“I’ve lost count of the faces”, he began. “Their frivolous lifestyles and meagre screams.”
“Please”, she mumbled behind the mask tape. “Please… I beg of you.”
Smoke filled the air from the cheap cigarette he held flimsily.
“A scream from you and I’d carefully bore more holes in your eardrum. Am I clear?”, he crouched down at the worn chair he tied her to.
“Yes! Yes!”, she nodded.
The thick ropes had dug deep into her skin laced with a chemical of stench that saturated the atmosphere.
“No one would find us here”, he said. “The smell protruding from this room could make a dog mad.”
“I’m sorry. I really am,” she gasped as the mask tape now laid on her laps. “I love you, Alan. I swear, I do.”
“No”, he sat on the floor close to her laps. “You don’t love me, Esther. I thought killing your father would make you seek my shoulder to cry on but instead the more I take from you, the more you forget to see…me.”
“Alan…”
“Shhh!”, he placed his hands on her soft injured lips. “That name is precious to those I’ve killed before you. They scream it better.”
“Please, I swear I won’t tell anyone anything. Father is already dead. It doesn’t matter now”, she cried.
“It does”, Alan got up reaching for the last cigarette that laid by the rusty window. “And beside I’m not worried about you telling anyone. You’ll be…..dead.”
Her countenance changed. Part of her wanted to bark insults at him but she immediately remembered her bruised arms and thighs. Was she raped while he drugged her?
“No!”, Alan puffed in the air. “At first, I thought rape was the only way to scar a girl like you for life but that’s an emotional move. You laid on the ground all cough-y and dizzy but you behaved while he did it.”
“Who?”, her pupils dilated in the sunrise that struggled to penetrate through the wooden window. “I swear Alan,…you will rot in jail.”
“I didn’t do it”, he strode towards her.
She refrained, her entire body relying on the hind legs of the old chair. It was no news that she preferred to fall backwards rather than let his lips anywhere near hers. But Alan laughed, gripping her forearm speedily.
“I swear, I didn’t”, his innocent eyes bore into hers. “He did.”
Esther tried her best not to look away from her captor yet a bit of her wandered to the dead boy who laid behind her. It was none other than her seventeen year old brother.
“Daniel”, she immediately fell backwards, a slight push from Alan. The chair smashed leaving her sturdy legs still loosely tied.
“Daniel…”, her second scream brought an overflow of tears as she crawled to where he laid. “Please, Daniel… talk to me.”
But there he stood, a man who plunged the boy’s back into an abundance of eight inch door nails.
“He won’t wake up dummy. I made sure of that”, Alan smirked.
“You murderer”, Esther got up to attack but her flesh squelched at an instant. She got too close to the knife that his left hand hid behind a funny black suit.
“Careful”, he said discarding the tail end of his cigarette. “I won’t advise you to pull it out just yet.”
Esther staggered back, two steps then a sudden collapse. Gaspings ensued followed by hands clutching her side. “Why…why would you ask a brother to rape his older sister?”
“Scars” he responded at once. “I never thought I would be ending your whole family with you. Looking at the endless list of my victims, I would say yours beared the most brunt. A troubled mother, a sick father, an older hardworking brother, then a Daniel and an Esther. It’s more or less like I felt pity for you darling.”
“What…what do you want?”, she started to whimper. “My house, my wealth. Why can’t you just kill me already?”
But the handsome man gleamed. Walking to a table at the far corner of the room, he pulls out a small notebook which had a bloody pen attached to it.
“I’ll just make a few notes”, he chuckled.
Esther’s eyes grew wide with fear. What was he planning to write? Her brother’s forced rape scenario? Did he just stab her and lose interest?
“You’re a monster, Alan. You’ll die a gruesome death.”
“Nah”, he stared at her for a minute then rolled back to his notes.
“Please… don’t do this. I can’t die here, I beg of you”, she began to sweat profusely.
“Nope, you will”, he shuts the notebook, shoving it into his back pocket. “And frankly, Esther, you are beginning to bore me.”
“My relatives would find me you demon, and when they do, you’ll be traced back to us”, she mourned. Her brother now laid besides her, his bloodshot eyes almost looking into hers.
“I’ve been called worse than a monster sweetheart”, he approached her again, his hands on the knife stuck in her stomach. “But I warned you never to call me Alan. You should scream it…, he pulled out the steel slowly.
Her body trembled as her hands grabbed and scratched his cheeks. He again stuck it in, just as a telephone rang behind him.
“Hello”, he mimicked Esther.
“Good evening ma’am”, the caller responded. “I just want you to know that Esther is perfectly safe and sound at the Graham’s manor.”
“What…”, Alan almost broke character.
“Hello”, the caller halted. “Ma’am… Ma’am Garcia, are you there?”
“Yes I am”, the killer turned to the stabbed girl with curiosity.
“Okay ma’am, but I’m afraid Daniel’s missing”, his voice wavered. “We’ve looked everywhere for him but his friends said he went back alone. Thanks anyway for all you’ve done for Esther. She needed to abstain from that psychopath, Alan.”
“Esther is alive?”, his accent suddenly came in play as the call discontinues.
A guffaw followed. He couldn’t stop beating himself with laughter.
“So you’re Garcia”, he reduced to snickers and chortles. “How could I be so stupid?”
The slow breathing girl managed to look up at him with a painful smirk of her own. She was already sweating profusely, her hands covered in her own blood.
“You…you warthog”, Alan gnashed his teeth but before he could approach her, the phone rang.
“Hello ma’am”, the previous caller screamed. “They said Daniel followed a man of Alan’s description. He picked him up at the park. Be careful Garcia. I’ve already informed the police of your location.”
“Oh really?”, Alan spoke with audacity. “I’m sorry whoever you are, but poor Garcia is already dead.”
“Hahahahahahaha”, the caller cackleds hysterically. “I urge you to run like your life depends on it, Alan Munroe. There’s a reason Garcia is Esther’s doppelganger, that college kid you see is from ex-Special Forces. Ten stabs, thirteen bullets, forty bodies. If it’s a knife you’ve got, she’s already had way worse. Hello……Hello……”
“Who…who are you?” Alan swiftly swings to his left, but she was no longer there.
“From a psychopath to another psychopath”, a knife briskly penetrates through his skull. “You are quite a learner.”
I, ALONE
19 Views
I, ALONE
