Beneath Her Flesh Ch. 01

Written & edited by Amnoartist

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Note: Beneath Her Flesh is a dark horror-themed series with a focus on story and characterisation. Eroticism will likely play a part where appropriate for the plot's benefit and advancement or delving deeper into the characters themselves. There will be no sex just for the sake of it being there. The chaarcters that DO partake in sexual intercourse throughout this series are all aged 23 or older The themes in this series include but are not limited to: mystery/thriller; incest/incest pregnancy; autism; murder; cannibalism & gore. With this all taken into account, go in with a relatively open-mind and enjoy :)

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The crowd's curious mutterings were near predictable, all trying to get a better view of the crime scene - a brutal murder. The third one this week, no less, and in the alleyway of Beatrice's fifties-themed American diner, Pinup, one of the most popular meet-up spots in Black Peak. The thing about Pinup is that it was probably the safest place in the whole of Black Peak, an otherwise altogether disreputable hovel for the corrupt and immoral. But now with a fresh murder quite literally around its neon-lit corner, Pinup wasn't so safe anymore.

"The third one this week, you know." Beatrice wiped a tear away with a handkerchief provided by her friend. Beatrice knew the murder would taint her establishment, meaning her business would probably suffer too. 'The third one this week,' she repeated inwardly, but there were at least fifteen victims in total. The police could never find a distinctive MO that would help them catch the killer, which not only made things difficult but also generated a sense of distrust and incompetence in the force. Whoever the killer was, they were good.

Beatrice looked on at the detective leading the investigation, crouched over what had to be the victim, whose body was draped over a white sheet, her legs sticking out from the end. The detective, Xander Lodge, winced and fought back the building urge to regurgitate his latest meal when peeling back the sheet to look at the victim's face. Or at least what was left of it. Skin had apparently been stripped clean off to expose bone tissue that helped make up the majority of her cheeks and upper jaw, done so probably with a scalpel or some other utensil. An eye had been scooped out with surgical precision so that its respective socket remained untouched, and bloodied locks of the victim's hair laid on the rain-soaked asphalt, suggesting the suspect pulled the victim by the hair prior to the murder.

"Xander?"

Xander flinched in shock, not expecting to hear anyone talk to him. It was an explicit order of his that nobody interrupted him when— Of course, he didn't expect the voice to be Carly's, his partner. Carly was younger than Xander by a few years but was a fast learner, which helped her rise through the ranks of the Black Peak police department rather quickly. But in being younger, it wasn't a good idea for her to see this.

"You hear me? I said, what are we looking at?"

Xander had more field experience than his younger counterpart, but that didn't help him much with going up against this murderer. Most killers had motives, reasons to brutally kill someone, while this maniac seemed to do it just for the fun. Well, that wasn't entirely true—it's just what they told the public. Nobody needed to know the darker truth - that there was a cannibalistic killer on the loose.

Xander peeled back the sheet so the victim's chest could be revealed. Upon doing so, he realized it didn't particularly agree with his stomach. The need to vomit was dire, but he didn't want to contaminate the scene. As Carly came closer, taking notes as calmly as she could despite the horror laid before her, Xander examined the flesh torn from the victim's breast and noted the fact there was only one.

"Killer must've made off with one of the victim's breasts, and the crude cuts to this one indicate they were in a hurry." Xander gagged, the nauseating stench of death bowling over him. One would think he'd gotten used to it by now but that was never the case. Everyone smelled different even in death. "No need to imagine what they're doing with the one they have."

"Any witnesses?" Carly didn't brush off the fact Xander implied the suspect made off with the victim's breast to eat it. It was just...she was so used to talking about these murders by now that they were an everyday conversation topic. Those who stood by the cordoned-off area would probably view her as a cold-hearted psychopath if they knew that. But what did they know? They didn't even know the murderer was really a cannibal.

Xander shook his head. No witnesses this time, and even the one they were lucky enough to get previously couldn't talk from shock-induced catatonia. He pointed at what remained of the victim's cheeks. "This is new."

"What about...further down?"

Xander hesitated, admittedly of the mind to finally leave the unfortunate victim be, but every detail mattered, every part of the chalky remains had to be searched for clues to the killer's identity, no matter how finite. Reluctantly, he unfurled more of the sheet to uncover the girl's bloodied and exposed stomach that had clearly been burst open somehow with extreme force, laying bare the sprouting ribcage, inside of which her lungs should've been.

"They're not messing around this time, taking everything of value. The lungs, liver, even parts of the intestinal tubing were forcibly removed." Xander examined the girl's burst ribcage with marked uncertainty. Whoever she was, the killer deliberately murdered this girl with brutality, not to mention possessed a great deal of physical strength. Knowing this, the killer ought to be male. "She was killed in seconds. Didn't stand a fucking chance."

Carly fought the bubbling urge to vomit. Why did Xander have to be so graphic with describing how the girl died? Wasn't the fact she was practically exposed to the public like a presentation enough for him? Carly heaved a breath that clearly indicated a sense of annoyance. "We ought to wrap it up now. Coroner's almost here."

Xander didn't say anything but agreed. It annoyed him to no end that no connection could be made between either of the killings. The murderer didn't have predispositions towards any particular gender or age group, even sexuality meant nothing to them. The only thing they did have in common was that they all had something valuable to the killer: meat.

"We'll catch them, one day." Carly assumed her words fell on deaf ears, but the fact was, they were the one ray of hope necessary to keep going. Xander saw a rare form of preciousness in her that way. A sort of...innocence.

"I hope so."

///

Kimberly Hardcastle couldn't think straight past her sobbing, a handkerchief in hand to wipe away the seemingly endless tears. The family lawyer, Harold Jensen, a man clearly in the middle of his life, with leathering skin and greying hair, looked on. It was by sheer luck alone that he hadn't started balding.

"Allow me to extend my condolences to you, Miss. I imagine this must be a hard time for you." Jensen was met with more sobs, but Kimberly couldn't make heads or tails over why she felt this way. Her mother did die but— Jensen flipped open the Hardcastle family case file and skimmed the details, some of which were rather indecent. "Especially considering your own financial predicaments."

Kimberly shot Jensen a deathly glare, seemingly bringing her sobs to an abrupt stare. While Jen knew of Kimberly's monetary issues, this wasn't the time to discuss such things, even if living in a one-room flat wasn't in any way a decent way to live. "Just get on with it," she coldly ordered, her tone changed to that of anger.

Clearing his throat, Jensen did as asked. Kimberly and her mother rarely saw eye-to-eye on most things, which was unfortunate and backed up in great detail in Jensen's files. Skimming through them again, he winced at some of the details laid before him. Kimberly noted this as a deliberate tactic to stall.

"Jensen, I don't care what your thoughts are on what happened to me as a kid." Kimberly didn't notice she was unconsciously tapping her foot of the perfectly polished wooden floor in nerves, too focused on the now to care. "You should care about what happens to me now. That's how you get paid."

Jensen was deaf to his client's demand, still reading the files like a kid would their favourite novel, pulled into the particulars like they were a vicious black hole. Gulping, one specific detail stood out from all the rest, forcing Jensen to feel nothing but pity. "You're...the product of rape?"

Kimberly fought the urge to shout, digging her nails into her palms. The girl was better than this but a certain darkness forever slumbered within her. Kimberly didn't say anything because there was no need to. It was all in her face.

Jensen continued reading the details, much to Kimberly's irritation. Her father didn't want anything to do with her, and as it turned out, Kimberly's mother resented her for it, which explained why they were rarely of the same mind. But Kimberly loved her mother still, in some capacity.

Having reached the end of the case file, Jensen finally decided to address the subject of Kimberly's mother's will. It was no secret Kimberly was more interested in what would be handed down to her than the idea of a proper burial for her mother. But the expression Jensen displayed implied there may be a slight issue.

"Turns out most of the contents of your mother's will shall go to your sister Ivy." Jensen hesitated to reveal the more distressing fact of information, not knowing how Kimberly would react to that which was just revealed, let alone what would be. But what good would it do? "Her being institutionalized is the issue."

"Si-sister?"

Surprise struck Jensen. This was a particularly bizarre turn of events. Admittedly, he had expected Kimberly to go ballistic over the fact her mother's will hadn't in any way, shape or form held any importance to her. Almost like Kimberly. "You...didn't know you had a sister?"

"No. No, I didn't." Kimberly had intensified the tapping of her feet, not in nervousness this time, but distress. She had a sister? Institutionalized at that. "I didn't know I had anyone. Thought I was alone."

Jensen saw Kimberly's heartache widen. Between her mother's death and only now just discovering she had a sister, it was no wonder she started crying again. But Jensen couldn't tell if they were that of joy or anger. Looking back, Kimberly's hopes of having a decent life were crushed by arguably a total stranger. But Jensen had to take the risk and assume Kimberly had genuine interest in meeting her sibling.

Jensen opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small slip of paper, writing onto it what Kimberly assumed were the contact details for were her sister Ivy was being homed.

"Any idea why she's being institutionalized?"

Jensen frowned, handing her the slip. "Your guess is as good as mine."

///

Consciousness finally came over Jenny. The last thing she remembered was downing what had to be her fourth glass of rose wine. Now she not only found herself in a place she didn't recognize but distressing too; an old school hall, whose walls were the subject of years-long decay and asbestos, chipping away bit by bit to reveal the sickening grunge hidden underneath. And the smell—

Jenny moved sidewards in an effort to get a clearer view of her surroundings but was restrained by the unexpected weight of handcuffs clapped to her wrists and conjoined to the edges of a gurney. As one can imagine, relief in finding a conscious state was quickly replaced with unbridled fear. She wasn't going anywhere.

"HELP! HELP!" Almost as if to mock her, Jenny's calls echoed through the hall to meet nothing but eerie stillness, the only thing to futilely contradict it being the rattlings of the cuffs as she tried to break herself free. But she didn't know the cuffs had been bent and warped around the gurney too.

Eventually, Jenny's efforts were subverted by echoing footsteps from the darkness, which abruptly ended when breaths that could only be described as aroused in nature made themselves known. Jenny's fear only blossomed.

"Ah good, you're awake. Was wondering I might have to do something about that." The voice of Jenny's kidnapper had purposefully been synthesized to make it sound less distinguishable. It was almost like two voices layered over one another. The aroused breaths remained, as did Jenny's futile efforts to break free. Her determination to escape from captivity was unparalleled compared to her understanding that something about her felt different. At any rate, her captor merely looked on from the shadows. "It's pointless. Even if you do, by some divine miracle, manage to escape, where would you go? You don't know where you are even now."

Jenny knew trying to escape was a risk she was willing to take.

"And even when it came to running..." A large, brilliant light burst to life above Jenny, revealing the true extent of her fateful predicament. Her legs had been savagely ripped off seemingly with brute force, exposing only the twitching tendons and fibres that connected them to her waist. "You would need legs for that. Yours were quite delicious. Fibrous and packed full of protein."

Jenny screamed, finding not a single word that could form in her head, let alone slip free from her tongue. As she relentlessly shrieked, the tendons in her legs twitched uncontrollably as if trying to find and reattach themselves to the legs they belonged to.

"There's no need to be so upset. I'll be sure to eat the rest of you, tongue and all." The captor's tone implied they were not only looking forward to the sadistic act, not gearing up to do rather soon. "You should count yourself lucky I have chosen you as my next meal. You will be inside me and will help me grow and evolve."

Tears relentlessly streamed from Jenny's eyes. Unbeknown to her, she was inadvertently helping her would-be killer. The salt from her tears would only season or preserve her meat.

"You are so beautiful."

Jenny watched in horror as an abnormally muscular arm shot out from the shadows, initially reaching for her shoulder before moving down to the rim of her sweat-stained dress.

"Be happy in knowing I will not make a fast meal out of you."

Jenny's responding scream was final.