Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell

by Corwyn Matthew

  “Duprie, you motherfucker!” He yelled over the sound of the rolling thunder in the angry stages of his grieving. “Why’d you have to jus’ go an’ die, you big pussy?! You finally get tired of me kickin’ yur ass?!”

  His march through the upright tombstones was near its end and an open plane of flat, ground-flush grave markers were only steps ahead. The wind you’d expect to carry the gathering clouds competed against his stride, screeching past his ears and face as he yelled directly into it.

  “You did this on purpose, didn’t you, you asshole! Fucking died on me jus’ to put me off my game!” His awkward stride became more staggered and clumsy the closer he got to Le’Duprie’s grave. “Yur fucking, flaming dragon breath wasn’t enough anymore, huh? Had to go an’ fuck with my emotions like a bitch!” He threw the bottle in his hand ahead and it bounced off the cemetery ground, landing just short of its target. “They shoulda buried you in a skirt, you pussy!”

  He looked on at the fresh pile of flowers lying fifty yards away where his teammates had offered their condolences. The violent, cardinal lightning native to the storm splintered in the dark squall above, cracking like whips in the air. The hairs on Marty’s arms and neck stood at attention, but he hadn’t noticed, nor did he recognize the stuffy ambiance surrounding the cemetery; a hot, moist air that crackled and shrieked, growing louder as he approached, surrounding him stiflingly.

  “You fucking asshole, Duprie! You put Jimmy in the hospital! I’m fucking glad you’re dead!!” The warm air fueled his anger. The heat in his lungs amplified his rage, and he tripped over his own feet just as he stepped close enough to nearly fall face-first into Le’Duprie’s grave.

  “I’d kill you again if I could, you fucker! You hear me?! You fucking hear me, Duprie?!!” He pounded his fist into the ground hard enough to offend the dead. His emotions were a jumble of angry fits that boiled inside until it poured out as a distraught and helpless sob. “You fucking asshole! Why’d you do it, huh?! Why’d you make me so fucking mad? …I…I didn’t…” He pleaded on his knees, the flowers surrounding him wilting and drying up as though they carried his pain. His tears hit the earth when he tried to finish what he started and say what it was he’d come to say. “…I didn’t want…didn’t mean for you to die…” He knew what he had to do; he just had a hell of a time doing it over his misdirected anger and pride. “…I’m…I’m…jus’…” Warm rain tapped at his back, bouncing off his shoulders and into the dirt and grass around him, and heavy droplets that sunk fast into the cemetery grounds dampened the soil under his fists as fresh tears escaped his swollen ducts. “…I’m… I’m sorry, man… I’m…jus’…so…fucking…sorry…”

  He put his forehead to the ground over his fists, belligerently crying puddles into soil, the amulet around his neck hanging heavy with the weight of his sorrows. A whisk of steam floated up from the charm at the slightest touch of the soil above the grave while the ground surrounding him drank in the warm, nefarious downpour.

  Marty rolled onto his back, exhausted from his intoxicated sobs, and his charm fell flat on his chest. Temperate drops continued to beat down and bounce off his woes, and like the soil below, when they hit the silver amulet around his neck, they evaporated into a vapor of thin, red mist.

  The night was dismally dark, despite the big-city lights being so close by, and with no stars in the sky, the rain was as black as the mud. Marty again began seeing images of Le’Duprie flash in his mind, but instead of reliving the fight, he’d see Jean-Claude’s toothless grin, ironically remembering the good times when they may’ve shared a joke or traded a few childish insults back and forth. He hadn’t given it much thought, but they’d shared as many jokes and laughs as they did scowls and blows. The good times never really stood out like the bad, but there were those that were in fact good just as often as not.

  His eyes were sealed tight while his clothes sopped up the lukewarm drizzle, and he caught the taste in his mouth in between breaths that slithered onto the back of his tongue. The moisture left the flavor of blood on his lips but he swallowed twice before he noticed. He spat when he did, rejecting the intrusion, but before long lost his fight for consciousness when the alcohol in his veins took a turn for the worse…

  The world around him then slipped away, leaving an assortment of his troubles waiting for his return, his mind finally drifting into an inebriated and dizzying dusk from which he might never again see the light of day.

  3

  An hour had passed and Marty was still out cold, awkwardly sprawled out on top of Le’Duprie’s muddy memorial like an old whisky-soaked rug. The blood-rain exhausted its source from the belly of the clouds but their consistency only spread further over the city; an infectious rash with pustules and boils like scabs across the sky.

  The only light that hung over the cemetery came from the streets. It reflected off the bottoms of the clouds and glowed eerily as a ruddy haze. Marty found himself halfway rolled over on his side with his right cheek pressed against the mud and the amulet around his neck resting beside him – a scorched circle impressed the earth directly below it. He was too drunk to make out the sound, but the soil beneath him stirred with a deep, muffled groan. The groan gradually turned to a grumble, then abruptly to a thumping of what sounded like heavy fists pounding against polished oak. The earth shook unsettled under his limp, drunken body, and the sounds of wood cracking and splintering beneath heaps of soil soon followed.

  Marty too began to stir uncomfortably; no doubt the commotion below him, amplified by his ear pressed against the dirt, was invading his tired dreams. He mumbled inebriated slurs in his sleep as his resting place was roused from below. His heavy shoulders gave the impression of being nudged while the grunting under him neared the surface. Earthworms and beetles and spiders in scores scurried from the dirt as if fleeing the path of something much bigger and potentially more disgusting. They stampeded over Marty’s frame as the mud behind his shoulders plumed into a mound, rolling him off the grave.

  Then, behind the rush of pests and rising mounds of dirt, just when the stirring earth seemed ready to burst, a hand as black as Hell broke through the unsettled surface, reaching desperately upward as though it’d have to dig through the air as well to discover its freedom. With its elbow stretched above ground, it slammed onto the loose soil, quaking the cemetery with newborn strength, a fierce grunting not far from the base of the limb.

  Marty, coming to after being shrugged aside, sluggishly turned the rest of the way over until he was resting on his back, eyes rolling under fluttering lids in an attempt to reestablish footing in the waking world. A rude smell poked at his nose and he whipped his head around from side-to-side, trying to elude the invading stench.

  A second mud-covered hand soon exploded violently alongside the first, again reaching eagerly into the air as if the freedom it represented was its just retribution. Grunts and grumbles found their way through ground between massive biceps, followed by the top of a bald, black head with four dozen stitches sewn across its back; the three-inch gash where Le’Duprie’s scalp was split open hard not to miss. Dirt and black spiders rained from his rising body while he gained footing in the world of the living, thrashing to clear his path of the dirt that was his tomb. He growled under strained attempts to stand, and when he finally made it far enough from his hole to place a foot on the ground, the entire cemetery shook under the weight of his new form.

  Jean-Claude planted one giant shoe next to the other and stood up straight – more erect and proud than ever before – and took in the sight of his own body through his pitch-black eyes. He was dressed in an all-black suit, painfully-orange tie (depictive of his team’s colors), and a black shirt under his jacket that was smudged with dirt and tens of insects still squirming across his body. He gazed down at his dry, flaky palms and slowly made two fists, breaking through the stiffness of rigor mortis with the cracking of his knuckles, the sound of skin stretching over b
ones like black leather gloves.

  He looked over the area around him through the grayscale of his lifeless eyes and down toward the ledger above his grave. Snarling, he glared at his name on the copper plaque, just now remembering who it was that’d put him in the ground in the first place.

  Marty, from ten feet away, was vaguely aware of the commotion, but wasn’t fully able to grasp it. The undead monster that was once Jean-Claude Le’Duprie finally noticed him stirring and aimed a deadly grimace his way. His brow was so intensely crunched over his stare that thick, wet dirt fell from the caked lines in his forehead, recognizing the greatest adversary of his former life resting so nearby. Then, that same violent glare loosened as he took his first few steps toward his prey, and his dry lips turned upward into an evil sneer.

  Marty tried putting his surroundings into context through his drunken haze: his first coherent impression being him spread out on the ground, rolling around in the mud, filthy and thoroughly over-intoxicated. He then remembered where he was and eventually looked up with a curious gaze toward the dominating figure above.

  Le’Duprie’s despicable sneer became an outright toothless smile when his eyes met the Priest’s, and he chuckled softly for a moment until it grew into a deep, booming laugh that filled the night with irony.

  The blackened figure in front of Marty slowly gained detail through his blurred vision, and that familiar, booming voice put the image of Le’Duprie’s face into focus. Marty forcibly blinked a few times to straighten his line of sight, and Le’Duprie finally stopped laughing long enough for the Priest to hear himself think. He propped up onto his elbows, still lying on his back, and Jean-Claude glared down anxiously, waiting for Marty to speak. But before he did, he instinctively reached for the medallion hanging off his chest and tucked it under his shirt. When Marty’s brain finally found his tongue, he spoke casually, as if the two had just happened upon each another at some random place of common interest.

  “…Oh…uh…hey, Shit Face…” He greeted the monster as if he were of no consequence, widened his eyes, then squinted in an attempt to stay cohesive. “…Nice suit…”

  Le’Duprie let out an amused gurgle as he leaned down, leading with his left hand, grabbing Marty by his shirt and jacket. When he pulled him to his feet, the back of his coat ripped wide with his enormous shoulders lifting Marty’s equally huge self above the ground.

  Marty, ironically, was still as lax as one could imagine, his toes barley able to touch the dirt below. He was almost impressed by Le’Duprie’s show of strength, but was childishly more distracted by the spiders and other bugs crawling over his dead opponent’s skin.

  Le’Duprie slowly pulled him in closer until they were only inches apart, and when Marty again found the focus to speak, his words were slurred and lazy from his still hammered swagger.

  “Whu…whuss with the bugs, Shit Face? …Yur team couldn’t afford a lid f’yur casket?”

  Jean-Claude was almost amused by Marty’s remark as he glared into his lazy eyes. He couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into his powerless opponent, but controlling his urges made the anticipation that much sweeter.

  The towering Hound smiled sinisterly; mouth watering, Marty suspended in his grasp…their two faces still only inches apart. He slowly opened his decaying maw to intimidate his prey while wet dirt and spiders drained from his pallet.

  “…Aww fuck, man, thas gross…” Marty turned his head and winced in disgust but kept his eyes on the monster’s movements. “C’n you close yur mouth, bro? …I’m not feelin’ so hot and yur…*hiccup*…breath is fuckin’ rancid…”

  The dead creature cocked his head back and to the side, then without warning, jolted his face to let loose a cough that exploded with leggy arthropods and black tar onto Marty’s disgusted frown.

  He kicked and squirmed his way loose from Le’Duprie’s grip, ripping his shirt to pieces to get free. Frantically swatting at his face, he stumbled from the grave, breaking the chain from around his neck before falling skittishly on his seat. His amulet hit the moist dirt with a hiss and sunk an inch into the ground while he back-peddled further from where it fell.

  The repulsive variety of six and eight-legged vermin swarming on his face and into his mouth were the least of his problems, as the black gunk hosting them seeped into his eyes, singeing his lashes and burning his retinas. He let out a painful and panicked groan and clawed at his own face, scraping handfuls of insects and black vomit from his cheeks and eye-sockets while flinging gunk to the floor. He could hear the monster stepping closer and laughing that horrible, dark laugh of sickening glee, so he swung his arms out blindly in hopes to keep the dreaded dead-man at bay.

  “Stay the fuck away from me, Duprie!” Jean-Claude was still chuckling while approaching him from what sounded like all angles, but Marty couldn’t see a thing through his stinging eyes. “You’re fucking dead! …I’m drunk out of my fucking skull, and you’re deader than dog shit, you fuck!!”

  “If…I am…dead…” The walking corpse of Jean-Claude decided to speak, and when he did, his inflection carried a power in it that Marty could feel clenching at his heart. “…then, this is your dream…and…I……am your nightmare.”

  He let an atrocious blow rain down on Marty’s unsettled chin that spun his opponent around and very likely cracked his jaw out of place. A yelp jumped from Marty’s mouth with the hit then a winded grunt as his body met the dirt.

  The pain from the punch was ridiculous, but he was more concerned with not being able to see. His t-shirt was tattered and torn so he used his jacket’s sleeve to wipe the burning from his eyes, all the while his protective charm steamed in the mud only a few feet away.

  “Nos’ing more funny to say now, ass fuckar?” Even after death Le’Duprie couldn’t seem to get his insults right.

  Marty madly scrubbed his eyes until they teared up and washed away some pain. “Ass fucker?” He figured he’d distract his opponent with his wit as he always had in the past. He was scarred shitless, but would do whatever he could to make Jean-Claude think otherwise. “Are you comin’ on t’me, Shit-Mouth? …’Cuz, you should know by now…we don’t play fer the same team.”

  Le’Duprie worked his way behind him as Marty got as far up as his knees, hunched forward with his back toward the monster. J.C. reached out with a hand on the Priest’s shoulder and spun him around as the drunkard continued to chatter, trying to distract himself from his own pain and fear.

  “Whoa! Hold on, man… I like girls. …You get that through yur hockey helmet, Bug-Boy? Girls!”

  His jesting was cut short when Le’Duprie grabbed him by the throat and lifted him to his feet.

  He could almost see clearly now, through the burn and blur… Clearly enough, as it would seem, to see that the dead beast formerly known as “Shit Face” was merely inches away, staring him ferociously eye to eye…with what looked like shit caked all over his face…

  He used his last breath to squeeze out another remark, being helpless now to do much of anything else.

  “Yur…yur not gonna…k-k-k-kiss me…are you?”

  The monster growled angrily at his tone and cocked back his rigid fist, punching it through Marty’s stomach. He reached into his body and grabbed a handful of intestines like they were the stuffing inside of a puppet and pulled them into plain sight. Marty was so shocked from the pain he couldn’t even scream, but if he could, he wouldn’t have been able to with Jean-Claude’s other fist still clamped around his throat.

  The sickening beast of a corpse smiled as he lifted Marty’s insides to his face and shoveled a fistful into his mouth. Marty couldn’t do anything other than gargle on the blood rising from his stomach as he helplessly watched his former friend and foe gnaw on his guts in front of him. His moist intestines made a quaint, squishing sound when they were chewed, and blood spurt from the holes in J.C.’s top row of teeth, painting Marty’s face with the taste of his
own bowels.

  Soon, Marty could hear nothing but his heart pounding erratically inside him from the genuine fear felt for the first time since this night began, and he watched in horror as another lump in the monster’s throat sunk while he swallowed a chunk of his disemboweled meat.

  Le’Duprie started laughing again after he punched his way back in and pulled out a second helping of organs. He laughed even louder when he sadistically smeared his own face with them like a three-year-old overly enthused about his spaghetti.

  With his merciless victory nearly complete, he let loose his grip on Marty’s neck and dropped him into the freshly dug grave that previously housed the dead-man before he rose into the night as the people-eating monster he was seemingly so proud to be.

  Jean-Claude stood triumphant over his first kill, so pleased with himself that he was able to momentarily refrain from eating the rest of the intestines he still held dangling from his fists. Instead, he just stared for a few moments, invigorated by the rush that the blood and flesh filled his chest with, and when he felt he’d consumed every ounce of enjoyment from the view he’d earned, he took in a deep breath and let it out as a monstrous roar.