Shallow Veins

by Brian Martinez

  Butcher’s eyes burn in their sockets. “Kevin,” he mutters.

  “That’s not who he is anymore.” One more joins the circle.

  “Just like you’re not Banks?”

  The large man’s smile crawls with black tendons. "The memory of his flesh remains, enough that we know how little he thought of you."

  "Trust me, the feeling's mutual. And now that he's part of you freaks, let's just say his stock isn't going up."

  The two men circle each other at the center of the Self trap, thunderclaps crackle-booming over their heads. Back on Main Street, the sound of a disappointed crowd dispersing rises up into the sky.

  "You had a chance to be a part of us, old blood, ppart of The Joining.” The others echo the word. “Now all we want is to ttear you apart, one piece at a time."

  The Self-people around them link arms, the limbs twisting and melting together to form a solid wall.

  "We will enjoy your suffering as wwe will enjoy your deathh." Banks holds his hand out to Butcher, letting him see the fingers grow into long, blackened claws. "The Self will be the end of all mmankind, but first, it will be the end of you."

  "One small step for man,” Butcher shrugs.

  Banks rushes at him a locomotive of shifting skin, feet pounding the street, mouth stretched and screaming, a rage that doesn't find its way into his dead eyes. Butcher fires off two searing rounds. One burns into Banks' chest while the other grazes the man's neck and tears off a chunk of skin and muscle. Neither are enough to stop him and he drives into Butcher at full force, knocks him off his feet and takes him down to the hard blacktop. The force of the impact knocks the gun from Butcher's grip and it tumbles out of reach.

  The two wrestle on the ground, exchanging blows. Banks doesn't use his claw hand, preferring to toy with Butcher, hurt him with Banks' human hand. It's enough to convince Butcher that at least some part of the real Banks is still in there somewhere, enjoying this.

  His gun. It's close enough to reach. He goes for it. Banks knocks it away and then, with his human hand, holds Butcher down by the neck. With the other he slashes Butcher across the face.

  Blood sprays the street. Five, deep cuts open on Butcher's face, the pain so excruciating Butcher doesn't hear himself scream. Satisfaction creeps into Banks' cold eyes, long teeth twisted into smile formation.

  Something happens in Butcher. It's a change at the cellular level, brought on by pain and risk of death. His mind fills with images, snapshots of Banks before and after death; a bulk download, as if all of Banks funnels down through the skin. He feels a rush of blood in his neck where Banks' hand crushes his throat, and he's never felt this before- a transfer, no, a transfusion of energy. He drinks it in, pulls it inside, feels it warm him.

  The bleeding cuts on Butcher's face, all five gushing wounds, become alive with growth. Scabs stitch him. New flesh grows. The slashes shrink until they close up completely, only blood left behind.

  Butcher sees it all happen through Banks' eyes, taking the memory as it happens. It's so surreal he doubts whether it even happens, but the look of shock on Banks' crooked face tells him otherwise.

  "Ahh, here it is," Butcher says through the blood. Banks looks down to find the man's gun stuck up in his gut.

  Before Banks can move his heart-brain, Butcher fires.

  Banks' stomach explodes in a burst of black blood, the heart-brain with it. The wall of Self roars at the kill. It's not a loss the way humans know it; it insults them to see a member of their hive killed.

  As his face goes blank, Banks' skin turns from pink to gray then wilts to nothing, the way sped up footage of dying flowers looks, all shrinking and drying, until the man crumbles into dust. Officer Banks becomes nothing more than ash carried on the rising wind.

  The empty uniform falls into Butcher's lap. He tosses it aside as he gets to his feet, gun in hand. Meanwhile the angry wall presses in. Their arms entwine closer, tighter, and the circle becomes smaller around Butcher. Their wretched faces shrink and expand, prepared to attack, a drawing back before the wave.

  "Come on, guys, let's not bring emotions into this. You're above that."

  They jump on him. The circle closes in a mass of spinning and shrieking. The chaotic mixture of muscle makes the group indiscernible from one another. Butcher is a man lost in the shuffle; drowning in flesh.

  A glowing red spot forms on one side of the chaos, veins visible like a child holding a flashlight under their hand, and then the glow becomes an explosion of Self-meat mixed with oily black. Butcher jumps out and free of the mass before it closes up. As he moves away it’s already ripping and separating into individuals again, though individuals missing a few pieces, their clothes reduced to rags.

  Eight bullets left.

  Butcher scans the street for the little bastard hand as thunder growls and crackles above. The hand runs on its bug-legs toward the court building, making ground. The only things standing between he and it: the shrieking Self-people intent on his skin.

  So, a lot.

  Butcher flanks left around them and fires on the outermost Self-man, aimed low. The molten shot sheers off his leg at the knee. He crumples to the blacktop. Butcher jumps over him, using the back of his head for footing, his cockeyed face complaining as it's crushed into the street.

  As Butcher steps off its head, a Self-woman grabs for him with muddy red pincer-arms. He dodges the arms but stumbles, knocked off-center, and almost doesn't stick the landing. The thing grabs for him again and he fires off a wild shot but misses his mark.

  “Hey, stay still,” Butcher tells her.

  Over the Self's shoulder, the entire ragged crowd grins at Butcher with serrated smiles and tongues with faces.

  He frowns. “Or, I could run.”

  The pincered Self lunges for him. He shoots her in the chest, sending her backward and into the crowd, buying him a second to run for it, which he does, weaving around lampposts and mailboxes. The Self-people trail behind, some of them spread out to cut him off. He jumps over the hood of the next car, slides over it.

  What a stereotype, Butcher notes as he lands.

  One of the faster Self-people comes around the back of the car and into Butcher's way. Without hesitation Butcher shoots it in its sunken chest but misses the heart-brain. “You ddon't have enough bullets to stopp us all,” the Self gurgles through bubbled-up blood.

  “I have five- four more than I need.”

  Scuttling sounds, the clang of bone on blacktop. One of the pincer-arms emerges from underneath the car, moving on its own with newly-grown feet.

  “Clever girl.”

  Butcher aims and fires, cutting the pincer in two. It lets out a wet squeal before it goes dead.

  “Nnow yyou have four left,” the Self-man gloats. The rest of the crowd comes up behind Butcher, half-naked and blood-crazy.

  Butcher picks the dead pincer up off the blacktop. He advances on the Self-man and buries the blade in the thing's neck. Black blood squirts in his face, but he squints it off.

  “Better not waste any, then,” he tells the choking Self.

  Without looking back he knows the group is on him. He gets behind the gurgling Self-man, shoves him into the crowd and resumes the chase as they catch their hive-mate. Worry clutches him as he realizes the hand is almost to the court building.

  Snake-rats nip at his heels, gifts from his pursuers. They bite his boots and hook onto his pants, trying their best to hurt him and slow him down so their masters can catch up, but he shakes them off and keeps running. A particularly nasty one clamps onto his shin and draws blood. He shouts, pries the bastard off and crushes it between his fingers. He tries to ignore the sick crunch as he tosses the limp slop away.

  Almost to the court building now, the bug-hand glances back, sees Butcher gaining on it and redoubles its effort. Butcher pushes himself the way he did the hearse. He steadies his hand, lines up a shot and takes it.

  Miss. The hot bullet ricochets off blacktop.

  Three left
.

  The hand reaches the court and jumps its twitchy bug-jump onto the side of the building. By the time Butcher hits the building the hand is fifteen feet up and climbing, using the hooks in its bug-feet to latch onto the spaces between bricks. Butcher lines up another shot, compensating for the growing wind. He fires but misses, managing to take a chunk out of the brick.

  “Shit!”

  Two left.

  He finds the emergency fire ladder on the side of the building and pulls it down to the ground with a loud bang. The slurp-stumbling crowd almost on him, and with no choice left, he holsters his gun and climbs.

  The skies rage. Dark clouds hold searing hot bolts in their bellies. The wind becomes so strong it blows old dirt from the rooftops and into the air, getting into Butcher's eyes, stinging them. He looks back down to the ground, wondering if he's made a mistake, but below him the remaining Self people have already begun to follow him up, some on the ladder, some hooked into the brick like demonic mountain climbers.

  He continues up after the hand. One rung after another, he gives it everything he has. Then he gives it more.

  A hand grabs his ankle. Fingers dig into the fresh bite wound. He grinds his teeth, fighting to keep a hold on the ladder. Quickly he draws his gun, holding on with the other hand, and leans down to shoot whichever freak has him by the boot.

  As he fires, he recognizes the face of April. The poor girl who took him down the hall to see Mary at the dentist's office, the same he saw taken apart through that window. A pang of apology worms its way into his gut as the bullet finds its mark, exploding her arm into black gristle and bone.

  One bullet left.

  The woman falls, but she's snatched up by the other Self, pulled back into the group by reaching arms and claws to rejoin them. Her bloodied hand still hangs onto Butcher's ankle. It twitches once, twice, becoming independent. Before it can finish waking up he pries it off and uses it to bludgeon the next Self reaching up for him, smashing it into his face until the freak loses his grip and slips down the ladder, bringing a few down with him.

  The bug-hand is almost to the top. It climbs the bronze structure in long, anticipatory strides, and Butcher knows he doesn't have much time left to stop the bastard. If it reaches Kevin, relays the book's resting spot to him, all could be lost- the fight, the world, the whatever else.

  He stops climbing, holds on with one hand and leans back. Hanging out over a long fall and a swarm of pissed-off doppelgangers he aims his gun, compensates again for the wind, lines up his best shot, his only shot, his last shot. He pushes away all other sounds, all thought of the death clawing up at him.

  And he fires.

  The molten shot pierces the wind and finds its target, but it’s not a body shot- it sheers off one of the hand's legs and knocks it off balance, not enough to put it down. It limps up the curve of the sculpture, then up and over where Kevin waits for it.

  Butcher curses himself. The doppelgangers are catching up, their faces excited at knowing the bug-hand completed its mission. He holsters the gun and ascends again, pushing himself to climb as fast as his arms will bring him. He reaches the bronze structure as light rain begins to fall from above, making its surface slick. He continues up until he reaches the top.

  Kevin holds onto the large antenna with one hand and the bug-hand in the other, his eyes closed. The hand loses its form and melts into his. The skin mixes and joins until only Kevin's is left.

  Kevin opens his eyes and smiles at Butcher, pleased. "All this ttime. All this time we were so cclose." His eyes scan back and forth, digesting the information.

  "You know I can't let you leave."

  "We know you believe that. Wwe also know you can't stop us."

  Butcher makes his way across the slippery surface, one, slow step at a time. "You know, it's funny- you freaks keep saying that, just before I stop you."

  "Killing one part of the Self does nothing."

  "Maybe. But it feels really good."

  Kevin stares into him. "You have no idea what you'rre up against, Butcher. You don't grasp your own world let alone the ones you've yet to see. And now with the priest gone, you never will. You're a student without a teacherr. A failurre before you begin."

  "You sound a lot like my high school guidance counselor."

  Kevin shrieks into the lightning. His shirt tears apart, back expanding. Two large bat wings birth from his shoulder blades, deformed leathery canopies of skin and vein.

  A black tentacle of dead skin shoots from his mouth and strikes Butcher in the chest, knocks him backward. Off-balance, his boots slip on the bronze and he falls.

  Falling, reaching, his right hand finds the roof's ledge, the spot where his boot was planted a second before, but his fingers slip on the rain, the bronze too slick to get a hold of. Falling again. Tumbling. Reaching. His left hand grasps something, a marble scale, the statue of Lady Liberty. This time he manages to hold on, but his shoulder pops in its socket. Before his arm has a chance to give out he swings the other up and grabs on.

  As he dangles from the statue and feels the ache in his shoulder, the doppelgangers below climb and slip their way up. He squints up into the rain in time to see black, veined wings pass over him, blocking the rain for just a moment. They carry their payload messily to the ground, unskilled in flight but large enough to glide on the strong wind.

  On his feet again, Self-Kevin looks up at Butcher from the street. He flashes a smile before he folds his wings in, reabsorbs them and walks away.

  The doppelgangers reach for him, fingers stretched. The highest of them touches the heel of his boot. With both good and bad arms, and with no small amount of pain, Butcher pulls himself up, first to the top of the statue, then to a small ledge, and finally to the roof. He sits for a moment, checks that the gun is empty, checks his pockets for any ammo he might have forgotten about. Wishful thinking- he knows there's none left.

  Fingers on the ledge. The first of the doppelgangers lifts herself into view, eyes peeked over at Butcher. He kicks her hard but she doesn't fall. Soon more fingers appear on all sides. They have him cornered, trapped. His only escape is a long fall and a fast stop.

  Butcher scrambles to his feet and climbs up the curve to the center of the roof. He grabs the tall antenna, surrounded by the Self climbing up and over, all broken teeth and bloody claws, wet rags and dead stares.

  Their arms stretch and stretch toward him, the muscle and bone creaking and cracking.

  The hairs on Butcher's neck and arms raise up. The cloud above rumbles and crackles. Nighttime becomes day. Lightning, long and jagged, hits the antenna, and Butcher's entire body goes white hot. He feels it surge through his every cell until they bulge with electricity, ready to burst.

  This is it, he thinks. Facing down monsters from beyond, and it’s a stray lightning bolt that takes me out.

  Except that it doesn't. As fast as his body fills up with the force of the lightning, it empties just as quickly. From his eyes, from his mouth, from his fingertips and follicles and pores, lightning erupts. It arcs from his body in white-blue heat to the surrounding bronze and meat.

  Franklin Butcher becomes a bomb.

  The doppelgangers twitch and shake, their borrowed bodies alive with current. Overloaded heart-brains cook inside them like turkey giblets. Eyeballs burst and hair catches fire. By the time the electrocution is over, the air smells of burnt bacon. Black blood runs from their open mouths and down their melted feet.

  Butcher looks around at the blackened bodies melting at his feet, bodies that, other than Kevin, represent to his knowledge all of The Self that threatened Shallow Creek.

  It seems appropriate to say something.

  “I need a drink,” he says. Satisfied, he steps over what's left of a face.

  **

  Back on Main Street, the crowd is gone. With the exception of a few drunks wandering off, masks pulled down halfway across their faces, the makeup around their mouths worn off, the street is empty.

  Offic
er Stroud, having drawn the short straw, is stuck taking down barricades in the rain. She folds them up and pushes them into the back of one of the department's vans as the water runs off her rain gear.

  As she takes down the last barricade, she catches sight of someone walking up the street toward her from the direction of Jackson Street. The man wears what looks like a Shallow Creek Police uniform. Closer, she recognizes the face, though its covered in rain and red and black muck.

  “You missed a cone over there,” Butcher nods. He walks past her and her shocked expression without slowing down.

  “Hey. Hey, hold up.” She catches up to him and turns him around by the shoulder. He pushes her hand off him. “What happened to your face,” she gasps.

  “You take care of your business, Stroud, I'll take care of mine.”

  “We're both cops, we have the same business.”

  He laughs. “I asked for help and you threw me in a cell.”

  She asks, “Is that blood?”

  Passed out on the sidewalk next to the hearse, the werewolf snores in the rain. “Thanks for watching it,” Butcher says. He gets behind the wheel and starts the car.

  “Is that blood,” she repeats over the sound of the engine's roar.

  He throws the hearse into drive and floors the gas pedal, peeling out on the oily street.

  “Butcher,” Officer Stroud shouts after him. “Butcher, is that your blood?” But her voice is lost on the wind.

  **

  With no sight of Kevin, Butcher stands at the edge of the tarp. The cold rain pelts down now, pick-packing on its surface. Red and black runs down Butcher's face as he stares into the dark.

  Having already pulled the spikes out of the ground that held it in place, he gathers as much of the material as he can, puts his back to the hole and trudges through the water-logged grass. Slowly, heavily, the tarp pulls free.

  The sinkhole is dark, hard to see into, but he can tell the tarp has done little to stop the heavier rain from flowing down and in. The walls are mud, and at the bottom the rain splashes into puddles. He has only one goal here: to find and destroy the book before Kevin reaches it. All he has to do is touch it. According to Kevin himself, the touch of a human will burn the book right up. With the book out of the way, killing Kevin will be secondary- necessary, of course, but secondary.