Last Year's Skeleton: Grueberfest '07 (886 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.96 on 40 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ballare (View user info) at 2007-10-03 02:09:49 EDT
She awoke to unfamiliar sounds. Had she thought hard enough, she may have identified them; may have understood why the high wailing drone sparked a sense of recognition; may have realized that the keening sound of a drill, so like that of a drill meeting enamel, was familiar to her.
But she could not, for she was terribly frightened, and could not move save for her eyes - and even then she could see nothing but blurred silhouettes, so she did not identify the sound of cracking bone giving way to a power tool.
"Grace. Cadence Grace."
The voice was low and soft and horrible, and she could not turn her head to see the speaker. She felt her lips move, to reply, to demand an explanation, to scream, but heard nothing but a murmuring, burbling sigh.
There was a laugh; a low and soft and horrible laugh, and the voice came again, and light fingers caressed her jaw line and cheek. Below her neck, her muscles were unresponsive, and Grace could not even flinch away, though every muscle in her body screamed in aversion to this unsolicited contact, and again she heard a muted gurgling moan.
"Don't speak, darling, don't try to speak, and do not cry. I won't describe to you the mess that has been made of your throat; the damage to your spine. Be pleased, dearest, that you can't see the bloody mayhem that's been brought upon you. A thief in the night, after your purse, your, ah, womanly goods, and how you fought back! I was truly impressed, yes, very..."
Grace closed her eyes, and longed to cover her ears, to flatten her palms again her skull and drive out this ghastly insidious voice, but her numbed arms, her hands, her fingers - she could not even feel them. And the low words continued, mercilessly.
"Oh, sweetest, if I had not been there to drive off the man, what would have you done! Raped in an alleyway, paralyzed, dying, what horrors would have found you there?"
And again that laugh, that dark throaty laugh.
"Luckily I found you, yes, luckily..."
And, as her spine had been savagely snapped by a brutal thrust, she could feel nothing of the hands moving about her torso. She could feel nothing as her arm was brusquely overturned, exposing the tender blue vein within the crook of her elbow. She could not feel the sudden pinprick of the needle.
And moments later, she felt nothing at all.
"Luckily you are mine now."
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He hummed distractedly, the man who was called Bolivar, as he busied himself around the prone figure of Cadence Grace. With a strange tenderness, he tucked a strand of wispy red hair behind her delicate ear, and let his fingers trail over the soft pink skin of her cheek, and down along her elegantly curved neck - he carefully avoided the darkening stain of blood, the angry swollen jagged gash - until his hand rested on her breast.
The gentle in-out-in-out of her breathing calmed him. He smiled, but, as though the expression were painful and foreign to him, it faded quickly.
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Grace awoke again, to the metallic reek of blood and muted breathing, heavy and fast.
She was dimly aware of movement around her waist; and for a moment she struggled to lash out, to throw out her arms and legs about and startle this stranger so she could take flight, leap down off the hard cold surface and -
But her limbs lay unresponsive and dead, and the dark figure turned to gaze upon her, alerted by the terrified, birdlike twitching of her eyes.
"There's no use, my lovely, I'm terribly sorry. You've come to me broken, and no amount of doctors will mend you, so I'm afraid we must simply use what spare parts you may offer to me. See, I've already begun."
He smiled again, an appalling stretching of his pale lips, and lifted into her line of sight a limb, a horrible sawed limb, with flesh hanging in ragged strips from the knee and prints in blood where he had placed his hand upon it, and Grace screamed, or tried to, but no sound came out but a wretched coughing sob, and he said, "no, no you mustn't, and do not cry, I cannot bear it-" but she couldn't stop and couldn't turn her head away from the horrible red dripping leg, could not even move her gaze from it, and Grace wept piteously.
"You mustn't cry." He repeated, louder, bending low over her and she tried to spit in his face but she couldn't, she couldn't, and he opened her mouth, forcing his thick fingers between his lips, and tugging with a swift motion, he cut out her tongue, and then, his fingers still red and wet, buried into her eye sockets and pulled out her eyes - her two eyeballs! her sight! - and slice, slice, the tendons were cut and he repeated it again, angry, and spittle speckled her face, "you mustn't cry!"
But Grace, moaning, heard nothing as pain drove her back to unconsciousness, and blissfully, she would never reawaken.
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Bolivar's hands shook as he lifted her thigh away from the torso and swiftly cauterized the wound. He couldn't look into her listless face; he couldn't bring himself to gaze directly at those round hollow sockets and her partially open mouth, filling and refilling with blood from the open wound of her tongue. Grace breathed heavily, through her nose, and occasionally a bubble would rise through the mouthful of blood and burst with a faint pop.
He shuddered away from her face, and carefully turned to her torso. Her legs he'd already removed, careful not to break the bone, and he'd placed them in a large gurgling pot - a cauldron, he'd like to think, a witch's cauldron, cast iron and rotund - and the smell, the smell of unseasoned cooking flesh, had permeated the room.
(Her breasts he'd sliced off and placed aside, carefully. These he would preserve.)
Bolivar ran a hand along her soft pale arms, and pressed the blade of a small, sharp scalpel into the creased skin along her shoulder. With the scored lines pearling blood, the skin peeled back fairly easily, and he pushed his fingers into the thick red muscle beneath it.
Bone, he felt bone, and, bracing his hand against her side, he wrapped his hand around it and pulled the humerus out from the round protective socket.
Pleased, he withdrew his hand and mechanically wiped it off on his pant leg.
He did the same to the other arm, and, as they hung limply over the edge of the table, he used a larger, sharper blade to slice through the muscle tissue. They fell to the floor and rolled a ways until he caught both limbs and gathered them together. The long bones, the ulna, the radius - these he didn't want, and discarded. But her hands - ah, her hands! the tiny delicate bones of the human hand! - he cut off and tossed into the pot with her legs to let the fleshes boil away.
The loss of blood had weakened and paled Cadence Grace, and the desanguination finally proved too much. Bolivar was not conscious of when specifically she had died, but as he sliced through the breastbone he became mournfully aware that her lungs had stopped expanding; her heart had stopped beating.
He rummaged around within her chest for the ribs, the lovely curved white ribs, and extracted them carefully, wielding them deftly, and lining them up upon a sterile silver tray.
Finally, he gazed upon the remainder of Grace's carcass as a thing rendered useless to him. He could take no more; she had nothing more to offer to him. The soft tissues, the organs - none of them were valuable to him, and the skull, casing the rubbery brain, was too large for his purposes.
He nodded, turned, and began to skim the yellowed foam off the top of the boiled bones.
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The final touches had been added.
Bolivar tapped at one of the swinging white rods, and tilted his head - as though deep in thought - as it struck against the other swaying bleached shapes. He sighed, and it was a soft and wistful sigh as he listened to the jingle of bone against bone.
It was a complex and beautiful thing, yes, and the mobile clinked as eerie wind chimes, but the bones did not chime half as lovely as last year's skeleton.
User Reviews
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2007-10-31 01:57:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
just got to this one, but, uggh, gross fest. Nicely told.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2007-10-12 13:41:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"I cannot run for office, I have a skeleton in my closet...
No wait, I made soup."
-The Oblongs
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-10-12 13:17:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-10-07 13:41:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Kurt Vonnegut said of semicolons: "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
I adored Vonnegut, but I disagree with him here. I like semicolons, and I did not recognize any misuse of them here. Some of your imagery is terrifying. Quality entry.
Submitted by ColchesterDr (user info) at 2007-10-07 13:08:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That ending needed a little bit more, but I know it has to be quick.
Still, this was really good.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-10-06 05:03:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this was very good
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-10-05 17:22:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You can take my presumed spot in the next round.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-05 17:13:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
See, this is similar to MANY uber posts over the years, an idea beaten to death, done in at least 2 other stories in this comp. But it gets a +2 because it was well told. The language flowed in a nice way instead of tangling up or stopping dead every few lines.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-04 13:24:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sucks sucks SUCKS if you were to be eliminated in the first round, you're one of the true talents in this thing. Unfortunately, cowman is good too.
Here's hoping for enough forfeiture that you get to advance on your rating to match somebody in round two.
Submitted by zwerg (user info) at 2007-10-04 08:21:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-10-04 03:25:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I re-read and enjoyed more.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-10-03 20:13:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You guys are freaks.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-10-03 15:46:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was gruesome.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2007-10-03 15:32:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff right here.
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2007-10-03 14:05:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was just playing anyway. Anything to dull the boredom.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-10-03 13:43:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by triangle_man (user info) at 2007-10-03 13:28:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
calder cadaver he did
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-10-03 13:12:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
ShapeShifter/EatMeCompletely: Actually, there's eight semi-colons! But unfortunately as they too are my favourite mark of punctuation (along with the comma, which is evident) I do tend to use them too much. I'll make an extra super effort in the future to avoid them.
Oh, wait, no I won't. :) Whoooo semi-colons!
BigMike: I tried to make it clear as soon as possible that the second time she passed out, she'd lost consciousness for good. While she was alive, she wasn't coherent for the last half-or-so of the story.
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2007-10-03 12:59:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by ShapeShifter (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:39:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked this, I really did and I hate to be the one...but the overuse of semicolons caused me to constantly break away. It was as though you'd jump to the next thought before coming to a complete conclusion with the previous. That's my opinion and I'm rating appropriately: 1.5
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Being bored and not busy at work, I went through the post and counted the times in which a semi-colon was used. Semicolons are my favorite form of punctuation; I consider myself a specialist.
A semicolon was used seven times throughout the post. The most common proper usage is as follows:
A semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought.
While independent clauses were not evident in eash usage, each usage did present ideas closely related in thought.
Shapeshifter remarks that the usage of that form of puctuation caused him to "break away." Punctuation, when used properly, should not detract from the merits of an all-around sound post.
You sir, either wished to break the streak or you hate semicolons. Either one is unacceptable to me. Your hatred for semicolons appalls me!
In reality, I'm a pompous douchebag that enjoyed this post. I disagree with his opinion.
Good stuff.
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2007-10-03 12:02:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-10-03 11:17:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
First, I shall say that this entry intrigued me to no end. My characters are always interested in the duty of keeping subjects alive while in the process of mutilating their bodies. That being said, how exactly is she still alive AND coherent through this process. It seems to me that shock and terror should have caused madness to set in with her instead of the "flight" response that could never be realized because of the dismemberment and paralysis. I am good with the cauterization to keep the blood flowing so to speak, but it just bothered me that she seemed to be coherent until the end.
A nice effort however and truly a well written picture.
I settle on a 2 though because I could see the story unfold in my mind.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-03 10:58:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And I thought FG's story was gruesome...this tops it.
Well written.
Submitted by ahumblefool (user info) at 2007-10-03 10:55:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A well written short story, and although I agree with the semicolon response below, your development of character in such a short span of time, from victim to victimzer was well played. Each paragraph drew me deeper into the story, so a +2.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-10-03 10:31:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Crystle will LOVE this one
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-03 09:38:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was excellent.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-10-03 09:20:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn!
I like the imagery of him admiring her dangling skeleton.
Submitted by MANICMOTHER (user info) at 2007-10-03 08:55:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wonderful use of imagery here. Where Baron what's his name's was a study in trying too hard this was just enough and done in a very cold, clinical fashion. When it became obvious, to me, his interest was in the bones themselves, I knew where you were going to end up but don't let that bother you. I'm a sick bitch at heart and just followed my own logical conclusion.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:49:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wicked.
Submitted by ShapeShifter (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:39:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ShapeShifter (user info) at 2007-10-03 07:39:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked this, I really did and I hate to be the one...but the overuse of semicolons caused me to constantly break away. It was as though you'd jump to the next thought before coming to a complete conclusion with the previous. That's my opinion and I'm rating appropriately: 1.5
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-10-03 06:59:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good work
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-03 06:15:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
jesus this was gross. would've been better if he'd made her crying, snivelling, bodies-wracked-with-the-shaking-from-sobbing children break her apart. I mean he could've rummaged through her handbag and found her house keys, let himself in, stuck her husband in the eyes with a angle grinder, and then have taken the children to slice their mum open while he raped her.
You know like lift your game.
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-10-03 05:58:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Approved.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-10-03 05:25:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're sick. And brilliant. But sick. I couldn't read all of it. Sick, I tell you.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-10-03 04:57:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Whist rating these entries I shall deicde who is the most disgusting, disturbed and worrying. So far you are in the lead. Dirty weirdo.
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-10-03 04:54:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I feel ill.
Well played, Word-Smith.
Well played, indeed.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-03 04:19:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2007-10-03 03:25:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent. Horrific. Well done.
Submitted by pshuu (user info) at 2007-10-03 02:24:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
>.< *shivers* how gruesome...
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-10-03 02:12:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.ubersite.com/m/112121
woooo