Suffer Hard: An Extreme Horror Novella Read Online Free Page B

from its back and sides. The flesh that hadn’t been hacked off, including the buttocks, were sheened in red.
    She stumbled backwards from the horrific sight , doubled over and threw up the contents of her stomach. There was no holding back the tide of nausea this time. Wave after wave of hot, stinging sick heaved up and out, leaving her trembling all over.
    Sh e was joined by the others as she vomited.
    She was still vomiting when she grabbed one of the knives that hung down from the hooks on the top segment of the island.
    “Oh, for God’s sake Michael, will you put down your little toy and sort the other one out, she’s running wild.”
    Michael grunted and dumped Beth on the stone floor. She landed on her backside and toppled backwards.
    Jessie heard the sickening crack of the crown of her head bouncing on the floor, and she winced when it happened.
    Beth didn’t move and she figured she was out cold.
    Either that or dead. A knock like that to the head could easily be fatal.
    Michael took a step towards her.
    “Stay back,” Jessie warned, brandishing the knife in front of her, her shoulders hunched, ready for combat.
    Michael didn’t seem t o care about the knife. He edged forwards and Jessie swiped at him.
    “I’m fucking warning you,” she screeched, not recognising the high pitched quality of her own voice.
    He overpowered her easily. Jessie wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. He just seemed to grab her wrist and twist her hand until she screamed in pain and dropped the knife.
    “You bastard,” she cried when he picked her up in the exact same way he had with Beth a few short moments ago.
    She writhed and thrashed but he held her pinned tight to his shoulder.
    The smell of him was nasty. Her nose was too near his armpit and the stench of rancid, stale sweat assaulted her nostrils. Sweat and something else. She didn’t know if it was her terrified, overactive imagination, but the odour of death clung to him, threatening to undo the last threads of her sanity.
    He dumped her on the work top on top of the dead girl.
    In that moment Jessie’s panic was so all-consuming that she felt the last scraps of her sanity leave her.
    She bucked and writhed and screamed and flailed her limbs like a woman possessed. She could feel the girl pressing into her back but there was no escape. Michael held her down, one big hand easily spanning the entire circumference of her waist and the other pressed over her face.
    “Tie her down, she’s a real struggler,” Margaret said.
    Michael grunted, and stared down at her with his tiny eyes. Looking into them Jessie felt as if she was being sucked down into hell.
    He let go of her a second to bend over and reach into the shelf underneath the island. That second was all it took. Jessie threw herself off the steel surface, landing miraculously on her feet behind Michael.
    She ran for the door that topless Margaret was blocking.
    Jessie didn’t let that hinder her. She threw herself at the woman, knocking her sideways.
    But that second delay was all it took for Michael to grab her waist from behind and sweep her off her feet.
    “ Noooo!” she screamed.
    “I’ve had just about enough of your hysterics,” Margaret complained, a frying pan raised high above her head in both hands.
    The pan came crashing down across her temple, followed by a brief, excruciating flash of pain.
    And then nothing. Jessie was out cold.

CHAPTER THREE.
     
     
     
     
    Bish led Craig and Tim down the small alleyway that ran parallel to the side of the pub.
    “Hey Bish,” Craig called out to the bald old guy hobbling along in front of them. “Why are we going down here?”
    “Car’s parked round back,” he said without turning round.
    Craig and Tim exchanged a look, a look that said, how is that even possible?
    Logic dictated that there would be nothing behind the pub besides the wilds of Cornwall. Craig frowned. This felt wrong.
    Get a grip, will you, he chided himself. There must be a back