by Jeremy Mac
“See. She’d love to show you around. Allow us to do that much, it’s the least we can do.”
Both James’ and Taya’s faces reflect just how eager they are to please, but if truth be told, he’d already made up his mind to stay for a bit before stepping into James Grant’s domain. He’ll ride their hospitality for a few days, long enough to retrieve what he came for, and then he’ll vamoose.
Lathan nods his approval.
“Excellent,” James says, “I will have a place in the building prepared for you. And if there is anything that you may need, let me know, and it will be done.”
8
Shadows dance in sinister animation across the walls and the ceiling above from the torch’s flickering play of light. The air is thick with the stench of rot; a weak stomach will soon lose its most recent meal in this place. The one carrying the torch wears dark clothes, boots, gloves, and a mask that conceals all but the eyes. The other one wears much the same but with a black trench coat and is without a mask, his long dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, his face is ghostly white and clean shaven.
The masked man unlatches a door whose hinges protest with rusty squeaks when opened into an even deeper void of darkness. Rats skitter across the floor. The masked man enters and lights the torches around the room. It is four hundred square feet of sheer nightmare; two tables covered with filth and gore; bits and pieces of bone scattered all over the floor; chains hang from the ceiling with meat hooks on ends with chunks of flesh still pierced on them. Two men are seated beside each other in the middle of the room with their hands cuffed behind their backs and their feet shackled to the floor. One sits nearly sideways on his chair with half his ass hanging off the seat, his head lolled to the side. The other sits hunched over with his head hanging low over his chest. Both are naked and covered in dried blood.
“Wakie, wakie,” Vincent says.
There is no response from the two and this irritates Vincent. He turns to the masked man and makes an unspoken gesture toward the two captives. The masked man reacts quickly. He grabs his club from his belt and whacks it over the bare foot of one, nearly snapping it in two. The prisoner yells out, waking up the other prisoner but he gets a whack across his shin anyway, causing him to yell out as well.
“Ah, there we are,” Vincent says, pleased. “It’s time now for our daily exercise.”
9
Both men are made to stand with their hands chained to a bar in the wall above their heads and their feet kept shackled to the floor. The masked man exercises them. When Vincent asks a question and it isn’t properly answered then they receive exercise. They’ve been exercising for the past two days and each day gets worse.
“The time for calisthenics is now over,” Vincent says. “We are going to start hitting the weights.”
The masked man produces a small leather case.
Vincent says, “We’ll start out light.” He opens his hand and a shiny scalpel is placed in his palm as delicately as a surgeon’s nurse would have done. Vincent focuses on the man to his left and seizes one of his ears. The man lashes out, trying to shake off Vincent’s grip but it is too tight. Vincent doesn’t do it fast, no, that wouldn’t be as enjoyable, but instead, he slowly carves the ear away from his head. The other man does his absolute best to keep from cringing at the gruesome sounds coming from his friend as he is being tortured and maimed. Both men are already badly beaten, bruised, and cut, but the eyes have been left alone. Vincent is adamant about leaving the eyes unharmed on all his victims, at least up until the end, just so they are able to see what is actually coming to them.
Vincent mocks the man as he cries and begs to not be hurt anymore. Vincent shows the man his own severed ear, shoving it in his face and rubbing it on his cheek, nose, and lips.
Vincent abruptly stops as he feigns astonishment. “I just realized something. Jacko is missing an ear. His right ear. He’d probably like to have this.” He examines the ear for a thoughtful moment and then puts it in his coat pocket.
Vincent politely asks the masked man if he will please unshackle a foot and hold it out for him. Once a leg is free the prisoner kicks out, knocking the masked man in the head. The masked man quickly recovers and slams a fist into the prisoners stomach and another follows into his side, cracking two ribs, taking the fight out of him.
“Now, now, boys. Play nice,” Vincent says.
As the masked man grabs hold of the prisoner’s leg and holds it out, Vincent comes closer as if he’s going to share a secret with his prisoner. “Every man has his breaking point, and you are about to reach yours.” Vincent steadies the scalpel’s edge midway down his shin, sinking it into the skin and bringing it completely around the leg to meet where the cut was first made. Staying in one complete movement he brings the scalpels edge down the length of the lower leg to the top arch of the foot. Vincent hums as he works. The prisoner shakes uncontrollably against the masked man’s strong grip, trying his ultimate best not to scream out for the pain.
Vincent puts the scalpel away and wraps both hands around the top cut. The prisoner realizes what is about to happen when Vincent starts to dig his fingers under his skin.
“Please, no. Oh god, no. Please don’t do this. Help. Someone help me. Help me! Help me! Someone help me! PLEASE GOD HELP ME!”
The skin is slowly peeled away from his leg. At one point Vincent tells the masked man to let go and when he does, as the prisoner jerks his leg back in trying to free himself, the prisoner also mindlessly helps to peel his own skin away. The pain of it all causes him to pass out before it ends. Once the skin is separated from flesh and bone his leg drops and the bloody foot slaps wetly against the floor.
“I believe that’s enough exercise for today,” Vincent says with satisfaction. He holds the skin up as if it is a prized pelt, and to the other prisoner he says, “Tomorrow.”
10
Mongoose has been watching the group pilfering for the past hour and is now waiting for the opportune moment. He has a keen eye and quick instinct when it comes to survival and he knows that the food the four men and one woman recently acquired will feed him and Max for a good long while. He’s already concluded that this ugly looking bunch can’t be anything but Maddick’s and he despises Maddick’s. Doing your best to survive is one thing but hunting others just for the sheer fun of it is entirely something else and he’s seen plenty of them do just that. He tries to steer clear of these brutes but right now he and Max are hungry and the canned goods they are hauling look too tempting to pass up. He won’t be able to take it quietly and unnoticed either. A short pudgy man is in the lead, his black beady eyes are everywhere and watching everything as he walks on. The woman behind him, frizzy haired and snarl faced as if she’s got dookie on her top lip, keeps her eyes forward or to the ground. A black man with long dreads with all kinds of filth embedded into the dreads follows her, and behind the black man is a bald headed man covered in tattoos pushing the shopping cart full of canned goods. And the bull of the bunch, carrying a caveman club over his shoulder, takes up the rear.
Nope, he definitely won’t be able to take it quietly and unnoticed. No matter, he ain’t known as Mongoose for nothing.
Mongoose is seventeen years old and has been on his own ever since the death of the civilized world. If truth be told he’s been on his own long before that. His mother had been a whore, a dope whore, and he’s the result of an episode of that whoredom. Growing up she never showed him much love, an occasional very inexpensive gift or the briefest of hugs was the extent of her affection for him and those were only issued out on holidays and birthdays. If she remembered. She started doing hard drugs when he was eight years old and any affection he once received from her soon vanished not long after. And then things started to go south really fast. The only meal he could count on was school lunch. The cabinets at home were always empty and rarely ever was there anything in the fridge and eventually the fridge itself disappeared, a good refrigerator equals a good bump. If he got hungry he
fended for himself. When he outgrew his clothes he got himself new ones. It didn’t take long for Mongoose to learn the art of thievery in order for him to get what he needed and wanted. He quit going to school altogether, what’s the point when the only reason he kept going in the first place was to get that one meal anyway and that lost its appeal once his extracurricular activities became lucrative. He stayed on the streets all day, every day, stealing and hustling all the while ducking and dodging the local fuzz. The only time he came home was to crash, if he was unable to crash out somewhere else. His mother never questioned him about his whereabouts and he never bothered her and her tricks as they came and went. He brought food home for his mother, knowing she wouldn’t bother to get herself any, and although she often asked him for money he would never give her any, knowing what she would do with it. They never had to worry about the rent; she was nice to the landlord so the landlord was nice to her.
And then the world started to crumble and along with it came The New Disease. It spread like wildfire. It wasn’t long until his mother got infected, and with what the ravishing effect of the drugs had already done to her mind and body, it took no time for the disease to kill her. During the time it took her to die he never once cried and when it was over he wrapped her body in sheets and kept her in her bedroom, where she’d taken countless men before, with the door closed and sealed off with duct tape to keep the putrid smell trapped in. He stayed locked inside that small apartment with his mother’s decomposing body in the other room as the city outside tore itself apart. When he felt it was safe to come out he took his mother’s stiff and shrunken corpse to the building garbage shoot and shoved her through and for the first time in a long while he stepped back out into the city.
Surviving now not only means to simply steal but it also means having to do it with a violent edge if need be. Although Mongoose has hurt people before, killed a few in fact, he will first try to find a way of surviving without getting physical with someone. But if there is no other way around it then he certainly won’t be the one holding the short end of the stick.
He tells Max that he needs to stay put. Max is a half chocolate pit bull and half red haired chow. During one of Mongoose’s ventures of the city he found Max when he was just a pup roaming aimlessly around all by his lonesome. Not wanting to leave the little pup, helpless and defenseless as it was – these days dogs and cats are an endangered species – Mongoose took him in, named him Max, and he’s been a loyal friend ever since.
Mongoose rubs Max’s head and again says “Stay,” pointing a finger for good measure this time.
Max gives a little whine, letting his friend know that he disapproves but will obey.
Mongoose hunches down and moves out from behind the crumbled wall of a building and into the street. The group is on the opposite side of the street headed east about sixty yards from where he is. He closes in on them for about twenty yards, moving and hiding behind the wreckage of vehicles and large debris and anything else he can hide behind as he stalks his prey. He keeps a distance of about forty yards away until he locates a good spot on the other side of the street. His small agile frame moves stealthily across the street and behind a wrecked taxi. He closed the gap considerably in doing so, they are now less than half the distance as before. Wasting no time he unslings his crossbow from his shoulder and takes aim.
At that very moment something on the ground catches the bull’s eye, something shiny. He bends down to pick it up. A silver dollar. What are the chances of that? When he raises back up he sees an arrow sticking through the dreadlock’s in the back of Chaos’s head. The black man’s knees buckle and he falls to the ground.
Damn. He missed the bull. Mongoose hurries to reload. It takes only a couple of seconds, he’s had lots of practice. The bull yells out as Mongoose takes aim. The other three turn to see what is going on. Each notices their friend on the ground with an arrow poking out of his head like a comedian’s head-dress. Confusion soon turns into rage. The short pudgy one snatches out a pair of knives from his belt, the woman retrieves her own knife, and baldy takes out of the shopping cart a thick stick skele with long nails at its end. The bull whips around just as Mongoose pulls the trigger and the arrow sinks in beneath his right collarbone. The bull yells up into the sky, grabbing at the arrow. The other two spot Mongoose hunkered behind the taxi and run after him. The short pudgy one stops to help the bull with the arrow.
Mongoose doesn’t panic, he reloads his crossbow once more and just as baldy jumps into the air, rearing back his porcupine stick and yelling out like a mad man, Mongoose aims and pulls the trigger. The arrow enters through one of baldy’s eyeballs and stops short of exiting the back of his head, he hits the ground like a sack of lead.
The woman isn’t fazed, she charges ahead, wielding her knife. Mongoose has no time to reload, he drops the crossbow and grabs his short ax and lead pipe. He swings the pipe but the woman is out of her mind, she doesn’t even flinch but keeps after him. He waits until she takes a stab at him and when she does he dodges it easily enough, leaving her whole arm extended and exposed. He lifts the ax and brings it down fast and hard, severing her hand and leaving it to dangle from a piece of skin at the wrist. Her mouth opens wide in a wild banshee cry, a snaggled grill if he’s ever seen one, and then he silences her. Mongoose puts his foot on the fallen woman’s face and yanks the ax out of her head.
Short Pudgy frees the arrow from the bull’s chest and now both come after Mongoose.
“You’re gonna pay dearly for this, boy,” Short Pudgy growls.
“I’m gonna bash your head in and then I’m gonna sodomize your dead body,” says the bull.
“No thanks,” says Mongoose, “I’m not into the whole S and M thing. But you two can go right ahead and enjoy yourselves.”
Mongoose gives way to chase and the two pursue him. He doesn’t go far, maybe a hundred feet down the street, across it, and back again. He knows they’re not as fast as he is so he will play with them. They holler and cuss him as he taunts them. The two finally separate to opposite sides of the street to try to box him in. Mongoose plays into it and once he is between the two they close in. He allows them to get within twenty feet of him and then he jets to the side and shoots behind a car. Both run over and Mongoose jumps onto the car’s roof. The bull and Short Pudgy step around opposite sides of the car, watching the boy’s every move. Mongoose deliberately keeps closer to Short Pudgy’s side, and simultaneously both lunge forward. Mongoose jumps high, flipping backwards off the car. Short Pudgy swings his arms around to cut him off at the legs but misses by a nanosecond. At that same moment the bull swings his club, extending the full length of his arm over the car’s roof and smashes the club right into Short Pudgy’s head, knocking him out cold.
Mongoose lands wrong and falls on his back. The bull flies around the car before Mongoose is able to get to his feet.
“Aaahhh!” The bull yells.
Mongoose rolls to the side as the club is brought down by his head, breaking the club in half. Mongoose swings the ax but the bull catches it by the handle, yanking it out of Mongoose’s hand and pitching it to the side. Mongoose swings the pipe, this time hitting him on the head but only to piss him off even more. The second swing causes the lead pipe to join the ax. Mongoose quickly whistles as loud as he can before he is snatched up by the neck and slammed into the side of the car. He is then slammed again and again until the bull pins him onto the hood of the car and squeezes his neck. The bull’s eyes are red and mad with rage, teeth clinched with spittle and strings of saliva dripping from his lips.
Mongoose’s face turns into different shades of purple and blue, the world starts to tunnel into blackness. Just as life as he knows it is about to be extinguished a dark streak flies across his vision. The grasp around his neck is released and he catches his breath with a burning rush of air. He hears a bunch of hollering and growling somewhere on the ground below him. He focuses and sees Max, tearing into the bull’s face.
He
doesn’t call Max off. He lets him have his fun.
11
“So you are meaning to tell me that a boy killed Chaos, Tattoo, and Celeste, and then whooped the two of you, singlehandedly, and then took our food? A boy!”
“Actually, boss, a dog attacked me,” Bruno says.
“A dog,” Vincent says blandly.
“Well, yeah, a really mean dog.”
“Of course it was.” Vincent scoffs. And to Pan, he says, “And what about you? Did the boy and his dog nearly beat you to death and eat you alive as well?”
“No. Not exactly,” Pan says, flush faced.
“Well then, what?”
“Bruno hit me in the head with his club. But it wasn’t his fault. We were trying to get the boy –”
Vincent’s hand shoots up, silencing anything further. “I don’t want to hear it!” Fuming, he slams his fist down onto the arm of his chair with each ford. “I! Don’t! Want! To! Hear! It! I send the five of you out to do something as simple as finding some good food and bringing it back to me and you can’t even do that. Tell me something, how many people have you two killed? Hm?”
Pan shrugs his shoulders. “Lots of people.”
“Yeah, a lot,” Bruno agrees.
“So it’s nothing new to either of you, is it? It comes to you naturally, right? Someone puts themselves in our way, causes trouble in the midst of my doing, you kill them, right? Easy as pie, right? So how is it that a boy and his doggie kills three of my men and injure two?”
