It was four in the morning and Freya was already wide awake. The sounds kept waking her up. Some nights the screams weren't as loud while some, they were louder and this was one of those nights. So, she sat in her recliner with coffee in her hand.
Freya kept wondering what Dr. David was doing that made those scary screams every night. She hadn't been getting any sleep since she moved in. She dialled the number of her married best friend and colleague's number whom she had known since law school.
"Hello." Came the groggy voice of Salma.
"Hey, sorry for calling you this early, but I really need to talk to you."
"Freya, it's four in the morning, what is so important that it can't wait until we meet at work."
"Just listen, okay?"
"Alright, what is it?"
"I think... My next door neighbour is a serial killer. I think he's torturing people in his house."
Salma stuttered, and Freya felt like she didn't believe her, but Freya knew what she was saying even if she sounded crazy.
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"
"It's very real, there are screams that come from his house every night and it has been going on since I moved here. I asked him about it the other day, but he played dumb."
Silence. Then a sigh.
"Okay, I believe you. I know how logical you are, so what do you want to do about the screams and your neighbor?"
Freya felt relieved that her friend doesn't think she's crazy.
"I'm going to go into his house the next day to find out what is going on."
"He's dangerous from what you have told me. Are you sure you want to go to his house, where he tortures people, what if he tries to kill you?"
"Don't worry, he won't even know I was there, I will enter and leave when he's not at home."
"Alright, be careful. I'll do some digging on this man, what is his name?"
Dr. David entered his basement dressed in scrubs. There were some people in small, iron cages and the cages were so small that they had to seat with their knees drawn up to their chests.
A man was strapped to an operating table that was in the middle of the room, his wrists and ankles were bound to it and he was unconscious. Dr. David clicked his tongue, stalked to the operating table and backhanded him, but that wasn't enough to make him conscious.
Dr. David splashed a cup of cold water on the man's face, he instantly came to, spluttering and struggling.
He tried pulling his arms free, but didn't succeed, he only made the straps cut deeper into his skin. His arms and legs had wide cuts and his face was bruised, Dr. David didn't care to stitch up his cuts since he knew that he was going to kill the man after he was done with him.
"Please," The man begged hoarsely, "Stop."
Dr. David ignored him and picked up a small knife from the tray next to the operating table and focused the light on the victim's stomach. He traced the knife on the man's stomach from the top of his chest to his navel, and the man trembled. He traced it back up then plunged it in. The man bellowed a scream.
"Now, that's more like it." Dr. David muttered. He could have gagged him, but he loved it when they scream. Hearing their whimpers and screams bring immense pleasure to him.
He started humming a tone as he cut the rest of the way. He took his machine, his beauty, from the tray. He had it designed for him, it was specifically made for this purpose, he could see the molecular and cellular structures within the organs he has used it on.
Dr. David named it Distilator, it causes excruciating pain and not all blood types can repair the damage done to the body.
The worst part was that it had to be used during vivisection - an operation performed on a patient that was awake and aware. To people, it was a form of torture, but to the doctor, it was a thrill. He was practicing it although it was banned.
Distilator wasn't the only instrument used for his operations. He also used the equipment used for surgery in a hospital theatre.
He switched the Distilator on, the three ends with sharp edges started rotating. The top was where he would look through to view an organ. As he held it with one hand and pressed the man's stomach with the other hand, he placed it inside the man's stomach. The man let out a loud, twisted scream.
"It's time for bed, angel." Dr. David said to his fourteen year old daughter that looked like she was nine due to the sickness. She was on her wheelchair, in front of the TV, watching cartoons. She didn't reply as usual, only nodded her head.
"You need to be tucked in bed before the TV program from downstairs returns." He had told her that those screams she hears from the basement were from the horror film he watched on the basement's TV, so that she wouldn't get scared or know what he was doing to his victims.
He stood up from the couch next to her and went behind the wheelchair to push her to her room. Sophie barely spoke ever since she became sick with a new disease called, Debilities. She also stopped walking and became very weak and skinny.
She was all he had, and she was the reason he did what he did. He kept telling himself that it was to cure Sophie, but that wasn't really it. Dr. David enjoyed torturing people and he couldn't stop after he started.
He has told Sophie's previous doctors that the cure for her illness was inside the living organs of people, but they didn't believe him and have refused to perform vivisection on patients like he had suggested. That was when he decided to quit his job as a doctor and do it himself.
He thought about his new neighbor, Freya. He was surprised at her guts when she asked him about the screams of his victims.
People that had lived in the house before she did always moved out after hearing those screams. He wanted to know why she was still there and what she was going to do about the screams.