Seraphina
The sheets were still warm. I pulled the heavy wool blanket tight around my shoulders, tucking my chin into the fleece line, watching the pale, diluted morning grey press flat against the windowpane.
Between my palms, the mug of coffee radiated a steady, grounding heat.
I took a long, slow breath, letting the steam fill my lungs.
It smelled of toasted chicory, brown sugar, and the faint, underlying scent of clean pine shavings from the logs stacked by the hearth.
It was a safe smell. A domestic smell. Underneath it, if I leaned close to the collar of the oversized grey jersey, there was the low, musk frequency of tobacco and hard mountain rain.
I closed my eyes, letting the darkness behind my eyelids turn into a blank page.
Today Joey is going to kill one of her monsters.
Some of you have already decided she's the villain.
Maybe you're right. But history has always blurred the line between monsters and the people who hunt them.
Heroes only become heroes because someone else tells the story.
"You're using the wrong spoon," Gerald murmured from the nightstand. He was perched on a stack of old paperbacks, his tiny ceramic nose pointed at the small silver teaspoon resting on my saucer.
"It's a spoon, Gerald. It moves the sugar. A spoon will do a spoons job after all," Frank countered from the windowsill, his painted eyebrows drawn into a permanent, brittle line of exhaustion.
"It’s a dessert spoon. It changes the volume of the drag. She’s over-sweetening that delicious roast."
"She likes sugar. Shut up."
"You can't even taste sugar. You're made of clay."
"I have an aesthetic appreciation for balance!" Frank snapped, his small, imaginary fists clenching over his painted green tunic.
I let out a soft, dry laugh into the rim of my mug, the bickering fading into a rhythmic hum as I set the coffee down.
I stretched my fingers and wiggle it over the keyboard.
I didn't want to think about spoons. I didn't want to think about the valley.
I needed to see Joey through to the end. I needed this scene to end.
I pressed the key.
JOEY
Darkness settled inside the old farmhouse like a scary movie would before the guy jumps out of the darkness.
The tin roof groaned softly beneath the weight of years, while outside, the relentless chorus of crickets thrummed through the night air.
Somewhere deep within the walls, rainwater dripped into a bucket with a hollow, metallic ping.
There were no buzzing lights here. No electricity.
Only three thick wax candles burned on a low crate, their long tongues of flame dancing and flickering whenever a draft swept under the door.
They threw tall, monstrous shadows across the cracked concrete floor, painting the room in a sickly, breathing amber.
The air smelled of damp timber, mildew, chicken coop dander, and decades of forgotten dust.
Somewhere beyond the room, hidden behind a crumbling wall, you can hear the wind chimes singing
Clink...
Clink...
Ting...
Silence.
Clink...
Every measured beat echoed through the empty building, swallowed by peeling paint and hollow hallways before returning as a faint whisper.
Through the floorboards, the muffled, nervous clucking of chickens in the lower barn vibrated softly, completely unaware of the dark room above them.
Time hadn't abandoned this farm. It had simply slowed down.
The wire restraints dig into his wrists and ankles as he tries to test them, panic setting in one frantic movement at a time as muffled screams echoed all around.
His wrists and ankles were secured to the corners of a solid wooden skinning table anchored firmly to the floor.
No amount of struggling would move it. I recommend it, more pain.
Dust drifted lazily through the narrow beam of candlelight, disappearing whenever the flame bent sideways. An old workbench stood against the far wall, cluttered with forgotten farm odds and ends gathered over decades.
I brushed a fingertip across the workbench, leaving a clean line through the dust. Behind me, the heavy breathing got even worse, a wet gasp broke through the heavy breathing. The silence didn't last.
A restrained, desperate movement broke the stillness, followed by the heavy scrape of the table legs straining against concrete. I turned slowly toward the figure waiting in the golden gloom, the candlelight catching the edge of the tool in my hand.
"You know… I waited years for this. Years to put you in a place you put me. Years to plan the perfect plan. Just for you to be ungrateful."
His breath hitched. He tried to speak, but the heavy burlap bag over his head muffled the sound into a wet, desperate plea. I walked forward and ripped the bag away, letting the candles light shine on my face.
"Who are you? Let me go! I don’t fucking have money..."
I laughed, the sound cold and sharp against the concrete walls. I didn't care about his money. I cared about the nightmares he awakened.
"You don’t remember me?" I asked, sounding so devastated.
I dragged a metal chair closer, the legs screeching like a dying animal.
“Fuck no, I don’t know you, bitch.”
Ignoring his very foul language, honestly rude I continue.
“Do you want to hear a story, Bill?”
Not waiting for his answer, I continue.
“So, this story begins with a little girl. She was seven years old and just got to a new home. A home where a lot of kids were left to grow up. So, this little girl tried and made friends with another little girl and they became best friends. The bestest but one night the little girl heard a scream, and the little girl followed that scream to see her being carried by a big, fat, ugly man. The person screaming was her best friend. So, the little girl followed them to a dark room in the basement where other men were waiting. This little girl got so confused when you pushed her best friend into the arms of men and they started to undress her. The little girl tried to be brave and screamed to leave her best friend alone, but she was grabbed and together that little girl and her best friend got HURT every other day. The little girls tried everything, but nobody would listen because they were little girls until one day after the men hurt them the little girl's best friend didn’t wake up and the little girl was alone to endure more pain and more HURT alone, for years to come.”
As I spoke, the air in the room grew heavy. His face went as white as a sheet as the realization finally slammed into him. He tried to scream, but the sound caught in his throat.
"See Bill, I don’t fucking like grown-ups hurting little girls.
So, I got older and I found them. One by One.
I took them and made them HURT. Make them feel pain, make them go through things no person should.
But they weren’t human, they were monsters!
So, Bill, thank you for being the last on that list.”
I took the long-nosed pliers and clamped down on the base of his left index finger.
The ribbed steel teeth bit into the flesh, locking tight against the root of the nail.
He thrashed, the heavy wooden chair groaning against the iron bolts in the floor, his face purple, veins bulging like blue worms across his temples.
I didn't rush. I pulled backward with a slow, mechanical leverage.
The nail didn't just pop off. It peeled.
A sharp, wet rasp echoed through the quiet as the living tissue tore away from the quick, exposing the raw, pink nerves beneath.
Bill let out a choking, high-pitched shriek, his body going completely rigid, his feet drumming a frantic, desperate pattern against the concrete.
A thick, dark stream of crimson pooled instantly on the zinc tray, dripping down into the iron drain with a steady, rhythmic pat... pat... pat.
"That's one," I murmured, tossing the bloody shell onto the tray with a sharp clink.
He was begging, his voice a broken, raspy whisper, his head rolling against the wooden backrest.
"Please... oh God, please... I didn't mean... they made me do it. Fuck I didn’t know they were that young they didn’t look like children. Every skinny body in there looks like that, please stop..."
The word children turned something cold and sharp in my gut.
"You fucking knew you bastard," I growled.
I didn't reach for the pliers this time.
I picked up the heavy bone-handled wood chisel from the kit.
The edge was razor-sharp, honed on the whetstone until it could slice through leather like butter.
I took his thumb, forcing it flat against the metal table, and drove the flat of the blade directly into the first knuckle joint.
I didn't use a mallet. I used my weight. I leaned my shoulder into the handle, pushing downward until the steel met the resistance of the cartilage.
Crunch.
The sound was a sickening, wet pop as the joint severed completely.
Bill’s eyes rolled back into his head, the whites showing fractured red capillaries under the flickering bulb.
He didn't scream this time; his lungs simply collapsed under the sheer volume of the agony, a low, bubbling rattle escaping his lips as his hand began to spasm, the severed tip of his thumb twitching on the zinc surface.
I pulled the chisel back, the blade coated in a thick, grey paste of marrow and red cells.
"You used your hands to make us small, Bill," I whispered, my voice perfectly flat, perfectly clinical as I lined the steel up with the middle joint of his wrist.
"So, we're going to make sure your hands don't work anymore."