The sound started to come back to Chris' painful existance. As his eyes began to focus, the glaring light started to fade. It was no longer a huge ball of brightness blocking out his entire view of the world, but rather, a single bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. Chris recognized it as his basement light. His eyesight was still hazy, but he could see a shadowy figure moving around in his peripheral. The faint sound of metal clanging reached him. He felt as if he had gone on a week-long Coke and alcohol bender. He was aware of intense pain in his entire body, as if he had been run down by a tractor trailer. His head pounded and his heart beat so rapidly it felt as if would burst from his chest any second.

   "I see the Rohypnol and rum cocktail is starting to wear off," Stasia's voice came from out of the haze. "No worries, lover, I have plenty of morphine to keep you breathing."

    Chris struggled to clear his mind. Had everything been a dream? What did she mean to keep him breathing? Why was he strapped down? The questions kept coming, flooding his brain and making it difficult to focus. He strecthed his neck as far as he could to look around the basement. Though his vision was still a bit blurry, he could make out what the thins were around him.

   To his right was a small table with several knives of different sizes, tin snips, a small pair of bolt cutters, a small acetylene torch, and a glass jar with what appeared to be fingers floating in a yellow colored liquid. To his left was a large black garbage can, the one from outside that he used for yard waste. A blood-stained sheet was draped loosely across his midsection.

   Eventually, his eyes drifted to his right hand. The middle, ring, and pinky fingers were missing and the stumps of them were charred black. The more lucidity that crept back into Chris, the more pain he felt. He looked to where Stasia was leaning against his worktable on his left. She stood there, wearing a white kitchen apron that was spattered with blood, and calmly smoked a cigarette. She smiled when she noticed him looking at her. 

   "Wha... what's go-ing on?' Chris asked, his speech slightly slurred. "Wh..at's happ...ening to... me?"

   A small laugh escaped Stasia's throat. "You remember the cheerleader?" she asked instead of answering his question. "The one that disappeared when we were in high school. You know who I'm talking about, right?"

    "A... Amy M..add..ox," Chris stuttered. "Wh..at a..bout her? Why am I tied d-down?"

   Stasia continued, ignoring Chris completely. "They never found her body. I was so-oooooo jealous of her. All the boys looked at and lusted after her. They all thought she was so perfect. I knew better. She was a sluty little tramp. A whore. She was **** men twice her age. Can you believe that?"

    Stasia paced around, anxiously, like a spooked horse. Chris tried to pull his arms free but his body felt weak and the restraints were too tight to allow much movement. As he struggled, however slightly, the sheet slid off of his midsection and Chris saw that his abdomen was sliced to shreds. The sight of the wounds sickened him and the pain in his body became more intense.

   Stasia slid across the floor as gracefully as a snake in grass and came to a halt directly at Chris' side. AShe looked down into his eyes.

    "I loved you even then, but you were interested in her. I had to do it, don't you see?"

   "You're **** crazy," he spat at her.

    She continued as if she didn't hear him. "Even when you were gone, off playing soldier, I waited for you. I was faithful. I even forgave you for **** that Israeli whore. I knew you didn't mean to do it. I knew you'd never hurt me. Not on purpose. I worried about you. I wrote you every day. You remember?"

   She paused waiting for Chris to acknowledge. He nodded weakly at her and she continued. "When you cheated on me again, two years ago, I figured it was my fault. But," she laughed, "she had to be dealt with as well. Your precious Sara never made it to New York. She's still right here in good ole Ohio. I found a nice spot for her to spend eternity in out by the rock quarry."

   Chris' face registered his shock. His eyes resembled two half dollars. The reality of what she was saying had set in. She was absolutely insane. 

   "You shouldn't have been screwing around with that goddamn cocktail waitress," Stasia pointed to the corner. Chris strained his neck to look where she was pointing. The mangled body of a young, attractive woman lay crumpled on the floor. She had long brunette hair and was stripped nude. Her abdomen had been ripped open and some of her organs were scattered on the floor around her. A bloody crowbar protruded from between her legs. Chris recognized her as Bethany, a girl he knew from The Roadhouse. "She was tough, but in the end, I got my way. After she lost her will to fight, I really had fun with her. I just wish you could have seen me **** her."

    Chris squeezed his eyes closed and tried to block out the image. "What the **** have you done? What is wrong with y..."

   "Shut the **** up!" Stasia screamed at him. "I don't want to hear what you have to say anymore." She stood still as a statue with her hands clenched tightly into fists and mashed to her temples. "I'm through listening to you! Get the **** outta my head!", she howled, tugging violently at her hair.

   Stasia snatched a studded leather belt from the side of the waste can and wailed Chris across the midsection repeatedly. Chris cried out in agony with every blow. Blood flowed as the scabbed-over wounds on his abdomen ripped open. Stasia began to scream unintelligibly, her beautiful face distorted in a grotesque snarl. The silky blonde hair that Chris had grown to love was sticking to her face and billowing out wildly atop her head. Mascara ran down her face as the sweat began to pour from her skin in buckets. Her sapphire eyes burned with rage and insanity. The blows just kept on coming.

    The pain got to be so intense that Chris blacked out as he had so many times in his earlier hallucinagenic state. Stasia removed the leather straps that bound him to the worktable and dumped him to the floor. The whine of the chainsaw rose to a scream as she depressed the trigger to start the chain spinning. The combination of the noise and the intense pain of the saw connecting with his left thigh was enough to bring Chris around. His screams were drowned out by the instrument that was shredding his skin and shattering his bone.

   Stasia tossed the powertool aside and mounted Chris' back as he tried to drag himself out of harms way. At least, what was left of himself. She jammed a syringe into his bicep and injected the clear liquid into him before turning to grab the torch. A makeshift tourniquet made of an old bicycle innertube slowed the flow of blood while Stasia attacked the amputated stump with the torch.  

   Cries of agony poured from Chris as he tried to fight her off.  He fought and struggled but the morphine was already starting to take effect. He was amazed that he wasn't in shock. How much could the human body endure? Afraid he might pass out again, Chris pushed will all the strength he had left and managed to roll onto his back beneath her. That's when he saw Krueger, his beloved Doberman, gutted and decapitated and lying under his work table.

   Tears flowed freely from Chris' eyes as Stasia's maniacal laughter echoed through the basement. Chris used his right leg to shove Stasia of of him and to the floor. The torch spun out of her hands, spewing flames over her arms as it fell. Her blouse went up instantly, followed by her long, blonde hair. She screeched in agony as the flames licked her face and started to beat at them in futility. At last, she threw herself to the floor and rolled back and forth, snuffing the flames.

   While Stasia writhed on the floor in agony, Chris pulled himself across the floor. At the base of the stairs lay another body. It was a large hulk of a man with blood pooled around his head. A bad feeling swept over Chris and settled in the pit of his stomach. He rolled the body off of its side to see Darrion with a perfectly round bullet hole in his head. Chris crawled over the body of his dead friend and started puling himself up the stairs. 

   Stasia saw Chris trying to make his way up the stairs and laughed hysteriaclly. The right side of her face was terribly burned and the already-formed blisters burst as she laughed. P us ran down her charred skin causing it to glisten in the pale light of the overhead bulb. She reached for an axe that lay at her feet and started after Chris.

   "You shouldn't have killed Darrion," she screamed. "Or that whore waitress. Why did you kill them and then attack me Chris?"

    Chris' head jerked in the direction of her voice. She was closing in on him fast, holding an axe high above her head. He forced himself onto his hi back and prepared for her attack.

   "What the **** are you talking about?" he shouted at her.

   "You snapped, Chris," her voice softened. "You snapped and killed your friends before turning on me. Look at me! You think the police won't believe the crazy story I'm gonna have for them? The evidence is all around you. It was your gun from the hall that killed Darrion. Your knife is still in your little lover gir..."

   Chris rammed his foot as hard as he could into Stasia's midsection. She lost he balance and toppled down the half dozen steps she had managed to climb. The axe fleww out of her hands and slid across the concrete floor, coming to rest under a tool cabinet. Stasia landed on her back at the base of the stairs. Her body folded over and her neck snapped with an audible pop.

*******************************************************************************************

   Police milled about the scene as Chris was loaded into an ambulance. He had insisted on watching the coroner's team bring the bodies from the basement and load them into their vans. Only two bodies were recovered. Chris knew he had heard Stasia's neck snap. He had watched her for several minutes after her fall and saw no sign of life. After he had managed to get to the phone and dial 911, he sat at the top of the basement stairs and watched her body. She had to have been dead. Even if she wasn't, how could she have gotten up and walked awat with a broken neck? He was sure there was some mistake and that they just didn't see Bethany's corpse in the corner yet. That's what it was. they brought out Darrion and Stasia and just hadn't noticed Bethany. Somehow, he knew better, though.