Burn, Baby, Burn by Michael Seale (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2

The Second

He laid her out on the cold, hard concrete floor. Her arms bounced lifeless on the grey slab. Tiny pieces of the red brick wall glittered on her left cheek and forehead. The florescent lights above were blinding white after the time in the dark alley. Her smashed nose lay against her cheek; the blood had coagulated, leaving a brownish red smear across her face. Her black-rimmed glasses gone. He should go back and find them, he thought. Her left eye swollen shut, tears of blood had dried in river beds across her face. Once her teeth were perfectly straight now, chipped and broken. The face had become his new masterpiece. A work of art, he thought. 

She had deserved this; he told himself, just as the others had. She was dirty, like his mother. The other had seen to that. He had defiled her. And now he was here to clean her, to take her to the light. 

The old man looked on. He sat quietly in the corner, a silent partner to this horrendous ordeal. 

The man caressed her hair with tenderness and care, matted with blood. She had once been beautiful; he thought. But now she was his, his to cleanse, beauty or not, it did not matter, what mattered was bringing her to the light. To save her from herself, from the filth that imbedded itself in her.   

His work began. The long steel scissors made quick work of her shirt, her skin milky white underneath. Her body shuddered, life returning to her. Good, he thought, she is still alive. Her breasts moved up and down with every weak breath. He slid the scissors under her black bra, the cold steel snug against her skin. She winced and moaned. Perfect, now she was waking, he thought. The scissors cut through the cheap fraying fabric, exposing her nearly perfectly formed breasts. They lay against her chest. As he stared at them with lust, he got hard. He reared back, recoiling as if something hit him. 

"No!" he yelled at her, getting a hold of himself again. Clenching his fist and hitting her across the face. 

"I won't, you stupid slut." he hit her again. The back of head bounced like a ball off the concrete. Dark red blood smudged the floor. Her nose lay nearly flat on her face. 

The old man finally spoke and looked away. "You don't have to do this." he said.

"Shut up." the man heaved.

"It's not too late, yet. She is still breathing." The old man said.

"I said shut up." the man replied.

The old man was quiet, he didn’t move from his spot, as if frozen with fear. The other man wouldn’t look at him. 

He pulled down her skirt, exposing her underwear. If you could call it that, he thought, there was almost nothing there. 

"You are a slut." he whispered almost giddily to the unconscious woman, his once uncontrollable rage now gone. 

He tugged off her panties carefully and slowly, as if he wanted his rage to come bounding back. A small bit of pubic hair showed. His anger gaining again, uncontrolled he might take her life, without bringing her to the light first. He thought of the other desecrating her, tainting her. It filled him with raging sadness, calming his own lust. 

He rolled her onto her stomach; she was nothing more than a used rag doll now. Her alabaster ass, nearly perfectly formed, he thought. The skin was white, young and plump. He understood why the other had done her; she looked so much like her. They all did. The other didn’t know. He couldn’t remember what she had looked like before father had cleansed her. But this one was close to perfect, younger of course, than what their mother had been. His hand slid over her smooth skin. His breath slowed.

"Please, stop." the old man begged. "You don’t have to do this."

"I have too. You know I do."

“It is not your fault, I’ve told you so many times, this is not the way.”

He tired of the old man, he could watch again. Let him. It was no bother to him. He could do nothing, he had no power here. He was a mere mirage, an annoyance to ignore. 

The man tied the rope around her ankles, a simple knot. With the other end, he used the pulley that hung from the ceiling to hoist her up. She was heavier than he had expected. But then again, he hadn't bled her out yet. That's what was next. The chrome plated drain on the floor was perfect. Her life giving blood, washed away, down the drain. This thought always made him sad. Something so important, so easily lost. A simple splash of water and poof, gone without a trace, mixed with the dredge and slime of the sewers below. Not that it worried him. Even if they found her, they couldn’t find him, he was sure. No one knew where he hid, not even the other, when he wasn't hunting the defiled ones. 

Her naked body swung in the air. She coughed and choked on her own blood. He knew it would be impossible for her to breathe now that her nose was nothing more than a smear on her face. She looked more like the deer he used to hunt, less like a woman, he thought. 

The old man stared in horror again, his sobs loud and lamenting. 

"I cannot watch this. We will take the light back and we will stop you," 

“You have said that many times before, but every time, I return, they cower in fear. They hide, afraid to face me, afraid to admit I protected them all. I protected you.” The old man left without saying another word.

He was alone to do his work and work it was, however much he enjoyed it. He picked up his knife. Its blade shone under the lights. It was long and thin, razor sharp. He thought about doing it quick, but she had tried to seduce him. This polluted woman had tried to seduce him. He had to punish her. But first he had to wake her.

The hulking man crouched down in front of her, admiring her breasts that hung directly in front of his face. Pinching her cheeks as hard as he could, she whimpered in pain. His knife deftly slid next down her jawline to her cheek and ear, slicing it off. She screamed and coughed blood. 

This is good, he thought. He admired his small trophy, turning it in his hand, tossing the ear into a bucket. Her body convulsed. Making her breasts bounce again. The man giggled like a small boy again. 

His knife moved in a flash, slashing at her left nipple, shearing it off. A scream almost escaped her lips, but the collection of blood and teeth that had accumulated in her mouth muffled it. The blade dove into her skin over and over. Not deep, never deep, just the tip. Just so she could feel the pain. For the pain leads to the light. 

He was enjoying himself, laughing. This was the fun part, the part that he enjoyed and waited for. He knew that he shouldn't put so many holes in her; it only made the work that came after harder. He had to prep her, now. 

With the blade pressed against her throat, he made a deep transverse cut across her throat, severing the blood vessels, the tracheae, the jugular and the Carotid artery. She bled out in seconds. Her life flowing out of her and down into the sewers. His blue eyes filled with sadness at the sight.  

His next incision was at the base of the chest and he cut up her abdomen towards the pubic area. He reached his arm in and began removing all the organs that he could. Throwing them into the bucket with the ear he cut off before. Her insides were still warm to the touch. The smell of wet iron filled the room. It was much like field dressing a deer; he remembered. Next, he would slide his knife around the circumference of her ankle, just under the skin. Then a long cut skin deep down the front of both of legs meeting up to the original cut to form a Y shape. 

He grasped the skin from the first cut and began pulling the skin backward, revealing the hip. It separated easily, but every once in a while, he had to use his knife to cut it away from the muscle. The skinning was easy over almost before it had begun. The man worked slowly around the many holes he had poked into her. He took the meat away from the bone, as much as he could, set it all aside. He had a plan for that, the bones as well. The band saw stood next to the hanging body. The work was quick, but intense. A sheen of sweat formed on his brow. 

It really was more or less the same as when he had butchered the deer he had shot as a teenager, his uncle showing him exactly how to bleed it out, field dress it and skin it. Then later they butchered it together. Much like he is doing now. 

The band saw sang with its blade, a loud whining with every cut. Fragments of bone and meat littered the grey floor and the white walls. He would get to it later, he thought. Throwing the small bones, he cut into a bright red butcher’s container. Wondering why they had colored them red, maybe because of the blood or meat was red. But for now, the white bones glowed in the red container. Butchers were a world of their own, he thought. How could anyone do that? Slaughtering helpless animals, it was almost enough to make someone go vegetarian, almost.  

The black ashes smoldered in the oven. Just enough heat to bring the fire back to life quickly. The fire never really burned out, it just got replenished. Filling the bricked space with as much wood as he could. It needed to be blazing hot, to be as hot as he could get it without cracking the brick. He stoked and stoked the fire. He needed it to get rid of the parts he couldn't use. 

Picking up the bucket with the ear, he trudged back up the stairs to the oven. It baked. The heat radiated a few feet away from the oven; it was ready. He sweat right away, the skin on his arms was instantly red. The smell of burning wood filled his nose. He loved that smell, to him that was a freeing smell. 

Her head lay on the top of the bucket. Her broken mouth and smashed nose stared up at him. He tossed it into the fire, pushing it back into the white ash. The hair instantly ignited. The skin crackled and charred. Soon to disappear. The skin, the flesh would burn away and the only thing that would remain would be the beautiful white bone. 

"Burn, baby, burn." He said out loud. 

The rest also strewn into the fire. Not too much at once. He didn't want the fire to die. It was hard work, burning the insides of a defiled, dirty slut whore. 

The bones sat in the red butcher's crate. He knew tomorrow the other would roast them, the flesh as well. He had put them both into the fridge. Now it was time for him to hide again. He could wait; he knew there would be another one. The other always brought him another one. It was how it was. There was always a next one.

There was one last thing left to do before he left. He used the long poker to retrieve it. It was black, covered in ash, soot and crusted burnt flesh. The empty eye sockets stared at him. There was a crack along the jaw and the front teeth broken and missing. He held the still hot skull in his hands.