The Chopping Man

Moonlight shone down on the small bandit village below, illuminating the dark with dull white silhouettes of buildings and houses perched above a hilltop like ghosts. He watched, amusement flickering in his eyes. Little lights from candles fluttered and swayed inside the windows. His face, rugged and worn from survival, was as dark as the world had become. His eyes, shallow and tired, reflected the toll of living alone in a world that had changed so much in a year. Yellowstone erupted, and from what he gathered, something else too. The government never came to the rescue.

He studied the village for a while and realized they picked and chose who they ate and who they turned. He found it quite unique. It was entertaining, too.

Movement.

He eyed a figure in the dark, walking around with a cigarette. Each puff lit up his face for all the world to see. The man wore a dark grey field hand coat and a green beanie. The smell of the cigarette hit him as he lay on the hill a hundred meters away. He decided that this would be his first victim.

The bandit menace was real in this world. And he was going to kill them all.

Slowly, he stood, walking down the hill with purpose. He didn’t know what time it was, nor how long he’d been watching them, but he knew it was late—judging by the waxing moon. Clutching his foot-and-a-half machete, his midnight blue coveralls blending into the night, he placed his leather mask, the one from the first bandit he killed, over his face. It slipped on easily, and he adjusted it so it always appeared to be smiling.

He didn’t try to hide his noise or sneak. He wanted to appear as one of them.

The bandit stumbled, swearing as he appeared to be drunk. He looked up at the masked figure and waved a hand.

“Did… hick… you…Get some pussy?” he slurred, his face lighting up from the cigarette.

Coming closer, the masked man pulled up his machete. The drunk man stumbled in shock and tried to turn, but the machete came down, tearing into the side of his face. He felt the satisfying thud, like hitting a bat against a baseball. Bone gave way, and the jaw was severed.

The bandit yelped and fell to the ground, blood spurting from his wound. He instantly clutched at it, staring at his attacker, only seeing a dark silhouette in the moonlit sky. His shaking hands gripped his cigarette, which fell as the figure moved, then landed with a wet smack. He tried to scream, but only gurgled, looking at his hand—still holding the cigarette—but could see nothing in the dark.

Another wet smack. He hurled, falling to the ground and clutching his neck with his free hand. Blood poured everywhere. With another wet smack, his hands fell away, leaving nothing but bloody nubs to fend off the attacker. The figure moved again, and the man’s head rolled away from his body.

Opening his mouth in a wide-eyed scream, he saw the figure look at him in the moonlight. His face was ruined, deteriorating.

No… he thought, before everything faded to silence.

Looking at the head on the ground, the masked man reached down, taking the beanie off the dead man’s head and lifting the head by its hair. He studied it for a moment, then played with his machete, cutting into the lips to create a frown.

He went to a nearby house and placed the head on the front steps.

Going underneath a clothesline, he stepped over a fallen pile of chopped wood and continued into the village, searching for more bandits to kill. He saw two people sitting on the side of a street, smoking and laughing. He smelled booze and cigarette smoke wafting toward him. Deciding on a quieter approach, he circled the houses, positioning himself behind them.

He stood there silently in the shadows, only his disfigured mask visible if they walked close enough.

One of them got up, laughing.

“Fucking piss break time,” he slurred, stumbling over the curb but righting himself with his hands.

The other man laughed. “Fucken watch your step, shithead.” He took a drink of beer and looked away.

The first man staggered toward the bush and unzipped his pants.

“Man, my dick still smells like battery acid. That fucking female was wild,” he muttered.

The other man made pig-like noises and laughed at his own joke.

As the man relieved himself, he sighed, his eyes closed. When he opened them, he thought he saw movement. Blinking, he scanned behind the bush. He felt a sharp pain in his knees and fell forward, only to be grabbed by someone.

Panicking, he kicked out and tried to scream, but a blade sliced across his mouth, parting the meat and causing blood to pour from the wound.

Turning with the machete, he looked at the man sitting on the ground. The man, hearing the commotion, froze in fear as he stared at the figure.

“Mark?” he called out, his voice trembling.

The pissing man wet himself, and the masked figure walked toward the other man, who was now consumed by terror. Lifting his machete, the man bolted.

Not being one for running himself, the masked man threw his machete with force. It spun violently through the air and bit into the man’s upper arm. He screamed and stumbled.

That wasn’t good.

Walking toward the man, he kicked him hard in the stomach with his steel-toed work boots. Air exploded from the man’s lungs as he rolled, clutching his right upper arm in pain.

Bending down, the masked man grabbed his machete and advanced on the rolling man. He hacked off the man’s foot and slammed the blade down onto his knees, repeatedly trying to stop him from moving. The man screamed in agony, blood spraying in mist from severed arteries.

The masked man worked his blade upward, cutting into the man’s body. As he began chewing at the man’s intestines, the man stopped moving.

He reached out a hand, and the masked man cut it off with a swift slice.

“No!” The man’s voice was weak and fearful.

The killer continued chopping until the man lay there, covered in blood and guts. The scent of feces filled the air, and the masked figure’s disgust deepened.

“Have some decency,” he muttered, though the man couldn’t hear him. His words were unintelligible because of the mask. The man had lashed out at him, holding up one final, desperate effort for survival. The masked man chopped into his arm, then aimed for the neck. It took five swings with the dull blade to sever the head, and he carved a frown into the man’s mouth.

Satisfied, he heard doors opening and people shouting in the village.

Dropping his head, he walked away into the darkness, down the street to where the man had been by the bushes. He couldn’t find him. Hearing a groan, he checked around the corner of a nearby house and saw him crawling.

The man was struggling with his hands. The masked figure cut into his thighs and legs before turning the man’s face to carve a smile into his mouth. The man flailed his arms, but they were quickly sliced off.

Finishing the work, he left the man where he lay—still alive, but barely.

A light came on inside one of the houses, and someone looked out the window. The light illuminated him briefly, but he left quickly, walking at a steady pace.

As he made his way up the hill, people below were screaming and shouting. Turning back, he looked over the village and nodded, satisfied. Three fewer bandits, and he wagered they wouldn’t be raiding at night anymore. The most important thing, though, was that his family was safer. Straightening his hat, he headed back home.