The abattoir had stood idle for the better part of three years. Windows boarded up with treated wood or corrugated sheets of iron allowed little light to spill in to the main work areas. In the centre of these vast rooms, steel hooks caked in dried blood still hung from the ceiling like macabre pendants, swaying menacingly whenever the building settled on its foundations or got caught by a stray breeze. The scuttling of inquisitive creatures caused mournful echoes in the gloom, and the dense shadows seemed to retreat at the sound. When the wind blew hard enough, the padlocks and thick chains on the gates rattled, and if the wind was in the right direction the sound would carry to the closest farms and houses. The joke shared by their inhabitants was that Marley's ghost had been disturbed. But it wasn't a ghost they had to fear. It was a monster. And the monster had been busy.
            Although the old abattoir itself was now nothing more than a bleak and empty shell, and the man had need of neither secrecy nor quiet in this secluded location, he still chose to use the basement area. There he had built his own workbench of planed hardwood and stainless steel, as well as a narrow table upon which the tools of his trade sat gleaming beneath a bank of lights powered by a small generator. The work that he carried out there was often noisy, always tremendously messy, and to his delight he had discovered the basement to be perfect for both. Its cavernous rooms allowed for the most delightful echoes, while its slick tiled floors and drainage facilities made cleaning up afterwards a relatively simple affair.
            In the heart of the East-Anglian fenlands, alongside a deep and narrow river that had claimed almost as many lives as it had vehicles, nestled the old Harrold buildings, in which the man had carried out some of his best work. Across the flat and uninspiring countryside, the desolate site could be seen from several miles away and from all directions; an unobstructed view of a dark smudge on a grey landscape. Its inactivity was a stark and unwelcome reminder of more prosperous days, yet in time people would come to realise that it had been busy after all.
            Here, where the man was master of his own domain, work was a pleasurable and infinitely gratifying affair. Sometimes the echoes sang to him long after they were audible; a choir of voices screaming and pleading in unison, before finally becoming one small whisper, begging for mercy until silence mocked the ceramic walls. Sluicing away the aftermath of his work with buckets of water drawn from the river could also be enjoyable, though sometimes he had to force the waste material down the drains with an industrial plunger. Hair, in particular, often proved messy and unreliable to dispose of.
            He had enjoyed his time here, feeling at one with the building, sensing its approval at a skill renewed. But now he believed it was time to move on. He felt the call of other places, a fresh challenge. He knew that before long, some developer would buy up the land and turn the derelict building into a car park or market site, perhaps even a Superstore. In all probability he would be done with the place long before that happened, and it was a shame to walk away from all he had achieved. Still his instincts implored him to go while he could.
            Pity. It had been a place to call home. More than that, it was a place where he had become one with himself, blossomed from a game amateur into the true master he now was. He felt as if he had pupated, had become the beautiful creature he was always destined to be, after so long wrapped inside a cocoon of apathy. Now it was time to test his wit and skills against the best, to play to a much wider audience, returning to his roots in the process. There was much to do and much to look forward to.
            His mind returning to the job at hand, he stared down at the naked woman, whose wrists and ankles were strapped so tightly to the workbench that her flesh had been shredded during the most animated of her vain struggles.
            He smiled, took up a wooden-handled cleaver and ran its flat surface against his own cheek, light glinting off the blade and reflecting the horror etched into the woman's features. "Let's see what we can make of you now," he whispered.
            The woman said nothing, for the man had recently removed her tongue. He knew she would be wishing now that it had been her eyes, for though she had suffered greatly, and was intelligent enough to realise that she would again during the course of the next few hours, that she could still see him must be the true terror.