Not A Good Day - the complete story

Black.1

In my fevered mind as I regained consciousness I remember thinking it funny that they were going to attach the noose at the wrong end. They may have been barely human, but surely they knew how to hang a man? But no, around my feet they slipped it, and dragged me by the rope out of the small dank room and through the baying crowd, across the dusty, splinter ridden floor towards the makeshift gallows.2

The crowd did more than merely bay. It is distinctly unpleasant to find yourself momentarily blinded by someone elses phlegm. Especially someone who hasn't seen the business end of a toothbrush for somewhere in the region of twenty years. But then, everything's relative, isn't it? The kicks, whips and strikes from head to toe were much, much worse. The baying masses all wanted to leave their individual statement on my flesh, or so it felt.3

It felt longer than it no doubt was before we reached the gallows, where I was dragged up onto the stage, trying unsuccessfully to stop my head banging from step to step. 4

Jar. Jar. Jar. And no Binks in sight.5

I tried not to yelp, but I don't think I managed.6

The rope was thrown over the cross beam, and I was hoisted without ceremony into the air. The jeer / cheer in the enclosed space was deafening.7

Still I had no idea what their plans were for me. If I had known then it may have unhinged my mind completely. I'm not too sure that it hasn't.8

What little strength I had I used to fight my kidnappers as they untied my hands. But I could do little to help myself but spin back and fore agitatedly, outnumbered as I was. And nothing could prepare me for the pain of blood rushing to my hands and fingers. I couldn't help but scream at the return of feeling. It felt as if both hands had been slammed between two paving slabs. And then stabbed with pins.9

The small, dark, dirty, scabrous, hump-backed, stinking, troglodytic bastards took both hands and tied them to opposite sides of the gallows framework, in effect crucifying me upside down. Like a Russian gymnast on the rings. I had always thought that it must take an awful lot of strength to hold yourself in that position. But I was wrong - all you needed was a few bits of rope and you could hang there for ages!10

An inverted cross. 11

Part of me very deep inside remembered this as being a part of a Satanic ritual. At least, then, it would be all over shortly.12

Either that or they were creating the cover of the next Slayer album. 13

More's the pity that the answer to my problems wasn't that easy. 14

A flash of a camera bulb, a quick shower, and we could all go home for tea.15

After about twenty minutes, most of the baying hoardes had been beaten back by the would be executioners, and had grown bored when it looked like I wasn't going to be killed immediately. It obviously wasn't going to be like a guillotine execution, whereby you get up on the gallows stage, shout Vive Le Revolution, or whatever, and they lop your head off. No, the crowds could safely bugger off and come back at tea time and I'd probably still be there.16

That would give me time to formulate an escape plan. 17

Aye. Right. I'd just get the gun out of my pocket and ....18

They were definitely the worst twenty minutes of my life. Until the next twenty of course ...... And the next ....... And the one after that ....19

There were a number of miscreants and malformed, rag wrapped orphans who remained, taking great howling, screaming delight at throwing stones, bones and anything else hard or foul in my direction. It was difficult to avoid these, especially when they threw a second object immediately after the first, designed to hit you as you 'dodged' the original. Sometimes it was better to allow yourself to be hit by the first small runny turd than the second larger stone. But then they changed the pattern, and it was just blind luck.20

The world in which I had found myself obviously hadn't discovered the delights of the colours yellow and blue. There were no green grasses, nor blue skies, nor yellow sun.21

The colour palette seemed to run from terracotta to blood red to shit brown, with a large amount of black thrown in, and small touches of dirty white light.22

I had never felt such confusion as I did then. As I hung upside down, blood running into my head and dripping rather insistently from a number of cuts and scrapes which pulsed and throbbed in my scalp, I realised that I had no idea how I had ended up in this predicament. I had no idea who I was, nor anything of my personal history. Married? Kids? Age? Job? Reason for being butt naked and hung upside down for these scabby bastards pleasure? Nope - not a single idea.23

And as I hung there, confusion turning to fear, and pain beating it's way rapidly through the endorphins, I could feel the adrenalin coursing through my system each time I was struck, and a chill ran through me as I almost remembered an important nugget of information. 24

It had something to do with dogs, and though I couldn't clasp the information that I needed, it scared me more than anything else had so far. Something to do with screaming.25

Every part of me hurt.26

The pain in my shins, which were baring my weight, was unbearable. The blood supply cut off from my feet left them nearly numb, with a dull thump, the skin crawling.27

The pain in my wrists was almost unendurable.28

My shoulders felt that they would dislocate at any second, and had done for the past 12 hours - at least that's how long it felt.29

Plus all the scrapes and bruises etc.30

Add to that the sheer terror which was coursing slowly through my system and I was pretty sure this wasn't going to be high on my list of favourite days.31

It quickly got to the stage where I found myself flashing in and out of consciousness.32

I would have stayed blissfully unconscious had it not been for the stones cracking against my sides, or the steel toecapped boots of the guards against my ear. Or screams in my face. Or worse.33

Time lost most of its meaning. Reality and hallucinations quickly became jumbled. The only constant was that there was always a good supply of hurtin' goin' on. 34

Fetid breath in my face as electrodes were clamped to my nipples. 35

Shots of electricity lancing through my chest, endorphines finding it hard to cope, adrenalin boiling through my veins. 36

Muscles tightening, cramping, spasming. 37

Smell of singeing hair.38

Blackness.39

Rancid hot urine splashing on my face - the nearest thing to water that I had seen in what seemed like days. Can you believe that I was thankful for it? Grateful?40

Sulphuric acid painted onto my finger tips. Eating into my nerves. Burning burning burning! Someone screaming in my ear - won't bloody shut up. Oh yeah, that's me.41

Blackness. Oh, blessed blackness. My only escape, even if only for a millisecond.42

As for that nutcracker!43

And the cheesegrater across the soles of my feet. That wasn't pleasant. I knew it was a cheesegrater because the snivelling little shit of a jailer took great delight in bending down to show me it.44

"Cheesy feet!" he exclaimed, and giggled like a little girl.45

I wouldn't get bored hitting that cunt with a baseball bat.46

And that was before he got started.47

Mickey Mouse - now I reckon that was one of the hallucinations. "Let's get out of here, Pluto," he said in that castrato voice of his. But then he just turned into a cloud of rainbow butterflies, before I could take him up on the offer.48

Maybe the jailer in the pink tutu was a hallucination as well - but I'm not sure about the bamboo shoots he hammered under my finger nails.49

It could have been a year that this went on for, or more likely just three or four days. Faces came and went. Jeered at me, spat at me, pissed on me. The lighting never changed, a flickering flourescent mankiness adding to the jarring atmosphere.50

That didn't help when you were trying to gauge time.51

I awoke, jittering, my skin awash with twitches, to find an eerie silence surrounding me. What seemed like hundreds of faces, seemingly upside down, keenly concentrating on me.52

Beside my head I could see a basin, a small cloud of steam issuing slowly from it. The clean smell of soap hit my nostrils, alien in this landscape of piss, shit, sweat and blood. 53

What was going on? Were they going to let me go? Had I passed their test? Had I survived? 54

Hope! That most basic of emotions.55

Faith, hope and charity - and the greatest of these is hope. It had never meant so much to me - but to be honest there was fuck all faith or charity around here.56

I gibbered with glee. They were going to set me free! Yippee! You beauty!57

I had no doubt that I had never in my entire existence felt happier than I did at that moment.58

Adrenalin and endorphines reared their beautiful heads again and leapt and played joyfully through my system.59

Until a thousand ugly faces laughed at me and pointed, jeering and gobbing.60

And fear returned like a door slammed behind you in a haunted house.61

I gibbered some more, but not gleefully this time.62

"Shaaatit!" said my jailer before offering me the business end of his steel toe capped boot.63

My head snapped back painfully. I could feel shattered teeth slice into my tongue and tasted the irony taste of blood fill my mouth. I tried to spit the remains out, with semi success. Bits of bloody teeth ran up my nose. Feeling liquid in my mouth my body automatically tried to swallow, taking some of the shards the wrong way.64

I puked a couple of teaspoons worth of bile and blood, which burned all the way up my throat, but at least got rid of some of the shards. I heaved like a cat with a hairball.65

The nerves in my teeth supplied the sharpest pain that I had felt so far, including the electric shocks.66

I cried.67

At least I sobbed. If there had been sufficient liquid in my system I would have cried, and I would have bubbled snot everywhere like a little girl.68

Mr. Jailer, Sir leaned down until his face was level with mine.69

"I thort I tole you to shaatit!" he growled at me. I whimpered slightly and then stopped.70

"Tha'z be'er!" he breathed rancidly into my face.71

He stood up, and took a wet, hot, soapy sponge from the basin, and walked slowly around behind me.72

I hadn't realised how cold I had got until I felt the hot sponge press against my left calf, and the warm water running up my leg, to my thigh, dripping off my buttocks and running down my back and into my hair. The rest of my body instantly came out in goosebumps. He scrubbed at my calf, and then my thigh and then my buttock, cleansing the caked in dirt.73

Then he came back round, threw the sponge into the basin, picked up the basin and disappeared. 74

The crowd started baying.75

A primative, rhythmic baying, counterpointed by manic laughter.76

What the fuck was going on?77

What looked like some kind of dialysis machine was brought out, to cheers from the crowd, although no hospital on earth would use a machine this filthy.78

What can best be described as an overworked 17th century army sawbones came round from behind me to cries of adulation, and started tinkering with the machine. 79

The crowd went quiet, and I heard what sounded like an electric drill behind me. I had the feeling that things were about to get unpleasant.80

The doctor turned back to me holding the biggest syringe I have ever seen - the sort of thing that you would need to inseminate a horse. But this one had a large needle attached, and was filled with an almost but not quite clear liquid. I couldn't tell if it was the liquid itself or the dirtiness of the syringe that supplied the brown tinge to the colouring. 81

I don't like syringes. This situation didn't look like it was likely to change my view any time soon.82

But I didn't have long to think about it before the crowd went absolutely apeshit, and I felt an intense cramp start up in the back of my left calf. The tone of the electric whine changed drastically at much the same time. It started at my achilles tendon, and by the time that the cramp had progressed two inches or so, the noise of the crowd was drowned out by my own screams. 83

I think I burst my own vocal cords at that point, but carried right on screaming. It was for my benefit after all, not theirs.84

Blackness.85

I awoke almost instantly with a gasp, to feel a sharp pain in my chest, with every nerve in my body alive!86

There, sticking out of my chest was the huge syringe I had seen. The plunger had been engaged, and the liquid that had been held within was now being pumped around my body. God alone knew what kind of chemicals were coursing through my arteries. My calf was in the most intense agony, but it felt as if the sponge had been emptied over my calf again - warm liquid was running down my back.87

The baying of the crowd increased, they appeared to be heading towards what can only be described as a frenzy.88

A few of their number tried to clamber onto the stage pushed by a surge from behind, but were beaten and kicked back mercilessly by my jailer and his helpers.89

I could see my jailer walking round from behind me towards the edge of the stage. Both arms raised as if in triumph, head held high, almost playing the crowd.90

I noticed blood dripping down his arm and off his elbow - he appeared to be holding something red and bloody in his hand.91

He turned back to me and bent down so that I could see what he held in both hands - and that's when I finally made the connection.92

And the dogs started sceaming in my head.93

A friend had once told me that they had been passing through Vietnam, working their way to Britain from Australia. Who this friend was I couldn't quite grasp - but I could remember the story very well now.94

In Vietnam, once he got out into the countryside, he could hear the screaming of dogs as he neared the rural villages. Not just one isolated occurence, but most of the small villages.95

It was not the howling of wild dogs, nor the barking of guard dogs, but the screaming of dogs. Coming from a Western culture and having had a number of dogs as pets, he told me, this is particularly difficult to take. 96

The silence of the lambs was a piece of piss in comparison.97

It's not an unknown fact in the west that in Vietnamese villages dogs are sometimes on the menu. Everyones heard about the Vietnamese cook book - 100 Ways To Wok Your Dog.98

However, what isn't so well known is how they prepare their animals.99

Whether or not the theory is true, I don't know, but someone once worked out that the best form of tenderiser for dog flesh is to soak it in its own adrenalin. And the best way to do this is to tie it up and torture it for a very long time.100

And here was me, tied up, tortured, pumped with adrenalin and god knows what, as I looked at what my captor held in his hands, I realised that I was being sliced up for the baying crowd. I was on this particular menu.101

An electric kitchen knife in one hand, not the drill I had guessed at, and a large lump of newly cut meat in his other. Roughly the size of my calf.102

He smiled his ugly assed smile and then bit savagely into the bloody meat, red liquid running down his chin.103

There was no response that I could make - my mind had gone numb. I couldn't think.104

He stood back up and threw the remaining chunk into the crowd. From my vantage point I couldn't see, only hear, the fight that broke out, as my captor, and now butcher, returned to his sponge.105

I closed my eyes and tried to let the blessed darkness return.106

A rough finger and thumb grabbed at my upper eyelid, pulling it open, focusing my mind once more.107

"Won't be needing them anymore," said the old sawbones.108

Slice went the scalpel.109

Yelp went I.110

The other eyelid followed shortly after.111

In the grand scheme of things this was just bloody annoying! Some blood obscured my vision, but most of it just ran down my forehead.112

I wondered how I could still be alive. Surely my body had suffered too much, and the loss of blood and trauma should have killed me by now.113

I moved my eyes to follow the movement of the doctor.114

He walked to the front of the stage and threw my eyelids to the crowd.115

I could only shout silently at him.116

He turned back to face me, and walked over slowly.117

"No doubt you're wondering what's going on, why you've returned back to consciousness again."118

He squatted down in front of me so that I could give him my full attention.119

"You're here because this is where you deserve to be.You're still conscious because I have attached your brain to the machine that you watched them drag in. It is now pumping blood and chemicals and oxygen around your brain to keep your senses alive for the next three minutes. That's as long as you have. Your nervous system is still attached - mostly. So you should feel everything. Absolutely everything. Your eyes will be the last to go so that you can watch it all. Next to go are your ears."120

In this insane place, he sounded almost normal. Apart from the actual words themselves. They told a different story.121

If his plan was to frighten me, then it fucking worked, let me tell you.122

With that he sliced off first one then the other outer ear. I think my brain had given up processing the pain by now, and just replaced it with full on terror. I could still hear, just not as clearly as before. And the blood that filled the cavities didn't help. It sounded like holding my head under the bath water.123

He stood up and threw them into the baying crowd in the same way that I used to skim stones on a calm lake.124

Then, as he started on my lips, expertly breaking my teeth and jaw first so that I couldn't bite him, I could feel the vibrations of the kitchen knife starting up behind me once more. 125

I was conscious of what was happening, but it seemed to pass in flashes, almost photographic in essence.126

Other calf and back of thighs.127

Buttocks.128

The doc scalpeled off my cheeks, tongue and nose, and then moved out of the way so that the kitchen knife could come around the front.129

The flesh on my arms were cut up for the crowd.130

Followed by front of thighs, cock & balls.131

These latter he put in the front pocket of his butchers apron with a snigger, obviously for his own enjoyment later.132

The rest he scattered into the crowd.133

Still I didn't die. No matter how much I wanted to. I couldn't.134

One of the jailers helpers came over to help cart away my intestines as they were exposed, and I could see him chopping it up with an axe before handing out to individual members of the crowd - no doubt for favours later.135

My liver came next, licked by all on stage, before being placed in a hamper of ice to be savoured at a more relaxed time.136

My heart joined it. It seemed to still be beating, but that could have been an illusion.137

The axe was then used to crack my ribs which were thrown to the back of the crowd to be sucked by the late comers.138

And when I thought there was nothing left of me, my gallows were raised, so that the crowd could get a good look at the remains.139

There were cries and pointing from the crowd for scraps of flesh that were still attached, or for bones. But they were out of luck.140

The last thing I saw was the sawbones and my head jailer advancing towards me slowly, each brandishing what looked like an 8" long metal straw. Big nasty grins across both of their faces.141

Synchronised, they took these straws and inserted them each into a nostril. Using the blunt end of the axe the jailer game each a sharp tap, effectively breaking my skull and driving the straws into my brain.142

My vision was going grey as they bent over and started to suck.143

Bl.....144

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ack160

In my fevered mind as I regained consciousness I remember thinking it funny that they were going to attach the noose at the wrong end. They may have been barely human, but surely they knew how to hang a man? But no, around my feet they slipped it, and .....161

Deja vu - wtf? - I've been here before!162

And then my memory took over, and I remembered.163

I didn't remember everything - my life before.164

But I did remember the last time.165

The dogs screaming.166

Oh shit.167

Oh fuck.168

What is this? Eli Roth does Groundhog Day?169

I kicked out with all my stength, thrashing around until a swift stomp to the knackers made me jack-knife, forced every last ounce of breath from my body. Tears sprang to my eyes, blurring my vision as I tried in vain to draw air into my lungs again.170

I felt fingers grab my hair, and effortlessly lift me from my foetal position until I had to stop hugging myself and hold on to the horizontal arm above me, or else have my scalp ripped off.171

I blinked my eyes through my pain in an effort to see more clearly. A figure that I recognised held me up off the floor, a sneer crossing his blackened lips. He was even bigger than he had looked from an upside down position. My chief antagonist. Mr Jailer Sir.172

"Ah, this little one remembers," said my jailer to his cronies when he saw the comprehension in my fear filled face. Manic laughter erupted all around.173

"I like it when they remembers." More eruption. "Make the most of it boys, he might not next time. It's the first time he has in fourteen years. Have fun with him. We can spin this one out for weeks if we're clever enough. Maybe show him his family this time."174

My mouth was as dry as a nuns cunt, but still I managed to ask, croakily, "Where the hell am I?"175

The jailer sneered at me, while his entourage laughed.176

"Well done, sonnie boy. Good guess. Hell. With a capital h. That's exactly where you are. Unluckily for you, you'll be here until Judgement Day. Which, let me tell you, isn't planned any time soon. Have fun, boys." 177

"Wait! Wait, please. What did I do to deserve this?"178

"Can't remember. Don't care - you're ours now."179

So saying he dropped me, and I fell in slow motion back down into the scrabbling, waiting hands of his dirty scabrous minions. This was not going to be a good day.180