by Bobe, Jordan
Deloris nodded to Otto and turned her chair away.
Otto grinned savagely as he drove the knife directly through Collin’s esophagus and began sawing his way to the side of his neck.
“When you get done with the dumb son of a bitch hang his body out there in the driveway. I want Brute to know we punished him for what he did,” Deloris said.
“And if we can’t get Brute to rejoin the family?”
“Kill him and any of the other dogs that try to go feral.”
Otto nodded and continued the laborious task of severing Collin’s head.
27
Brute still seemed uncomfortable in the car, but he pointed every time a turn was coming up in the road. Tracy noticed he was bleeding, but he didn’t seem to.
“Bad men with guns,” he said out of the blue. She looked over at him. “Lots of bad men with guns. They kill girls if we no hurry.”
Tracy nodded. She had collected the weapons from the dead police officers and had found extra ammunition for them. She had also found two rifles in the trunk, loaded them and set them up in the front seat. She was nowhere near as powerful as her new friend so she figured it was her best bet to load up with as much firepower as possible.
Tracy came around a corner and saw a second police vehicle heading up the road. Brute gently touched her arm and shook his head. “Very bad man,” he said.
The SUV ahead of them suddenly sped up. It swerved from one lane to the next without signaling. “Is he drunk or something?” Tracy wondered. She looked over at Brute and saw that he had shrunken down in the seat, a seemingly impossible feat for the enormous man.
“That’s the guy that had my friend, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Very bad man.”
Tracy nodded her head and stomped down on the gas pedal. The SUV picked up even more speed until the two vehicles were both racing at over a hundred miles per hour down the narrow country road. A turn was coming up and neither vehicle was going to make it if they did not slow down. Tracy anticipated the reduction in speed and slowed her approach. However she was not prepared for the complete stop the other vehicle made.
Smoke rose from the SUV’s wheel wells as the brakes locked up. The truck swerved, nearly losing control completely and rolling. It finally came to a stop parked across both lanes of the road.
Tracy reached over for one of the stolen guns, but froze when she saw who stepped down out of the cruiser. Ivy seemed oblivious to her nudity as she held the shotgun at the cruiser. She looked as if she had been drug down the road behind the vehicle for several miles. Her skin was scraped and torn. Dried blood surrounded her mouth and several wounds on her slender body. One of her breasts had been badly damaged at some point.
“Get out of the fucking car!” she screamed. “Show me your hands and get out of the fucking car!”
Tracy set the gun down and slowly opened her door. She stuck her hands out of the vehicle first and then climbed out. Brute did not move from the passenger seat. His face was set in a look of utter confusion. As soon as Ivy saw who was driving the cruiser she lowered the shotgun and tears began running freely from her eyes.
Tracy ran over to her friend and wrapped her up in a warm embrace. “It’s okay, Ivy, it’s going to be okay.”
“I killed him,” Ivy sobbed. “I ripped his face apart and then I shot him.”
“Well, I beat a guy’s head in with a tree limb. I guess we’re about even.”
Ivy did not seem to be comforted by the off color joke. She buckled at the knees and rested her bare bottom on the cracked asphalt. “I don’t even know what I am anymore, Tracy. I killed him and I don’t care. I don’t feel bad about it at all. I was heading to find the others and I fully plan to kill anyone else that gets in my way.”
“They deserve to die,” Tracy said. Even as she spoke the words she realized the shift in her voice. Where she would have normally had some kind of emotion behind her words there was nothing. She meant it with the entirety of her being and she felt no emotion about it at all.
“Who are these sick motherfuckers? How did they know those fucking frat boys?”
“They didn’t know them, I don’t think. I think the frat boys may have actually saved our asses by being such shitheads. They weren’t supposed to be a part of the equation,” Tracy said. She looked back at the cruiser and swallowed hard. “I have someone riding with me that knows where they took the others. He’s the one that killed off the frat boys.”
“What?”
“These sick fucks have been treating him like an attack dog his entire life, but he killed one of them in front of me. That’s what happened to the hood of the car. He’s huge, he’s strong and he wants to help us.”
“But he’s one of them, isn’t he? How do you know he’s not just leading us into a trap?”
“Because of what the cops said before he went after them. They said he had gone feral and I think their right. He didn’t hurt any of us girls, but he took out every one of the guys.”
Ivy regained some of her composure and wiped tears from her eyes. “Where are the others? I only saw Marcy, Lynne and Anna getting loaded into the ambulance.”
“Those sick asses killed them. I saw their bodies.”
“Oh my God,” Ivy’s tears became a deluge again. She collapsed all of her weight against Tracy and shuddered with sorrow. “What are we going to tell their families? What are we going to tell anyone?”
“I don’t think now’s the time to be thinking of that. We need to get there and help the others escape, okay?”
Ivy nodded. She was still sobbing as she got to her feet. Tracy picked up the shotgun and handed it to her.
“You should follow us, Brute knows the way. It will look less conspicuous with the two cop cars arriving at the same time anyway,” Tracy said.
“Okay, but what are we going to do when we get there?”
“We’re going to follow Brute’s lead and kill any motherfucker that tries anything funny.”
28
Otto and Carey stood outside the gates of the ranch with their thirty-ought-six rifles loaded and ready for whatever might come their way. Deloris hadn’t had to warn them of the dangerous situation they could be in if Brute had truly gone completely feral. The dog had been dosed with Human Growth Hormone since the age of five. He was enormous, insanely powerful and had been raised to have a strong taste for carnage. Even with the high-powered rifles they would have to make damn sure they hit him fatally or he would tear them apart limb from limb.
What neither of the men understood was why Deloris had demanded so many sentinels be put in place. She had awakened everyone from the EMTs and off-duty police officers to the clean-up crews. More than twelve armed men and women stalked about the property waiting for the dog to return home. It seemed like it would have been easier and perhaps more effective to just release the other dogs and tell them to attack Brute. Sure, he was the alpha of the pack, but they all thought of Deloris of a mother. Surely their attachment to her was stronger than to their older brother.
“What does Deloris have planned for the girls in the ambulance?” Carey asked.
Otto shrugged and spat a stream of tobacco from between his chapped lips. “It ain’t none of my concern until she makes it my concern.”
“We need to hurry up and get rid of them before something happens. I mean, they ain’t exactly dangerous or nothing, but they seem smart. What if they escape and manage to get a hold of the state police or something?”
“With all those dogs and the whole damn operation covering the perimeter? There ain’t no way that they’re going to make it out of here alive even if they do get out of the ambulance. You’re just finding things to worry about, Carey.”
“Well it’s goddamn creepy, man. This entire shindig has been out of whack. First those creepy frat boys show up and fuck up our program, then Brute decides he ain’t going to kill the bitches and now we’re standing out here in the middle of the goddamn night like prison guards. It’s never
been like this before.”
Otto reached into his mouth and hooked his finger around the wad of tobacco leaves. He pulled them out and tossed them into the bush with a flick of his wrist. Carey had no idea that less than a half hour before Otto had carved his twin brother up like a jack-o-lantern. If they were to leave the property and travel a quarter mile up the road he would see his kin hanging like a scarecrow with his head driven down on the top of the post. Had he known these things he might have considered the groan of irritation that Otto released a bit more frightening.
“Creepy or not this is what we’re doing for now. We don’t question Deloris’s decisions, right? That’s like the first rule of our employment. She feeds us, she gives us plenty of money and she makes sure we have all of the comforts we could ask for. We’ve got a pretty good life up here, a damn sight better than we had back in lock up. Or do you have a problem with the job?”
“Not at all, man.”
“Good, then stop your goddamn whining and keep your eyes peeled. If Brute comes rushing us we’re going to put a round straight through the big motherfucker’s head, you got me?”
“You know I do.”
They stood in relative silence, only a chorus of crickets and the occasional scrambling of a forest critter breaking through the quiet. Once in a while one of the men would scan the forest through their night vision scope, just to make sure nothing was moving in on them without their noticing.
It was truly beginning to seem like an exercise in futility when the flashing lights appeared far up the road. Carey seemed relieved to see the approaching police vehicles, but Otto felt his muscles tense up. Aaron and the others should have been back long before. Unless, of course, they had found a survivor or had some kind of run-in with Brute. Still, they hadn’t radioed in since the ambulances left the house. Otto’s instinct told him that there was something afoul.
The vehicles approached slowly. Otto knew Aaron well enough to know that this was out of the ordinary, too. He was usually a lead foot with adrenaline from one of their massacres rushing through him. He enjoyed his job more than any of Deloris’s workers. He, in fact, constantly voiced his opinion that he should take over the entire operation due to Deloris’s failing health.
Perhaps he suspected the shit storm that was coming his way. Deloris wasn’t as likely to have him killed for what he had done to Brute, but his punishment would be severe. The crazy old bitch loved her dogs. She didn’t ever like hearing about them being beaten without reason. Not to mention Aaron’s breaking of the rules with the woman. How were they going to get new pups if they didn’t procreate with the bitches?
The headlights fell on the cross Otto had set up in the road and the vehicles came to a stop. Carey squinted at the cross shaped outline and frowned. “What the hell is that?”
“A lesson for those of us that decide to break Deloris’s rules,” Otto said. He had no emotion to his voice. Even though the words carried the weight of a threat he spoke them as casually as a man asking if there had been anything good in the mail.
The vehicles remained in idle for a moment. Otto strained to hear over the sound of the sirens. He thought for a moment that he caught the sound of a door opening and shutting, but he wasn’t sure. He pulled his radio from his belt and changed it to the band they used for their cruisers.
“You guys coming or are you going to sleep out there on the road tonight?” he asked.
No one responded, nor did the vehicles begin moving. Now his suspicions rose higher. He shouldered the rifle and aimed it directly at the fence.
“What the hell are you doing?” Carey asked in a hushed voice.
“When was the last time we got no response from Aaron when we smarted off to him on the police band?” Otto said.
“So you think there’s someone else driving the cars? But who, man? We got the bitches in the ambulance and all of the dudes were torn to fuck by Brute.”
“It doesn’t matter who it is, it matters who it ain’t and you can bet your balls that it ain’t Aaron driving that first cruiser.”
After another two minutes the cruisers pulled around the cross and began slowly making their way up toward the gates. Without waiting to see who was driving the car Otto fired a round. His aim was off because of the blinding qualities of the headlights and the light bar, but he managed to hit the cruiser’s hood. The vehicle came to an instant stop, but still nothing was said over the radio.
“Why the hell would Aaron be following Forester and Clarence?” Carey asked.
“Because it ain’t them. There must’ve been some other people at that cabin, someone we missed.”
Otto slid the bolt action, chambering another round. He fired a second shot and this time heard the distinct sound of glass shattering. He had struck the windshield, but he was fairly sure he hadn’t hit the driver. There had been too much warning when the initial shot missed target.
Carey finally shouldered his gun and drew a bead on the vehicle. His round hit the car in the hood and a hiss louder than the wailing of the sirens filled the night. Both he and Otto chambered more rounds.
Neither man noticed the sound of the approaching footsteps until it was too late. Brute crashed into Carey’s side and lifted him from the ground. He forced the man into Otto, sending them both sprawling across the gravel driveway. Carey was knocked unconscious when most of Otto’s considerable weight came down on his head. Otto howled in pain as the cranium punched deep into the muscle of his lower back, driving at him like a well-placed kidney shot.
He fumbled for his prepared thirty-ought-six, but Brute ripped it from his grasp and tossed it aside. Otto’s heart raced with fear when he was lifted from the ground by the huge man in a brutal bear hug. Brute’s grasp on him increased until he couldn’t breathe. He kicked at the dog’s shins and thighs, but the beast didn’t seem to notice.
Otto literally heard his back break at the same instant that his nerve endings reported the intense pain. He was dropped to the ground then, his limbs completely useless. Brute kicked him across the face knocking him unconscious.
Carey woke to the sudden, intense pain of his jaw being stretched open. Brute had hold of his upper plate and lower jaw and was stretching them apart. The thin layer of skin and muscle on either side of his mouth began ripping at the corners of his lips. He thrashed as much as he could, but the entirety of Brute’s weight was pinning him to the ground. Brute snarled savagely and quickened his pace.
Carey’s lower jaw was ripped out of its sockets an instant before most of the muscle keeping it attached snapped like overstretched rubber bands. Brute jerked it forward then, ripping it off of his face completely. Without missing a beat the dog tossed it aside and plunged his sharp nails into the soft spot behind the upper plate.
Carey felt the fingers digging through the top of his mouth and deeper into his head. His bladder released as the darkness of death began creeping over him. His final processed thought was that they had made a dire mistake making the dog so damn strong.
Brute plunged his hand into Carey’s skull all the way to the base of his palm. His fingers dug through the tissue of the man’s brain before he curled them and pulled out a handful of brain matter. He smeared the gray matter on Carey’s chest before turning his attention back to Otto.
The paralyzed man awoke as he was being lifted from the ground. Brute held him high over his head before bringing him down on his knee. The blow further shattered Otto’s spine and caused blood to rush up as his spleen exploded under the force. His lungs filled with blood, giving him the powerless sensation of drowning.
Brute shifted his hold on the man and picked him up by the ankles. He lifted him as high as his arms could reach before driving his head down into the gravel. Otto’s skull cracked and his scalp was torn away in a few places. The first blow did not satisfy the dog, though. He was lifted and brought down three more times, until the top of his head was completely smashed and one of his eyes had been dislodged from the socket.
Brute dro
pped the corpse to the ground and stomped on Otto’s face, crushing it under his weight. He lifted his foot and repeated the action until the head had completely come apart.
Once satisfied he walked over to the gate and grabbed hold of it. Without so much as a groan of fatigue he pulled until the thick chain snapped. He threw the gate open as far as it would go and waved his new pack mates forward.
29
Anna crawled a little closer to the door of the ambulance. There was still no way for them to hear what was going on outside, but her heart rate had suddenly increased and she was taking it as a sign that the doors would soon be coming open.
Marcy and Lynne huddled closely together. Their “weapons” felt seriously inefficient after the night’s events. Lynne longed for a shotgun or a bazooka, something so big that everyone would shit their pants as soon as she whipped it out. Rushing at grown men with hollow pieces of aluminum seemed foolish. She ran her hand down the length of the gurney’s leg and wondered if it was really aluminum, but only for a moment before her panicked mind snapped at her for digressing from her current situation.
Both Lynne and Anna jumped when the clank of Marcy dropping her makeshift weapon echoed through the hollow innards of the ambulance. “I can’t do it,” Marcy sobbed. “I can’t kill anyone.”
“They’re going to kill us if we don’t kill them,” Anna said. She felt what little composure she had slipping away quickly. “They’re going to kill us! Every person on this planet with a dick is nothing more than a murderous rapist!”
“Calm down, Anna. I know where Marcy’s coming from,” Lynne said. “If you had asked any of us this morning if we would ever kill anyone we would have said no. It’s not easy to just forget about who we are.”
