Skinned

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He pulled the knife from the flame. The blade was blackened by soot and had a ghastly hellish glow from the heat. He paused a few seconds to admire it. He always did. It was his most prized possession. He'd earned it.

His other prize lay on the ground. Her feet were bound at the ankles. Wrists bound behind her back and cloth shoved into her mouth with duct tape over her lips. She was going to scream. They always did. He could appreciate the muffled noises she would make.

Slowly, he walked towards her. The glow of the knife fading with each step he took. He picked up the rope that bound her ankles. Her perfect, smooth, manicured feet were in front of him. This was the starting point.

With the care a mother takes washing a newborn, he slid the knife into her skin. Her cries, muffled by the cloth and tape, filled him with a feeling of euphoria. It was a high that very few people could understand.

The knife moved easily through her skin. It seared the vessels, letting almost no blood seep from the wound. It took only a few minutes to completely remove the skin from the bottom of the first foot. He took a propane torch and reheated the knife.

When he feared it would start to melt, he turned the torch off. Just as gently, he slid the knife into the skin of her other foot. This time the cries were louder, despite the gag. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

He was an expert at this. A few gentle, but solid, movements and the skin on the bottom of the other foot came off. He turned the torch back on.

It wasn't the knife that got the torch this time. He placed it just inches from the top of her feet, the flame nearly touching them. The skin around the toes almost instantly began to blister. Her screams intensified. He knew from experience she was on the verge of passing out.

He turned the torch off. He didn't need the knife for this part. He took hold of a flap of skin that had crisped up under the heat and pulled. It peeled easily, revealing muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

The peeling did it. Her cries stopped, her head lolled to the side. He could take a break now. He sat down on the ground next to her and lit a cigar. He waited. As the ash grew longer, he flicked it at her.

After smoking the cigar, he got back up. His break was over. He attached a carabineer's hook to the rope that held her feet. The other end lay on the ground at his feet. It was already looped over the branch of the tree.

With one swift motion, he hoisted her up. Her hair brushed the ground. He attached the free end of the rope to a stake in the ground. The torch was turned back on.

The knife was reinserted into the flame. This was the part that took the most skill. He started just below the rope around her feet. The knife entered the skin at an angle, the side laying against the rope. He moved it downwards, steady and even in pressure and speed. If he went too fast or the pressure became uneven, it would mess it up.

Tenderly, he held the skin as it detached from her leg. He managed to get all the way to the knee before having to take it off. He put the skin on the ground and began again, this time on the back of the leg.

For several hours, he worked carefully. Moving with precision, he meticulously removed her skin. Sometime during removing it from her torso, she had died. He had watched the moment, felt he had seen her soul flee from her mangled corpse.

She had been fun. Gently, he picked up the discarded skin. He went through it like a child carefully unwrapping a Christmas present.

Each piece was laid out on the ground, around her hanging corpse. Each one delicately selected to create a symbol on the ground, his symbol, a bow and arrow.

When it was done, he snapped a quick picture with his iPhone. The sun was beginning to come up. He left the torch next to the stake, cleaned his knife with a bottle of peroxide he had brought with him, and sheathed it into its holster. He took a bottle out of his pack and dumped it on the body. His work for the night was done. It was time for him to sleep.

He hiked out of the woods, wondering how long it would take for her to be found. Two days, maybe three. The last had been found the afternoon he had finished his masterpiece. This time, the location was more remote.

It took him close to thirty minutes to follow the path out of the trees. His truck was parked a little way down the road, hidden behind a large, abandoned pump house. He found his truck keys and unlocked the doors.

The engine caught and the truck purred to life. He smiled and took a drink of water. The sun was now racing up the sky, morning was upon him. He drove off.

As he exited the park, a car pulled in. He smiled wider. He'd been wrong, she'd be found today, probably within the next hour. Good, he could begin looking for a new one.

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