Chapter 1
“Shit...”
The woman uttered under her breath, walking through the streets at midnight. Normally, her course of action at those hours was to drive in her vehicle— but what was the use? And even if she could find her keys, she was beyond intoxicated by the time she stumbled out the motel room— of all locations she was escorted to. A real charming gentleman, all things considered. Yet, she couldn’t hang around with clientele; just another means to collect cash.
Her legs were bare below the hem of her skirt, exposed to the brittle chill of a breeze nearing to wintertime. Her heels constantly clicked onto the walkway, loud enough to potentially draw the attention of unfamiliar company. Any passing cars were sparse; she was wandering in between an empty town and the middle of nowhere.
“Fuck no...”
The path became obscured by darkness. No sign could be present; only the foliage of silhouetted tree branches towering above the young woman. No reception, either. Save for the crickets, it was dead silent. Dead end.
“Can’t see anything in the fucking dark, fuck me...”
The woman was engulfed in darkness, the night sky was growing colder. Buildings were more than scarce at that point. The woman couldn’t feel a thing in her body; the booze from earlier was practically numbing her.
“Oh God, I’m not gonna make it home, am I?”
She stood, barely holding her head up. She momentarily thought about everything; how she resorted to working at gentlemen clubs to now winding up nowhere. Symbolic, really.
Suddenly, the woman faintly heard something that sounded like tires crushing the asphalt. She looked the other way, and there was a dim light swelling in brightness the further it approached. The driver seemed to be driving quicker than eighty kilometres per hour— before she knew it, the driver stopped right next to her before she could even prepare herself to enter the passenger seat.
“Thank you,” she said to the hooded man.
The driver appeared to be muttering, but nothing could be heard.
The woman glanced at the man behind the wheel as he proceeded to drive. She could vaguely identify his face, other than his blond stubble surrounding his lower face. She looked away, an uncomfortable feeling seeping into her body, hearing the shuffling and crumpling of black rubbish bags behind her in the backseat.
The driver steered to the exit, prompting the woman to question him, on edge,
“Hey, where are we going?”
No response.
Gulping, the woman jerked her head over her shoulder. The rubbish bags looked comically jagged, but somehow with no sign of tearing apart. No odours, either. But as soon as the driver came to a screeching halt, one of the bags tumbled off the backseat. She could’ve sworn she just heard a sharp snapping sound upon that bag landing. The sound of bones crushing was unmistakable; while no blood could seep through the bags, there was a trickling noise. Blood…
Terrified, she immediately unbuckled herself from the passenger seat and attempted to escape, but the door was locked.
“Lemme out, you sick fuck!”
She then sensed a pinch in her shoulder, tranquillised by a small syringe. Her eyes turned blurry, her words slurring even further than when she was just drunk. Her pushing and shoving ceased, her limbs splayed like she was nailed to a crucifix. The woman was unconscious.
The man continued to slowly park his car in the backyard of his house, reversing onto the open field of grass. He began to shut his car, making his exit without hesitation. Many of the neighbouring houses were either vacant or asleep, yet it didn’t stop them in their tracks from filing complaints about the stench accumulating in his house whenever he departed. The woman he captured— as far as he could tell, was his final meal. He just wanted to savour her flesh.
Quite convenient for him that the woman unfastened her seatbelt, he could feel his stomach growling; anymore physical labour into carrying the girl inside and he’d be forced to take a second hunt by the time he devoured her. While the man hoisted the woman’s unconscious body onto his arms, he peered one last time at an apartment, bordered by his wooden fence. Lights were flashing at that time around, but not from the second storey like usually. Given the proximity of the apartment, the beaming lights could just begin to penetrate the bushes situated on the man’s lawn.
Hurriedly, the man entered through the back door of his home— just like the front windows, the boards were tightly pinned together behind the frames. Inside of his home, there were pots and pans littered on the stovetops, all of which containing contaminated liquids and decaying flesh, cooked from three weeks ago. Flies were buzzing above his kitchen, incubating their maggots inside of the previously stewed body parts. Larvae would fester in the stainless steel pots, especially when his three-day-old chilli was on the counter just waiting to be reheated. All of his meat cleavers laid in a kitchen sink, corroded and splattered with clotted blood and mucus; one of them had a cluster of bone attached to the blade.
Upon shutting the back door with his right heel, both arms occupied by the woman’s sedated body, the man wandered away from the orchestra of flies and deposited her into an empty bathtub. In stark contrast to the kitchen, his bathroom was in pristine condition; even the white, porcelain tiles glimmered with his reflection. Not a tiny speck of human matter could be seen. Just his weathered face and hands, readying to scrutinise his new catch. Upon lowering the woman into the bathtub, he tilted her onto her side, revealing a tattoo etched in her rib. Whether she was a young adult or a teen didn’t matter to the man, he needed to remove all impurities for his fresh rack of ribs; he’d much rather the meat undercooked than tasting like motor oil from the tattoo.
He proceeded to reach for a bundle containing anaesthesia tissues and small scalpels from behind the mirror frame. It was only a matter of time before that woman woke up from sedation; he had to hurry up and put his dinner on the plate. Widening the hole at the top of his bundle with the cord attached, his melanated hand cautiously plunged inside of the fabric; a Russian roulette commencing as his thick fingers sifted through the miniature blades and the soft tissues.
