Suffer Hard: An Extreme Horror Novella (3 page)

Oh well, they’d be back in no time and then they could be on their merry way.

The three men stepped outside as the sky was beginning to darken.

CHAPTER TWO.

Jessie watched the departing figure of her boyfriend, tears dangerously close.

She might be sitting there outwardly calm and relaxed, but inside she was frightened by these people. She felt a sudden flash of anger at Tim for leaving her. He should know her by now, hell, they’d been an item for almost two years and they shared a house. He should be able to sense when she was upset and anxious.

But apparently not.

“Just us girlies left,” Margaret said, the woman that was seriously creeping her out.

“Yes,” Jessie said brightly.

“Would you girlies care for another drink?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Beth said.

“Don’t you think you should slow down?” Jessie said to her.

“Who are you, my mother? We’re on holiday, remember?”

Stupid girl,
she thought angrily. How could Beth not pick up on their weirdness? Wasn’t she at all scared? She wanted to tell her to stop drinking, that she needed to keep her wits about her, but of course she couldn’t with creepy Margaret latched on to them like a leech.

God only knew what Craig saw in her. OK, so she was pretty, but she didn’t have Craig pegged as that
shallow.

Well,
maybe a little bit shallow. Not like her Tim.

Her heart
fluttered when she thought of her boyfriend. Even thought he was gorgeous he had no ego. He was as tall, dark and handsome as they came, his smile wide, bright and easy. But that wasn’t why she loved him. She loved him because he was a good person.

“Dear?” Margaret asked her, dragging her mind away from her absent boyfriend. “Don’t you want something a little stronger this time?”

“No, I’m good, thanks. I’m dehydrated after that long hike.”

Beth rolled her eyes.

“As you wish. You might wish you’d had a drink later though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she blurted out unthinkingly, forgetting to keep her cool.

“Mean? Why, it doesn’t mean anything, dear.”

The door by the side of the bar
leading to the kitchen burst open, making both girls jump.

Jessie could only stare at the newcomer
in wide-eyed disbelief. He was
huge.
He was so tall his bald head almost touched the low, beamed ceiling, and he was wide with it. He was fat, but that certainly didn’t mean soft and squidgy. It meant shaped like a barrel. He was wearing a white, sleeveless t-shirt and a knee length, white apron.

A
blood splattered
apron.

“Girls, I’d like you to meet my husband Michael.”

Jessie glanced nervously over at Beth and saw she looked close to passing out.

“Hello Michael,” she said smoothly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for the lovely sandwiches.”

Margaret laughed, and walked back behind the bar.

“I was just getting the girlies a little
drinky poo. Would you like one dear?”

The man mountain nodded and grunted.

“Michael is a man of few words, aren’t you dear?”

He didn’t answer, but stared at Jessie and Beth like he’d never seen tourists before.

Yet alone a human being.

Oh my God, he looks so wrong.
That bulging forehead, those tiny eyes…

Margaret laughed. Her eye sparkled as she held Beth’s glass under the vodka optic.

The bitch is really enjoying this. Oh God Tim, please hurry up.

“Don’t look so worried
girlies, Michael can’t help the way he looks. And you’ll have to excuse his attire, he’s been butchering some meat in the kitchen, haven’t you dear?”

Yet again, he grunted. He leaned against the bar and knocked back the pint
his wife had poured for him in one fell swoop.

When Jessie looked over at Beth she looked white with terror, despite the tan. Jessie had no idea what was going on here, but she did know that if Beth freaked out, then it would make things one hundred times worse.

She kicked her shin under the table to draw her attention, and ever so faintly and sharply shook her head.

Don’t you fucking dare freak out on
me,
she tried to say with her eyes.

“So,” Jessie said breezily as if she wasn’t scared enough to shit her pants, “
is it really just you and your family that live here? We only saw the three houses on our way in. And your pub of course. It seems awfully small to be called a village.”

“Size isn’t everything dear,” Margaret replied, a hard glint in her eyes that made Jessie desperately uncomfortable.

“I didn’t mean to cause offense, I just thought a village had to consist of more than just one family to be called a village…”

Her words trailed off, her mouth suddenly dry. The strange man in the blood splattered apron just
stood
there, staring at them.

“Used to be more people that lived here, many, many years ago.
But houses fall and people leave. It’s still a village though. It’s my home, and I love living here.”

“I’m sure you do, it’s very beautiful.
I would love one day to live somewhere like this, I couldn’t possibly imagine spending the rest of my life in London, it’s so overcrowded and polluted and noisy and expensive and…”
I’m rambling, I have to keep calm… “
It’s so beautiful here,” she finished lamely.

“I’m glad you like it here dear, we’re very proud of our little village, aren’t we Michael?”

Michael grunted.

“In fact,” she continued, “we’re
so
proud of it, we will do
anything
to preserve it.”

Jessie’s heart picked up its beat at twice normal speed. She didn’t like this inexplicably terr
ifying turn in the conversation.

No, she didn’t like it one bit.

“Would you mind pointing us in the direction of the toilets?” Jessie asked in a remarkably steady voice, getting to her feet.

Beth stood up too. Jessie noticed her hands were shaking.

The two girls stepped over their respective benches, meeting up at the end of the table to stand together.

“Yes,” Margaret said simply.

Michael watched them the entire time from the bar. Jessie noticed that his tiny little eyes mainly homed in on Beth.

Ever so gently Jessie placed a hand on the shorter girl’s stiff shoulder.

“So where are the toilets?” Jessie asked again.

“I answered your question dear. I said yes, I
do
mind pointing you in the direction of the toilets.”

“What is this shit?” Beth said
, speaking up for the first time since the boys had left them. “You’re a bunch of fucking weirdos!”

“Beth!” Jessie hissed, digging her fingers into her upper arm, “that’s really not helping.” Then, turning her attention back to Margaret: “We just want to use the bathroom.”

“Piss on the floor, dear.”

“Fuck you,” Beth said, shaking off Jessie’s hand and heading for the door.

Jessie watched what happened next in wide eyed horror. Michael pounced from the bar with a speed that completely belied his bulky frame and overtook the frightened girl.

He stood blocking the exit, his arms folded across his massive chest like a demented, blood splattered,
nightclub bouncer.

Oh Jesus,
Jessie thought.
This is bad. This is really, really bad…

She opted for a last ditch attempt at pretending everything was normal and went over to join Beth. Beth jumped when Jessie came up behind her, then
she kind of leaned against her.

“Could you let us pass, please? We’ll wait for the boys outside.
”

“Oh, you won’t be seeing those boys of yours again, dear.”

“Let us go,” Beth wailed.

Beth was so
bbing quietly, the tears falling freely.

It took all of Je
ssie’s willpower not to join in. She couldn’t go breaking down now. She had to keep a clear head, there
had
to be a way to get them to let them go.

“I told you
girls to piss on the floor.”

Jessie simply could not believe what she was hearing.
She could feel Beth trembling next to her and she placed a comforting hand on her arm.

“OK, you’ve had your fun, but we’d like you to stop now.”

“We haven’t even started with the fun, but we will, don’t you worry. You girls said you needed to urinate, so I’m giving you both the go ahead to relieve yourselves. Michael, I think they need a hand.”

Michael lunged forward and grabbed Beth. Both girls screamed.

Jessie watched in mounting horror when he lifted her into the air and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Beth screamed and beat her wrists against his back and kicked her legs.

It had no effect on the man whatsoever. A meaty arm pinned her to his chest just above her knees and his other hand reached across to hold her down by the small of her back.

The hand on the back of the squirming, crying girl roamed lower to knead her shapely backside through her jeans.

“Let her go!” Jessie screamed.

In that moment she wasn’t scared. She was mad. How dare these bastards
treat them like this?

She charged at the man, throwing herself against him. He didn’t even stagger. Instead he swatted her away like she was nothing more than a fly. His huge arm smacked into the side of her head, knocking her onto her rump with a sickening
thunk
. Bright lights flashed before her eyes and her stomach clenched around the nasty sandwiches. Her ears rang and her tongue floated in a pool of mouth water. She closed her eyes for a second, forcing the bad sensations away.

When she opened them again Michael had pulled down Beth’s jeans and knickers. The material was bunched beneath her bare arse and her plaintive cries filled the air.
Her pullover and thin blue rainmac were pulled up under her armpits so she was further immobilised, tangled up and trapped by her own clothes.

“You can piss on Michael,
dear, he really doesn’t mind.”

She stared up at the monster holding Beth, sick to her stomach. He was massaging her buttocks with his shovel of a hand, hard enough to leave red marks on her flesh.

“I might’ve known you’d go for the one with the titties,” Margaret said. “My husband has always had a thing for breasts,” she said conversationally to Jessie. “He loves it when I’m pregnant, only time I get a decent pair.”

To her horror, she unbuttoned her blouse, exposing her distended, stretch-marked belly and dirty white bra.

When Margaret reached behind her back and unclasped the hooks of her bra, Jessie could only sit there paralysed with disgust and stare up at the grotesque strip show in disbelief.

The woman’s breasts were vile. Despite being
milk laden, they rested atop of her stomach like two long, shrivelled party balloons, the nipples pointing downwards.

“Do you think my tits are pretty?” she asked Jessie, scooping up the floppy, wrinkled flesh in her hands.
“How about you get yours out, so we can compare?”

Jessie blanched, and came to her senses.

“Fuck you.”

She scrambled to her feet
but the man mountain was blocking the door.

She made a break for the kitchen, hurtling herself through the swing door. There
had
to be a back entrance in the kitchen, there just had to be.

There wasn’t.

She stood in the middle of the room next to the steel topped island, fighting back the tears.

Shit,
she thought.
Now what?

A distant part of her mind recoiled at the bad stench in the room, like forgotten meat rotting in the bottom of a bin.
She glanced down at the wide island she was leaning against.

And she screamed.

“What the…” she whimpered.

Her brain barely comprehended what her eyes were seeing.

There’s a fucking dead body on the kitchen counter…

It might have
been female, but it was hard to tell. It lay face down on the counter top, great chunks of flesh missing from its back and sides. The flesh that hadn’t been hacked off, including the buttocks, were sheened in red.

She stumbled backwards from the horrific sight
, doubled over and threw up the contents of her stomach. There was no holding back the tide of nausea this time. Wave after wave of hot, stinging sick heaved up and out, leaving her trembling all over.

Sh
e was joined by the others as she vomited.

She was still vomiting when she grabbed one of the knives that hung down from the hooks on the top segment of the island.