KILL KILL KILL

by Mike Leon

  “No. I mean that too,” Zap continues without a hint of any emotion. His gaze has no focus, like he’s staring off into the distance when there is no distance to stare into. “There is an unusually large collection of library and librarian themed pornography on the sixth floor. A black light inspection of the entire library also yielded interesting results.”

  Spears cringes. Walter shakes his head. There is such a thing as knowing too much about someone. He thought that line was already crossed, but he was wrong.

  “You’ll note that the misplaced book, if it were in its proper place, would be the only book to extend over the edge of the shelf on this book case here.”

  “The book case moves,” Walter concludes. “He must have put that book on the wrong shelf because it got in the way.”

  “Yes. There is a hollow space behind it. You can tell by knocking on the wall.”

  “How the hell did you stumble on this?”

  “The Filekeeper showed me.”

  Walter is taken aback.

  “He was here?” he asks.

  Zap, in a rare gesture, seems surprised.

  “He’s been here since this morning. I thought you brought him.”

  Walter did not bring him here. Walter couldn’t bring him here. But he has an idea who did…

  “So where’s the switch?” Morgan asks, referring to the secret door.

  “Oh,” Zap says. “I have no idea. It’s not one of the books. I tried them all. We could inspect the light fixtures.”

  “Fuck that,” Spears interrupts. “I got thermite and plastic explosives in the truck.”

  It takes Spears ten minutes to fetch the explosives from the truck parked outside and another ten to rig them up. He blasts through the door while they all wait upstairs. The explosion fills the lower level with thick black smoke and Morgan retrieves a box fan from the house to clear it faster. When it is thin enough for them to see through, Spears and Morgan lead the way back down the stairs.

  “Gorgeous,” Spears remarks as he examines his handiwork. The explosives cut a hole through the back of the book case just big enough to walk through. He goes in first, pointing a flashlight and a P90 into the darkness beyond. Morgan follows and Walter draws a shiny new Sig 9 to go in behind them. The gun feels strange in his hand. It is not the 1911 he is used to.

  Beyond the hidden door is a staircase that leads to one small landing and then turns, leading through a small alcove and into a chamber beneath the library. Spears finds the light switch and the room floods with brightness.

  It is not a huge room. Walter would call it a spacious study, maybe. It is carpeted and there is a desk and more bookshelves. There are also metal file cabinets, a desktop computer, and some cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. Morgan flips open a book on the desk.

  “Looks like Van Duyn’s journal.”

  Walter steps to his side and has a look through the pages himself. The book contains Eli Van Duyn’s personal notes on reptilian humanoids. It matches those on a nearby shelf. No doubt, Van Duyn’s notes are extensive.

  “Jackpot,” Spears says.

  GOD OF DEATH

  Victor Hansen marches up the mountainside with the pretty blond girl slung over his shoulder. If she were awake, she would be kicking and screaming like they all do, so he learned a while ago that it is best to knock them unconscious for the trek back to the cave.

  He looks back over his left shoulder to see his brother hauling the collection of rifles and ammo they stole from the sorry fuckers they just massacred. He likes to make Sid carry the bullshit gear and supplies while he hauls the bitches himself. He is pretty certain Sid would refuse to carry the girls anyway. He never does anything with them, which is fine. It just means Victor can spend more quality time with them. This one in particular is exciting.

  Victor turns over his right shoulder to check out the fine piece of ass slung over it. A blond American girl. The odds of finding one of these out here are astronomical. Not that all the Afghan girls are unattractive. He has just had his fill of them. This blond girl – she is the kind of girl in the magazines the American soldiers had. This is what everyone wants. Skinny. Pretty face. Tight ass. He puts his hand on it and squeezes. Yes. Excellent. She might even be shaven. That would be something.

  “I think that girl is a Graveyard operator,” Sid says.

  “So?” Victor answers. He doesn’t like the attitude his brother has developed lately. Ever since the fight with that fucking super Muslim, Sid has taken a very defeatist, negative approach to everything they do. He makes nagging, uncooperative, absurd suggestions.

  “You probably shouldn’t rape her,” Sid says.

  “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, runt,” Victor says.

  “Yes. That worked well in the hotel.”

  Also his brother has discovered sarcasm. Victor does not like that development at all.

  “You were much more agreeable when you never talked,” Victor tells him. “Why the hell are you complaining all the time? We have it made out here! We have a cave, and guns, and as much pussy as we can carry!”

  “The old man would not approve.”

  “The old man isn’t here. Look at this! Look at it!” He turns around and shifts Shelly around for Sid to see from a better angle. Her head flops to the side and she makes a slight moan. “You don’t want to fuck this? You’re gay.”

  “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that. What does that mean? Gay?”

  “It means shit. Stupid. Something everybody hates.”

  “That American from C company told everybody he was gay, so that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Fine. I don’t know. Here is what I do know: The best things in the world are raping and killing, and I’m going to do both to this girl,” Victor says. He looks her over again and then adds: “One more than the other.”

  “I don’t like raping.”

  “What about killing?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Victor stops walking and stares at Sid, disgusted. How could anybody ever not like killing? When Victor kills people it proves he’s better than them. Raping girls proves he’s better than them, and he gets to come. It may be even better.

  “How can you not like raping?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t.” His younger brother has a conflicted look as he says this, as if he knows how stupid he sounds and it bothers him.

  “That’s a shit reason.”

  Victor continues walking. The rest of their walk they don’t speak to each other. Victor knows Sid is lying. He has seen the way the little shit looks at the girls he brings back. He tries to hide it, but he is not always successful. Sometimes Victor catches him eyeing the pretty ones with that same look that the Americans had when they were looking at the magazines – the look everyone on Kill Team Three had when he brought that little girl in from over the wire that night. That was a good night.

  The cave is lit by candles they collected in the very first village they sacked. Living in the dark was an annoyance they had to eliminate quickly. Sid drops all of the equipment they collected today and begins lighting candles. They typically don’t raid during the day, but they heard the chopper go down nearby and thought it wise to investigate. That turned out to be a rather lucrative decision.

  Victor walks on deeper into the cave, leaving Sid the menial task of sorting their plunders. He reaches the spot where he has some collected blankets amassed on the ground and plops Shelly down on them.

  He begins by removing her heavy military jacket and the flak body armor he finds underneath. Beyond that, she wears only a white tank top that is soaked through with sweat so that her naked breasts are visible through the fabric. Her chest is modest at best – a disappointment easily forgotten when he removes her pants. Her legs are smooth shaven.

  Victor runs his face along them, starting at her calf and sliding up to her crotch. They feel like silk against his skin. He can’t stop thinking about what hides underneath her little green panties.
Maybe she shaves her pussy too. That would be something. The village girls always have a mess of fur where their legs meet, those that are old enough to grow it, but this girl is from the world. He heard tell that the most desirable women back in the world keep their cleft shaven clean. That would be nice. He slides between her legs and puts his fingers under the waist of her panties. He puts her legs up and slides the underwear up past her feet and tosses it aside. Time to get this show on the road.

  He spreads her legs and what awaits him is shaved smooth, and is a hideous scar that starts at her pelvic bone and extends downward. It is red and discolored and replaces all of the parts he has become accustomed to seeing. She has no clit, no lips – there is nowhere to put his dick. There is only this mutilated mass of flesh.

  For the first time ever, Victor screams.

  Sid is there in seconds with a flamethrower, the pilot light of which he was using to light the candles in the cave. He looks at Victor, and then the girl, and he makes a very confused face which is entirely too much hesitation for Victor’s liking.

  “Burn it! Burn it! Kill it with fire!” Victor screams.

  KILL IT WITH FIRE

  Shelly slowly rouses. All is a blur at first, and dark – so very dark. She feels someone jostling her or touching her. Then she is shaken to action by the sound of shouting.

  “Burn it! Burn it! Kill it with fire!”

  The world comes into focus and she sees the Hansen brothers as two skulls in the black, their faces illuminated an eerie blue by the pilot light of a flamethrower in Sid Hansen’s hands – pointed directly at her.

  “Eagle necktie!” She screams at the top of her lungs. “Eagle necktie!”

  Sid lowers the flamethrower and looks at his brother. Victor Hansen cringes in frustration at Sid.

  “What are you doing?” Victor asks, annoyed.

  “Eagle necktie,” Sid says.

  “I know! I don’t care! Burn that fucking thing.”

  “Don’t do it!” Shelly shouts. “Kill Team One sent me!”

  “Don’t listen to it. It’s a monster!”

  “What?” Shelly says.

  “Yeah. What?” Sid says.

  “Look!” Victor shouts, pointing.

  Only then does Shelly realize she sits naked from the waist down, her legs still spread and exposing the ghastly null zone that remains of her genitals. She closes her legs and covers herself in shame. She begins to ask, but suddenly the entire situation is painted in her mind through simple deduction.

  “You were raping me!” She angrily accuses Victor.

  “I thought you were a woman,” he says, as if that exonerates him somehow.

  “I am a woman,” she spits back, without thinking. After, she doubts herself. She was a girl once, but never a woman. They took that from her when they cut her.

  “Then explain that.” Victor points again to where her legs meet. Sid only stares silently. His curiosity is surprisingly boyish for a skull faced fiend.

  “Stop looking at it!” Shelly cries. Not since the scar was a fresh wound has she felt so humiliated. No man has seen it since the men responsible, and they no longer lived to speak of it. She made certain. She hunted them and opened up their flesh just as sure as they had closed hers. She was still just a girl then.

  She finds her underwear on the cave floor nearby and turns her back to put them on. She can feel Victor’s eyes on her and they are somehow just as intrusive as his hands had been. She slides into the little panties quickly but not even a hazmat suit would be enough to shield her from Victor’s violating, pestilent gaze.

  “I see now,” he says, calmly. “They stitched her cunt shut.”

  Suddenly his interest is renewed entirely.

  “I could cut it open,” he muses. “Or just fuck her ass.”

  If any other man said such a thing to her, she would proudly threaten to tear his dick off with her teeth before letting that happen, but she saw Victor Hansen rip a man’s head from his shoulders with his bare hands just hours ago. Those are the hands that hold her fate. She makes up her mind to fight him and die. She gulps air just to keep from vomiting and turns around to face him.

  Her eyes never make it to Victor. Instead they stop on Sid, who stands smirking in disbelief at his older brother, the flamethrower dangling in one hand.

  “Seriously?” he says.

  “Stay out of this, runt,” Victor tells him.

  Sid never takes his eyes off of Victor, but he speaks to Shelly.

  “Put your pants on,” he says. He moves slowly between Victor and Shelly.

  She does as he says.

  The staredown between the Hansen brothers continues for a brief eternity.

  “Eagle necktie,” Sid tells his brother again, raising the flamethrower a bit higher.

  “Put down the flamethrower, Sid,” Victor goads him. “Put it down and fight me.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  Victor’s expression makes it clear that he does not agree. His hands move in a flash that Shelly cannot follow. He whips the flamethrower out of Sid’s hands and bats his brother in the face with the shoulder stock. Then he kicks Sid and sends him flying into her like a wrecking ball. Sid Hansen is back to his feet almost immediately, but Victor pummels him mercilessly back down against the cave wall a few feet from Shelly. Sid curls up into a beaten, bloody, cowering mess. So much for that.

  “Now,” Victor says, turning his attention to her. “Where were we?”

  But Shelly has a surprise for him – the hulking fifty caliber Desert Eagle pistol she snatched from Sid’s belt when he fell on her. The gun is longer than her forearm, and difficult to keep level in one hand as she points it at Victor’s chest.

  The super soldier laughs at her – with good reason. She has seen him in action all too much already. She has seen his freakish movements. Shooting at him is practically a waste of time. She has a better idea. Shelly turns the gun on herself.

  “Come any closer and I’ll pull the trigger,” she says.

  “What?” Victor says, changing demeanor completely.

  “Yeah, what?” Sid says, spitting blood.

  “Look at the size of this gun, Victor,” she says, madness in her eyes. “Do you still want to fuck me when half my face is missing?”

  She can tell he’s thinking about it. She really hopes the answer is no. This whole situation escalated well past insanity long ago, but he must have some kind of discretion or he wouldn’t have stopped before. She moves the gun to her cheek and points it up at her eye.

  “This should make a real mess just like this. Eyeball hanging. Nose in pieces. Little bits of skull.” Shelly tries to be as explicit as possible, but she has never been very good with words.

  Sid Hansen pulls another gun and points it at her face.

  “And I’ll shoot her teeth out,” he says.

  Thanks? Shelly thinks. That was the most awkward gesture imaginable.

  Victor takes a long look at the both of them and growls with frustration. Defeated, he turns to walk away.

  “I’m going to swing a baby against a wall,” he tells them, as he stomps off toward the cave entrance.

  Victor is long gone when Shelly finally lowers the gun from her face. Sid still does not, and she has to tell him to stop. Only then does he holster his weapon. She watches as the bruised and bloody teenaged harbinger of destruction brings himself to his feet. When she hesitates to stand, Sid reaches out to offer his hand. Shelly takes it and he hoists her up like she is made of paper.

  “What is Eagle Necktie?” she asks.

  “It’s a contingency plan,” Sid Hansen explains coldly.

  “To do what?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “I’m part of the plan. I need to know.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Okay then,” Shelly rolls her eyes. She puts the giant Desert Eagle in the front of her pants. It does not stay very well. The gun is heavy and keeps inching slowly downward through the waistband until i
t risks sliding down her leg. She has to adjust it continuously.

  Sid shrugs and turns away. He heads into another tunnel and Shelly follows.

  “Is it just the two of you down here?” she asks.

  “Yes. Since the hotel,” he says.

  Shelly can make out flames down the tunnel ahead. They come to a small chamber in which Sid has built a fire at the center. The wall around them is lined with weapons collected from the region. There are no less than a hundred rifles. Shelly doesn’t count them, but she makes a special note of the larger weapons – nine antitank guns, three stinger surface-to-air-missiles, fourteen rocket propelled grenade launchers, two MGLs just like the one she uses. The little rats have been busy.

  “You collected this all from raiding villages?”

  “Yes. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m not sure,” she answers. The last few hours have been havoc on her stomach and although she has not eaten in a long while, she does not feel much of an appetite.

  “Here,” he says and hands her a thick piece of meat from the fire, skewered on a combat knife.

  She’s still going over the stockpile of foraged munitions and it takes her a few moments to look down and realize she is holding a cooked human hand. The fingers are blackened from the fire, but the forearm is still a golden brown and only a little bit of blood drips from the severed elbow in runny, greasy drops.

  Shelly squeaks and lets go of the knife. The charred hand falls to the cave floor.

  “What the fuck? You’re eating people?”

  “We eat whatever we can carry back,” Sid says, picking up the hand and taking a bite out of it. Shelly cringes, not just because it is ghastly, but because it reminds her of a time she would rather forget.

  “How old are you, Sid?”

  “Fifteen.”

  Shelly had lived through horrors before she was that age, and she killed her first man when she was not much older. Still, the sight of him now… How did it come to this? It seems he wonders the same question regarding her.

  “Did you cut up your parts so no one could rape you?” Sid asks, squinting one eye at her.

  “No,” Shelly says. “Bad men did that to me when I was a little girl.”