KILL KILL KILL

by Mike Leon

  “I WILL BLEED YOU, HUMAN!!!!!” the blind monster shrieks.

  Tanaka struggles to hold the creature’s talons at bay, and even at the same time he burns the thing with the torch. He burns as much as he can, but it is not enough. The monster continues to rise, blind, blistered and bleeding, the monster continues to rise.

  “Out of the way, boy!” Tanaka hears. He feels someone grab his shoulder – Kill Team One. The old man has a red, five gallon gas can which he can barely lift from the ground. Tanaka gets the idea. He kicks free of Blood Drinker’s grasp, as the kill team kicks the can on its side to douse the expanding lizard mass in gasoline.

  Tanaka sets the thing ablaze.

  That walking terror dies screaming curses down to the last minutes of its life, and the unholy howling it emits will remain with the ninja for years to come.

  He spends the next twenty minutes finding scattered pieces, dousing them and lighting them up as well – just in case anything remains that it could grow back from. When he is certain the monster will never walk this plane again, he sits down with the kill team to watch it burn.

  The fire feels warmer than any other he has ever known.

  WATER CURE

  The Ghoul pitches Valerie Novak into the holding cell head first. The woman slaps against the concrete and skips a few times like a stone. She’s on her feet right away. Novak’s wife is a petite little thing; a kept woman, at least ten years younger than her husband. She is toned, dark haired and attractive, except for the bruises the Ghoul gave her. Walter ordered the giant to haul her around in case she has any toothy surprises in store. The last thing he needs is a fist fight with a twelve foot, razor clawed, reptilian monster. He’s too old.

  Walter pushes the children in behind her, twin boys with sandy blond hair, and a baby girl. They’re crying, but Walter refuses to fall for the ploy. These things are dangerous no matter how they appear in human form. The Arsonist backs him up with a flamethrower as an added assurance. They cannot be too careful.

  “Roy?” Valerie asks, when she sees her husband chained to a rusted steel chair against the wall. His face is a peeling nightmare and his left hand is still flayed and bloody. “Oh my God, Roy. What did they do to you?”

  Zap is already waiting in the corner with his suitcase open. That thing is a veritable Pandora’s box. When it opens, horror comes out.

  Walter notices Sergeant Mullins leaning around the frame of the door with that ridiculous automatic shotgun. Mullins doesn’t just have a hard-on for big guns. He’s clever. The thing is perfect for killing a large monster in a confined space without blowing himself up too.

  “Valerie!” Novak shouts. “I told you what I know! Let them go!”

  “You’re not in a position to negotiate, Novak,” Walter says. “I’m gonna ask you real simple now, and maybe we can settle this without resorting to anything extreme. Who is Sobek?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wrong answer,” Walter snaps back. He turns to Zap and snaps his fingers. “Get to work.”

  Zap starts with a hack saw. When Novak’s little wife sees it come out from that suitcase, she shakes her head in shock.

  “What? What’s that?” she says. “Who are these men, Roy? What do they want?”

  The Ghoul takes her legs out from under her and pins her with his foot, as Zap secures her right pinky finger against the concrete floor.

  He lines up the saw as Valerie pleads with him.

  “Stop wiggling,” Zap says, robotically. “I have to get a kerf started.”

  When Zap draws the saw against her finger for the first time, she screams in a way that Walter knows she has never screamed before. It is a scream he has heard before though, time and time again. He tries to think of Lucy and Heather and Katie, his girls. He can only picture them for a moment before he has to come back to Earth and start yelling.

  “Who is Sobek?!” he shouts into Roy Novak’s face.

  “I don’t know!” the skin-flaking thing screams back.

  “Zap,” Walter shouts. “Turn up the volume!”

  The stoic little man pulls a switch blade from his pocket, which he snaps open as he instructs the Ghoul to hoist Valerie up. Blood leaks from her severed finger and her head hangs low. Once she is off her feet, Zap begins cutting her clothes off.

  Walter notices the severed finger on the floor, sitting in a puddle of blood. The flesh is smooth and creamy. Walter pictures Lucy again, smiling on her wedding day. Her bright white dress sparkles in the sun.

  When he comes back, Valerie is dangling naked by her outstretched arms, clamped at the wrist in the Ghoul’s massive left hand. Blood drips down onto her through the Ghoul’s black armored glove – blood from her finger stump. Zap forces a plastic tube down her throat, at the end of which dangles a funnel. It’s a god damned beer bong. Walter has never seen this before, whatever it is. The children are screaming, trying to get out, but the Arsonist won’t let them leave the room.

  Zap has a gallon jug of some clear liquid at his feet, something he’s planning to force down her throat. Valerie awakens as he’s lifting the jug, the funnel jammed in her mouth prevents her from screaming, but she flails her legs to kick at him. Zap doesn’t seem to mind. He clips a simple clothes pin to her nose and waits for Walter’s word.

  “Sobek!” Walter screams. He slaps Novak across the face and some shreds of skin come with his hand.

  “I don’t know!” Novak screams. “No one knows who he really is! Please stop!”

  Walter turns back to Zap.

  “What is that?” he asks.

  “Water,” Zap answers. “Just water.”

  Walter gives him a nod, and Zap hoists the jug up over his head and tilts it on its side to pour water into the funnel. Walter is skeptical at first, but after the first few gulps he understands. Valerie has to drink all the water he pours down her throat to keep from drowning. As she swallows down the last of the first funnel full, they can all hear her gasping for air through that plastic tube. Zap gives her only two seconds before he fills the funnel again and she’s gulping down more water as fast as she can so that she can breathe again.

  Walter turns to Novak and notices that the general has turned away from the sight. He grabs Novak’s head and turns it back.

  “Watch it, shithead! Watch!”

  They watch as Zap continues to force more and more water down her throat, giving her only a second to catch her breath each time before pouring more. He is relentless. When Valerie loses consciousness, her belly is visibly bloated, and nearly the whole gallon has gone down her throat.

  Zap commands the Ghoul to lie her down on the floor. The beast complies, and when Valerie is face up on the concrete, Zap pulls the funnel from her mouth and punches her in the belly. The woman vomits up an ocean of clear liquid as she springs to life. Gasping for air, and spewing up water, she tries to stand and run, but Zap is on her again, forcing the funnel back down her throat. The Arsonist sets another jug of water down next to them and Zap prepares for another go. Novak’s wife shakes her head violently back and forth. No. No. Not anymore.

  “Stop it!” Novak howls.

  “I’ll stop it when I know everything!” Walter screams. “Who is Sobek? What’s he planning? What’s his endgame, damn it?!”

  “His endgame? You’re insane!”

  Two more jugs of water go down Valerie’s throat before they give up on that method. The woman is a gibbering lunatic when she is finally able to speak.

  “Please! No more! Please! I’ll do whatever you want!”

  Walter stomps over to where she is prone on the ground and wraps a hand around her jaw. He reaches out to Zap and the torturer hands him a lit cigarette.

  “I want Sobek, and I want him now,” Walter says, the rage just barely subdued in his voice.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she squeals.

  Walter puts the cigarette out on her neck and she shrieks. One of the children almost makes it into the hallway, but Mullins
kicks the kid back in and slams the door closed. He probably should have done that a while ago.

  Walter sees Zap with one of those water jugs, dousing a pad of steel wool. He gator clips the pad to the end of a copper wire that extends to a car battery on the floor. This next thing Walter has seen before, maybe too many times.

  “Do what they want, Roy. Whatever they want. Just make them stop!”

  Walter goes away to his happy place again. He sees Lucy in that dress. He’s doing this to keep her safe, to keep everyone safe. He’s really beating Roy Novak in the face and screaming, but he doesn’t see that anymore. He sees Lucy. He sees Lucy with a baby. Yeah. Lucy wants lots of babies.

  Walter comes back to reality again. Roy Novak is yelling over his shoulder. Zap has bound Valerie Novak’s naked form on the floor with stockade cuffs to separate her legs and a simple chain to hold her hands and he is ramming the steel wool pad up her vagina. The woman screams for her children to look away at first. Then she just screams.

  Zap picks up another cable, a shielded cable, and touches it to her navel. Valerie’s body tenses up from the floor as the circuit is made complete and electric current passes through her. As Zap pulls the clip away, she pleads. She isn’t screaming anymore.

  “Please. No more. No. No.”

  Zap dumps a jug of water on her chest and face. He touches the clip to her right nipple. The current arcs before it even touches skin. She makes a horrible noise just like a wounded rabbit. It sends Walter back to Lucy again.

  Suddenly, Lucy isn’t enough to pull him away from this moment. The thought of his smiling girl isn’t enough to give him the strength he needs.

  “You’re killing her!” Novak screams, as Zap lifts away the cable again. Valerie’s chest is marked with bright red burns from the electric shocks.

  “It can all stop, if you just tell us what we want to know,” Zap says.

  “Roy,” Valerie says, in a quivering whisper. “That chair in the den? The pink one? It really would look better in the guest room.”

  “The fuck issat bint on about?” the Arsonist says.

  Some kind of code? Walter thinks so. She’s telling the general something.

  “That’s fine, Val. Whatever you want, baby.”

  “I think I’m in Jamaica.”

  “Val?” Roy Novak shouts.

  “I’m in Jamaica, Roy. I can’t hear you.”

  “Val, talk to me, Val!”

  One of the twins runs to his mother’s side crying.

  “Zap?” Walter asks, wondering if the freak has an explanation.

  “She has water intoxication,” Zap answers.

  “That’s a thing?” the Arsonist remarks.

  “It’s common after water curing. Of course, it may be more severe in this case because of her small stature, and the amount of water I used.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Her brain may be swelling.”

  Roy Novak continues calling out his wife’s name.

  “She’s dying?” Walter asks.

  “It’s a risk you take any time you employ torture.”

  “Fuck it,” the Arsonist says. “Stand back and I’ll burn the lizard bitch right now.”

  “She’s not a lizard,” Zap informs him.

  “What d’ya mean she’s not a lizard?” the Arsonist balks.

  “I removed her finger and it kept its cellular structure.”

  Walter knew that already. He knew as soon as he saw the damn thing come off. Maybe he even knew before. He’s been trying not to think about it. He thinks about Lucy again. He does it for his girls, but his girls are not enough. If he is going to do what needs to be done this time, he will need to think of something more powerful.

  His mind goes somewhere he hoped it wouldn’t, but that it must. It goes to the gunships. Novak sent the gunships. Walter sees that building again. He sees bullets breaking through the flimsy tin walls, missiles exploding through the floor, men dying – his men dying. He pictures Jourgensen’s fatherless baby. Suddenly, Walter is angry – too angry to control.

  He walks away from Zap and the Arsonist and snatches up Novak’s little brat from the floor next to his mother. He whips the boy around to face Roy Novak as he draws his pistol and puts the muzzle to the boy’s temple. Even if Valerie isn’t a lizard, these little hybrid monsters are.

  “Real simple now, Roy,” Walter says. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to splatter the kid’s brains all over the floor and make you sponge it up.”

  “I really don’t know who he is!” Novak shouts. “No one knows! He only communicates by coded message. Blood Drinker has seen his face. Probably no one else.”

  “Lies!” Walter shouts, pulling back the Sig’s hammer.

  “No, I swear it! Just don’t hurt the children!”

  “What’s his endgame?”

  “He wants to build another factory!”

  “After that! Tell me about the Imam!”

  “Who?”

  “The Imam, Roy! Trigger finger’s getting itchy!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t know!”

  Roy is crying. The children are crying. One of them squeaks, “Mommy!” Walter thinks it is the girl, but he doesn’t turn to look.

  “There’s nothing else! We tried that before and it didn’t work! It didn’t work! We only want to stay hidden! We only want to be left alone!”

  “Bullshit! You murdered Van Duyn!”

  “Van Duyn was going to expose us all! Do you know what that means? We’re almost extinct already! There are barely enough of us to fill a football stadium! We can’t fight you! We would be hunted and killed, maybe put in camps and executed!”

  “You attacked my men!”

  “And I’d do it again! I’d do it again and I’d send ten gunships this time to get the job done!”

  Walter squeezes the trigger. He doesn’t actually watch the Novak boy’s brains spray all over the floor. He’s somewhere else, but he knows it is happening. He doesn’t look to see what fell on the concrete in front of him. Was it a boy? Was it a monster? Walter doesn’t want to know right now.

  “No!” Roy Novak cries out. “No! My boy! My boy…”

  Walter turns his back to Roy and walks toward the door. He sees Zap, kneeling over the still form of Valerie Novak and shaking his head. He reaches for the door handle and it feels slippery. There is blood on his hand – blood on both of his hands. He remembers Jourgensen’s widow. He told her himself. He opens the door.

  “Mr. Stedman?” Zap calls out curiously.

  “Just burn them,” Walter says. He’s talking to the Arsonist, but he can’t look back at the man. He can’t look back at any of them. “Burn them all.”

  Walter can hear the screams on his way to the stairwell. He slams the stairwell door behind him and stomps up the stairs. His eyes become fixated on the stairs as he climbs, but not the stairs really, beyond the stairs, like he lacks the will to focus his vision on anything at all. He comes face to face with Sid Hansen on the steps, somewhere between the basement and the lobby. The grim bastard is just lurking there, waiting for him like he knew Walter had to come this way eventually. Walter can’t look him in the eyes.

  “I finished scrubbing the toilets,” Sid says.

  “Then clean all the guns in the armory,” Walter barks back. He keeps moving solemnly up the steps until he reaches the lobby and takes the elevator up to his office.

  He can still hear the screaming. It won’t go away. He covers his ears, but it won’t go away.

  He skips straight to the liquor cabinet and rips the door open. He picks up a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and twists the top off as he sits down at his desk. He kills a third of that bottle in ten minutes, but he can still hear them. He will have to put it aside. He has a job to do in the morning.

  THE BONFIRE OF

  HUMANITIES

  There is nothing on this Earth that rivals the utility, the ingenuity, the raw excellence of good noise canc
elling headphones. The werewolf’s headphones are such wondrous devices. With them over his ears, he cannot hear even the booming reports of his machine gun cycling. The Browning M2 in his brutish, taloned hands is a silent dispenser of death. With each flash of the heavy gun, another bit of order falls to chaos, accompanied only by the symphony of speed metal that blares in his ears.

  The full moon glows silver in the sky. For the werewolf, it is practically daylight. He sees in bright greys and deep blacks, colorless, and yet far sharper than his human vision. He does not need the moon to change. That is a myth perpetuated by the ignorance of those first gifted by the Lord of the Forest. New skin changers often give in to fury under the hunter’s moon. Not Úlfhednar. The man has controlled the wolf since he was a small boy. Such is the way of his people.

  They come in waves still, people screaming and running for their lives right into the muzzle of his huge gun. Usually found mounted on an armoured troop carrier or tank, the Browning is too big for a man to fire, but it is easily fired by a towering monster such as he, even leaving a free hand to feed the ammo belt into the gun. He looks forward to taking the gun inside and watching it tear down the dry wall barriers between him and his targets. For now, there is a great enough supply of them running from the double doors in front of him, but it has been only a quarter of a minute since Victor pulled the building’s fire alarm and the Philistine began pumping sarin gas into the emergency room doors. Soon, the bodies will have piled high as an omen of death and those inside will begin turning back to avoid this exit. For now, though, they come. For now.

  Cannibal Corpse, turned up to maximum volume, fills his ears. “THEY THINK THEY KNOW WHO I AM! ALL THEY KNOW IS I LOVE TO KILL!”

  The hospital was selected by the Philistine because of its proximity to blah blah blah. The werewolf doesn’t care. Cairo is a just another dump, this one wetter than the last, and he is happy to destroy any part of it.