“What do you mean they never caught him?’ Kay asked her boyfriend, named Scot, nervously.
Scot tried to hide his smile in the moonlight. Kay was a beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed, athletic figure, eighteen-year-old college student that was new in the area. Scot was a good-looking dark-haired, green-eyed, tall, well-built, college senior. He knew he was lucky to have Kay, but he also liked to scare her with horror stories. They were taking what was supposed to be a romantic walk in the moonlight along the wooded trail by the lake.
“Jake used to work at the factory there,” Scot pointed at the huge, abandoned and condemned old building.” He was the night shift watchman for over twenty years. A lot of people were disappearing in town, but no one connected it to him for a long time. They just thought he was some old hermit night watchman. Most of the missing people were prostitutes. The cops just figured that they disappeared on their own.
“But then a pretty eighteen-year-old college girl, named Kim, who looked a lot like you disappeared with her boyfriend. They’d told friends they were coming out here. The cops searched for them seriously because they both came from wealthy families. They found both Kim and her boyfriend butchered in the basement of this factory. Turns out this whole area used to be part of a coal mine and the factory sits on a bunch of underground caves and tunnels. The cops found the bones and other remains of sixteen women, and six men down there. There was a big old forge down there that the crazy old watchman was burning the bodies up in and apparently making smoked jerky out of them. He was a cannibal. He was abducting, raping, torturing and killing people for over twenty years right here. The cops never found him.
“The cops did find the scalps of almost all the victims in a room down there. Crazy old Jake was keeping the scalps like trophies.”
Kay was thoroughly creeped out. “Why the hell would you take me down here for a romantic walk only to scare me?”
Scot laughed. “Relax honey. Old Jake would surely be dead by now. This happened a long time ago.” Scot assured her.
The couple was so busy talking they never heard Crazy Jake as he burst from the brush in a sudden rush. Scot didn’t even have time to fully turn before Jake’s club drummed him clobbering his cranium and the clout knocked Scot out.
Kay managed to scream right before the club slammed her skull and sent her into oblivion.
Kate and Scot woke up in an underground coal mine chamber, where a lantern illuminated the room. They were both tied up and gagged and nude. Nearby old Jake was also nude and smiled at them. Jake was a mountain of an old man with sagging flesh everywhere. Even his wrinkles seemed to have wrinkles. But he was still a massive man standing nearly seven-foot-tall with a barrel chest and huge limbs, along with a bloated, sagging stomach. His long grey hair was filthy and matted. His body odor was atrocious. His blue eyes sparkled, enjoying their terror.
“I heard you both talking. No, I’m not dead yet. I’m 74, but still spry. The cops never caught me. I’ve been here the whole time. I often watch you kids come walking through here at night telling scary stories about me. I let them pass usually, but when I said you honey I knew I had to have you. You look just like Kim did. I couldn’t resist you.” Jake looked over at Scot,” Thank you, young man for bringing your pretty girlfriend to me. I’m going to get a lot of use out of her.”
Scot cursed through the gag, trying to be brave. Jake smiled as he pulled out his long skinning knife and brutally knifed Scot’s nuts castrating him. Scot’s sounds became cries of agony muffled by the gag. Kay screamed into her gag in horror.
Jake walked over to Kay and rubbed Scot’s amputated testicles on her face as she squirmed helplessly. “Relax honey. I’m sure it's not the first time you had some nuts on your chin. Just so you know I’m going to keep you alive as long as I can, but I’m not going to feed you. When you’re starving and hungry enough I’ll feed you parts of your boyfriend. I do a good job of smoking meat down here. Your boyfriend is going to become jerky for us.”
Jake laughed at Kay’s incredulous look. “I know you probably think you won’t eat human flesh, but when you’re starving you’ll change your mind. Hunger does strange things to a person. Kim, the last girl I had that looked just like you, lasted about two weeks hungry before she started eating the parts of her boyfriend that I smoked up. Kim lasted for almost three months down here. Let’s see if you last longer. I’m not as young as I used to be, but I have some Viagra down here to help me keep you satisfied.”
Kay could only cry and moan into her gag at her new nightmare.
Jake laughed with demented delight.
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in The Horror Zine, J Journal, Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Blood Moon Rising, Dark Harbor, Flash Phantoms, You Phantomaniacs Anthology, The Listening Eye, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spotlight on Recovery, Outdoor Life and Muscle and Fitness. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in 2019. He has numerous novels and audiobooks available.