Death Row Apocalypse (15 page)

From the outside she became a limbless body, alive, foaming at the mouth, and with eyes that would be dead forever. Hers would be the first body to be found, and from here on it only got worse.

Outside in the late-afternoon sun, the naked form of Jenny was hung by ropes between two trees. Armless and legless, she hung there as the two men prepared the camcorder for the final recording and also readied the cords that were attached to the rubber bands which stopped her blood from evacuating her body.

The cameraman behind the lens nodded to the hooded man, whereupon he pulled hard on the cords and released the four bands from Jenny’s upper arms and legs. The cord and bands hit the grass together as the first signs of crimson life spurted from Jenny’s shredded stumps. Within a few moments her stumps turned from a deathly gray to ruby red as her heart pumped blood down the torn blood vessels. From all four of her stumps, blood rained down from her carcass, spilling on to the emerald grass far below her. Hot blood pooled quickly below her and gradually soaked into the soil, leaving behind a dark shadow that would for years to come leave the grass a little greener than the surrounding area. Steam rose from the hot fluid, and Jenny faded from this world.

Having been released from an unimaginable terror, she returned to sanity at the instant of death, allowing her mind to freely experience passing into oblivion. The setting sun burnt into her retinas as the final spark of life left her destroyed body. Wherever she went now, she took with her a glorious sight.

For her there was no pain; she simply lost her sanity and her life. The high-definition video of the complete process of her body being ripped apart by chain saw was released onto YouTube. It was then accessed by millions before it was finally removed a full twenty-four hours later. Young and curious minds would be forever damaged and haunted by the thirty-minute video. Their innocence had been raped from their pure and inquisitive minds.

Jenny’s neatly laid-out corpse was discovered on the front lawn of her home the following morning, naked, with each of her body parts arranged carefully, creating a twisted, macabre puzzle of sorts. The boy delivering newspapers that morning stood gripping a newspaper between two hands while his gaze was fixed to the assortment of body pieces in front of him. His screaming woke the entire neighborhood and did not cease even when a little later he had been sedated and taken to hospital.

Already twelve girls had gone missing, four of which from the sleepy town of Middleburg. The mainstream television channels, network TV, newspaper reporters—and the list goes on—were all present. The highest concentration of station satellite trucks were parked nose to tail outside Wilkinson Junior High School, where reporters would ejaculate from the trucks when any student or teacher breached the school boundary. The school day would start as any other, with the bright-yellow buses heading for the elementary school only a hundred yards or so away. The hustle of mothers dropping off their young was more efficient than the WWII belly-laden bombers releasing their loads over Germany in 1944.

It was quickly approaching the final week in April, and already the body count had risen to twelve. The missing would usually turn up the following day, having been butchered in some sick and twisted way. The school buses were virtually empty, which explained why there were so many drop-offs by mothers and fathers on their way to work. With so many reporters and TV trucks lining the roads around the small town of Middleburg, one could be forgiven for comparing them to a coronary disease that had somehow been scaled up a thousand times.

The townsfolk tried to ignore the press, but it became impossible to do so, as on an almost-daily basis the number of abducted girls increased, resulting in a daily media frenzy.

Parents flooded the school grounds in the late afternoon, arriving early to ensure that their children did not come to harm when the afternoon bell rang. And so it came to pass that one family, one mother in particular, would be left standing in the middle of Co Road, screaming her daughter’s name long after the bell had rang and all the other children and families had departed.

“Leeesaaa! . . . Leeesaaaa!” the mother called.

Cars slowed and passed the distraught woman without hitting horns or complaining. Their drivers’ hearts broke for her, but they did not want to stick around too long, in case some awful fate would befall them as well.

The sheriff was already en route to the school but was too late to prevent the media from swooping in and surrounding the grieving woman. Her daughter was missing, probably gone forever, and they hounded her in true paparazzi style, shoving microphones, recorders, and camera lenses into her face with not even an ounce of sympathy or empathy for the woman whose universe was collapsing around her. It became all too much. She collapsed to the ground, slamming her head down on the road’s hard surface. She bled freely as she lay there unconscious and was still the focus of more than thirty cameras.

A little earlier . . .

Finally!
Lisa thought to herself as the school bell rang.

Packing up her notepad, pens, and homework, she made for the classroom exit and had left the room before Mrs. Cohan, her English teacher, had a chance to object. Seconds later Lisa dumped her books in her locker and then shortly after was outside the school, keeping her head down to avoid being recognized by any of her mother’s friends. It had been almost six hours since her last cigarette, and she was feeling the nicotine withdrawal badly. She detested the addiction but loved the sensations the chemicals brought as they hit her brain, she especially liked the soon-to-occur high that she would experience with the first deep inhalations.

Fumbling in her jacket pockets for the cigarette pack and matches, she quickly skirted around the back of the TV trucks, thereby avoiding the crowding parents as they waited for their kids to leave the building. Lisa checked her six and thanked God out loud for the sanctuary that the trucks offered as she lit up, inhaling on the cigarette deeply. She loved the tangy taste of phosphor that was unique to lighting up using matches.

The buzz from the first nicotine hit caused her to lose balance and stagger a little, forcing her to lean on a white paneled TV truck. Lisa smiled as she blew out the gray-blue smoke. She flicked the match away and honestly thought that life could not get any better. And for her, she was absolutely right.

As she took in another deep lungful of smoke, the cigarette tip burnt a bright red and expanded its tiny destruction of tobacco and paper by almost half an inch. She checked her watch, figuring that she had about ten more minutes before her mother was due to collect her.
Perfect!
she thought. Just enough time for a second cigarette if she lit up a fresh one now.

She dropped the half-consumed stick to the ground and twisted her foot on it, putting an end to its short life, and lit a second. Even though there was only a minor buzz this time, she still relished every molecule of the poisonous gases entering her lungs and, seconds later, the wash of fuzzy over her mind.

Without warning, the world shifted to the side as she felt the paneled door behind her slide to the side, causing her to fall backwards into the truck’s interior. Several powerful hands grabbed her from behind and yanked her into the dark van before she could even gasp. The powerful hands were connected to immensely strong arms that almost crushed her in their viselike hold. Another hand was placed over her mouth and nose with what she thought was a slightly damp tissue. “Ew!” she tried to say as the pungent odor swamped her senses. The last thought she took from this world to the living nightmare waiting for her was simply,
Yuk, that’s sweet!

The pain in her chest and stomach woke her from her chemical sleep. A headache the likes of which she had never experienced before now pounded away behind her eyes as she tried to open them. Blinding light from a hundred-watt bulb flooded her vision as she eventually managed to raise her lids, adding to the discomfort of the headache. The bulb hung dead center above her head, naked in what appeared to be a windowless room—perhaps a basement or cellar, she thought. Lisa tried to move but found to her horror that she was tied down to a table with plastic tie-wraps at her wrists and ankles. They were the kind of ties the police now used instead of handcuffs, but were really intended for the DIY enthusiast or electrician.

It was at that exact moment several things were noticed by Lisa, launching her into a world of fear, pain and panic. She was cold because she was naked.

The source of the pain came from two rows of shoelace-thick black cord stitching. Each stitch of the cord was buried deep into her skin and was overlapped by the next stitch, creating a crisscross pattern half an inch wide. The pattern extended from the base of her throat and ran down between her breasts, across her navel, and reached all the way down to her pubic bone. A second parallel row of crisscross stitching mirrored the first, extending identically in every way, and spaced exactly one inch from the former. Ten chrome ringlets were evenly spaced along the parallel tracks, five on each side, with each ring tied intricately within the crisscross weave. In addition to this there were another six chrome ringlets. Three rings had been anchored deep into her chest, running vertically either side of her chest bone. Blood trickled freely from each stitch and each ringlet and was kept company by sharp pain as she drew in every breath.

Lisa tried to scream as her mind attempted to make sense of the impossible vision before her eyes, but no sound came. The gag successfully kept Lisa mute and added to her panic. In desperation she struggled against the restraints that anchored her in place. Raising her body on her elbows, she put all her strength and weight into the effort and was rewarded with nothing more than bruising her wrists and ankles, and allowing her vision to take in the room in all its gore. She froze as her mind tried to shape and bring meaning to what her eyes focused on. Her brain quickly and correctly identified a large can in a corner with dismembered arms and legs hanging over the sides. Blood covered the room from floor to ceiling, which was adorned further still with pieces of flesh. Her heart sank, and with her mind teetering on the edge of sanity, the realization of where she was became all too real.

In the silence of the room, she cried a muted cry. Hot tears flowed in rivers as she sank into despair. Alone, naked, and cold, and more helpless than an infant, she lay there on the cold table, knowing without question that she was the next girl to disappear; to be hacked apart while alive, then delivered to her distraught mother in a few plastic carrier bags was the only future before her. She would die in this place and didn’t—couldn’t—understand the reason why. Her life had resulted in a total sum value of zero.

A door behind her opened, and she heard someone approach. Lisa tried to turn her head to look at her kidnapper but faced instead a damp cloth. She tried to scream. Panic, fear, and an ultimate knowledge that it was all over for her now were too much to take. She lost control and involuntarily relaxed, flooding the table with urine before succumbing to a chemical slumber for a final time.

Sheer and utter agony pierced her mind and racked her body, dragging Lisa’s consciousness into the evening sun. Beyond the pain and agony that threatened her conscious mind, she felt the warmth of the sun’s rays hit her body for one last time. As Lisa opened her eyes, she saw that she was far above a rich emerald grass, and she wondered briefly how the grass could be so vibrant. She was supported by half-inch black nylon rope, attached to ankles and wrists and pulled tight so that she was spread-eagled. Attached to the six ringlets that were anchored to her ribs and ten ringlets embedded within the stitches were another set of ropes, which hung loose and led first to the trees either side of her and then down to the ground. Below her and in front were two large men, one of which held a camera, while the other held on to a set of ropes that ran from him to Lisa but first to the trees either side of her. Lisa was no longer gagged, but the pain was so intense that she could barely breathe, let alone cry out in any way. She wanted this to be over, and she willed herself to simply die, but her body refused to comply.

Lisa’s final voluntary motion was to raise her head to the setting sun one last time before she passed from this world, but as she did so, the man that held the ropes pulled with all his weight and strength combined. Her skin stretched as it was pulled from either side, and rivers of blood started to pour from her open wounds. Years working out in a gym with massive weights had increased his body mass and strength to almost superhuman proportions. Even so, the man strained for all he was worth, until his head looked like a ripe zit ready to pop.

The skin running the full length of Lisa’s torso was stretched so far that it simply tore, at first only by a little, but then like a zipper being drawn. The tear separated the two sets of parallel stitches, opening her up like a torn shopping bag.

The chrome ringlets were anchored behind and around her immediate ribs, so that when, with the power he exerted, her ribs were pulled outwards and to the sides, they snapped away from the central breastbone.

The simultaneous “unzipping” of Lisa, along with cracking her chest wide open, resulted in a horror spectacle that none could have imagined. Everything within Lisa’s torso emptied out in one go. Ripping away from her body, her internal organs hung suspended, until the falling mass of intestines picked up enough inertia to pull the remainder of her innards out of her now-deceased carcass. The
thwak
and
splat
of her internals were caught on camera, along with all the previous preparations and especially the footage of her being “unzipped.” All of which would appear on YouTube the next morning. Needless to say, death came mercifully quickly to Lisa.