The Bride Stripped Bare

by Rob Bliss

  Occasionally, we stopped, our shoes silent, only our breathing heavy. We listened back down the tunnel and, thankfully, heard nothing. No running steps, no voices, no gunfire. I relaxed a little more, feeling safe. Still cold, wondering how far beneath the Earth’s surface we were. Down far enough so that someone on the surface wouldn’t be able to hear us? If Paco was a professional drug smuggler, then the tunnel wall would have to be deep enough to stay hidden from any authority who may have suspected it existed. Ground-penetrating radar could probably find it, but if no one knew it existed, then no one would look for it.

  I wanted to ask Gord how long Paco had been in operation. Did he know any details of the operation? When the tunnel was built, who built it, how was it dug without anyone taking notice, and did the entire family know it existed? Lots of question, still. But I doubted Gord knew (Paco being a very secretive man), or would tell me. Those details could maybe be answered at some later time. When we were safely finished our subterranean trek, our heads popping up like gophers into a new country.

  I felt safer. More confident. Started thinking of Gord and me as the old friends we were when we were kids, on a hike into the unknown, enjoying the adventure. I caught myself smiling in the dark.

  “What are you smiling at?” Gord asked, humor in his tone, goggles bulging his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, my voice bouncing off the stone that surrounded us. “I feel good. This is kinda fun.”

  “Yeah,” Gord said. “I guess it is.”

  Then we froze. Two small lights were far ahead in the tunnel, spaced apart, but wavering in and out of each other, moving, bouncing.

  Accompanied by the sound of whining engines.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 9

  Gord told me to stand hard back against the wall on one side of the tunnel, stay low, keep my goggles on, keep the rifle barrel aimed at the target. And don’t shoot him by accident. He’d be on the other side of the tunnel and a little behind me. We’d take whichever headlight—motorcycle, by the sound of the engines—was closest to us. Playing zones. Even if the targets crossed and switched sides, I was to stay on the one closest to me.

  “Spray the bastard with bullets,” he instructed. “But try not to shoot the wall too much. Ricochet. Don’t throw a grenade—we’re in close quarters and you’ll kill us all. Don’t fire until I do. They probably won’t see us until they’re close enough for us to shoot them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Duh, probably family. Canadian cousins who got the word by CB, text, satellite phone. Not good, but if there are only two of them squeezing us in, our chances are better than if we head back to fight the American branch of the family tree.”

  I obeyed orders, kept low, made sure the safety was off and the goggles on. It was as easy to see Gord or anything else through the gun scope with the goggles on, but I figured with a machine gun one didn’t have to be too precise. Shoot a shitload of rounds and hope that one of them hit the target. I had my back half turned to press against the wall to buttress me to the rifle’s kickback. Didn’t want to be knocked on my ass again, especially if this time the enemy had guns too.

  The guttural whine of their engines increased in echo as they approached. Headlights grew from pinpricks to klieg lights. Which didn’t help to see them through the goggles, on either night or normal visions. I wanted to aim for the light to knock it out and give Gord and me an advantage of seeing them but not being seen, but I knew I had to go for a kill shot. Just above the light, hoping the rider wasn’t too hunkered low for my bullets to pass over.

  I was thinking too much. I had a machine gun, not a sniper rifle, with a full clip and a few more in my pockets.

  Spray the fucker. The best strategy.

  I jolted and the rifle almost slipped from my hands when I heard a gun close to my ear. Looked over—it was just Gord, the cave echo increasing the sound of the bullet’s blast. I clicked in—he had started shooting—that was my cue to shoot too.

  Stiffened my shoulder against the rifle butt and hooked my finger around the trigger. Squeezed it and didn’t let go. Bullets poured out of the barrel—a star of fire perpetually bloomed around the muzzle—and I tried my best to keep my aim on the approaching headlight. Quickly forgot about aiming just above it. The gun sprayed. I had no idea if bullets were shot from the motorcycle to me—didn’t hear or feel a thing—and I wasn’t dead.

  The motorcycle on my side went down, skidding to a scraping halt on the rock, the light bursting. Puffs of soil burst around the downed bike. I saw a boot punctured through the sole, torn to shreds, a wheel popped, the small tank pouring out gasoline.

  I let go of the trigger only after I realized the gun was clicking empty.

  I stayed crouched by the wall for a few minutes, then heard a howl behind me. Spun the rifle at the sound and clicked the trigger. Good thing the clip was empty, or I would’ve killed Gord.

  “Holy fuck, buddy!” he said, stomping over to my side of the tunnel. “That’s some good panic shooting! You kept most of the bullets on target.” He stood over the motorcycle and rider, his goggle lenses swaying over the body. “Goddamn! You fucking made mincemeat out of this guy! And his bike! You wanna look?”

  I sagged against the wall and caught my breath, face greased by sweat, hands tingling from the vibrations of the rifle. Flicked the goggles up to feel cool cave air on my burning face. I didn’t want to look at my second (or third) dead man. I had just survived my first firefight, and I was glad it was over. Didn’t want a repeat and didn’t want to see the gory results. Flashes of Paco’s head played in my mind.

  Gord wandered over to the other motorcycle—his kill. Slung his rifle across his back, tipped the bike onto its wheels and rolled it over to me. He sat on the machine, kicked it to life, twisted the throttle to rev it up and spit green smoke out of its exhaust. Its headlight was smashed, but who cared when you could drive blind and still see?

  “Killed the rider but missed the bike. Lots of practice sharpshooting since I moved out here. Hop on,” he said.

  I did, slinging the strap of the M-16 around my shoulder, the rifle barrel jutting up just behind my right ear, and adjusted the machete against my hip and leg.

  With the engine revving he yelled over his shoulder to me, “This should make our trip to Canada a lot faster!”

  I held onto his shoulders as Gord resisted doing a wheelie and sped us through the darkness. I flicked the goggles back down over my eyes to peer over his shoulder.

  We raced down the tunnel and it seemed endless. It turned in a slow arc at one point, then straightened up. I kept wondering how in the hell did Paco—or a crew of Mexican druglords—build such a thing? A feat of modern engineering, especially since the whole thing would have to be clandestine. Where there’s a will—and the promise of millions, or billions, of greenbacks—there’s a way.

  The tunnel snaked in an opposite arc and, once it straightened up again, we found our way was blocked.

  By people.

  A crowd of—we assumed—family stretched across the width of the tunnel. Some of them were in wheelchairs. They walked, hobbled, crawled, rolled. Most of them old and somewhat deformed—a wall of hideous, decrepit, malformed flesh crept toward us.

  None of them fired a gun—all of them were unarmed. Gord did a one-eighty to get us away from them, but since no bullets had followed our retreat, he stopped. Let the motorcycle chug, idling, as we stared into the distance at the refuse of humanity.

  “Is there something strange about them?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “They’re inbred freaks?”

  “That’s a given. But something else?”

  I looked through the green haze, not able to see too much detail unless we got closer to them. They moved slowly, some members cutting off others—those pushing the wheelchairs of the others frequently squeezed against those on either side of the chairs, running over toes with the wheels, veering toward the rock walls. I focused on those
closest to the walls, and every one of them had a hand on the stone, using it to guide themselves. Then I noticed that some of them were holding hands, leading one another.

  The blind leading the blind.

  I told Gord. He nodded. “Fuck yeah. The family must’ve sent them down as fodder, knowing we were armed. Hoping their numbers would swarm us. Unless, of course, this is where they live.”

  “Shit,” I gasped. “Inbreeders…that makes sense. Genetically, an old, old family that keeps reproducing with itself must have a ton of members with genetic mistakes. Maybe instead of taking care of them, they put them down here to die?”

  “Fuck,” Gord gasped in return. “Venus never told me about this. Then again, why would she? Every family’s got skeletons…and this one has a shitload and they’re all right here.”

  We stared through the green darkness at the shuffling mob far ahead, their numbers clogging the tunnel.

  “They might not be able to see,” I said, “but if they grab us, we’re screwed.”

  “I wanna try something,” Gord said.

  I held on as he revved the bike and headed closer to the mob. They reacted to the sound of the bike, angling their bodies and laagered strolls in the direction of the engine. Gord stopped the bike maybe fifty feet from their shuffling walk, got off the motorcycle, told me to get off, then snapped down the kickstand. I watched as he lifted his rifle and fired a burst into the people nearest the left side of the shaft.

  They screamed and went down, blood shooting dark black-green through the night vision. Those not hit staggered away in the opposite direction, almost stampeding each other to find escape. Some tried to retreat the way they came but were blocked by those coming up behind them.

  Gord fired another burst, this time at those crowding at the right wall. More went down in heaps, injured or instantly dead, wailing in some strange language. Gord giggled, fired more rounds into the crowd—in the center, then to either wing—bodies piling onto bodies, most still alive and writhing. Those still upright were desperately trying to get away from us.

  “Fish in a barrel! Come on, Chris, you need practice with the gun, don’t ya? Remember—they’re family. Fuck ’em!”

  It was cruel. Putrid. Like a sick, violent video game. Something out of Nazi Germany—but we were the Nazis. Another way to look at it: we had become the threat, not the mob. I felt nauseous, as usual, but I told myself that it was either them or us. I raised my rifle, closed my eyes, and squeezed off a burst.

  Screams and moans, warbling and phlegmy cries rose up out of the crowd each time either Gord or I shot. Their mouths gaped in agony, which gave us a better view of…how all their tongues had been cut out. Blood drooled out of their mouths, down their ragged, soiled clothes—burned stumps of blackened tongues. Tongues cut and cauterized. So, too, their eyes. That was the real reason why they were blind. Some of them had eyes drawn onto their eyelids, which were then sewn shut. The family took care of its own.

  The terrible thing for me…it got easier to kill. Something had snapped in my brain when I killed the man at the elevator, and it kept snapping with each kill—either mine or Gord’s. He didn’t even seem to have the slightest problem with any of it. Who the hell (once again, I asked) was my best friend?

  It was like we were at a carnival, shooting plastic ducks with BB guns. We could move the standing crowd to the left or right as we chose. Bodies piled up, blocking the paths of those behind—who were themselves being pushed forward by more of the living. We sprayed a fan of fire and watched one after one fall.

  My second clip was empty. I had to get Gord to remind me how to change the clip. I reloaded, but then he told me to hold my fire.

  “I think I get it now,” he said as the crowd in front of us wailed and wept. “The family wants us to kill these deformed fuckers. They’re the dregs. They want us to use up our ammo until we’re unarmed, or these corpses fully clog the tunnel and we have no choice but go back to Paco’s house. Fuck that—we’ve only got so much ammo, and we are reaching Canada. We gotta get on the bike and rush through them. You got your machete?” I slung the rifle across my back, pulled the blade of sharpened steel from its sheath, gripped it tightly. Gord continued, “I need my right hand for the throttle, so I’ll hold my knife in my left. You put yours in your right. We’ll scythe the crowd. Let’s try not to slash each other.”

  “Brian Lumley would love this!” I yelled with a blood-lust laugh, which Gord echoed. “Well, if they were all vampires.”

  We both slung our rifles across our backs as we returned to the motorcycle. Gord snapped off the kickstand, and I was about to straddle the back when he held up a finger, wanting me to wait for a second, to hold the bike while he did something.

  He stood in front of the bike, pulled a grenade out of a pocket, pulled the ring. I swallowed, then plugged my ears. A fastball pitch threw it over the heads of the first row of those still standing. The grenade burst and roared in the cramped cave like the engine of a 747. Shitloads of bodies exploded in all directions—those closest to ground zero were blown into spinning limbs and starbursts of blood. Those deeper in were dropped by shrapnel and shock and exploding eardrums.

  But there were more bodies passed them. We couldn’t see an end to the writhing, hunkering mass of crippled flesh. Thought for a second, as Gord straddled the bike and kicked it to life—that is one big-ass family! And the ones who confronted us were the refuse!

  “Hold on—we’re going corpse off-roading!” Gord yelled.

  I looped my left arm across his chest and held the machete in my right—did a few practice swings to get the feel of the new weapon.

  Gord revved the bike and shot forward, letting the front wheel pop off the ground in a wheelie so that we could get up onto the entwined mass of corpses and ride across it like a macabre flesh road to Hell.

  I glanced down to see faces twisted, mouths gaping with severed worms of tongues (which also explained the ‘language’ of the mass: if the family rejects couldn’t talk, then, if they ever escaped their tunnel prison, they could never tell of their horror; if they couldn’t see, then they would never find their way out). Eyes were glazed over with thick white webs or burned in their sockets, weeping tears.

  The knobby tires of the motorcycle hammered across the flesh, broke noses, tore the loose, wrinkled flesh of foreheads and necks, burned rubber streaks across spines and between breasts. Occasionally, a tail looped around a part of the bike or our feet but wasn’t strong enough to hold on. Or it was hacked off before we dragged its owner too far.

  And we hadn’t even reached those standing.

  Once we did, though, Gord hit the throttle and I stiffened my machete arm. We didn’t need to kill, just cut a path through the jungle of flesh. The living squeezed on either side of us and faces and necks, hands and chests bounced back from the blade. Gord did the same on his side. The ones who couldn’t get away from the noise of the motorcycle and the sting of our steel were pushed towards us by others, some falling beneath our wheels.

  The bike itself, of course, did its damage. As much of a weapon as anything else. Running into whomever was ahead of us, toppling them, pressing them to the earth, tearing their bodies as we passed over. Some tried to reach for us with arm or tail (one even with some appendage that looked like a tentacle), but our legs shot out to kick them away as the machetes went to work.

  At one point, I felt too many hands on my body, tearing at my jacket, trying to pull me off the bike. But my arm stayed around Gord’s chest. Somehow, one of the hands was able to reach into my jacket, grabbing what it could.

  A grenade rolled out.

  I saw it drop into a nest of living limbs, fingers clawing at anything while in pain, and knew it was only a matter of time before enough of the hands and fingers pulled the ring, releasing the lever, and detonating the little metal egg.

  I yelled into Gord’s ear. “A grenade dropped! Get us out of here!”

  The motorcycle kicked its front tire high as it batt
ered against bodies. Gord slashed with his machete with his left hand as he twisted the throttle with the right. I hacked. Gord had to drop his feet off the motorcycle pegs to keep us upright. Blood and strips of flesh and shards of bone showered us from behind. The shockwave of the grenade pushed us forward as it levelled bodies around and behind us, and we could finally see through the mass, an empty tunnel behind, their numbers thinned.

  When we finally broke through, Gord skidded to a halt and we both got off the bike. Wiped blood and gristle off our blades, then sheathed them. Unslung our rifles, and we each spent a full clip on those who still walked or limped upright, and those who could still crawl with enough energy to be a threat to us.

  Now I liked to kill. Sport of kings.

  We left the dying to join the dead, hopped back on the bike after changing to a fresh clip each (I could do it myself now—I was getting to be a big boy!), and sped down the endless green darkness of the tunnel.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 10

  We stopped at a wall of stone. A stone ceiling and stone walls surrounded us, no sign of an opening or a tunnel to the surface. Our best guess was that, in all the mayhem of fighting through the blind, tongueless dregs of the family, we must have missed where the tunnel branched off, leading to a way out. We had only assumed that the tunnel went in a straight line, but it could’ve easily have been a labyrinth. Heading back across the terrain of corpses was not our ideal plan, but it looked like the only one we had.