Chisel the Bone by Renee S. DeCamillis

We are proud to welcome Renee S. DeCamillis to Ginger Nuts of Horror with an excerpt of her latest novel, Chisel the Bone, which will be published by Encyclopocalypse Publications on July 23rd. If you enjoyed what you read, please share this article and purchase a copy of Chisel the Bone from the link at the end of the excerpt.

Chisel the Bone by Renee S. DeCamillis

The Carver, The Collector, and The Stitcher

The cloth secured in his mouth, knotted tight behind his head, prevents him from screaming. A blindfold stretches across his eyes. The white-hot sting of the blade slicing through the skin of his shin makes him grit his teeth.

Only a whimper escapes.

Buck knife in hand, The Carver gets down to the bone quickly. Twin serpent-like scars run up the outside of both of The Carver’s forearms. They writhe and pulse as he uses the edge of the blade to shave and peel the flesh away from the outer layer of dense compact bone. After uncovering a large area, he reaches out and swaps the knife for a chisel and mallet. Like a modern-day Michelangelo, he begins whittling away at the victim’s tibia, the bigger of the two shin bones, careful not to go too deep. Serpent scars slither around while he works.

Every hit of the mallet sends a shaking jolt through the restrained man. The chair legs rattle against the tiled floor with every jostle. Ankles zip-tied to the wooden chair legs. Wrists zip-tied to each side of the back of the chair. Tears soak the blindfold and leak down his cheeks from underneath. Snot bubbles at his nostrils. Strands of his shaggy brown hair stick to his sweaty forehead.

Rather than creating a work of art, The Carver extracts bone shavings. With the help of The Collector, who stands beside him, curls of shaved bone pile up on a sheet of tinfoil. These ribbons of victory will get dried and crushed to dust at a later time.      

From behind The Carver, someone with gnarly scarred knuckles passes The Collector a second sheet of tin foil. They swap the filled foil for the empty. 

The Carver reaches for a new tool. A small utility knife takes the place of the chisel and mallet. 

Rapid shaving motions slide down the tibia over and over and over again.

More whimpering.

More chair rattling.

Sibling serpents shake and slither along with every movement of The Carver’s arms.

Little bits of bone pile up on the tinfoil this time. This second batch is for immediate consumption. Mixed with blood, the pile of bone fragmentslooks similar to sticky black tar heroin. Bone Cutters call it Dark Heaven or Red Sugar or simply Dust.

Deal done, The Stitcher steps out of the shadows, thread and needle held in grotesquely scarred hands, to seal the wound.

The victim no longer whimpers.

The victim no longer cries.

The victim passed out moments ago, head hung low, chin to chest. Whether from shock or blood loss is of no concern to The Carver, The Collector, and The Stitcher.

They’re only here for the Dust and the high that will come with it, as well as 

the money they’ll make off what they don’t smoke, snort, or ingest themselves.

The Stitcher feels thankful. Not just for the high-to-come and the money they’ll make.

It sure is easier to stitch the wound without all that shaking and blubbering from a few moments ago. The needle and thread zips back and forth through the flesh as smoothly as a whisper floating with the wind.  

Wound now sealed shut, it’s time to clear the scene. With two tips of the chair by The Collector and The Stitcher, The Carver carefully slides out the blood covered plastic tarp spread out underneath the victim and the chair. He rolls it up, preps it for disposal.

The zip-ties then get snipped from the victim’s wrists and ankles and tucked securely into the tarp. Add in a few rocks from the park on the walk back to their den, and these Bone Cutters will send all remnants of this event down river.

All except the product and—

The buck knife.

The handle of the knife gets wiped clean. Hilt placed in the victim’s hand with his fingers wrapped around it, assures only his prints appear on the weapon.

The Carver, The Collector, and The Stitcher cover their tracks well. Maybe not the tracks in their skin or the scars that double as their own living entities. Those they wear with pride, like badges of honor. But definitely the tracks from the assaults against all their unwilling victims.

Not all victims are unwilling. 

Some enjoy the rush of the slice like a bite from a vampire.

The Donors.

Minions or Lackeys is what non-dust-users call them. 

Some might even call them Renfields.

Many Bone Cutters (A.K.A. Dusters) also get a rush from the slice, but it sure does wear you down after a while. All that blood loss. All that pain. Much more satisfaction and stimulation comes from inflicting that pain on another. But when times get desperate—

They will again slice into themselves.

Scene all cleaned and sparkling, as though only the victim has been present, the three junkie-cutters vacate the premises. The tarp gets rolled up tight and worn like a backpack by The Collector. After one last wipe of the outside doorknob, the three practically skip down the hallway and out onto the sidewalk, as giddy as children approaching an ice cream truck. 

While strolling away from the scene of the crime, as though nothing unusual has taken place, they hear the flapping of large wings overhead. The sound moves swiftly towards the house they just left behind.

They all look up, wondering if they’ll see what they assume has risen. A glimpse of huge, black wings zooming past the beam shining from the streetlight confirms their assumption. 

Brookhaven Daily News

Grave Robberies Occurring Across the State

State Police report that numerous cemeteries throughout the state are experiencing gravesite desecration and exhumation. Not only have the caskets of the dead been robbed of all valuables contained within, but something else of import that has gone missing are the actual remains of the dead. The bones of over two hundred and seventy-five interred bodies across thirteen counties in the state have gone missing.

Most recently, Howard Cemetery near Crystal Lake in Razorville was hit by graverobbers just last night. There is suspicion that these incidents may be the result of parties going on in the late-night hours since drug paraphernalia was discovered at almost every crime scene. Police are asking that if you or anyone you know has witnessed any questionable activity in or around cemeteries, especially after dark, or if anyone has any information that can lead police to the violators, please call the State Police tip line at 1-800-555-7686.

Chisel the Bone by Renee S. DeCamillis Chapter 1

At-home Dory

My eyes snap wide open from a dead sleep. I fling the covers off and bolt upright in bed. Covered in sweat from a recurring nightmare, I desperately try to catch my breath. Voices of all my previous therapists ricochet around in my mind: Don’t forget to breathe. Calm the mind; calm the body. Remembering their training, I try deep breathing; breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven, release for eight.  

It doesn’t take long. 

Rapid, shallow breathingsoon takes over the 4-7-8 “relaxing breath” technique. A splash of cold water on my face will help snap me out of this. 

As soon as my feet hit the floor, a scraping sounds out against my window. I freeze.

With the curtains closed, I’m unable to see if it’s just a bird on the sill. But my curtains always remain closed, especially at night. City life doesn’t offer much privacy. One must create it themselves.  

Scraping sounds again.

I flinch, then ease myself out of bed. Slowly and quietly, I move toward the sound. At the window, I reach for the edge of the curtain and pull it open just enough to peek out.

Nothing on the sill.

I lean so close to the glass I feel the coolness of the October night on the tip of my nose. Streetlights illuminate the dark outside. A disturbing amount of artificial light fills the city sky, masking the glow of the full moon. 

Nothing appears down in the driveway that could’ve made the sound. Nothing from the apartment building next door. Suddenly, a large shadow at the mouth of the driveway grabs my attention. It moves in waves, like the flapping wings of a huge bird, past the lamp post at the front of my building. Then it swoops down the length of the driveway. I crank my neck to look up and get a better view.

A loud crash makes me jump. I drop the curtain closed, a safety reflex. Then I realize—

That sound came from within my apartment.

It’s almost three in the morning! What the fuck could that be?

I rush for the baseball bat by my door, then remember I’d already broken it when I flipped out on Jill’s last fly-by-fuck, trashing the apartment in the process. Not my finest seeing-red moment.I grab the collapsed high-hat stand next to my bureau and stumble, half awake, into the kitchen.

Chisel the Bone by Renee S. DeCamillis

This Special Edition of Chisel the Bone includes the novella The Bone Cutters.

The Bone Cutters: They wear their scars with pride, while Dory tries desperately to hide her own. No matter what she does to cover her wounds, they can still smell her bleed, and they want in-down to the bones.

Dory wakes up in the padded room of a psychiatric hospital with no recollection of how she wound up there. She soon finds out she’s been Blue-Papered-involuntarily committed. She gets sent to the wrong counseling group and discovers a whole new world of psychiatric patients she’d never known existed. At first, she just thinks they’re cutters, all marked by similar scars, but then she finds out those scars are from carving into their own bodies to satisfy their bone-crazy addiction. When they find out Dory’s never tapped into her bones, she becomes their target.

Frightened for her life, she desperately tries to prove to the psych. hospital staff she’s not delusional about these patients wanting to cut her open and get to her bones. The staff doesn’t believe her. They all think she’s crazy. She ends up on the run and fighting for her life, trying to avoid getting “dusted” by The Bone Cutters.

Chisel the Bone: Dory, a mental patient out on safety release, finds herself as the single witness who can bring down a horrifying cult of drug addicts from her past as well as their supernatural puppeteer.

Dory’s unwavering need for justice against the Bone Cutters who tormented her and assaulted her in the psych hospital leaves her blind to the dangers lurking outside her door. After realizing someone is stalking her, Dory’s vision for justice turns red and morphs into an intense desire for revenge, sending her down a path of uncanny supernatural discoveries.

Now, Dory finds herself, again, on the run from the cult who wants to chisel her bones into dust to satiate their addictions and keep her from bringing their secrets to light.

Will Dory’s relentless drive for justice and revenge bring her the satisfaction she craves, or will she end up bled out by the Bone Cutter cult? Or maybe, just maybe, she’ll make that irrevocable slice that sends her to the realm of no return.

Renee S. DeCamillis expands the world of her critically acclaimed novella, The Bone Cutters, into a fully realized nightmare of survival.

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