Death Mill

Both Prompts
Word Count = 1,428

Death Mill

     A large bus drove down a long dirty, dusty, rocky road with trees lining both sides of it. Just after it cleared the trees it suddenly stopped. Right next to it stood a windmill. Above the door of that small building were the words “Death Mill:’ and right under that were the words ‘The mill that killed over twenty people.’ One of the four blades separated the words Death and Mill.

     The bus driver got up and stood at the front of it. He addressed twenty-four individuals seated in front of him. Most were mid-twenties to late thirties. Several were a little older than that. “Welcome to Death Mill. This is going to be the best weekend of your lives. If you live through it.” Jasper said that last part with a big smile on his face.

     “Just kidding… or am I. You have all heard the rumors about what happened here about forty years ago. That’s why some of you are here today. Because you want to know if those rumors are true. Well, let me tell you – they are very true. And at least one of them, the last one, happened here.” Jasper gestured with his hands toward the mill house.

     Everyone on that side of the bus just looked out their windows. Some of them already were. The other side had to go over there to see it. “That victim was a bride. And it was her groom of only a few hours that killed her. She had heard the rumors about that house and her intended husband. But she didn’t believe them. Her friends and family tried to stop her from marrying him. She didn’t listen because of her believes – and because she loved him.”

     The passenger either returned to their seats and/or started listening to Jasper again. “According to the rumor mill, no pun intended, Mason Mack killed twenty-eight people, correction twenty-nine, over a five-year period. He started off by using the windmill blades to chop off their heads. Then he used them to chop off the arms and the shoulders and the legs at the hips.”

     Chaos had already begun. The passengers were already starting to ask questions and give him their comments. He let it die down a little before he continued. “Now comes the really weird part. If what I haven’t already told you wasn’t weird enough.”

     Jasper paused again for effect. “Then Mason sent the body to the parents of the one he just killed. And the head to the local cops where that victim lived. The arms and legs he sent to brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles or cousins and friends.”

     “It took the cops, and FBI, almost four years to figure out who was doing it. And another year to stop him. Once they realized how he did it they only had to prove it. Rumor had it his bride-to-be was really an undercover agent there to prove it. Whether that’s true or not the FBI hasn’t said. Maybe that’s why he killed her so quickly, she might have found out the truth, or he might have planned on making her his next victim all along. He just might have had to do it before he wanted to do it – for whatever reasons. After all, he did it before they had their honeymoon.”

     That time Jasper stopped to catch his breath before he continued. “Mason didn’t have a chance to killed his bride like all the others. Only her head got chopped off. Her blood was still squirting out of her neck when the cops and FBI got there. Mason wasn’t actually there when it happened. He had an alibi for it. But a jury still convicted him. Because of that alibi, he was convicted really on the other killings because the judge allowed them into evidence anyway, and they could only get him for that death he only got twenty years for killing twenty-nine people. Almost all of them females.”

     Jasper returned to his driver’s seat. He could hear mumbling, whispering and questions from the passengers behind him. A big smile was on his face as that bus continued on to the only other house in that large clearing surround by trees.

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     The bus pulled up in front of a large three story house. As the passengers got off that bus some of them glanced at the words on it. It said, ‘Death Mill,’ in big letters.

     Mason was waiting for his guest in the large living room. Once they were all in he spoke. “Hello everyone. My name is Mason. And I want to welcome you here. Yes, I am that Mason. When I got out of prison a few years ago I came back here. I tried to sale this house to live on for the rest of my life. But I couldn’t because of the deaths that happened here. So I turned it into a Death House instead. It’s sort of like a Dude Ranch. But instead of you falling off a horse you might end up getting killed too.”

     “You can’t kill us.” A male voice sounded from the crowd. “It’s against the law.”

     “I didn’t say I would be doing the killing. Besides, you can’t be found guilty if you are already dead.”

     Mason looked among the passengers. When no one else spoke he continued. “There is one more think I must tell you before Vivian takes you to your rooms for the weekend. My wife is still among us. Only instead of wearing white she is now the bride who wears black. You will be seeing a lot of her this weekend. Yes, she did die too. She has just been haunting this place ever since I killed her.”

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     Over the next two days all twenty-four of those passengers died – the same way the first twenty-nine died. Only there wasn’t time to kill them properly. So like his bridge Mason only chopped off their heads. Another small lake of blood appeared by the end of that weekend in front of the Death Mill.

     Just inside that door a small platform got hoisted up to the second floor where the mechanics for the windmill were. But now it stopped a few feet before reaching that second floor. A female, mid-twenties, was lying on that platform. Her head sticking out the door.

     The female was violently shaking her head, and body, trying to get out of the restraints that bound her to that platform. “Stop, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve changed my mind. I thought this would be a painless death.”

     A few seconds later a blade sliced her head off like it was slicing through butter. Immediately blood started squirting out of that headless body. The head hit the ground and bounced before it settled down with its neck facing the growing lake of blood.

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     “Mason Mack died only two days before he was due to be released from a twenty-year sentence for the death of his bride. One of the other prisoners killed him. Who paid, got, him to do it is unknown. Rumor has it that it was one of the twenty-nine victims. Maybe even all of them who did it.” Mason read the newspaper article out loud. “I just love reading about my death.”

     “You must.” Beverly, Mason’s bride, sat next to him in the living room. She now wore white instead of black. “You do it after every killing spree.”

     “How many did we kill this weekend. I lost track after the first few. Wasn’t it twenty-four this time.”

     “Yes, it was. It surprises me a little every time they come here. They want to die. But they are afraid to do it themselves. So they come here for us to do it for them.”

     Just then the sliding door open. Jasper and Vivian joined them. Vivian wore a maid’s outfit similar, if not exactly, like the one she wore a couple of days ago. “We are ready for our next set of victims. I mean guests.”

     “How many guest are me going to this week?” Mason asked. When he got to the word ‘guest’ he quoted it with his fingers.

     “There will be forty. I’m going to pick them up at the train station in a few hours.”

     Beverly looked at each one of them for several seconds before speaking. “Exactly how many people have we killed over the last three years?”

     “About nine thousand.” Mason answered. “I still can’t believe we have helped that many people commit suicide.”