April's Fool

This is my entry for the April Fools' competition.

It is indeed an April Fools' story, but is also quite properly an Erotic Horror story, with the emphasis on horror versus eroticism. It involves non-consent, fear and both physical and sexual abuse. If that sort of fictional depiction bothers or offends you, or if you are bothered by dark tales, please read no further. There are lots of fun alternatives.

Happy reading!

+

The corner newspaper box headline was hard to miss, April thought as she hurried past it. Every paper in the city, every news channel, every webcast was locked onto the ongoing mystery.

Over the three months since New Year's, 10 people - including eight university students - had been reported missing. Two couples were among them, the rest were young women. Police and university security had issued warnings - stay together, don't trust strangers, don't accept drinks from anybody you don't know. The university had created 'safe waiting spaces' for female students and staff. A task force had been announced. City Council had debated more lighting and security cameras. Opinion polls had been taken.

People continued to disappear.

She slowed as she stepped into The Lockup, her favorite bar. "Hey, Bandit," she greeted the owner behind the bar. She and he were both old familiars, so to speak. He smiled, one gold tooth showing in his lopsided grin. Without asking, he poured her usual cooler, pushed it across the bar. "Hey, April. How ya doin', sweetie?"

She took a sip, put it back on the bar. "I'm doing fine, Bandit. How's business?"

"Slow, darlin'," the man frowned. "Too many young folks scared to leave their dorm. How's an old man to make a livin', I ask ya?"

Bandit was hardly that old, but he'd been a fixture in the university town for a generation of students. Middle-aged and still muscular, with numerous tattoos and a gold earing, he wore a short goatee and kept his shaved head under a bandana. He made a point of being student-friendly and was always open to supporting sports teams, special events and so forth. Folk-lore said that he had an MBA from Chicago but had dropped out of high finance to have more fun. It was certain that he'd been a father figure, informal advisor and confidant for hundreds of young men and women.

"Maybe we can do something about business tonight, Bandit. I'm meeting Deb and Marie here -- have you seen them yet?"

"Not yet, but find a seat and I'll steer 'em your way when they get here."

"Thanks."

The young woman took her drink and moved to a back booth. Looking around, she saw the beginnings of the usual Saturday night crowd. Posted here and there on the walls were missing person posters distributed by the police and families.

Several young men drifted by to ask if they could join her, but she turned them down as politely as possible, explaining that it was a Girls' Night Out and maybe they could ask again once the others showed up. She had an endearing smile and her charm sent them on their way feeling privileged to have talked to her.

Deb and Marie arrived together a few minutes later. The trio were old, old friends. They'd been getting together Friday nights since just about forever. As is so often the case with close friends, the three were a study in contrasts.

Deb was short and, while rather heavier than current fashion might have favored, was vivacious, had a winning smile and possessed an amazing bosom. Deb was rarely without male attention. Marie was a tall brunette with short hair, very slim but very cute. She didn't smile all that often and was generally serious until she'd had a couple of drinks. She billed herself as being 'between boyfriends', but both of the others thought she should get moving on that. April was of average height and had pale blonde hair that fell well past her shoulders, set off by stellar green eyes. She thought of herself as skinny, but the men in her world all thought she was bubbling hot, with a fascinating figure. All three were dressed casually.

Bandit showed up with a round within a minute of the others' arrival. Girls' Night Out had commenced.

The evening went by quickly. There was a small dance floor and a barely-passable live band; the three women were asked to dance any number of times, always accepting, always returning to the same table afterwards. Towards the end, Deb and Marie drifted away with a couple of cute boys. Good on them, April thought to herself. But I know where they'll wind up.

It was getting late and the crowd had thinned out. Exams were not that far off and even the most dedicated party animal knew they needed at least some sleep to study.

"Bandit?" April asked, leaning against the bar. "Have you seen Marie and Deb?"

The bartender was in the process of cleaning up and mentally urging the few late-staying customers to finish up and go home.

"Thought they left with those two young fellas in the football sweaters," he replied, hefting an empty keg. "Though, come to think of it, I think I mighta seen the tall one heading out the back door." Favored customers were sometimes permitted to save a couple of minutes' walk by cutting through behind the bar to get to the rear parking lot.

April frowned. The three girls had agreed to go home together. Shrugging, she sat down at one of the bar stools. They knew how to find each other; they always did. On impulse, she picked up a tray and started collecting empties.

Bandit's wrinkled face brightened when she brought the full tray and placed it on the bar before picking up another empty one. "Thanks, darlin'! Changed your mind about workin' for me?"

"Nope, just hoping they come back," she replied.

"Yeah, it's not a good time for pretty young gals to be walking alone."

With her help, The Lockup was soon ready for another day. Having bolted the door behind the last customer and pushed the last tray of glasses into the washer, Bandit took the mop and pail into the back rooms; she heard dirty water being poured into the drain. A minute later, he appeared with two frosted glasses.

"Here, sweetie. I owe ya for your help. Want a lift home?"

"No, thanks, Bandit. I'm only a five-minute walk. Anyway, I thought you lived upstairs?"

"I do, I do, but times is weird now and I don't want to lose a good customer. Anyway, yer meetin' up with your friends tomorrow, so ya need to get to bed."

April yawned. It had been a long day and, now that the evening was winding down, she was suddenly very tired.

"Thanks, but I'll be OK. Nobody's expecting me tomorrow."

"Too bad. No boyfriend gonna feel lonely?"

She shook her head, feeling fuzzy, almost detached from herself. What the hell? she thought.

I didn't have that much to drink.

Bandit cocked his head to one shoulder. "Ya feeling OK?" he asked solicitously.

"Just tired," she said. "Maybe I'll change my mind about that ride."

He smiled, stood up and held out his hand as if to guide her. She reached out but missed and her hand was suddenly too heavy to try again.

The last thing April remembered was the sight of his eyes locked with hers as she drifted down into a dark velvet tunnel. Her last thought was a despairing Roofied!

+

Awakening slowly, April found herself in a room perhaps 40 feet by 30 feet across. Except for the low hum of a distant HVAC blower, it was unnaturally silent.

The ceiling consisted of sound-absorbing acoustic tile. Rough brick walls were painted red. Heavy beams crisscrossed the ceiling, their ends resting on thick wooden posts. Eyehooks and pulleys studded the beams every few feet. The floor consisted of broad wood planks, stained and almost white with age. The wall lights were electric but made to resemble medieval wall torches. They were bright enough but flickered constantly.

Dungeon furniture was positioned around the room, including the tall, leather-covered Saint Andrew's Cross to which she was fastened. It was tilted back, almost as if to allow her to rest. A spanking bench and a pillory faced each other across the room. The walls were fitted with rows of pegs holding an array of whips, paddles, crops and other implements. Several video cameras were mounted on tripods and a pair of large-screen TVs hung on the wall. Two tall swivelling mirrors on wheeled stands stood in one corner.

Directly in front of her, centred in the room, was a large frame made of wood posts thick as railway ties. Six vertical posts were topped with similar beams to form an open box higher than a tall man could reach. Eyebolts, pulleys and several hand-cranked winches were fitted to the side and top beams.

Scattered around the room were several leather armchairs, as if to allow a spectator to relax in comfort. Incongruously, there was a small wet bar with two stools, behind which stood an array of whisky bottles on backlit glass shelves. Her purse, shoes and a very ordinary telephone sat on the bar. Off to one side was a tall red mechanic's tool box on wheels.

The girl wrenched on her wrists and ankles, but they were held firmly by sturdy leather cuffs clipped to shiny chains. She was relieved to see that, with the exception of her shoes, she was still dressed. She shook a fuzzy head, tried to remember what had happened. She had no sense of time. She realized she was desperately thirsty.

By turning her head as far as it could go, she could just make out a heavy wooden door behind her.

April tried to control her rising fear, but steel chains had the better of her.

The air pressure in the room changed momentarily as the door behind her opened. Her eyes popped as Bandit entered, dressed now only in black boots and matching black leather vest and tights. The latter had their crotch cut away and his manhood dangled in plain sight. He had a lopsided grin on his face and his eyes were wide, wide open. He looked pathetic, farcical, but in his lunacy, he also seemed terrifyingly irrational, wholly dangerous.

"Figured ya'd be awake by now, sweetie," he crooned as he stroked her face.

"Bandit?" she croaked. "Where am I? What time's it?"

He grinned.

"Why, this is my bunker, sweetie. Not many folk know that this whole area dates from Prohibition days." He waved his arm around. "This is a sub-basement they used to hide their hooch in. It was real well hidden, sweetie. I only found it by accident 18 months after I bought the place."

"An' to answer yer second question, it's the mornin' of the first. Happy now?"

The flickering light sparkled off his gold tooth. He held up a bottle of water and a paper cup. "Probably could use this right now," he said. "Don't want ya to have to keep quiet." He held the cup up to her mouth and she guzzled it thankfully.

Feeling better to that extent, she made the mistake of protesting.

"So what the fuck, Bandit? This is just sick."

Still smiling, the old man backhanded her across the face. "Pretty things, you mind your tongue. And it's 'Sir' you're callin' me from now on."

"Like hell!"

The man's smile never altered as he slapped her again, twice this time.

The blows hurt and April kept her mouth shut thereafter.

The man fastened a sturdy steel spreader bar between the cuffs on her ankles. He fastened a second bar to a steel cable running from a winch on the frame and, pulling it and the cable behind him, fastened her wrist cuffs to it. Once he unfastened her from the tilted cross, the clacking intake of winch cable left her the choice of waddling across to the middle of the frame or to fall on her face and get dragged. She fought the winch but wound up shuffling.

Once she was in place, Bandit quickly clipped her cuffs to chains already in place before removing the other restraints. She was left standing upright, arms and legs spread-eagled between the chains. Looking at the steel surrounding her, April felt sick. Not for an instant had there been a chance to escape, to try her strength against his.

As she watched the man's deft movements, April realized that this was not his first experience. She gasped.

"You're him!" she whispered. "The one taking all the girls."

The man grinned, nodded almost in pride.

"How many...?"

"Oh, dozen or so over the years. Most of 'em was no-count trash from the mill, nothin' anybody'd notice. Only started collectin' some of you heighty college girls in the past few months."

He pointed a stubby thumb at a previously-unnoticed space on the wall across from her, half-filled with posters, photos and newspaper clippings of some of the missing women. Pinned to them were scraps of fabric which she realized to her shock were panties -- grim souvenirs of his lethal madness.

"But the missing couples?" she asked, as if curious.

"Ain't seen them," he said. "Either they eloped or I got competition. I ain't seen a buncha other ones ha' been in the news, neither. No matter."

Bandit frowned. "But ya' got me monologuin', sweetcheeks. Never a good idea."

He turned from the girl and returned a few seconds later pulling the mechanic's chest, rolling it to a stop in front of her. Her skin crawled when he opened a drawer full of carefully-arranged knives, scalpels and scissors.

She shuddered when he turned around with a large pair of shears in his hand. Crouching a little before her, he pulled out the hem of her blouse, inserted the tip of the shears and, his eyes flicking back and forth between the blades and her face, slowly, deliberately cut it away. April squirmed as the dull edge of the cold metal slid against her skin. When he finished cutting the sleeves, the rags of garment fell on the floor. He repeated his actions with her skirt, leaving her in a plain bra and panties.

With a look of scorn, he cut loose the bra and tossed it aside, grinning as her breasts fell loose. He weighed them with his hands, bounced them. "Niiice!" he said softly

He took considerably more care with her panties, switching to a finer pair of scissors and cutting carefully along one seam before allowing them to fall down the other leg. April could tell he'd recover them later.

"There we go, darlin," he said softly. "All ready for our dance." He ran his hand softly from her neck to her thighs, lingering over mound and breasts. She moaned as he pinched her nipples cruelly.

"Let me go Bandit," she pleaded. "Please. I'll do anything."

"Naw, darlin'. We barely got to know each other yet."

Stepping back, he closed his eyes for a moment in thought, mused to himself. "Where to begin? Where to begin?"

His eyes opened and he went to the wall, returning with a forearm-thick pole which he fastened horizontally across the frame, level with and just touching her navel. A few shifts and a bit of cranking with another winch and the girl was bent forward at the waist, her arms stretched out in front of her and her legs still spread to the sides.

Bandit went to the rack of canes and paddles, paused. His fingertip moved back and forth as if in contemplation before selecting a sturdy paddle. Returning, he held it below her face.

"Don't worry about screamin', darlin'," he said. "Bandit's bunker is 10 feet underground and ain't nobody can hear. It's Sunday mornin' anyhow and nobody ever comes by." He gently, pensively rubbed the leather surface of the paddle against his fingertips.

She noticed he was erect now.

Stepping around behind her, he grunted with exertion and she felt a burning slap on her right buttock. She gave a shriek, felt his hand softly caress the sore spot as if trying to warm his fingers. He grunted again and she felt her left cheek flatten and ripple with the impact.

Bandit continued until he'd given her 12 hard strokes. The girl was crying by now. "Aw, darlin'," he said softly. "Ya wouldn't cry so if ya could see how pretty you look now." He stepped back and moved the two mirrors towards the frame. With a bit of effort, he arranged them so that April had a good view of her bum, now glowing red.

"See?" he said, almost kindly, "ain't that a sight for a sore ass?" He giggled inanely.

"Please let me go, Bandit," she wept. "I won't tell anyone."

"No can do, darlin'."

He stepped around behind her and seized her hips with strong hands.

+

Bandit got up from his chair and circled the limp figure hanging from its bonds. The girl was semiconscious, her pale body covered from shoulders to ankles in a spiderweb of bruises and welts. Where the thin lines crossed, drops of blood were still drying. He pulled her head up by the hair and examined her face. April closed her eyes. Her anger had almost been drowned out by the pain and humiliation of the past few hours. The man had methodically, almost artistically, flogged her, pausing only to repeatedly sodomize her. When her screams became too loud, he had fitted her with a sturdy ball gag.

"Well, it's time fer a change in tempo," Bandit grinned. "Enough ass. It's sweet young pussy fer me next." He looked around for another chain to shift the sagging figure, but instead settled on a thumb-thick white nylon rope, strong enough to lift a small car.

Leaving the moaning figure hanging from her bonds, Bandit ran two lengths of the white line through an alternate series of pulleys and then back to her wrist cuffs. He pulled them taut before removing the chains which had held her arms. Working a second winch, he adjusted her position before beginning to move the surplus chains out of his way.

April rolled her head, looked dully at the ropes. Her eyes opened wider and the beginnings of a crooked grin marked her broken lips. She closed her eyes, tensed her arms and the pulleys creaked in strain.

Bandit stopped what he was doing and stared up at her. The girl's green eyes had become a shining yellow. Thinking it was just an illusion, something brought on by the indoor lighting, he leaned closer to see better, then recoiled in shock at the vertical, cat-like pupils staring at him from the glowing eyes just inches away.

Suddenly, her jaw muscles contracted. Sharp white teeth sheared through the solid ball gag in one snap. A large chunk bounced off the man's chin, made a barely-heard thud on the floor below. He jumped back. The girl chewed on the strap for a moment, severed it, spat it out. Canines sparkled in the flickering light. Through her pain, April smiled - a thin, predatory smile.

"Oh, Bandit, you sad, sick, twisted bastard," she whispered. "I'm the last mistake you'll ever make, Bandit."

"What in hell..."

"What's the saying, Bandit?" she growled. "That which doesn't kill me has made a serious tactical error - and I'm still alive." The air in the closed room seemed to reverberate with menace.

The man looked up at the sturdiness of her bonds and, somewhat comforted, shook his head. "Ain't happenin' sweetie."

"Rope, asshat! You switched from chain to rope. Iron binds, steel drains me and mine, but this shit...?"

The young woman abruptly yanked hard on her wrist ropes and the entire frame groaned under the load. Bandit lurched backwards, tripped over a discarded flogger and fell. To his horror, he saw the rope stretching; the girl was clearly possessed of superhuman strength. Her yellow eyes bored into his. She winced in pain as her smirk broadened but kept grinning. The terror it brought to his face was too good to miss.

One pulley suddenly shattered, freeing her left arm. Ignoring the line flailing from the cuff, she reached over and seized the other line, heaved. It popped like twine, leaving a frayed eight-foot length of rope dangling from her wrist.

Bandit started back-peddling. Too frightened to stand, he tried to scurry backwards on all fours. In his fright, he didn't make much progress.

April bent to reach her ankles, breaking eye contact momentarily as her long hair fell forward over her head. Grimacing, she thumbed off the cuffs with distaste. The leg chains made a tinny noise as they hit the floor.