, dripping onto the floor to form a small pool. That one scream was enough to take the edge off my rage, the heat subsiding in favor of the calm cold, allowing me to think clearly once more. Leaning over him, I put my face in front of his, one hand gripping his jaw and preventing him from turning away.
“This is what you made me, Dad. Are you proud of me? Are you proud of what I’ve become?”
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he said, spitting in my face. I stood and wiped the saliva from my face.
“And now you’ll never get the chance,” I replied, crouching down to pull the belt free from the loops of his jeans. I folded the belt in half and whipped it across the skin of his torso. Encouraged by the cry of pain and the slapping of leather against his flesh, I lashed out again and again, feeding the vengeful beast that whispered softly in my mind. More. Lots more…For every drunken lash that had stung my skin and brought forth tears.
I stopped, my chest heaving and the muscles in my arm burning. His chest and stomach glowed red, with tiny rivers of blood trickling toward his sides and merging with each other. He writhed as much as he was able to against the tape, his jaw clenched and eyes shut.
With the belt hanging loosely in one hand, I moved farther down the table and began to thread it under his leg. I yanked it tight around his thigh, the leather looping around twice before I could fasten the buckle.
“W-what are you doing?” he asked, his body trembling just as much as his voice. I reached for one of the newer additions to my arsenal, a short bone-saw with its large, menacing row of teeth. I brought it up to his cheek, drawing the metal lightly across his skin.
“What do you think?” I asked, smirking. A fine line of crimson welled to the surface of his face. Without waiting for a reply, I took the saw to his leg and pressed down hard, pulling it back and forth. The sharp teeth easily tore through skin and muscle, hitting the bone beneath in a matter of seconds. He screamed and bellowed, the chorus of his pain adding to the blissful grating as I continued the sawing motion. It really was a good thing he had no neighbors, or else I would have had to gag him. It would have been a real shame to miss out on such delightful sounds.
His body jerked against the tape. Despite the makeshift tourniquet, blood flowed easily from the wound, covering my hands and even catching the knees of my jeans as it gushed over the edge of the table. I might have treasured those clothes, if not for the fact that I would have to burn them later. Leaving evidence lying around was just sloppy.
The resistance in his leg gave way and the saw severed the last of the muscle and skin, hitting the table below. Despite the makeshift tourniquet, blood continued to pour from the wound, contrasting against the stark white of his skin. David sobbed and wailed, his face already turning gray. I picked his leg from the table and placed it to one side, leaving a smear of crimson across the floor, before striding across the kitchen to the open fire. I gripped the wooden handle of the poker that sat in the burning embers and pressed the glowing metal to the newly exposed flesh of his leg. The skin sizzled and steamed, turning black and filling the room with the stench of burnt meat. I placed the poker back into the fire, happy that he was no longer going to bleed out on me, and turned to face him once more.
“If you’re gonna kill me…then just do it already,” he barked. “You son of a bitch.”
“Careful now,” I said, through clenched teeth. “That’s Mom you’re talking about.”
“Why should you care?” he asked, pausing to draw in a shaky breath. “If you…hadn’t ran out into the road…she’d still be alive.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I shouted, kicking a wastepaper bin across the room. It bounced off the nearby wall and landed with a loud clang before coming to rest. I ripped the knife from his hand and pressed it forcefully against his throat, using my other hand to clutch at his thinning black hair and tilt his head back.
“Do it,” he said.
My hand trembled. It would be so easy to end it…to slice open his throat and watch the life fade from his eyes. However, there was still that cold, quiet voice at the back of my head reminding me I was nowhere near done yet. He wouldn’t be getting the release of death so easily. Someone like him, who could abuse his own child as he had, didn’t deserve to be free from their mortal sins, but there was no way I could leave him alive. I would have to make his last moments extra special for us both.
“No,” I said, though I spoke more to myself than to him. I released my grip on his hair and withdrew the knife. “I’ve waited so long for this. I’ve gone over it so many times in my head, imagining what it would be like to slice you open bit by bit. I want to savor this night and take my time with you, but I never dreamed how tempting it would be to just kill you.” I paused, inhaling deeply and drawing the blade across his chest. My breath hitched as he hissed. “I’ve been practicing, you know? Learning to control this urge…all for this moment. For you.”
“Then you’re him. The one they talk about on the news.”
I grinned and nodded. “The Slasherazzi. What did you think of my work? I put those pictures out there just for you.”
“You sick bastard.”
I made another cut, this time along the thigh of his remaining leg. He let out a loud grunt.
“How does it feel, Dad, knowing that those deaths are on your hands?”
“B-blame me all you want…if that’s how you sleep at night.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds and wet his bluing lips. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, then trickled across and down the side of his head. “Do you not f-feel anything? Playing with people…like they’re toys.”
I snorted. “Of course, I feel things. I’m not just some sociopath.” I pressed the point of the knife to the underside of his jaw, the metal pushing against the soft skin, but not breaking it. “Do you want to know what I feel every time my knife makes a new cut? I feel happy, excited…horny.”
I stood up tall and gripped my crotch to emphasize my point, not that I was feeling that particular mood when faced with the man who had beaten and raped me. The very thought of touching myself while thinking about him turned my stomach.
David grimaced.
“Oh, come now, don’t try and act disgusted after what you did to me. You raped your own son, and you have the audacity to be disgusted by what I do?” I slammed the knife into the table next to his head. “At least I put them out of their misery when I’m done…unlike you. You left me, a five-year-old child, to deal with all the shit you put me through. Tell me, after I’m finished with you tonight, would you still want to live? Or would you prefer if I finished you off?”
David sighed, leaving his mouth slightly open for a moment before answering. “I would r-rather you ended it.”
“There were days when you came home and I could smell the alcohol on you. I’d hide in my room and pray to God. I prayed that you’d finally kill me and let me be free. So why the fuck didn’t you? Why couldn’t you just fucking kill me?”
“You were all I had left,” he said, the tears flowing once more. Pathetic. “Do you still pray for death?”
“I told you, didn’t I? I got better.”
“You call this better?” he shouted, his body still visibly trembling. “T-Take a goddamn look at yourself, son.”
“What about you, Dad? Have you taken a good look in the mirror lately? At the man who violated his own flesh and blood?” I paused, holding a hand to my chest and clutching at my heart. “Mom took the impact of that car to protect me. She gave her life thinking that I would be safe and that you would look after me. And what did you do instead?”
David turned his gaze away from me and closed his eyes.
“You see, Dad? I’m happy with who I am. I went on living, just as Mom wanted me to. But you broke her trust. She believed in you, and you failed. You failed us both. And now, it’s time for payback…for Mom, and myself.”