Broken
Part One
Dean Wellington sat on the sofa, his beer powered buzz leveling off, unlike his counterparts. He tips the bottle to his lips, takes a wealthy swig, and takes in his friends with a mischievous smile. Across the room, curled up on the floor next to the hallway, Stacie leans back against the wall, out cold, long-neck beer bottle still in her right hand. In her lap Nancy sleeps away. Both had been talking and laughing not more then ten minutes before. Next to them stretched out on the floor beside a glass top coffee table, Nick, Stacie’s boyfriend of two years, slept off his twelve bottles of brew.
Dean stretched his arms, allowing his right to lay gently on Suzan’s shoulder as she snoozed next to him on the sofa, curled up into a ball. He stared down her open top, admiring her hefty cleavage. Just as he started to reach his arm from her shoulder to carefully open her top a bit wider, maybe even cop a quick feel, Jack Harrison stirred in his chair. Jack was Suzan’s boyfriend, and Dean’s best friend. Dean watched as Jack shifted in his chair not more than five feet from the sofa, then turned his focus back onto Suzan. He reached slowly, squeezing the thin cotton of her blouse between his index and middle finger. Carefully her pulled the one side of her blouse further away from the other, opening up his view of her lace covered breasts. He thought about going further, tongue sticking out the corner of his watering mouth. But just as he started to lean over her movement outside the window startled him. He sat up straight, stared at the closed curtains as a dark shadow crossed the window again, and then again. It moved slowly, back and forth as if pacing, pondering it’s intentions.
“Dude… Dude.” Dean said low to his buddy sleeping in the chair, leaning forward just enough to tap Jack’s arm with the tip of his empty bottle. “Jack!”
“What!” Jack spit out, his eyes barely opening.
“There’s someone outside.”
“So?”
“I mean it man… there’s someone out there.”
“So find out if they have beer… If not… Fuck’em.” Jack stated, turning away in his chair, and trying to go back to sleep.
“You’re not coming with me?”
“No! Stop acting like a pussy.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes. “And don’t wake me again unless there’s more beer.”
“Fine… Prick…” Dean whispered under his breath as he stood from the sofa and made his way to the door.
Dean stumbled his way around the room, and to the door. Of course he tried to take a peek down Stacie’s top as well on the way. He reached for the knob, held it in his large hand as he took a deep nervous breath. Slowly her turned the knob, and opened the door. On the other side stood a slender figure wearing a long black coat and a gas mask painted red. Dean saw nothing more than a quick flash of moon light streak in front of him before he felt the sharp pain in his heart. He glanced down at his chest as he reached a hand to the point of his pain. Shock flooded his face, quickly followed by fear when he found the large butcher-knife plunged deep into his chest to the wooden handle.
“Wha... wha…” He gasped, staring into the black lenses of the mask. Instinctively Dean took two steps back. The figure followed him, pushing him back against the wall, yanking the large knife from his chest, and slicing a horizontal line across his throat. Quickly the gurgling sounds came from him as he struggled for air. The figure stood, watched him as he slid down the wall to the floor, dead.
Behind the figure Stacie had awoken from the commotion, her fear had silenced her, a scream trapped somewhere within her throat. But fear had not paralyzed her completely, Stacie kicked her friend Nancy from her lap. Nancy quickly noticed the dark figure and Dean’s blood covered lifeless body at it’s feet.
“Oh shit!” The words barely audible as she and Stacy scurried to their feet and ran down the hallway. With in the time it took the figure to turn and face them, they were already down the hall and out of sight.
The soft noise of the girls running for their lives was enough to wake Nick. He rolled over just in time to see the large knife blade suspended above him. Before he could react or make a single sound the thick blade pierced his throat, going through and into the floor beneath him, pinning him to the floor like a bug on a board. The figure stood over him, not making a sound, but he knew that the person behind the mask was staring down at him, smiling. He mouthed the word “Why?” as he watched the figure retrieve an axe from inside it’s long coat. It raised the axe above it’s mask covered head and brought it down swiftly, and with perfect accuracy drove the wide blade into his throat just below the butcher knife, and above his collar-bone. A second swing of the axe separated Nick’s head from his body entirely. Then the figure turn it’s attention on the still sleeping Jack.
It moved over to him slowly, almost as if it were floating. It stood over him, cocked it’s head to the side, raised the axe, and plunged it into the sleeping boy’s abdomen. Jack woke screaming from the pain, his hands flailing in an attempt to stop another blow, but the axe found it’s way into his chest, and Jack screamed again. The axe found his body four more times before he stopped screaming, pleading for his life. Once his screams had ended with his life, the figure chopped the axe into his lifeless body two more times, nearly cutting him in half at the waist.
Suzan screamed as she woke to see the final blow enter Jack. She leaped from the sofa, but the figure snatched her by her long hair, causing her to stumble, and guided her fall toward the coffee table. In the time it takes to blink, Suzan’s face crashed through the glass top of the table, shattering it, and slicing up her pretty face. Stacie pushed herself up from the broken table on shaking arms. Crying and struggling to breath, her face covered in her own blood blinding her, she tried to run. With inhuman speed the figure again grabbed her by the hair, swung her around, and smashed her face first into the wall next to the hallway. The impact stunned the girl, giving the figure plenty of time to pull her head back and drive it through the wall, crushing her skull and sending the fragments of bone into her brain. Suzan dropped swiftly to the floor, dead.
Slowly, without any outward sign of emotion, the dark figure floated down the hallway into the kitchen, dragging the blade of the axe along the floor behind it. In no hurry the figure moved through the kitchen in the same manner, always looking straight ahead, until reaching the back door of the house. A door that it had blocked from the outside before moving to the front of the house. Since there were no other doors exiting the kitchen, there was no doubt that the other two girls were hiding somewhere within the four walls. The pantry door was slightly ajar when the figure turned, it had not been when it walked by. The figure moved toward the small door and Stacie dashed from the pantry for the hallway. He figure tripped her with the axe, sending her crashing to the floor. Stacie hit hard, knocking the breath from her lungs. She started to crawl between the small island and the cabinets, gasping for air, and pleading to Nancy for help. Nancy was hiding under the counter where the dish washer had been, and open space waiting for the new appliance to arrive. Nancy watched, tears washing over her face, as the figure stepped over top Stacie, raised the axe, and drove it into her friend’s spine.
Stacie screamed, and the axe plunged into her again. Her crawling stopped, she no longer could move her legs. She tried to pull herself with her arms, but the figure stood with a foot firmly on her rump, holding her in place as it took aim, and plunged the axe blade into her four more time rapidly. Nancy watched in horror as the life slowly drained form her friends frightened face, fearing that she was about to experience the same fate. Nancy curled her knees tight to her chest, arms around her folded legs, face buried between her knees. If she was going to die, she didn’t want to see it coming.
The figure tugged the axe from Stacie’s back, turned carefully, and headed back down the hallway, dropping the axe just passed the kitchen doorway, and stopping halfway back to the living room. It turned, leaned back against the wall, and slid down to the floor. Sitting on the floor the figure reached for it’s mask, slowly lifting it off as the sirens and flashing red and blue lights filled the darkness of the house.