Page 13 of Devil's Riches

“They always say that,” he replied calmly, pulling her over to the chains hanging from the ceiling. “But it’s not true, is it? I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

He attached her arms to the chains above her head and left her hanging there, sobbing and moaning. From somewhere offscreen, a hose and bucket slid into view, along with two large bottles of soap and antiseptic fluid.

Greg began to hose the girl down, cleaning the dirt and blood from her pale body. She writhed and struggled in her bonds, crying and screaming as goosebumps cropped up all over her skin. My uncle hummed an old tune and kept going until she was fresh and clean.

“You haven’t been very good to me, Sarah,” he said a few minutes later as he dried her off with a crisp white towel. “I warned you about that at the start, didn’t I?”

“What?” she choked out.

“I warned you,” he repeated. “I told you the ones who make things easy for me get a special treat when I’m done with them. Something to numb them and make things a little easier for them. But you… you’ve been bad.”

“What the fuck did you expect?” she shouted, thrashing around again. One leg kicked outward, narrowly missing Greg’s groin.

He let out a sigh. “That’s exactly what I meant,” he said softly. “This attitude of yours. You can’t help yourself, can you?”

He started humming again as he unhooked her from the chains and carried her over to the operating table. She screamed the whole way, struggling as hard as she could, but he was much stronger than her. He pulled up canvas straps with restraints from the side of the table, pinning her wrists and feet down, and then he pulled another one over her forehead.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Please!”

Greg ignored her and moved over to the smaller table that held all the medical instruments.

He picked up a small glass bottle and a syringe and turned back around. “See this?” he said, dangling the stuff right in front of her face. “This is what you could’ve had to make your path a little easier. But you chose the other way. That’s your fault.”

“No!”

A broad grin spread across my uncle’s face. “Don’t worry, Sarah. I actually prefer it this way. You’ve been very bad, but you’ve also become one of my favorites.”

She stopped making sounds when he stuffed something in her mouth, but her eyes, bulging and terrified, seemed to be screaming and begging anyway.

Greg turned and looked at the camera. “Showtime,” he said, performing a mock bow.

He went back to the table, slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and picked up a large scalpel. The metal gleamed under the bright fluorescent lights as he held it up. Then, without any warning, he sliced into the girl’s chest and abdomen. Her body writhed in agony, as much as it could under the restraints, and blood spurted out onto the plastic-covered floor.

My guts twisted and lurched as I stared, unable to tear my eyes away from the screen. I watched, stock still, as Greg carefully filleted the girl like a fish, removing her organs one by one before placing each of them somewhere offscreen.

She died about five minutes into the process, after the third organ was removed. Greg sighed at the sight of her limp, bloodied body and shook his head. “I hoped you’d last longer,” he said, tapping her on the head with a blue-gloved finger.

After the final organ was removed from her abdominal cavity, Greg picked up a smaller scalpel and started cutting around the girl’s eyes. Bile rose in my throat, and I finally grabbed the remote and switched off the TV, unable to bear another second of the gory horror.

I sat back and stared into space. My skin was crawling as if a million insects had descended upon my body.

My uncle was the Blackthorne Butcher. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but I had, and it was undeniable.

Grimacing, I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, trying to force the images of that poor girl’s suffering out of my mind. When I opened my eyes again, my gaze fell upon the boxes that contained all the tapes Greg had filmed. Icy sludge filled my veins at the sight.

Shockingly, the discovery that my uncle was the Blackthorne Butcher wasn’t the worst part of this.

The Butcher was known to have murdered thirteen people back in 2009… but there weren’t thirteen tapes in the boxes.

There were hundreds.

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