Jan. 23, 2009 - Chapter 3
This is unorthodox because of what I've done for the past three entries, but because this scene is in Chapter three, and it was complet I decided to put it up under its real title. Now most of you can guess who Red Sam is. He's the villain of this book. He's kind of been egging me to write the first torcher scene he does. So, here goes.
*WARNING*
The content which is to be displayed is extremely graphic. If there are young children reading this right now please take them away before continuing. Reader Discretion is advised.
Chapter 3
21st Century
Ethan Hanes was a small-town farmer; like most of the other people that lived in Currie. He was a fifth generation farmer, and had lived up to that name ever since he was six. Chickens and wheat; they went well together. One-hundred acres of prime real estate right smack dab along the highway. Many of them city folk had wanted to buy his nice plot of land, but he had always turned them down. He wanted to keep this land in the family, though he never married and might never get the chance.
Ethan drove that old pickup truck, which also belonged in the family since about 1950, down from the north fields back to the house. He gave a sigh as he drove and kept his eyes on that old dirt road. He noticed that boiling clouds were coming in when he looked up, and as he didn’t want to throw chains on this old beast he would have to press it just the same to get back. A few droplets began to fall on it, and he pushed the gas pedal a little further to the floor. The barn that held the chickens was looming up in the distance.
“What a difference a few billion years makes.” Ethan muttered to himself. Now in this he was different from all the other farmers. They were all “good little Christians”; not Ethan. He had been educated at College about the ways of the world and how things really worked. The barn was just ahead, and Ethan decided that he would park in front of the barn and walk the rest of the way to the house.
More droplets smacked the windshield as he parked the ancient truck under the enclave by the barn. The rain smacked the ground in behind the truck with force, and Ethan knew it wouldn’t be a pretty thing to get back to the house. He opened the door and set one foot on the ground when all of the sudden an arm put him in a headlock and before he could react a cloth was put over his mouth. He tried to get it off, but all was in vein as he quickly blacked out.
A cold hand slapped him back into the world. A sharp pain stung his wrists, arms and legs. He had no idea what was happening. This same pain was sticking in the back of his head. His mouth was somewhat open, but there was a piece of old, rotted wood in his mouth. His feet were getting wet, and if he could look down he was sure he would find rainwater in a puddle that his feet were sitting in.
His eyes frantically flashed around the room to see if there was anyone there. He was in the barn. That was the extent of his knowledge. A slow laugh came out of one of the corners that chilled him to the bone. A chord stretched to one of the new plugs in the wall. It seemed to lead beneath him, but because of the binds that held him to the chair he couldn’t see if it were true or not.
“Hello Ethan,” the shadow said, “I know what you’re thinking. You are thinking, ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What does this lunatic want?’ Well, you’re just going to have to wait and find out, won’t you?”
He then stepped out of the shadows; dressed in black, with a black cowboy hat and a blood red mask. It matched the voice that Ethan heard, and made him want to cower in a ball. He forgot his bonds and tried to move, but was quickly stopped by the restraints on his arms, which made the pain shoot into his limbs again. From where he was in the chair he couldn’t see the “Red Man’s” face, but he could tell he was smiling.
“Now then,” the figure said, “let’s get to business, shall we?”
All Ethan could do is scowl at the man. His eyes followed as he walked to the opposite corner to bring out a chair for himself, and then he walked back to the corner he had been hiding in and produced a single black box that had a switch in the middle of it. He set the chair quite close to Ethan, and he was sure this wasn’t going to be good. The mask that this man had on was quite like a ski mask, but far worse in appearance. Seeing it up so close made the skin on Ethan’s neck crawl in pure fear. Sweat began to bead his forehead, and he wished it all to be just one bad dream.
“What we have here,” his brittle voice said, “is a little thing called a current box. It controls the electricity in the cables clamped on your chair. Now, this is only simple yes or no questioning. I am going to un attach your fancy gag, and you will answer me. If you get it right, we move to the next question. You get it wrong and…” the man paused as he let out a long drawn out cackle, “you’ll get a nice kick out of it, shall we say.”
Ethan’s eyes opened wide. This was the strangest form of interrogation, or whatever this was, that Ethan had ever heard of. From elementary physics he knew that with him sitting in what felt like a bucket of water, attached to a chair by what felt like barbed wire would most certainly send the amplified charge of electricity shooting into his body burning, if not killing him first. The sweat came now, faster and much more than when it started. He could hear the sound of it hitting the water as it dropped off his face, every other second.
“Oh yes,” the man said, “it will be painful if you are wrong.”
The stranger brought his finger to the switch and rested it there. He leaned forward and took the wire that attached to the eyelet on the stick and rested the wood and wire on Ethan’s shoulder.
“Now, I am going to ask you a simple question.” He said, “Do you believe in God?”
Hatred of that name boiled into Ethan’s throat.
He spat to the side, which somewhat hurt his neck, and then said, “No.”
This stranger in black leapt forward threw the gag back into his mouth and flipped the switch. Currents of electricity flooded through the cables and hit the chair. Ethan recoiled at the pain and shock, his bonds cutting into all the places he was restrained, burning his flesh and tearing at the fibers that were left behind. The voltage lasted but a few seconds, but the pain was excruciating.
The stranger again took the gag out of his mouth.
“Wrong answer farmer Brown!” the stranger said in a cutting voice.
Ethan’s breath quickened extensively as he tried to compose himself.
“My…my name isn’t Brown!” Ethan said weakly in his defense, “Who are you?!”
A soft cackle came through the mask, “I, am Red Sam. And by the time I am through with you, you will wish there was a God.”
Ethan watched as Sam put his finger back on the switch. Oh how he wished to lunge at the man and kill him. All he could do is glare at the pure evil that sat before him.
“Now, we will try this again. Do you believe in God?” Red Sam returned his glare with ice cold eyes.
“No.” Ethan said again with dignity.
Like a flash Sam was on him, re-gagging him. He flipped the switch with a vengeance and sent waves of pain coursing through Ethan’s body. He recoiled very badly and cut his body worse, chaffing at the wire and the electricity increasingly burned the newfound flesh. Sweat was a river running down his face. It got into his eyes and fell into the water like the rain that was pouring outside that very moment. As he had done before he flipped the switch off only after a few seconds. He removed the gag and sat back down.
“You aren’t very bright, are you boy?” Sam sneered, “Just like all farmers out here; dumb as posts when it comes to anything but farming. And even then you screw up half the time.”
“We are not dumb! It’s a lucrative profession!” Ethan gasped.
Tears mixed in with the sweat that was drenching his face and clothes. He didn’t care. Blood was coming from all over his body, surely staining the clothes he had on.
“If you would only tell me the truth it wouldn’t hurt so much,” Sam said, “but until then we go on. Now, do you believe in Hell?”
“No.” came the hoarse reply from Ethan’s parched lips.
The gag went back and the switch went on, searing pain shooting all over Ethan’s body. Pain, oh the pain was worse than anything he ever experienced. He could tell when it stopped that Red Sam was enjoying it. He had to be some sort of convict or murderer to enjoy this kind of torture. The switch flipped five seconds later, and the gag came off.
“You don’t seem to have any brains at all. The pain doesn’t seem to affect your choices. Do you believe in hell?” again Sam questioned.
“No!” came back the strained, but firm reply.
The groove that his teeth had made settled perfectly and Ethan bit down hard before the switch went on. Volt upon volt entered his body, making him wish he were truly dead. He was sure that the bonds had cut him to the bone, and were digging in. The electrical current finally shut off ten seconds later. It seemed this nutcase was prolonging it on purpose.
“I like to see pain,” Red Sam said, “and since you keep answering no, you keep making my day. I am going to ask you one last time, do you believe in God?”
With every fiber in his being, Ethan said, “NO!”
“Very well then; you leave me no choice”
With the speed of the lightning that was about to strike his body the gag was in and the volts charged on. His body jerked and pulled with every electron that passed through the connector into the chair, and he could only feel the pain and heat coursing up through it. It never seemed to end, and it was twenty five seconds later that it stopped. He was gasping for breath when the gag came off.
“You are lucky how you caught me in a generous mood,” Red Sam started as he got up and began walking, “or else you would be still jerking wildly in that chair this very minute.”
He crossed behind Ethan to where he could not see him, but Ethan only assumed it was behind his chair. He let out soft sobs as he tried to gain breath, every moment precious.
“Please,” he begged, “please!”
Sam only smiled and bent close to his ear, “Do you want to die, hmm, Ethan?”
“Yes!” Ethan sobbed, “Yes! Kill me now! I want to d…”
But Sam was faster than that. He straightened and whipped out the Berretta he stole from the Sheriff’s car and put one bullet into Ethan’s brain. The shell clattered softly as it hit the hay in the barn.
“One more wretched soul for Satan,” Sam said as he put the pistol back into his belt.
Quickly he toppled Ethan’s chair backwards out of the iron pan it was set in. He dumped the water from the pan and then he tied a rope to all four of the legs and tied those to one central rope above the chair. He then hoisted it up into the air and tied the main rope down to a beam. Tracing his steps back to where he had jumped to when Ethan had woken up he found the sickle he hid. Grasping it firmly he took one swipe, like a child with a bat at a piñata and took Ethan’s head clean off.
Blood flowed freely from the headless neck into the pan below. Soon all the blood was drained from the body and Red Sam knelt to the pan and picked it up.
“To the one I serve to get my revenge. Salud!” and with that Sam tilted the pan back and drank the whole pan of blood in mere seconds. A drop of blood rested on his cheek when he tossed the pan aside aside. He brought his white hand to the blood and wiped it. He stared at the blood for a moment and then licked it off. Kevin would be sure to find this little present, and so he walked to the head, which used to be Ethan and walked with it to the outhouse. He kicked open the door and dropped the head into the sewage that rested below.
“Say hello to the boss for me.” Red Sam said as he lit a cloth that rested in a bottle of oil and tossed it down the hole. He got ten feet before the entire out house caught fire. He was silhouetted beautifully in the night sky as he walked down the highway to town in the pouring rain.
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