Story By: Booth
Edited by: Caitlin Stock
A Foreword from the Author Tristan Booth: Thank you all for
waiting so long for this story. I know it was something I said I started
working on about a month ago. But it was a process, and I think it’s finally
fit for everyone to read. Thank you to my amazing friend Caitlin for editing this
thing and making it readable. She inspired me to make the ending better too, so
thank her for that since the original ending was pretty mediocre. Without
further distraction, go ahead and read my first complete short story in 4
years. I hope you enjoy, and remember, it’s just fiction…
Love Is Forever
The moonlight bounced off the lens of his binoculars, as he
sat atop the large oak tree that rose into the night sky. The wood was peeling
off slightly, a sign of the trees old age. He was dressed in low cut black
jeans that had just been pressed, a black t shirt with a simple graphic design
on it, and some black sneakers. It seemed that the color black was his motif,
so as not to draw attention to himself. He was one with the night sky, blending
in perfectly like a chameleon in human form. After all, he was up here to spy
on someone. Tonight was Valentine's Day and he had longed for one woman for
quite some time.
It all began almost a year ago, when he first laid eyes on
her in the grocery store. He was there picking up a few things, when he noticed
her down the aisle. She had just dropped something she was carrying and bent
down to pick it up. Of course, being the gentleman that he was, he decided to
offer her some assistance.
"Need a hand, ma’am?" he asked politely, gesturing
to the things on the ground. She took a while to gather herself to a proper
level of composure and politely refused his offer. However, he wasn't taking no
for an answer. He insisted on helping her pick up her things and, in doing so,
engaged in polite conversation with her.
"So, where are you from?" he asked, gesturing her
to walk and talk with him after they'd finished picking up her things.
"Just around this area. I grew up here," she said,
sparing the specifics.
"Well, that's nice. I'm not from these parts. I grew up
in another town," he said, walking alongside her and keeping up with her
strides.
"That's cool, I suppose. We don't get many visitors
here," she said, a bit suspiciously.
"Yes, well, I was just visiting some family in the area
and they wanted me to pick up some groceries,” he stated, to the bemusement of
the woman.
“Well, sounds like a typical day then, eh?” she said,
chuckling slightly.
As they carried on about the area, they developed a
friendship. They proceeded to exchange names, and even exchanged phone numbers
so they could meet up sometime in the future.
"So, if you ever would like to visit, or hang out
sometime, I'd be glad to give you a call," said Melissa shyly.
"Sure, that'd be great. I’ll have to swing by for dinner
sometime," said Scott, laughing timidly. And thus, an obsession was born.
A year has passed since that day and they never really
visited much. In fact, they only ever talked once after that. However, to say
that Scott hadn't seen his fair share of Melissa would be false. Here he sits
in the trees across the way, binocular in hand, camera to the side, about to
snap inappropriate and lewd pictures of the woman he's admired from afar so
long.
"Yes. That's good, get undressed. That's just what I'm
looking for," he said to himself under his breath. "God, it's like
she knows that someone is watching."
Melissa was slowly taking her clothing off and getting ready
to take a shower and Scott was with her every step of the way. He was snapping
picture after picture of her in every position imaginable. He thought something
was a little off with her shower, as it appeared the water had a strange red
tinge, but he imagined it was just the lighting. Either way, he'd got what he
came here for, just like every other week for the past few months. Tonight,
however, was a special time, because it was Valentines Day.
Scott climbed down the tree and headed back home, having
scored the pictures that he cared about. He drove a 1977 Dodge Charger, because
he enjoyed his classic cars. He could afford to be in the lap of luxury and,
yet, he was in love with a simple country girl. He was more obsessed, really,
but Scott didn't think of it that way. He approached it as if it was a project,
an experiment in socializing. It was his own sick little game.
On the drive home, he was considering all of his options for
these pictures, like where he could hide them, what he could do to himself
while looking at them, and even simple things like how amazing they were.
Modesty wasn't something Scott is good at, as he thought everything he did was
god-like.
He pulled up into the driveway of his house, his car tires
crunching on the gravel pathway leading up to the 3-bedroom villa he called
home. He had bought the house soon after his promotion at the magazine for
which he worked. Scott was a professionally known journalist and his name was
everywhere. He wasn’t the kind you'd peg for such late night debauchery; he was
kind, calm, collected, and most of all, gentlemanly. The skeletons in his
closet were not to be talked about, touched, or ever discovered. They would
shake the very foundation of who he was, and bring his perfect world crashing
down.
The moon was at its peak in the sky and the light poured out
onto the greenery in the garden. Primroses, tulips, and daisies bloomed in the
spring night. The sight was simply breathtaking. Yet, the air tasted like
death, bitter and unrelentingly bland. Scott took note of this and pondered on
it for a bit before he opened the rustic and freshly painted door to his home.
It creaked open slowly, almost as if it was stubborn to budge.
"What could possibly make this night any different than
the last few?" he thought to himself
"Honey, where did you go for so long? You know it's
Valentine's Day and we were supposed to have a special night, just the two of
us," a voice said from atop the steps. The silhouette of a broad
shouldered man was illuminated by the moonlight, his form taking shape as he
walked down the steps.
It was Scott's husband, Steven.
"Sorry," said Scott, "I was just picking up
some finishing touches for the dinner."
He points to the bag he was carrying, which was enough for
Steven to believe him.
"Always the gullible one," Scott thought to
himself, as he placed the items on the dinner table.
"Well, are you going to come up here and give me a kiss
or what?" said Steven.
Scott semi-reluctantly went upstairs, gave Steven a kiss, and
they ate a nice home cooked meal. Steven had just learned how to prepare filet
mignon to perfection and they enjoyed every last bite of it. After dinner, they
cuddled and watched Netflix, and then went to the bedroom for a little love
making. Steven seemed to enjoy it, but Scott was bored of it.
After Steven fell asleep, Scott snuck into his little office
space where he keeps his journal clippings and photographs. This place was his
sanctuary, somewhere that no one else dared to enter, lest they face Scott’s
scorn. He logged onto his laptop and uploaded the photographs he had taken of
Melissa onto his cloud storage. He kept a database online, not on the computer,
since Steven didn't know anything about cloud storage; he wasn't exactly tech
savvy. He figured it was safer this way. He labeled them and put them in a
folder called, "Melissa, Pet, Experiment 4." This wasn't the first
girl he'd done this with, however. There were a few others before her, but none
quite kept his attention this long.
"She could be the one," thought Scott, scrolling
through the old experiment folders, his glasses illuminated by the light of the
laptop. "She's the only one I've felt for, the only one I've ever
developed feelings about," Scott thought to himself. He continued to
scroll the old subjects, scoffing at them, and remembering their screams when
he attacked them.
"Pain is such a beautiful thing. I loved their screams,
but pain is only temporary. Love ... love can last forever. Love is versatile;
love heals wounds; love brings us together," he thought to himself, while
chuckling lightly at the pictures of women he had tried to love and failed.
Each girl, each victim, brutally butchered when he had lost interest in them.
The first one bloodied and beaten to death with a mallet. The second Scott had
tied to a radiator and slowly and methodically dismembered, administering
adrenaline shots to keep her alive through the torture. The third and what he
thought to be the final one, he had somehow let slip, but not before leaving
his mark on her leg, ripping out her achilles tendon with a crowbar. These
women were just toys to him, playthings which he could throw away when he tired
of them. But something in him changed after that one, something made him feel
alive and whole again. He met his husband. Then he went away from this life for
a while, got a house, and a job, just to cover up this dirty past of his. He
clawed and clawed himself away from it, hoping to bury this darkness beneath a
pile of falsities. But he had finally sank back into his old habits again,
Melissa brought out his psychotic instinct once more. She evoked the feelings
of victims past, and Scott loved it.
As Scott continued to look through old files of his past
victims, he started to realize that he may love Melissa. As these thoughts
poured through his mind, a small chuckle grew into sadistic laughter that
filled the room. He smiled, closed his laptop, and planned out a course of
action for Melissa. She was going to get a special treatment, just like the
ones in his past. Melissa would love him before her day was over, whether she
knew it or liked it.
The next morning, he awoke and snuck out of the house,
careful not to disturb Steven. He got into his car and drove out towards the
town Melissa was in. In his back pocket he carried his most concealable weapon:
a 5-inch stainless steel switchblade, engraved with his initials. It was still
covered in blood from his past victims. The knife had never been washed, since
Scott liked to keep a trace of his victims behind as a souvenir. It may seem to
some that Scott never changed his ways, but this was something he hadn’t felt
in years. This primal feeling is something that had been lurking in his
subconscious for years now, but never in the forefront like it was now. He felt
giddy as he was heading on his way to Melissa’s house, vivid thoughts of
dismembering her slowly filling his mind until it was all he could truly see.
He quickly realized he was veering off the road and tried to maintain control
of his visions, focusing instead on the road ahead.
“I’m gonna make that bitch beg for every last second of
life,” Scott murmured menacingly.
The trees were a blur as Scott raced down the country road to
Melissa's house. He wasn't thinking about anything other than how she would
taste. His perverted mind already thinking up ways to rid of the evidence, to
taste her flesh. Just like the victims in his past, he had planned to eat her
body in order to hide his deed. Make her disappear from the earth in every way
shape and form.
He pulled up across the street from Melissa's house. He
quietly opened his car door and prepared his trunk for occupancy by removing a
few miscellaneous items. There he stood, across the street from the woman he
had been obsessed with since he first laid eyes on her. Time had a funny way of
affecting a person. It could heal, it could decay, or it could downright
destroy someone. To the uncanny eye it seemed as though it had done the latter
to Scott, his mind full of perverted thoughts racing from within him. However,
he was still quite capable of achieving his task with grace, civility, and
charm. Inside his mind the thoughts may be perverse, but on the outside he was
a stonewall of intelligent grace and beauty. It was this sense of
sophistication that gave Scott an edge over his victims. Just like Ted Bundy
and other killers before him, he won his victims over with his gentlemanly
charm, before he turned to violence and overpowered them time and time again.
The game had begun, and the ball is in his court.
“I’ll just walk up to the door, ring the bell, and tell her
my car broke down,” he thought to himself, formulating a plan so as not to surprise
Melissa with his visit. “Then when she recognizes me, I can act surprised that
it’s her,” he thought again, walking up the stone pathway to Melissa’s house.
She lived in a simple rancher that had a sort of charm about
it. The door was real oak wood, and the windows had an open and extremely wide
pane for a beautiful view of the neighborhood. Scott approached the door and
knocked a few times. When there was no answer he rang the doorbell a couple
times. Eventually, Melissa came to the door to greet him.
“Hello, ma’am. Sorry to bug you so early, but I’m having some
car troubles. Would you mind giving me a jump possibly?” Scott asked in a
desperate, near manic voice.
“Scott?” Melissa asked, with a bit of shock in her voice.
“Melissa? Oh, my god. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you lived
here! How have you been?” Scott said, acting surprised.
“I’ve been pretty good. It’s been a long time. You never
really returned any of my calls so I just figured you lost interest or
something,” Melissa stated, unable to believe her own eyes.
She invited Scott into the house so they could catch up.
Little did she know that Scott had something special planned for her, something
that would make his feelings known to her, whether she accepted them or not.
Scott lightly brandished the knife, not revealing it to her, but running his
fingers down the blade. A shudder went down his spine as he fantasized what her
screams would sound like, and how she’ll taste.
“So, how have things been with you?” Melissa asked, pouring a
cup of coffee into a teacup.
“I’ve been well,” said Scott, “I’ve just been doing a lot of
photographing. Meeting deadlines is a bitch.” Melissa and Scott both laughed at
the joke and grabbed their respective teacups, holding them close and sipping
from them occasionally.
They talked and talked for what seemed like hours, but in
reality was probably close to only 20 minutes. Melissa seemed timid and a
little bit off-kilter. Scott noticed this and decided to try and calm her
nerves.
“Is everything okay, Mel? You seem a little nervous,” asked
Scott, as he sipped his final drop of coffee.
“No, no, I’m fine,” stated Melissa, seemingly calmer, “It’s
just that I was hoping you wouldn’t notice anything wrong with the coffee.”
“Why? What’s wrong with the coffee?” asked Scott, wondering
what she could possibly mean. At this moment, he felt something off about his
body. It was as if he was swimming in a pool of thick liquid and he couldn’t
keep his head up. His whole body started feeling heavy and he could feel
himself quickly losing control of his limbs, as if something was holding them
down.
“What the fuck did you put in this shit?” he shouted, barely
able to keep consciousness.
“You should thank me,” Melissa stated surely, “It’ll help
lessen the pain later.”
Just then, Scott could feel his body shutting down. He fell
down onto the floor with a thud and lost consciousness completely.
He awoke, his mind racing with thoughts and feelings of pain.
As his eyes finally came back to him and he regained his sight, he noticed that
he was strapped down to a chair. Around him there were candles arranged in a
circle and underneath the chair some sort of symbol was drawn in red liquid.
Not too long after looking, he realized he had been cut and his blood was
dripping down onto the floor. He quickly pieced together that it was his blood
the symbol was drawn with. As Scott came to, he could see a silhouette in front
of him barely, resembling someone he’d seen before.
“Oh, good, the subject has awoken,” a voice said from the
darkness. The silhouette stepped forward and revealed their face to him. It was
his husband, Steven.
“Hello, Scott, I’m guessing you didn’t expect to see me
here,” he said, as he pulled out a long curved blade, which shone in the dim
light of the room. It was covered in a thick crimson liquid, which Scott could
only assume was his blood.
“What the hell are you doing here? What the fuck is going on
right now?” shrieked Scott, unable to keep his composure anymore and struggling
to break free of his restraints. His primal impulses were backfiring on him, as
he only cut himself further on the rope that restrained him. He soon realized
it was barbed to keep him from struggling free.
“Always with the questions. You seem like that kind of man,”
said Steven, laughing slightly and running his hands across the blade. He
brought it to his mouth and licked the blood off, licking his lips. “Oh,
Melissa does know how to sharpen a blade well,” he said, cutting his tongue on
the knife and licking his own blood right off.
Scott didn’t know what to say to this. He had always trusted
that Steven had no knowledge of his dark past.
“Don’t strain your brain too much, victim, you won’t be much
use to us with a weakened mental state,” said a female voice from a more
distant place.
The woman came down the steps, revealing her face to Scott.
Scott had never seen this woman before in his life, but she seemed to be older.
She had black hair and a sultry and unnaturally calming voice. She appeared to
have a slimming figure, but it was extremely dark in the room and Scott
couldn’t make out much. All that was clear to him was the immediate and present
danger she seemed to be imposing on him. Scott had to assume either her or
Melissa was behind all this, although by this point he didn’t care much about
thinking through his situation. He grunted at the woman.
“Who the hell are you and what is going on?” Scott demanded,
annoyance apparent in his voice now.
“Who said you could talk?” the woman replied, grabbing the
blade from Steven and holding it to Scott’s mouth, threatening to cut out his
tongue for another outburst like that.
Scott nodded and decided it was best to stop asking
questions. His life was obviously in the hands of these people. “So this is the
feeling of being powerless,” Scott thought to himself, fighting back tears.
Just then, Melissa came down the steps, a grim smile on her
face. She seemed pleased with the current turn of events.
“Melissa, good work on getting the victim ready, but I could
have done without the theatrics,” the older woman said, still calm.
“Sorry Lady Faust, I just wanted his last memory to be one
filled with dread and misery,” She said, revealing the old womans name.
“Lady Faust,” Scott thought to himself. A sudden feeling of
darkness came over his body, chilling him to the bone. He pondered on the name,
until he reached a memory that he had buried away deep within his subconscious.
His third victim, the one he let escape. Her last name was Faust.
The older woman noticed Scott’s shocked look and knew that he
had come to the realization.
“Ah, so you do remember my daughter, she’s grown up quite a
bit since your attack, hasn’t she?” Lady Faust asked, gesturing to Melissa who
smiled slightly, unsure how to take the statement. “See, my family has a
history of the occult, one that you may not fully understand Scott,” Lady Faust
stated, pulling out a grimoire. She also pulled out a dusty old book that read
“Faust Generation History”.
“My ancient relatives, alive long before any of us were born,
kept this family history book to remind us of the grave misdeeds one particular
relative of ours decided to partake in,” Lady Faust said calmly, “That man’s
name was Heinrich Faust, someone you may have heard of.”
Scott looked on in confusion, still not quite understanding
what the point of all this was. He was queasy from the blood loss and
constantly slipping in and out of consciousness due to the lack of oxygen in
the dark room he was being held in. It felt like a swamp and he was slowly
suffocating in the murky water.
“Heinrich Faust was a scholar of old; he was wise and extremely
loved. His findings were that of legend and he knew all a man could know. But
he tired quickly of his life in the mortal realm, and called out for a
spiritual experience, to know all that men should not know, from whomever would
provide it,” Lady Faust explained, continuing her story. “You see, unbeknownst
to Faust, the Lord of darkness had a plan for him. He sent a demon named
Mephistopheles to him and swayed him into a life of sin and worldly pleasures.”
She closed the book, putting it down on the ground where she grabbed it from
originally. She grabbed the grimoire and showed it to Scott, pointing at the
image on the top left, “This is Mephistopheles, dear Scott.”
Scott looked at the image in horror, unable to comprehend why
she was showing him this.
“You’re still confused, aren’t you?” Lady Faust said,
sounding nearly appalled, “Do I have to spell it out for you?” She scoffed.
Scott soon realized that the woman in front of him had enough
of his ineptitude and she again grabbed the blade from Steven. She kneeled down
in front of Scott, holding the blade over his leg, slowly carving out a symbol.
Scott screamed in agony, helpless to stop her. He struggled with his arm
restraints and began to bleed more profusely. He waned in and out of consciousness,
unaware of his surroundings still, and a feeling of helplessness came so
strongly over him that he began to cry once more. He was the victim in this
bloody game and he had no escape route.
Lady Faust gave the blade back to Steven and motioned for
Melissa to take her place, obviously fed up with Scott. Melissa walked over
towards the light, staring at Scott eye to eye for the first time.
“You know what I see when I look into your soul?” She said to
him, getting close to his face so she could whisper in his ears. “You’re
already damned,” she said quietly to him, spitting on his face. “You destroyed
my life that day, you know? I was going be a soccer player. I had already won
the tournament for my school. But then you came along, you tempted me into a
sinful relationship with an older man. YOU CORRUPTED ME!” Melissa shouted,
grabbing the knife from Steven and gashing Scott’s chest. She chuckled slightly
as the blood poured from his pectoral muscles, which she cut open violently.
Scott could barely scream in agony, his strength disappearing from him. Melissa
reached into a bag and pulled out a needle filled with a green liquid that
Scott immediately recognized. She shoved the shot into his ribcage and pushed
the liquid into his veins. He instantly felt reenergized and let out a scream
of intense agony.
“How does it feel to be the victim Scott? You’ll be the
perfect host,” Melissa said, finally calmed. She gave the knife back to Steven
and went back to Scott, looking him in the eyes once more. “Mephistopheles will
be pleased,” she stated bluntly, digging her finger into his chest muscle,
ripping what was left of it out with her bare hands, and laughing in Scott’s
face. Scott let out another cry of agony, trying to bite at Melissa, but to no
avail.
“Enough of that Melissa, you know our savior likes a semi
clean host. I mean for our Lord’s sake, Heinrich was a scholar and you all know
my husband was a well kempt man, damn his soul,” Lady Faust exclaimed, coming
out once more from the darkness.
“Jesus, you’re all lunatics,” Scott exclaimed, making his
first statement since Lady Faust had threatened his tongue.
“Oh, darling, Jesus isn’t here,” Lady Faust stated grimly.
Scott looked at her and knew what she said was true. There was no way in hell
that Jesus or any divine justice would be helping him out of this place. He
would die here, in the hands of a few cultist freaks. His soul was damned and
he finally accepted the fact, giving up and letting his body limber up again.
“Let’s just get on with this then,” Scott stated blandly, all
tone gone from his voice.
The three looked on in shock, unaware that their victim would
ever give in to them.
“Fine,” Lady Faust said, with a sudden change in her tone,
“Steven, Melissa, carve the rest of the symbols into him, you know how to do
this.”
Scott didn’t even let out a whimper as they cut into his
flesh, his will to live gone completely by this moment. His body was limp and
he felt a rush of cold air come over him. He welcomed his death, unwilling to
fight anymore. He fell unconscious once more and awoke to the three gathered
around him, illuminated now by the light entirely. He could see all their faces
clearly. They appeared human, but inside he could see their true evil. He was
between the earthly realm and that of the afterlife, slipping in and out of
living. Within their bodies true evil lurked, in the form of three demons.
Their flesh was burned and contorted and he could see that they were all related
to Mephistopheles, long lost relatives of some form or shape. When he came to
for the final time, no longer in the realm of the afterlife, they were chanting
some strange ritual.
“Komm her
oh Great One. Erhöre unser Flehen. Anstieg von Ash. Gib uns deine Gegenwart!”
They chanted in unison, repeating
the verse numerous times.
The ground began to
shake beneath Scott, and he looked below him. The symbol they had drawn was
rising up, the blood floating in the air slightly. Scott stared on in horror as
the blood continued to rise up, floating above him and spinning around his body
and surrounding him in a wall of his own blood. He could see only the crimson
liquid and no longer could he make out the people in front of him. The blood
surrounded him and eventually attached itself to him, entering his bloodstream
once more, and filling him with a revitalizing feeling. He felt whole again,
but he also felt another presence filling him.
“Hello, Scott,” a voice
said within Scott’s mind.
“What the fuck, who is
that?” Scott thought to himself.
“Such foul language
towards someone who’s going to be sharing brain space with you,” the voice
said, feigning offense.
Scott couldn’t believe
what he was feeling in his mind. It was like his brain was at war with itself.
But then, the silence came. It was blankness and it was fullness. He felt
nothing and yet he felt everything. “This was what they had planned,” he thought
to himself.
“I am Mephistopheles, by
the way, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the voice revealed itself to Scott,
“I’ll be assuming control here.”
Just then, Scott’s mind
went completely blank. He didn’t know what was happening anymore. He couldn’t
see, he couldn’t hear, and he couldn’t feel. All he could do was think to
himself. Mephistopheles had assumed control of all his senses. Just then, Scott
could hear him speaking to his minions.
“You have done well my
children. You brought me one of the souls that I sought and for that you will
be rewarded,” he stated calmly.
Scott heard the three
children as they truly were, their tortured screams of delight and happiness
from the good word Mephistopheles brought them. As Scott’s mind went blank once
more, he awoke in a dark place. His hands were tied to a wall and his legs were
restrained, as well. Scott closed his eyes once more, trying to assure himself
of his position. He looked at the sign in front of him. “Welcome to Hell,” it
read, illuminated by a candle. Scott felt a sudden strike of a whip, from an
unknown assailant. As he came to fully, he smiled, and closed his eyes one
final time.
