HER HORRORWEEN - When the Motherf**ker Just Won't Die

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Listen up, thrillers. A quick note. Tonight's Devious Audio Delight contains adult content and language. Please see the content warnings in the show notes.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01] Inspiration strikes while I'm punching out rounds to make Grandma's famous biscuit recipe. As thin steel slices through butter-studded dough, I envision a slab of flesh laid out on the cold granite countertop. Surely the tool is sharp enough to do some damage, right? My fingertip traces the metal's edge and... I shiver at the danger. Only one way to find out.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_01] I jam the biscuit cutter in my back pocket and leave the dough on the countertop. The backyard is steeped in shadow, but I've walked this damned path so many times I don't need any light. I tap in ten separate codes on a weathered keypad. And the shed door wheezes as it grants me access. The man is asleep.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01] Sprawled gracelessly in the corner of his containment cell, behind three inches of polycarbonate. If not for his grotesque mask, that godforsaken sheet of white plastic, he'd look pedestrian. A man who works in a local mechanic shop. The kind that only ever wears a navy denim jumpsuit. The name tag says Jim or Bob or Hal. But he's not normal.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01] Not even close. There was a time when the sight of him shook something loose deep in my chest. Suffocated me with dread. These days, all I feel is annoyance. Burden. The weight of responsibility. And some other niggling emotion that I can't quite name. I push a button to the right of the cell.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_01] Lilac gas pours forth from grates in the ceiling and fills the space. While the sedative mists and settles, I pick flour and dough from beneath my fingernails. Five minutes later, the system beeps. And I pull a gas mask over my face. Ten additional codes open the containment cell door. The man is limp. But the steady rise and fall of his chest shows he's alive.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01] A fuck you butcher knife, his constant prop, lays at his ankles. I kick the blade away with the sole of my combat boot. No matter how many times I've chucked that thing in a landfill alongside years and years of spite and malice, it reappears, sharp as anything. Ready to fillet me into human charcuterie. I lower myself to my knees and grasp the zipper of the man's jumpsuit.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01] The metal teeth sing as they separate. And his milky skin is exposed. His flesh always seems so pliable. Ripe for destruction and casual evisceration. I lick my lips. The biscuit cutter is an excellent harbinger of blood. It glides through the man's skin like a boat through water. At first, my movements are tentative.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01] But soon I realize the potential of what I wield. I punch through belly, liver, spleen, lungs, muscles, veins. It isn't always a smooth process. The tool ricochets off bone, scrapes against tendons. But I throw my weight into it, find a new angle, push until the biscuit cutter finds something new and soft to tear through.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01] I don't stop until I'm gasping and shaking from the effort, when my muscles give out. The cell is painted red, studded with chunks of flesh, mucus, shit, bile. The man's bones wink in the chamber's weak light. His once white mask is now pink, still married to a face I've never seen. I once tried to melt the plastic with a blowtorch.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01] But his flesh peeled back in tandem with the garbled mass. I've pried at it with bolt cutters, attempted to crack it in two with a baseball bat, slathered it in acid. But every attempt at revelation ends in abject failure. I can bash his skull in endlessly, mangle him from head to toe. But I'll never gaze upon his face. I'll never know him. Not really.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_01] I rise to observe my spoils. The biscuit cutter clangs against the concrete and rolls into a pile of human sludge. My body is tired, but my brain is spinning. I've done something new here. Something inspired. I tremble. Wondering if this time it's enough. If it will ever be enough. I need to get out.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01] Take my mind off the carnage. Burn some time and then return to see if I've made any kind of difference. Because this motherfucker, he just won't die. It's our legacy.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_01] The women in my family told me on my 18th birthday. Between bites of store-bought cake, my mother and aunt told me a story about a man in a denim jumpsuit. How he came after them with a blade that never grew rusty. How their entire existence was running and hiding and fighting back. Their constant relocations from small town to small town had nothing to do with my mom's job.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_01] My father hadn't been killed in a car accident, but rather at the hand of a psychopath who stalked my parents at their senior prom. There was no escape. He could find us anywhere and he never tired of the hunt. Most importantly, he couldn't die. My great-great-grandmother had set the man on fire. My aunt blew his head off with a shotgun. Mom stabbed him through the gut with a crowbar. Twelve times.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01] But the wounds only slowed him down. He'd disappear for a while, and as soon as we'd let our guard down, he'd tap on our windows with that blade. Restored. Reconstructed. Ready to terrorize us again. Bulked at the story. I thought it was a joke. But that night, there he was.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01] He broke into our home and sliced open my aunt's belly while she slept. I heard heavy footfalls nearby. Went to investigate and witnessed the act. That night, I learned just how fragile the human body can be. Easily carved. Easily drained of life. In seconds. The man knew I was there. Hiding behind the half-open door.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_01] He waggled his fingers at me and my insides turned to ice. I'd been seen. Recognized. Targeted. Tagged as prey. My mom yanked me away, pushed me into her Volkswagen, and sped across state lines. In the relative safety of a cheap, nondescript motel, we sat on moth-eaten mattresses and stared at each other in stunned silence.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01] If you knew this would happen, why did you have me in the first place? We were young and stupid and in love. I didn't sleep that night. Even though I was spent breathing in the musky dank of the motel pillow, all I could think was, I'll never have that opportunity. The old adage is true.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01] Sex is a weapon. I've learned how to employ a devious smirk. A soft touch. Feigned interest. Tools for my benefit. To get what I want. Information. Inspiration. Company. Tonight, I need distraction. It doesn't take long for a stranger to approach and order me a drink.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_01] The sputtering neon lights above the bar paint his face a nauseating shade of pink. But his smile is wide and his shoulders are too. He'll do. I decide. I twirl the tips of a black wig between my fingers. Bat heavily shaded eyes. Shimmy my shoulders in a dress reserved for excursions to seedy hangouts. Thanks to YouTube, I've learned how to transform into someone else.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01] Someone who hasn't had their tragic life story splashed across the pages of countless local and national news outlets. Someone who can play in the shadows. We share obligatory, inconsequential conversation. Trail greedy fingertips through the condensation that coats our Yuengling bottles. Smack our lips. We're both hungry.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01] Before long, I'm tasting smoke on the stranger's tongue in the back of a cab, desperate to eclipse the memory of a blood-lacquered floor. I try to concentrate on the spicy smell of the stranger. Electric currents race through my thighs, and my muscles quake. At home, I push the stranger upstairs and scrabble to remove his clothing, longing to feel his skin against mine.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_01] He's handsy, and I appreciate the way he squeezes my flesh. The friction he imparts. His insistence to discover more and more of me. I drown in the little thrills that skate across my skin. The way my heart beats fast and loud in my ears. This should work.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_01] I should be completely consumed by passion, and skin, and desire, and want. But the glimmer of steel flashes in my periphery. The aroma of blood fills my nose. The telltale wheeze of the shed door floods my ears. I peer into the darkness, where my secrets are kept.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01] Though I'm naked and panting and trying my damnedest to leave my monster behind, our cosmic connection rattles my bones. His presence drapes across my shoulders like the humid air before a storm. He's still alive. Waiting for me. Tomorrow morning, I'll find him lounging in his containment cell. Wearing that stupid mask with nary a scratch.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01] And he'll be smiling beneath the white plastic, even if I can't see it. A grin that says, Did you really think you could kill me with a biscuit cutter? Rage flows through me, hot and acidic. Disgust coats my mouth. The man beneath me suddenly looks pathetic. A fish flopping around with its white belly exposed. He's useless and pitiable.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01] What was I hoping to find in this stranger? I close my eyes and imagine him in a denim jumpsuit and a plastic mask. Butcher knife in hand. It isn't difficult envisioning this transformation. It's as if the man beneath me is an extension of the nightmare that stalked my family for years. What separates this man from the monster in my backyard?

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01] Is there truly any difference between them? The clarity is startling. The sudden realization that the man in my bed is an opportunity. I imagine how sweet his last breath would taste in my mouth. Wonder how I'd feel afterward. Accomplished? At peace? Distraught? Confused?

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01] How would it feel to actually take a life? Desire sparks in my belly. A longing for some semblance of closure or progress or release from a generations-long tragedy. I think of my great-great-grandmother. My aunt. My mom. All they've endured.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01] How sad and tired my existence has become. How brutal their deaths had been. I lean down and kiss the stranger's neck. Snaking my hand beneath my mattress. The knife feels good in my palm. Weighty. Consequential. I extend my arm to the side.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01] And before I can second-guess my decision, drive the blade into the stranger's abdomen. Over. And over. And over. He screams and cries and tries to escape, but I'm too quick. Too exacting. Years of practice in that goddamned containment cell have primed me for this moment. My first true kill.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01] It happened so fast, but I'm determined to savor the experience. I flick on the overhead light and sit on the edge of the bed next to the man as he gurgles and twitches. I focus. Force myself to be as present as possible. To take in those little details. Like how the smell of sex in the room turns sour.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_01] How the man stares at me, not with fear, but with hope. As if, despite the fact that I stabbed him, he thinks I'll come to his rescue. How the man's blood doesn't exit his body in a steady stream. It gushes in time with his failing heart. When it's over, I swipe tears from my cheeks. I'm overwhelmed.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_01] There is so much beauty in the breakdown of human life when you aren't the victim. Feeling the stranger's dying breath missed my thigh, like turning the final page in a gigantic tome. Delicious and satisfying. The confusion in the stranger's eyes. The tears that poured forth. The gentle glaze that rolled over his irises like the first frost of winter.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01] I loved all of it. I'd held his hand, felt his pulse slow and then sputter out into nothing. Now the room smells of iron and life and loss. It's done. In the quiet aftermath, I don't feel repulsion or guilt or shame. I feel...

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01] Capable. In control for the first time in years. Maybe ever. Safe. Because even if I can't kill the captive in my backyard, I can do this. Laying down beside the lifeless stranger, I wonder whether my monster knows what I've done. If he can smell the gore spattered in my hair and the dirty blood caked beneath my fingernails.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_01] If he can read the thoughts racing through my brain. Looping. Repeating like a scratched record. I'm going to do that again. And again. And again.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00] When the Motherfucker Just Won't Die. Written by Tiffany Michelle Brown. Performed by Ellie Gossage.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00] You've been listening to Ominous Thrill, Her Horrorween. It's created, produced, directed and sound designed by myself, Jeff Schmidt. If this is your first Ominous Thrill episode, please look back in the feed to find other stories you might enjoy. There's plenty of devious audio delights to choose from. The best way to help support making more Ominous Thrill is to subscribe to the ad-free feed, The Red Room, on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. Find links in the show notes. It's greatly appreciated.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_00] Next best is to share this story with everyone you think might enjoy it. Help spread the word. Use the share icon in your listening app of choice. And the easiest way is to leave a five-star rating and a positive review. It doesn't do much for the algorithms, but it helps other listeners decide if they'll listen. Thank you. This has been Ominous Thrill, Her Horrorween. And until next time. Thrill you later.

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