Page 13

“Oh shit. No more. Please no more.” He groans around his gag, his body coming to a rolling stop behind the bike when I yield at my front gate. There’s already a large amount of his flesh shredded from the drag home, and his arms hang limply from the back seat. He’s a bloody fucking mess, and it’s beautiful.

“Home sweet home.” I laugh, waiting for the wrought iron entrance to open wide like a hungry mouth. “My kids will just love you.”

The barking of the dogs fills the night air around us as they acknowledge our arrival, and it’s not long before they’re chasing behind us, snapping at his heels as we make our way up to the house. The pack is led by Magnolia who keeps them all in line and from beginning their feast until they are given the command.

The driveway with its deep grooves and hardened soil makes his body bounce behind the bike like a toy being drug by a small child. He twists and rolls along, his grunts and curses behind my dirty sock a comical narration to his pain and agony.

When I bring us up in front of the garage doors, instead of opening them and pulling inside, I shut off the bike and hop off, tapping the kickstand down into place and letting it settle securely before I swing my leg off and dismount. The dogs immediately surround me, waiting for their pets and pats, while never taking their eyes off the moaning form that flails on the ground, his blood seeping into the dirt and grass.

“Hello babies. I brought you a little present.” I say to them, untying the guys hands from the back of the motorcycle and hauling him up to his knees.

He’s wobbly, and barely conscious, but a quick slap to his face brings his eyes forward onto me. With a few blinks, he seems to focus on my dark visor, and since I know he’s never leaving here, I unsnap my chin strap and pull the helmet off my head.

“Ahhh, finally. It’s been way too long with this thing on.” I say, shaking the sweat off my head and running my hand through my cropped hair, pulling the little strands away from my damp forehead.

“Who are you?” He asks, watching me, unable to do much else other than sway back and forth on knees that are cut and bloodied.

“Hedeon, but you can call me H. Everybody else does.” I say matter of factly, like he’s supposed to know the name.

He’s barely over twenty years old. Not old enough to know who I am or the type of power I have in this area, both above ground and under. He does seem to recognize the crazy in me as he peers into my dark eyes, seeing the sinister gleam that lives permanently in my pupils that are as black as my soul.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You touched what’s mine. After she told you no.” I say, bending down, getting nose to nose with him, sniffing the fear on his breath.

“How…?”

“I know everything. Just like I know that this will be fun.” I laugh, flattening my tongue and licking up his cheek, tasting the iron in the blood that seeps from the abrasions and cuts from the drag here.

He winces and tries to pull away, but all he does is sway back a little with my hand keeping him from getting far.

“What will be fun? This is fun for you? Watching someone suffer?” He asks, his words laced with not only the fear of what’s coming, but also the hate towards me. It’s what he needs if he’s going to survive more than a minute in the garden with my dogs.

“Absolutely.”

He startles when I lift him to his feet. He’s tall, but not quite as tall as me, and he’s definitely not built near as well as I am. He’s muscular, and must work out, but not to my level. Hopefully he has endurance though, because I’m really in the mood for a good chase.

“What will be fun?” He asks again, searching my face, his eyes bouncing back and forth, his pupils huge, with one being a little bigger than the other. He already has at least a concussion.

Poor thing.

“You have a five-minute head start. Run.” I say, pulling out my pack of cigarettes from my jacket pocket.

He stumbles when I let go of him, watching me pull out a smoke and pop it between my lips. As I cup my hands around the end of it to block the wind and light it, he takes a single shaky step back.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“And you’ve got to be stupid to still be standing there.” I laugh, sucking on the cigarette, loving the burn of the first drag.

The dogs yap and bark, making him look between them and I, and with a pained grunt, he turns and takes off out into the yard, towards the entrance to my garden labyrinth.

“Easy my children.” I say to the dogs, holding up my hand to keep them in place at my feet. “Easy. You’ll get to play.”

I watch as he runs with an exaggerated limp, the drag behind the bike having given him a massive disadvantage. It’s humorous as he stumbles in the grass, and catches himself, looking back at me and taking off again. I wave to him with a sadistic little smirk, and take another drag off my cancer stick, blowing the smoke around me like a ghostly white cloud.

When he reaches the arched opening to my favorite place on the property, I look down at my watch and give a chuckle. It’s almost nine o’clock. By ten I can guarantee he’ll be entering the pit. In how many pieces all depends on how hungry my babies are.

“Ready?” I ask the dogs, making them howl in excitement, their little feet kicking up dirt and stones from the driveway as they pace, waiting for the command to hunt.

“Oхотиться!” I shout in my native tongue, then repeat it in English, “Hunt!” They take off into the night, their barks and cries filling the air, echoing off the Appalachian Mountains in the distance, as I grind my smoke out on the ground and follow them at a leisurely pace.

The north side of the property is all gardens and pathways. It’s a maze of hedges, trees, ornamental flowers, and topiaries that serves both as my relaxation spot, and where I hide my bodies. I know every which way through it, and so do the dogs that patrol it day in and day out. For those unlucky enough to enter it still alive, they can get lost in it for hours. Things seem to change as you go through it with the way the wind blows branches and bushes, and how the stone walls of the center courtyard blend into the darkness.

In the day, it looks like heaven, especially in late spring and summer when the trees and plants are in bloom. But when night falls, and the breezes whisper through tree limbs, and the ghosts of its inhabitants arise, it’s more like hell. My heaven and hell. My paradise.

The last of the dogs disappears beyond the tall hedges, her barks following behind her as she tears through the front of the maze. I stroll through the grass, lighting up another cigarette, humming to myself as I cross the lawn and arrive at the large opening. It’s flanked by large stone pillars, encircled in gold snakes with their mouths open and fangs bared. They’re a warning to anyone who dares to enter my space that danger lurks inside amongst the beauty.

“You can run, but you can’t hide. They will find you!” I shout out into the night, listening to my voice echo back to me from inside the maze.

With a big grin on my face, I head into the first path, going left, then right, then left again. The edges of the bushes scrape against my leather jacket, sounding like the hiss of the snakes at the beginning, ominously announcing my presence in the labyrinth.

I’m the last of his worries though. The dogs will reach him before I do. I might even be his saving grace. If he isn’t already dead when I find him, he’ll wish he was. The tearing of flesh under the bite of a Doberman is a vicious thing, and a pack of them? Yeah, they’ll have you ripped to pieces in the most painful of ways. If I come along and he’s still breathing, to die at my hand would be a mercy killing. No one’s ever made it that long though. My pack is efficient at what they do.

The howling of the dogs grows louder as I near the center courtyard. Their incessant sounds telling me that they’re close to their prey. It’s beautiful the way they respond to my commands, each one such a good member of my little clan I’ve built with them. They’re the only family I’ve had since I laid my father into the pit and brushed my hands clean of the pain that he brought to my young life.

Screams fill the night air, carried on an uptick of the spring wind. Pained screams and curses that would chill a normal person to the bone, but all they do is fuel the thirst in me for more violence. He touched what’s mine, against her will, and he shall pay in the most violent of ways.

It’s a beautiful sight when I emerge from the hedged path into the center of my garden maze. The blood is already coating the walls of the stairs that lead down to the marble tiled square. The snakes on the walls flanking them hiss in the dark with their concrete scales and gold tongues, watching the feast as my pack goes to work.

The noise of the growls and the snapping of jaws almost overpowers the sounds of his pained bellows as the dogs rip into him. He’s on the ground, his body flailing and twisting, trying to fight them off, yet they come at him from all sides, pulling viciously at his limbs, tearing through his clothes just as easily as they rip through his flesh. Scraps of material float away in the wind, like little pieces of confetti as the pack continues to tear him to pieces.

“Help! Help me!” He screams, his legs kicking, his arms swinging as best as they can with jaws locked on them.

The show they put on is entertaining as I sit on the bottom step, feeling the cold marble through my leather pants, and It’s not long before the shrieks coming from him turn to wet gurgles and wheezed gasps when my prize bitch goes in for the kill.

“Good girl, Magnolia.” I praise her, clapping my gloved hands as she latches her teeth onto his neck, biting down, then shaking.

It’s like the rest of them know that it’s her place to take the throat. None of them touch the neck, until she’s had her fill. They respect her as much as they respect me, and for that, she gets to sleep with me and enjoy all the comforts of the big house. For me, it’s her company that keep me sane on the nights where the demons cackle too loudly in my head. Her soft fur, and her gentle kisses to my face are a stark contradiction to how she feasts, making her just like me.

“Yeah baby, good girl.”

I could step in and end his fight, a swift kick to the head would end his suffering, but Magnolia is having too much fun. Her head whips side to side, and suddenly, the battle is done. His neck snaps with a loud crack, and he falls instantly still.

“Woohoo! Yeah! That’s my girl.” I clap again and holler out to her, seeing her look up at me with that satisfied gleam in her dark brown eyes.

They make quick work of tearing off what each of them wants. The skin pulls away, bones crunch under their bites, and in minutes, they’re trotting off towards the gazebo with their prizes in their bloody mouths. All that’s left of him when they’re done is a mangled lump of organs falling from a destroyed torso that’s too big for them to carry with them.

“Well, time to clean up.” I sigh, lighting another smoke, and hoisting myself off the step, cracking my back as I stand.