Chainsaw Good

I have a small, triangular room.

It's a kind of haven, a sanctuary. It is framed by two countertops. I'd guess each of them is about six feet long, and across from me is a shelving unit. I'd guess that to be maybe three or four feet across. To my left, I see a line of three heads - one of them still has flesh attached, and has been nailed to the counter.

Beyond that stands a man, his face cloaked in shadow, the proportions seeming wrong. I can't see his eyes - he has no eyes. He is dressed casually, with a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans.

Beside him sits a cooler filled with loose body parts, all wrapped in plastic, many of them identifiably human. Across the front of the cooler is scrawled, in big, friendly letters, "Cannibal's Meat Market."

To my right, the counter is more sparse.

I can see a human head, hair still attached, rests on a meat scale, while a skeleton partially obscures a fire extinguisher I have been warned not to use, "unless [I] see flames shooting out of something."

Outside the confines of my small lair, two other figures rest. A man whose brain lies exposed sits naked, save for his briefs, the copious blood that runs down his shoulders and chest, and some medical implements still clinging to his opened scalp.

To Brain Guy's right looms an open archway, covered by shiny black sheets of plastic, and further to Brain Guy's right - my left - a man hangs from a set of three vertical bars by hooks shoved through his back. This man is dressed in greenish rags, cut through and showing bloody wounds. When the flashing strobe light illuminates him properly, I can see that the right side of his face has been pulverized.

In front of the shelving unit hangs another, crimson skeleton, clothed in an apron just like mine - a myriad of faces sewn together. Behind him - or her, is it a her? - are body parts, too ill-lit to see in detail.

Everything is spattered with blood. I'm spattered with blood. Even the chainsaw across my lap was bloodied, until I came and scrubbed the handle at least off.

I sit on a barstool, waiting on my first prey, and behind me, in my corner, stands a special horror just for me: a wildly deformed lunch-lady no one else could possibly notice. I try to ignore her, but it takes some effort.

The "music" in this place is eerie and disorienting, false screems warring with true terror for my attention.

Three raps against a tin wall, and a chorus of gleeful, panicked cries.

I'm on.

It's a small group, four people. I wait for their passing to trigger Brain Guy's agonized, gurgling roar, as, pained, he pulls himself upright and looks around.

Then, I strike.

It doesn't take much - I barely rev the chainsaw up before the group catapults forward through the curtain. Long after they're gone, Hook-Guy is still roaring impotently, thrashing against his restraints. Staccato hydraulic pumping is clearly audible - almost annoying - as I wait for my next cue.

Looking up, I can see something I'd missed before - a shrunken head in a little birdcage. Turning my head to the left, behind the counter of heads I can make out two hanging barrels, spewing odorless smoke and red light.

My next cue comes in the form of a startled yelp hidden almost entirely by panicked thrashing and roaring. The cracks of air come at an even more frantic pace as a man assaults a tin wall.

I see the light from the group leader's bright orange glow stick long before I see him. I stand, legs spread for balance, heavy chainsaw held firmly in my hands. A gap between the shelves and the counter of heads lets me get in close - uncomfortably so, but never touching, not if I can help it. All four of them flee back up the hall, so I wait for them until I can strike again. It's the same group from before, just come a different way, so it's my job even as I play with these poor souls to stay on high alert for a rapping invasion of Brain Guy and Hook Guy's room. It's slow tonight, so no one comes before, one by one, I let my playthings pass.

I can hear their passing through a good deal more of our treacherous maze, but beyond here they become meaningless racket to me, as I wait for my next cue.

I love my job.