Warning: gore and violence
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Guts strung around the tree branches along with the toilet paper hanging there. They swayed in the breeze, slapping against the thin paper sticking to the mutilated organs carved out of the body slumped against the trunk.
The area had been sectioned with bright yellow tape and was swarming with morbid curiousity peeking out of the homes opposite the massive gum tree or flooding the little col-de-sac.
It didn't even look like a person anymore. The way the skin had lost all colour that seemed to have drained into the coiled guts had me frozen in my tracks to stare like everyone else.
Kids were going missing; turning up dead.
Last month, a little girl had been found hanging from a shopping centre archway not far from here. Just a week before that, another boy was seen hooked on the rocks in a creek, his body gnawed by feral dogs and hungry fish.
Now, it was a teen. I couldn't tell how old either since he was so high up and mangled.
"Maybe it is true?" I heard hushed whispers nearby "Butcher is the one killing them?"
I scoffed and peeled my eyes from the tree to push around the unmoving crowd too shocked to move.
'Butcher' was the name given to whatever was murdering these kids. Some people thought it was some sort of Bogeyman, others gossiped it was an escaped convict scorned by the world.
There was no such thing as monsters. Whatever was doing this was just some sicko getting its jollies off on keeping kids quiet.
None of them played on the streets after dark now. It was straight to school and home. Even prowling teens thinned, the brave few hoping to be the ones to catch the killer while out smoking at the school field.
I just kept out of it all. It was the start of school holidays, and already a kid had been killed. Last holidays, the killer had struck three times in two weeks. With this being the festive holidays, the killer had a whole three months to act.
Police couldn't catch Butcher. All they could do was try and find the links and keep everyone on curfew until they did.
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Heading home, I collapsed onto my bed and dragged my phone across to mindlessly scroll.
Butcher was all over my feed. Fans swooned over what they could possibly look like; glorifying the acts as a justice to society.
Sickos.
I gave up on phone and fired up my console instead to slaughter my way through hordes of monsters while waiting for dinner to be called.
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The next day was more of the same.
I dragged myself out of my dark hole to scrape down some artificially flavoured cereal and head out for the day.
I wasn't going to be kept at home all holidays. I wasn't scared of some lunatic picking off the degenerates anyway.
With my book under my arm, I strolled along the path leading for the bushwalk, checking I wasn't being followed, before stepping onto the grayed wood boards.
Kids would tease me if they knew I came here to sketch. Drawing flowers was a girl's thing, but for me, I found nature fascinating. There was even a resident bush turkey here I quietly called Drumstick. It was always poking around the walk for scraps of food visitors might have left behind.
I never called out it's name. Anyone could be listening and they could use that against me. I was already stupid enough to excitedly tell my mother about it. She just laughed and teased me about my choice of name. She said I should have called it Nuggets instead and bought it home for her to deep-fry.
I didn't tell her anything anymore, not even my new drawing hobby. I kept to myself and that's the way it was. No-one needed to be ruining my hobby or scaring away my wild friend.
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It was peaceful here too. Little birds sang out to each other while the gentle breeze shook the leaves surrounding the wooden boardwalk that ascended through the forestry. There were lizards basking on the planked rails; butterflies drunkenly flopping by in search of somewhere warmer from the shadows.
I watched the lizards flare up as I passed and slowed down when I spotted the familiar flash of red, black, and yellow ahead. Pulling out the pencil I slipped between the fresh pages, I crept closer.
I hadn't managed to get a decent sketch of Drumstick yet. Whenever I tried, loud visitors stomping along the path scared it off, or protective birds dove down to swoop at its head wondering what it had done wrong.
But now, it was here. And it was mine.
Drumstick raised its head when I came into view, but lowered it again. A careless person had dumped a packet of biscuits the bush turkey was burrowing its head into greedily, swatting the bag to make it spill more across the board.
Sitting down, I could feel my heart slip into my throat.
I had this! I was actually going to get a decent picture!
Drumstick continued its murder on the crinkling bag while I frantically got my outline and worked on the details of the head.
Then, I heard it.
The fat footsteps of someone approaching.
I sighed and hurried on the tail to try and perfect the fan of each feather.
The footsteps approached, slowly, from behind. It sounded like just one person, maybe a teen deliberately slapping his shoes that way in an effort to scare me.
I wasn't falling for it. I almost had the wing perfect....
Drumstick lifted its head once more and darted for the edge of the walk to leap off it.
There went my opportunity. Who knew when it was going to be that close or even that still for the time i still needed it to be to finish my sketch?
Snapping my book shut and slicing my pencil through the pages, I rose with an irritated sigh and turned to the slapping feet right behind me.
Oh, shit.
The knife sliced through my stomach before I could react. Fire boiled and spilled onto the wooden boards below me when the blurred figure flicked the blade and stepped back to allow me to collapse at thier feet.
Red dirt, split seeds, black leather. That's all I could see right in my face.
The pages of my book soaked in my blood and bloomed from the deep black drowning the unfinished sketch of a bush turkey.
What did they want? Money? Valuables?
I had neither of those things on me.
"P-please" I sputtered at the shoes twisting before me "please tell me what to do. I-I'll do anything. J-just don't kill me!"
There was low laughter while I clutched my stomach. It felt like it was falling out of the hole they had sliced through me. I wasn't sure what was still my body and what was bleeding onto the boardwalk beneath me.
"Please!" I moaned now and tried to plug the flow of the blood by burying my fingers into the skin "I don't have anything!"
The knife plunged down again into my body, slicing straight through my stomach; crossing over the last gouge and slashing my fingertips.
I couldn't do anything. The Butcher held me there so they could stab into me in such a frenzy I couldn't tell if they were still plunging in or ripping out. Everything was on fire and numb at the same time.
I was pushed back and could only lay there as my destroyed book was thrown over me carelessly. With the forestry fading amongst the blood dripping through the cracks of the wood, the Butcher started to prepare the elaborate way which they would display my death to anyone else unfortunate enough to wander the boardwalk.
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