(This is a preview of one of the stories that’s going to be in my collection of horror stories entitled A Heartbeat in the Darkness.)

It was an unfortunate thing that most people were happy about the missing child posters.  Though they would never say such a thing to the distraught parents.  They would place their hands on their arms and say it was such a tragedy and they were in their thoughts.  Meanwhile saying good riddance behind their backs at various social functions.  The one bit of sorrow was that their older daughter still wandered the streets putting up the signs.  A hopeless endeavor.  It made them sad because she was a good girl, so different than her brother.  People liked her.  Maybe if they had liked him a little bit more.  He wouldn’t have turned out this way.  

Or maybe he just needed a firmer hand than his parents had been willing to use.  At least that’s what the Pince sisters thought.  Two older women who had relaxed into a life of retirement with a nice little nest egg.  He was their current house guest.  Wasn’t he just so fine now, sitting in their living room across from them.  Serving them tea.  His smile so much better than that nasty look he had on his face at all times before.  Constantly frowning, constantly smirking and giving people the finger.  What a naughty little boy he had been.  

They had fixed it.  It had taken quite a bit of work but they had fixed it.  Just like that they had so many times in the past.  They had this down to a perfect science.  He would be their house guest for as long as they could keep him.  Not that anyone ever left by choice.

Night came and so the two sisters retired up to bed.  Leaving him downstairs by himself.  One of them gave a quick flick to the machinery on the wall.  It spun and the resulting slackening was near instantaneous.  

The young man’s arms fell to his sides, his mouth finally fell away from the rictus smile that it had been forced into throughout the day.  It was hard to decide which was the worse pain.  The ones in his arms, mouth or in his cut achilles tendons.  The rings that had been sewn into his skin and then laced with fine piano wires ached.  He was made uncomfortable by the IVs that fed him as there was no longer any use for his super glued together teeth.  

He sat like a doll that had been left in the corner.  His body limp and useless.  There was no escape.  No way to get out of here.  He remembered the day that he had broken in here.  Looking for something of value to steal and sell.  How he hadn’t heard the one sister behind him before she struck him with the encyclopedia.  Knocking him unconscious.  Where had she gotten that strength?  

He had woken up this way.  Covered in the rings.  His jaw clamped together.  They had kept him like a toy ever since.  That had been months ago.  He assumed that they had killed their husbands.  Were living off the life insurance policies.  How else could they have afforded this?  

He slept fitfully this night and every night.  His body wrapped up in its various pains and discomforts.  The next morning, he rose with the sun in his eyes.  But the women weren’t there.  He couldn’t hear them.  The day passed.  The IVs ran dry.  Still no sign of them.  There hadn’t been a day when they hadn’t come down to torture him and play out their sick fantasy so what had happened?  

Night came again.  He wondered if this was some trick.  If they were going to come back and hurt him in some way.  He sat.  A second day and night passed.  No sign of them.  By the third morning, he figured that they had died in their sleep two days ago.  Good riddance, you god damn monsters, he thought.  He knew he had to go now.  He knew there was only way to exit.  

He bent his body forward and began to pull.