Chapter 26: S#5. The Lloyd (3)
by fnovelpia
-Axe Murderer vs Machete Killer.
They met through the unique relationship of a physical therapist and a patient.
The Axe Murderer tried to reveal the identity of the patient, but no one believed him.
Before the Machete Killer is discharged, they must conclude their deadly game.
Hive Hospital.
I headed to the director’s office.
It looked more like a gym than a place for hospital administration work.
It was packed with weights and exercise equipment.
Instead of anatomical charts, pictures of bodybuilders were on the walls.
The director listened to me while repeatedly squeezing a heavy-duty hand gripper at his desk.
“So, Mr. Summer, you’re saying… the patient in room 404 is a suspect in a murder case?”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
I was convinced after watching the news last night and hearing the narration in my head.
The man in room 404 is a murderer, a typical killer from slasher movies.
The director scratched his bald head as if troubled.
“I respect your strength, but it’s not good to suspect a patient without evidence.”
“It’s a rational suspicion.”
“Just because he has a machete and rope?”
“The weapon used in the crime is clear.”
“I have a machete and rope in my house’s storeroom. Does that make me a killer?”
The director had a point.
There was no actual evidence that the patient in room 404 had committed murder; the only suspicious things were the machete and rope.
The only thing that could be considered evidence was the smell of blood coming from the patient.
Calling the police would be futile.
“What if he causes a disturbance? He might slice up other patients.”
“In our hospital? A disturbance?”
The director laughed as if it was absurd.
I realized that Hive Hospital is a paradise for muscle men.
Nurses, doctors, patients, everyone is a crazy macho man.
It would be safer diving into a swamp inhabited by crocodiles.
“Additionally, Mr. Summer, the patient in room 404 is not from Tromaville, where dismembered bodies were found. Plus, he’s a gardener.”
“……”
“This is a hospital, not a detective agency. The mission of a medical professional is to protect patients, not to suspect and accuse them. Remember that,” said the director.
Convincing him was impossible.
At this point, I had no choice but to solve it myself.
I went around the wards doing physical therapy.
It was closer to muscle destruction, but all the patients were satisfied.
In the blink of an eye, it was the turn of room 404.
As I entered the room, the patient lying on the bed silently took out a machete and rope.
The patient in room 404 didn’t say a single word.
Taciturnity.
A typical characteristic of killers in horror movies.
<Friday the 13th>, <My Bloody Valentine>, <Halloween>, <The Texas Chainsaw Massacre>, etc.
Masked killers maintained the mute concept.
This long-standing tradition was broken in <Scream>.
It introduced a chatty killer behind the phone, twisting the cliché.
The mute concept has several advantages.
It makes it impossible to identify the face behind the mask and adds weight to the atmosphere.
Crucially, it indirectly reveals the lack of humanity.
However, the mute concept can also become a weakness.
I pressed on the patient’s back.
“How is it? Too weak?”
“…”
“It’s weak? Then I’ll increase the intensity~.”
To me, the killer’s silence was nothing but an opportunity.
I chose the acupoints carefully and pressed hard, exerting strength that could bend a coin.
The patient broke out in cold sweat.
Being a killer, he had a high tolerance for pain and held up pretty well.
Let’s see how long he can last.
“Did you hear about the dismembered body found near Tromaville Church?”
“…”
“What? You want me to press harder?!”
“…!!”
The patient became agitated.
Ignoring it, I put more weight and strength into my fingertips.
The pain train won’t stop until the killer confesses.
“It seems this area is particularly tense.”
“……!!!”
“Please speak up if it hurts.”
Squeeeeeze──────
I twisted and squeezed as persistently as if wringing water out of a dry rag.
The patient’s body trembled violently.
Yet, in the end, he did not open his mouth.
He can endure even this?
Damn tough.
I can’t back down here. There’s still one last method left.
The calf massage.
To be frank, it’s not a massage but a torture technique.
Stallone tried it on me as a test, and it was so painful I nearly passed out.
I grabbed the patient’s thick calves.
I pressed down as if to burst the muscles.
“………..!!!!”
A scream burst from the patient’s mouth, which had been firmly shut until now.
A pain deadly enough to explode a lock that had been tightly sealed.
But even though the patient screamed, he didn’t utter a single word.
It was an astonishing show of mental strength.
After the treatment was over.
I headed to the bench in front of the hospital building.
Stallone was waiting there.
I told him about the patient in room 404.
“What? A killer?”
Stallone seemed skeptical.
Just like the director, he dismissed my claims as nonsense.
“That’s just your delusion, rookie. Want a cigar?”
“No, thanks.”
Stallone bit into a cigar and pulled out a handgun from his waistband.
He then began massaging his own limbs while looking at the handgun.
“What are you doing, Stallone?”
“You can see. I’m giving myself the Hive Hospital-style physical therapy.”
After a short massage, he took out a syringe filled with pink steroids and injected it into his forearm.
“That injection… Isn’t it for patients?”
“This one is for the staff.”
The pink liquid was rapidly injected into Stallone’s veins through a thin needle.
So, they distribute such drugs to therapists as well.
It seemed a bit suspicious.
I suddenly remembered a newspaper article hanging in the hospital’s front office.
It was about how many sports stars prefer Hive Hospital.
“These steroids don’t even show up on doping tests. Athletes can take them without worry,” Stallone said.
“But, rookie. Do you know how muscles grow?”
“Through exercise, muscle fibers tear and regenerate, repeating the process to grow.”
“Right. What do you think we’re doing? Just simple physical therapy?”
Stallone spread his palms open.
“We tear the patients’ muscles with our hands.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“By tearing the muscle fibers directly with our hands, we replicate the effects of exercise.”
“…That doesn’t seem like a way muscles would grow.”
“With these steroids, it’s a possible, innovative method.”
The idea of deliberately damaging muscles with a massage.
It was an absurd story.
All this time, I thought I was treating them.
“Do you want a steroid too?”
“No, thanks.”
‘A strong body houses a strong soul’ – I wondered if it was strong drugs rather than strong souls.
Stallone, sitting on the bench, tilted his head back to look at the sky.
Doctors and nurses inside the hospital building were also looking up at the sky through the windows.
The director was seen on the rooftop, likewise looking at the sky.
As if by agreement, everyone at the hospital looked up at the sky at the same time.
It was a strange sight.
Evening.
Ellen Strode called me to her studio.
A word processor was placed on an antique desk, with stacks of manuscript paper beside it.
“Tomorrow is Summer’s birthday. Shall we all go out to eat?” Ellen suggested.
Coincidentally, tomorrow is also the hospital’s anniversary, so we would be leaving work early.
I gladly accepted and was about to leave the studio when Ellen stopped me.
She hesitated as if she had something to say.
“Do you have something to say, Ellen?” I asked teasingly.
I already knew what Ellen wanted.
Ellen hesitated.
Her behavior was so similar to Nancy’s it was cute.
“Tch, you’re terrible,” Ellen said with a pout.
She was secretly hoping for a massage from me.
What started as ‘practice’ had evolved into a nightly ritual.
Ellen had become almost addicted to massages.
“I’m sorry, Ellen. I was just joking.”
“If you’re really tired, you don’t have to…”
Even as she said this, Ellen had already laid down on the long chair.
In fact, I was also glad.
I wanted to repay Ellen, even if just a little, in this way for the debt I owed her.
After rubbing hard muscles all day at the hospital, touching the soft skin of a beauty was healing.
This must be what they call a win-win.
Ellen, lying face down, revealed her slender waist.
The straight muscles of her back were visible.
As soon as I applied slight pressure with my fingers, Ellen reacted.
“Ah, Summer, that’s too strong…!”
“Should I try this?”
“There, there, that feels good…”
Her skin, beautifully tanned, radiated health.
But beneath her clothes was milky white skin.
Blood is thicker than water.
She was just like Nancy.
I focused on the tense areas. Ellen, sensitive to the stimulation, shuddered.
“Uh, uhh…! Oh, uh…!!”
“Aren’t you being a bit too loud?”
“Summer, you’re really bad… uh, ah, mm!”
I employed the sophisticated massage techniques learned from Stallone and honed on patients.
Of course, I couldn’t apply the muscle-destroying technique like I did in the hospital.
I moved my hands delicately.
As my fingertips moved along her muscle lines towards the side of her waist, Ellen’s lower body reacted.
Her white and graceful toes twitched.
“Uh, press harder… there. Yes, that spot…”
“Here?”
“Ah… lower down…”
But then, suddenly, I heard a noise from outside the studio.
It was the sound of someone coming up the stairs.
…Who could it be?
Nancy Strode bought an axe.
It was a gift for Summer, who would be celebrating his birthday the next day.
Summer cherished his axe so much that he would sleep with it by his pillow.
But due to the relentless and bizarre trials faced, the blade had worn down, and the handle had cracked.
It was the perfect timing to gift him a new axe.
She wanted to get the best and most expensive axe for Summer since he was so attached to his.
Thinking of how happy Summer would be receiving the gift made her heart race with excitement.
It would be no fun to just give it normally, so she decided to surprise him by swapping the old axe with the new one.
Like Santa on Christmas, in secret…!
She came out of the room with the axe wrapped in gift paper.
She tiptoed down the stairs.
Just as she was about to head to the garage where Summer was likely sleeping, a peculiar sound brushed her ears.
“Ahh…”
A sensual exhale.
What was that sound?
The house was dark, limiting her vision, which made her hearing even sharper.
Listening closely, she realized the sound was coming from Ellen’s studio.
Dim light leaked from under the closed studio door.
As she approached the studio door, about to grab the doorknob.
An unbelievable sound followed.
“Ah, Summer, that’s too strong…!”
“Should I try this?”
Ellen’s voice.
Summer’s voice.
“Ahh, right there, that’s good…”
Melting moans.
It was a side of Ellen she had never heard before, not even once.
Inside the studio… just Summer and her…
No logic was needed to infer what the two of them were doing inside.
She instinctively knew.
For a moment, time seemed to stop.
Shock pierced through her brain.
The ground beneath her felt like it was crumbling-
No… It’s a lie… That can’t be… Summer and Ellen…
“Uh, uhh…! Oh, uh…!!”
“Aren’t you being a bit too loud?”
“Summer, you’re really bad… uh, ah, mm!”
She dropped the axe she was holding.
With the hand that reached for the doorknob, she clutched her chest.
She couldn’t breathe properly.
That was… a voice of her mother’s she could hardly believe. Such lascivious moans…
The complete flirtation of a female in heat.
A few weeks ago, at the flea market, she was engulfed in fierce jealousy seeing a foxy Japanese woman (Reika?) holding Summer’s hand.
She never thought of Summer being taken away by someone other than that woman.
She had forgotten about Ellen.
A widow with innocent beauty.
Even through a daughter’s eyes, she overflowed with charm.
For a healthy man like Summer, it was natural to be attracted to her sexually.
Why did she forget that?
Even so, Ellen…
How could she, in a house where her daughter lives…
With her daughter’s friend, no, a man her daughter likes……
Wait a minute. And what about Summer?
How could he even think about being with Ellen?
Is he insane?
It was more dumbfounding than angering.
At the same time, her heart was crushed.
She felt an intense betrayal from both Ellen and Summer.
She wanted to burst into the studio and throw the axe at them, who she imagined were entangled like animals.
Of course, it was just a momentary impulse.
She couldn’t do such a thing to the people she loved.
“Ah, harder…”
Hearing Ellen’s tender moan again, her hand automatically moved to unwrap the axe.
…She felt like she couldn’t keep her sanity if she listened any longer.
Unable to bear it, she covered her ears and ran back to her room in one breath.
She turned off the light and covered herself with the blanket.
Her heart raced as if it would explode.
Hot tears flowed down her cheeks.
It hurt inside.
Beyond discomfort…
…What is this feeling?
She got up from the bed, breathing heavily from the excitement.
She turned on the room’s light.
Approaching the mirror, she checked her face.
Her face, smeared with tears, was flushed with a rosy glow.
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