Gristle

by Mark Allen

  Holly glanced at Kevin, then looked back at her father with sadness on her face. She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Goodbye, daddy,” she said softly, then turned and walked away.

  Larry’s heart constricted as she headed toward the door, leaving him to his fate. That same heart began hammering wildly as he realized this might be the last time he ever saw her, that just minutes from now, maybe even seconds, he might very well be dead. There was no mercy in Kevin’s kill-cold eyes and no chance on God’s green earth of surviving a point-blank shotgun blast.

  Holly stopped next to Kevin, put her hand on his arm, and said, “I’m not going to ask you to forgive him—I can’t ask you to do something I’m not sure I can do myself—but I am going to ask you not to pull that trigger.” Her voice thickened with emotion and she swallowed hard. “He’s my father, Kevin. The only one I have. Killing him won’t bring yours back. It will just leave me without one too.”

  Her hand slipped away from his arm. “I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

  When she was gone, Larry looked at Kevin, seeing the rage in his eyes. He couldn’t imagine what the young man was feeling. First his mother was brutally murdered, then his dad turned into a drunk, then he got locked away, and then days after his release his father got savagely slaughtered. No doubt about it, Kevin Colter had been through some serious hell and Larry was to blame for the latter portion.

  Kevin wanted to kill him and even as scared witless as he was, Larry could hardly blame the kid. Vengeance is a normal human instinct and one not easily denied. Larry felt fear-sweat ooze down his face and leave an oily sheen on his upper lip as he awaited the shotgun blast that would send him to his eternal judgment.

  Kevin just stared at him, teeth clenched, a vein in his jaw pulsing an angry rhythm. His eyes were colder than a dead viper. He raised the gun and curled his finger around the trigger. But he didn’t pull it. Not yet. He seemed to be waiting for something. At that moment Larry realized that Kevin didn’t just want him dead, he wanted him broken.

  He collapsed into sobs, clasping his hands in front of him in the classic prayer formation as he desperately pleaded with his would-be killer. “Please, Kevin, forgive me!”

  Kevin stepped forward and tucked the steel bore of the shotgun under Larry’s chin. He levered the preacher’s head up and back so that the slug would blow out the top of his skull and paint the picture of Jesus on the wall behind him with red, wet gore. With his lips peeled back from his jagged teeth, Kevin smiled in animalistic rage and said, “Fuck forgiveness.”

  “NO, WAIT!”

  Kevin pulled the trigger.

  Larry screamed.

  Click!

  The firing pin fell on an empty chamber.

  Larry soiled himself.

  His muscles suddenly failed him and he fell from his chair to sprawl on the carpet as the stench of his shame filled the small office.

  Kevin towered above him, the unloaded shotgun canted over his shoulder. “I’ll let God deal with you, preacher,” he rasped. “Until then, you fucking live with it.”

  Larry curled into a sobbing mess and it took all of Kevin’s willpower not to stomp on the bastard’s skull until it broke into tiny eggshell pieces. But in the end, he let him live. Not for his sake, but for Holly's.

  As he walked through the foyer toward the front door, he fed four shells into the shotgun. Bill was still out there somewhere and until he was caught or killed, Kevin planned to always have a loaded gun within reach. He had his head down as he pushed open the front door of the church to walk outside, but it snapped up when he heard Holly’s strangled cry. What he saw sent fear slamming through him.

  Bill stood beside the Jeep, holding Holly hostage in front of him. One arm snaked around her throat like a python while the other hand pressed a gun to her temple.

  A gun Kevin had seen before—a Colt .45 with a dragon etched on the grips.

  Hot rage joined the cold fear coursing through his veins. His eyes narrowed to angry slits as he locked gazes with Bill. “Where’d you get that gun?”

  Bill’s face was caked with dirt so his teeth gleamed shockingly white when he grinned and said, “This piece of hot lead hardware? Had it a long time.”

  “So you’re the one who killed my mother.” It wasn’t a question and Kevin gritted the revelation through clenched teeth.

  “Depends on how ya look at it,” said Bill. “Way I see it, your father killed your mother by being a pussy, but I guess if ya wanna be all technical about it, then yeah, I put the bullet through your momma’s brain.”

  “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bill drawled. “Spare me all the threats and tough guy talk. I think we both know how this plays out, right?”

  Kevin pulled his eyes away from Bill and looked at Holly. Her face was a mask of fear and her thin body trembled in Bill’s grasp. Kevin knew he needed to postpone thoughts of vengeance right now and focus on saving the woman he had come to care for so much. “Let her go,” he said.

  “We’ll see about that,” Bill replied. “Kind of depends on you.” He waggled the gun without moving the muzzle away from Holly’s head. “You see those notches in the handle? Cool, huh? That sixth one is your mother, by the way.”

  Kevin bared his teeth in a wolfish snarl but bit back the curses he wanted to hurl at the man who had taken so much from him.

  “Anyway,” Bill continued, “I’m gonna put another notch on this gun today, but whether that notch is for you or for this bitch is entirely in your hands.”

  Kevin felt his blood run cold. The shotgun was a useless, leaden weight in his hands. With Bill holding Holly in front of him in such a way that less than a third of his head was visible, the shotgun simply lacked the precise accuracy necessary to nail a kill-shot. Someone with more skill might be able to put a slug in Bill’s eyeball, but Kevin was not that person. He would more likely just splatter Holly’s skull. He couldn’t take the risk. He would have to find another way.

  Bill ground the muzzle of the .45 against Holly’s temple while his other hand reached down and groped her breast, dirty fingers digging in like cruel claws. “I should just execute you right here and then make your boyfriend watch while I fuck your corpse.”

  Holly whimpered in terror and her eyes sought Kevin, desperately pleading.

  Kevin felt horror punch him deep in the guts like an icy fist. Bill’s deadly, vulgar threat was too ghastly to even imagine; worse, he knew the man was deranged enough to carry it out. “No,” he said. “Please … don’t.”

  “That’s up to you.” Bill’s voice dripped with amused malice. “You see, I’m gonna give you a chance to save your girlfriend.”

  By now the deja-vu was practically palpable and Kevin knew exactly what he was supposed to say, the script he was expected to follow. “I’ll do anything you want,” he said. “Just don’t hurt her.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Bill. “Now turn that shotgun around and tuck the barrel under your chin nice and tight. Right there above the lump in your throat.”

  Kevin’s mind scrambled for a way out of this mess as he slowly complied. As the gaping bore of the shotgun touched the skin under jaw, right next to a frantically-pulsing vein, desperate horror churned through him. Despite the coolness of the evening, he felt fear-sweat burst from every pore. I wonder if this is what dad felt like, he thought.

  “Good boy,” said Bill. “Now, I think ya know what I want ya to do next.”

  “Why don’t you stop hiding behind a helpless woman?” Kevin taunted. “Let her go, we both put down our guns, and settle this like men.”

  Bill grinned. “Nice try.”

  “What’s the matter, ain’t got no balls?”

  Bill’s grin abruptly vanished. “I’m gonna bury my balls in your girlfriend’s ass if ya don’t shut your mouth and pull that fuckin’ trigger.”

  Kevin looked at Holly and for the briefest of moments saw not her face, but his mother’s. He vividly remembered
the ghastly horror of watching her die. He couldn’t let the same thing happen to Holly.

  “Do it!” Bill snapped. “Or so help me God, I’ll blow her fuckin’ brains out.”

  Kevin knew all too well that Bill wasn’t bluffing. He reached down and placed his finger in the trigger guard. With the shotgun turned around the way it was, he would have to push the trigger rather than pull it. Not that it mattered; the result would be the same. He wondered if he would even feel the slug burn through his brain and was surprised to find that he didn’t really care. As long as it saved Holly, it would be worth it.

  Still, he hesitated, trying to buy some time. As long as there was life, there was hope … hope of finding a resolution that didn’t require him to blow his head off.

  Holly was staring at him intensely. She couldn’t move her head with the .45 pressed against it, but her eyes conveyed a message. No. Don’t do it.

  “Ain’t got the guts, hey?” Bill taunted. “Your dad had the same problem. So I’ll give you the same incentive I gave him. I’m gonna rattle off a five count. If I reach five and you haven’t put a bullet through your head, then I’m gonna put one through this bitch’s. Got it? Right here—”

  “Yeah, I know the rest.” Kevin cut him off. “Right here, right now, I am God. Life or death, the choice is mine. I’ve heard this shit before, remember?”

  Without warning, Bill started the countdown. “One.”

  Kevin’s heart—and his last fragile shreds of hope—sank. He was a dead man. No choice. He would wait until Bill got to four and absent a sudden miracle, he would press the trigger and hope his sacrifice saved Holly.

  “Two.”

  Kevin caught movement in the Jeep next to Bill and Holly. The driver’s side window was lowered halfway and a large spider crawled up the inside of the glass. Kevin did a double-take. It looked exactly like the spider he had glimpsed on his father’s shoulder as he hung on the cross. Kevin had no doubt that he was looking at Holly’s precious Mr. Brown.

  Suddenly the doors of the church flew open and Larry Wainwright raced down the steps screaming, “Get your hands off my daughter!” His hair was wild and his pants reeked of shit as he charged Bill with the recklessness of a man who has nothing left to lose.

  Two things happened at once.

  Mr. Brown reached the top of the window…

  …and Bill swung the .45 away from Holly’s head long enough to put a bullet in Larry.

  Holly screamed, “NO!” as her father spun around like a blood-spraying dervish before tumbling awkwardly to the ground.

  Kevin saw Mr. Brown hurl itself from the window. The strange spider arced through the air in a gravity-defying leap. It landed right on Bill’s surprised face, its eight legs straddling his right eye. The spider immediately sank its dripping, oversized fangs into Bill’s right eyeball which popped like a punctured pimple in a spurt of white corneal fluid.

  Bill howled like an agonized banshee. He let go of Holly and staggered backward. As she ran frantically to her fallen father, he tripped over his own stumbling feet and fell to the ground, the spider riding his face all the way down. His head bounced off the blacktop with a thud.

  Kevin quickly closed the distance between them in several long strides, but as he stood over the cannibal leader, he saw there was no need to rush. Bill’s limbs twitched a spastic rhythm as the venom sizzled through his veins and attacked his nervous system. The dragon-etched .45 lay a few feet away, fallen from poisoned fingers.

  Kevin tossed aside the shotgun, picked up the Colt, and knelt beside Bill as Mr. Brown moved away, taking up position nearby, watching with eerily intelligent eyes. Kevin could have almost swore the spider nodded in approval as he pressed the muzzle of the .45 under the man’s chin, right above the lump in his throat. Bill’s remaining eye twitched in its socket as it fixed on him and Kevin relished the fear he saw in the shuddering orb.

  “Bad news, Bill,” he said. “I’m gonna finish that countdown for you and when I reach five, I’m going to put a bullet in your throat. Right here, right now, I am God. Life or death, the choice is all mine.” He smiled grimly. “And you’re going to fucking die.”

  Bill gurgled and white froth spilled from the corners of his mouth.

  “One,” Kevin said, starting the countdown. “Two. Thr—aw, fuck it.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The gunshot thundered through the cool Adirondack air.

  Bill jerked from the point-blank impact of the bullet ripping through his neck. The muzzle flash scorched the skin around the entry hole a moment before blood jetted from the wound, propelled by air escaping from a punctured esophagus.

  Kevin backed away to avoid the crimson fountain and stared down at his dying enemy with vengeful satisfaction as Bill writhed and twitched and choked.

  A massive BOOM! caused him to nearly jump out of his skin.

  Bill’s crotch exploded as if someone had slipped a grenade down his pants.

  BOOM!

  His stomach erupted in a hot, gushing mess of viscera.

  BOOM!

  His chest came apart in a rupturing burst of torn flesh and shattered sternum.

  Kevin whipped his head around to see Larry Wainwright holding the shotgun. There was blood on his side where Bill’s bullet had grazed him and he was wobbly on his feet. But his finger was steady on the trigger and hate burned in his eyes.

  BOOM!

  The fourth and final shot hammered Bill smack in the face and turned his head into something resembling wet dog food.

  Larry hobbled over and spat on the splattered corpse. “When you get to Hell,” he snarled, “tell the devil the last thing you ate was a fucking bullet.”

  His legs suddenly gave out. The shotgun tumbled from his hands as he reached out for support. Kevin caught one arm and Holly took the other, bearing his weight.

  “It’s all right, dad,” she said. “We’ve got you.”

  The preacher’s face was pale but he still managed to smile weakly at his daughter. Blood from his wound—it looked like the bullet might have bounced off a rib—dripped onto the ground.

  Holly looked over at Kevin. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

  “We all need to get to the hospital,” said Kevin. “Help me get him in the Jeep.”

  Working together, they managed to load Larry into the Jeep, stretched out across the back seat. The stench from his soiled pants filled the interior and blood spilled from his wound, but nobody cared. Larry’s reckless, sacrificial charge at Bill had been the catalyst that saved the day. He had more than earned the right to bleed all over the leather.

  Holly started to climb into the passenger seat, but suddenly paused. “Wait, where’s Mr. Brown?”

  They looked around but there was no sign of the strange spider. Holly’s eyes searched the entire church parking lot, growing more worried with each passing second, but Mr. Brown was nowhere to be found.

  Her shoulders slumped. “He’s gone,” she said softly with tears in her eyes. “He was with me the whole time. He never left me. But now he’s gone.”

  Kevin put his arm around her shoulders. “I guess all that matters is that he was there when you needed him, right? Maybe you just don’t need him anymore.”

  She leaned into him and smiled. “Maybe I have somebody else.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her softly. “Maybe you do,” he said. “Maybe you do.”

  They climbed into Jeep and drove away.

  Perched on the highest point of the cross that crested the church steeple, bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun, Mr. Brown watched vigilantly until they were gone … and then it went home.

  --THE END--

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Mark Allen writes hard-hitting fiction that slams like a bullet between the eyes or a punch to the guts, but never loses sight of the heart and soul. His writing is tough and uncompromising and he uses words like a scalpel, carving through the surface layers to rip open the bleeding secrets beneath.
He currently resides in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York with enough firepower and ammunition to ensure he is never bothered by door-to-door salesmen.

  Derric Miller writes horror fiction; the darker, the better. He also writes about rock ‘n’ roll as the managing editor at Hardrock Haven (www.hardrockhaven.net). He’s kind of tall too.