One Eye On The Darkness

Chapter Five

The Stick Man smiled as she screamed. His sense of schadenfreude plummeted untold depths. His delight was suffering, to watch it, to inflict it. She had been so naive to imagine that he sought some fleeting act of satisfaction with her. He sneered inwardly at the thought. That would make him no better than an animal. His motives were far more sophisticated. He desired dissolution not consummation.

"Please," she wept, trembling like the last leaf on a storm whipped tree as she hung from the pipe to which her wrists were bound. She opened her mouth to repeat her plea but it was choked by a heavy sob.

He said nothing. Just watched her, unblinking. And smiled again.

She was his salvation, his penance for the mistake of Club Charlotte. That girl had surprised him more than he had anticipated. He had badly misjudged her reaction and failed his vocation. He had hurriedly sought to make an offering of sorts, but it had been less than efficacious. But now, here, he had been provided with the lamb in the thicket. His lord had surely provided. And now the acceptable sacrifice could be made by way of atonement.

He turned, his head brushing the single naked lightbulb that lit up the cellar in a pale and sickly yellow glow. But it was enough for him to see his instruments by.

But what to choose. What would be most pleasing to his master? He tilted his head as if he had heard an answer and then selected a simple hacksaw. He nodded appreciatively. The more prolonged the offering, the greater the pleasure.

Brandishing the tool, he turned. The girl's eyes widened in horror as her captor slowly approached and stooped to grab one of her feet. She kicked desperately, evading his grasp for a few seconds, but merely delaying the inevitable.

He gripped both her ankles in the crook of his arm like a vice and the girl's breathing became faster, panicked.

"No!" she managed to scream hoarsely as he applied the edge of the blade to one of her toes. "Please, no, no, no!"

But The Stick Man just smiled again and set to work.