The Hungry Whistle

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The cabin was small, and dilapidated from years of neglect. It was positioned just beyond the tree line, on the edge of the property, where the yard gave way to a thickness of forest that stretched for miles. From the house, it was barely visible. In fact, on this particular night, the sky was a blanket of clouds that created a darkness so thick, that it was near impossible to make out any shapes; everything ran together and blended into one black abyss. This very darkness, however, amplified the flickering light from that candle in the window, and a seemingly innocuous detail, that otherwise might have gone unnoticed by Harper, was as apparent as rain is wet. It caught her eye immediately through her bedroom window. At first, she squeezed her eyes tight , sure that it was nothing more than her imagination, but upon opening them again, the candlelight still danced against the darkness. A shudder washed over her body.

Harper became immediately anxious, and hastily made her way through the entire house, fighting off the anxiety as she checked the locks on every door and window. She even went so far as to check the egress door in the basement, which she almost never used. She climbed back up the basement stairs, and found herself in the kitchen, picking up the phone with every intention of dialing 911. She thought out loud, I must be going crazy, and decided to check once more before making a fuss with the police. Harper stood at the sliding glass door in the kitchen, which opened directly into the backyard, and fought with her apprehension for several seconds; like a child afraid to look under the bed after hearing a noise in the night. Finally, she shook her head, thinking to herself again; you really are losing it, Haper. And gathered the courage to peel back the heavy curtain and have a look.

Her gut wrenched, and for a very brief moment in time, she became completely stupefied. When her brain finally processed, the scream that followed was instinctual, guttural and piercing. On the other side of the glass, a face, white as paper, met hers. The figure of a man, skinny and bald. His eyes appeared black against his painted face and grew wide as he echoed her scream; mirroring her torment in mockery. She grew silent, her mind became blank, washed empty and thoughtless by a terror so pure it was almost unbearable. Frozen in fear, Harper stared as the wide, twisted mouth formed by the man’s screams became replaced by a hideous grin and a hammer was raised high above his head. Harper turned, her body anticipating what was coming, and ran, hearing the glass shatter behind her. Instinct had taken over, and she quickly found herself back in her bedroom. She closed the door quietly and locked it behind her and then slipped into her closet, where she slid against the far wall behind her hanging clothes. She tried to control her breathing, fearful of making too much noise.

The slow, heavy thudding of boots echoed through the dead silence of the house, punctuated by the sounds of cabinets slamming, furniture being shuffled, doors slamming, and the whistling of a joyful tune. One room at a time, she listened and tried to gauge where he was. The dining room first, where she was certain she heard the sound of her cell phone being pitched against the floor. The family room. The spare bedroom. The bathroom. Her body trembled more with each room that turned up empty. She almost let a gasp escape her throat, as she heard the rattling of the locked knob of the bedroom door. The hollow sound of the rattling brass was replaced by laughter, deep and almost hysterical just before the cracking sound of the door being broken. She frantically felt around in the blackness of the closet, hopeful for something to be used as a weapon, the best she could produce being a shoe, with long, thick heels. She sat in dead silence, listening to the creaks of the floor under the weight of the steps, slow and methodical. Stopping at the bed momentarily, and again at the dresser, as he made his way around the room, checking each spot she could fit.

She slowly stood up in the closet, careful not to make a sound, drawing the shoe behind her head such to be ready to strike. A light squeak in the floor boards told her that he was just outside of the closet door. She could barely hear his breathing, loud and labored, over the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest. And in a flash, the door of the closet was thrown open, and she made her strike, catching his shoulder with the heavy heel. He let out a laugh, and lunged at her, ripping the shoe from her grip and twisting her body such that she was facing away from him, his arm clenched tightly around her throat. She tried to scream, but the force of the man’s arm against her throat kept her silent and barely able to breath. She twisted, and turned, and kicked, and pulled, but couldn’t get herself free. He pulled her through the house; she wasn’t conscious by the time her body was dragged across the shattered glass of the door.

Harper came to in a fog; incoherent and physically exhausted; dull pain radiated from every inch of her body. A sudden realization brought on a rush of adrenaline that burned away her grogginess, and brought on intense panic. Her clothing had been removed, and she was completely bound. A leather strap was fastened around her neck, and secured to the floor beneath her head, barely allowing her to crane her neck and see her own feet. Her hands had been bound together tightly with a black chain, wrapped tightly around each wrist multiple times. They laced through the links of a much larger, silver chain that traveled the length of her body, where her ankles were bound in a similar fashion; black chain snaked around her ankles and weaved through the large silver links. The chains were such that her motion was very limited, her arms pulled nearly straight, where her balled up fists lay just below her navel. Her legs, were also fastened such that they remained nearly straight; the sort of posture synonymous with a mummified body in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. At first, Harper wailed, and tried to twist and turn, and yank as hard as her body position would allow. The commotion was fruitless against they heavy gauge chain. She exhausted herself quickly, and had expended her energy for nothing. She tried to relax her body, and tears formed rivers on her cheeks. She rolled her head from one side to the other, and began to recognize her prison. She knew quickly that she was in the cabin. She remembered the open floor plan, just one room with the exception of a small bathroom. The strong smell of wet cedar, the second hand furniture, the small wood stove. It all came back to her.

She tried to keep her mind occupied, fighting off thoughts of why she was there, and what would come next. Hours passed by painfully slow. She checked the small window that she could see from her angle constantly, as if the sun would have melted the chains the moment it rose. Occasionally she would scream, bellowing cries for mercy and for help. Other times she would frantically tug at the chains once again. Mostly, she just laid in silence. In the early morning hours, when the darkness of the sky was just beginning to change from black to a deep, dark blue, she was startled by the sound of laughter. She could hear mumbling conversation from outside of the cabin, growing closer by each second. She started crying out, hopeful that someone was here to aid her, and violently tugging at the chains. The outburst stopped the moment the door open, and her eyes fixed on the figure at the doorway. She knew the ghostly white paint on the torso and face, the wide grin of the yellowed teeth, the ratty jeans. She began to beg as he approached her. Her mouth was quickly gagged with an old rag of some kind. He grabbed an old coat rack from the corner of the cabin, and hung two IV bags from it, gripping her forearm tight while he tried to find a vein to enter. Her struggling proved to be too difficult, and with one heavy blow across her face, she was out cold.

When Harper woke up, she found herself still chained. Her mouth was a desert, but no longer gagged. Her eyes immediately took notice to the IV’s that were now stuck in arm, two tubes leading back to the bags that had been hung on the old coat rack, well out of her limited reach. She tugged again at the chains, and let out another cry. Quickly, the cabin door was open. This time, there stood two men. Both covered in the same paint from waste to hairline. They immediately became hysterical with laughter, each holding some sort of bottle of liquor. The laughter died off, and their eyes locked onto her. One of them raised their bottle, and in silence they clinked their bottles together, a silent toast followed again by laughter and mumbling of words she couldn’t quite make out. The smaller man she recognized immediately, the larger man was new to her. A tall man with a large gut that folded over the waistband of his dirty jeans, the hair on his chest matted from the white paint that covered his upper body, stumbled over to her, leaning in close, yellowed teeth showing off in a wicked smile. Harper’s instant reaction was to try and lunge at him, but he kept himself just outside of her range of motion. At first, she started with hostility, cussing him in anger, and quickly digressed into begging for her release. He remained motionless, crouched at her side, staring at her and keeping that same smile. A few minutes passed like this before she finally needed to catch her breath, and in slow, muffled voice between the labors of breaths, she uttered simply; “please, let me go.” The man let go of that smile long enough to answer her sternly and simply “No.” And the skinnier one began whistling that same joyful tune again.

The large one snapped his finger a few times, pointing at her left leg. The other nodded, and stepped outside of the cabin while the large man placed his knee on her left thigh, just under where it joined her hip, and leaned in with all of his weight. The second man walked back in, still whistling, with an axe casually held at his side. Her body began convulsing in panic as the axe was raised above his head and brought down in a fierce blow against her thigh. The pain raced through her body, and a haunting scream escaped through her throat. Another blow, and another, and another. Each time, an entirely new pain manifested itself in her, fresh as the first until finally, the axe found it’s way through the skin, the muscle, the bone, and her leg was separated. Blood was running like a faucet. The smaller of the two then hurriedly walked outside, and returned only moments later with heavy hide gloves on, holding a glowing red disc or iron. He kneeled down, and pressed it firmly against the opening where her leg had just been attached, cauterizing the wound shut. The pain proved too much for Harper to take, and she blacked out.

Harper came too, her entire body throbbed in pain, tears immediately welled up in her eyes. It must have been late afternoon, the heat was stifling. She craned her neck enough to see what remained of her leg, and quickly turned her head to vomit. Flies incessantly buzzed, alternating between the taste of the cauterized wound, and the mess on the floor, where she had lost her bowels during the attack. Her stomache remained in a constant state of queasiness from the stench, the pain, hunger, and the trauma. She could hear the men mumbling outside on the porch of the cabin and the occasional popping and crackling of a fire. For the next several hours, Harper weaved in an out of consciousness. Even in her few waking moments, Harper kept her eyes closed, and tried to force herself into a state of denial, and prayed to herself for it to just be over with. The day would pass in these types of cycles until the late evening hours. When the coolness of the night had finally displaced the heat of the day, she would wake abruptly, startled by a sudden rush of water; cold as ice. She opened her eyes suddenly, the image of the two men standing over her. The skinnier one shaking his head from left to right as he held the cauterized stump, partially rotating her body enough for the larger man to sweep a hose on her rear side; hosing her shit off of her body. She winced when she was let go of, the impact of her hip hitting the floor, even from a low height, was intensely painful. She opened her mouth to let out a cry, but her throat was swollen shut. The hose was ran over her face, where she welcomed the cold water that ran into her mouth. She let every drop roll down her throat slowly. When the water was finally turned off, and a hush fell over the cabin, she was finally able to mutter a question; “Why are you doing this?”

“We’re hungry, darling, and it’s about supper time.” Followed by a wink, and a slight chuckle. It had never occurred to her, not until this very moment, that they had unchained the severed leg, and taken it. The skinny man picked up the axe that had been leaned against wall, and the large man kneeled into her once more, this time taking a position against her right shoulder. She tried to get out the words to beg them not to, but her low volume was drowned out by the sound of laughter, and of the axe penetrating through arm. It was quicker than the leg, and the same routine. When the skinny man was done chopping, he hustled outside for the iron, and sealed the wound shut with a hissing sound, and the scent of burning flesh. Harper slipped into unconsciousness even more quickly than before, but it was a short stay. She woke again in a pain so severe, she couldn’t fathom it. She rolled her head from side to side moaning in the agony, when she caught the sight of the two men, sitting on the old plaid sofa, each holding a piece of her charred arm, picking the muscle off of the bone with their teeth; like hyenas on the carcass of an antelope. The pain was deafening; she couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see their mouths moving between bites and their heads occasionally bobbing in laughter.

She had no way of tracking time, of knowing how long this went on. But her time spent in the cabin was more of the same. She suffered alone, in silence, and in torturous pain. The flies would settle on her wounds in the heat of the day, lapping up salt, and sweat, and blood. The IV’s would keep her hydrated, and fight off any immediate infections. And the men would come, and they would take her remaining two limbs the same as before, laughing while they shared a meal of her flesh in her company, until finally she was nothing more than a limbless torso on the floor of this old cabin. Only when they took her last limb did they release the bind on her neck, which was of no relief anyway. At least a day had passed in this state, she had figured, when she could hear a fire roaring outside, so big and bright that the light it cast found it’s way into the cabin, licking the darkness of the walls and the ceiling. It was that night that they walked in, still painted white all over, wearing the same torn up jeans. The skinny one walked in first, two sizable hooks in one hand, and an amber bottle in the other, whistling a tune that was now more recognizable to her than day or night. The larger one carried a long steel pole. She was rolled over onto her stomach, and before she could fathom what was happening, the hooks were ran into her back, and tugged on forcefully to ensure they wouldn’t let go. The large man slid the pole through the eyes of the two hooks, and they each picked up an end. The pain of her weight pulling on the hooks forced her into a heaving fit; she would have vomited if there was anything in her gut to release. She could feel the heat of the fire warming her skin as they made their way off of the porch. She tried to close her eyes, to force herself into a state of sleep, but the fear of what was coming was too much. As they slid one end of the pole into a rotating mechanism, and the other on an x shaped stand, she found herself facing down, directly above the fire. She screamed as the flames reached up, biting at her skin. The large man flipped a switch on the rig, and the pole began slowly rotating. Hours of rotating above this fire, the air rancid with the smell of cooking flesh, and Harper finally let life slip away from her.

The smoldering embers of the fire were still warm when Dustin stumbled upon the vacated cabin while tracking a deer on a hunt, gagging from the horrid smell that lingered in the area. He called out, “anyone here?”, waited a few moments, and heard no response. Glancing around, something laying in the ashes of the recent fire caught his attention. Moving closer, he quickly recognized the distinct shape of a human skull. He stumble backwards, his heart racing, and called out once more “Hey! Who’s here?!”. Silence answered him, and his nervousness magnified. He started back with haste towards where he had left his truck, but stopped abruptly when the quietness of the early morning forest was broken by the sound of a whistle; a tune he didn’t recognize.