A Life To Waste (11 page)

“Ow! Shit! Mother fucker! that
hurt!” he cursed

Then thought to himself “There
has
to be a way in, to be a way in, there
has
to
be”

He prowled around the front of
the factory once more. There were three large sliding metal doors.
But they had pad locks on them, big industrial pad locks, he wasn’t
getting through them without bolt cutters. He knew there was only
one way in, it was the only way he hoped he wouldn’t have to go
through. He had to go through the door that big foot had entered
earlier.

His thoughts returned to all the
different ways that the giant freak was going to kill him. He was
going to open the door and that bastard was going to be waiting on
the other side with a shot gun. He would blow his brains all over
the wall. No, he would open the door and be impaled with a big
spear. No it would be an axe to the head. No, he had to stop these
thoughts again, he had to be brave, he had to go and save his
mum.

His legs were trembling as he
shuffled toward the rusty metal door. His hand shaking as he
reached out for the handle. He turned the handle, it was unlocked.
The door creaked as he opened it, he flinched with every movement,
each creak seemed like it was as loud as fireworks in the silent
dark night.

“Shhh, shut up shut up shut up”
his thoughts racing once again.

After a second, but what seemed
to be a lifetime of these creaks, the door was open. There was no
one there, thank god. He crouched down, hurried through the door
and ducked into a dark corner directly ahead of him. The place was
lit, but only just. All the lights seemed to be a kind of dull
orange colour. The colour a light bulb goes just before it’s about
to blow. This wasn’t the case with these bulbs, they were just
covered so much that the dirt and dust on them had effectively
masked the light.

Dave was faced with two doors,
one at the end of the corridor and one to the left. Either side of
the door to the left where large windows, overlooking what Dave had
assumed would be the factory shop floor. He needed to see what that
stuff he had seen from outside was. He needed to see what it was
that had been squirming on the factory floor. He had to check the
killer wasn’t there before he went storming in. He crawled to the
window and lifted his head just enough so his eyes were peeking
through the bottom of the window. He still couldn’t see properly.
He lifted himself more almost to a standing position. No, it was
too dark, that guy couldn’t be in there, if he was, he couldn’t see
anyway and Dave would be able to sneak passed in the shadows,
hopefully.

“Shit, this is crazy, I’m gonna
die.” He thought.

He shimmied over until he was
directly in from of the door to the shop floor. He opened it.

“holy shit what is that
smell!”

Dave gagged.

Chapter 19

Dave covered his mouth and nose
with his hand in an attempt to mask the awful smell. It didn’t
work, the smell was too strong. He imagined it crawling through his
fingers and creeping into his nostrils. It was the most disgusting
thing he’d smelt in his life. He didn’t know exactly what a rotting
corpse smelled like, but if he had to guess, it would smell like
this.

He made his way down the metal
staircase leading to the shop floor. He flinched with each step,
even trying as he was to be quiet, it still rattled when his foot
touched the next step. The staircase ended at the far left corner
of the room. When Dave reached the bottom he turned and started to
walk to the centre of the room.

“Oh my god!” he shuddered.

Now that Dave was on the shop
floor he could see the things that had been squirming on the floor.
The covered almost the whole factory shop floor, from wall to wall.
He didn’t know exactly how many there were but he knew
what
they were. They were people.

“Jesus, how many are there?” He
asked himself.

“How long have they been
here?”

Dave stomach turned at the site
of these people. He couldn’t see them all, it was too dark, but
when he crouched down he could see the ones nearest to him clearly.
The first person he looked at was missing an eye, he couldn’t tell
whether it was a man or woman, the face was too messed up. The
bottom lip looked like it at been ripped from the face, the teeth
left bare only one or two left hanging in. Embedded into a jaw that
looked dislocated. Dave put the back of his hand close to the
mutilated mouth. There was no air coming out, this person wasn’t
breathing.

“Poor bastard got tortured.” He
thought.

He could see that this persons
leg was facing the wrong way, the hip must have been broken or
dislocated. There was a huge lump on the bottom of the leg. Dave
leaned over to see what it was.

“Oh fuck! Oh holy shit”

It was an arm. The hand had been
severed but Dave could clearly see that there was an arm attached
to this other persons leg. It had been sewn on or something. His
eyes followed the arm along past the elbow leading to the shoulder,
the arm was still attached to its owner. The face that had been
half sewn onto the other arm did not belong.

Dave leaned over and puked. He
couldn’t hold back anymore. The sight was too horrific. What type
of sick human being could do something like this? This was worse
than the things you see on horror films, he didn’t in his wildest
dreams imagine anyone could do this to people.

Dave walked slowly along the
floor, having to step over various limbs and torsos. The bodies
were spread all the way across to the other side, each one was sewn
onto the next. Making one huge patchwork of skin and different body
parts.

The further along Dave walked he
noticed that the bodies had not started to waste away to the extent
the ones at the other end of the room had. Perhaps the ones closest
to the stairs had been there for the longest. This freak must have
just added bodies onto his sick work of art as and when they came
in. Almost like a production like.

“mum” he thought.

If his “production line” theory
was correct, that meant his mum would most likely be at the far end
of the factory, and hopefully not in as bad a state as the earlier
victims.

Dave started to rush toward the
end of the factory, careful as he was going trying not to fall over
into to any of the mutilated patchwork victims.

“help me” he heard a whisper

Dave stopped.

“hel....help....me” he heard
again.

When Dave looked down he could
see that the people surrounding him now had definitely not been
there for as long as the ones he’d seen prior. There was more
colour to their skin, their clothes didn’t look quite as bad, their
blood seemed more, fresh.

Dave turned away and puked
again.

“help....please”

He looked down, he could see
movement, not from just one person but from quite a few. He could
see a face, it’s lips moving.

“help me”

He couldn’t see exactly where
the body was though, there were four or five bodies moving.
Obviously
one
of them belonged to this person, but it had
been sewn to the others. So when it moved, they all moved.

“It’s ok” Dave said in a whisper
“I’m here to help you”

“Help....me”

“yes I’m here to help you, how
long have you been here?”

“please.”

“do you know if there are
anymore alive?”

“help”

“have you seen a woman come in,
in the last few weeks”

“me”

Dave began to get frustrated,
this person’s mind had left them already, they were completely
oblivious to what Dave was saying. They were left with nothing but
their survival instinct. To ask for help.

“please help me” the face
attached to multiple bodies said again.

“I promise you, I’m going to
try.....but”

The lights turned on.

Chapter 20

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

It was the whistling again. The
freak was coming! Dave needed to find a place to hide and fast. His
eyes shot in every direction, there were plenty of things he could
hide behind. Machinery, old unused PVC doors, a big furnace or kiln
looking thing. He couldn’t get to any of these things fast enough
though, the door at the top of the stairs opened. Dave dropped to
the floor.

Keeping himself as still as
possible, he used just his feet to push him into the human
patchwork quilt. He tucked his chin to his chest so his head was
pressed against the floor and then push his body forwards, further
and further. Until eventually he was covered by the bodies. To
anyone looking from the outside they would not notice him, he was
underneath parts of five different bodies, all sewn together to
camouflage him.

“you’re....in.....for....a.....big.....surprise”

The whistling was getting
louder. Dave could hear the footsteps of the maniac. He was coming
down the stairs.

“if....you.....go.....down”

He had reached the bottom of the
stairs.

“to.....the.....woods”

He was coming close, Dave could
hear the steps and the whistling getting louder and louder the
closer he got.

“today......you’d”

Dave lay as still as the corpses
he was surrounded by. He knew now that this mad man was stood right
next to him.

“Can he see me?” Dave
thought.

He held his breath and kept his
chin tucked right into his chest, trying his best not to make a
sound, trying his best not to move. He braced himself, waiting for
the freak to strike. He knew any minute now that this freak was
going to grab him and drag him out from underneath the quilt of
bodies he’d been covered by.

“better.....go.....in.....disguise”

It was moving away, the
whistling was moving! Dave had gone unnoticed.

“thank god” he thought.

He let out a breath, as slow and
as quietly as he could. He wanted desperately to turn around so he
could see where bigfoot was. He knew that the freak had continued
down the factory but he couldn’t see what he was doing or where he
was. The anticipation was killing him.

“for.....every.....bear.....that.....ever.....there....was”

Dave heard a strange noise, it
was metal, sliding against something. Like the noise they make on
martial arts films when the samurai removes his sword from its
sheath.

“oh shit he’s got a knife now”
Dave thought “he did see me, he just went to get a weapon, now he’s
gonna come back and get me.”

Dave’s heart starting racing,
the fear was consuming him. This freak was going to come and kill
him now and he was just going to lie there and wait for it to
happen.

“this is it, this is how I’m
going to die, hiding under a pile of dead bodies.”

“No no no no, please, please
NOOOOO!!” a woman screamed.

Dave breathed a sigh of relief.
His immediate thought following this was that he was a horrible
person, feeling relieved to know that the freak had gone to get a
woman instead. He couldn’t help it though, he had been given
another chance and he was happy, he wasn’t ready to die.

“would....gather.....there.....for.....certain”

The freak continued to whistle
as he was dragging this poor woman away.

“NOOOOO! HELP!” She
screamed.

The screaming was followed by a
loud thud, which was followed by silence.

Dave waited a moment.

“because.....today’s”

The whistling was back.

“the.....day.....the.....teddy.....bears.....have.....their.....picnic.”

Dave continued to lie still,
listening to the whistling pass him and continue up the stairs. He
heard the door shut. The lights were turned off again. Dave
shuffled and slid his way out from under his hiding spot beneath
the bodies. He stayed sat for a moment and leaned against the wall.
He took deep exaggerated breaths in and out like he had been
deprived of oxygen for the past ten minutes. Eventually he regained
his composure. From his sitting position he turned and looked to
the door at the top of the stairs.

“That other door in the
corridor” he said to himself “that’s where he’s taken that woman,
that must be the place he takes his victims to torture them.”

This thought shook Dave’s
stomach again. He quickly stood up, remembering what is was he had
been sat next to on the floor.

“I’ve got to figure out a way to
stop him.”

Dave marched towards the rear
end of the factory, he was getting to the more “fresh meat” of the
production line now. Not all of these bodies were hacked up and
sewn back together yet. Some of these had just been tied up. Some
were conscious, some were not. All looked to be in a world of their
own. They had gone somewhere in their mind to escape this hell they
had found themselves in.

Dave scanned over these “fresh”
victims. He still couldn’t see his mum. He didn’t have time to go
through each and every one of them.

“I’ve got to stop him” He said
again.

“I’ve got to stop him before he
hurts another person, before he gets to
mum”
His voice broke
as he began to cry.