by Jacob Rayne
Puzzled but relieved, Paul carried on to the entrance way.
Cheetah aimed the heavy car straight at the nearest crazy and floored the accelerator. Their view of him increased in size until he filled the windscreen. His body jack-knifed, his head slamming into the bonnet. Blood gouted out of his mouth, spilling over the windscreen.
The force of the impact took the crazy over the roof and dumped him on the road behind the vehicle with a sickening crunch.
The group of crazies behind the recently deceased man seemed to enjoy their compatriot’s death. The vehicle sped towards them. Cheetah grinned at the thought of getting one over on the lunatics.
The heavy car hit the wall of crazies and sent them flying in every direction in a riot of blood and broken bones.
They were through the group as quickly as they had gone in. Cheetah paused and admired the scene in the rear-view mirror. Most of the crazies were battered and broken on the road. The others milled around, not seeming to know what to do.
Cheetah grinned and pulled away, grateful when they became just specks in his rear-view mirror.
Paul saw that there was a final pair of crazies guarding the entrance way. One of them held a gleaming samurai sword, the other a thick section of metal pole. Both weapons dripped blood onto the hands of their respective bearers. Paul saw that the crazies were each stood in front of a pile of bodies.
They’re having a competition to see who can kill the most, Paul realised. He wondered on which pile he would end up, then scolded himself for this defeatist line of thought.
Breaking the last of his cover, he moved towards them. If they came for him he decided he would swing the machete and hope for the best. He was sick of running, sick of fighting, but he hoped that all of that would cease once he set foot outside of the gates.
They turned to face him as his shadow fell upon the tarmac in front of them. The sight of their euphoric faces made his stomach churn but he continued to edge forwards.
As with the group of psychos tormenting the boy, he wondered when the spell would break and the crazies would run at him, eager to tear the life out of his battered body.
Each step took him closer to the bloodthirsty duo. Their eyes crawled over him like maggots on a piece of rotting flesh. Their gaze and their smiles made him want to bolt, screaming, and hide, but the knowledge that this could be his last obstacle drove him forward.
Within thirty feet of them he noticed details such as the way torn limbs poked out of the pile of bodies at their feet. He noticed the five bar gates, written in blood, on the wall behind the two men. The man with the sword was winning by thirteen to ten, according to the tallies. Somehow the fact that they were lucid enough to keep count of their kills made the slaughter even worse.
The men still watched him. He tried not to look too carefully at them in case it drew their interest.
As Paul drew to within ten feet of the men at the gate, the man with the sword adjusted the weapon slightly.
Paul tensed himself, ready to explode into a strike, but the man put the sword back against his shoulder, leaving a smear of blood where the weapon had been.
Both men stared at Paul with an intense gaze. He readied himself for the final approach.
His heart threatening to bray holes in his ribs, he stepped into the open gateway between the two men.
He raised the machete instinctively, but neither of the two men attacked. They turned to watch him leave the hotel grounds, but neither of them did anything further. Their smiles were as permanent as if they’d been painted on.
The hairs on the back of his neck crawled as he felt their continued scrutiny.
Then he was clear of the hotel and into the main street. Tears of relief streaming down his face, he set off down the street, keeping the machete ready in his white-knuckled fist in case the rest of the world was as fucked as the hotel had been.
Cheetah pulled the people carrier on to the street which led to the hotel. All around them were crazies on their incessant rampage. They smashed up cars and property, set fire to people and buildings, launched furious assaults on the normal people. The sights sickened and saddened the pair in the vehicle.
‘The whole fucking city’s gone crazy,’ Janet mumbled.
Cheetah nodded, his eyes wide at the scale of the destruction.
He flicked on the radio.
‘—reports coming in concerning a city-wide rampage. People seem to be losing their minds and going on frenzied attacks,’ the newsreader said. ‘We have an eyewitness account from the airport.’
‘They were just going crazy outside the terminal,’ said a stunned-sounding woman. ‘They started throwing people through the windows. Others picked up the broken glass and started attacking people with it. There was blood everywhere. It was horrible. Horrible.’
‘Scientists seem to be of the opinion that the episodes of frenzied violence are being caused by overexposure to the sun,’ the newsreader said.
‘When people are exposed to the sun for too long, the rays are overheating the brain, disrupting the thought processes and leading to these psychotic incidents,’ said a scientist. ‘If people are wearing a strong enough sun cream, then it does seem to stop the onset of the insanity. We’re advising people to stay indoors out of the sun’s heat, to cover up and wear plenty of high factor sun cream.’
‘This is not an isolated incident,’ the newsreader said. ‘There have been similar outbreaks in Mexico, Texas and California. The Mayor has issued a statement to say that police and the army are in the process of organising resources to solve the problem. Until then, citizens are advised to stay indoors and do whatever is necessary to defend their homes. In other news—’
‘Hey, there’s Paul,’ Janet shouted.
Cheetah flicked off the radio. ‘Where?’
Janet pointed to the blood-drenched figure lurching down the sidewalk on their left.
The vehicle squealed to a halt as Cheetah jammed the brakes on. Janet was out of the car before it stopped moving.
‘Just be careful,’ Cheetah said.
Janet nodded. Cheetah got out of the car and followed her, the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants.
Paul looked up when he heard Janet’s voice. She let out a gasp when she saw the state of his face. His eye socket was sunken and misshapen from where it had been pounded with the hockey stick. His nose was flattened against his face and there was a raw, bleeding wound on his cheek. It looked as though his entire body had been painted with blood. He looked smaller, like the day’s events had taken part of him away.
Despite the ordeal he’d been through, he was smiling.
Janet broke into a run. Cheetah did too, but he tried to pull her back.
‘Be careful, lady, he looks like he’s been sunburnt.’
She shrugged him off and ran to Paul. Five feet from him, she stopped. His face looked even worse up close. His eyes were glazed over and strands of bloody drool poured from the sides of his grin. She again shouted his name. He took a step towards her, making a low groan.
She rushed in and threw her arms around him, laying kiss after kiss upon his face. He held her, squeezing her so hard that she found it difficult to breath.
‘I’m so glad you’re alive,’ she said, her body shaking with sobs.
He said something that she couldn’t understand.
‘Lady, I think you should be very careful,’ Cheetah said. ‘He doesn’t look right to me.’
Paul’s arms tightened around her. She let out a weak cry as her ribs began to crack under the pressure of his bear hug. ‘Paul, you’re hurting me.’
His embrace slackened a little, and he brought his face close to her ear. She held him, unable to believe that he had survived the atrocities in the hotel. His mouth dripped warm fluid onto her shoulder. His breath felt hot against her ear.
‘Let’s get you out of here,’ she said.
Paul didn’t react, just held her in the bear hug.
Cheetah watched, frozen in in
decision.
‘Paul, let’s get you away from here,’ Janet said, a hint of alarm in her voice as she realised he wasn’t reacting to anything she said.
When he finally moved, relief flooded through her body. His face muzzled into the side of hers, rubbing thick liquid onto her cheek. Then his teeth clamped around her ear.
She cried out as the pain hit her, but even worse than the pain was the knowledge that her beloved husband was trying to hurt her. The teeth clamped down, shredding off most of her ear. Warm blood ran down her face.
Cheetah rushed in and tried to shove Paul away from Janet, but his arms were wrapped tight around her waist.
Cheetah pulled the hatchet from Janet’s hand and struck one of Paul’s arms. The blade bit into the forearm, sending blood pouring down his arm and making Paul retract his grip. Cheetah shoved Paul again. This time he came free and staggered back. His teeth still held the bloody lump of ear.
‘Get down,’ Cheetah yelled. Janet wheezed in an agonising breath and dropped. Too late, she saw what Cheetah intended to do.
‘No,’ she cried out as Cheetah raised the gun. She hurled herself at him, trying to disrupt his aim, but she wasn’t quick enough.
The bullet hit Paul right between the eyes, sending the back of his skull spraying across the road in a cloud of blood.
Paul stood for a second, his mouth opening, dropping the bloodied piece of meat that had once been Janet’s ear. Blood spewed from his mouth as it opened and closed. His eyes seemed fixed on Janet’s. Then he fell.
‘Paul,’ Janet cried and ran to her dying husband.
His blood soaked her as she cradled his convulsing body. She stroked his hair and whispered to what was left of his head. Among other things, she told him she forgave him. She at least wanted him to hear that before he was claimed by death’s cold embrace.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Cheetah said, ‘But he was one of them. He’d been out in the sun and gotten burnt.’
Janet said nothing, just held her husband’s limp body and rocked back and forth. She held him for what seemed like an eternity, until the blood stopped pouring from his nose and mouth and the fist-sized crater in the back of his head, then she kissed his forehead and let go of him.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Cheetah said. Tears glimmered in his eyes.
‘I know he was one of them. But we should have just let him be.’
The memories of her life with Paul flashed through her mind. The lavish wedding they’d had, the honeymoon in the Seychelles, the dream house they’d bought together, all the love and happy times they had shared.
Though she wanted to cry, no tears came. It seemed she’d used them all up. She felt numb to everything.
She wiped her forearm across her face, smearing the blood that covered her skin. It was unbearably warm out here, exposed in the middle of the street.
‘Shall we take him with us?’ Cheetah said.
She slowly shook her head. ‘No, I just want to forget this ever happened.’
Taking one last look at the bloody remains of her husband, she got into the passenger seat of the people carrier. Cheetah pulled away, leaving Paul’s body to bake in the late afternoon sun.
‘Where are we going?’ Cheetah asked.
‘Anywhere but here,’ Janet said. She wound her window down and pushed her head and arm out, savouring the slight breeze that cooled her warm skin.
Cheetah pulled up at the edge of town. The car had been handling strangely after an encounter with a knife-wielding crazy by the side of a 7-11.
He got out and saw that the rear driver’s side tyre was ruptured. He cursed and looked around him. Seeing that there were no crazies, he opened the boot and got out the spare tyre.
After changing the tyre, he got back into the car and looked across at Janet. She was staring blankly out of the windscreen, a grin on her face. It was dark in the car, but it looked like her skin was bright red.
‘You ok?’ he asked her.
She nodded, still staring out of the windscreen at the street ahead of them.
He got back in the car.
As the door clicked shut, she turned and lunged at him. Her grin widened as her jaws opened. Her hands were clawed, seeking his throat, his eyes.
Cheetah went for the gun in his waistband, but Janet was strong and fast and she batted it from his grip. Her hands closed around his throat and he wheezed for air. Her eyes blazed into his. He felt the warmth from her burnt skin.
Her grinning face was the last thing he saw as her thumbs sunk into his trachea, literally crushing the life out of him. He fell back against the driver’s door, limp and glassy-eyed.
Janet smashed his dead head into the dashboard, laughing as the cranium split open to reveal grey-pink brain. She kept on pounding his head until his blood and brain was smeared all over her. When his skull was ruined, she got out of the car.
Her teeth shone brightly out of her sunburnt face as she tipped her head to the sky and let out an ear-piercing screech.
Then she set off back into town in search of her next victim.
Her dream holiday was just beginning.
Flesh Harvest
I
Oscar ‘Osmo’ Momente winced as the tyres of his battered, black Ford Mondeo crunched the gravel on the long track leading to the farm.
‘Hey, is that it there?’ Osmo’s daughter, Marie, asked.
‘Shh,’ Osmo hissed, fearing the slightest noise would bring down undue attention on the car and its four inhabitants.
To their right was a large stone farmhouse, the single illuminated window like an accusatory eye that watched their trespassing. Far ahead on the left was the only other light save the moonlight. This light to the left was their destination – the spa that had been built on the abandoned farmland.
They’d had a call from someone who worked at the spa to say that their missing dog, Misty, had been spotted nearby.
‘Isn’t that barn around here?’ Graham, Osmo’s seven year old son, asked.
‘Quiet, honey,’ Mrs Grace Momente insisted, noting the lines of worry that scored her husband’s face.
They wound along the snaking path, Osmo not daring to go faster than five miles an hour lest he alert some unseen guard to their presence.
‘It’s as creepy as I thought,’ Marie whispered to her brother.
He nodded, his eyes wide with fear.
‘Do you really think this is where all those people ended up?’
‘Yes,’ Graham said.
Osmo glared at them in the rearview mirror.
‘Come on, Oscar, no one outside the car is going to hear that,’ Grace said.
‘I don’t think we should make any noise at all. You’ve heard what they say about this place.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Personally, I’d have left the dog. It’s not worth the four of us being chopped up and—’
‘Oscar, shut up, the kids.’
‘They know all about it.’
Graham and Marie nodded bashfully.
‘See. Now, can everyone please shut up?’ Osmo said. ‘I’m as scared as you all are. Let’s find out what happened to Misty and get out of here.’
Osmo took the car down a track which wound to the left, into a huge field where the spa sat in the far left corner. As they negotiated a tight s-bend, Marie gasped.
Osmo glanced from the side window to see a tall man with cadaverous skin standing on the corner of the field. His heart started to pound until he noticed that it was clearly a scarecrow. The man wore a battered black fedora and a long brown trench coat. His long, greasy hair and beard were matted together in thick clumps, hiding most of his pale face. His eyes were staring glassily ahead.
Osmo looked away, pleased to get the creepy scarecrow out of his eye line.
‘Dad, he just moved,’ said Marie, the panic in her voice impossible to miss.
‘It’s just the wind, honey,’ Osmo said.
‘The others didn’t move,’ Graham said, pointing to the
other figures that stood sentry around the field. There were five that Osmo saw in the quick glance he took before he had to concentrate on the road once more. ‘If it was the wind the others would have moved too.’
‘Just your imagination,’ Grace said, unable to suppress the shudder that ran through her.
Marie and Graham eyed the macabre figures suspiciously, watching for the slightest hint of movement. They saw none, so tentatively relaxed. The tramps remained still, their arms held out against the wooden poles like paupers re-enacting the crucifixion.
Osmo pulled up outside the spa.
‘I’ll go in,’ Grace said, noting the worry on her husband’s face.
Osmo nodded. ‘Thanks, honey. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’
‘I’m scared too, dad,’ Marie said. ‘But we’ll be ok. I think it’s too late for Misty though. I think the thing in the barn got him.’
Osmo said nothing, just gulped.
Grace didn’t acknowledge her daughter’s comment. She put the tales of the ‘Thing in the barn’ down to urban legend, but couldn’t deny the creepiness of the place. She went up to the spa’s glass door and knocked gently on the frame.
Osmo winced at the noise and glanced around furtively. He knew they were really pushing their luck being out here and wished he hadn’t brought his family with him, but the truth was that he needed them for moral support. Nothing moved in the field, so he slumped back in his seat, inching his car door shut.
Grace smiled at him, mouthed a sorry, then held up her fingers in the peace sign. Two minutes, that gesture meant.
Eager to get it over with, Osmo waved her inside.
She turned the handle and disappeared into the spa.
Osmo, Graham and Marie eyed the field while they waited. In the distance, they saw the dim outline of the barn. A number of people had disappeared in town over the last year, and a rumour had started that said the bodies were being taken to feed something that dwelled in the barn. Osmo knew he was too old to buy into such shit, but the bodies had to be going somewhere and this was as good an explanation as any.
