by Sam Witt
Amy stood next to Dick, hands briskly rubbing her arms as she chomped her gum. She spat a pink wad against the wall and unwrapped a new piece. She jammed the pink stick in her mouth and paced back and forth, chomping at her gum until her nerves calmed enough to speak. “Now what?”
Dick motioned for Randall to get closer to the girl. Her ears were long and tapered to points, their interiors filled with complex circular channels. Her nose was a turned-up spade, the nostrils gapping and surrounded by inflamed pink frills that fluttered with every breath. “You getting this?”
Randall gave Dick a thumbs up and kept shooting.
Dick stared down at the wounded girl. She’d taken Mickey and killed Troy, but he still felt sick looking at the gaping wound he’d inflicted. He had to get this over before he lost his nerve. “Where is she?”
The girl turned her head away from Dick, eyes squeezed tighter. “Ye’re dead,” she whispered, “they’ll bleed ya dry fer comin’ here.”
Dick tapped her knee with his pistol’s barrel. He had to get her to take them to Mickey, or his plan, the plan that had killed Troy, was all for nothing. “Where is she?”
The girl squinted against the bright light, black eyes burning with hatred. “She’s mine. I took her.”
Dick sighed and stood. Amy was staring at him, her eyes brimming with tears. Since he’d rescued her, she’d been chewing gum and staring at him like he was a monster himself. She hadn’t said a word, just stood and stared and trembled while she chomped her gum. She drove him crazy.
He lifted his boot and rested it against the girl’s arm, just below the oozing gunshot wound. “She’s not yours. You’re going to take us to her, and then you’re going to show us the way out of this fucking cave.”
Dick put weight on the girl’s arm and watched as the wound gaped open, scorched flesh yawning to reveal glistening red meat beneath. The girl’s teeth gnashed, chewing through her lip. She whimpered and beat the floor with her uninjured arm, a scream building in her chest. Dick kept pushing until fresh blood flowed, bright red in the camera’s white light. Tears ran from the corners of the girl’s eyes and carved jagged tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. “Where is she?”
She spat bloody phlegm at Dick, defiance burning through the pain. “Fuck ya, asshole.”
He couldn’t believe this shit. Dick paced away from the girl, fingers clenching around the pistol, brain burning with frustration. He was trying to make everything easy for people. All they had to do was listen to him, just do what he fucking asked, and everything would be fine. But no. They fought him every step of the way. Now he had one member of his crew missing, one dead, and another who’d tried to kill him. All of that, and now the freaky bitch wanted to spit on him? No. Fuck that noise.
Dick rushed at her, face hot with rage. Her black eyes stared at him, daring him, defying him. His hand sliced through the air, bashing the butt of the pistol across her face. Something crunched under the impact, and liquid heat poured over his fingers. His stomach lurched, the blind rage pushed back by horror at what he’d done. He stepped back, and the camera’s light exposed the damage he’d inflicted.
Blood smeared across the girl’s face, a crimson flood gushed from her nose and over her lips and jaw. Her left cheek was swollen and bruised, turning the deep purple of an overripe plum. The eye on that side was ballooning up, lids pushed together until only a narrow slit of an opening remained. But her right eye no longer stared at him. She kept her gaze averted, the defiance knocked out of her.
Now we’re getting somewhere, Dick thought, a hot rush of exhilaration burning in his chest.
He grabbed her hair and turned her face toward his. “Where is she?”
The girl’s lips trembled, and she looked away, fear etched into her features.
Dick whipped her hair and banged her head off the wall. “Where is she?”
The girl’s good eye rolled in its socket, and her lips twitched, drooling blood. She said something, but the words low and slurred.
Dick gave her hair a tug, and she squealed. “Speak up.”
Amy put a hand on Dick’s gun hand, her touch tentative. “That’s enough,” she whispered.
Dick threw her hand off. “It’s enough when we have Mickey back.”
The girl gulped to clear the blood running down her throat. Her nose was distorted, a mushy flap of broken meat so swollen and clogged with blood it was useless for breathing. She turned her good eye to Dick and cleared her throat. “I’ll show ya. Don’t hurt me no more.”
Dick held onto her hair, ready to bash her head against the wall. She’d killed one of his friends, right in front of him, he had to keep reminding himself of that. He was in charge here, the freak had to what he said. He didn’t care that she looked like a filthy teenager with bad genetics, she was a monster.
She leaned against the wall and pushed with her legs to stand. Dick helped her along by pulling her hair, hoisting her onto her feet and tearing out little chunks of her scalp at the same time. “I’m right behind you,” he said, “and if you fuck with us, I will put a bullet right through the back of your deformed skull.”
The girl tried to nod, but his grip on her hair stopped her. Dick saw the last of the fight leech out of the girl, she took a shuffling step, shoulders slumped, head bowed. He released her hair and followed her into the darkness.
Randall kept the light trained on them, but the tunnels were narrower where she led. The girl kept stopping and clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
Clickclickclick.
The sound brought Troy’s death rushing back and Dick felt his finger closing around the pistol’s trigger. He wanted to put the pistol against the back of her head and pull the trigger.
Amy’s hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his rage. She leaned in close, a cloud of her bubble gum breath engulfing Dick’s head. “This could be a trap,” she whispered.
Dick shook his head. He half turned to Amy and said, “She’s too hurt, too scared. She knows if she tries anything, she gets a bullet to the brain.”
Amy squeezed Dick’s shoulder. “What if she doesn’t care?”
Dick tried to ignore his co-host’s words and focus on following the girl. She led them through one turn after another, clicking as she went, moving with confidence despite her injury. Randall was huffing and puffing at the rear, struggling to keep the light on the girl. She was at home here, used to moving through the darkness, familiar with every turn and twist in the passages. Where Dick found himself slipping on puddles of seeping water or stubbing his toes on rocky outcroppings, the girl dodged around obstacles without effort. This was her home. Here, he was the intruder.
Clickclickclick.
The girl ducked inside a short tunnel, and Dick managed to bang the top of his head against the rock before he could follow. He heard Amy and Randall struggling behind him, grunting and cursing as they tried to get into the tunnel. The light from Randall’s camera was useless here, blocked by Amy and Dick’s body so it shed no light past them at all. Even Dick’s headlamp only shone far enough ahead to show him his next few steps before it, too, was blocked by the body of their captive guide.
Clickclickclick.
Tickticktick.
Dick’s stomach dropped. That sound hadn’t come from the girl ahead of him. Its echoes had come from somewhere behind them.
Tickticktick.
The girl dropped into the darkness ahead of Dick, vanishing as if she’d been swallowed by the floor. He slowed, afraid of running into a trap, nervous sweat pouring down his back. He could feel something behind them, hunting them.
Tickticktick.
Randall shouted in surprise, and Amy crashed into Dick’s back. He braced himself, trying not to be thrown forward into whatever hole the girl had dropped into. Amy was screaming, shoving at his back even as he screamed back for her to stop, just stop, so he could find out what was ahead of them.
Tickticktick.
A heavier impact drove Amy forward,
shoving Dick off his feet. The tunnel sloped away at a steep angle, and he rolled down it, elbows and knees smacking off the stony floor as he curled into a ball to avoid a skull-crushing landing. He bounced hard at the end of the slope and flopped onto his back, spreadeagled.
Dick scrambled back to his feet, and his headlamp stabbed at the darkness. Pale bodies fled from the light, darting all around him. There had to be close to fifty of them, all turning to stare at Dick and his crew.
13
Guttering blue flames flickered to life around the edges of a bowl-shaped cavern, shedding a grimy light that sent shadows dancing across the floor and up the walls. Dick blinked against the weird light and held his gun out, stabbing it into the shadows before him. The weapon kept the freaks at bay; they were filthy mutants with a taste for blood, but they definitely knew what a gun was. Dick’s worry was that soon they wouldn’t care.
They’d gathered before a freakish altar, a massive thing fashioned from countless bones and crudely sharpened blades. The altar had the shape of an enormous bat’s head, its bestial snout filled with sword-like teeth and eyes that bled blue fire. Luminous silver smoke drifted from the shrine’s mouth to form a gauzy cloud around the freaks’ heads. They sucked it in then blew it out along with a murmuring chant.
Amy and Randall helped each other back to their feet. There was a gash across Amy’s forehead that drooled blood into her eyes like a crimson veil. Randall kept trying to get a look at his back, which Dick could see was striped with a trio of long, red slashes. More of the pale people were coming down the slope behind them, grinning in the blue light.
“I told you,” Amy started, but Dick’s sharp glare knocked the rest of the words out of her mouth.
Randall was panting and turning in place. He used the light as a weapon, driving their pursuers back. They clenched their eyes against the blinding white, and howled in frustration. But Dick knew it wouldn’t take them long to recover from the light, and then they were all fucked.
“We have to get out of this room,” he whispered. “There’s another ledge that winds up the far side over there. I think we can get ahead of them and go up that way.”
The ledge was a hundred feet away and no more than two feet wide. It started at the bottom of the bowl before ascending sharply and looping around the perimeter to the room. He couldn’t see where it led, but he needed to believe it was somewhere better than down here with a bunch of albino bat-faced people who wanted to eat his face.
Amy clenched his free arm so tight it tingled with the pain of pinched nerves. “What about Mickey?”
Dick’s anger flared at the reminder of their missing crew member. “You want to go to war with all of these right now?”
The mutants were shuffling closer together, their chant gathering steam and growing louder. Dick could feel them winding up to attack. If they rushed him, even the gun wasn’t going to do them any good.
Amy stared at him, her fingers digging into his bicep. “I knew you’d do this. You’re going to run away, because it’s easier, because it makes things simpler. When we get back home, that’ll be two less people to share the cash. Two dead people who can’t accuse you of the bullshit you did that pushed us all down here in the first place.”
He tore his arm out of her grasp and his hand froze, poised to strike. That hadn’t been what he was thinking, not at all, but there was no sense in denying the sense of Amy’s words. They’d pooled their money, went deep into debt, for this one last stab at fame and glory. Except, things had gone wrong, and not everyone made it out.
“I tried,” he spat at Amy. “But now’s the time to run. We don’t even know where she is.”
Amy’s finger stabbed toward the smoking altar then rose to the ceiling above it. Ropes hung from D-rings mounted in the cavern’s ceiling, and bodies dangled from them. He could see Mickey’s blonde ponytail swaying above the blue flames. “We do know where she is.”
Dick flicked his eyes back to the freaks on the slope behind them. They’d made it to the cavern floor and were edging toward the light, shielding their eyes with their hands and ticktickticking. The chanters were building up for their attack, too, edging forward and stamping their feet. Their raised voices grated on Dick’s ears. They still avoided the gun as he moved it from side to side, and none were willing to step into the white glare of the camera, but that was all about to change. Rage was replacing their fear. Time was up. “Okay,” he said, licking his lips. “There’s only one way we can make this work.”
Amy and Randall gathered closer and Dick felt sick to his stomach. After all they’d been through, they still saw him as the boss, as the man who’d get them through this. He started laying out his plan. “When I say the word, I want the two of you to run for that ledge over there. Just go, don’t wait for me. I’m going after Mickey.”
Amy looked at him, studied his face. “There’s no way that works.”
Dick shrugged. “I don’t have any other ideas. It’s the only chance Mickey has. This shit is all my fault anyway, right? I’ll be the one to try and get her.”
Randall turned the light on Dick for a moment. “Good luck, boss.”
“Yeah,” Dick muttered to himself, “sure.”
Then to his crew, “We’re only going to have one shot at this. On three.”
Amy took off on two, head down, arms and legs pumping for all she was worth. Dick had counted on her trying to get a head start. Randall started to run, and Dick reached out and ripped the camera from his shoulder.
The cameraman lost his footing, and Dick heard Randall’s knee give out with a liquid pop. Randall shouted for Amy, but she was almost to the ledge. Her sudden break for it had sent the chanting mutants into a frenzy and the whole pack of them were on her tail.
Dick shone the light on the mutants that had been following the crew, startling them with the sudden blast of light. “Sorry, Randy,” he said then broke into a run.
He kept the light trained on the nearest freaks, using it to give him the slight edge he needed. He hit the slope running, and once he reached the top of the slope, he paused to train the still-shooting camera on the action behind him. The horde of mutants chased Amy, pouring up the ledge after her in a white tide of flailing limbs and snapping teeth. She had a lead on them, but Dick didn’t think it would last long. This was the monsters’ home, after all, and they were mad as hell that anyone had intruded on their territory. “It didn’t have to be this way,” he muttered. Then, “Fuck you, Amy.”
He aim the camera at Randall, who struggled across the cavern floor toward Dick. His bad leg trailed behind him, and tears streamed down Randall’s face, leaving his cheeks pink and shiny. Dick focused the camera on Randall, soaking in the scene’s hopelessness and fear. There’d never been anything like this on television before. Lonny was going to lose his fucking mind. Sure, they’d have to make some edits, clean up some things so Dick didn’t end up in jail, but this was all gold. Dick felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. The nightmare was over.
Something slammed into the camera, twisting it off Dick’s shoulder and driving him back into the tunnel. A fist grazed his forehead, and he backpedaled, struggling to keep the camera from falling to the floor. If he didn’t get out of here with the footage, then all of this really would be for nothing.
The girl he’d shot surged after him, her wounded arm flopping at her side. “Kill ya,” she grunted and slashed at his face with her fingernails.
Dick wasn’t fast enough to dodge the attack, and her nails ripped bloody furrows down his cheek. The pain was electrifying, a raw, animal reminder that he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
The wounded girl came at him again, ropes of saliva dangling from her gnashing, bloody teeth. She scratched his camera arm, drawing more blood then lunged at him with her mouth open.
Dick shouted in surprise and jammed the pistol into her mouth. Her front teeth sheared off on the gun’s barrel, flying away like ivory toothpicks. She gagged as the barrel slammed into the b
ack of her throat and her eyes widened in pained surprise.
He pulled the trigger, and the back of her head erupted in a fountain of gore. The camera’s light caught chunks of scalp, greasy hair still clinging to them, fly through the darkness. Scraps of yellowing bone and globs of splattered gray matter seemed frozen in flight, captured by the blazing light.
The girl sagged to her knees, dragging Dick’s gun arm down. Her death convulsions had locked her teeth around the barrel, holding it captive inside her ruined head. Her face was turned up toward him, eyes bulging from the pressure of the bullet’s passage, chipped teeth framing the barrel. He leaned against the wall and shoved her off with a boot, grimacing at the squeal of her broken teeth against the metal barrel. She fell to the floor, face down, revealing the gory crater in the back of her head. Dick stared down at the dead girl, revulsion and pride at war in his gut.
Dick turned and headed into the tunnel, ignoring Randall’s cries for help and Amy’s echoing screams.
14
Amy spat out her gum and ran until her lungs were on fire. The ledge was narrow and the slope severe, which made every step a neck-breaking hazard. She didn’t have any time to consider the danger, though, and kept running as fast as she could. Her lead was narrow to begin with, she didn’t know how long it would take her pursuers to catch her.
She hated Dick for stealing from her, for dragging them all down into this subterranean hell. If I ever see you again, she swore, I’ll chew your goddamned face off.
The thought of killing Dick put an extra spring in her step. She could do this. She was young and healthy, in the best shape of her life. She hadn’t spent two hours on the treadmill every day just to keep her ass tight for the cameras. She could outrun the pack of cannibals. She would.
