Don't You Come Crying When They're Rippin' Out Your Throats (Sequel to AsHollow)

2 - Like Milkshakes On The Dam

The room where the bodies most likely were didn't take too long to find - for the simple reason that there was a large crowd outside a hotel room and there were police crawling all over the scene. As we got closer we could hear people muttering their condolences and saying how much of a shame it was that this tragedy happened. 

The crowd seemed to dim down as the five of us approached, splitting in the middle to let us all through. A couple of people patted us sympathetically and gently on the shoulders before shrinking away once again. As we got closer those who were working the scene eyed us up before realising who we all were and moving away. Luke stepped inside the room first, closely followed by the rest of us, and if I'm being dead honest - it was so much worse than what I was expecting.

The first thing I saw was red. Red everywhere.

Everyone's faces showed the exact same expression - total shock and horror at what lay before them, and I was sure mine reflected that too. There was one body lying on the bed, and if I was being completely honest, it didn't look like it could have possibly been a living human before that happened... Not by the way it looked now. There were four others scattered across the room, all in various positions from the way they'd been carelessly thrown over the place and all with their chests ripped open - but none in such a way as the one on the bed.

The other four bodies didn't have as much damage done to them as the first - all did have their chests ripped open, their lifeless eyes seeming to stay on each and every one of us until we each eventually caved in and tore or gazes away.

Their hair was thick and matted with blood, skin sleek with blood that at some parts hadn't properly dried in - the bits that had were flaky and scabby looking. Two of the bodies torsos had been completely mutilated as though as he got nearer the end he didn't care and anything he saw to be in his way - in this case the girl's rib cages - would be ripped apart. The other two just had two holes in their chests where the heart had been clawed out.

I didn't recognise them as anyone I'd seen milling about the town before, but that didn't mean that someone wasn't looking for them. The girls were someone's sister, daughter...maybe even mother despite the fact that they didn't look all that old.

I heard Barrone mutter something before he darted out the door and we all heard him throwing up, Drew quickly following his boyfriend outside just to double check on him. Couldn't blame either of them to be honest. I was rather surprised at myself that I was taking all this in with seemingly no bother.

I didn't even watch them leave as my eyes kept flickering back over to the carcass on the bed as I looked the room over. It had my complete attention - more so than the others - and I couldn't quite figure out what had made whoever did this do it... This body in particular was complete over kill... The way her chest and stomach had been ripped open and her organs were torn apart, lying mushed inside her chest and some hanging just outside the flesh. Also the fact that her head was missing from her shoulders and instead had found a place being tied to a hook from the ceiling by her hair, a dagger protruding from her neck and for the first time I noticed why it was there. It was holding a piece of paper in place.

I took the first proper step into the room and ripped it off without thinking about compromising the evidence, ignoring Kier's call for me to wait, and ripped the note from underneath the dagger.

"An eye for an eye, Princey. Or in this case - a head."

I felt every bit of colour drain from my face. My arm dropped to my side and I felt my fist slowly start closing around the note in my hand. Kier said something behind me but it never registered and I felt myself star to tremble - not because I was scared, but it was because of me that these girls were dead.