“Get off,” Kerry Swann said. “You’re hurting me.”
“Shut your mouth,” Clarke replied. He hunkered down over the
young girl, content she couldn’t move so much as a muscle to untie herself, and
his mouth slowly pulled into a twisted grin. A monsters grin. “I’ll be through
soon enough.”
“You’re hurting me!”
The smile didn’t fade, and Clarke didn’t attempt to dull it. He
pulled a roll of tape from the back pocket of his jeans, tapped her mouth closed,
and laughed. Stupid bitch! She had made this so easy. She was strapped to the
bed perfectly, hands and feet bound apart to the very extremes of reach.
“It’s only because I love you that I’m doing this. I want you
to live forever. You do understand
that, right?” He chuckled to himself. “I collect pretty things. I always have.
My mother was the first in my collection. My sister was the second. You really
should feel privileged you made it through to the selection round. Not many do.”
She stared, wide eyed, and mumbled something he didn’t quite
catch behind her tape covered maw.
He laughed.
“This is going to sting,” he said smoothly. “But it won’t be
for long. I’ll try and be as quick as I can.”
Kerry closed her eyes and began to shake her head; pleading words
uttered behind taped lips.
“Don’t struggle. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
Clarke reached behind him and pulled out the switchblade he
kept tucked in his belt loop. He thumbed the trigger gently and the blade
popped out with a metallic click. It
glinted beneath the clinical white light of the bedroom. Kerry caught the
reflection of her wide eyes gaze in the reflection, and screamed.
“Hold still,” he said again. “We don’t want any jagged edges.
It’ll ruin the look.”
And just like that, his smile broadening, Clarke set to work.
Kerry screamed, Kerry writhed, and Kerry cajoled, but Clarke,
ever the diligent surgeon, never lost his focus.
He drew the tip of his knife around her face, digging the
blade a little deeper as he reached her brow. She had lost much of the colour
to her face; her pinkish hue steadily replaced by a gradual snow white.
“Now this is the really painful part,” he said. “It’d be best
if you weren’t conscious at this point – honestly, it would – but I’m all out
of anaesthetic. You’re just going to have to bite your tongue, ok?”
She didn’t hear him. Or if she did she made no effort to
answer him through her tears.
“Ready?”
He didn’t wait. Instead, he dug his fingers into the flaps of
flesh he made while cutting around her brow and steadily teased away the flesh
from her bones. She screamed and writhed as every inch of her, as every nerve
ending, came alive.
A moment later, the spoils of his labours held firmly in his
hands, Clarke presented Kerry with all he had stripped from her. He pressed it
against his face, craned forward, and begged for another kiss.
Kerry gawped at the mask of herself staring back at her,
bloodied and ashen looking, and through what now passed for face she managed to
scream as her lips pressed against firmly against what was now a bloodied and
toothy maw.
Kerry Swann couldn’t even express her horror.
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