Crossing the Line (16 page)

Brute pulled the skillet out of Marty’s mouth and tossed it over his shoulder. The killer dragged him over to the end of the counter
top and dangled his head over the edge
. He punched Marty in the face, breaking his nose and causing his neck to strain. Marty howled in agony and his bladder let loose.

Brute crossed the kitchen and pulled a meat cleaver out of the knife block sitting next to the fridge. He gently placed Marty’s remaining arm a few inches away from his torso. He raised the cleaver up and brought it down on the cusp of his arm and shoulder. The semi-dull blade made
a deep gouge in the flesh. Marty was already half dead from blood loss from the loss of his first arm.

Brute pulled the blade free and chopped the arm again. The second blow made blood spray in multiple directions. The cleaver
chinked
off of the countertop. Brute picked up the severed arm and carried it around the island. Marty’s head still dangled as if his neck was broken. He used the severed appendage to slap Marty across the face a half dozen times.

Marty sobbed in a series of loud whines. Brute shoved Marty’s arm into his open mouth. The sobs were suddenly muffled. Brute punched him on the chin again. There was a loud, moist
snap
as Marty’s neck broke. His bowels loosened then, filling the room with a god awful stench.

Brute marched over to where the skillet had fallen and picked it up off of the floor. He marched back to Marty and reared the skillet back as far as his arm would reach. He slammed the flat bottom of the pan against the hand at the end of Marty’s severed arm. Marty gagged loudly around the thick appendage.
He shook his head from side to side, trying to make it impossible for the next blow to land as desired.

Brute swung the pan again and the bloody stump hit the back of Marty’s throat. He felt the thin fabric of his throat and tonsils burst open. Blood rushed up toward the stump, but had nowhere to go past the obstruction. He soon felt the dishearten
ing reality that he was choking
to death on his own blood.

The killer walked over to counter and picked up the meat cleaver again. He appraised Marty’s torso for a moment before deciding where to place the blow. With a quick downward swing he tore a deep gouge out of Marty’s midriff. A second blow shattered three ribs and drove deep into the tissue of the lungs. The third and final blow sliced deep into the bottom of his belly and cut into his bowels.

Brute left the man to drown, dropping the cleaver just as he was pushing open the door leading back to the living room.

He snarled with fury when he saw that Quentin was no longer hanging from the wall. There was no path of blood to follow this time. He moved cautiously forward, snarling again when he saw that the fire poker had replaced his axe.

Knowing the young man hadn’t fled out the front door only gave him a couple of options. He either exited out into the night through the back door or he went upstairs. Brute rushed up the stairs and found no sign of Quentin in any of the bedrooms. He flipped the beds with ease and tore the doors off of every closet. Still, he found no sign of where his last target had gone.

He knew that meant that the man had fled outside. He leapt from the landing again and ran to the back door. The sliding glass had been left open a crack. He pushed it the rest of the way open and stepped out onto the deck. He hadn’t even stepped outside before the axe head struck him in the abdomen. He growled with pain and fell to his knees, but took a strong hold on the handle of the weapon at the same time.

Quentin tried to free his grasp on the axe and when he realized he couldn’t out power the madman he drop kicked him in the skull-covered face. The skull shattered, driving pieces of broken bone deep into Brute’s face.
The remaining pieces of bone fell away and made a small pile between Brute’s legs.

Brute pulled the axe free of his gut and swung it wildly at his attacker. It missed Quentin completely and smashed through the sliding glass doors. Quentin capitalized on the missed attack and kicked the huge man directly in the throat. Brute’s eyes grew wide with the sudden lack of oxygen pumping to his brain. He fell backwards, losing his grip on the axe.

Quentin picked the axe up and raised it above his head, planning a blow directly between Brute’s eyes. The big man was too quick, though. He kicked Quentin in the knee, shattering it and folding the leg in half. Quentin fell backward with a loud scream of pain. The axe slipped from his grasp and slid away a full yard from his reach.

Brute got to his feet and looked at the wound in his gut. It was deep and bleeding profusely, but it had not been placed where it would threaten any of his vital organs. Still, it hurt like hell.

He walked out onto the patio and stomped on Quentin’s good knee three times to ensure that it was broken. Once satisfied he limped over to
the axe and picked it up. Quentin
held out his hands and shook his head. “Please, man, I won’t tell anyone what happened up here. I won’t even mention that I was here. Just let me go and we can both act like none of this ever happened.”

Brute stomped on Quentin’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Next Brute used the axe head as a bludgeoning tool. He smashed Quentin’s sternum and most of his ribs with driving blows. Once finished with the man’s chest he turned his attention to his crotch. He brought the axe down ten times, each time causing Quentin to cry out a little louder. The pelvic bone shattered first, then the tail bone. A bloody, broken ruin was all that remained of Quentin’s crotch once Brute had finished with him.

He slammed one end of the axe head into the deck. Quentin’s eyes grew wide with terror and realization as he was picked up off of the porch and raised above the blade. He attempted to speak, to beg and plead, but nothing came out. His body was far too damaged for him to speak anymore.

Brute released him a
nd the man fell onto the
blade of the axe. The sharp edge had nothing to do with Quentin’s instantaneous death. When the axe connected with his falling body the broken pieces of his sternum drove through Quentin’s lungs and heart. His life ended then. The axe blade slid into his dead chest and cut his burst heart in half. Brute stepped on his back, driving the axe the rest of the way through Quentin’s body.

He went back to the kitchen and selected a large butcher’s knife from the block. His injuries made it a slower process, but he still managed to skin Quentin’s face and sever the face of his skull. He took the new mask back to the kitchen and rinsed it off in the skin until the bone was clean of blood and gore.

Satisfied he used the band from his previous mask to convert the skull in his hand. He grabbed Quentin by the collar and seat of his pants and lifted him into the air. The axe came out of the deck and remained lodged in Quentin’s chest. Most of the tissue of Quentin’s brains had fallen out while Brute was cleaning the skull.

He looked curiously at the empty brain cavern for a moment before tossing the body down on its back. He stomped on Quentin’s belly and pulled the axe free with a loud
crunch
and
pop
. He put the weapon back onto his back and limped off of the porch and toward the lake.

23

The “ambulance” was crude to say the very least. There weren’t any medical supplies or gurneys. It was just a hollowed out Chevy van’s rear end. A large piece of welded sheet metal kept the paramedics from sight. As they bounced down the road the women knew that they were in trouble still. The entire encounter with the authorities and EMTs was…
off
. They hadn’t acted or spoken like paramedics or police officers. They had come across as the opposite actually.

The ambulance came to a screaming halt and swung around. A series of beeps started as the driver backed up. After what seemed like an eternity of traveling in reverse the van came to a halt. The engine turned off a moment later and the sound of the front doors opening and closing echoed through whatever structure they were in.

All of the girls had been stuffed into the same ambulance. The other had followed after them, but had no one inside. This came across as odd, too. But the weirdest thing of all was how they had not inspected any of them. Surely it was in their job description to at least attempt to find any injuries that needed attention.

“Where did they take us?” Lynne asked in a soft whisper. “We didn’t drive far enough to get to a hospital, did we?”

“No, no fucking way,” Anna responded. She shook her head adamantly. “We’re nowhere near a hospital and these guys definitely aren’t really paramedics.”

“Fuck!” Lynne groaned. “Will this bullshit night ever end?”

The beeping of the second ambulance broke the silence outside the van. They heard it back in next to their vehicle prison. A moment after they heard the sound of a second set of tires pulling in on their opposite side.

“What do we do now?” one of the EMTs asked.

“The fuck if I know. This entire operation has been fucked since the beginning. It’s th
at stupid dog’s fault,” the second EMT said.

“Hey, man, he’s your brother not mine.”

“
Just make sure nothing else goes wrong, okay? We’re up to our knees in shit right now because of that fucking moron. The last thing we need is one of these girls making a run for it while you’re jerking off. Don’t fuck up or I swear to God it won’t even be Deloris that you have to worry about,” a third EMT said.

“Fine by us. Do you suppose Deloris might let us have a go at them before we feed them to the dogs?”

“Don’t assume we’re feeding them to the dogs. I have no idea what mama is going to want to do about this cluster fuc
k.
As for your question, no, you know how Deloris feels about rape. She would just as soon shoot you in the head than let you get off with an unwilling partner.”

“I know, I was just funning.”

“Well it wasn’t funny at all, Carey. Keep your mouth shut about shit like that. She would probably shoot you just for making such a stupid ass joke.”

“Something seriously fucked up is happening,” Marcy whispered.

“You don’t have to state the obvious,” Anna said. There was an edge to her voice, but she tried to conceal it. She didn’t want to lash out at her friends. She was tired and sore in more ways than she would have ever thought imaginable. “It wouldn
’t have been a proper ending to our fantastic vacation if we really got out of this without getting fucked a couple more times.”

“Next time we go to Cancun,” Lynne said.

“Totally,” Marcy said.

There was commotion outside. It sounded like the paramedics were tearing the walls down around their poorly disguised
vans.
The girls huddled together to keep themselves from screaming. After five solid minutes of the terrifying racket there were absolutely no sounds. Not so much as a cricket. This was somehow even scarier.

“They soundproofed us,” Lynne said. “They were sound proofing the building. They’re going to kill us and no one will be able to hear us scream.”

“No, why would they go through all that trouble? We’re already in the middle of nowhere. The only people that might hear us scream are the same fucked up fuckers that would be torturing us, right? No, they must have done something else.”

Anna looked at Marcy and after a moment of trying to keep it down she let out a loud burst of laughter. “You seriously just said fucked up fuckers,” she said. She slammed her head into the side of the van.
“How crazy is this? We’re all educated, beautiful women and all of the sudden we’re trapped and speaking with the vernacular skills of a stoned teenager.”

“I don’t give a shit how old or sober you are if you’ve spent the entire day being beaten and raped you can pretty much throw your usual vocabulary out the fucking window. In fact, I’m proud none of us have been reduced to babble yet.”

“Babble would almost be more acceptable from the lips of a JAP.”

Marcy looked genuinely
hurt by the tasteless joke. Anna reached out and gave her a light hug. “I didn’t mean anything by it, babe. You know I love you.”

“I love you, too. Man, I wish this was all over, though.”

“It will be soon. One way or the other,” Lynne said. She was crawling around in the pitch darkness. After a moment she stopped and a squeal of excitement escaped her. “Hell yeah!” she whispered.

“What?” Marcy asked.

“Say hello to my little friend,” Lynne giggled. She handed over the item she had found. It was a foot-long,
six-inch in diameter,
piece of piping of some kind. Lynne dug around for another moment and came up with another, similar item. She handed it over. This time the piece of metal was closer
to two feet long. After just a little more investigating she found
something else.

“Ah shit,” she said. She brought it over to the others and handed it to Anna. It was about a foot and a half long and ended with a steel sheathed set of wheels. “It’s the leg of a gurney, isn’t it?”

“Most likely,” Anna said. “But the pieces are pretty solid. We’ll have the element of surprise, too. When they come to drag us out of here we’ll let them think we’re still terrified and then we’ll bash their heads in.”