This was just a little...moment I had today, a very nice Halloween day. Happy Halloween everyone!

Pealing Back Perfection

Ch 1: Haunting Halloween

By: Helena F. Lupin

He smiled behind the thin surgical mask that hid his face, just the barest curving of lips. A matching cap was drawn over his head, virtually hiding his head now. He wore the gown to match over his jeans and t-shirt, and latex glove clad hands worked diligently. This specimen was the best one he had caught as of yet. She was petite, light haired and fair skinned, very little like his obsession was she. But she did not matter, she was only a practice subject, to further his art for his perfect one. Perfection for perfection. He could not let that one wonderful moment go to waste simply because he could not do it all properly.

She screamed again, and he did not care in the least. He had strapped her down to a table by throat, wrists and ankles. Let her scream and beg help from those passing by. She insisted it was not part of the show and screamed more, but it did nothing to help. He had taken care to sneak in to the Walter High School’s haunted house. Their security really was a pity. He had made it in with his knocked out specimen with ease and settled himself into a room mean to be a meat locker. All the pieces hanging from the ceiling and walls though with dripping scarlet were fake, as was the smell of flesh. Simulated. They did good at this school for props. Only he and his specimen were true. He stopped even to wave at those passing by, some running to get out of the mostly false gore.

He looked down at the girl, one from his very school, as he leaned in again. He had pealed her skin back, exposing muscle and softer tissues, pinning it carefully to the wooden table beneath her. He had finished both arms by now, he was on the torso, which was half bloody by now. She would not die from this alone, he knew how much to take at a time, just so she did not pass out. He would have time yet before anyone would suspect anything. The students had been in charge of the house, the teachers had little to do with it. They would not know he did not belong, and the students were too dense to think he was not a student or teacher himself. He used scalpel and forceps carefully.

He tapped her breast bone gingerly with the back of the scalpel blade, watching her flinch and scream again, ended by a sob. She was struggling still, if not a little more weakly. “Let me put it this way, you’re being useful now.” Before she had been a pathetic little cheerleader with barely a C average. What good was she to the future? Really.

“Bastard!” She shouted and renewed her attempts to get loose. He chuckled as tears streamed down her face. He did not care about her, her tears meant little. No, seeing that look of knowing on his obsession’s face would be wonderful. He had wished to grab a male, but he had settled for her because she had been alone going home this night. She would do for his practice. He carefully cleared a space just beneath the breast bone before putting his tools down. He picked up a bone cutter, a handy object he had come to love dearly. If he did this right he could reveal her heart before it stopped. He loved to see it beat.

He really should have been working on the rest of her, but he had no patients for her. She was not the one he wanted. Let her expire too soon. In the end he knew it would be worth it. He began to crack bone and tuned her out. He imagined the other laid out and stripped to beneath the surface like she was now. Glorious. It was worth it, all of it, for that end result. If something could be like that on the outside, he had to see the inside. He had seen many before, had practiced for them too, but they all disappointed in the end. This new obsession would not. His latest work. This one would be the one.

He put the bone cutter aside and gripped the edges he had made and pulled hard, snapping ribs and jerking muscles, tearing, blood spattering his clothing. She gave a shriek now and passed out. He saw her heart now, beating rapidly and showing no sign of stopping at first, but then it began to slow, they all did. He reached in, cupping it carefully with one hand and using the scalpel to free it, more blood spraying as he did so. He laid it aside her and began to pack his tools away in a case. He was done for the night. He moved to a door at the back and slipped out of the gym that had been sectioned off with partitions for the haunted house.

He stripped off the gown, cap and mask, rolling them up carefully before the gloves followed. He stuffed them in the duffle back hidden behind a pair of dumpsters. He had to dispose of them properly. He walked off into the crowd around the other side of the building. A good night it was indeed. A second later someone bumped into him. He was ready to give a sound harsh word but stopped when he looked down at the person, his obsession. His perfection.

Delicate and frail, but so vivid in spirit. He stood no more then five two, if that, his skin a smooth caramel, as pale as it could get without becoming white. His eyes were dark, nearly black, but he knew in the light those eyes were a rich honey brown color. Raven hair curled about that sweet face, kept short enough that it curled at the nape of his neck. Not long, not short actually, just right for him. His features were flowing, fae almost, with fuller lips and thick dark lashes around the eyes. “Sorry.” He murmured.

“Not at all.” He replied warmly to his obsession, voice thick around the edges at thoughts of stripping that perfect body to the secrets within. “Happy Halloween.” He offered before walking away, glancing back after a few moments to see the boy moving off, waving to friends at a booth some few feet ahead of him. Yes. He was ready. He had to see what lay in that shell now. Happy Halloween indeed.