Topher Bradshaw - Inhumanity

“Fuck you.”

The table lays out more tools for my viewing pleasure. Still in my hands are the mouth spreaders that are covered in saliva and blood that is now drying and starting to crust over. Setting them down I run my fingers across a tool that doesn’t seem to fit, but one that any resourceful person would have in their collection. Wrapping my hand around the Phillips screwdriver it feels light at the handle but the front made of metal tries to pull it downward. I turn and walk to Matt who is still gasping for breath as he tries to learn to swallow without a tongue. Standing on his right side I look upon both of them.

“I hope you have pieced the next two games together by now, but in case you haven’t heard the next line in that old rhyme, it’s hear no evil. Seeing how after this you won’t be able to hear me announce the third, you will have to wait and see.” I grab Matt’s head as he tries to jerk it away and hold it still. When he stops fighting I push his head to the left exposing the right ear and run the tip of the screwdriver around his ear, teasing him of the inevitable penetration. Lowering down to whisper to him, I speak in soft words.

“We could have been different you and I. We could have made the world for us, but you only saw me as your little pawn. I want you to know one last thing Matt, I will always love you.” As I utter the last syllable, I slip the tip of the screwdriver into his ear and push till I hear a loud pop as I puncture his eardrum and his eyes widen and his mouth opens to scream. As I pull the screw driver out of his ear canal blood starts to form a small river and without any hesitance I turn his head the other direction and jam the tip of the screwdriver into his ear, eliminating any sounds that he will ever hear. Kristy starts to scream but it only sounds like a whistle as the inability to push a tongue against her pallet fails her. She thrashes violently rocking her dolly side to side. Gazing at her I ponder as to what she thinks this will achieve. As I approach her the dolly falls to the right and lays on the wet crumbling floor. Squatting down I look at her and shake my head.

“After all of the choices you have made in your life, do you even regret any of them?”

“Nah eiling hew un sed.”

“Yeah it probably would have been better to kill me instead sweetheart.” Raising the screwdriver high into the air I jam it down into her ear canal and twist. She screams, but paying no attention I thrust the dolly back into place, turn her head, and whisper one final thing before I jam the screwdriver in another ear.

“I’m going to enjoy killing your children.”

Killing children is one of the evilest things that can exist in society and makes one truly in line with the devil, but that is not my goal. I have no desire to harm their children, but to leave Kristy with the final set of words she will ever hear just felt rejuvenating. The very reason why I’m on a set schedule is for those children, as no one knows Matt and Kristy are missing, and the children are stuck in a cage with a sedative. As long as everything goes according to plan, I will trigger the alarm from one of their smartphones and the police will arrive to release the children. By then I will be long gone till I can be sure it is safe to return. Gazing down at my watch it now shows 3:00 am. Sitting at the work table I finish writing on the large poster board and walk to the middle of the room displaying it to both Kristy and Matt.

They both start to cry, but from fear or pain, I have not a clue. I drop the poster board, move to the work table and glance at my new tool. Similar to the mouth spreader, this one goes under the eyelids and spreads them open allowing easy access to the tissue of the eye. I grab four of them and place them on Matt’s chest. He starts to breathe heavily and once I place my hand on his left eyelid he closes it tight. Regardless, I slip the small metal strips under his lower eyelid and it starts to make an opening just large enough to allow me to slip the top strip under his upper eyelid. As I let go his eyelids shoot apart exposing his eye, and I repeat the process with his right. Gazing down on this new spectacle, it’s like he is staring into my once existing soul, the piece of me that existed when Aaron was there. The one who saved me from myself, and showed me how to care and to feel and they took that away from me. Stepping away, I move to Kristy and perform the same procedure, except she provides little resistance, either from exhaustion or hopelessness. From my pocket, I pull out an amber filled bottle with a black dropper on top housing hydrochloric acid, a substance that will eat through the tissue in a matter of seconds. I unscrew the dropper and press it sending the acid into the clear tube. Placing the dropper over her left eye I release several drops of the fluid and each one hisses as it makes it target. Kristy moans and thrashes, but I hold her head still and add the drops to her right eye.

Standing there I watch as the once solid eyes melt and turn into a pile of ooze. Those once green eyes now reside in a lake of mush filling the crater of her eye sockets. I take the dolly and tip her forward as I did when I cut her tongue out and the mush falls to the floor dripping down her face. Using a cloth, I clean her face and rinse the cavity clean of any residing acid.

Moving over to Matt I stop and gaze at those brown eyes. Those eyes that had the ability to draw me in and make me feel his sorrow. As if he can read my mind, he displays those puppy dog eyes in a last-ditch effort to prevent his fate. I can feel anger arise from within me as it brings back all those feeling and emotions of our past.

“Not this time Matt,” I say slowly so he can read my lips, and squeeze more of the acid into the dropper and release it into his left eye. He fights back the pain and tries to free his head for what seems like the hundredth time this evening. I shake my head and release the final drops of the acid into his right eye. As I tip him forward to clean his new wounds I see a flow of fluid form at the bottom of our feet. Matt has urinated and the warm fluid bounces back as it sprays the floor. Once he finishes I tip him back and finish cleaning his sockets. Checking his pulse, I ensure he is still alive, but it is faint. I have no intention of letting them die, on the contrary, I want them to live a very long time with everything I’ve done to them.

Dragging over the two IV pumps I start with Matt by searching his arm for a vein and place a catheter. Blood begins to fill the tip and small droplets of blood drip to the floor as I apply the surgical tape to keep the catheter in place. Priming the bag of sodium chloride, I run the air out of the line and hook it up to the catheter, flushing away the clotting blood and set the pump to the standard 100ml/hr. In the second compartment of the IV pump is a syringe of morphine and I engage it by turning the keys and enter in the passcode. On the pole, I double check the antibiotic bottle of Cefazolin and ensure it is ready by draining the air out of the line and attaching it to the port in the bag of sodium chloride. As a final precaution, I administer a sedative of valium through the IV line. Gazing down at my watch it is now approaching six am, and I move over to Kristy to perform the same procedure.

Both are now sleeping and free of pain, but there is still one procedure that I need to complete. I’ve taken their love, their taste, their hearing, their sight, and their ability to reproduce, but what I have yet to ensure if that they will never be able to walk away from those they hurt. Taking the pack of iodine swabs I move to the back of Matt’s dolly and use the hole to feel and locate the thoracic spine and swab the iodine. Moving back to the work bench I grab the jigsaw and test the blade by pulling the trigger. It roars to life and as it slows I cover it in iodine, and move back over to Matt. Aligning the blade to the marks of the T6 vertebrae, I press the button and the blade slips into the small of his back, jerking as it fights through the tissue and the bone. Moving the blade in a fluid horizontal movement it slices through the entire vertebrae. I clean up the wound, flushing it out, suturing any bleeding veins, and close the wound.