part0024

Lisa watched the flames, her arms manacled to a wooden pole above her head, the rusted edges scratching at her wrists. Darren lay undisturbed by the fire, his mushed-up body now little more than an inconvenience. His screams rang through her head. They had beaten his body until it was a broken mess, bringing their clubs down long after he had died, beating him to a pulp.

Now they moved furtively through the shadows, avoiding the yellow light of the flames.

She tried to count how many. Ten, twenty, thirty…there were too many. As far as she could tell, they were all male. Most were naked, their scrawny penises dangling limply between malnourished legs. Some wore clothes, decaying tee-shirts clinging on by a thread, jeans worn through at the knees, and pockets that hung in tatters like flesh from a wound.

She wondered if Bret had escaped. It was her only chance, and she clung to it with grim determination. Glancing down at her cleavage, she saw the small baggie of pills still tucked into her bra. She longed for one, just one, to take the edge off the brain-twisting madness that surrounded her. Several of the creatures, or whatever they were, came towards the fire, dragging something. A sob caught in her throat as her last vestige of hope set sail.

‘No,’ she whimpered as they dragged his carcass by the legs and dumped it next to Darren’s. Lisa wanted to make it all go away, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the grisly tableaux. One of the men stepped forward. What had once been a pair of overalls were draped around him like a shroud, stopping just above his genitals. A small hoop earring glinted in the firelight, dangling from a drooping lobe.

From a frayed pocket he pulled a pair of sunglasses; they looked like Ray-Bans, but were probably knock-offs. Lisa could have laughed at the absurdity had it not all been so terrifying. He kicked at Bret’s arms, spreading them out until he lay like Jesus awaiting the crucifixion. The others formed a semi-circle, watching expectantly. The Pale Man in the sunglasses raised the axe ceremonially, letting it hang in the air for several seconds, before issuing a guttural shriek. His followers responded in kind, the sound rising to a shrill cacophony until The Pale Man brought the tool down on Bret’s shoulder joint, severing the limb. Lisa screamed in horror as the bone cracked and gave way but no one paid her any attention. She pulled at her bonds but the steel cuffs dug in further, warm rivulets of blood running down her bare arms. The Pale Man raised the axe again and this time she did look away, hearing the thump as the axe hit the ground. Again, one blow was all it took.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she shouted, barely recognising her own voice. She sounded older somehow, a haggard old crone. Another man picked up the two severed arms as Bret’s face stared at her through lifeless, sunken eyes.

Soon another man appeared carrying the strange spider-like totem, resting it flat in the dirt beside Bret. The top two skeletal limbs were wrenched from their fixings and discarded into the fire, replaced by Bret’s appendages. Another man stepped forward, carrying a hammer and nails as The Pale Man looked on. Was he smiling? Lisa wanted to faint, to black out…to die , even, but the blissful ignorance of sleep evaded her. She closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up in bed somewhere. Anywhere but here, with this cosmic madness surrounding her. She heard the hammering of nails into soft flesh and the gruesome splintering of bone. There was a cheer and when she opened her eyes, the ghastly idol had two new, fresh limbs attached to it. The Pale Man turned his attention to Darren and at this point Lisa came close to losing her mind.

Lisa had never been religious; the only figure she deified was Howard Marks. But Welsh drug-smugglers weren’t going to help her now, so she prayed to a God, a higher power, for divine intervention.

She may as well have prayed to Cheech and Chong for all the good it did.

When she looked back, Darren’s limbs were affixed above Bret’s on the obscene idol. Her friend’s bodies were then picked up and tossed onto the fire, the stench of burning bodies filling the air like a noxious chemical .

Two men came towards her.

‘No, no,’ she muttered repeatedly. ‘Please, no, leave me alone, no, no…’

One of them carried an enormous pair of bolt-cutters. Her body went limp with fear. Bolt-cutters? Primitive savages didn’t wield tools like this! They should carry spears and blow poison darts, like in the movies.

Ah, the movies. This must be some kind of karma for watching all those sick movies with Darren and Bret. What torture was in store for her?

Behind the men the fire glowed, the dancing light visible through their bodies like a lava-lamp. Things moved around inside them like specks of dust on a projector screen.

Would they hang her up with meathooks through her breasts, like in that film Cannibal Ferox ? Or would they shove a pole up her snatch until it came through her mouth, spit-roasted for all eternity, like in Cannibal Holocaust ?

No longer concerned about the restraints that dug into her skin, Lisa screamed until her throat was raw. The men advanced, and she wondered where the twin blades of the bolt-cutter were going to settle. Her nose? Tongue?

The man disappeared behind her, the cutters scraping along the ground leaving a deep groove. Her mind reeled at the possibilities. Her Achilles’ tendon? Or the base of her spine? Both would immobilise her. She supposed if she had to choose, she would opt for her Achilles.

Ha! It was like that party game, Would You Rather, except life-threatening and all too real.

Then came the snipping sound, the cutters squealing as they clamped shut. Lisa tensed her body.

She dropped to the ground, her wrists freed from the chains. The first thing she did was laugh, a high-pitched, manic cackle. She rubbed her hands, avoiding the peeling, torn skin of her wrists.

Everything was going to be okay.

They had allowed her to live.

Her mind became a whirlwind of outrageous fantasies. She imagined them worshipping her as a queen. She would sit atop a throne of skulls in a diaphanous white gown, a ring of human intestine fashioned into a crown adorning her hair, the gruesome creatures bringing her human sacrifices as she ruled over them with an apathetic sneer.

She fished the baggie out of her bra and swallowed one of the tablets, then took another for good measure.

After all, it was a celebration.

Fuck it, she popped a third one down the gullet.

Then she was kicked onto her back, four of the men pinioning her arms and legs. They needn’t have bothered, she was far beyond struggling now. A weary acceptance of her fate insidiously crept into her head, jostling for position with her deranged fantasy. How far could the gossamer thin fabric of her mind stretch before snapping once and for all?

A long strip of metal rested in the fire next to her. She could see Bret’s face aflame, his melted eyeballs dribbling down his cheeks, which were black and charred and bubbling, his mouth open in a rictus grin that ridiculed her from beyond the grave.

The Pale Man pulled the metal bar from the fire and brandished it towards Lisa. The end was so yellow it was almost white. White hot. That was a saying, wasn’t it? She had never understood it, not until now. The tip of the bar opened out into an intricate engraving, like a cattle brand.

How funny. There were no cows here! She laughed, and laughed, and laughed .

She finally blacked out, escaping into the sweet nirvana of delirium.

The scorching metal pressed against her abdomen and a searing pain unlike any Lisa had ever experienced jolted her from out of one bad dream and into another. Her skin sizzled and burnt and her limbs jerked wildly, the men struggling to hold her steady. She saw smoke and smelt her own flesh as it popped and smouldered, the brand pushing harder onto her stomach until it practically scalded her intestines.