Come Into Darkness by Daniel I. Russell Page B

happening?” he said.
    “Justice?” said Worth. “Or deceit?”
    Another sound joined the industrial cacophony. Amid the now steady clunk and whine of tortured metal, approached a distant noise, like a swarm of angry wasps.
    No. It sounds like…an engine?
    He realised the sound came from around his father.
    What is that noise?
    “Go and see,” said Worth, stroking his moustache. “You have simply outdone yourself this time, sir. Such a fertile imagination!”
    Ignoring Worth’s approval, Mario approached the desk and chair. His father, unblinking, looked around, watching the shadows. His gaze shot to Mario.
    “What have you done?” he wailed. “Help me!”
    Mario neared and realised the source of the noise. The desk. It trembled.
    His father stared down, and Mario followed his gaze.
    Metal glinted with velocity inside the slots of the wood.
    “No!” cried his father, spreading his fingers as far away from the slots as possible. He looked at his hands in stark terror. “Please!”
    The noise intensified, rising in tone.
    “Don’t stand too close,” advised Worth. “You don’t want to get…sprayed.”
    Mario stepped back, transfixed on the circular saw blades that emerged from the desk. Their speed hid the vicious, serrated edges. A draft blew into Mario’s face, as if the blades had cut through the very air and thrown it up at him.
    His father screamed.
    Clunk
    Clunk
    Clunk
    Oh shit.
    Mario ducked down to glance under the desk. It confirmed his fears. The cylinder slowly turned, pulling the wires. Mario straightened, watching his father’s hands being pulled across the surface of the desk, towards the waiting saws.
    “Help me,” his father wailed. “Pleeease!”
    Fingers had reached the blades, but lay safe in-between. The wires continued to pull, inch by inch.
    “It’s too late for help,” said Worth, sounding bored. “Nothing left to do but enjoy the show.”
    For years, Mario had fantasised about cutting off his father’s hands so the pervert could never touch him. He still remembered the fat, nicotine-stained fingers sliding across his skin.
    “I was just a boy,” he murmured.
    “I did nothing wrong,” screamed his father. “Help me!”
    Maybe it was nothing in your eyes, you sick bastard.
    A smile broke across Mario’s face. Adrenaline flowed through his body, filling it with excitement.
    “Worth?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
    His father wailed. “No! Please!”
    The wires had tugged his hands almost to the saws. The furious, blurred edges lay millimetres from the slightly webbed skin between each finger. The wires pulled slower, teasing.
    “This is what you get,” said Mario. “And now, I can forget about you.” He glanced up to meet his father’s terrified stare. “Bye, Dad.”
    His father screamed as the blades sliced through the delicate skin. Blood shot into the air in an angry, red mist. Relentless, the wires pulled farther. The saws ate into the thicker flesh between each knuckle, as easily as a shark fin through water. The raucous din dropped in pitch.
    His father’s fingers clawed at the desk, slick with dripping blood. He cried out. It hurt Mario’s ears.
    Extra jets of blood gushed out, the blades proceeding to sever the network of veins and arteries within the meat of both hands. The geyser struck Mario across the stomach. He chuckled, noticing how his father’s fingers looked twice as long now.
    Still, the wires pulled.
    Worth slowly clapped.
    Mario watched on, relishing ever second.
    Clunk
    The wires stopped. The stained saws, up to his father’s elbows, died and slowly came to a halt. His father wailed, his hands and forearms spread out all over the desk. Blood trickled down the sides of the wood and onto the stone ground.
    Mario leaned closer to study the knotty, red mess, glistening bone and string of torn muscle on show.
    “Fascinating. Isn’t it, sir?” said Worth.
    Glancing over his shoulder, Mario found the guide