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THE LIGHTS OF THE GYM twinkled in the night, luring Jemma towards them. She had been going to Monster Gym Works for a month now, and had enjoyed watching her muscle tone sharpen. Jemma loved the look of her new body, and the strength of her muscles.
But why wouldn’t she? She had paid close to a thousand bucks on the membership fees and workout gear, not to mention the protein shakes and powders she was persuaded to buy to help her bulk up.
Jemma would have been pissed if she hadn’t seen results. Now, as she strutted in after a hard day’s work in the office, she enjoyed feeling the eyes of the men and women checking out her body as she walked through the maze of equipment to put her bag in her locker.
A sign had been placed on the noticeboard, struggling to gain attention from the gym patrons. Jemma laughed at the ridiculous comic sans font and red paper. I would have been fired for that at work, she thought. She moved closer to read the print underneath the title, ending her amusement.
“Attention all Members!
Police have notified MGMT that a number of members have been reported missing recently. Although nothing strange has been reported on gym premises, police are urging members to be careful and attentive while on premises. Anybody with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or in an emergency phone 000. We have CCTV cameras recording the premises and police are sending extra patrols in the area. We will be installing extra lighting soon.
Thanks for your patronage.”
Jemma shuddered. She hadn’t known about the disappearances, but wondered if they were linked. As an accountant, she didn’t often need to think about danger.
Now she would need to pay attention when she arrived or left her favourite place in the world.
Jemma spent her whole workout watching the other members, distracted. She loved watching people, trying to create lives for them from her imagination. It took her attention away from the pain in her muscles and helped her work harder. Tonight, murder was on her mind.
Well, she wondered if those missing people had been killed like in the crime books she read. Probably. No way could people go missing for long periods of time without being killed. Jemma looked at each person in the gym, wondering if they had the psychopathic tendencies needed to kidnap and kill. Jemma noticed there was only one other woman working out tonight and, as she glanced over, they locked eyes, sharing a smile.
Sisters doing it for ourselves, Jemma thought, the song sticking in her head.
There were twenty-three men that Jemma could count as she finished her workout, drinking her post-workout electrolyte drink. None of the men seemed to show any particular interest in her as Jemma prepared to leave.
“Hi there. I’m Tahleah. I haven’t seen you before.” As Jemma turned around, she saw the lady from before walking over, a towel round her neck, her hand outstretched. They shook hands. Tahleah’s cheeks were red, sweat plastered strands of dark hair to her head.
“I’m Jemma. I’ve been coming for about a month. Love it here!”
“Seen the notice?” Tahleah asked, pointing at the sign.
“Yeah. I read it earlier. Pretty creepy, hey?” Jemma took a sip of her drink. “Reckon we’ll be safe tonight?” She glanced around at the men, noticing a man jogging on the treadmill watching the ladies intently. When he saw Jemma looking, he smiled and looked away hastily towards the television, where a sports game was showing on mute.
Tahleah followed her gaze. “How about we leave together? Did you drive here? Car outside?”
“I walked here. I only live ten minutes away. But now... I’m not sure I want to walk. Especially considering...” She trailed off as she returned her gaze towards the man on the treadmill, who was still looking away.
“Here, I can give you a lift home if you like? It’d be no trouble.” Tahleah smiled, before drinking deeply from her water bottle.
“That’d be great, thanks,” Jemma said gratefully. They walked together out the door, talking about their jobs, plans for the weekend ahead, and Jemma’s lack of love life. Tahleah had parked about fifty metres away from the entrance, and as they walked in the darkness, they heard the crunching of footsteps approaching quickly. Jemma turned, squatting low, remembering her old self-defence classes. She saw a dark figure knock over Tahleah before turning to Jemma.
Their attacker was breathing heavily, growling, as if breathing was difficult. Jemma stood in her defensive posture, focussed on the attacker in front of her, unable to hear the other attacker approach her from behind until it was too late. She felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, before the darkness consumed her.
* * *
WHEN JEMMA WOKE, HER mouth was parched, like it was coated with cotton wool. She struggled to open her eyes, forcing her heavy lids to open. The back of her head throbbed, clouding her thoughts. She looked around the room, her vision blurry. There was nothing familiar in the darkness, and this fact was terrifying. Her heart thudded hard, her breathing rapid. Looking down she realised that she was naked, her gym clothes nowhere in sight.
The light was dim; thin fingers of silver light filtered in through the window. Jemma was standing, her arms lifted above her, chained. The shackles bit aggressively into her skin. Her hands had lost feeling. When she tried to rearrange her position, she discovered that her legs were also bound in thick, metal chains.
As her vision became clearer, Jemma began to make out the shapes around her. The room was relatively bare, except for a desk shoved into a corner, papers strewn across the top. An old wooden chair was pushed underneath.
A low moan sounded across the room, followed by clinking metal. Jemma squinted through the dimness and saw another figure standing, as if mocking her pose. The light reflected softly on naked skin; a female form, it seemed.
“Hey!” she whispered, trying to wake the figure. Another groan, feminine. Was it Tahleah?
“Tahleah? Is that you?” Jemma whispered again. Another groan. What happened? Jemma wondered. Her body shook involuntarily, her teeth chattering.
Who would notice she was missing? She had always loved living alone. She didn’t have to worry about annoying anyone else, or whether she left the dishes to ‘soak’ overnight. If she wanted, she could walk around naked. Curtains closed, of course.
But now, her loneliness slapped her awake. With nobody at home waiting for her, nobody knew she was missing. Sure, her absence at work would stick out like a numerical error in a tax return, but that would not be until Monday.
Is it still Friday night? Jemma wondered? Or is it Saturday? How long had passed?
“Let me out of here! Help! Hello?” Jemma shouted, hoping someone would hear her. With a sore throat, her voice hoarse, she shouted, hoping to frighten her terror away. “Can anybody hear me?” Jemma rattled the chains, hoping they’d budge. Hoping they’d come loose.
They didn’t.
Jemma was drained of energy, and slumped against the chains, letting them hold her weight. The metal bit painfully into her skin. At first she let it happen, let the pain spread through her body. At least she felt something other than the pounding in her head.
At least she was alive.
When the pain became too much, she stood again, feeling her hands throb as blood flowed back through them.
A noise echoed through the room from the door, making her jolt with fright. Jemma stood still, became a statue. A foul smell invaded the room, crinkling Jemma’s nose, rubbing against her taste buds.
The door creaked open, a tsunami of light flooding the room. A creature stood in the doorway, dark with shadow, a silhouette against the backdrop of light. It reminded Jemma of a hairless gorilla with a crocodile’s head. It used its long arms as stilts, leaning forward as it stalked into the room.
Jemma’s heart thudded harder, faster. She held her breath, remaining as still as she could. No longer did she want to draw attention to herself. Not from this hideous beast.
Jemma was terrified. She could hear the ragged breaths as the creature moved forward, dragging a rattling metal trolley behind it. A large, deep tray was on the top. The creature stopped in front of Jemma and Tahleah, and sighed, as if exhausted. Jemma shuddered.
Please don’t come to me. Please look away. Don’t turn to me, Jemma pleaded silently.
Up close, she could see its skin glistening as if covered in a sheen of sweat. The creature reached into the tray and picked up a knife in its large fingers, which ended in sharp, pointed claws. It looked up and sniffed the air, turning to Jemma. She closed her eyes, turning her head, hoping when she opened her eyes again she’d be at home. She heard the creature moving, the knife scraping along the floor. She heard the beast breathing, snuffling. She heard the creature’s slow footsteps, expecting it to be in her face.
Jemma opened her eyes, still in her nightmare. The creature was standing in front of Tahleah. It had raised the knife so the point was facing towards her. Leaning forward, it licked Tahleah’s skin, its long tongue moving from her belly button to her neck, making Jemma feel like vomiting.
She was glad she was not in Tahleah’s position.
Her time would come soon, no doubt. But it was not now, and for that, Jemma was grateful. It meant she had the time to escape. Or at least try to escape.
Tahleah began to squirm, finally waking up as the knife’s point cut into the skin of her thigh. Her eyes opened wide as the creature began to slice down, removing the flesh from the shaking bone. Tahleah screamed, a deep guttural yell that reverberated around the room. Blood began to gush from the wounds, spilling onto the wooden floor.
Jemma vomited, feeling the acidic burn on her throat, in her mouth. The smell of vomit danced maniacally with the metallic scent of blood, a putrid perfume.
The creature ripped the thigh muscle from the tendon and threw it onto the tray behind it where it plopped wetly. Next, the monster removed the calf muscle, the leg a lot more still with the absence of its thigh. Tahleah continued to scream as the beast sliced flesh from her body, flaps of skin flopping around the creature’s arms.
Jemma gagged, trying to hold in more vomit as the creature continued to slice off muscle, now on Tahleah’s other leg. Jemma could see the flesh of Tahleah’s right leg on the tray in front of her, as if she was at the butcher. It looked like the muscles were still twitching, like giant worms, and this caused Jemma’s stomach to evacuate the last of its contents.
Slowly, the creature turned around to look at Jemma, who fell silent, trembling violently. Behind the creature, Tahleah had passed out, the room now silent except for the creature’s loud breathing as it continued its butcher work.
Or was she dead? Jemma wasn’t sure, but she was glad she was no longer conscious.
Jemma felt faint, her head growing heavy. She could feel her body sweating, her skin cold and clammy. The shackles chafed her wrists as Jemma tried to escape again. It was no use, she realised.
When she looked across the room at Tahleah, she saw the creature had finished with all her limbs and was now slicing off the flesh on the front of her naked body. Her nipples were scraping the floor as the skin flopped down.
The creature grabbed the abdomen in its claws and sliced it free from her body, which was hanging from the chains by the skeletal arms. Tahleah’s innards had poured onto the floor, slopping noisily. Her body looked like a skeleton which had been dipped in a slimy, gooey mix of jelly, as if someone was making a Halloween decoration.
This was no decoration. This was real, Jemma reminded herself as the creature reached behind Tahleah to slice off her buttocks.
When it had finished, the flesh piled high on the tray, the creature licked the knife and put it back on the trolley. It then leaned forward and licked the bones of what had once been Tahleah. The creature began to rip the skeleton apart, chewing the meat from the bones, making loud slurping sounds. After each bone was picked clean the monster cracked it open to slurp out the marrow. It then chucked each bone behind its back where they clunked to the floor.
The pile of bones grew larger with each slurp, as Jemma watched in disgust. The monster cracked off the head, and sucked out the eyes. Jemma could hear a loud pop as it bit down on Tahleah’s eyeballs. They had been blue, she remembered. Tahleah’s brains, the creature scooped out with a large spoon from the trolley, where it joined the rest of her flesh.
When the arms had been disassembled and removed from the chains to join the rest of Tahleah’s two hundred and six bones, the monster pushed the trolley from the room.
Jemma used her time to try pulling at the chains again. She tried to scrape her hands out of the shackles, not caring if her skin was peeled off. The pain was worse than any she had experienced before, but it needed to be done.
The alternative was far too terrifying to imagine.
She didn’t want to end up as some monster’s lunch. She didn’t want to end up like Tahleah with nothing to identify her except a pile of cracked bones.
The pain in her hands was overwhelming. No matter how hard she pulled, her hands wouldn’t move. Blood trickled down, but the shackles were too tight. The monster was obviously too clever to leave room for escape. Monster, or monsters? Were there more outside the door?
What are they anyway? Jemma wondered, as she rested, trying to regain her strength to continue her escape attempt. Aliens? Mutated animals? An experimental crossbreed? Whatever the thing was didn’t matter. Jemma was stuck with no hope of escape.
This realisation made the fight leave her body, and she slumped once more, letting the chains hold her up. She shut her eyes, hoping to sleep, or pass out, or die. Something to escape the hell of the room.
The sound of the door opening made her eyes widen. The silhouette of the monster was entering the room, the trolley clattering and squealing as it moved.
Jemma was more terrified now, her heart thudding in her chest.
The alien monster was back, and this time it would be for her.
“No, no, no, no, please, no,” she muttered. In front of her, the beast stopped, and turned to her, so close that Jemma could feel its hot, foetid breath wash over her. She cowered back, averting her eyes, holding her breath. The sound of the knife scraping on the metal tray made her face the front once more, looking her torturer head on. Its eyes were black pits of glassy emptiness. The skin around them was scaly, wrinkly, like old leather that had been left in the rain. It took a step towards her.
Jemma could smell its rancid mouth, only a hand span away. Its jaws held large teeth, stilettos that glistened in the dim light. She saw the glint of light reflecting on the knife’s blade as the monster raised it up in front of her face. It seemed to smile, its teeth bared ominously, apparently enjoying watching Jemma squirm in her chains.
Then, without warning, it bent forward, holding Jemma’s right leg in its claws. No matter how much she struggled, the creature’s grip was too strong for the muscles she had admired not long ago.
Jemma screamed loudly as the pain spread through her leg. The knife sliced easily through the flesh of her thigh. She clenched her teeth, breathing through her pearly whites, hoping the pain would end.
Instead, it spread to her calves as the creature, having finished with her thigh, moved down her leg. The pain overwhelmed her and, as her head lolled forward, unconsciousness lured her into its blissful nothingness.