Chapter 3: Elektra

Chapter 3

Elektra

Drip.

Drip. Drip.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

That is the only sound I can make out. I'm scared to open my eyes. The constant sound of dripping water. One. Two. Three. Two. One. When I finally force my eyes open, it is dark. Not pitch black, but dark enough. There are a few oil lamp illuminating the corners of the room.

A new sound enters the arena.

The sound of footsteps. I examine the room. Linda is facing me. Blood runs down her chin and she seems to be pleading with me. The b*****d who got me must have got to them too. Oh god no. He hurt them. Linda didn't deserve to get hurt; the problem is, I don't think that is all that is going to happen to her today.

Why are we here?

S**t.

Think Elektra. Think. What would he want? Food? Pleasure? S**t, I don't like this one bit.

I look to Dave next; he is drifting in and out. I can just make out the dislocated jaw and the broken cheekbone. His face is painted by bruises. Max has a broken nose but he is so out of it. I can just hope he is unaware of this. That he will face this with the same drug fuelled haze he faces everything else with.

I tilt my head up. I can see him. The dickhead who jumped me in the shop. He has dirty blonde hair, covering his eyes. He has stubble which ages him. He must be in his late twenties, early thirties. His hand is stiff because, when he pushes his hair out of his eyes, he doesn't move his fingers. He pushes his hair back with the palm of his hand. Oh god. Oh s**t.

“Ah, the little girl who didn't try to fight back wakes up first. Well you did but, you kick like a girl. Bet you're glad you knocked yourself out before I had chance to mess your face up. Then again, I wouldn't want to destroy your pretty little face would I? Plus, I've had my fun another way,” he says, touching my thigh. What did he do to me? I look over to Jason. He's still out cold. The dickhead moves his hand from my thigh and takes out a pen knife. I can't move. He's bound me to the chair. He puts the blade to my cheek and puts a little pressure against it. I turn my face to the side. I can feel the blood begin to drip down the open wound on my face. He grabs a hold of my face and whips it around to face him.

“Look at me because soon, I will be the last sight you ever see. You have very pretty eyes, has anyone ever told you that. Green, luck of the Irish. I could keep them in a jar. It would be shame to destroy them considering the obvious national symbolism,” he pushes my head forward, towards him. His breath smells stale and like death itself. It's vile.

“What do you want? We have supplies. Why are you doing this?” I remark while struggling against my bindings. He stares intensely as if he is analysing me. Like a vulture analysing its prey. Before a child rips the legs off of a spider.
“Whereas that b***h over there, she's got eyes the colour of s**t. Not green or blue, like that boy over there, but s****y brown. Why would I want that, hm? So what can I take from her? My memento?”
He walks over to Linda and tilts her head to face the light. She has her eyes open and fixed on a particular spot on the wall. She's a tough b***h. I hope that's enough.
“Awake are you now, dear? It took you long enough,” he states with a sneer. It takes Linda a moment to respond.
“Go to hell, you c**t,” she spits out at him. This sets him off; he steps back as if to over dramatise his offence. He places his hand over his mouth and falls to his knees. Silence fills the air for a moment until he begins to hum. The hum becomes a physical song. I don't really recognise it. I think it's called 'I can't Decide'. Fitting. He starts to do some half arsed dad dancing. You know, the whole robot who needs to be oiled. As he reaches the chorus, he goes up to Linda and sticks the knife into her right eye. She lets out a blood curdling scream and he takes the blade out of the eye. He continues to take the blade out and impale the eye to the apparent beat. She continues to scream for the first four times but on the fifth, she stops and hangs her head. I can see some form liquid pour out of the now empty eye socket.

I try to disguise my scream. He then moves onto Dave. Dave has only just woken up but is screaming as well. The b*****d continues onto his next chorus and takes his blade and open his mouth. He then proceeds to hack away at Dave's tongue. I try to turn my head away but I can't; my neck feels stiff. I feel paralysed with fear. I can hear the blood gurgling in the back of his throat. I can hear the man make the final cut and pull the tongue away. He then begins to whistle 'Bad Day' and holds the tongue up and then...he sniffs and licks it. He then drops it. What the f**k is he doing? Taking senses away? No. F**k. F**k. F**k. He moves over to the still unconscious Max and starts carving into his face.

He starts by cutting into Max's forehead, from left to right. It looks like he is hacking at the tender flesh of the forehead, or five-head in Max's case. There has to be a way out. If I can change my centre of mass to topple the chair over, maybe I'll stand more of a chance. I have no sodding chance. How the hell do I get us out of here? My attention is drawn back to Max being butchered. He is now cutting the cheeks and pulling at them. He's taking the skin off of Max's face. S**t, I have to get out of here. Thank god Max is still out. Ignorant like he was ninety nine percent of the time. 
I spoke too soon. He begins to stir. No, Max stay out. Jus...Just slip away, please. But no. Just as the unknown pulls all of the skin away from Max's face, he wakes up and begins to scream. An agonising scream that doesn't seem right, coming out of his mouth. Oh god, I'm going to vomit. I'm going to vomit. All that's left of Max's calm facial features is the skeletal foundation beneath. Blood covers the bone. The muscles has been removed with the skin. Why couldn't you stay out Max? What the hell does this f****r want?

He then goes along slitting all of their throats, as if attacking a canvas with a paintbrush. He's going to go for Jason next. I don't have much time. I have no time left. So, this is it huh? Well, s**t.
“Isn't there something so...orgasmic about that blood?” he walks over to Jason and slaps him, “yes, Sleeping Beauty. Wakey wakey.”
He walks behind me. This isn't real. It can't be. A few moments pass. He then grabs hold of my shoulders and that finishes me. The contents of my bladder have been released. Oh god, I just pissed myself. F**k dignity. He bends down until his mouth is level with my ear.

“Are you enjoying this yet? You're going to watch all of your group die and then I'm going to kill you,” he walks over to Jason, ”Now, what do we do with Mr Hero over there. Do we stab him in the neck? Watch the waterfall of blood spray out? Or do we do something more creative? Do we take his eye and shove it down his throat? I actually like that idea,” he smiles and looks at me. I could swear his eyes appear red with the blood of my group.

He grabs Jason's head and begins singing 'I can't decide' again. Jason tries to bite him but he flicks his hand, hitting Jason in the mouth.
“Who the hell are you?” I scream at him. I can save us, somehow. I couldn't save the other three but I can negotiate.
He walks back over to me and smiles. He rips my hand out of the gag and examines it. I am sure he has broken my wrist. He then takes his knife and carves my skin. I try and mask my scream, resulting a slight whimper. When he's finished, he places my hand on my lap and wipes away the excess blood. . I look down. There is a word. His name. Connall.

He then goes back to Jason. Connall is watching me for my reaction. Why would he do this to people he has never met before? He's sick. He must be. I have to save Jason. Connall places his thumb and index finger on the eye socket. He looks like a child ripping the wings from a butterfly. He begins to apply more pressure and Jason begins to squirm. He's still disorientated but he can feel the pressure on his eye.
Connall continues to increase the pressure, his teeth clenched. Jason begins to start screaming. I can see Connall begins to use his nails, scratching at the eye and piercing the retina. He's blinding him. I have to do something. I force all of my strength into tipping myself over. I finally get the chair to tip and I land on my side. He notices. Jason hangs his head. Connall has Jason's eye in his hand. Oh god. He has his knife. I flip onto my front. As he swipes at me, it releases the rope that binds my hands. I free my legs and rise to my feet. He begins to slash at me, ridiculing me. I take a hold of the chair and break the leg. I have a weapon. A s****y weapon granted but a weapon all the same. He walks over to a desk in the corner and picks up a meat cleaver. I walk over and bring the plank down on his head. It knocks him to the floor and I walk over to Jason, trying to break the rope that binds him to the chair. I don't have long. My hands are sweaty. I undo his hands but he seems like a dead-weight. Losing an eye will do that. He's passed out again. This is the worst possible time for him to lose consciousness.

Connall rises to his feet and swiftly runs over to me, running at me with his meat cleaver. I try and defend myself, ducking and diving. If I can draw him away then Jason may regain consciousness. I can only limp but Connall kicks my legs causing me to fall to the floor. I try and crawl because my leg is screwed. He kneels on top of me, winding me. I can't move. He's too strong.
“Oh f**k no. This is what you get for trying to piss me off,” he whispers with a maniacal smile upon his face. He pushes my right hand to the side and places the cleaver against my wrist. Oh god no. No.

He rises the cleaver and brings it down on my hand. The pain spreads through my hand and I let out a scream. I look at my hand. Blood is flowing from it like a river. It hasn't been completely severed and it's then that he bring the weapon down again. My hand has gone. I can't breathe. The pain is...more than pain. More like intense agony. My hand still feels like it's there.
I look up, trying not to focus on the stump where my hand used to be. Connall then moves one of his hands to my jeans' zipper. He begins to pull the zip down. I don't even try to fight back. I am going into shock.
That's when someone hits him over the head. His eyes roll back into his head and he collapses on me. I roll him off. Jason.
He has his hand covering his eye and a look of pure hatred in the remaining one.
“Ow, f**k! F**k! F**k!” he screams as he turns his back on me. I never thought I'd hear him swear.

I rise to my knees and try to stand. I am moving my fingers but they aren't there. Just a phantom recall. I know that now because I can see my hand, my severed hand, in a pool of blood. Oh Jesus. I just need to focus on getting out of here and then I can freak out. What the hell am I supposed to do? What are we supposed to do? Jason and me are alone now. We have lost our entire group in the most brutal ways possible and we have nowhere to go. Unless we keep to the plan Linda suggested. Go to the continent. Find other survivors. After today, I don't want to fraternise with any others. What the hell am I supposed to do with one hand? Without my dominant hand? I am well and truly fucked. Jason has lost half of his vision; aren't we the perfect pair? Between us, we make a perfect pair of conjoined twins.

I need to cauterise my stump. We need to stop the bleed in Jason's eye socket. We can't afford infection or a high rate of blood loss. We're not out of the woods yet by any means. We walk out the door and the fresh air flows through me. I can't breathe properly but I need an oven or a kettle. Impulse is what is going to keep me alive for the moment. I have so much adrenaline pulsing through my veins but once the hormone levels are depleted, it is going to kill me. Jason bends down, the blood seeping through his fingers. Thick, warm blood. He's going to die of blood loss or shock. Just like me.

There appears to be an abandoned office building in front of us. If it was an office building should there not be a kitchen or a canteen or something. Wait, no. That's a stupid idea. There would be no gas to create the fire. I need a spirit burner and a piece of metal. A needle and thread, maybe. S**t, my arm hurts. There's a rucksack, a few metres away from us. It's Max's. He probably dropped or Connall did. I walk as fast as I can, a considerably fast limp. I open the rucksack. Bloody hell. How did he get a hold of all these things? He never went on supply runs, to my knowledge, but he has a methylated spirit burner, five boxes of ibuprofen, six boxes of quinapril, two amitriptyline and three pots of Viagra. Where he got all of this stuff...I guess we'll never know which is the worst part. Jason isn't coping well; he must have gone into some form of shock. We aren't going to last.

I take out a pocket lighter that resides at the bottom of the rucksack and set fire to the burner. I need to find some form of iron bar which shouldn't be too difficult considering the geographic situation currently. I walk over to Jason, who is trying to catch his breath but he is breathing too fast. He is hyperventilating. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright? Here, breathe into the paper bag,” I take out the paper bag that contained the medication, “it's alright. Just stay calm, somehow.” Jason looks up at me and takes the bag. He begins to breathe in and out while I place my hand on his back, massaging it in the hope to relax him further. He begins to adopt a somewhat normal breathing pattern. I bend down so I am at eye level with him. He turns his hand, placing the hand over his eye again.

“No, I need to look at the eye. See how much damage has been done and then we need to do something about that bleed. Infection and blood loss. Let me have a look. You show me your eye, I'll show you my stump,” I try to laugh and diffuse the situation but Jason seems unimpressed. To be honest, I wouldn't want to see my stump either. Or have my eyeless socket poked and prodded. “Fine, just...don't hurt me too much, please. I know what a sadist you are,” he says while trying to force his facial muscles into a smile, or something like it, but the pain forces him to stop. “Shut up,” I slap him on the shoulder, trying to suppress a laugh. He moves his hand away from his eye. I try and stop my gag reflex but it is a mess, I'm being honest. There are cut blood vessels and the last remnants of the retina. Even if I had any medical skill, there is no hope for reinserting the eye. He removed the eye like he was using a melon baller. It may be safest to disinfect the eye and get something to keep the eye closed, like an eye patch if we can find something like that. Ha, it would be like travelling around with Pirate Pete the third.

“Just keep the eye closed and take your hand away because that could cause an infection. We need to get some TCP and an eye patch, sound okay?”

“That sounds like it will kill but okay. I always wanted to be a pirate when I was younger, didn't exactly plan on becoming one this way.”

“Stop complaining. At least you'll be a sexy pirate. You get an eye patch, I get nothing but a stump. Come on, I have lost my dominant hand, you have another eye you big baby.”

I walk to one of the office windows and smash it. I slide onto the office floor and walk to a toolbox that has been stuck onto the far right desk. There is a crowbar and a hack saw. The crowbar I need but the hacksaw may come in useful at some point. I take both and leave the facility. I stick the end of the bar into the flame until I can feel and see the heat radiating and the end in the flame turning red. I drop the bar. It's not going to work. Without a moment's hesitation I place my stump into the flame. Holy s**t! This is agony. Why the hell did I do it?I can smell my flesh burning. I force myself backwards. I can feel the blood blisters forming on my skin. At least it won't bleed. Chance of infection is still there but I can't die of blood loss for the foreseeable future.

My vision becomes clouded as the pain intensifies in my stump. I try walking forward but I feel so dizzy. My bad leg suddenly gives way. I finally let the darkness consume me, just to not feel the pain for a few seconds or minutes.

When I wake up, everything seems different. I am no longer outside the building. My backpack has been tossed to the side of the room. My bottle of TCP is resting on the top of it. Jason must have dragged me back to the shop. It doesn't feel...right being here. The last time we were here, Max and Linda and Dave were still with us. They were formulating a plan, so convinced they had a future. Did they know that today was their last day? Did they know that they were about to be brutally murdered? Did they know that the coast was nothing more than another dream never to come to fruition?

Of course they didn't. How could they know? When people are marked for death, in my experience, they have this constant expression of perpetual sadness or grief. They know that they are going to die and there is nothing they can do to alter their path. None of them had that expression. Linda still had a glint of determination in her eye, as she always did, and Max...well, Max just looked stoned but that is far beyond the point. You can never know when your last day is; you just have to make everyone count because, you never know when a homicidal maniac will peel your face off like the peel from a banana.

“Finally, you are awake. Are you okay? I put some ointment on the burn; it isn't going to stop the pain indefinitely but it should ease it. I have everything packed up; are you up to it?” Jason says breathlessly. He is flitting between rucksacks, packing everything we own.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I murmur as I sit up, “just give me a minute. Wait, up for what?” I groggily inquire. What is he talking about? 'Am I up to what?' that is the real question. The man always loves to play the pronoun or ambiguity game.

“Leaving. This place. Now. It's either now or never. We have no reason to stay here anymore; no reason to bide our time. They wanted to make it and now that they're...they're gone, don't we owe it to them to give ourselves the best chance of survival? We have to take this chance,” he looks over at the window, “and as soon as possible.”

He's right. Our best chance is moving on. But we can't ignore the fact that we are in no state to be travelling. Jason looks like he's dead on his feet and, I can't look much better. We're both tired and in pain; we can't do this now. But we can't stay. Ah! We can't win.

“Okay. Okay; when do you want to head out?” I ask.

“Well, everything is packed. Ten minutes suit you?” he asks, his eye flicking between the window and me. I nod my head. I guess we have to at least try this.

“Jason-” I stop myself before I finish.

“What?”

“Nothing...just, how are you? You can't be feeling too hot with the eye. Are you sure you're okay to be travelling that distance?”

“Yes. Don't get me wrong, my eye is killing me. But, I guess we don't have a choice, do we?” he says, suppressing a laugh, “Oh wait, I nearly forgot.”

He takes a black piece of material out of his front pocket. He puts it over his head. It's an eye patch; how did he find an eye patch? He adjusts the patch so it covers what remains of his eyeball.

“What do you think? Am I looking as sexy as I feel?” he jokes, adjusting the strap. It looks like a bit of rope attached to a piece of black plastic.

“Oh even sexier Blackbeard; even sexier. Ha,” I move to touch the patch, “where did you find it?” I ask as I examine the patch. The plastic feels smooth but there are ridges. The string feels frayed.

“I made it. I may have destroyed a bin and stolen a Riser's shoelace. Probably not the most hygienic move but it works, doesn't it?” he strikes a seductive pose, which makes me burst out in laughter.

Today has been the worst day yet. We lost our entire group but here we are. Alive. Laughing. Most importantly, we have the chance to make it.

Can't exactly complain.

Oh wait...yes I can.

Author's Note

What do you think?

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A lot of action and struggle in the chapter. The chapter was intense and wild. I like the threat and the positive ending. You create wild visions with the good description. I like how you make each scene come alive. Thank you for sharing the excellent chapter.
Coyote