The Black Farm Read online

  Muck stared down at me. I twisted into myself, crying, broken and humiliated. Muck let go of his penis and shook his head.

  “Eat! You have new teeth! EAT!”

  I just lay on the ground, staring at nothing as tears rolled down my mutilated face. I sobbed wet, broken cries that trickled from shattered lips and floated up into the dim oppression. I could feel myself shutting down. I could feel the many afflictions my body had endured wring both mind and muscle, shoving me into a darkness I accepted with open arms.

  I prayed it was death. Whatever death meant here.

  But as I was pushed into the subconscious, I knew my end wasn’t here. Not yet.

  What…what was that? Sound…yes…soothing sound…gentle…so gentle…and so cool…something cool on my face…licking me…running down my cheeks…no…rain…it was…rain…washing the blood and grime from my mangled face…

  If I had eyelids, I would have opened them. Instead, the world swam back into focus, a blurry twist of gray and brown that rushed towards me as my brain re-entered the hell I was encased in. I was on the ground, outside the cave. My cheek pressed deep into the mud as I groggily took in my surroundings.

  The entrance to Muck’s cave was behind me, an empty cut into a blank cliff face. I could see the fucker, walking towards me, the bag over his head molding his features in the rain. I became aware of something around my neck, a tight coil that pressed in on me like an iron snake. I pulled my head to the side and saw a chain leading away from my throat.

  A leash.

  I tried to move my aching body, but the barbed wire around my thighs halted any progress with a sharp reminder of their presence. I went to wipe rain water from my eyes, the heavens gutting themselves in spectacular fashion, but the ghost of my arms passed through me. I would never get used to that.

  And so I lay, like a beaten worm in the soggy earth as Muck reached me and took hold of my leash. He shook it a few times and I recoiled, alerting him of my awareness.

  “Let’s go visit the new ones, eh? I’m getting low on Suicidals.”

  Without waiting for a response, Muck began to drag me through the mud. I gagged as the leash tightened on my throat, the hard angles digging into my sensitive flesh. I started to cry out but immediately regretted it as the jutting screws filling my mouth sliced across my scabbed lips.

  Gasping, choking, we began the long journey back.

  As I was pulled along, struggling to sneak air into my body between jerks of the chain, I began to become more aware of what was around me.

  Spires rose all around us, looming, sharp things that extended from the ground like needles. Shoved through these spikes, rising dozens of feet into the air, were impaled bodies. The finger-thin poles were stained with decades of blood, rusting their surface with an ugly blackish tint. The people, my fellow Sucidals, hung like meat on sticks, motionless, their eyes wide with agony. Most were dead, but I spotted a few rolling eyes, lost in misery, staring at everything and nothing. How long they had been there was impossible to tell.

  Rows and rows extended before us across the expanse of the field like human cornstalks. There had to be thousands of them, frozen in their last moments of suffering. I was dragged past one such spire and I noticed a man, probably my age, still alive. My burning eyes met his and he focused on me for a split second before rolling back into his own nightmare. The ones that were alive didn’t scream, didn’t make a sound. They could only focus on their inevitable death, willing their bodies to give in to the pain and blood loss, freeing them back into the Black Farm.

  As Muck dragged me further, a horrible stench began to invade my nostrils. It was a sharp, burning smell and it didn’t take long for me to find the source.

  In the middle of the Needle Fields was an absolutely titanic pile of dead bodies, slowly burning, one atop another. Thick, ugly smoke rose from charred flesh, the rain and wind carrying the aroma of death with it.

  Hundreds and hundreds of people formed the small mountain, individual victims to Muck’s torment. How many had this monster tortured? What had he made them endure? How long had they been kept alive until pain or starvation took them? How many had been nailed to the earth in the Needle Fields, left alone to their own misery until their bodies gave out? Was I looking at my eventual future? Was Megan out there?

  Was Jess in that pile of discarded bodies?

  The weight of violence before me caused my mind to shudder, gloom pressing in through the cracks of my fraying sanity. I felt myself slowly slip into an unaware lull, the rain beating down from the pregnant clouds shushing me in my pain. Gray swirled across my unblinking eyes and I lost myself in it.

  I don’t know how long I was dragged. Every second felt like an eternity I wasn’t part of. The iron around my throat allowed minimal oxygen intake and my head felt bloated and compressed at the same time. The Black Farm began to drip dull color and the gray that flirted in my vision pressed in deeper.

  At one point, I became aware of screaming and forced my eyes from the mud. We were traversing across small foothills, the earth rippling out before us. The dead grass rolled away from me like a dirty rug and in the distance, I spotted the coast. I could see the outline of a Keeper on the horizon, its giant cross rising in the rain to kiss the clouds.

  I let my head roll to the side and heard the distant screaming again. As water rolled across my agonized eyes, I spotted the source.

  Dozens of people were being herded away from us, their naked, trembling bodies lined with bloody stripes. Their captors, a smattering of twisted Pig Born, kept them together with the snap of hungry whips. They were guiding the Suicidals like sheep, howling and laughing at their victims suffering. The Pig Born were similar in biology and shape, their bodies tall and bent at unnatural angles. Their arms extended from their pale bodies like wriggling snakes, looping and coiling in the air. In their hands they held wicked-looking whips that never stopped licking the Suicidals.

  Where were they taking them? What were they going to do with them? I slowly realized they were leading them towards the far off coast, towards the Keeper. Were they going to make them swim? Was this a game to them? Try and see who can make it the farthest before drowning or being abducted by the bizarre titans?

  My eyes rolled backward, catching a glimpse of the rotting sun in the sky, a broken orb of dripping darkness. I felt a connection to it, an understanding. It too was shattered, an incomplete creation just like me. And now we both bled our poisons into the world.

  I lost myself again, the Needle Fields and herd of Suicidals growing further and further away. The gray swallowed me back into its jaws and I gratefully accepted it.

  At some point, I became dimly aware that we were back in the woods. Roots and rocks cut into my exposed skin, but it was nothing compared to the burning around my throat. I could feel my neck rubbed raw by the leash, blood dripping across my black and blue chest. I began to realize that pain was something you could never become accustomed too. It was everything to me at this point and it made sure I was acutely aware of that.

  The dripping canopy overhead dimmed an already dark sky and I burrowed into my own mind as much as I could to escape the constant scrape of undergrowth. Muck never slowed his pace, never stopped, never so much as glanced behind him to see if I was still alive.

  But he knew I was. Somehow, he knew.

  Another period of miserable affliction passed under the gray. My armless body was slowly covered in mud, leaves, and grime that stuck to my open wounds like parasites. I felt like every bone in my body was bent and broken, the constant teeth of the barbed wire gnawing at my thighs. The screws protruding from my wrecked gums jabbed and bit with every bump and tug. I was sure I was leaving a trail of dirty blood in my wake, a red carpet to my eventual demise.

  And then we were through the woods, hours, days, years later. I didn’t know. I just became aware that the rain was beating harder against my face now and the blanket of green overhead had vanished.

  I could hear Muck bec
ome excited as we got closer to wherever we were going. A new noise echoed in the distance, a great clang of metal and gears like working, shifting machinery. I let my head fall to the side and I spotted the colossal barn I had seen after I was released into the Black Farm.

  The two towers that jutted from its construction were still wrapped by those human looking worms. Their size dwarfed us, their squirming pink bodies constricting along the wood and metal columns. Their elongated faces turned to stare down at us from a distance, their white eyes infected with bloodshot veins. Jaws like a dog extended from their necks, snapping loudly in the gale. Lightning flashed behind the towering barn, across the two towers forever billowing rancid smoke, and the creatures howled.

  As they gazed out on us, I watched in horrific disgust as one of the monsters began to gag, a nauseating retching sound that filled the sky. The creature leaned its slick, smooth neck towards the earth and extended its jaws, its milky eyes bulging. Out of its mouth rolled a twisted, curled body. It fell the remaining twenty feet to the earth with a thud, splashing in the mud.

  The snake-like creature readjusted around its smoke stack, reverting back to its watchful gaze over the cathedral-sized barn. The ball of flesh that had been evacuated slowly began to move and then stood, rising up on two legs.

  Its head was smashed and mangled, its form vaguely human. Its naked stomach was half torn open to reveal a nest of tiny, dead arms that spilled out past its waist. The creature opened its busted mouth and let out a shriek, raising broken fingers towards the sky in exultation.

  As I watched, pieces began to click in my head.

  I had just witnessed the birth of a Pig Born.

  An especially hard jerk on my leash whipped my head back in a blaze of pain and my thoughts were cut short. I winced and saw that Muck was leading us back to the concrete structure I had been contained in shortly after my arrival.

  To my left, as we approached the building, I saw a flash of color that drew my eye. A large, obese man in overalls was walking in the opposite direction of us, a small red body slung over his shoulder.

  With a slow dawning recognition, I realized it was the boy in the plastic devil mask I had met earlier, his red onesie now soaked with blood.

  The child’s head had been eviscerated.

  Pudge finally caught up to you, my scattered mind observed, the name pulled from the conversation I had with the boy. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  The Black Farm gets us all…

  I noticed other Pig Born huddled around the entrances of the building before us, waiting for new Suicidals to emerge after their interview with Danny. Just like I had. When the crooked abominations saw Muck, they began to back away, snarling and spitting insults at us through disfigured mouths. Each one was a different shape, each one sprouting unnatural mutilations.

  Muck ignored them and pulled me to a door along the side, flinging it open with careless abandon. Gloom leaked out from a dark hallway, a faint echo of human screams washing into the rain and mud outside.

  Muck entered, dragging me along with him. The cold cement floor felt like silk against my battered skin compared to the terrain outside. How long had it actually been since I had been in this very hall?

  Time was an impossibility here and I soon gave up trying to calculate it as we began to pass empty, barren rooms. From somewhere down the hall, I could hear Danny, his voice bouncing along the grim interior.

  Suddenly, Muck stopped and the leash mercifully loosened against my throat. For the first time in what felt like years, I sucked in lungfuls of dirty air, drinking it down greedily. Blood sluiced from my skin, a mess of angry red drops that stained the floor.

  We were standing in front of an open door that exposed a room much like the one I had been held in. A man was slumped unconscious in a chair before us, his head resting against his chest. He was bound, his hands tied behind his back. A single bulb flickered over his head like the last remains of a dying hope.

  Muck leaned down to me, pressing against my wire wrapped legs. “You go and have a bite of him. Wake him up. I need a good wank.”

  I barely had the strength to breathe, never mind wriggle my armless body across the floor. I rested my head against the wet concrete, unable to respond to the order.

  Muck grabbed a fistful of hair and leaned in close, the bag over his head unable to filter out his rancid breath, “You go in there and bite him up or I’m going to plug you again.”

  My already ruptured lower half flared at the mention of another round with this monster of a man and I raised my head, exhausted. Taking a deep breath, I slowly began to wriggle towards the bound man, pulling my broken body along the floor an inch at a time.

  As I got closer, I saw the bound man begin to stir. Already I could hear Muck masturbating behind me, his breath wet and lustful. I was now at the bound man’s feet and I slowly lowered my head towards his naked foot, the screws jutting from my ruined mouth scraping along the man’s unaware skin.

  And then I bit down.

  The reaction was immediate. The man in the chair bolted into consciousness and a howl escaped his terrified lips. He jerked his now bleeding toe away from my makeshift jaws and recoiled at the sight of me.

  “Get off of me! Stop it!” the man screamed. He kicked out at me and his heel bounced off my skull, crunching it into the hard floor. I let out a howl as stars exploded across my vision. I heard Muck release a loud moan and I knew he had just finished, the sight of my agony pushing him to the brink of pleasure.

  Without pause, Muck suddenly jerked me away from the bound man, back towards himself and the doorway. The air was squeezed from me and I coughed violently as I was pulled back to my captor. Without slowing, Muck took us from the room and back down the hallway from where we had come.

  Confused at the sudden departure, I looked behind us in a haze of misery.

  Danny was marching towards the room we had just left, a look of seething fury on his face. Our eyes met for a split second and I saw him freeze, moments before entering the room we had just left.

  Recognition bloomed across his face and the anger drained from his skin. His eyes became emotionless as he realized who Muck’s pet was. Who I was. As I was dragged towards the exit, Danny followed our retreat with his eyes. He showed no sympathy, no pity.

  He simply gazed upon what the Black Farm had done to me.

  Muck burst through the exit door, back out into the rain. My mouth pulsed with intense pain, the blow to my head rattling some of the screws loose. Blood poured from my chin and I stared miserably up at the sky. The clouds boiled over one another and I saw a few of those red gashes in the gray, their hanging drool floating high above the earth.

  And that’s when an idea bloomed from the blackened soil of my exhausted mind. As Muck pulled me along the length of the building, muttering angrily to himself, I extended my tongue. Upon quick inspection, I realized that three of the screws embedded in my gums were loose enough to wriggle free. Wincing, tears flowing from my wide eyes, I crunched my jaw together and muffled a shriek that erupted in my throat. The three long screws fell onto my tongue, the tiny ripples filled with torn flesh.

  Taking a deep breath, I opened my mouth and filled it with mud. The soft earth was cool against my mangled mouth and for a split second I felt relief. When the sensation passed, I balled the mud against my cheek, mixing it with the three screws.

  I chanced a quick glance at Muck and saw he was still marching us forward, his back to me.

  This was it.

  My way out. My escape from this monster.

  I swallowed the clump of earth. As I felt it pass my tongue and into the back of my throat, I constricted my neck muscles. The clod, now halfway down my throat, came to a screeching halt as the screws buried themselves into the soft sides of my esophagus.

  The pain was a brilliant flair that shook my entire body, but I gratefully accepted it. I fought against my gag reflex, a desperate attempt to rid the blockage, my chest heaving. The ball of mud easily
blocked any oxygen to my brain and I fought against a rising panic, a natural reaction to the horrible sensation. My lungs began to burn and blood dripped down my throat. My vision swam and I felt a great weight press against my chest as the seconds ticked by. I had to remain calm, had to die in silence so Muck wouldn’t try to resuscitate me.

  The world bled to darkness and my body bucked and squirmed for air, my brain thundering against my skull.

  I was dying…

  Again. And this time, there were no second thoughts.

  So close, I screamed internally, just a little longer and you’re free from this torture!

  Through the growing haze, I could tell the ball of mud was disintegrating. I strained my neck muscles even tighter, burying the sharp screws deeper in my throat, closing off any growing opening.

  And that was all it took.

  The black roared in on me and I felt myself begin to float out of my head…

  Away from the pain…

  Away from Muck…

  Into the heavens…

  6

  Nothingness…

  No pain…

  No sound…

  No sight…

  I was everywhere…and I was nowhere. I could feel space expand around me, coils of silent black shimmering into the eternal. Pain…suffering…the words floated through my soaring mind and I couldn’t pin meaning to the strange, alien concepts. This was death…and this was life. This was everything…and this was nothing.

  The nothing didn’t last very fucking long.

  Something exploded violently across my body and I screamed, face bouncing off hard angles. The darkness still had me and the sudden force did nothing to push it away. Pain splintered through my aching limbs and I gasped down air, mind blaring with furious urgency.

  Had it not worked!? Where was I?!

  Open your eyes…just open your fucking eyes, Nick!

  I could feel a slight drizzle coating my back, the rain softly whispering against my soaked shirt. In the black, I reached up and rubbed my aching head, willing my brain to focus.