Kat laughed. “You want to do what?!”

Derek had met Katrina, Kat to her friends, just two weeks earlier and had been amazed that such a young girl had not only found a man his age attractive enough to sleep with, but had never objected to joining in with his increasingly unusual games. Nothing seemed too bizarre for her.

He ran a hand over her smooth stomach, letting a finger circle her navel. “I said I’ve bought some body paint, and I want to cover you with it.”

“Then I’m all yours, get the paints!”

Derek started with a deep blue, his delicate brush tracing a line from the centre of her forehead down over her nose and mouth to the top of her sternum. Here he switched to a broader brush loaded with yellow paint, which ran over her left breast, producing a giggle from Kat, down to the small triangle of hair between her legs. He then went back to the top of her sternum and painted an identical line down her right side.

“Ooh, this tickles,” cooed Kat.

“I’ve not finished yet,” said Derek reaching for his smallest brush which he dipped into shocking pink.

The game continued as Kat’s naked body was daubed with a mass of lines, wide and narrow, in every hue imaginable. She sighed occasionally when the wet brush stroked a particularly sensitive part of her body, while Derek remained quiet, concentrating on the task at hand.

Finally he announced he was finished, and after taking a few trophy Polaroids, handed her a large glass of wine loaded with Rohypnol.

Once she was asleep, Derek went to his kitchen and fitted the new blade he had bought to his Stanley knife. The keen blade glinted as he returned to the bedroom to survey his artwork. Some of the lines he’d painted he now regretted, but didn’t concern himself unduly because he knew full well that there was always more than one way to skin a Kat.

By Nick Allen

http://dorsetscribblers.blogspot.co.uk/

Every year he invites only his closest friends, less than a handful of individuals, to his home for Christmas dinner. They enjoy fellowship, stiff drinks and a delicious meal as they regale each other with tales of their accomplishments from the year before.

In making preparations, he takes extra time, care and attention to each and every detail of decoration and music, in addition to the meal. Be assured, his is the supreme execution of the holiday celebration, one that will permeate the memories of his guests not only on this joyous day, but though to the next winter season and seasons to come.

While his work is year round and involves extensive travel, he makes it his business to see that his humble yet tasteful abode never appears amiss, or deleteriously on the road to becoming a run-down hovel. His is truly a demanding and stressful occupation, yet he finds time, particularly around the weekends, to paint, landscape and appoint his milieu. Idleness does not become him, and anyone who truly knows him, covets his endless industry.

He finds that one of the greatest joys of living in the Midwest is snow. It is the necessary ingredient for his seasonal tableau. Smothering and silent, yet cold and wet, it brings forth the comfort and warmth of primeval memories, of familial bonds shared in the safety of a sheltering fire. This is why all hearts react with the same emotions when gazing upon its lingering touch, artfully adorning streetlamps and rooftops and trees in crystalline whiteness.

But he also sees snow as his calling card, as nature’s tap on the shoulder, demanding his attention to go forth, no mattering his age, in youthful adventure and the spread of good tidings. Snow allows him the stealth to observe and frolic in a world swathed. Sound and touch are one now, softly muffled as he makes his way for miles and miles around in anonymity.

Shopping for his Christmas menu would almost be impossible without the snow. To be in the moonlight, in this suffocating quiet, in these rural confines, gives him the advantage. Take this year’s meal: with his gloves snugly fitting over his ever fattening fingers and dry palms, he leaves no mark and as the snow falls, no trail to follow. He is truly, as such, invisible.

“Mr. Trout you’ve outdone yourself,” one of his guests gushes.

“Thank you so much darling. It has been a good year and I thought we would splurge with more tender fair. This was a family of five you know.” He cannot help but glow in the social triumph.

The decorations this year have an Old World theme. He was sure to have placed a tree in every room to guarantee flow and harmony. The majority of his ornaments and decorations are handmade from earlier victories. Again, the sin of idleness will not cast its shadow on his door.

“Oh Garrison, they look so dainty and so tasty,” another guest purrs.

“Yes, the children are. They are quite moist and tender. Oh yes, I do admit to sampling some. How could anyone resist those cherubic cheeks?”

He had driven them in from Terre Haute last night so they are still reasonably fresh, without any hint of dry ice burn. He cleaned them there, in their own home, so that they could marinate on the trip here, only ninety minutes.

“Everyone! Everyone, please eat up and enjoy. And please, don’t forget to take a red or green bucket home with snacks before you leave. There is so much here and I simply don’t have room in my freezer.”

The father was a fitness buff: quite muscular and that only means chewy. He decided not to serve him as such. His innards went into the plum pudding, while his flesh hangs, drying down in the cellar for jerky.

He has never been a big fan of tinsel as it tends to makes its presence known year round. One can never truly clean it up and he is a stickler for hygiene. At his holiday soirees, one can eat, and some have eaten, off his floor. ‘Waste not, want not’ is the motto for any tumblings off the table.

My, my, the mother and children do display well on his buffet. There is a separate table for each, and each is garnished to meet the age, look and station in life. For instance, the youngest child goes well with a variety of sweet as opposed to hot sauces and the bed of baby marshmallows makes for the perfect touch.

This culinary triumph is truly a masterpiece of presentation. He was so moved by this moment he was compelled preserve these delights in a variety of color photographs for years to come.

“What is that my dear? Oh yes, there were six in the house, but the grandmother was way past date. How could I, in all good conscience, serve her? She was bony and spotty and had that aroma. You know the kind, when they get to a certain age and their blood gets tired and their organs begin to turn. She was asleep anyway, so I just took a hatchet to her throat. What is that? No, only light chloroform on the rest. I use just enough so I can finish my kitchen prep and not so much to make for an after taste.”

Yes, on the holidays there is nothing better than family.

By Joseph J. Patchen

http://josephjpatchen.weebly.com

You want to make a movie

in the shower.

I’ll slide behind you

bent over,

hands to ankles.

One hand on your side,

I’ll glide slowly

back and forth

upon your spine.

In a minute,

I’ll have the audience

think I smoked Crack

with Norman Bates,

after stabbing you—

so viciously rapid

in the back,

like you stabbed me

in the back,

when I came home

late on our anniversary,

only to discover

our so-called marriage

getting sexually attacked.

I’ll shower in blood,

immoral baptism—

self-forgiveness.

Arms hanging,

legs sagging,

I’ll hold you up—

mixing a little sex in gore,

before cutting you

to the next scene,

sawed in half—

limbs dismembered.

By William Andre Sanders

After my father died, I went to clean out his house on Maple Street.

I had no idea what to expect. It had been a few years since we had spoken, our lives just drifted in separate directions. I became busy with work and he became a bit of a recluse. From what my mother and sister told me, my father was some kind of hoarder, never leaving the house anymore. Living off his social security and veteran funds, having all his groceries delivered and never bothering with human contact. My sister said he had grown a long beard and looked like “one of those homeless people outside the markets”. I didn’t bother seeing for myself. I simply was never that close to my father, growing up I felt distant from him, he was a very private man and we had nothing in common. That was what I thought.

Then the day I went to clean out his house, because my mother and sister refused to do it, I saw how bad things had gotten. Piles of newspapers reached toward the ceiling, boxes everywhere filled with papers and baubles. It was hard to find one’s footing and there was a terrible smell like cat urine and rot. In the kitchen maggots nestled in an old bowl filled with some expired beef stew. I would rather have just bulldozed the place than dealt with it but if I could clean it up, a house like this in a neighborhood this nice could sell for about half a mil. Thank California and its overpriced housing. I was living in a one bedroom apartment in the city and could use the extra cash.

I went into the bathroom where I saw a tub filled with black liquid, it looked like no one had used it in years. The toilet stank so bad, I nearly vomited. How could my father have lived like this? He had been a soldier, worked in a steel mill for over forty years, he raised two kids and nurtured a screeching banshee of a wife until he couldn’t take anymore. Yet I never would have expected him to dissolve like this. It saddened me.

Then I found his bedroom where a mound of clothes laid that smelled worse than the kitchen, some of the shirts had thick stains on them. It looked as if he wore shirts until they were stained beyond recognition then tossed them on the floor and picked up a new one. This wasn’t a home but a cavern for a hermit.

I tried to enter my father’s mind, tried to grasp his perspective, how he could crawl through the piles of garbage from room to room each day. Treating his home like an untouchable structure that would soon resemble the interworking’s of his mind. Then I started going through the drawers. That was when things got worse.

I saw the pornography.

He had everything from Asian bukkake to transsexuals and underage girls. There are just some things you don’t want to know about your father. Yet it fascinated me. I had no idea that his tastes ran so broad, that he had this entire hidden life.
I put one of the videos into an archaic VCR which looked more like a relic from a dead era than an actual device anymore.

On the screen a young girl appeared, a young Asian girl, she was sobbing in the corner as men yelled at her in Japanese. She was naked and looked to be no more than thirteen years old. They beat at her with sticks. When she cried, they beat her harder and a man in a leather mask came in the room. He was large, at least six feet tall and was a wall of muscle. He was naked from the waist down and only wore the leather mask and a see through fishnet vest that looked like it was made of barbed wire. He bled and smiled.

The men holding the camera began to chant something and from the little Japanese I knew it meant serpent. I assumed this was the man’s name. He was the Serpent.

He came at the girl who was screaming and crying as he spread her legs, then the man holding the camera started to hand him instruments. The first was a nipple clamp which he put on the girl. She screamed out in terror.
The Serpent slapped her and the men off-screen could be heard laughing. He spread her legs to reveal a hairless pussy and they did a close up. The girl was sobbing when the cameraman handed the Serpent a dildo with a spike at the tip. Slowly he used it to penetrate her. The screams were unimaginable. I had never heard such pain. Not even when—
I turned off the video.

I saw my father’s laptop near the bed. I turned it on and started to go through his files. It was an hour before I found the folder marked LOVE. It was password protected. I tried to hack in but my skills were very limited. I tried to think. Wondering of all the things my father would use as a password, I used my mother’s name, my sister’s name, the town where we grew up, his birthday, my birthday. Then I saw the picture next to the bed in a small frame. It was of a husky dog we had when I was growing up. After all these years he kept it. He had loved that dog.

I typed in the dog’s name POLO.

The folder opened.

Inside I found a plethora of photographs of young girls. Yet these didn’t look like ones that were stolen from the internet. They were marked: Miley, Kimmy, Sandra, Ellie, Denise, Vanessa, Lucy, Amy, Shannon, Nikki. Then inside each subfolder was a catalog of conversations he had with these girls. I saw the photographs he was sending them of a handsome looking fourteen year old boy who any girl would be attracted to. He looked like one of those Hollywood teenagers who played vampires and werewolves.

Then he had fake dick pics to show them, body pics which he got from who knows where, probably from pretending to be girls to other young boys.

Then alongside these chat records as well as some webcam videos of the girls showing off their budding breasts and masturbating on cam for what they thought was another teen their age. I read the chats for the next two hours, the way he got in these girls heads and manipulated them, turned them against their parents. He said they could run away together and that he loved them and would take care of them. Then the final message would be a meeting place and a time. Then I saw the last folder in each subfolder marked: DOLLS.

The photos were of girls naked and screaming in what looked like a dark room. Then videos of him cutting them with a scalpel and torturing them. Finally there would be a video of him slitting their throat then he would embalm and stuff them. He would keep them as long as he could before they started to rot, pose them in skimpy clothes. Pose them with the other dead girls and keep them as living dolls.

My heart was beating in my chest, I couldn’t believe that—

I heard a sound like a knocking below.

Did this house have a basement?

Thoughts swam through my mind.

Was one of the girls here now? Had he died leaving behind a victim that the police never found?

I searched the house wildly looking for where the basement would be. I ran into the kitchen and heard the knocking sound again.

In the kitchen there was a large piece of cardboard taped up against the window, I stared at the fridge and the scraping marks across the floor and pulled the fridge from the wall. Behind it was the basement door.

It was locked.

I went back into my father’s bedroom and searched for the key frantically. Pulling out drawers and feeling through the stiff bed sheets that were full of old shit and semen.

Fuck it, I thought, I ran back and kicked the door until the hinges broke off.

I took a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, stuffed batteries down the tube and lit it up.

The basement smelled like mold and rotten food.

I searched for an overhanging light and found one in the middle of the room.

That was when I felt the hand on my ankle, I cried out.

I kicked it away in panic then slowly ran the flashlight over the shape.

It was a young girl, who had to be no more than sixteen years old. She was filthy and looked half-starved but was still alive. My father had been dead a week and she had found a way to survive. I turned on the overhead light and saw a large water bowl in the corner. He had left her here like an animal.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“Nnnnnnnn,” she growled.

“Who put you here?”

I stared at her in utter fascination. She looked like a porcelain doll come to life.

She looked so much like Jasmine.

“Can’t you talk?” I asked her.

She opened her mouth then and pointed. Her tongue was missing.

I opened my eyes wider; my father had made sure she would never speak back to him. Her teeth were also missing and there was a plier with dried blood on it on the floor.

“My father did this to you,” I said, “He’s dead now, you don’t have to be afraid.”

She started to sob, wet tears making clean lines on her dirty face.

Behind her I saw the red door.

I felt like my entire life had led up to this.

I walked towards it and put my hand on the handle and went inside.

What I saw, I can hardly explain the surprise, the—

Inside was a well-lighted room with a perfect examination table, a wall full of well stocked stools, everything from sex toys to torture devices and surgical equipment. I could only imagine the things he did to these women. How he had drugged and lured these girls into meeting him, abducted them and did unspeakable things to them. All these years and I thought my father and I had nothing in common. I was so wrong.

I took a knife from the wall.

“You look so much like Jasmine,” I said to her, smiling, “She was my first.”

The girl looked scared then and started to crawl away from me.

“She was this young hitchhiker I picked up when I was in college. She was so innocent and trusting. I barely knew what I was doing, there was so much blood. When you make love to a corpse you have to be gentle, rigor mortis starts to set in and you have to choose the right angles. All these years my father and I barely spoke, I thought he was boring, dull, uninteresting—I had no idea that he was just like me. He understood the dark urges, the need to kill. He was a master.”

The girl made mewling noises like an animal as I cut into her, her screams were like music to my ears. I laid her body on the examination table and we made love in my father’s secret room. For the first time in my life I felt free, I felt whole. I had a place to call home.

The next day I called my sister, “I have decided not to sell the house. I am going to clean it up and live in it.”
“Well, he left it to you,” she said, “I could give a shit less if you burn it. He obviously loved you more than me and my combined. He was a cold bastard but Mom said he loved you best. He always said you were his one joy in life.”
A slow smile crept across my face. I felt warmth in my heart, it felt like coming home.

By Daniel William Gonzales

http://www.surrealgrotesque.com
http://www.facebook.com/TheSurrealGrotesque

She lay there on her side, unable to move. They were standing over her when she heard the woman say “I never could do this. You know how much I hate it. Call me when it’s over with,” she called out as she ran from the room, leaving him to do what needed to be done.
The victim just laid there, terrified. It was almost impossible for her to breathe. Her mouth wide open, gasping for air, to no avail. Wild-eyed, she could only watch as the man reached into a drawer and pulled out a large knife. He ran his finger across the blade and smiled his approval at its sharpness. As he walked towards her she suddenly realized what he was about to do. She cried out “Please! No! Please!,” she begged. “Don’t do this. Let me go back to my family, my children….PLEASE!” But no voice came out. Only silence. She watched, helpless, frantic, still unable to move, unable to speak. He raised his arm. As the knife plunged towards her, she knew that it was the last thing she would ever see. Her life did not flash before her eyes.
With the precision of years of experience, he slid the blade under her skin and, with great relish, started to separate it from her body. He delicately removed a bone here, an unattractive piece there, his eyes glistening with joy. When he was satisfied with the results of his efforts, he turned her over and started on the other side. Completely engrossed in his work he didn’t notice the spittle seeping from the corner of his mouth onto his unshaven chin. At last it was done. Completely gutted.
While cleaning up the gruesome, slimy mess, he suddenly stopped, looked down at his handiwork and shook his head. He called out to his wife, “Honey, it’s not gonna be enough. Reach into the bucket and bring me another trout.”

By Sylvester Lewis