Escape From Slaughter Beach

by Jack Quaid

  Parker’s throat was dry, but she tried to swallow anyway. “I did not know that.”

  LeClaire pointed to an old, frail German man sitting in the front row. He looked as if he’d celebrated one too many birthdays and probably didn’t have too many more left in him. “Erik, please rise and enlighten our young guest.”

  Von Junge rose to his old feet, and with a stone-cold face, he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off his shoulders. His chest, arms, and his back were all covered in tattoos. He was a walking, talking Book of Evil.

  “Oh, this isn’t good,” Parker mumbled.

  “I still can’t believe you wanted to leave the chain saw in the car,” Hell said.

  “It does seem like a bit of an oversight now, considering the turn of events.”

  Von Junge climbed up onto the altar and kneeled with his back to LeClaire so that the madman in the white linen suit could read text off another human being.

  “Now everybody join hands and witness the beginning of our new world,” LeClaire said.

  Everybody who was not on that altar held hands and put on their best smiles of joy.

  Corey leaned forward and looked past Hell to Parker. “These people are fucking mad. Can we get out of here?”

  “I’m working on it,” she said.

  What the First Church of Mantus didn’t know was that although they had searched Parker and her gang for weapons, they’d neglected to search Parker’s cowboy boot. If they had, they would have found her hidden switchblade.

  Parker crouched onto her heels, slipped her fingers into her boot, hooked a couple of those fingers onto the blade in question, and fished it out. She flipped it open and began working the rope that bound her wrists together.

  In the meantime, LeClaire wasted no time with getting to work on opening up a hell gate and bringing back one of the meanest, most violent slashers ever and to have that reputation in the slasher world—that was saying something.

  LeClaire read the first line off Von Junge’s back. “Ogthrod ai’f, geb’l—ee’h, yog-sothoth, ‘ngah’ng ai’y, zhro.”

  The doors and windows were closed, but when LeClaire started chanting the words from the Book of Evil, a wind kicked up in the church. As it did, excitement washed over faces of the members of the First Church of Mantus, as if they had just been hit with a bolt of lightning.

  Hell clearly didn’t like the look of that. “Parker?”

  “I’m working on it.” Behind her back, Parker was busy sawing away at the rope.

  “Ogthrod ai'f, geb'l—ee'h, yog-sothoth, 'ngah'ng ai'y, zhro,” LeClaire continued, and with each one of his words, the wind grew more intense, blowing crazy church pamphlets around the room. Then out of thin air, a fiery hell gate opened up right there on the altar right behind LeClaire.

  The kidnapped girls screamed, the flock gasped in excitement, and that only spurred LeClaire on. He chanted even louder and with more gusto. “Ogthrod ai'f, geb'l—ee'h, yog-sothoth, 'ngah'ng ai'y, zhro!”

  “Parker…” Hell said.

  “I see it,” she answered. Her fingers worked like mad to cut through that rope.

  “Ogthrod ai’f, geb’l—ee’h, yog-sothoth, ‘ngah’ng ai’y, zhro.”

  The wind was ferocious, like some sort of mini tornado, and it caused all the church folk to grip the pews tightly. Then out of the fiery hell gate stepped the one and the only Hurricane Williams. The big brooding son of a bitch stood on the altar like it was some new land that he’d just conquered.

  Parker looked up. “Oh, shit.”

  He hadn’t changed at all, with his filthy orange prison jumpsuit, the executioner’s hood over his head, and that great big machete in his hands. The flock of the First Mantus Church erupted into cheers and hugs at the mere sight of that lunatic.

  LeClaire turned to face the slasher with bewilderment, excitement, and wonder all washing over him. “Welcome, brother! Welcome to our world of sin. May you be its savior and rid God’s world of sin.”

  Hurricane didn’t appear terribly interested in anything LeClaire had to say about his plans to rid the world of sin or anything else for that matter and grabbed the preacher by the throat. Hurricane lifted him off the floor until his feet kicked around uselessly. He swung his machete up, and when he brought it back down again, he separated LeClaire’s head from his body.

  Blood sprayed the flock in the front row as they all watched on in shock.

  “Yep,” Parker said. “Totally saw that coming.”

  Hurricane tossed the body in one direction and the head in the other, and when he stepped down from the altar, all hell broke loose. Within seconds the First Church of Mantus turned to mayhem. People tried to run and scream, but they didn’t get far at all. Hurricane swung that big machete and cut off limbs left, right, and center.

  What Parker saw from the stage that night could have been described as nothing short of a massacre. A few people pulled their pistols and tried to get a couple of shots off, but it was useless. Their bullets had no effect on the slasher.

  After all that cutting and sawing, the rope behind Parker finally gave, and she was free. Within seconds, she cut Hell and Corey loose, and they gathered around to work out what they were going to do about the god-awful situation they were in.

  “I’ll get the girls to safety,” Parker said to Hell. “You get the weapons.”

  “I’m on it,” he said and ran straight down the center of the aisle past Hurricane and the bodies he was leaving in his wake.

  “What do I do?” Corey asked.

  “Stay alive,” Parker said.

  He took one look at the beast tearing through the joint and sighed. “Easier said than done.”

  Parker, on the other hand, was already on the other side of the altar and cutting the five teenage girls free.

  Kimberly, unfortunate Dunkin’ Donuts employee, pointed at Hurricane ripping the hell out of one of LeClaire’s followers. “What is that thing?”

  “I find it’s best to ask questions later.” Parker scanned the chaos for an escape plan, and the only option looked to be down the aisle through the middle of the chapel, past the murderous slasher, through the main doors, and into the night. “Girls, stick with me. Run fast, and whatever you do, do not tip over.”

  And with those sage words of advice, Parker was off and running with the five girls right behind her. They dodged and weaved through the devastation and bloodshed, past the screaming flock and the pieces of Cornelius LeClaire, out the front doors of the First Mantus Church, and into the night.

  The churchgoers who somehow made it out of the massacre fled to their cars and were speeding as fast as their station wagons and minivans could take them down the dusty road that led up to the church. Parker passed a couple of parked cars, looking for keys in the ignition, and found an old wood-paneled wagon with a set hanging there.

  She pulled open the door and shuffled the girls inside. “Get to the sheriff and don’t stop for anything. Run all the red lights and all the stop signs.”

  “I don’t have a license,” Kimberly said.

  “Do you want to stay here?”

  “No.”

  Parker slammed the door. “Then drive.”

  Kimberly turned the engine over, slipped it into gear, and followed the other cars down the dusty old road.

  Once the car was out of sight, Parker shifted her attention back to the chapel and the slaughter going on inside. The doors were closed, but that didn’t stop the screams blasting out of the building.

  Hell came to her side and handed Parker her favorite chain saw, Aerosmith. “Aren’t you going to miss all this?”

  She cranked Aerosmith up, revved it a couple of times, then let it settle down to an idle. “Probably.”

  Then they kicked in the double doors of the chapel and were right into the thick of it. People ran and screamed, and there was blood sprayed absolutely everywhere. Small groups of people huddled in corners and under pews while those who tried to flee were cut down.

 
Hell saw Corey covered in other people’s blood and tossed him a machete. “What did we miss?”

  Corey wiped blood from his face and gripped the machete tightly. “Just the usual.”

  On the other side of the chapel, Hurricane snapped pews in half with his massive machete as he tried to get to a couple of victims huddling in the corner.

  “Hey!” Parker called out. “Do you want a bit more of a challenge or what?”

  Hurricane stopped and calmly looked over his shoulder back at Parker and the boys.

  Challenge accepted.

  Hurricane came at them with his feet thumping hard and fast on the wooden floorboards. He swung that big old rusty machete back, ready to go on the attack, and there was no doubting Parker Ames was the target of that aggression.

  She ducked and dodged, all while wielding a chain saw. But Parker Ames wasn’t all Hurricane had on his hands. Both Hell and Corey came in hard and fast on either side of him, and for the first time since he’d waltzed in from hell, he was under attack.

  He went on the defensive and blocked everything that came his way. Sparks flew from the machete and chain saw four-way attack, and it was on like Donkey Kong. Hurricane threw some heavy blows, but his might didn’t slow him down any. He was still fast, and it took all three of them all of their might to overpower Hurricane Williams and wear him down.

  Finally, after a fight that seemed to never end, Hurricane stumbled and hit the deck. It was then that they beat on him and beat on him until he was laid out on the chapel floor, bleeding.

  Out of breath and covered in sweat, Parker took a step back and shut the chain saw down. “I bet he’s regretting stepping through that hell gate now.”

  She turned to Hell, and the smirk on her face slipped away. He was pale—really pale. Her eyes dipped to his hands holding his stomach. He’d taken a hit—a very bad hit—and blood was leaking out of him like water from a tap.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered.

  Hell’s legs gave out, and he stumbled, but before he could hit the floor, Parker caught him and gently lowered him down.

  “Shit!” Corey panicked. “Is he going to fucking die?”

  “Shut up!” she screamed, then she brushed the hair out of Hell’s face. “It’s going to be okay; I promise. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Hell held up his hand. It was covered in blood. “I don’t know about that, baby. It doesn’t look so hot to me.”

  “Yeah, well,” Parker said. “What do you know? If I say you’re going to be okay, you’re going to be okay.”

  She put pressure on the wound, but blood pumped out between her fingers. No matter where she placed her hands, it just wouldn’t stop.

  “Don’t bullshit me,” Hell said. “We’ve both been around death long enough to know what it looks like.”

  Parker didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. It was in her eyes; she knew he was right. People could get out of some tough scrapes, and this wasn’t looking like one of them.

  That’s when the tears came. “There’s so much I wanted to tell you. I just thought we’d have more time.” She held his hand tightly. “You can’t die. You know why?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re going to be a daddy.”

  Confusion washed over him. “What?”

  “That’s right,” Parker said. “I just found out. I’ve been trying to tell you all day, but there was never the time.” She pushed tears back. “I’m sorry. I should have made the time.”

  Hell gave her the best smile he could muster. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

  “Well, baby,” she said, “you haven’t exactly had the greatest day.”

  Hell gave her half a smile, then all the life simply drained from his eyes. Parker didn’t need to check his breathing or his pulse. He was gone, and she saw the very moment it’d happened. She held his hand for a long time, not really knowing what else to do. All she could think about was the house in the woods they were going to have. The two boys and one girl. Sitting on the veranda on hot summer nights. Listening to Guns N’ Roses and laughing. A memory of something that would never happen.

  Six

  Corey had seen more than his fair share of people die; that was for sure. None of them had been close to him, though. He wouldn’t have considered any of them friends and certainly none of them family. Hell and Parker were the closest thing Corey had to family, and now that one of them was gone, he didn’t know what to do.

  So he just sat there with Parker for a very long time, and he would have sat next to her for the rest of the night and the entire next day. But he heard a groan come out of Hurricane Williams, and by the time Corey looked over, the slasher was on his feet with that machete in his hand, standing right in front of the hell gate at the altar of the chapel.

  “You son of a fucking bitch,” Parker said as she climbed to her feet.

  Corey looked from Parker to the slasher then to the open hell gate right behind him. He knew what she had on her mind. He called out to stop her, but it was too late. She was already pushing off the balls of her feet and tearing ass as fast as she could with only one target in mind: Hurricane Williams.

  She didn’t have a machete. She didn’t have a chain saw. All she had were her bare hands. When she was close to Hurricane, she lunged as hard and fast as she could and hit him square in his middle.

  Hurricane lost his balance. He stumbled back, and the pair of them fell backward into the hell gate.

  “What the…?” Corey mumbled as he watched the fire around the edges of the hell gate intensify for a brief moment before the entire thing closed as quickly as it had torn open, leaving nothing but the smell of smoke lingering in the air.

  Corey took a couple of shock-filled steps forward and looked at the empty space where the gate had been. “What the shit?” Then the reality that Parker Ames was actually in hell sank in. “What the actual shit?”

  His eyes shifted to Von Junge lying slumped on the floor; more specifically, his eyes zeroed in on the words tattooed on the man’s back.

  “Here we go again,” Corey said as he laid the old German out prone so he could read the passage on his back. Then he drew a long deep breath. “Ogthrod ai’f, geb’l—ee’h, yog-sothoth, ‘ngah’ng ai’y, zhro.”

  The wind picked up as Corey read through line by line of the text on the back of the dead German, and by the time he reached the end of the passage, the wind swirling around the church was in full swing. Exactly at the moment that that the last words left Corey’s lips, the hell gate blasted open. A bloody and soot-covered human hand shot out—Parker Ames’s hand.

  Corey grabbed a hold of that hand, and with all his might, he pulled. Something on the other side had a grip on her and was pulling her in the other direction. Corey gritted his teeth and pulled as hard as he could.

  Inch by inch, he dragged Parker Ames through the hell gate. She was beat up and bloody, and dozens of hands reaching out from hell were trying to grab her and pull her back.

  “Ogthrod ai’f, geb’l—ee’h, yog-sothoth, 'ngah’ng ai'y, zhro!” Corey yelled out, and when he was finished with those words, the hell gate slammed shut.

  Corey and Parker collapsed on the floor, and everything was calm again.

  “Let’s not do that again,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Corey replied. “Good idea.”

  TEN YEARS LATER

  Seven

  Every town had one. In some towns, it was called Lover’s Lane; others called it Make Out Ridge. The name really didn’t matter. What mattered was that in the small town of Columbia Falls, Montana, there was a small landing about halfway up Doris Mountain that overlooked the town. On a Friday or Saturday night, anytime between nine o’clock in the evening and three o’clock in the morning, it was the number-one spot in Columbia Falls for teenagers to park their cars, turn on the radio, and fog up the windows. One thing was for sure—nobody was there for the view, least of all Belinda Robinson and Kevin Hastings.

&nbs
p; They were getting all hot and heavy in the front seat of Kevin’s dad’s Chevy. Belinda didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She’d been dating Kevin since she was a freshman, and after three years, she’d finally come to the realization that all her friends had come to a lot earlier, and that was the simple fact that Kevin Hastings was somewhat of a jerk. She had been planning to break up with him every Friday night for the past three weeks, but every time she tried, she chickened out and ended up at the lookout in the front seat of his daddy’s car. Then every night, after he dropped her off, she would lie in bed, listening to Concrete Blonde, smelling of Kevin’s cheap cologne, and wondering what the hell she was doing.

  Belinda pulled Kevin’s hand away from running up her skirt for the third time in the past ten minutes and was pretty certain she would have to do it at least a couple of more times before the night was through.

  Then DJ Max Crawdaddy cut short a song on the radio. “Welcome back, friends and fellow countrymen. This just in! There’s a maniac at large. I repeat, a maniac at large. Police are urging all people to stay inside their homes with the doors locked.”

  “Kevin,” Belinda said, trying to pull away from him, but he had his head buried deep in her neck. “Kevin, stop!”

  He pulled back. “What is it?”

  “Shh!”

  Max Crawdaddy continued, “After the discovery of nine brutally murdered bodies on the highway today, authorities believe that Hurricane Williams has reemerged. The same crazed psychopath who just ten years ago hacked through thirteen people at the First Mantus Church before disappearing without a single, solitary trace. Hurricane Williams has also been suspected of various mass murders in Happydale, Valparaiso, and Oak Park. The killer was last seen heading toward Columbia Falls and can be identified by his filthy orange jumpsuit, an executioner’s hood over his head, and a bloody machete in his hand. Stay safe, folks, and remember—dyin’ ain’t no laughin’ business.”

  “Holy shit.” Belinda shot up and buttoned her shirt. “Did you hear that?”