A Life To Waste (13 page)

The giant slid his index finger
back and forth along the table, pointing it at each blade as he
passed it. Looking like he was playing a game for which one to
choose.

“oh shit” Dave thought “eeny,
meeny, miny, mo”

The finger stopped. It looked
like the meat cleaver had been this torture sessions weapon of
choice. After a slow turn the freak stood facing Dave once more. He
moved closed towards him, his eyes forever gazing into Dave’s.
Almost looking lost, looking to Dave for an answer.

“what do you want?” Dave’s
screamed in his mind.

The freak tilted his head again,
what crazy thought were passing through his mind? What could he be
possibly contemplating at this point?

Never losing eye contact with
Dave, Bigfoots arm swung up and then flew back down so fast that if
you blinked you would have missed it. He looked away from Dave’s
eyes at something on the wall. Then his gaze returned back to
Dave’s face. Dave looked at the monster, confused, he could feel
something trickling down his arm.

He looked up.

“Oh shit my hand!” he screamed
in his mind.

The freak had chopped Dave’s
hand off with one clean swipe of his blade. Dave’s arm, no long
being held by the leather strap, dropped to his side. Dave lifted
it to his face, looking at the bloody stump that was left where his
arm used to belong. Tears streaming down his face, he cried to
scream but nothing came out. He swung his arm at the freak. His
stump leaving red marks on bigfoots shoulder and chest each time it
made impact. With each pathetic attempt to inflict some form of
pain on the freak, Dave received nothing in return except a
confused look.

The freak dropped the cleaver on
the spot where he was stood. He didn’t even look down to see it hit
the ground. He turned around and made his slow exit back out of the
small office room. The door closed behind him. Dave could hear the
whistling getting more faint as the giant got further away.

“if.....you.....go.....down.....to.....the.....woods.....today.”

Chapter 24

Holding his bloody stump up to
his face, Dave stared in disbelief. The tears pouring down his face
like the blood pouring from the gaping wound at the end of his
arm.

“I have to get out of here” he
thought.

He looked down to the floor and
stared at his abandoned hand. Ironically the cleaver that had taken
the hand had landed next to it, leaving them lying together, side
by side. Dave looked up at his other arm, still strapped to the
wall.

“I need to get that arm free, I
need to get out”

With his other arm free from
restraint, Dave was now able to turn his body around so he could
face the wall. He reached his bloody stump up to the arm held
against the wall. The leather strap had a loose bit hanging down.
If Dave could push that strap against the wall, maybe he could
loosen it. Maybe he could free his other arm.

With excruciating pain shooting
through his whole body, Dave used his stump to push the strap
against the wall. He blood streamed down the wall like a fresh tin
of paint had been thrown at it. He twisted and wriggled his arm,
still holding the strap still with his stump he could feel the
leather begin to loosen on his wrist.

“it’s working, oh shit its
working”

With the pain almost unbearable,
he gritted his teeth and continued to wriggle his hand. His stump
never moving from holding that strap in place. He twisted his hand,
he tucked his thumb, his index finger and his little finger in to
the centre of his hand. He twisted and pulled his hand down. The
strap under the stump slid up the wall a bit. Sending a stabbing
pain right up the side of Dave’s body. Pushing through the pain,
Dave pushed his stump harder against the wall. He tugged his other
hand down. It was free!

“I did it!” He thought.

He stood for a second amazed at
what he had just accomplished, his senses returned to his. He
grabbed the thing covering his mouth. His was some sort of tape. He
ripped it off, he was sure that in other circumstances tearing that
tape off may have been extremely painful, but in light of his
recent injuries, he didn’t feel anything.

“ok what now?” Dave said to
himself. “if you got free, he would expect you to run.”

With hundreds of thoughts racing
through his head, he couldn’t decide what to do. He knew one thing
though. He couldn’t run. He wouldn’t get far enough without that
freak coming back for him.

Dave hurried to the pool of
blood on the floor and grabbed the cleaver. He left the hand
behind.

He walked back towards the door
and placed his ear to it. There was no one there. He slowly opened
it. Still no one, he shuffled out of the door. He could see the
light to the factory shop floor was on.

“ok, that bastard is down with
the bodies, I need to hide.”

Dave hurried to the next door in
the corridor and let himself. It was pitch black but that didn’t
matter, he didn’t intend to stay there for long. He closed the door
and waited.

Dave must have been waiting for
about five minutes. He was still losing a lot of blood and he was
sure that if he didn’t stop the bleeding soon that he would die. He
was going to bleed to death. A horrible thought ran through his
mind that he had dripped blood along his path to this room. Leading
a trail to his demise. No, he knew he hadn’t, he had his stump
tucked into his stomach, he had looked outside just before entering
this room. He definitely hadn’t left any trail behind. Had he?

“oh god I hope not” he whispered
to himself.

He could hear the whistling
returning.

“if.....you.....go.....down.....to.....the.....woods.....today”

It was the freak coming back, he
heard the giant open a door. The whistling stopped, it was followed
by an enormous roar. Dave’s host had just discovered that he was
missing.

Chapter 25

The giant was raging. He had
thrown the table across the room, sending the weapons that had been
there flying across the room. He punched the wall repeatedly
leaving red bloody marks from his fists in a pattern across it. He
leaned over propping himself up against the wall, he appeared to be
looking down at the hand on the floor. He reached down the pick it
up. To retrieve the one piece of Dave that had been left
behind.

He grabbed the hand, as he
raised himself back up Dave jumped onto his back. He felt a sharp
pain in his neck.

“AAAHHHH!” Dave screamed “You
bastard! You sick sick bastard!”

Dave reached around the giants
next, holding himself on by hooking his stumped arm around it. In
his other hand was the meat cleaver that had taken his hand. He
swung it over and over again into the giant neck and shoulder.

“Die! You bastard! Die die
die!”

Over and over again Dave kept
swinging the knife into the giants flesh. Blood was firing out of
the freak like a fountain, showing Dave in covers of red. The giant
wasn’t dropping, Dave had been cutting him with the cleave for what
seemed like forever. Why wouldn’t he die? Why wouldn’t he stop.

Dave still hooked onto the
giants back like a monkey clinging to his mother. Dave kept his
stumped arm held tight around the giants neck. The freak turned
back and forth reaching his arms back in what appeared to be an
attempt to get Dave off. The strength seemed to have faded away
from him. The freaks hands just stroked against Dave’s arms and
shoulder. Still Dave continued to thrust the cleaver back and forth
into this giants neck.

After what seemed like an
eternity, he dropped to the floor. Dave stood over him, covered
from head to toe in blood. The room had been painted red, no where
appeared to be untouched from the blood. Dave looked to the monster
lying on the floor. He climbed onto his back and continued to hack
away. The giant was probably long dead before Dave finally
stopped.

He sat on the floor with his
back propped against the wall panting for breath.

“it’s over” he sighed.

Chapter 26

Stumbling from side to side.
Dave made his way down the corridor, he was beginning to feel
faint. He was still bleeding heavily from his arm. He knew that if
he didn’t stop it soon that he was going to die.

“There must be something around
here” he said to himself. “some rope or something to stop this
bleeding.”

He managed to carry himself
across the corridor and through the door leading to the factory
shop floor. He almost fell down the stairs, slipping down several
at a time. He eventually reached the bottom. Slumped over he looked
across the factory, at the sea of bodies that we placed before
him.

“need to find something” he
mumbled.

He made his way to the rear end
of the factory, perhaps now he could start thinking about saving
some people. He had more time, if he could stop the bleeding. He
looked up. There in front of him, he didn’t know whether he was
happy to see it or horrified. There in front of him stood, the
kiln, or furnace, or what ever they called it. Some big thing that
had once upon a time been used to melt glass and heat metal. He
imagined that recently it had only been used to heat torture
devices.

“it’s lit” he quivered.

Dave knew what he had to do, it
was simple. If he didn’t stop the bleeding, he was going to die. He
took the big tongs that had been leaning against the kiln. Using
the tongs, he picked up the largest blade from the pile of weapons
that were still scattered on the floor. He held the blade into the
flames.

After a long time of waiting,
panting for breath, trying to keep the tongs held upright while
losing strength in his one good arm. He could see the metal inside
the fire begin to glow. He removed the blade from the fire. He
dropped the blade to the floor and leaned down. He took deep
breaths over and over again.

“ok, here we go” he said, his
voice trembling.

He pressed his stump against the
scorching hot blade. Cauterising the wound on his arm.

He passed out.

Chapter 27

Dave woke up. His eyes wide
open, he gazed up to the high sheet metal ceiling above him. He
could see dim lights hanging from wooden beams placed along the
walls. He could smell something burning. It was like a bbq smell.
Not quite as nice though. It reminded him of the smell of burning
ants when he was younger. When he would use a magnifying glass to
fry them on the pavement. He was lying on a hard concrete floor.
Underneath the smell of burnt ants he could smell something else.
It was a foul smell, like rotting meat. He remembered where he
was.

He tried to push himself up from
the floor. Intense pain shot through him like he had just been
struck by lightning. He looked at his arm. He saw his stump. The
skin now burned and black, bit of dark blood dried around it. He
looked to the floor to see the blade he had used to cauterise it.
He could see pieces of his skin that had stuck to it during the
horrifically painful process. He used his good arm and leaning to
one side, managed to get himself up off the floor.

“mum” he said to himself “I need
to find mum.”

He began his mission. He marched
up and down the horrific patchwork of bodies. Looking at mangled
arms and twisted legs. Trying to see if any of them were connected
to his mum. He tried to see if he could pick out her face. All the
faces he
could
see were so bruised and batter that there
would be no way to recognise their owners. He looked for what
seemed like forever, in fact it was probably about ten minutes. As
he got further down the line he could see the damage to these
people wasn’t quite as bad as the others.

“I’ve got to get help” he
thought.

He ran back up the stairs,
through the door and down the corridor through the exit of the
factory. It was daylight now. He had no idea how long he had been
there. He had passed out twice to his knowledge, for all he knows
it could have been a couple of hours, it could have been a whole
day. That didn’t matter, he needed to find a phone. Dave ran up the
street from the factory until he reached what looked like a main
road. He must have run for fifteen minutes before he eventually
found a payphone at the side of the road. He picked up the phone,
he managed to tuck it in between his cheek and his shoulder to hold
it in place, he used his only hand and dialled for the emergency
services.

“Police!”

He waited, after a few moments
he was connected.

“I’m at a payphone on Glover
Street, there is a factory down the road. Windas Developmet. There
are over a hundred bodies there! Some dead, some not.”