Dark Screams, Volume 1 by Brian James Freeman

ribs give a loud SNAP! I don’t know how old Nev was when he died, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty.
    Katy had seen everything. Now she couldn’t stop herself. All self-control went. So overwhelming was her fear, she went berserk.
    Even that mighty Goliath paused to watch her in surprise as she tossed her head, flailed her arms, trying to break the manacles, and screamed as loud as she could. Despite everything, the man still hadn’t noticed me even though we were chained to each other. Once again, I realized that his psychotic mind considered me to be part of him, seeing as we were linked by those dozens of shining loops. In any event, he didn’t appear to see me as he gave a powerful grunt of excitement. This was followed by such a leering expression of desire as his eyes feasted on Katy’s beautiful face.
    I shouted, “No! Leave her alone! Don’t touch her!”
    He didn’t respond to my demands. The nightmare brute didn’t even seem to hear me, let alone realize that I was there at the end of his chain. Straightaway, he lumbered back to the river. Katy tossed her head, convulsing with terror when she saw that the murderer had locked his evil gaze on her. Grunts of excitement blurted from his lips.
    “Don’t hurt her!” I shouted.
    He didn’t even hear me. Instead, he surged onward, following the line of the watercourse upstream. I held the chain in my hands so that the force of being dragged so ferociously wouldn’t snap my neck. This battle tank in human form dragged me to where a pair of parallel iron girders spanned the river. I realized what my chain buddy intended. He’d use the girders as a bridge to cross to the other side. Katy, meanwhile, knew that she’d be the next victim. She stared at brute boy with absolute dread.
Is he going to kill me like he killed Nev?
I’m sure that’s what she was thinking.
Or is he going to hurt me in other ways first?
    For the next ten seconds I had to concentrate on maintaining my balance as I followed Goliath across the girders. Here the roar of the rapids seemed more concentrated. The sound bore deep into my head. The air was colder, too, and that black water far more pungent—smelling as if it had flowed from a pit full of dead and rotten things.
    I scrambled up onto the far side of the river as Goliath raced toward the vulnerable woman that was chained to the machinery casing. She shouted for him to keep back. I yelled for him to stop. But Goliath knew what he wanted, and he wanted it now.
    Pipes emerged from the floor like iron tree trunks. I tried to cling on to them to prevent the man from reaching Katy. Every attempt to even slow him down ended in failure. He simply kept moving, dragging me along as if I was nothing more substantial than a paper cutout of a man. Then I saw an object leaning against one of the pipes. It appeared to be a discarded iron bracket that had once been fixed to a wall. In sheer desperation, I grabbed it.
    “John…oh my God.” She panted the words in terror. “John, please don’t let him hurt me.”
    This time I stopped allowing myself to be dragged. I ran toward Goliath. The chain dipped down between us as the tension left it. I sprinted up behind the killer, lifted the heavy bracket above my head, and swung it down as hard as I could. The deadweight of iron cracked against his skull. Momentum carried him forward, but his legs were buckling. He even glanced back at me in surprise, apparently noticing my existence for the first time.
    Down he went. THUD. He lay facedown on the floor. His eyes were closed and blood streamed from a gash in his scalp.
    “John, you did it! Thank God.”
    “Katy…I think I’ve killed him.”
    “Good!”
    “He’s not moving.” I crouched beside him. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”
    Katy recovered her composure. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Can you use that metal thing you hit him with to break the chain?”
    “I doubt it, but I might be able to force open the collar or