Flesh Factory: An Extreme Horror Novel (9 page)

As soon as the knife slid home, the grotesque worm-form disappeared and Rohan was himself once more with his wrists handcuffed to the headboard.

He gasped in shock, his head thrown back and his back arching.

“Oh shit, oh shit, I’m so sorry,” she gabbled. “But I had to, I’m sorry, I had to…”

“It’s okay,” Rohan whispered, “I told you, I was gonna do it anyway… fuck.”

He let out another gasp of pain and Hope reached up for his hand dangling from the cuff.

“I’m sorry.”

“I love you, Hope. I’ll always be with you…”

His eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled back. Hope’s tears splashed his face as he drew his final breath.

When she looked up, the shadows had gone.

The door swung inwards and Hope cradled her head in her hands, praying for forgiveness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hope opened her eyes to sunlight and she squinted at the sharp pain that stabbed her retinas. For a blissful moment she had no memory of any of it – and then it all came slamming home.

“Shit,” she groaned, struggling into a sitting position.

Her head span with this new turn of events. Why was she now in a bed; a proper double-bed with fresh sheets and luxurious, feather pillows? Like the bed, the room was pure luxury. Satiny walls and a huge bay window with opened curtains displayed a perfectly blue, winter sky.

Where am I?

On shaky legs, she went over to the window and leaned out. The icy air bit into her bare skin – a  sharp contrast to the heat coming off the radiator – and she glanced around for something to throw on. There was a fluffy dressing-gown on the back of the door, which she retrieved and wrapped around her shivering body. The door was locked, of course, no surprises there.

The view was spectacular, although the first thing she noticed was how high up she was – there was no way she would survive if she jumped. A neatly kept lawn the size of a football pitch was surrounded by woodlands that stretched all the way to the horizon with not another house in sight. The outside of the house in which she was trapped looked incredibly grand; the little she could see of it was all grey stone with gothic flourishes.

Where is this?

She knew she had to be in the same place. She was in Mick’s home, wherever the hell that was.

In a mansion in the middle of nowhere, is where I am.

Remembering what she had done yesterday, she cried out in mental anguish.

I killed Rohan, oh dear God, I killed him
.

Now that she was no longer in the moment, she realised that the ‘black shadows’ were no more than a figment of her imagination, a product of the bad trip she was on. She felt foolish. And scared.

It seemed so real…

But it hadn’t been, she knew that now. Rohan was no more a giant worm than those shadows had been demons. The unwanted memory of stabbing Rohan slammed into her mind. After that though, her memories were hazy. She remembered the door opening and the doctor coming into the room and sliding a needle into her arm – the same doctor that she had met earlier in the ‘wicker-basket’ room.

After that, nothing, just waking up in this room.

Why would Mick go to the trouble of putting me up in such a beautiful room?

She gazed around herself once more in disbelief. It was like the poshest hotel room she had ever been in. From the intricately carved stone roses on the high ceiling to the ornate, Victorian wardrobe and chest of drawers.

Fuck, it even has an ensuite
, she thought, noticing the second door that stood ajar next to the wardrobe for the first time.

She peered inside at the gorgeous bathroom, decked out in glistening white marble complete with a free standing, golden-footed bath-tub.

It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t smell and was clean. Her hair smelt like shampoo and was neatly combed. The thought that someone had actually washed her while she was unconscious was deeply unsettling.

Yeah, well, not as unsettling as me killing someone
…

Her stomach let out an almighty rumble, reminding her that she was absolutely starving and as thirsty as hell. Casting her gaze around, she spotted a tray next to the bed that was laden with food. She fell on it, picking up the glass of cold orange juice and pressing it to her lips.

She hesitated before drinking.

What if it’s drugged, I can’t be drugged again, oh God, I can’t
…

As much as she wanted to neck the orange-juice, she made her way over to the bathroom instead where she stuck her head under the tap and gulped down great mouthfuls of cold water, after which she sat on the toilet and relieved herself. On her way out, she caught her reflection in the mirror over the sink. For someone that had been through hell and back, she looked surprisingly well. Apart from the tenderness and slight bruising of her wind-pipe, she looked normal. Her luscious red hair shone with health and her skin was as white and rosy as ever. In a stupid way, she felt like her reflection was betraying her, that she was looking at someone else. Only the wild look in her eyes hinted that something was different.

Feeling distinctly unreal, she went back over to the tray of food.

She was in the process of stuffing down a buttered croissant when a voice suddenly spoke out:

“Slow down, you’ll give yourself indigestion.”

Hope screamed, which gave way to a violent coughing fit. When she had sufficiently recovered, she saw who it was who had spoken and her heart beat so hard and fast she feared she might drop dead of a heart-attack there and then.

“But I
killed
you,” she gasped.

“Didn’t do a very good job if it, did you? Hey, relax, I’m just kidding, I’m a ghost.”

“No, no, no, this can’t be happening,” she said, rocking on the bed with her knees drawn up under her chin. “I’m seeing things, you’re like a flashback to the LSD trip, or something.”

“Sorry darling, I’m real. Dead, but real. I said I’d always be with you, didn’t I? Well, I meant it. I’m here to guide you, to look after you.”

She stared at him, sick with dread. It was most definitely Rohan, complete with a gungy-looking stab wound above his right nipple. He was still naked, save his boxers, and was much paler than he had been when alive.

When alive? He’s dead, you idiot. This is just a throwback trip
…

“This isn’t real, you’re not real,” she repeated to herself, over and over.

“Hope, please, stop. I
am
real, you are not tripping again. You aren’t experiencing depression or some LSD induced psychosis. I am a ghost.”

Rohan, real or otherwise, didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. He remained sitting on the edge of the bed, the mattress indented with his weight. God, it really was like he was actually there…

“What do you want from me?” she asked helplessly.

“To help you. To
warn
you.”

“Warn me? Warn me of what? I don’t think my situation could get any worse, do you? I’m going to die, and that’s all there is to it.”

She spoke with more bravado than she felt. Rohan was obviously a figment of her imagination, of her
subconscious
. She figured she was being pretty stupid putting on a brave face for her subconscious.

“Maybe, maybe not. The good thing about being a ghost is that I’m invisible, apart from to you of course. I can drop in on any conversation I please. I’ve heard stuff that could well save your life.”

Hope wasn’t frightened any more, and regarded him with interest. This was a
different
kind of trip, not like those horrible black shadows, or like Rohan turning into a disgusting
worm
before her very eyes. He meant her no harm and he wanted to help, she could just tell. There was no malice in him whatsoever.

No malice in me, I mean. Because he is just a physical manifestation of my inner turmoil
…

“Go on, then,” she said to appease him. Or herself, whichever way she chose to look at it.

“Mick isn’t here with you right now because he’s busy putting together the final arrangements for the party. I suggest you use this time to rest and recuperate, you know, get your strength up.”

“A party? What do you mean, a party?”

“Mick has lost the plot, I mean he is seriously cuckoo.” He twiddled his forefinger around next to his forehead to demonstrate his point. “He thinks that if he kills enough people on a large enough scale, then Satan will appear before him and escort him to Hell so that they can rule the underworld together. But of course, that’s impossible. Lesser demons can cross the realm into our world, but not the Devil, that’s just silly.”

“Yeah, silly,” she repeated. “And you didn’t tell me what kind of
party
you’re talking about.”

“I’m serious, Hope, Mick is majorly fucked up. This party is going to be monstrous, all of London’s perverted elite are invited. You know, all the sickos that buy the girls and gals from The Factory, all the perverts with some serious money. Mick’s painted it as a fetish party to end all fetish parties, the type of bash were every perversion under the sun is catered to, like bestiality, scat, necrophilia, and extreme S and M. And worse,” he added darkly. “But what the guests don’t realise is that they too are on the menu.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mick thinks that if he sacrifices some of the sickest, most perverted, corrupt individuals on the planet along with the innocent, lost and the vulnerable, then his reward in Hell will be greater. Like I say, fucking crazy. All it will achieve is a few low-level demons haunting the house, and perhaps attaching themselves to a living person. If any survive, that is. But as for the Devil making an appearance, there’s no way. It’s like writing a fan-letter to some A-lister, expecting them to come round your house for dinner.”

He fell silent and Hope pondered what he had just said.

I probably overheard Mick say all of this when I was out of it. Perhaps when they were washing me, or putting me to bed, or anywhere really
.

“Rohan?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I killed you, and everything.”

“Yeah, I know you are.”

Of course he knows. Because he’s me
.

They regarded each other in silence for a moment. Rohan was the one to break it:

“I have to go now, Hope. Just remember what I said. Rest, get strong. Mick will be busy at the party, there’s no way he’ll be able to watch you all the time. I’ll find a way to help you, I promise.”

In the second that she rubbed her eyes, he was gone
. Rest. Good advice, I guess
. Picking up the half-eaten croissant, she chewed it slowly and methodically. When she was done eating everything on her tray, from the fresh fruit to the cold meats and cheese, she lay down and closed her eyes.

Rest and be strong
was her final thought before she drifted into an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of torture and demons.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine, it’s party time. I trust you slept well?”

The bedroom was suddenly plunged into light, hurting her eyes. When they had adjusted to the bright light from the chandelier above, she focussed groggily on Mick leaning over her.
How long have I been out?
was her first thought.

As disorientated as she was, she still felt refreshed after a long sleep. But now fear clung to her like a shroud and she scooted up in the bed, wrapping the dressing gown she still wore tightly around her body.

“Come on, up,” he said in a jovial manner. “The guests have arrived and we must join them. You are honoured to be collected in person.”

Her brain was slowly clicking into gear, assessing him. He was dressed in his customary suit, except this one was black, lending him the appearance of an undertaker. Knowing that it would be foolish to disobey him, she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Good girl. On your feet and take off the dressing gown. You may use the bathroom and drink from the tap before we go downstairs. I want you to feel your best before the festivities commence.”

Silently, Hope stood up and reluctantly shrugged off the gown, her skin crawling with his eyes upon her.

“Do as he says, Hope, we have to bide our time.”

She gasped and spun round, and there was Rohan standing there by the bathroom door in just his boxers with his arms crossed.

“What’s the matter?” Mick asked. “You’re looking at the bathroom like you’ve never seen one before. Come on, we haven’t got all night, go and piss. And brush your hair while you’re in there, too.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes darting nervously from Mick to Rohan, then back again. Rohan smirked as she brushed past him. He was solid to the touch, which surprised her.

“Don’t shut the door,” Mick barked as she began to pull the door to. “We have no secrets, do we, Hope?”

Hope looked at Rohan who still had that irritating smirk on his face. “No,” she said.

“Good. Now hurry up.”

Hope urinated naked under Mick’s watchful gaze, hating him in that moment with every ounce of her being. Resolve hardened in her heart; she was going to kill the bastard or die trying.

“Don’t keep him waiting,” Rohan said, sticking his head round the door as she was brushing her hair with a comb she had picked up next to the sink. “Don’t be dumb. Play along and do as you’re told. We’ll find our time, but it isn’t now.”

“Stop talking to me,” she hissed.

“What did you say?”

Shit, she hadn’t meant to speak aloud. She froze with the comb halfway down her waist-length hair. For some reason she didn’t want Mick to know that she was seeing the ghost of the man she had killed. That was… private.

“Nothing, just talking to myself.”

Mick chuckled softly. “Is little Hope losing her mind? Maybe you’ll find it at my party.”

Hope quickly finished up in the bathroom and entered the bedroom once more.

“Put this on.”

She looked dumbly at what Mick held in his outstretched hand, not understanding why he was giving her a regular-looking, dog collar and lead.

“It’s a BDSM leash,” Rohan piped up helpfully. “Doms and subs use it a lot on the club scene, it’s more for show than anything.”

“Do I have to crawl on all fours like a dog?” she asked Rohan.

“Yes,” said Mick and Rohan in unison.

“But not until we’re downstairs, at the party. The lead is more for show, than anything,” Mick said. “Just to let people know that you are mine.”

“See, told you so,” Rohan said smugly.

With trembling hands, Hope placed the black leather collar around her neck.

“Here, let me.” Mick did up the buckle at the nape of her neck like a lover fastening a necklace, gently lifting her red mane out of the way. “There. Beautiful. Come on, it’s time to go.”

Hope looked helplessly over at Rohan.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll be right there with you every step of the way, I promise.”

She threw him a ghost of a smile.

“What are you grinning at?”

Mick was regarding her in a mix of amusement and irritation.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, “just preparing myself.”

“I have something to prepare you. Open your mouth.”

As soon as she realised his intent, she shrivelled inside in horror. He had produced a little blue pill from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and was brandishing it under her nose between thumb and forefinger.

“No, please, not that. Anything but that.”

Her heart smashed against her ribcage at the mere
thought
of tripping again. Briefly, she thought about knocking it out his fingers, but good sense prevailed.

“Just do as he says, sweetheart,” Rohan whispered in her ear. She flinched when his cold, dead fingers wrapped around her upper arm. “I know it’s awful, but if you don’t, he’ll hurt you bad. And then you’ll still have to go the party all broken. Remember, I love you. I’m here to protect you, you won’t have a bad trip like last time.”

Hope’s eyes flitted from the pill to Mick’s stern face. Knowing she didn’t have a choice, she opened her mouth like an obedient dog.

“Good girl,” Mick said, popping it on top of her tongue. “Now swallow.”

Without another word they left the bedroom.

As soon as the bedroom door opened, music  drifted to her ears – Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf – It sounded deep and echoing, like she was one door away from a night-club in full swing.

“Walk,” Mick said, tugging on her lead.

This landing was small with just one other door opposite hers, the staircase before them narrow and winding to the left.

“We are at the top of the West Wing, this is where I throw my parties.”

“Yeah, you should see the size of the place” Rohan said from behind her. “it’s fucking monstrous.”

“Where are we?” she asked either Mick or Rohan, forgetting that Rohan wasn’t real.

“In my country estate in Kent,” Mick said proudly. “Fifty-five bedrooms in all, and not another house for miles.”

“He ain’t kidding,” Rohan chipped in. “You should see it from the outside, it looks like fucking Balmoral Castle.”

As they descended the stairs, the music grew louder. Marc Almond’s creepy voice rang out in the air around her;

…
luring disco dollys to a life of vice...Sex Dwaaarf
…

  She had always quite like Marc Almond. Not anymore.

At the end of the stairs was a heavy wooden door that looked like it would be more at home in a Medieval castle.

“You know what, Hope, I think Mick loves you, in his own, funny little way. You are his princess, locked away in the ivory tower.”

Mick pushed open the door and she was blasted by Marc Almond, singing loud and clear;

…
Walk my little doggie, walk my little Sex Dwarf
…

Mick gave her lead a tug and her head snapped back, her hands automatically flying up to stop him from strangling her.

“Touch that lead one more time and I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

She knew he wasn’t kidding – her neck was still tender from the last attempt. “And keep your head lowered, no eye-contact with the guests unless I say so.”

It took Hope a second or two to adjust to the loud music and lack of light. Her head spun with her new surroundings and a dizzying onslaught of vertigo.

Shit, this is massive
, was her first thought, swiftly followed by
Oh God, this is bad
.

She looked behind her for reassurance from Rohan, who smiled encouragingly. “It’s okay,” he said in a raised voice to be heard over the music, “it’s going to be fucking carnage, but we’ll find a way out. I won’t let you down sweetheart, I love you.”

“Now
this
is what I call a
party
,” Mick said.

Hope tried not to flinch when he cupped her arse-cheek, and made sure to keep her gaze lowered. Peeping through her eyelashes, she surveyed her surroundings. There was so much to see, so much to take in that giddiness threatened to overwhelm her. She fought to get it under control and to calmly assess her surroundings.

They were standing on an open landing that ran the length of all four walls. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, making her think of a nightmare she used to have where the hallway got longer the faster she ran. Except the faster she tried to run in the nightmare, the heavier her legs became. For a second she was in that nightmare, except it wasn’t an unseen assailant chasing her, it was Mick…

No, come on, snap of it
. The image was so vivid she was scared it would turn into a LSD induced trip.

“Relax,” Rohan said in her ear. “Don’t have a bad trip.”

The banister was waist height and she leaned against it, surveying the scene below.

And what a scene it was. The balcony-style landing was at least thirty feet from the ground, the area it overlooked roughly half the size of a football pitch. Directly below the balcony were stone arches that rose all the way to the landing. Beyond the arches that would have looked more at home in a cathedral were shadowy areas where bodies writhed in the gloom. Hope didn’t look beyond the arches for long, instead concentrating her attention on the vast open space. Something was
wrong
with those glimpses of those shadowy people and she suspected she would be forced to look at them soon enough.

At first glance, down below looked like a nightclub in full-swing. There had to be thousands of people down there and her head swam just looking at them all.

How many people? Two thousand? Three? More?

People danced and writhed in the middle of the room, strobe lighting flickering over the heaving mass of bodies. Surrounding the dance floor were table and chairs dotted around like a regular nightclub.

Only on closer inspection did the clientele look different from the average nightclub; there was a lot of leather, a lot of latex and a lot of flesh.

Hope was beginning to feel strange – she recognised the emotional and physical sense of slowing down, of sinking into another place.

Once the doors of perception have been opened in the mind, they can never be closed again
…

Who was it that said that?

Who cares?

“Walk,” Mick said, tugging on her leash.

The end of the section of hallway they walked down gave way to a wide, winding staircase. Hope was aware of curious eyes on them as they descended.

The host and his pet
…

Soft Cell gave way to different song, something darker with a heavier beat:

Murder cute, happy rape, murder cute, happy happy happy rape, killer
, sang the gravelly voice.

Marilyn Manson
? she wondered. Whoever it was, it sounded like they were singing through a mouthful of broken glass. The music was that much louder down here, its aggression adding to her growing sense of disconnection from her own body and thoughts.

At the foot of the stairs, two men stood sentry. Both wore white t-shirts and blue jeans, just like they did at The Factory. As she passed, she stared at one of them. He looked familiar; heavily muscled, bald-headed, grim-faced. He ignored her and stared dead-ahead, doing his job.

“They’re carrying weapons,” Rohan said in right ear. “Look over at the entrance, there’s two more of Mick’s gorillas there too. There’s twenty of them in all. And when the time comes…” He finished the sentence by theatrically running his forefinger across his neck.

A coldness settled over her, despite the heat of the room. She wanted to ask him what he meant, but she didn’t want Mick to hear. Although she knew perfectly well what he was getting at.

Mass slaughter. A mass offering to the Devil…

Mick led her further into the room. Bodies brushed up against her as the crowd thickened and she shuddered in disgust. The people seemed to fall into one of two categories – abuser or abused.

There was some nasty shit going on in this room. She knew nothing of the BDSM scene, but she guessed that this was an extreme version of it. Most folk appeared to be ‘paired up’, like her and Mick. A lot of the coupling was male-female with the man in the role of abuser, although there was some same-sex abuse to be seen too. A man passed her dressed in an ordinary shirt and jeans with a younger man in tow who was completely covered in pins. Hope blinked, unable to stop herself from staring at the human porcupine. With his bald head, he looked like ‘Pinhead’ from Hellraiser, except the pins extended over every inch of the boy’s naked body. They even stuck out of his penis and scrotum. She gasped in disgust when his ‘master’ reached down and fondled the boy’s cock before removing a pin from his pubic region and sliding it all the way into his urinary meatus.  The boy shuddered and gasped, whether in ecstasy or agony, she didn’t know.