The Marionette

The Marionette
A novella
By
Johnny P. Engle

Chapter 1

In a cold darkly lit room, there lays a woman chained to the floor with rusted chains attached to her ankles. The Unconscious woman laying face down on the floor is wearing a torn nightgown. The nightgown white lace and decorative floral arranged was incomplete due to the mixture of vomit and wine. Her face was cover by her long, wet amber hair that lays flat and in a hardened state.

The floor is concrete with dark brownish stains all around her. The room sealed no windows to lighten. The only illumination was the five candles that are smoldering out. The candle’s wax nearly covered the rusty metal counter. Among the table belongings are tools such as a drill with tarnish color bit.
The scissors covered in blood and the wires, so many wires. On the other side of the petite room, there was a sink. The sink filled with a fusion of blood and water. The counter of the sink laid many different paints and boxes of pasture.

There stands a man with his head down as he places his hands into the dark water. The man is wearing painter’s coverall covered in blood and paint. This is a stature of a man about 6 feet and around three hundred pounds in weight. Unknowing was his face for it is covered by a fabric like mask. The only thing shown on the man is his long black stringy hair. The room is sound proofed the only resonance is the water splashing as he sanitizing his hands.

She awakes, coughing and gasping for air. The woman places her arms on the floor slowly pulling her up. The man hears the racket and reaches in the water to reveal a jagged edge bowie knife. As he raises the knife, he turns around revealing the mask in more detail. The mask was a burlap sack painted as a marionette jester.

She looks up slowly to see the mysterious man approaching. She starts to scream a blood-curdling yell. The man quickly wrapped his hand around her throat and with might lift her off her feet. The chains tighten with stress as the skin on her ankles tear. Blood starts to feed the rusty shackles. Her hands grabbing his wrist as she tries to pull away from his awesome grip. His face closer towards her, he jabs his blade straight in to her stomach. Her eyes widen as he turns his blade slowly. Staring at her, he watches her last tear fall. As her last breath leaves and her arms lay at her sides, he drops her down. As blood starts to form a puddle, he kicks her to be sure she is dead. Knowing she is gone, he turns away and walks to the exit. As he walks out, he slams the door.

A few hours later, the mysterious man opens the door to his chamber of horrors. A quick look around he checks to make sure his room was not compromise. He steadily walked to the victim still lying motionless on the floor drenched in blood.
He feels through his pockets as he nudges the deceased. He unlocks the rusty shackles one foot at a time, be weary of the body that lies before him. After the ankles are completely free of the shackles he grabs a leg with each hand and pulls her out of the room. The blood made a trail to the exit of the prison. As he places her aside, he look again to make sure his job was complete, and slams the door.

Later that night a young detective was driving down I-30. He was in his early thirties and of Spanish decent. He was slender but built more like an athletic runner and stood only 5 foot 7 inches. His black hair was short and faded. Clean and tight is what he always says to his barber. He had on an egg white dress shirt pressed with a black tie that has red pinstripes that worked completely around and ends at the bottom. His name is Jorge Rodriguez. He was passing belt line in a small town named Grand Prairie, in the lovely state of Texas, when his cell phone started ringing.

“Detective Rodriguez”
He spoke in a calm manor. After a second of waiting the eerie voice answers back,
“Detective, I want you to watch a show I am doing, meet me at the old festival mall in South Grand Prairie.”

The phone hung up before he could ask who it was. The detective places down the phone and pressed the pedal down. He starts speeding down the highway as he goes towards the highway 360 exit.
Passing 360 heading south to 303, he begins to think could this be the real person or could it be another wild goose chase. The thoughts of all those missing people he has been searching for all those years, and to finally put there families’ mind at ease. He picks up his cell phone and fights himself to call for back up, saying he can do this all by himself. His fellow boys in blue have ridiculed him enough and he wanted to show them he was not going crazy. Therefore, he closes the lid from the phone and places it on his passenger seat. The car hits a bump delivering the cell phone onto the floorboard. Detective Rodriguez drives quickly towards the old mall.


After the man hangs up the phone, he turns toward the table where he has his latest medium a canvas that he can display his one true art. The table stained with blood and had a drain that sucked every drop and feed it through a hose connected to the floor.
On the side of the table lie his tools, his appendages to make the medium come alive. Among the tools, was a knife twelve inched with the tip broken off from the years of use? A spindle of ten-gauge titanium wire, and a branding iron was the shape of “U.”


He grabs the drill from the tools and grabs her left arm piercing the skin. The sound of the drill as the motor speeds up and the crack of the bone as the bit make an exit on the other side of the arm. After the hole drilled, he placed the drill down and unraveled some wire.
The wire goes through the radius and exits out of the skin without splatter. No splatter, the blood has already lost pressure from the stab wound. He grabs from the other end pulling out enough to brace with a clamp. He continues with the other in the same dreadful manor. When both arms braced with the wire, he throws them over the steel pipe and gives them a yank.
The arms move with precision just as he likes. He then makes his way to her head. He gently lifts with one hand and places a wooden wedge to keep her propped up. He places a leather strap around her forehead and tightens firmly.

He turns around and starts the propane burner. He reaches for the branding tool and places it in the fire. While the brand it heating up, he opens the drawer under the table and takes the hair shears and a straight edge razor and places them on top of the table. He then takes the shears and shaves a small section on the top center of her head.
The straight edge razor was the second tool to use. Without water, he shaves the section to the skin. He puts aside the hair trimming tools and proceeds with the drill. The drill gains entry through the skull with no resistance.

The body gave off one last burst of blood, spattering on his chest. As the drill makes way sliding in to the soft mass of grey matter, he reverses to drill to make a hasty escape. A bit of bone, brain, and plasma clings to the drill as he lays the tool to rest on the table. He then fumbles through the drawer to find what needed an eyeball.

He forces the eyeball, screwing in deep in the skull. Gently tugs to make sure the bolt will hold. Then he grabs the branding iron and places it on the jaw from one edge of the lips to the end. The abrasions from the burning flesh to bone made a dummy like indention after completion. He proceeds with the rest of the limbs.

After several hours, he finished with the augmentations and the wires connected to a series of metal bars located above his head and ties them off. He unhooks the metal bars and places them on her chest. Then releases the brakes of the table and rolls her towards the exit. No saying a word he shuts the door and continues rolling the body towards a dark room.


Officer Rodriquez enters the parking lot of the old abandoned mall. The mall still shows markings of what it used to be. Old store lying was as their once proud marquee shined, is now darkened and missing letters. The parking lot littered with trash and other debris. The walls from the entrances are barricade with wooden planks up and many of the windows were attach to the borders.

He drives his vehicle to the back going through the covered parking. When Rodriguez enters, he shuts down his lights and the car. He goes to the back of the vehicle and opens the trunk. He reaches for a shotgun and a flashlight. Testing the light he heads towards the underground entrance.

Surprisingly, the door was not covered; he enters through the hole in the glass. With shotgun pump and his light on dead straight, he walks towards the stairs. The sound of the foundation and unknown creaks and bumps the officer gets nervous. He walks up the stairs creaking from rot and water damage, makes it feel as he is walking on a sponge. He manages to get to the top and sees a small light down the hall.

He makes his way passing the remains of items the vendors left behind; iron bars, cloth sheets, tables and chairs. He passes the food court, an old display of ma and pop eateries and franchises. The smell of rotten vegetation and meat nearly knocks the detective to his knees. A rumbling sound was coming from a Mexican taco stand. With caution, he investigates the run down shack.

He places his flashlight under the barrel of the gun and proceeds to look under the counter. His surprise he see a huge amount of rodents feasting on rotten food, and drinking in the sink. Quickly he covers his mouth fearing that vomit will come soon. Therefore, he walks away towards the exit.

He hears music distorted by the echoes of the empty mall. He thinks it coming from the old tejano club in the front. So he walks to the exit and uses the butt of his shotgun to break through the wooden planks the covered the door. The music was increasing guiding Rodriguez to his destination.

The mysterious hooded man makes it to the huge dance floor, places the bars on a chain premade, and then grabs the other end and starts pulling the bars to place it on the catwalk. He locks it in place making the woman stand. Then he rolls the table away to the bar area. The music is clear it is clearly of techno descent. The room was dark, but showing shadows around the dance floor.

He makes his way toward the bar there are again more shadows. He goes behind the bar and looks down. There is a panel full of switches, for which, he starts to pull. Each switch produce light that illuminates the dark to reveal the shadows true selves. The lights from the top made colorful witnesses to the shadows horrible secrets. The shadows were his victims, the ones over the years he had taken and made into his brilliant art.

Many of the victims show decay and appear to have maggots and other vandals hiding in their crevasses. The older ones have signs of his amateur killing days. Each person’s place is in different gestures. An example was two couples engaging in an intimate pose. He walks to the stairs that made its way to the catwalk.

The catwalk was a complicated set of machines, which connect to metal pipes, sprockets, spindles, and generators. He goes to the new metal pipes he had placed up there. The man starts adding them into the great machine. After each bar bolted in, each wire was set in the correct place, he heads to down to the floor, and makes his way to the DJ’s booth.
He turns the volume up, the music radiates louder. A switch connecting to the mechanism up above is in the same panel of the volume control. The switch turned on and the machine starts moving. Each corpse starts moving independently causing scenes like dancing on the floor and drinking on the bar. As he looks at his masterpiece, he raises his arm and pulls down the drapes behind him revealing incantations and symbols.

The words and pictures were old and pre-crucifixion of Jesus. The words were in an old language; to an unfamiliar eye, it would not make any sense. The symbols were pictures of human remains and demonic faces, the characters were of squares and circles with lines connecting and broken. The symbols similar to Christian’s devil, but was still an unknown even to the church.

Outside of the club’s rear, Rodriguez is at the loading door. He slowly checks the door it is locked. He places the shotgun down next to the door and reaches in his jacket to pull out key pick. He successfully opens the door. The shotgun was the next to pick up as he quietly searches the area. The music is now louder and clearer.

He knew he was close. The smell of something rotting gave Rodriguez the feeling his quest is almost over. As he walks towards the door, he hears the volume lower and a man’s voice speaking. The man was speaking words that the detective could not understand. He opens the double doors to where the strange words were being spoken. The horrors set in his stomach as he sees dead corpse moving, as the man was speaking. He backs away, to bump into a corpse sitting on a chair.

The corpse was badly decayed and missing limps and bones turned black. The noise aroused the man’s suspicion.


“Who is there, speak worm.”
The man asked in a stern voice. Detective comes to plain sight.

“Detective Rodriguez, place your hands where I can see them you sick fuck!”

Excitement with fear filled the poor detective body as his words smelt of it. He raises his shotgun stiffens his posture and repeats himself. The man then turns to the captive audience to continue his incantation.

Rodriguez walks slowly closer to the man. He now speaks in a louder voice.
“I will give you the count of three to stop and lay on the ground, or I will not hesitate to shoot!”

This did not budge the man from his horrific sermon. The detective counts to three, while the man turns to him speaking the words. The trigger is pulled and the spray of heated lead balls enters and exit out of the man’s body. The man falls down to his knees.
The cycle is now complete, detective, thank you.”

The last words he spoke as he dies. Detective quickly goes up with the shotgun pointed at the man, as he lies motionless on the floor. He nudges the body with his foot to reassure him that he will not move. He places the handcuffs on the man’s wrist and places a call for assistance.

As the call was made, he looks at the horror of what had happen and in complete exhaustion hunches over. It was over and he had stopped this monster from hurting anyone else.