The Tormentors Read online

  The Tormentors

  By

  Jack Phoenix

  Credits Page

  Damnation Books, LLC.

  P.O. Box 3931

  Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998

  www.damnationbooks.com

  The Tormentors

  by Jack Phoenix

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-61572-963-0

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61572-964-7

  Cover art by: Dawné Dominique

  Edited by: Trevor Donaldson

  Copyright 2013 Jack Phoenix

  Printed in the United States of America

  Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights

  Worldwide English Language Print Rights

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication page

  This novel is dedicated to the women who taught me that my twisted passions have value; Doctor Suzanne Ashworth, Doctor Tammy Birk, Doctor Patricia Frick, and Doctor Glenna Jackson. Thanks for the push, ladies.

  I would like to thank Joe Dallacqua, Mickey Webster, and Lori Gum for their assistance with this book, inside and out.

  Chapter One

  The fear fueling his footsteps was unceasing. From the blood pumping furiously through his sixty-five-year-old veins to the perspiration that now streamed from his brow, it was the most exercise he’d had in years. He was little more than savage now. He had no direction, just the purest instinct of self-preservation. The alley puddles from the night’s rain splashed violently beneath his bare soles. The cool night air met the moisture on his naked body, adding another layer of gooseflesh.

  Osteoporosis had set in a few years back. He should not have been able to run so quickly. Fear is the great motivator, the ultimate performance-enhancer, and his terror bypassed all limitations. However, he couldn’t keep running on panic-induced fumes much longer, not with his aged and malnourished body. If only he had not poisoned his youthful years with cigarettes and alcohol. Now he had no chance of outrunning the cause of his desperation. In this tunnel-vision state, no amount of speed would save him from such a pursuit.

  He paused for a moment to look behind him. It was a moment too long, and he regretted it immediately. Their shadows were swimming towards him along the brick walls. They were gaining. Their horrible din filled his ears, their screams were daggers that aimed for his mind, entering his soul and rattling it. No matter how many times the intrusive sound pierced his skull, it inflicted the worst kind of pain. His nails dug into his scalp when he heard it as though trying to rip his skull open to relieve the pressure.

  He had to keep moving or else they’d be right at his face, right in his ears, and he’d once again find himself in their clutches. Every step pained him, muscles aching, lungs burning. He upset a couple of trash barrels as he passed; a desperate, futile attempt to slow them down. Even if he couldn’t see them, he could still hear them, and that was the worst part. His was the worst fear imaginable; danger lurking about, ready to spring, insidious, and unseen.

  He dashed through the alley, his silver chest heaving. They were closer. Their shadows just around the corner, he was sure of it. There was nowhere to go. He was trapped. A scuffle, and his back was to the wall.

  “You! Drop the weapon! Turn around, and put your hands above your head. Now!” the police officer commanded.

  The officer could see in the old man’s eyes that something had him spooked… no, petrified, and she had an inkling that it wasn’t her. He was thin and pale. Whatever he was running from was of more concern to him than an armed cop. He seemed barely aware of her presence. He kept looking past her, shaking his vibrating liver-spotted hands against the wall.

  Officer Lang aimed her gun at his forehead. “Put your hands on your head now!” she ordered, as the old man reached for his own gun and clumsily tried to pull it from his belt.

  “Drop it!” she ordered.

  The old man didn’t respond.

  “Drop it, or I will shoot you! I don’t want to, but I will!”

  He lowered the gun. He appeared to be crying.

  “Listen, don’t do anything stupid. I want to help you, okay? We can get you help. Just drop the gun and kick it to me.” She said, trying to get the man to make eye contact. “Now, I am giving you to the count of three to drop the gun and kick it to me…one!”

  The man’s free hand covered his eyes. He was indeed crying.

  “Two!”

  His hand went to his ear, as if to block out some loud noise as the gun slowly rose again in his other.

  “Three!”

  “I have sinned,” the old man murmured through his slobber and tears as he put the gun in his mouth and squeezed the trigger. The contents of his head scattered across the brick wall.

  Officer Lang stood still and silent for a moment, her gun still pointed at the now nearly still body. Slowly she lowered both arms and momentarily turned her eyes from the mess.

  “Shit,” she said sadly as she grabbed her radio, reported the incident, and requested an ambulance.

  She then approached the old man’s body, her firearm still un-holstered, just in case. He lay lifeless on his back, the gun still in his right hand.

  “Oh, Christ!” her partner blurted as he came running down the alley and saw the horrible sight.

  Lang knelt down over the old man, the ever-increasing pool of blood beneath him reaching the toes of her shoes as it flowed down the concrete. Then she heard a sound, like a gagging and saw that drops of red were spraying from his mouth as his jaws convulsed. The poor bastard had failed in his attempt, somehow missed instant death, and was now suffering.

  “He’s still alive!” Officer Lang exclaimed.

  “You shot him?” asked her partner.

  “No. He shot himself. He was off.”

  Suddenly, with one last gurgling breath, the old man put his gun to his temple with preternatural speed and pulled the trigger. Blood spattered, gray matter flew in Lang’s face.

  This time, he was dead on.

  * * * *

  “That was quite fun.”

  “Yes, but far too fleeting. This one didn’t last long.”

  “Nevertheless, his anguish was appetizing.”

  “Indeed. What shall we do now? On to the next?”

  “Patience, Sisters, we await our command.”

  “Perhaps the next will be even tastier.”

  Chapter Two

  Roderick growled. The sound came from deep within, along with a rumbling in his chest, like an echo bouncing along the walls of an empty cave.

  He was almost finished. He grabbed her long blond hair and pulled, while she, on her hands and knees, didn’t even give a squeak of pleasure. She was far too sullen. “Take it, you bitch! Yes!” and with one final clench, it was over

  She collapsed onto the bed, sighing with relief. Roderick wiped the sweat from his forehead and ran his fingers through his stylish dark hair as he headed into her bathroom to wash up. She had noticed that he needed to rinse himself clean after each of their encounters.

  She decided to be cliché and lit a cigarette though she was trying to quit. The wa
y the smoke made her hair smell and how it turned her teeth and the white walls of her apartment into a similar shade of yellow had caused the habit to lose its appeal, but she always craved one after being with him. Chelsea Palmer remembered the days when she was a teenager and everyone would comment on how pretty she was. Now she was reduced to what those same people would call ‘trashy’, resorting to placating her sexual urges only with men who could not and would not respect her.

  “So, you’re still clean, right?” she called to him from the bed over the sound of the running water.

  “You’re still on the pill, right?” was his only reply as he stepped out of the shower.

  She sneered, covering herself with the sheet while he dried off, “Do you have to be so rough every time?”

  “Thought you liked it,” he said, buttoning his shirt.

  She added the blanket over herself as well. “Well, it was pretty hot the first few times, but it’s getting kind of annoying and painful.”

  “How would you like it then?” he asked, tucking his shirt into his pants.

  “I don’t know, maybe a little slower with some music or something.”

  “Not really my thing,” he said as he prepared a line of cocaine along her countertop, selfishly snorting it. Chelsea didn’t mind, though, since that was another habit she’d been trying to quit.

  “Do you have to call me names every time? Like I said, it was hot at first, but now it’s just kinda creepy.”

  Roderick twitched his right nostril with his forefinger. “I just get caught in the moment,” he said to her while slipping on his shoes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” was his only word as a Nickleback ringtone blared from his smartphone. He answered it, taking the call in another room. All Chelsea could hear were mumbles. She leaned against her pillow with a groan and grabbed her favorite Care Bear off of the floor, holding it tightly against her breasts. When Roderick came out of the other room, he looked distraught, staring off on in the distance while he slid his phone back into his pocket.

  “What is it?” she inquired. “What’s wrong?”

  He finished tying his shoe and grabbed his jacket. “I have to go.”

  “Is it your wife?” she asked.

  “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” He headed out the door without another word.

  She released another deep groan and threw her Good Luck Bear across the room. Chelsea Palmer had always sought love in all the wrong places. All it took was a few years with the wrong crowd during high school to steer her in the direction, which led to this lonely existence. The lives of Chelsea’s classmates and those around her were filled with learning and experience and romance. Hers was filled with coke, heroine, two miscarriages, bitterness, and abusive men.

  Though she had sworn after the last boyfriend who broke her jaw that she would never be in a relationship again, she was still a woman with needs, and she found her physical desires satiated only by stranger after stranger. Usually disgruntled husbands who dreaded going home to their nagging wives and spoiled children. However, a part of her still yearned for something more. Deep down, she still craved the love and affection that she had never known and that all other women seemed to have had fallen in their laps.

  With every new hookup, Chelsea held out hope that one of them would recognize some beauty within her and rescue her from her existence, breaking down the protective barriers she had placed around herself. For a time, she thought that Roderick Whithers would be that man. She realized, however, that he was only returning to her because he so desperately wanted to call a woman ‘bitch’ to her face.

  He was neither her knight, nor her hero. He would never be willing to share his life with her, and she decided that she’d take the next best thing. Roderick Whithers wasn’t a millionaire, but he was a man with enough wealth and prosperity that he could afford to share. She knew of his many moral, social, and legal breaches, both past and present. There were things that she had seen with her own eyes, not to mention certain unintentional drunken and coked-out confessions.

  If he won’t share his life with me, she thought as she turned off the digital video recorder she had hidden in the closet with full view of the bed through the cracked door, then he can share some of his money.

  * * * *

  “What’s this?”

  “Our next play thing, of course.”

  “Our first sight of him, and already his sins are apparent.”

  “It’s not his ‘apparent’ sins that we will cleanse, Dearest.”

  “This woman… it appears she will be initiating her own game with him.”

  “Well, we can’t allow that, can we? His fear will be ours. No distractions, Sisters, no distractions.”

  Chapter Three

  Suburbia: Some would give anything to get in, and others would give anything to get out. Outside the city was a suburb like any other. Oaks and ash trees lining the sidewalks and medians, their leaves crisp and glowing from the bright summer skies, near-identical houses with wooden fences going on for miles, the gas company coming along each month to check their meters. Some would call it the best place to raise two point five children while others would go mad with boredom, thirsting to be closer to a cultural pulse. Some could appreciate the status quo that such an environment offered, claiming that the lack of excitement was indicative of safety. Indeed, the community hadn’t seen much excitement in years. No crime, no noise, no problems.

  One house in particular had additional securities from such annoyances. It was a house that would have stood out among all the rest, but few would ever know it. It was bigger than the other houses, it was more elaborate than the other houses, and its property value was comparably astronomical. Despite its lavish furnishings, this house was tucked away, virtually out of sight from the rest of the neighborhood. It was far away from prying eyes, standing tall at the end of a cemented driveway that was nearly a quarter of a mile long, surrounded by trees and a man-made pond with a state park behind it. The property was designed to impress the socks off of anyone who would ever have the privilege of seeing it but not to attract unwanted attention.

  Elizabeth refused a housekeeper for this home when her husband offered. She walked about the house, dusting all of their many family photographs. When she learned she was pregnant with their daughter six years ago and agreed to get married, she eventually accepted that her husband would simply not allow her to continue her career. He explained to her that a mother’s place was at home with her child, not in a classroom taking care of other people’s children. With no job to call her own, she was often restless.

  She loved teaching. It was the profession she had yearned for since childhood, and when she finally acquiesced to her husband’s demands and became a housewife, she regretted it every day. If she was to be stuck in the house, Elizabeth had decided that she would do her best to make it a home. Cleaning and taking care of the house herself helped mark her claim on the place. It gave her a sense of personalization and empowerment. Besides, it was good to teach her daughter some humility from the get-go. Coming from such privilege, her daughter had to learn that there were other forms of ownership other than just the ability to make a purchase. It also made her feel a sense of pride when someone dropped in unexpectedly who didn’t know her very well. A person new to their home would certainly assume that such an upper-class establishment would have a hired hand, until they saw Elizabeth on a step ladder dusting the high ceiling fans or scrubbing the toilet.

  She delighted in breaking or even surpassing the expectations of others in such ways, since there were many times she felt pressured into sacrificing more than her fair share. Every time she caved to the pressure, she felt a little more of herself disintegrate. This was why she had insisted on keeping her maiden name upon marriage, since identity was so important to her. When she expl
ained to her then-fiancé that she wished to carry on her own family’s name and heritage, it turned him and his father into boisterous howler monkeys. She even remembered the term ‘unwomanly’ coming up a few times. The only way to shut them up was to compromise; she and her child would use both names.

  Elizabeth had just finished making dinner for her daughter, pleading with the girl to eat something. Once she oversaw the completion of three full bites, she collapsed into her favorite armchair with her copy of The Woman in White which she was trying to finish for nearly a year. She kept it right next to her husband’s precious hippopotamus statue on the coffee table, and was surprised at how much dust it had accumulated since she’d last picked it up. Only a 265-page dent was made in the 548-page novel, and she’d only accomplished two pages’ worth of progress when the doorbell rang.

  The woman at the door bore an unassuming presence. It surprised Elizabeth when she referred to herself as ‘Detective’.

  “Nice to meet you, Detective,” Elizabeth greeted. “How can I help you? Has something happened?”

  “May I come in? I would prefer to sit with you,” the detective said.

  “Yes, of course, please do. Can I get you some coffee or tea?”

  “Tea would be splendid, thank you. You have a lovely home,” she complimented as her eyes shifted about the room, settling on little Samantha who was solemnly watching cartoons, her dinner gone completely cold.

  “Sam,” Elizabeth said to her daughter, “why don’t you go on to your room while I talk to this nice lady?”

  Samantha obeyed without saying a word or even so much as glancing up at the visitor, slouching all the way to her bedroom.

  The mother smiled bashfully for her daughter’s sake. “She’s just very shy,” she explained.