NIGHTMARES

A harsh, metallic scraping noise claws its way into Frank’s drowning consciousness and with an effort fuelled mostly by fear he drags his heavy eyes open, regretting it when the tiny movement splits his head in half with sharp daggers of pain. A wave of dizziness lurches through his insides and vomit floods his mouth and sprays his chin as an ocean of darkness swims and sways around him. Stinging cold sweat drenches his skin and his pulse pounds with dread as he remembers being attacked and then the darkness refuses to go away and he realizes in a panic that he's been blindfolded. He can't see a thing!
Whimpering as his agonized head throbs and his cramped muscles send pins and needles trickling through his limbs, he feels the pressure of a hard cold floor underneath his body and a rough piece of cord binding his wrists together behind his back. His fingers are numb and from the tingle of chilled air on his arms he must have been stripped of his jacket and jersey. As the dizzying sickness in his stomach fades to a more bearable level he takes a weak shuddering breath and smells musty clothes and motor oil. Where the hell is he?

The rhythmic scrape of metal on metal grows louder and he feels a soft breeze of movement and the vibration of footsteps as somebody walks past him. Before he can stop himself he flinches away in fear and the scraping sound abruptly ends as a low voice rumbles through the darkness, “Awake at last.”

More movement, and then a heavy booted foot viciously kicks him in the ribs, flipping him onto his back and knocking the air out of his lungs. Coughing up bile, he spits blindly at the person standing over him and another hard blow lands on his chest but he manages to gasp out a few words first, “Who...are y-you?”
“It doesn't matter who I am,” the voice of the masked biker spits, “But you and your little girlfriend have been running around sticking your noses into my business and it's time for you to pay.”
“My...girlfriend? You m-mean Lorna? Lorna!”
“She can’t hear you,” the biker mutters, “But yeah she’s been telling me all about you, Frankie boy, and about that list you found. It was a copy of MY list you little bastard. My list of ‘receivers’ - people who see the darkest parts of the future when they close their eyes at night, and a very powerful man trusted me with that list and told me to dispose of everyone on it. A kid named Sammy stole it from me the first time I tried to kill him and he gave it to his girl Anna two days before I chased him into speeding traffic and finally got his ass dead. I had to contact my boss to get another copy and do you know what that cost me, you little cunt? Do you?!”
Another kick, much harder this time, and Frank chokes in shock as a couple of his ribs creak and fracture. He can barely breathe it hurts so much.
“You and Lorna Mackenzie are ‘receivers’ too,” the killer growls, “Two of the last in North America, and you were so hard to track down your names weren’t even on the old list that Sammy stole. But now I’ve found you and my mission is almost complete. You will both die screaming tonight and I won't make it quick. You two are gonna pay for all the trouble I've gone to. Fuckin' kids!”
“I'm n-not a kid,” Frank wheezes, his chest crippled with pain as he struggles to catch a breath.

The killer snorts in amusement and then the scraping noise starts up again and moves further away along with his footsteps. Frank tugs frantically at the rope binding his wrists together, wincing as it only digs deeper into his skin, and drags some cold air into his battered lungs. His bones ache and he's getting dizzy again. Biting the inside of his cheek, he uses the pain he is able to control to stay conscious. “Why w-would you...do all th-this?” he pants fearfully.
The biker cackles, “Because my boss doesn’t want you little freaks to see any of the things he has planned for this great nation of ours. You can see future disasters and deaths before they occur and the boss is a guy who makes a fuckload of money from suffering and deaths. Freaks like you are a risk to his entire operation. I have to kill you because you might know too much.”

A sudden rush of body heat hits Frank’s bare skin as rough hands pull him up into a sitting position against a cold damp wall and the cloth covering his eyes is yanked away. Dim light floods his vision and a windowless basement comes into focus behind the horrific sight of the killer from his nightmares kneeling over him. Every muscle in his bruised body tenses with terror and his heart is racing so fast it feels like it'll burst through his chest.

Two razor-sharp bowie knives plunge into view as the biker crosses the blades in front of his victim's petrified face and starts scraping them loudly together. “No! P-Please!” Frank begs desperately, blood freezing in his veins as his eyes flood with tears, “Don't do this!”
“I don't like begging, boy, and no one else is gonna hear you scream so you might as well shut the fuck up and face death like a man.”

Sick with terror, Frank shrinks back against the wall, cramming his trembling hands into the concrete behind him. His pounding head is spinning and he's gasping for breath but the air seems to be trapped inside his throat in a hot bitter acidic ball. Desperately, he tries to pray in case there's a god up there but his mind stumbles over a half-forgotten prayer from Catholic school and turns it into gibberish. Will dying hurt a lot? Fuck, he knows from his nightmares that it really, REALLY will!

Laughing sadistically, the killer lunges forwards and stabs a knife deep into each of Frank’s thighs, yanking them free again in two sprays of blood. Howling in shock and pain, Frank jerks back against the wall and smacks his head on the bricks as crimson blood soaks through his jeans. Any last hopes of survival he might have had are slaughtered in this awful moment and he bursts into agonized tears of despair.

The killer snorts behind his visor and rocks back on his heels, wiping the knives clean with a torn dishrag. “Calm down man,” he grumbles, “I didn’t hit an artery. You ain’t going to die right this minute. I'm gonna make sure it's a very long process.”
Sobbing brokenly, Frank curls up in a quivering mess on the hard floor as warm sticky blood pools around his legs and the world shrinks to this one tiny room and the last things he'll ever see.
The killer stands and walks away, his heavy boots echoing across the basement floor. “Hey,” he hisses, “Quit crying and look over here.”
Gritting his teeth against the pain throbbing through his legs with every heartbeat, Frank shakes his sweaty hair out of his eyes and looks up. The biker is standing next to a heap of sackcloths beside a fridge on the other side of the room and once he knows Frank is watching he bends down and yanks the cloths aside to reveal...
“Lorna?” Frank croaks shakily, tears sliding down his cheeks, “Lorna…?”
She's lying perfectly still on the basement floor, either asleep or dead, dressed in a white nightdress and pyjama pants stained with coffee. Her hands aren't tied and she doesn’t have any visible injuries. Yet. Swallowing snotty lumps of tears, Frank looks miserably away and wipes his dripping face on his shoulder, wishing he had been smart enough to figure out this whole fucking mess ages ago instead of making it worse.

Nightmarish visions start dancing and flickering in his eyes and the basement shimmers and slips away from him as the smell of blood rises to the stomach-churning level of a slaughterhouse. Lorna appears in the center of a black floor under a crimson spotlight of disaster and the bowie knives come for her like demons, chopping and hacking her flesh until she’s a bloodied ruin. A river of gore turns the floor red and she screams her guts out. Screaming in agony and terror into the face of death. “Frank do something! Help! Fucking HELP ME!”

“Fuck,” he gasps, “It’s not happening, it’s not happening!”
“What are you whining about?” the masked biker snaps, nudging Lorna’s sleeping body with his boot, “Are you seeing things again, kid?”

Nodding hatefully as the dank basement air catches and hiccups in his aching chest, Frank spits at the floor and sees his saliva is stained with blood. He's bitten through his tongue. Fresh salt-water wells in his eyes and he has to shut them to blink the tears away so they fall in useless trickles down his cheeks. His injured legs are growing cold and clammy in a layer of blood-soaked denim as life oozes from his torn skin, red and wet and hurting. He should have tried harder to make Gerard or Brian or Stacey believe him and maybe he wouldn't have ended up in this mess!

Then suddenly, somewhere, a cell phone starts to ring.
Frank recognizes the ringtone as his own phone and a spark of hope lights inside him but it is quickly snuffed out when the killer marches over to where his jacket is strewn across an old workbench several feet away and picks up the ringing object. Peering at the screen through his helmet he chuckles. “So who is this ‘Gerard’ guy, huh? Is he your boyfriend or something Frankie? Cos he already called you twice while you were sleeping.”
Before Frank can answer, he carelessly drops the phone on the concrete and stomps on it over and over again until there’s nothing left but shattered plastic and broken circuit-boards.
“No one is coming to save you, Frank!” he growls, marching back over with a knife pointed right in his victim's face, “Do you hear me? Say it!”
“N-No one’s coming to s-save me,” Frank whimpers, sobs ripping at his throat as the killer slowly slices a long shallow cut through all the tattoos on his left arm, “No one's coming to save m-me...”

Notes

(Thanks for still reading, lovelies. Please comment!
I will try to update again soooooooon!)