The Bride Stripped Bare

by Rob Bliss

  “I think we can forget about Kevin,” I muttered.

  “What do you mean? He’s our brother,” Elizabeth said, feeling insulted that I would consider leaving an innocent man behind. But he wasn’t innocent anymore. Who was? Elizabeth.

  “He’s gone over to the other side,” Gord explained. “You were unconscious, hanging on a cross—long story. Gorman promised Kevin the world and he took it. He’s as fucked up as Chris and I once were.”

  “All the more reason to save him,” Elizabeth rebutted. “Whatever spell Gorman or Venus or whoever puts on people—shoving coke up their noses—it can be broken. Gord, goddamnit, we have to try!”

  He let his head slip back against the seat, tapping his metal gloves together as they rested in his lap, sighing and considering what his sister had said. Elizabeth had proved herself a fighter several times over. Her brother wouldn’t win over her, and he knew it.

  “Chris, turn the truck around, head back to the mansion. This nightmare ain’t over yet.”

  ««—»»

  I followed Gord’s directions, since I had no idea where we were, and inched along the side of the road as we approached the mansion, tires crunching gravel, seeing lights through the trees, hearing people’s voices—screams and laughter and moans. I stopped the truck when Gord told me to, sure as hell not pulling into the driveway as though all was well, and we were just party latecomers. We wanted to have the truck ready and not blocked in when we escaped—fire up the engine and hit the gas to speed down the highway, getting a headstart just in case some family members decided they were in the mood for a car chase.

  Took the keys out of the ignition, slipped them under the floormat. We took the guns with us, but Gord was pissed that he couldn’t fire, much less hold, any of them. Standing outside the truck, I tucked the Magnum down the back of Gord’s pants.

  “You’ll be our holster then,” I said with a wink. “Better to be armed than not, going into a place like this.”

  “True enough.”

  I took the rifle and Elizabeth carried the shotgun as our bare feet walked slowly, numbly, over the gravel of the driveway, hearing the mansion’s interior sounds growing as we approached.

  We saw cars and trucks and vans of every make and model, several motorcycles and ATVs—even a few police cruisers—parked haphazardly around the front grounds of the house, backed into trees, everyone blocking everyone else. A good sign—no one was intending to leave any time soon. The party looked to be going on all night and day, maybe even for a few days. A good sign and a bad one: the house would be packed with people.

  We stayed low as we crept between cars. I saw the house’s front façade for the first time. A gothic mansion that spread across our entire perspective, the wings stretching into forest on either side so that we couldn’t accurately determine the house’s full sprawl. Spires towered off the roof like porcupine quills, windows high up around their circumference, gargoyles of stone and wood aiming their watchful eyes on anyone approaching. Stained glass beveled windows blocked a voyeur’s view into the interior. A wraparound porch held up by thick columns sculpted like small totem poles showing the faces of people in anguish, squeezed in between animals of myth. A bear’s head with opened jaws topping each pillar.

  Cameras everywhere. But was anyone watching them?

  The outside still belied the interior dimensions since we all knew that the house was like an iceberg—most of it residing under the surface of the ground. Would we have to go through it all again to find Gord and Elizabeth’s mother and father? And even if we got them, would we have to race through the subterranean labyrinth anyway, back into the stalagmite cave to fine Kevin?

  The party would never end, which wasn’t a good thing for us. I was starting to feel as Gord must’ve felt before Elizabeth told us we had to go back. I just wanted the hell out of here. We had to save ourselves…we could pray later that nothing bad had happened to Ma and Pa. Fuck Kevin, I still thought.

  Weaving through the vehicles toward one side of the house, sheltered by the thin trees of the forest edge, Gord told us to stop, stay low, as we gazed over the structure that loomed ahead. We all tried to think of the best way to get inside.

  Gord glanced around at the vehicles nearby. In a small copse of trees nearby were two dead headlights hovering high off the ground. Gord slipped around cars to check them out, and we followed. A large 4x4 truck with massive tires, jacked up like Poppy’s, the cab at least ten feet off the ground, sat with an unobstructed run out of the trees toward the house. The truck had twin tailpipes like chrome horns sticking up on either side of the cab, just behind the windows. No exhaust pipe under the vehicle to drag and get smashed. The truck was definitely built for off-roading.

  Gord clicked his gloves together as he thought, until Elizabeth put her hands on his and whispered for him to be quiet. “Stealth or smash?” he asked no one in particular as he looked from the truck to the side of the house.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He cleared his throat, pointed a glove at a pile of cut logs stacked against the house. A firewood ramp that extended up to the level of the porch. I began to see the blueprints of the plan forming in his mind.

  He whispered, “We could either break in—circle the house to find an open door, quietly punch out a window—” he smiled and tapped his gloves together, “—to let ourselves in…or we could make a more memorable entrance.”

  “Think the keys are in the truck?” I asked.

  He clicked his tongue. “These are small town folks and a loving family. Everybody trusts everybody. No one steals from his neighbor, especially if they’re related.”

  We shuffled hunkered down, slipping between cars until we got to the driver’s door of the truck. It was unlocked, keys dangling from the ignition on a bear’s head keychain. Elizabeth was about to climb up, but Gord stopped her.

  Said to both of us, “You two ready for this? We’re gonna do some major fucking damage, right?” He held up his gloved hands. “Since I can’t shoot worth a shit, maybe I should try driving?”

  We nodded, and Elizabeth said to her brother, “Once we’re inside, smash through everything, kill everyone—run the fuckers down—Chris and I will shoot anything that moves. Except for mom and dad, of course. And Kevin.”

  “Can I just wing Kev?”

  “Gordy, concentrate, just kill every member of this family. Think of it as a video game, or a horror novel.”

  Gord laughed and said, as he turned around to show the gun sticking out of his waistband, “That’s my sister! Crazy psycho bitch!”

  She toasted her shotgun to his Magnum. I joined the toast with my rifle.

  Elizabeth added, “Gotta be psycho to kill psychos.”

  “Then just call me Psycho!” Gord said proudly.

  I smiled at Elizabeth, knew I loved her, wanted her to survive this even if I didn’t. Gord climbed into the driver’s seat, Elizabeth sat in the middle, then me.

  Gord stared at the ramp of logs leading up to the porch, his exposed thumbs hooked under the steering wheel. “Keep your side window rolled down,” he said to me. “They might shoot back, and Elizabeth needs a clear shot.” He smiled at us as he pulled up a wing of his jacket to cover his face. “And I don’t want a face full of glass.”

  Elizabeth and I turned away as Gord smashed a glove through the windshield. Kept punching it along its length to loosen the shattered shield from its frame, then pushed the whole thing out onto the hood. It slipped across the steel to the ground. He did the same thing to the back window.

  “Might want to put your seatbelts on,” Gord added, something we all had forgotten, a little distracted by adrenaline and fear.

  My heart pounded and sweat slicked my forehead. “I think I’m shitting my pants.”

  Elizabeth helped her brother crank the keychain, and the engine roared. We three stared at the log ramp, hoped the wall of the house was thin, that we wouldn’t be crashing into a steel vault on the other side. The r.p.
ms shot up and the growling engine rocked the truck like a cradle. Gord jammed the stick in ‘drive’ and we were all thrown back against our seats.

  Tires spun on grass, the truck lurching out of the copse, Gord turning the wheel to aim the massive tires at the firewood ramp. We hit it harder than we had expected—the front popped high, but the wheels still hung low enough that they smashed through the porch bannister. The front fender came down hard to hammer through the wall of the house, back wheels spinning to push us through, seatbelts digging into our waists and chests.

  Wood and plumbing fell around the truck cab and we ripped through electrical wires. We hit a second wall soon after smashing through the exterior—into a pantry of some sort—jars and cans bursting off exploded shelves, some tumbling in through our open windows. Gord slammed the gear stick into reverse, wrenched the wheel hand-over-hand (or glove-over-glove), tore the shit out of more of the wall, then popped it in drive again and aimed the smashed and buckled steel of the hood through a doorway. Smoke from the whirring wheels grew into thick blue and grey clouds in the small room, making us cough and choke, but the truck easily burst through the door frame, the wrinkled hood flying off, and we sped into the vast reception room with partiers still going strong. They probably each had a Black Betty nestled in their bellies.

  I glanced over at Elizabeth and Gord. She had stayed ducked within the cloak the whole time and was unscathed. Gord had one glove on the wheel, the other holding a wing of his jacket up to his face. I had my head tucked into my jacket and was half slipped down by the floorboard. I had been there before.

  People screamed and some tried to get out of the way. Others cheered and laughed and punched fists into the air. Doped up, looking for any excitement, may have even thought we were rowdy guests looking to make the party more memorable. Some people ignored us completely, and continued fucking on the floor, locked in their ecstasy. A pair of them fucking doggie style were the first ones Gord bounced the truck over. But they lived. I glanced behind us as we passed over them and the guy was still fucking the girl doggy style, both of their feet and shins crushed, the girl’s head smacked hard and bloody. I had forgotten that the truck was jacked up pretty high. If Gord wanted to kill, he’d have to aim with the wheels, not the hood. I told him so.

  “Hey, you try driving with crab claws!” he joked and whooped out a laugh.

  The truck skidded on the polished wooden floor and slid sideways, sending candle tapers flying, slamming three people against a wall. Two of them began to die with smiles stretching their bloody mouths just outside my window. The engine revved and the side of the truck scraped the dead along with it until the bodies sagged and fell beneath the tires.

  Gord cranked the smoking wheels, aiming for any fool who stayed still long enough when there was a monster truck barreling up behind them. He angled the left wheel toward the pair still fucking happily for all to see in the middle of the room. Wanting to correct a mistake.

  The big truck wheel bounced over their bodies, crushed their bones into one another—probably made them cum. Gord was burning rubber tracks in curlicues across the floor, the fat tailpipes towering up from either end of the cab chugging smoke like a locomotive. Neither Elizabeth nor I had fired our weapons, but I figured the chance was coming.

  The truck skidded to slam its side smashing through tables and a stack of chairs, making people run. Chased a woman who had her bear cloak wrenched off when someone stepped on it. Her arms hooked backwards following the cloak and her feet left the floor. Landed on her back, cracked her head, looked up at the ceiling only to see a tire tread smear the face off her skull.

  Gord pulled a tight donut to rev after the man who had stepped on her coat. A chunky guy with small stubby legs, wearing no pants, pissing himself as he ran. He kept glancing back as the monster truck zoomed up behind him, stopped in his tracks, raised his hands to stop the behemoth—and bounced off the grill. He arched high and flew long like a football, backflipped in mid-air, legs flailing in two directions like a skier’s broken skis and crashed into a huddle of people who were trying to hide behind an upturned table.

  The truck’s tire cracked the table into splinters—seatbelts wrenching us back—crushing the mass of clinging flesh against the wall. Gord jammed it into reverse and used the back bumper as a ram for a while, didn’t want to kill the engine too quickly.

  I put an arm behind Elizabeth as all three of us craned our heads around, gas to the floor, the rear bumper trying to nail a guy, but he dove out of the way. Gord cranked the wheel and the truck spun 360 degrees, halted just before smacking into a tall skinny guy with long greasy hair, bear cloak wedged open by his erect penis, his nose and upper lip powdered red.

  He smiled, gave a peace sign with his fingers, and used the half second when Gord was clicking from reverse to drive to leap up onto the bed and race to the back window. I tried to cry out for Elizabeth, but I could only get out two syllables of her name before the long-haired bastard grabbed her hair and half wrenched her backwards through the glassless window.

  She screamed and clawed at his hands, but he held on, pinned his steel shoes against the cab to get leverage, both hands twisted in her hair, wrenching her head back. The shotgun slipped from her hands to the floorboards.

  Other people, now brave, rushed to the truck, hands reaching into Gord and me from either side, a man sprawled over the engine holding onto the windshield wipers. Gord kept a foot on the brake as he lifted up the shotgun and wedged a thumb against the trigger. Not good aim, but it was a shotgun. He levelled it up onto the dashboard and fired both barrels, blew a cavern through the head of the man on the engine. I aimed the rifle across a gap in front of Gord, told him not to move, and quick-fired three shots to smack away the hands and bodies of people hanging onto his side mirror, clawing at him.

  Then I aimed out the back window, but there was no way to get a clear shot at the greasy hippie holding onto Elizabeth, using her as a shield.

  “Keep driving!” I yelled to Gord.

  He stomped on the gas, spun the wheel, and swerved serpentine across the dance floor, trying to fling away anyone still clinging on.

  I didn’t have the time to reload the shotgun. And the rifle was too damn long for the inside of a truck. I dug a hand behind Gord’s back as he drove and pulled out the Magnum.

  “Hey, not too frisky now—we’re just friends.”

  I was watching Elizabeth and her captor through the back window, the barrel of the Magnum held up just in case it went off and I hit the wrong person, waiting for a shot. The truck slammed into something and jerked away, scraping the bumper chrome along a wall by the sound of it. Screams erupted, became static, background noise, easily ignored. People ran in every direction, their hair on fire from the candles we smashed every time we moved.

  Elizabeth had been right—it was exactly like a video game, or a horror novel.

  The guy holding Elizabeth’s hair swayed with the movement of the truck, twisting her head back and forth, in and out of my line of sight. I needed to increase my chances of hitting him and not her. Popped off my seat belt and crawled through the back windshield, the Magnum coming with me, of course.

  The truck swayed left and right, bodies smacking off either side of the truck bed, tires hopping over flesh speed bumps, crashing through tables of half-eaten food and glasses of wine. So it took a while for me to get to the hippie. The long-haired fucker never stopped dope-smiling the whole time. Lips wide, teeth open, laughter at the back of his throat. Gord slammed on the brakes for whatever reason and Elizabeth and the hippie flew toward me. Passed me. Both of their heads through the back window. Gord glanced over, took a glove off the wheel, and punched a hole through the hippie’s forehead. Gave him an instant lobotomy. Elizabeth pulled her hair out of the bastard’s grip, slipped on a few glass jam jars over to me and took the Magnum from my hands. The hippie lay face-down, sliding, over the bed of the truck. She blasted a hole through the back of his head. What was left of it. Basically,
he had a neck stump and half a chin left. The blood made the bed even more slippery.

  I grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her back to the window so she could climb through and I could climb in after her.

  “We got a headless hippie in the back,” I shouted to Gord.

  He laughed. “We could open the tailgate and let him out, but that might invite more in.”

  An older man popped up beside Gord, wagged his split tongue at him, pupils like pinpricks, smelled like piss. Gord pulled a glove off the wheel to punch, but his metal fist glanced off the man’s ear. The old bastard wouldn’t let go. The truck slewed, shattered a punch bowl of red dust, and someone fired a shot at the right front fender. Elizabeth took the steering wheel so that Gord could use both hands to hammer the teeth out of his visitor’s mouth. The man still didn’t let go. So Gord jammed the cone of his glove down grandpa’s throat until his nostrils expanded and he began to choke. His hands finally slipped off and he dropped, the truck’s back right tire bouncing over his corpse.

  Elizabeth still had the Magnum in hand. I rifled through the glove compartment and ammo boxes, did what I could to reload the shotgun and rifle, checked to ensure that the Magnum was fully loaded, six rounds. Elizabeth scratched the back of her head, and a fist of hair detached. She watched it fall between her fingers.

  “That fucker!” She grumbled and swore. Snatched the Magnum back, kept her body turned enough to be able to glance out the front and rear easily. Gun tight in her hand, she waited, wanting another person to jump into the cab—she was looking to kill. It was so easy after the first one, terrible to say.

  But no potential victims took a chance anymore. There were few people left alive in the room. Many crushed against walls or mashed into smashed furniture, or pressed hard against the floor, bodies crisscrossed with tire marks, limbs severed and scattered…and blood smeared in abstract designs across the entire dance floor and up the walls. The truck was the better weapon than the guns could ever be.