TORTURED: A Novel of Psychological Horror

  ***WARNING***

  The following book contains scenes and descriptions which some people may find upsetting. Please be aware this is an extreme novel intended for a mature audience.

  ***

  Copyright©2014 by Matt Shaw

  Matt Shaw Publications

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters in this book are purely fictitious.

  Any likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  TORTURED

  M A T T S H A W

  CHAPTER ONE

  I opened my scrapbook up. Pages filled with photographs taken of the different stages of the sessions with my victims - not forgetting the ‘before’ picture, a photograph of them before I’ve laid a finger on them. I like the before and after pictures. I like to see the state they end up in. Makes me smile. When I start my sessions I usually start with the fingernails. A pair of pliers gripped firmly to the end of them - if you pull hard enough they usually rip out with relative ease, but with much pain and blood. Better yet, tug upwards when you pull and take skin off too. Of course, the person screams. They all do. The screams fill my heart with a healthy satisfaction as I drop the nails, one by one, onto the concrete floor of the cellar. They can scream as much as they want, no one is coming. No one ever comes. I stand back with a smile on my face and watch the person’s reaction. Their eyes are wide with fear and their mouth opens as wide as it can go as the scream continues to echo around the room. I like how wide their eyes go. I like that they don’t close them. They keep focused on what is happening to them. And just to make sure they remain so - the eyelids are next. Pliers are swapped for scissors.

  * * * * *

  As the sun slowly started to rise in the morning sky, the car backed into the driveway so the boot was facing the garage. Less distance to carry the bags from car to house that way. Ryan shut the engine off and ran his hand through his dark hair before undoing his seat belt and stretching his back. A satisfying click from his spine.

  “You okay?” asked his wife, Dee. She wasn’t even looking at him. She was resting her head against the top of her seat belt - a makeshift pillow on which to doze whilst Ryan did the driving. She turned to him. Her blue eyes looked red from tiredness and her blonde hair, a mess from where she’d rested her head.

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said as he yawned.

  “Was trying.” She caught his yawn and mirrored it.

  “See some people don’t have much difficulty,” he looked in the rear-view mirror to where his daughters were sleeping. Jen (the youngest at ten years old and with her mother’s looks and colourings) was sitting behind Dee with her mouth wide open. A small bit of dribble on her chin. “Shame the phone’s not charged. Could have taken a picture,” Ryan laughed.

  Dee turned to see her daughters. “Don’t be cruel. Besides you’ll be wishing they were still asleep in an hour or two.” She looked across to Claire - the oldest at seventeen years. Unlike the blonde hair shared by her sister and mother, Claire was dark like her father. Her eyes too. Neither parent knew where the light freckles on her cheeks came from.

  “That’s a point. Maybe we could leave them be? I’m pretty tired but I still reckon we could christen the new bedroom.” Ryan winked at Dee who just laughed. “It seems morning glory is…”

  “Are we there yet?” a small voice piped up from the back of the car. Jen. Ryan looked at her again via the rear-view mirror. She was rubbing her eyes, helping to clear her foggy vision.

  “Damn,” Ryan muttered.

  Dee smacked him on the leg, “Stop it!” She paused, “Yes we are, honey.” She turned in her seat to see her youngest daughter. She smiled at her, “You ready to see your new bedroom?” she asked.

  Jen didn’t say anything. She just smiled at her mother. It wasn’t a real smile though. It was a smile, which simply said ‘if I must’. Claire, who was slowly starting to stir, had the same feelings as her sister. Neither of them had wanted to move from their home. More importantly, neither of them had wanted to move from their schools and their friends. The prospect of making new friends in a new school, as put forward by their mother when their father explained they had to move home, didn’t fill them with confidence. Nor did it answer their questions as to why they had to move in the first place. Both of them liked it there. The reasons why they moved weren’t divulged to the children. Not the real reasons at least. That was strictly between mother and father. After all - no child wants to hear their family is broke. Ryan and Dee knew that if they hadn’t moved, then it would only be a matter of time before they were bankrupt and they’d have lost their house anyway. Not that their finances were spiralling through any fault of their own. Ryan had taken a pay cut in his job at the bank (it was that or redundancy and he hadn’t fancied that) and Dee’s school-teaching job never had paid her a great deal of money. Dee’s low income and Ryan’s sudden pay cut meant that they were soon living beyond their means.

  “What do you think?” Ryan asked Claire. He was referring to the house. The girls had seen pictures of the property but neither had seen it in the flesh (so to speak). The decision of where they should live had been taken away from them. Even Dee didn’t have much say as to where they went. This was all down to Ryan - not that she didn’t trust him to make the right choice for them. Besides which, he’d said the move was temporary. He promised they’d soon be back to the standards they were used to, and back in another home.

  “It’s small.” Claire said. She undid her belt and climbed from the car before anyone could say anything to her. She slammed the car door shut.

  Ryan nervously turned to Dee, “What about you?” he asked. “What do you think?”

  “We’ll make it our home,” she gave him a reassuring smile and followed her daughter from the car. Once Jen had followed her mother, Ryan was sitting in the car alone.

  “It’s not that bad,” he muttered to himself. And it wasn’t that bad either. Certainly the best of what was available to them in the price range afforded. He climbed from the car.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I carried on reminiscing as I flicked through the pages. Sometimes they’d pass out whilst I worked on them. My specimens. It frustrated me to begin with, but I soon learnt to control my lack of patience. In the end, I think of it as a blessing - when their heads drop forward and they lose consciousness. It means the whole experience lasts longer. I don’t work on them whilst they’re out cold. I’d miss their screams too much. I’d miss the smell of fear coming from their bodies. So I wait. As long as it takes. And then - when they’re awake - I take things slowly. Perhaps start with the toes. The big toe to be more precise. Snap it first. The satisfying crack of bone splintering and the feeling of it of happening in my hands. A simple but effective procedure; you take the large toe in your left hand and grip the rest of the foot with your right hand. And then a sharp tug with the left hand, away from the rest of the foot. Might take a couple of tugs but, they always crack eventually. Satisfaction with more screams ensured. Only once all toes are broken do you go for the garden shears. One at a time, take the little piggies to market. Take a necessary break should the person pass out.

  * * * * *

  The online shopping, ordered before the Internet was cut off in their last home, arrived before the removal men’s promised time of delivery. One company was early and the second was late - typical considering it meant the foods necessary for refrigeration had the potential to sp
oil and even more frustrating for Dee, who could have sworn she put in the following day for the shopping to arrive. She walked the bags through to the kitchen where she piled them in one of the empty corners - out of the way of the impending delivery men.

  “Milk, sugar, tea bags…No kettle. Good start,” she muttered to herself as she brought the last bag in - walking past her husband who was pacing the hallway on his mobile phone, waiting for the delivery men to pick up. “Any joy?” she asked as she walked back down the hallway to close the front door.

  “It’s just ringing - not even going through to an answering machine.” It was nine o’clock. The delivery men were supposed to arrive at eight; half an hour after the tired family had pulled into the driveway (good timing Ryan initially believed). Dee knew she couldn’t say anything to alleviate any of Ryan’s stress so she just put her arms around him and gave him a loving hug. He hugged her back with one arm while keeping the phone still pressed to his ear as he hit re-dial on the touch screen. “Shouldn’t have paid them upfront. Once they have your money they don’t care. Should have done half at the start and the rest on completion,” he moaned. Dee hugged him tighter. Before either of them had a chance to break away from their comforting embrace there was a knock at the door. Ryan was first to pull away, “About time!” he said - clearly still irritated that the removal men were running late without at least giving the family some notice. After all, moving house was stressful enough. They didn’t need poorly run second rate companies adding to their stresses.

  “Be nice,” Dee warned her husband as he walked to the door. She knew what his temper was like when he was irritated. Fair enough; it took him a while to get to that stage but once he was there - he’d be there for the rest of the day, and would become extremely snappy to anyone and anything. The last thing she wanted was for him to upset the removal men before they offloaded their furniture.

  “Oh, sorry, we seemed to have dropped your television along with the box which said fragile,” she could hear it now.

  “I’m always nice!” said Ryan as he opened the door with the best ‘fake’ smile he could muster. His smile nearly faded when he realised it wasn’t the removal men knocking on the door. Instead, standing before him, was a middle-aged woman and a young girl. “Oh, hello, sorry - I thought you were someone else.”

  “We’re not intruding, are we?”

  Before Ryan had a chance to answer the woman’s question (an answer Dee feared would be inappropriate), Dee stepped into view next to him to take over the conversation, “Hi, what can we do for you?” she asked. Now it was her turn to forge a smile for the strangers. Travelling all night and fretting about where your furniture had gotten to didn’t make you very sociable when people came knocking at your door uninvited, but Dee knew that first impressions counted. She just hoped they were neighbours - as she believed - and not trying to sell something.

  “Sorry - we didn’t mean to intrude - it’s just we saw your car in the driveway and wanted to come and say hello. We live next door, number thirty-six…I’m Jackie and this is my daughter Kara.” A nice enough looking mother and daughter. Both had strawberry blonde hair. Jackie was a plump woman in her mid-forties, and her daughter, who looked similar in age to Jen, was starting to shape up the same way.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Dee extended her hand and the two mothers shook. Ryan did the same as soon as they’d broken their handshake. “I’m Dee and this is my husband Ryan.”

  “My husband Mike had to go to work, but he said to say hello. Listen - I’ll leave you two to it as you’ve probably got lots to do, what with moving and all, but I just wanted to see if you fancied coming over to ours for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Sure - that would be lovely. Thank you,” said Dee - unable to think of a valid excuse not to go.

  “That’s great. What with modern technology these days, people rarely venture out of their houses so we thought we’d make an effort. Shall we say about eight? Shepherd’s Pie okay?”

  “Sounds perfect,” said Dee. She was about to say goodbye and close the door when her neighbour spotted something behind her.

  “Oh hello, what’s your name then?” she asked.

  Dee turned around and saw Jen and Claire standing at the top of the stairs.

  “They’re my daughters - Jen and Claire.”

  “Well, bring them too…” Jackie turned to Kara and said, “Don’t be rude - say hello.”

  Kara wasn’t as outspoken as her mother and only managed a wave. A wave mirrored by Jen. Claire being Claire simply disappeared around the corner of the landing and back into whatever bedroom she’d chosen for herself - even though she wasn’t going to get final say in the bedrooms like she believed she would.

  “Sorry about that,” Dee was referring to her eldest daughter’s lack of manners, “she’s still sulking that we took her away from her friends.”

  “Honestly - it’s not a problem. No need to apologise. Listen, if you want, your youngest can come over and play round ours. Be nice for the two girls to get to know each other before school starts in a couple of weeks.”

  Both Dee and Ryan could sense, from the top of the stairs, their daughter wasn’t keen on the idea of being forced to make friends. Especially given the fact the other girl seemed just as uninterested in the idea.

  “To be honest we’re pretty busy with…”

  “That’s fine - say no more - we will leave you to it. Don’t forget our date tomorrow evening; the whole family! And if you need anything while you’re unpacking, you know where we are!”

  “Thank you again. It was lovely to meet you.”

  “See you tomorrow, if not before!” said Jackie as she turned down the driveway with her daughter in tow. “Well they seem nice,” she said to her daughter as she reached the end of the drive. Ryan gently pushed his wife to one side and closed the door quickly, before the woman had a chance to turn back around with something else to say.

  “She’s friendly,” Dee laughed. “And dinner tomorrow. Sounds lovely,” the sarcasm oozed from her voice.

  “What? You couldn’t think of an excuse quick enough to get us out of it? Busy? Unpacking? Rather watch paint dry?”

  “Don’t be like that - she was right, people rarely make the effort any more. It’s nice that she is.”

  “I just can’t believe it…Every village has an idiot and we just happened to move next door to it,” said Ryan - still grumpy from the lack of delivery men on his doorstep.

  “Don’t be horrible. She’s fine. Probably just nervous.” She turned from the door and noticed Jen was still sitting on the top stair. She looked upset, despite there being no tears. “What’s wrong?” Dee asked.

  “She took my bedroom,” Jen moaned. She was referring to Claire who’d decided upon taking the biggest room for herself.

  Dee sighed, “Let’s sort the bedrooms out, shall we?” she asked her husband. He walked off down the hallway and towards the kitchen.

  “That’s your area,” he laughed, “I’m dealing with the removal men…”

  CHAPTER THREE

  A picture of the face. No lips. I smiled and licked my own lips. I don’t take their lips off immediately. Not until toes are broken and cut off, nails removed, eye-lids taken, nose cut off - sometimes that’s all I’ll do. And sometimes I’ll do more. It all really depends on the mood. But I always take the lips. I’m not sure why. Just seems like the right thing to do. The other bits I’ve removed - I leave those for people to find. Usually in a quiet back road, but not so quiet people won’t find them. I want them to be found. I need them to be found. Mangled body next to a cardboard box with the bits I had cut off. But not the lips. The lips are in another box. Dozens and dozens of them - all mixed up. Can’t put them with the owner anymore. Can’t even put them in the right pairs. Sometimes I like to open the box. I like to open the box, take a pair of lips out (be they mixed or the correct matchings) and…Well…I love taking the lips off. Scissors are the tools of the trade. Or a sharp knife. Truth be to
ld it doesn’t matter which. I pull their lips away - bottom one first because it’s not as painful as the top. Blade to one side and slice across in a hacking motion (if using a knife) or - snip - with scissors. Blood. So much blood. And funny screams. Have you ever tried screaming with no lips? The sounds aren’t as satisfying as the screams of a person with full lips.

  * * * * *

  “I just don’t see why we need to take something round their house when they invited us,” Ryan moaned as he and Dee crossed their garden on the way to their neighbour’s house. The kids followed slowly behind - neither of them looking forward to having to eat at a stranger’s place. Although - in truth - their mum and dad were just as reluctant to go too.

  “It’s the done thing to do. They invite you and you take a bottle round. It’s one bottle.” She stopped - causing Ryan to also stop, “Are you going to be miserable all night?”

  “We’ve got so much to do to get the house in shape. We could really do with…”

  “And we’ve done so much already. A night off will be nice.” Dee started walking again. Ryan followed.

  He shrugged towards his children, “I tried kids.”

  “And don’t encourage them to play up more than they already are,” Dee continued to berate Ryan as they got to their neighbour’s front door. She gave Ryan a stern look before she knocked.

  “We don’t have to stay for pudding, do we?” Ryan asked as they listened to the footsteps walking towards the front door. Claire tried her best to hide the fact that she found her father’s comment funny. Dee answered him with a look.

  The front door opened. Jackie was standing there with a smile on her face, which made Ryan think of the Stepford Wives. He tried to shake the image from his mind as she greeted them.

  “This is my husband Mike,” she said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Mike as he extended his hand to his new neighbours. “Please come in. Make yourselves at home.”