Flaying

men ambush a young couple in back woods, rape woman, kill them both 
then flay the young man

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Hank jumped naked into the crystalline water pooled at the bottom 
of the water falls.  His testicles drew up into his body when they 
touched the icy water.  The pool below the falls was deep and 
rocky, but it was as clear as tap water.  He turned and looked at 
the jagged gray rock with deep crevasses, shelves, and boulders 
strewn on the sandy bottom.  The water from the falls curled white 
and furious into the icy calm of the basin below.  Trout suspended 
in the water hid in the shadowy corners of the rock.  The fish 
turned and stared, coolly surveying Hank’s awkward nakedness.  His 
feet hit the bottom of the pool and he sprang up like a dart 
through the water.  Breaking the surface, he shook the water from 
his hair as he gasped to breathe.
"Damn, the water's cold as hell," he said drawing out the damn as 
if it had at least three syllables.
"My dick shriveled to a nub and my balls sucked up in my body," he 
said.  The water was cold, but refreshing.  Hank didn't want to get 
out, so he went back under.  Looking underwater, he watched his 
companions, Jerry and Todd jump in - their pale white bodies 
surrounded by a coverlet of bubbles as they descended into the 
water.  Their hair rose straight up, eyes and mouth glazed silver 
by the air.  Their genitals could not be seen behind air bubbles 
that filled the pubic hair.
They all rose to the surface at the same time.
"Damn, it's cold!" Jerry said.
"Yeah, I see what you mean about your balls.  I think mine are plum 
up around my ears," Todd laughed.
After the three stayed in the icy water as long as they could stand 
it, they climbed out onto the steep rocks surrounding the falls to 
put their clothes on.  They had been drinking beer and fishing all 
day and wanted to go swimming before they went back to their camp.  
It was early May and trout fishing season had started only a few 
weeks ago in the North Carolina mountains.

Todd fried a freshly caught trout in a black iron skillet over the 
fire as three baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil cooked in the 
hot coals.  They started to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon in cans as soon 
as they returned to camp from their swim.  They had been drinking 
non-stop for the last three days.  They started drinking in the 
morning when they got up, then drank all day and all night until 
they passed out.  After they ate the fish Jerry pulled out a bottle 
of bourbon and started to drink it straight from the bottle.
Jerry was a deer hunter and started to tell the others some hunting 
tales.
"One time we shot this young buck and cut his dick off and put it 
between two pieces of bread and gave it to Dave Trexler to eat.  He 
bit into it and started to chew on it before he saw what he was 
eating.  He spit it out and spat and spat over and over, saying 
'you sons of bitches.  I'll get you for this,' and that night after 
we went to sleep, that son of a bitch put shaving cream all in my 
sleeping bag.  He got me back all right, but I think he would have 
liked that dick sandwich if it hadn't been so rare." Jerry laughed 
out loud, his buck teeth shone with the light of the camp fire.

"You know something, I think I want to do something crazy tonight," 
Jerry said.
"Yeah, like what?" Todd said, "Eat trout soaked in bourbon?" he 
laughed.
"No, you son of a bitch.  You know that good looking blonde we saw 
in Edgemont with that college boy.  I've been thinking about her 
and I think she needs to get to know a real man," Jerry said.
"What about her boyfriend?" Hank asked.
"I’m not worried about him.  When I saw them two at the store in 
Edgemont this 
morning I know she wanted it," Jerry said.  He grabbed his crotch 
with one hand and 
squeezed, then he laughed.
"Well then that boyfriend of hers is just going to have to watch 
out,"  Todd said.
"I don't know about this boys," Hank said. 

That morning Todd, Hank and Jerry were at the store in Edgemont 
buying some groceries and saw a tall, wiry, young man, of about 
twenty, wearing hiking boots, hiking shorts, and a sweat shirt with 
Appalachian State University on it.  He had an angular face and 
long black hair that fell to his shoulders.  His girlfriend, a very 
attractive blonde, waited in the car as he went inside.  Hank and 
Todd followed the young man into the store.  Jerry stayed outside 
and walked over to the car where the girl waited.
“Where you from?”  Jerry asked, propping his arm against the car.
“Boone,”  She answered.
“Up here camping?”  he asked.
“Yes sir,”  she replied, running her hand through her long blonde 
hair.
“You don’t have to call me sir, little lady, my name is Jerry, 
Jerry Guilder, me and my friends are from Elkin, up here trout 
fishing on Wilson Creek.”  He paused.  “What’s your name?”
“None of your business Mister, but I’ll tell you the name of my 
boyfriend it’s, Frankie Ketchum, he’s a soccer player at 
Appalachian and he’s real strong.  He might not like you talking to 
me while he’s inside.”
“I’m sure he won’t mind, I’m just being sociable.  Ain’t no harm in 
that is there?”  Jerry was leaning on the black Jeep Cherokee by 
now, real close to the girl’s window.
“This guy giving you trouble?”  Frankie said, coming out of the 
store holding a paper bag with groceries in it.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
“Get your hands off my car buddy.”  Frankie said, looking Jerry 
hard in the eyes.
“Hey, I didn’t mean no harm. Just talking that’s all.”
“Jerry this young-un giving you some trouble?”  Todd said, coming 
out of the store behind him.
“Let’s get out of here,” the girl said to her boyfriend.
Frankie got into the car, started it and pulled away from the store 
in a cloud of dust.
Todd, Jerry and Hank all started laughing.
“Don’t know what they were so uptight about, I was just talking to 
a pretty girl, ain’t no crime in that.”  Jerry said.  
Todd slapped him on the back and laughed.  “Just wanted to get you 
some didn’t you?’
“Well….” Jerry said drawing out the word.
“What about her boyfriend?”  Hank said.
“Nothing a bullet couldn’t solve,”  Todd said.

The three men crept along a narrow trail through the forest up the 
mountain to a clearing near a stream where a camp fire was burning 
very low.  Near it stood a blue nylon tent supported by aluminum 
tubing.  A Coleman lantern lit the inside of the tent.  A dark 
shadow moved on top of another shadow lying on the ground.  A 
female voice made soft love sounds as a male voice grunted deeply 
from inside the tent.  The woods were dark and filled with the 
sounds of tree frogs, birds, cicadas, and crickets.  There was no 
moon and the sky was filled with stars, it was cool, but the air 
was still.  The water rushing in the stream beside them made a low 
roar as the men approached the illuminated tent.  The two in the 
tent didn't notice the forest sounds cease as the three men 
approached.
Jerry opened the tent flap with the end of his loaded hunting 
rifle.  The others stared in behind him.
"Move over, boy, we want to have some fun too," Jerry said, 
grinning a wide toothy grin.
The young couple were making love on top of their sleeping bags. 
Frankie’s naked white bottom greeted the men as they stared inside 
the tent.  He had an athletic build, with broad shoulders, strong 
back, narrow waist, and good muscle definition.  He turned quickly 
to look at the intruders with wide dark eyes.  His girlfriend was 
an attractive young woman with long blonde hair, blue eyes and 
large breasts. She looked up in shock, then screamed.
“Get the fuck out of here, you son’s of bitches.”  Frankie said, 
practically spitting his words out, grabbing the side of the 
sleeping bag to cover himself and his girlfriend.
	"Yell all you want, honey pie, no one will hear you out 
here.  You may as well let us do what we want and enjoy yourself, 
cause ain't nobody going to stop us," Jerry said, smiling.
Jerry grabbed Frankie’s arm and yanked him up.  
“Let go of me you son of a bitch.”  He said, as he struggled to get 
free.  Hank took the other arm and quickly tied a rope around 
Frankie’s hands behind his back.  Jerry reached down and grabbed  
Frankie’s wool socks, laid across his boots sitting at the foot of 
the sleeping bag, then he stuffed one of the socks in Frankie’s 
mouth.
“That ought to shut you up.  You little shit.” 
Frankie tried to spit the sock out of his mouth, his face turned 
red as he struggled.
“You need to calm down young fella.  Ain’t nothing you can do to 
stop us, so you may as well take a seat and enjoy it.”  Hank said, 
walking him to a log beside the camp fire, pointing a gun at this 
head.  
“If you move, I shoot.  Do you understand.”  Hank said.
Frankie nodded that he understood.  He then sat down on a log near 
the fire, not taking his eyes off Hank.  His eyes reflected the red 
of the campfire.

"Hank, watch the boy while we have some fun," Jerry said.  
"There'll be plenty left 

over for you."
"Sure," Hank said, crouching in front of the fire, holding the gun 
across his knees as he warmed his hands.
	"You cold?" Hank asked Frankie who sat naked on the log 
shivering in the cool night air. 
Frankie nodded his head up and down.  He sat rigid as he listened 
to his girlfriend struggle in the tent, then scream.  Hank dropped 
a blanket over the boy’s shoulder, "Here, don't worry, you and your 
girlfriend won't get hurt unless you try something.  We're just 
having a little fun, that's all."
After Jerry finished with the girl, Todd stepped into the tent.
The girl screamed again.
"No, please, no."
Hank looked down stirring the embers of the fire then looked toward 
the tent.  Suddenly, before he knew what had happened the boy stood 
up and lunged at him.
	Jerry raised his deer rifle and shot the boy between the 
eyes.  He fell face down in the dirt a few inches from Hank.  Dark 
blood pooled under his head, flowing from the clean round hole in 
his forehead.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Hank said, looking up at Jerry.
"He was coming at you," Jerry said.
"He wasn't armed.  He couldn't have done any harm.  He's just a 
boy."
	"Oh yeah?" Jerry said, holding the boy's hand up, it was 
untied and held a knife, that he had picked up off the ground.
"What are we going to do with the girl?" Hank asked.
"After we've fucked her, I guess we'll have to kill her too."
They heard screaming from inside the tent, then Todd yelled 
"Goddamn, bitch," and 
she ran out of the tent, naked, holding a blanket.  Todd stood 
behind her, holding his 

finger in his mouth where she had bitten him.  His pants hung down 
around his ankles.

She tried to run to her boyfriend, but Jerry grabbed her by the 
hair.  She screamed 

hysterically when she saw Frankie was dead.

"Goddamn, bitch," Jerry said, holding her arm behind her. 
“You’re next Hank.”  Jerry said.
"I don't want to fuck her now.  She's too damn crazy.  She's liable 
to bite my dick off," Hank said.
"Okay, if you say so." Jerry let her go.  She looked at them, 
confused, then ran into the woods.  Jerry picked up his rifle and 
killed her with one shot to the head.
"Goddamn, Jerry.  How the hell do you think we are going to get 
ourselves out of this one?"
"Let's have a drink," Todd said, pulling a flat bottle of bourbon 
from his back pocket.  They sat down on a log beside the fire and 
passed the bottle around.  Frankie’s body lay face down, in the 
dirt in front of them, naked, partially covered with a blanket. 
They were so drunk from drinking all day for three days that they 
were beyond drunk, almost sober, in a state of mind that operated 
by it's own set of rules, rules that were soulless, crazy, and mean.
"We're going to have to bury them and burn their equipment, after 
we take what we want.  But I say let's have some fun before we do 
it.  Let's skin the buck," Jerry said, looking at the firelight 
dance across the smooth skin of the naked body laying at his feet.  
Jerry’s eyes flashed in the light of the campfire.
"What?" Hank said.
"You heard me," he handed Hank a hunting knife.  "Let's haul him up 
and skin him, then we'll bury em both.  What difference does it 
make, he's dead.”  They took the tent down, gathered the back packs 
and clothes that lay scattered around the tent and put them in the 
fire.  The nylon made a black smelly smoke.
“Save the sleeping bags.  We’ll bury the bodies in those, the fire 
will make a mess of them if we try to burn them.”  After they had 
taken what equipment they wanted and burned the rest, Jerry rolled 
the boy's body face up, he then took the knife and cut holes in the 
his heels between the tendons and the bone.  He then took a stout 
piece of aluminum tubing from the tent and put it through the holes 
in the ankles.  He tied two ropes around the ends of the aluminum 
tubing then threw them around a heavy branch above, as he had done 
time and time again when he prepared to skin a deer.
"Help me haul him up," Jerry said.  The three men pulled the ropes 
and hauled the body up into the tree, facing the fire.  The head 
and arms hung down loose with the legs spread out stiff above, held 
in place by the metal rod between the ankles.  Frankie’s long black 
hair almost touched the ground.
Jerry cut circles around the ankles, wrists, and neck, then cut 
straight down the backs of the legs to the anus, which he cut a 
neat circle aroung.  He then began to peel the skin off the legs, 
separating it from the muscle beneath with his knife, working down 
slowly.  He worked around to the front where he took the genitals 
in one hand, pulled them away from the body, and severed them with 
the knife.  He was careful to keep them together and placed them on 
a rock beside the fire.  Then he began to cut straight down from 
the anus along the back bone to the neck, being careful not to 
puncture the muscle underneath and make a mess.  He used his knife 
to separate the skin from the fatty and muscular layer below, 
peeling the skin away from the body as he pulled it down from the 
back and abdomen towards the neck.  With much of the skin hanging 
in a mass from the glistening red body, he made a slit from the 
neck to the armpits and peeled the skin up from the wrists, where 
he had cut earlier, to the neck, which was already separated from 
the skin of the head.  He was careful to keep the skin intact, in 
one unit, instead of dividing it up, just as he would with a deer.
When he was finished, the body hung red, raw, and glistening, in 
the firelight.  Blood ran down the face and eyes, and in rivulets 
through the black hair, pooling on the ground.  The feet and hands 
were untouched, as was the head, but the body was stripped of its 
flesh and looked like a lesson in anatomy, all of its musculature 
revealed, fresh and bloody as the firelight danced across its 
bright surfaces.
Jerry took the skin and washed it carefully in the stream, then 
folded it neatly and lay it on a rock.  He then picked up the 
genitals and washed them.  He had saved a nylon stuff sack from the 
stolen gear, put his trophies in it, and lay in on the ground 
beside the fire.
The three men dug two shallow graves for the boy and the girl 
beside the creek.  The ground was black, rich, and soft.  Digging 
was easy.  They rolled the girl’s body onto one opened sleeping 
bag, dragged it to a grave, and lowered her into it.  Then they 
lowered the boy’s body from the tree, removed the aluminum pole 
from his ankles, and rolled it onto the other sleeping bag.  His 
eyes looked alive as they stared up at them. Hank looked at the 
body, red, raw, and glistening in the firelight, with his dark eyes 
staring and shuddered.  Todd passed Hank the bottle of bourbon.
"I can't believe we did this," Hank said, taking a drink of 
straight bourbon, speaking almost to himself.
"Shut up and don't think about it.  Another hour and the sun will 
be up," Jerry said gruffly.  They then dragged the body to the 
grave and lowered it in.
They covered the bodies with leafy mountain dirt, the boy to cover 
a nakedness that no man should see, and the girl with a look of 
horror frozen on her face.  Then they doused the fire, and 
scattered it, brushing the ground with leafy branches to cover any 
traces of a disturbance in the forest.

The next morning Hank woke with a terrific head ache.  What had 
they done last night, he thought?  Then he remembered.  It was too 
horrible to be true, surely he had dreamed it.  He pulled himself 
up under his covers and looked down, the cover felt wet and 
clammy.  He saw that he wasn't covered by a sleeping bag or a 
blanket at all, it was skin, the boy’s skin, laid over him like a 
blanket as he slept.  On a stool beside him sat an empty bottle of 
bourbon, and a thick, lumpy, sandwich.  He focused his eyes on the 
sandwich until he saw what looked like the purple head of a penis 
hiding between the two bloody pieces of bread.




End