Chuck, the demon butcher of Angel Court.

KATA-KATA. KATA-KATA.

Her feet carried her as fast as they could. Her blood was pumping to the extreme as she gazed back to see if he was still stalking her. The deep fog clouded everything.

FA-THUD.

She felt her small frame meet the cold hard concrete beneath her. Her lovely green dress splattered with mud. Her adrenaline was sky high. Her fear was palpable.

Thud. Thud.

Her heart filled with dread. She was frozen, as if the ground itself were holding her prisoner. She could hear it clear as day. There they were, the slow methodical footsteps, which although elegant rang in her hears like alarm bells. He was closing in like a predator about to devour its prey. He smelled her fear as if it were a pungent perfume that she herself was wearing to seduce him. It chilled her to the bone; here she was desperately trying to escape the fate he had planned for her and she couldn’t send a signal strong enough to her legs to move. He was walking as if it were a Sunday stroll.

Thud. Thud.

Closer. They were getting closer. She knew she had to move. Had to get a signal through to her failing body. Every second wasted in her purgatory of fear was another closer to a grisly end.

THUD. THUD.

They were right on top of her now. The signal went through at last as she somehow managed to pull herself up from her concrete prison. She ran like lighting but was stopped dead in her tracks by an all-consuming shadow. His shadow. It engulfed her. She was frozen once more. So was he. He stood still as a statue. He had her cornered. And he was savoring it. The fog surrounded him as if it were at his command. ‘That face’ she thought. ‘That horrible face’. For it was not a human face. It was the face of a butchered pig. There he stood in his filthy, bloody apron, salivating. Beneath the apron was a belt filled with his instruments of destruction. The moonlight was gleaming off the carving knife in his hand. The blade intended for her, just like the others. Tears rolled down her cheek. He liked to see them cry. It amplified his pleasure. It was adding gasoline to his fire, which pushed him over the edge, from anticipation to action. She felt the steel pierce her skin as he dashed forward in one swift movement. It pierced her over and over again, slicing her skin as if it were nothing. Her scream could have woken the dead.

As if she hadn’t already suffered enough, he selected from his tool belt his meat cleaver and started chopping. Again and again and again. She would make a fine sell, he knew that from the moment she walked into his shop. Tomorrow her stripped carcass would be on display. She had met her fate at the hands of Chuck, the demon butcher of Angel Court.