Thank God! Hellboy had come to her rescue!
He had come to save her––which meant that William was nearby too. And William was a good man, a great man. He was amazing. He had strong arms and strong legs. He had a kind heart and a generous soul. And he’d know what to do about the situation, this awful nightmare that reared its ugly head. Yes sir. He’d know all right, and he’d get the job done lickety-split. And when he found out what happened to Roger, look out! He’d kill the creature with his bare hands; like a knight battling a dragon, he’d slay the beast!
Five. The monster opened a half dozen mouths; it began to scream. The voices sounded like a gang of sirens.
SQUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Four. Three. Cameron’s left foot clipped a rung, throwing her off balance, making her gasp, changing her momentum and slowing her down. Making her hesitate. Making her scared. But that was okay. It would have to be okay. If it wasn’t she was done-for. Kaput. Defunct. Dead meat. Tag the toe and close the drawer, people––if she didn’t get a move-on there would be nothing to see but a corpse, or what was left of it.
Two.
The creature made a move. It raised a limb, suspended the appendage near Cameron’s feet and stabbed it into her. The poisonous stinger hit a leg, ripping a giant hole in her calf muscle, piercing her bone. It was in and out like a flash of lightning, leaving a gap the size of a doorknob.
Cameron crushed her eyelids together and stumbled. Biting back a scream, she ground her teeth and made a face that suggested she’d eaten something sour.
One.
Another flash. The stinger hit Cameron in the lower back, inches from her spine. The pain was enormous, historic.
Her mouth popped open. Now––from somewhere deep inside her lungs––she was screaming. Blood squirted from both wounds. White bubbles that looked like puss and milk mixed together streamed down her skin. Screaming. She was screaming and screaming. Her heart was racing, pounding in her chest.
Daniel’s gutted basement appeared in front of her eyes. It was like she had changed channels. One channel was the ladder; the other channel was the basement.
She dragged herself halfway from the hole with her eyes watering, her body convulsing and her fingers digging marks into the floor. Her stomach was on fire, her back seemed broken, and her wounded leg was already turning numb.
Blood, mixed with something that tasted like battery acid, or maybe bleach, filled her mouth. She wanted to let go, fall, end it, but figured the creature would feast on her body the same way it feasted on Roger, swallowing her down in shark-sized bites.
She didn’t want that.
Beneath her, the monster squeezed into a new position. It was good in tight spaces. Its body seemed to be built for it.
More sirens: SQUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
She could see a dog.
It was Hellboy. Yes, the dog had come to save her.
It kept barking; someone stuck a hand in front of her face and she found herself grabbing it. Someone squeezed her fingers very hard before they let her go. She was grinding her teeth. White-bubbled puss ran from her mouth. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. Her stomach felt like it was boiling beneath her skin.
The beast was so close.
It would find its way inside Daniel’s home any moment now. Then she would die, be eaten. They would all be eaten, even Hellboy. Hellboy wouldn’t save her, the poor dog––poor unfortunate dog. It couldn’t save the day. Nobody could. This was the end.
She caught a glimpse of William. His hands were beneath her armpits; his fingers were digging into her skin. She was being dragged away from the trapdoor, dragged across screws and drywall, nails and tools. He was saving her. She wouldn’t fall to her death. Somehow she would be okay.
Her heart raced faster now, pounding her insides like it was trying to escape. Let me out you stupid bitch, her heart screamed. Let me out!
Everything began changing color; things were turning brown. Things were turning yellow, or were they green? She didn’t know.
Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by vice grips.
She saw Daniel lying beside her, exhausted and panting, looking at her with a troubled smirk. His face reminded her of a scarecrow. He was saying something; with his eyes wide and his lips trembling he was saying something. But she couldn’t make out the words. She didn’t care. Not now. Her chest hurt too much for caring. She was in too much pain.
An oversized crab leg came through the hole in the floor. The leg had a stinger that looked like a half moon. There was blood on it––Cameron’s blood, Roger’s blood.
The creature had arrived.
She wanted to taste the blood from the stinger. It was a strange thought, but it was true. She loved blood. She wanted to lick it, wanted to suck it. She wanted to tear off her shirt and rub her tits up against it.
She saw a woman she barely recognized. The woman looked like Beth, but she looked like a bitch too, like a dyke––like a dry-cunt wench that needed to get shot. Cameron wanted to wrap her fingers around the woman’s throat and strangle her until her eyes bugled out of her sockets. She wanted to bite off her nose and piss in her face.
The woman slammed the trapdoor.
With a BANG the monster’s leg disappeared beneath the wood.
Was the woman was trying to save her?
Maybe, the rotten bitch. When she slammed the door on the beast, the door sounded like it locked. Why the hell did the woman do that? Who made her boss of the world?
The dog barked and barked. The sound was making her crazy. If she didn’t know better she’d think the stupid thing was barking at her. At her! She eyed the dog for a moment only to find that it was looking at her. It was growling, with teeth exposed and saliva hanging from its jaw.
What’s wrong boy? she wondered.
Then her heart stopped hurting and her stomach settled. Just like that, she felt better.
She felt better!
Everything was going to turn out just great!
She turned away from Hellboy, the senseless animal. Animals were so stupid, so fucking dense. They all were. She hated animals. She always hated animals. She wanted all the animals in the world to die in an enormous mammal holocaust.
She caught a glimpse of a crowbar lying on the floor beside her.
It was the future.
The future seemed very bleak.
The room swayed. She looked at her pants and her shoes. Her shoes had blood on them. The floor had blood on it too. William was trying to calm the dog down. Daniel was lying beside her. That stupid cunt was kneeling on the trapdoor. And the crowbar, oh boy, the crowbar. It was sitting next to her, calling her name. Come get me, it was saying. I’m all yours!
She snatched the crowbar off the floor, grinning. It felt heavy and cold. It felt good. Someone was screaming. The dog was barking. People were asking questions. What are you doing? they were saying, like it was any of their business. Might have been Daniel. Might have been the dog.
Daniel was an asshole. He left her down there by herself… with that thing! How could he? Who did he think he was? Didn’t he know better? Didn’t his momma raise ‘em right?
She looked at Daniel lying on the floor next to her.
He looked scared now, so scared––like a boy that had seen a ghost. Or had come home from school to find his father swinging from a noose and his mother’s head torn from her body.
Daniel looked cool in his jeans and his faded Black Sabbath t-shirt. She wanted to fuck him and suck him, but she hated his guts now. She wanted to stick her fingers into his eyes and make him scream until his brain bled. She wanted to cut off his head and shit down his throat.
He was a bitch.
All men were bitches.
But she wanted to fuck him.
She thought about Paul LaFalce. If she ever got her hands on that son of a whore it would be game over for sure. She’d cut him into a million pieces and throw him in a fire. She’d scoop out his eyes and swallow them
whole.
Things turned bad. The acid in her mouth seemed to be poison. The dog was snapping at her again and again; it looked insane. Its teeth were wet and glistening and huge. The crowbar: it was right there in her hand. It was the future, and it felt so fucking good, so fucking right.
She squeezed the iron tight.
Daniel looked like a little boy, like a brainless child.
Afraid of the big bad wolf, she thought. What an asshole.
But it wasn’t the wolf that frightened Daniel; she understood that now. Oh yes, everything was crystal clear.
Daniel was afraid of her. Of her! She could tell.
The fucker was so stupid she wanted kill him. She wanted to rip off his balls and stuff them into his ears.
She tried to spit in his face and failed miserably. Blood and puss ran from her mouth, down her chest and onto the floor, creating a puddle. She didn’t think it was getting pumped out. It rolled out of her, it seemed, like the liquid had nowhere else to go.
The trapdoor bounced up and down.
The fucking dyke-cunt screamed.
Cameron wanted the dog to stop barking. She wanted to take Daniel’s fears away. She wanted to open the trapdoor and feed the dyke to the beast.
The crowbar felt good in her hand. It felt like the future.
It felt right.
∞∞Θ∞∞
At the top of the staircase Nicolas Nehalem stoked his shotgun. He was listening to the turmoil in the basement, wondering what the fuss was about.
He considered his options: it seemed like a good time to strike. A damn good time, perhaps this was the moment he’d been waiting for.
“Cameron,” he whispered. “Cameron, my child.”
He smiled then, and a runner of drool rolled over his lip and down his chin. He thought about her fingers: they would be healthy and fresh, juicy and sweet.
They would be delicious.
∞∞Θ∞∞
∞Θ∞
~~~~ CHAPTER THREE: JUNE 1ST, MONDAY NIGHT
1
Lying on his back with a hand on his chest, Daniel caught his breath. Cameron was beside him. Chunks of drywall sat near his feet; baseboards were at his sides. Various tools and piles of dust were scattered throughout the room.
Daniel turned his head to one side, trying to discount the chaos.
Cameron came into view.
She looked hurt; that much was obvious. But there was more. Cameron looked mad. Not furious mad, but screwy mad, maybe even insane.
Dan wondered how that was possible. People don’t just go insane, he thought justly. He was right. This wasn’t insanity; it was something altogether different. Cam’s eyes had turned dark; her skin had become pale. Loss of blood, Daniel assumed. But there was something else, something more. She looked rabid. Yes, that’s what it was: something akin to rabies had entered her bloodstream, making her crazy and unpredictable, making her shady. She seemed nothing like the girl he met in the restaurant.
Dan said, “Cameron, you okay? Hold it together.” His voice was weak; his words seemed futile.
He looked away, watching the trapdoor bounce up and down as Beth knelt on top. Her thick arms and sturdy legs made her look like a football player crouched into position, ready for the play, ready to score, ready to give one hundred and ten percent while shouting Go Team Go! Her eyes, however, carried a different expression. They weren’t playing a game. Beth was scared shitless.
Hellboy didn’t help the situation.
The dog barked loudly, adding to the tension, galloping across the room on his snowshoe feet like a disgruntled horse. The dog didn’t like Cameron now; it didn’t like anything. It ran to Beth barking and sniffing the floor. It raced to William snarling. Then it barked twice more and returned to Cameron, ready to strike.
Dan looked at Cameron.
Her face had changed, but not in a manner he could have predicted. Anguish was gone, replaced with anger and rage. If Daniel didn’t know better he’d swear she was about to tear the hair from her head in bunches.
Daniel whispered, “Cameron?”
Without warning, Cameron grabbed the crowbar off the floor and held it in a way that could only mean trouble.
Worried she’d do something terrible, Dan sat up. He felt pain in his legs, hands, and stomach––the long climb up the ladder had come with a price. He said, “Cameron! What are you thinking?”
Hellboy barked wildly, holding a position near Cameron’s feet. Its muzzle was pulled up in a vicious sneer. Long teeth were exposed.
Why now? Dan wondered. Couldn’t the dog pick a better time to go mad?
“Stop that!” William said. He advanced on the dog, making it flinch.
At the same moment Cameron swung the crowbar. The iron hook connected with Hellboy’s head and the dog went down, folding upon itself like a lawn chair. Blood sprayed the air, hitting Dan in the face and chest. The dog’s legs twitched and the barking stopped. Blood poured from Hellboy’s skull––lots of blood, enough to create a puddle.
Daniel gasped.
William screamed.
The room became slightly less chaotic.
Beth didn’t seem to notice. She was busy dealing with the thing inside the shaft, the creature that had eaten Roger alive.
The floor rattled and shook. Hinges strained as the beast pounded the trapdoor with its thick, meaty limbs.
Beth, on her knees, rode the trap door as it bounced up and down. Her eyes were hockey pucks; her mouth was a basketball hoop. Her expression seemed to be asking the question: would it door hold, or would it fling open and toss her across the room like a rag-doll?
She said, “I need help, guys! This thing wants in! What are we going to do?”
Cameron slammed the iron down again.
This time, the heavy hook demolished Hellboy’s face. The dog’s nose exploded and blood shot across the floor. Its eyes bulged from its skull. The dog’s legs flinched twice more as William and Daniel screamed in unison.
William didn’t move. He couldn’t. Shock had cemented his feet to the floor.
But Daniel could move, and he did. He pounced on Cameron like a wrestler, slamming her shoulders to the ground. Cameron lifted the crowbar and Daniel knocked it away. Kicking her feet and swinging her arms, Cam tried to knock him off. Dan pulled back, grabbing Cameron’s hands one at a time.
William dropped to his knees beside Hellboy––his companion, his family, his friend. His eyes were watery; his face was a wrinkled display of assorted emotions. It was clear that he wanted to help the dog, but how? He leaned in, moved closer. Somehow he got blood on his hands and he looked at it. The blood glistened on his fingers.
The dog was dead, bleeding a pool of gore that was expanding by the second. The fur around its nose was bunched together in clumps. The snout was crushed. Hellboy’s skull was cracked.
Cameron had killed it.
He looked toward her with anger and hate stamped across his eyes. He lifted the crowbar off the ground and stood up. Blood dripped. Drywall dust fell from his pants. Not surprisingly, he seemed to be unsure of what to do next. His knees were shaking and his teeth were clenched.
As Daniel fought with Cameron he caught a glimpse of William’s face. Revenge seemed to be written beneath his features. Dan wondered if William was thinking about hitting Cameron with the heavy iron stick, making her pay for her outrage. Maybe he wanted her to scream in pain and feel what Hellboy must have felt when she killed him. But that didn’t seem right. Cameron wasn’t a stranger, or some escaped psychopath from a nearby penitentiary. She was William’s family and friend. She was a good person that had lost her way, and William always said that violence was a tool of the weak minded, and was only to be used as a last resort.
William raised the crowbar up, holding it in both hands.
Perhaps his beliefs had changed.
Cameron snapped her teeth like an animal. Her eyes were large and her nose was crumpled into a sneer. Daniel couldn’t believe it. She was acting li
ke a werewolf. He tried to talk her down but it was no use, she was out of control.
Cameron twisted a hand free and clawed Daniel’s face.
Daniel pulled back, cringing in pain. His weight shifted and Cameron took advantage. She pulled her other hand free and pushed him off balance.
Trying to recapture his poise, Daniel fell.
Fingers clawed his face. A mad scuffle occurred and suddenly she was on top of him, in control, attacking him with her fingers.
With a sinister grin, Cameron laughed. She clawed him twice more, once with each hand. Daniel grabbed one of her wrists. In response, Cameron grabbed his neck and squeezed it, compressing his neck muscles and trapping the air in his throat. For a moment he was afraid he’d never breathe again. Mercifully, it didn’t last. He knocked her arm away with a fist and lifted a knee, pushing her to one side.
Another loud bang came as the trapdoor lifted and fell.
Beth didn’t seem to care. She was too busy watching the battle between Cameron and Daniel in a state of disbelief.
Referring to Cameron, Beth said, “What’s she doing? What’s happening?”
Confused and distraught, William turned away from the scuffle and looked at Beth. Fear and confusion was in her eyes. The trapdoor bounced beneath her again. How long could she hold the creature off by kneeling on the door––a minute, maybe two? Something needed to be done.
All four of them needed to get out of the basement before things went from bad to worse.
Sadly, Daniel knew what had to be done.
Will adjusted the crowbar in his hand, eying Cameron. He seemed to know what needed to be done too. Or did he think that smashing Cameron with the iron was too dangerous?
Dan’s eyes shifted from Cameron, to Beth, to the dog.
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