Mind and Flesh Page 14

  In any case I will carry on life in this body for a bit. This body is expandable, so if something goes wrong I won’t have any regret to lose it. Then I should use this opportunity to accomplish my dirty work. Getting revenge on the rapists, my ex-colleague, and maybe the government guy. I still need to think about the bigger picture. Correcting humans so the rest of my life can finally be in peace.

  I suppose that my starting point would be to secure the machine. Keep it to myself. I could build a quick non-functional fake to make it seem like the machine is still located here. Then I won’t be risking anyone exploring its secrets, and I will be able to use the real one at will. Yes, I will work on that immediately.

  ***

  I open the entrance door to the sound of my supposed wife greeting me with “Good evening, honey”.

  “Good evening,” I growl. She turns off the TV and gets up from the couch.

  She gives me a thoughtful look before asking “How about we go to the restaurant today?”

  I cannot afford going to a fancy restaurant. Today at lunch I went outside to buy a sandwich, and I noticed that I don’t know the code of my credit card. Since I didn’t want to rely on the wife anymore, I called the bank to file for a lost credit card so I can be issued a new one. I paid the sandwich with some money I found in the wallet, but I would not be able to afford a restaurant. Perhaps I could have her pay instead, but I don’t know how things are done in this couple. And I don’t particularly want to enjoy her company. “No,” I reply. “I am not very tempted at the moment, sorry.”

  “Okay…” she seems disappointed. I will prepare some food then. She leaves me without a single glance back. It does not matter. I have more important things to think about.

  ***

  Preparations have undergone some progress. I built a fake machine and transferred the real one to a barn I bought a few days ago. However, this is not going fast enough. I want to leave this body as soon as possible. Too bad that I must wait for my plan to be complete before I switch, I really don’t want to risk attracting trouble to my next life.

  Next to me, the neuro-engineer’s wife is silent in bed. Things have not gone very smoothly with her lately. She has been frustrated with a lack of connecting with me, mentally and physically. I have no desire for her. I have no desire for myself. I want her to leave me alone.

  Suddenly, I hear rustling in the bed. She grabs my arm, whispering “Honey… We need to talk.”

  “Okay…” I reply without any conviction.

  “After you fell from your bike, I tried to be understanding. Help you recover. And now, you have recovered, but something seems different. You seem different. Cold, distant. Did you meet someone?”

  “What?” I let out, surprised at the question.

  “Are you seeing someone else?” she cries, “This is the only thing that could change you that much. You won’t even kiss me these days…”

  She starts sobbing. “Please, say something,” she continues.

  I want to deny it. As an automatic mechanism to defend my virtue. However, perhaps I could say that I cheat on her and then she will stop bothering me?

  “What is that?” she exclaims loudly, apparently startled. She goes into a sitting position next to me and pulls off my sleeve. “What have you done? Why?”

  I look at where she is holding my arm. Huge bloody scars are scattered across my skin.

  “This is sick!” she continues. “Please explain yourself!”

  How could I explain to her? This body makes me sick. It disgusts me completely. Can I tell her that I had scissors in my hand and then started to draw lines nervously, as an act of rebellion against that unwanted shell? My mind wants to escape the envelope of flesh around it. I want to rip off that flesh and be free. She would not understand.

  “So you have nothing to say?” she spats at me. “Lately I have put aside my needs for you. I am still reaching out to try and help you, but my patience has its limits.”

  I remain silent. She lets a few minutes pass while fixing me intently. She stopped sobbing. She gets up and puts on clothes. “I’ve had enough. I will go back to my parents. Contact me if you change your mind and care to explain your current behavior, otherwise we should get a divorce. Bye.”

  I watch her pick up a baggage, fill it with clothes. I hear her leave the room, grab items in the bathroom. All the while, I remain motionless. Eventually, I hear a car engine roaring and the noise fading in the distance.

  Finally! She left me alone. No need for me to stress over keeping up with appearances, no need to waste my energy by forcing interactions with her. Maintaining the life of my host body as it was before is too difficult. It seems like screwing things up and losing contact is much easier. It could attract attention, but as long as I negotiate the next switch carefully I do not care about the state in which I leave this body in. I hate it.

  ***

  I have been following them every evening for a few weeks, from the moment they leave the military base. They have a pattern. About ten clubs that they frequent, and each night they move on to the next in a faultless cycle. They don’t always pick up girls. Sometimes it is one girl, sometimes two. They all seemed consenting, even if I doubt that still feel the same once their brain is not under the influence of alcohol anymore. This really pisses me off, that so many girls can be seduced by these pigs that have certainly broken a lot of them. Including me in my previous body. Fucking assholes. They will get what they deserve for what they did to me, and others. I made sure of that. My plan is ready. All I need now is the right moment to act.

  And this might be it. They are following a girl that came out of the club. She looks distressed. They walk faster, with broad smiles. My blood boils. A group of male teenagers are smoking next to the scene. They are not even looking at the two men chasing after the girl. She walks faster and faster with her jaw clenched, her eyes fixed straight ahead. They silently increase their walking speed. The loud sounds her heels make on the pavement resonate in the street. They are now leading her close to their van, and to where I am ambushed behind a nearby vehicle. The men suddenly run, grab the girl and hit her head against a nearby car as she briefly shrieks. A shiver runs down my spine. This looks like the exact same turn of events as what they did to me. This is their well-honed hunting technique. I want to help, but it is too early. I can’t take the risk to come at them in the open. Shit it feels awful.

  They drag her to a side street where the van is parked. The teenagers have not noticed anything. Or have they? I don’t know.

  I have to go help her, I have to…

  I can’t move. My hands are shaking. My feet won’t budge. I can’t… this is too dangerous…

  What if they spot me, beat me and rape me again? Are they raping her already?

  I feel so… afraid. Powerless to these guys. Why was I thinking that I can do anything to them? Both of them are stronger, trained and more vicious than I can ever be.

  Fuck it! You are a murderer! You are out for blood! Go go go!

  I clench my weapons and walk to the back of the van.

  I feel adrenaline rushing through my system, or maybe it is bloodthirst boosting my determination to harm these guys.

  I open the rear door.

  I stop. Horrified.

  One of them already has his penis in her vagina. Even if his back is facing me, I can see it clearly from between his legs, protruding under his naked buttocks. This is too much like what happened to me.

  “What the fuck, man?”

  The other one talked, he is sitting with his penis in his hand and tries to get up. I can’t hesitate any longer.

  I aim my stun gun at him and pull the trigger. My heart is beating so fast that I am afraid it will explode.

  The probes hit him in his pectoral area. He screams and stumbles due to the sudden of the electroshock, as a wire connecting the two probes discharges its 50,000 volts and suddenly overrides control of his muscles.

  I drop the used gun.

&nb
sp; The other one is also in the process of getting up.

  I grab the second stun gun from my belt. I aim and pull the trigger.

  He also screams, and collapses. One probe is inserted in his thigh, the other one in his belly.

  They are grimacing and trying to get up, cursing at me.

  I drop the weapon. I throw my backpack on the ground, insert my hands inside and grab tubes of chloroform. I take my breath and open the tubes to retrieve the soaked pieces of cloth that were prepared inside.

  I heavily punch on the forehead the one that is almost standing. Shit, it hurts my fist!

  He falls on his friend.

  I try to press the cloths to their mouths, both at the same time. I want to avoid breathing but the fighting makes it impossible. I can smell the chloroform.

  They are doing their best to grab my arm and angle their heads away, but they have not regained enough strength to overpower me. I do not falter and do not let their struggle deviate my arms even when I feel their nails ripping through my skin.

  After a while, their eyes close. I force the cloths in empty tubes that I throw in my backpack and allow myself to breathe deeply. I dig deeper in my backpack and pick some large tape. I envelop them in the tape multiple times. Now that they are in place, I grab some small ropes from my backpack and proceed to tightly bind their hands together, then their legs. I make sure that the knots are as tight as possible.

  Done. I feel dizzy. I need to calm down. I look at the girl. She put her clothes back and is pressing her hands between her legs. She is sitting, her face covered in tears and distressed eyes looking at me.

  “Why didn’t you come earlier?” she asks. “Why? Why?” she sobs even harder.

  “Sorry, I was too far away to reach here in time,” I lie.

  She looks at me with deep pain. Then an expression of resignation settles on her face “Ok… Thank you still. You were great.”

  I stare at the two unconscious bodies, covered in tape. I did that, all by myself. I won a fight against two trained men. I had preparation and the element of surprise on my side, and they lowered their guard with their cocks exposed but… that is an incredible achievement for me. And this is just the beginning.

  “If you don’t mind, I have business with them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am here to give them what they deserve. And please don’t tell anyone about me.”

  “Ok…”

  I look at her, wondering what I should do. She probably needs help. Perhaps some comfort. Should I hug her? Actually, no. In her stead I would stay away from the proximity of a male. This is awkward. I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how I can tell her to cope with what happened. After all, my solution was to kill myself and invest a new body.

  Should I propose the same solution to this girl? Lend her the power of my machine to start anew? No way. She is not part of me. I don’t owe her a new life. And the less people know about me and my machine, the better.

  “Will you be alright?” I ask. “Is there anything you need?”

  “No,” she replies. “I feel awful right now, but I know that will survive. It happened to a friend of mine. She was strong. I want to be strong like her.”

  Her friend was strong, so she got over the rape? That seems so impossible to me. Is it because I am weak? I don’t like to think of myself as weak… Especially after beating two soldiers. No, this is not the same type of strength. I do not have the strength to overcome ugly situations happening to me. Or not the patience?

  “How long did it take her?”

  “A year or two I think. She had a great supportive boyfriend. He helped her get through.”

  “How about you? Someone to help you?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend. Still, I have her. She will understand me. She is nice. And I will create new, better memories to erase the pain and the memory of these bastards. I have already been sexually assaulted in the past. Not… not as far as these monsters. Why is it that you men can’t control yourselves?”

  “Most of us can…”

  “It’s not enough. No one should force someone to have sex against their will. This completely removes the beauty of sex and transforms it into… that hurtful, disgusting “thing.” She pauses for a moment, with her mouth still open. She then looks at me fiercely. “Will you make them pay for what they did?”

  “Yes. For what they did to you and to others. And you are right. Humans are no better than animals.”

  “Horny dogs,” she says.

  “Pigs,” I tell her.

  “What they did to me… And you say to others. Did they do that to someone you know? Your wife or someone from your family?”

  I look at her without replying, and then nod. “I will take the van and drive them where I want to be,” I announce. “Would you like me to drop you off somewhere?”

  “Yes please. Thank you. I want to go to my friend, I will spend the night at her place. I can’t go home and be all alone.” She then continues “Somehow I feel like I shouldn’t get involved with what you will do to them. Even if I really want to. Punish them. Personally, I would cut their dicks off. Actually, that’s what I will imagine that you will do. I am sure it will help me recover.” She gives me a sadistic smile.

  ***

  I pull over in the court of the barn. Since I dropped the girl off, I am alone with my thoughts. I feel guilty. I could have reached earlier and saved her from complete harm, a white knight in armor and two stun guns. Instead, I stood in place doing nothing and was too late.

  I try to reassure myself, that if I had attacked too early I would not have been so lucky as to confront them while they had their guard down. An important factor, especially considering the stun guns were not as useful as I had expected. The two men were more inconvenienced than incapacitated. If my assault took place in the street instead of inside the van where I was able to deal with them, I might have been at a huge disadvantage. Yes, as bad as this was for the girl, this was my only chance. At least I partially saved someone.

  I get off the vehicle, go to the back of the van and open the rear door with a reloaded stun gun firm in my hand. The two rapists are wiggling around in an almost comical way. With tape on their eyes, they are unable to see me. They do not look so mighty now. Pathetic worms. I laugh nervously.

  Hearing me laugh, they stop moving. I push one out of the van and make him roll onto a hand truck. I hope this uncomfortable transport device hurts him. As I start moving it, his legs are being dragged on the floor and he slightly raises his head to protect it. I drive him inside of the barn, where I unceremoniously drop him off.

  The beasts inside the pens on the opposite side of the room instantly get agitated and start to grunt noisily. My sudden entrance probably stressed them out. I quickly glance over them, checking that the two sows are in their individual pens, and the two boars are in their own common pen. I get closer to the last pen to check if the pig inside is present. Yes it is here, just not standing on its legs. It lies on its side. And the smell… Disgusting. Through the bars, the swine turns its head to look at me. It is much less massive than the two other boars. While fixing me, the pig grunts in a melancholic tone. The smell emanating from its pen almost makes me throw up. I manage to resist it, as I breathe through my mouth instead of my nose.

  This makes talking while focusing on blocking my nose slightly tricky. “I bet you are hungry, uh. Why don’t you eat your food? Are you letting yourself die out of starvation?” I have fed it about a week ago, and it has not touched its food. That was right after the wife filed for divorce. I did not follow through the divorce procedure, because I did not want an inventory of my possessions or any other cue to reveal the existence of this barn. The wife must be really pissed. And hurt. I feel guilty about her, but I need to ignore that. The pig grunts again, almost pleadingly. Its pen is full of shit that I never cleaned and it reeks.

  I back off and come closer to the entrance. I prepared a few tables in the room, on t
he largest one there is my machine, and on the other tables lay various tools and equipment. Everything is here as I left it; nothing was moved or stolen during my absence.

  I leave the barn under a concert of grunts and squeals. I load the second man from the van to the hand truck, and drive him back next to the pens.

  Shit! The first guy I dropped already started to get away. He is rolling on his side to leave at a faster speed.

  Fuck.

  I quickly run to his position and kick him with full strength in the stomach. He makes some muffled sounds with his mouth and stops moving. Fuck you, asshole. Just a taste of what is to come.

  I take off the tape on their eyes. They focus their vision on me. They look angry, but also confused as they proceed to look around trying to make sense of the situation. I see surprise in their eyes when they see the pigs. The pigs also look at the humans with curiosity. The rapists then look again at me. One of them tries to talk to me, but the tape prevents any coherent sentence to come out. I take off the tape on their mouths. “Ouch, fuck, man, who are you?” instantly asks the first one whose mouth I just freed.

  “I am a great admirer of your exploits,” I calmly say. I then talk through clenched teeth “Fucking animals. Can’t keep your dick in your pants? You like to destroy others? Let’s see when it happens to you pigs.”

  “If you touch us, you are in deep trouble!” he spits back at me.

  “Oh yeah?” I slap him. My hand feels hot from the impact.

  “FUCK YOU MAN! I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!” he yells. In the background, some pigs are nervously squealing.

  “Oh no, you are the ones that are going to die,” I reply with a menacing tone. “But not before we have some fun together.”

  I go back to my table and pick up a pair of scissors.

  The second man, that has been silent until now, looks at me with fear. “Hey buddy, we are sorry for what we did. Really. It was bad. I promise, we will never do it again. Please let us go.”