A Life To Waste by Andrew Lennon

but what seemed
to be a lifetime of these creaks, the door was open. There was no
one there, thank god. He crouched down, hurried through the door
and ducked into a dark corner directly ahead of him. The place was
lit, but only just. All the lights seemed to be a kind of dull
orange colour. The colour a light bulb goes just before it’s about
to blow. This wasn’t the case with these bulbs, they were just
covered so much that the dirt and dust on them had effectively
masked the light.
     
    Dave was faced with two doors,
one at the end of the corridor and one to the left. Either side of
the door to the left where large windows, overlooking what Dave had
assumed would be the factory shop floor. He needed to see what that
stuff he had seen from outside was. He needed to see what it was
that had been squirming on the factory floor. He had to check the
killer wasn’t there before he went storming in. He crawled to the
window and lifted his head just enough so his eyes were peeking
through the bottom of the window. He still couldn’t see properly.
He lifted himself more almost to a standing position. No, it was
too dark, that guy couldn’t be in there, if he was, he couldn’t see
anyway and Dave would be able to sneak passed in the shadows,
hopefully.
     
    “Shit, this is crazy, I’m gonna
die.” He thought.
    He shimmied over until he was
directly in from of the door to the shop floor. He opened it.
    “holy shit what is that
smell!”
    Dave gagged.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 19
     
    Dave covered his mouth and nose
with his hand in an attempt to mask the awful smell. It didn’t
work, the smell was too strong. He imagined it crawling through his
fingers and creeping into his nostrils. It was the most disgusting
thing he’d smelt in his life. He didn’t know exactly what a rotting
corpse smelled like, but if he had to guess, it would smell like
this.
     
    He made his way down the metal
staircase leading to the shop floor. He flinched with each step,
even trying as he was to be quiet, it still rattled when his foot
touched the next step. The staircase ended at the far left corner
of the room. When Dave reached the bottom he turned and started to
walk to the centre of the room.
    “Oh my god!” he shuddered.
     
    Now that Dave was on the shop
floor he could see the things that had been squirming on the floor.
The covered almost the whole factory shop floor, from wall to wall.
He didn’t know exactly how many there were but he knew what they were. They were people.
     
    “Jesus, how many are there?” He
asked himself.
    “How long have they been
here?”
     
    Dave stomach turned at the site
of these people. He couldn’t see them all, it was too dark, but
when he crouched down he could see the ones nearest to him clearly.
The first person he looked at was missing an eye, he couldn’t tell
whether it was a man or woman, the face was too messed up. The
bottom lip looked like it at been ripped from the face, the teeth
left bare only one or two left hanging in. Embedded into a jaw that
looked dislocated. Dave put the back of his hand close to the
mutilated mouth. There was no air coming out, this person wasn’t
breathing.
    “Poor bastard got tortured.” He
thought.
    He could see that this persons
leg was facing the wrong way, the hip must have been broken or
dislocated. There was a huge lump on the bottom of the leg. Dave
leaned over to see what it was.
     
    “Oh fuck! Oh holy shit”
    It was an arm. The hand had been
severed but Dave could clearly see that there was an arm attached
to this other persons leg. It had been sewn on or something. His
eyes followed the arm along past the elbow leading to the shoulder,
the arm was still attached to its owner. The face that had been
half sewn onto the other arm did not belong.
     
    Dave leaned over and puked. He
couldn’t hold back anymore. The sight was too horrific. What type
of sick human being could do something like this?