Chapter 28 Slaughterhouse Rules
Slaughterhouse Rules
PREACHER
Ifeel like shit.
Seeing him with Ripley up against that wall, trying to claw at her and take what he knew damn well wasn’t his…
I wish I could have slit his throat and left him there, like abandoned trash in an alley, but I’ve got this whole thing about not leaving evidence behind. Raph’s been giving me shit the entire ride home, waking up my phone every couple minutes with a new insult or accusation.
RAPH
You should have been there with her.
RAPH
You’re lucky nobody blew your fucking cover.
RAPH
Even luckier the pigs didn’t show up.
I got too confident in her untested abilities, too excited to watch her weave that web of hers, and it got out of control.
Thankfully, I managed to get her some ipecac in time to get most of that nasty Pixie Dust shit out of her system.
She puked her brains out for about half an hour, but her mind’s clearer now.
But after all that, now she won’t even look at me.
I pull up into the ranch, killing the engine and staring out at the barn in the distance. It’s lonely in the dark, like an ominous beacon, just barely lit by my headlights as an eerie silence descends around us.
“You ready?”
Her jaw ticks, her fiery eyes and clenched fists giving away the rage that’s been building inside her all night.
“Ripley.” I rest my hand on her knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I need your head in the game. Are you up for this?”
“Yes,” she rasps.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Gonna need better than fine.”
“I’m on top of the fucking world.” She rips the seatbelt off, glaring at me. “Is that what you want to hear?”
I shrug.
“It’ll do.”
I hop out of the truck and she follows, watching me intently as I toss Jonathan’s limp body over my shoulder and head for the barn.
He blubbers and groans, his system still in shock as he struggles to adapt to his new reality.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure she hasn’t wandered off or passed out, but she’s still just a few steps behind me, pushing her messy hair out of her face.
Even covered in sweat, with mascara smeared on her cheeks, she’s still a smoke show; kinda like Jessica Rabbit…
if she were a rage-fuelled homicidal maniac.
I unlock the barn, and the two of us head inside, Ripley silently shutting the doors behind us.
“Wha’shappenin?” Jonathan slurs, his head wobbling around as I feel his heart rate start to spike.
I don’t say a word, just carry him over to his hook. The sound it makes when it pierces through his shoulder sends a shiver down my spine, a beautiful accompaniment to his shrieking wails.
Once he’s secure, I tear off his clothes, shredding them with my bare hands.
His pale skin glows in the dim light. Tattoos decorate his chest and arms– shitty portraits of the Grim Reaper, guns, a maple leaf, and a lion’s head.
I poke at it with the tip of my blade. I like my prey to be as vulnerable as they’ve made their victims.
“You know, the lion typically symbolizes strength and protection… courage too. None of those qualities seem to really line up with you, Jonathan.” I lean in as close as I can, so close I can feel his sharp panicked breathing on my face.
“You’ve avoided consequences for far too long.
It’s about time someone snuffed you out. ”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can almost see Ripley's anger possessing her, like a foreign entity pushing her to the brink.
This’ll be my gift to her. The first of many.
I head over to the surgical table, my fingers dancing across the array of knives I laid out in preparation for tonight, each one with its own unique memory attached. I snatch up a particularly big one, with a brown leather handle, and flip it over in my hand.
“I shoved this up a guy’s ass once, Johnny.” I'm grinning from ear to ear, allowing myself a brief moment to reminisce. “Blade first, mind you. But don’t you worry, it was his idea. That’s the way he did it to the people he killed, after all.”
Jonathan is doing his best to stay conscious, but he’s struggling.
Drops of dark crimson smack against the floor like the earliest stages of rain, and I can see the telltale signs as his body starts to go into shock.
Pale skin, glistening with sweat, shivering…
unlucky for him there’s a hell of a lot more in store for him tonight.
All of this is just preparation, a preamble. I’m trusting Ripley to dole out the appropriate punishment for his sins. But first, and most importantly, she’ll have to choose the music.
“Rabbit, c’mere.” I pull out my phone, turning on the speakers in the barn with a couple button presses. “I need to show you something.”
She doesn’t say a word, just stares at Jonathan’s limp body dangling from that hook as she makes her way over, more fury burning behind her eyes.
Her trauma runs deep, but I can relate. The relief I felt after I killed my daddy was palpable. After Raph and I buried him, I knelt in the dirt and wept. Finally, after years of torture, I’d found salvation. I was baptized in blood and reborn.
We’ll get to the root of her pain eventually.
She deserves that same special kind of justice.
“Do you think I’m weak?” She rasps, taking her place at my side.
“There’s nothing weak about you.” I glide my thumb across her mouth before giving her a quick peck. “And everyone’s gonna know it. We’re gonna make you a god tonight.”
I take her hand, leading her toward the table. She immediately reaches for a knife, but I grasp her wrist, clicking my tongue and shaking my head. It doesn’t go over well, and she glowers at me.
“If I trust you, you have to trust me. That’s how partnerships work, cowboy.”
“I do trust you,” I chuckle, handing her my phone. “But there’s a certain set of rules we have to follow, like a ritual of sorts. First thing’s first, you’re going to set the mood.”
She takes the phone, staring down at the open tracklist with a frown.
“Music?”
“It’s important nobody hears him screaming if they happen to wander up the driveway. And just look at him, doesn’t he strike you as a squealer?” I shake my head knowingly. “The squealers really do distract you, trust me. Really starts to grate on your nerves after a while.”
She snorts as scrolls through my phone, but I can already see her mood lightening as she hems and haws over the song selection, ignoring Jonathan’s choked sobs until she finally lands on her song.
Kokomo by the Beach Boys pours from the speakers and I nod my head.
“Classic.” I gesture to the knife roll, pointing out a particularly large one with a drop-point blade. “You can pick anything. This one here’s multipurpose though. Good for skinning.”
Jonathan howls, the chain rattling as he swings his arms wildly, like he’s trying to reach back and… Is he trying to pull the hook out? Poor guy must have failed basic physics, or he’s just delusional. To be fair to him though, he has lost a lot of blood.
Ripley tries her best to ignore the noise, carefully looking at each knife one by one, but after a few more screams her eyes go wild, suddenly snatching the knife I suggested from the table and rushing for him.
My jaw drops as I watch her swing her arm back and slash him straight across the belly, the beast of a woman getting up on her tiptoes and gripping his chin like a vice.
“What’s the matter, Jonathan? Can’t take it?”
Her jaw is clenched, and those eyes are fucking lethal.
“How do you two know my name?”
“We know everything about you. We know how many women you’ve raped, and we know your daddy covered it up.
” She smiles. “So many intimidated witnesses, Jonathan, was it just because you were family, or maybe it was something more. Did you do it together? Is that why he killed himself? Or did he really think you weren’t that bad to begin with, that it was just some small time stuff.
Maybe he couldn’t live with the guilt when he figured out how much his son reveled in it. ”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Ripley drives the knife into his other shoulder amidst his whines of agony.
“That’s strange… because that’s not the information I got. You’re Jonathan Jackson, born October 17th, 1992 in Hamilton, Ontario, right? You’re the guy who likes to rape women and make their partners watch, you pathetic piece of shit.”
“I didn’t rape anyone!” His eyes bounce over to me, pure desperation flashing across his face. “You gotta let me go, man! She’s fucking crazy!”
I grab my cigarettes from my jeans pocket, lighting one and letting out a long exhale while the music continues to blare.
“I know. It’s why I keep her around.” I blow a smoke ring. “Fucks like an animal, too.”
Ripley’s mouth twists up into an even more menacing smile.
“You know what Jonathan, you should be more polite, because I just decided we’re gonna fuck on top of your pathetic crumbled little corpse.
” She’s practically spitting her words at him at this point.
“I saw your rap sheet, I know how your daddy protected you. And you’re trying to tell me you’ve never done any of it?
Did you forget exactly what you tried to do to me less than an hour ago, you piece of shit? ”
“You came on to me!” He screams, the veins in his forehead and neck popping in a grotesque fashion. “You fucking asked for it! I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Ripley lets out a sound I’ve never heard her make before, like the mix between a war cry and a thunder clap, as she tears the knife from his shoulder and slashes him again, this time clean through his left nipple.
The cut is so deep I can see the muscle, but I don’t have any time to admire her work, because she’s already circling him, slashing at him here, there, and everywhere, her face twisted in a beautiful new kind of cruelty.
This is Ripley’s reward, an opportunity to finally, and truly, become herself… and judging by the psychotic glimmer in her eye, she’s enjoying every second of it. Sweat glistens on her forehead as she flashes me a delighted look, blood dripping down Jonathan’s trembling body.
“You know what this is called?”
I gesture vaguely at his cut-up, heaving form.
“A rapist?” She asks, catching her heavy breath.
“F- Fuck you!” Jonathan manages to snarl.
It seems he’s given up on the ‘you got the wrong guy’ angle, but even as his strength fades to near-nothing, he can’t seem to process that he’s already dead; has been since he walked out of that club with my girl.
Ripley drives the blade deep into his side, her face twisting up into something demonic. She’s beautiful when she lets loose, more than I could have imagined, and I can’t wait to let her consume me like a brand new kind of sickness.
Something that makes even my blood run cold.
She pulls the blade out, holding it up to the dim light before licking it clean, like it’s a popsicle on a hot summer’s day.
“What were you going to say?” She asks, turning to face me.
“What?”
She grins, the crimson already staining her teeth.
“Did all the blood from that big brain of yours rush right down to your cock? You were going to tell me what something’s called.”
She’s got me pegged, my dick is straining against the zipper so hard it feels like I could burst a seam, but I’m doing my best to keep cool.
“He’s going into hypovolemic shock.”
Ripley bites her lip, trailing the tip of the blade up her bare arm, and then over top of her shirt, ghosting those perky little nipples.
“And what exactly does that mean?”
Jonathan’s still wailing his heart out, but I don’t care. He can make all the noise he wants, it’s not gonna make a lick of difference.
“It means his body is losing too much blood, so his heart can’t pump properly. That’s why he’s…” I gesture at him again. “Like that.”
She turns her back to me, giving me a good look at how the dress clings to her hips and thighs.
“Makes him look a bit like a painting, doesn’t it? The Agony of Mr. So and So.”
I suck on my cigarette, imagining her covered in blood. Well, in more blood at least, with nothing but those heels on and my knife clutched in her fist.
“Fitting.”
“Stop!” The dead man bellows. “God, please stop! You don’t have to do this!”
Ripley’s smile is as cold as it is haunting.
“You think anyone’s going to feel sorry for you, you piece of shit? You think anyone’s going to mourn you after tonight? You can’t even say it out loud, can you?”
“I’m sorry!” He wheezes, some of his final shuddering breaths slipping out along with his words. “I’m sorry, okay? I did it, I fucking did it, just… let me go.”
She smiles, running her hand tenderly across his cheek.
“There, now that wasn’t so hard was it?”
She turns to me, gripping the knife tightly in her fist.
“Now teach me how to skin him. Alive.”