by Robert Essig
Just as Zack placed the diminutive spare tire on the car, a car passed them by, and with it Jenny recoiled as if she’d seen something horrendous. Zack stood from his kneeling position to see what the commotion was all about, surprised to see that jenny had transformed into Dagana, which was unusual in plain sight like this, particularly concerning her insistence about keeping a low profile.
“What’s going on now?” asked Zack. It was his turn for irritation.
In reply, Dagana lifted her hand and pointed. Zack followed her pointing finger to see the car that had just passed pulling an illegal three point U-turn and heading back toward them at quite a determined speed.
“It’s Baz,” said Dagana. “The bastard finally found me.”
“Baz,” Zack whispered. He knew the name from what Dagana had told him, but he was in no way prepared for a showdown. Not yet.
The car sped toward them nearly taking Zack out as it came to a stop. The passenger side door blew off its hinges and out came Baz in a long leather trench coat, his magma eyes staring into Dagana’s.
“So I’ve found you, have I? And all due to a flat tire, I see.”
Zack indeed felt that fear he had earlier claimed didn’t apply to Jenny and he, but he too knew that what he was, what his becoming made of him, was worthy to fight with the man Dagana called Baz. What a dumb-ass name, thought Zack.
“I’m sure you had help,” said Dagana. “And you have been tracking me for some time. I knew you would find me. It was just a matter of when.” Dagana looked into the car at Austin who remained seated. His face expressed fear, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t an In Betweener. Not a sentinel, but maybe another like Acronos hiding beneath a human façade.
“Who’s that?” asked Dagana.
“My chauffeur.”
Dagana snorted. Tension was heavy and Zack didn’t know if he should transform himself and show his cards, if he should continue to change the flat, or if he should just sit tight until he was commanded to action. For now it was better that the fields seem equal between Dagana and Baz.
“You know, it didn’t have to be like this,” said Baz. “You could have stayed and we would have ruled the In Between.”
“Would we have?” asked Dagana.
“Yes.”
“I have my doubts. You want the In Between to yourself just as I do, and you know that. We’re both too narcissistic to think that we could have ruled together as if we wouldn’t have just planned to kill the other and rule the land alone. And don’t think for one moment that I believe anything that comes out of your mouth. You’ll say whatever you can to get me to drop my guard so you can kill me. I’m not going out that easy, Baz. You should know that.”
Baz chuckled. “Yes, I know that’s what you think, but it isn’t true. Why do you think I came looking for you without the others? They want your blood, but I want you to come back with me. Together there’s no way the rest of the tribe can stand a chance at domination, and they all want it—we all do—but the only way to stay on top is to form an alliance, and the two of us cannot be defeated.”
Dagana squinted just slightly as if she was seriously considering his proposal. She sighed and said, “You really think I’m that foolish, don’t you?” And with that, she lunged at Baz with her clawed fingers splayed and tackled the trench-coated sentinel to the ground. She caught him off guard and he hit the pavement like a pile of dead weight. She clawed his face into ribbons, her fingernails flinging bits of blood that seemed just a bit darker than human blood. His hat was thrown with one of her swinging hands, and then he snapped out of the shock her attack caused him, and he too lashed out his similarly clawed hands, only he balled them into fists and punched her in the face. His fists contacting her face sounded as if her bones were made of steel.
Zack’s decision to hold tight changed, and so did his appearance. He transformed into Acronos and jumped over the car to where Baz and Dagana were fighting on the ground, and he was surprised at how large he was in comparison to Baz. He felt rough and tough and indestructible, and so he grabbed Baz by his trench coat and threw him into the middle of the road.
Dagana stood, face bloody but intact, and walked with Acronos to where Baz lay on the blacktop. His face was a mess and bleeding a puddle of red onto the road. Feeling like a conqueror, Acronos took the lead as they approached of Baz. He wanted to kick the poor bastard in the head, and so he did just that, but Baz was lying in wait. Though his face had taken a slashing, his reflexes were quick and precise, and he grabbed Acronos’ leg with a bone-crushing grasp yanking him off balance and to the ground. Baz then crawled atop Acronos and opened his mouth of festering teeth that began to move within his putrid gums. Each tooth jumped about an inch before retracting itself back into the gums, and they did this over and over randomly. Baz slammed his face into Acronos’ neck and bit down, holding his jaw there as his shivering and retracting teeth chewed the neck into fleshy slop.
Dagana came from behind and jumped on Baz’s back, embedding her massive toenails into his flesh, and leaping backwards ripped her latched claws from his back with a generous chunk of fatty tissue which exposed his spine. Baz screamed from the pain and pulled his face away from the geyser that became of Acronos’ neck.
Dagana screamed a war cry and attacked the same way she did when his back was to her, by leaping into the air and grasping at him feet first, only this time approach backfired. Baz grabbed her leg in midair and swung her to his right launching her body into the air where it landing rough on the pavement grinding her flesh into raspberry jam.
Acronos lay there on the pavement bleeding like a stuck pig, his eyes wide, shocked at how things transpired. He wasn’t aware of the state of his being and that he could bleed out onto the pavement and still he wouldn’t die. It would take a hell of a lot more to kill an In Betweener, but that was something he was going to have to discover for himself. For now, he just lay there watching two monstrous forces tear each other into bits and pieces.
Austin remained in the driver’s seat watching Hell’s furry all around him. If he thought the metal head rally at the cabin was bad, he hadn’t seen anything yet.
“I offered you everything a sentinel could want,” said Baz, “everything, in fact, the others want, and this is how you show your appreciation.” He walked across the pavement toward Dagana’s lifeless body. “This is what you do to me.” Standing over her body he said, “Now I must take you back where you belong. I’d hoped you would come back with me willingly, the way things used to be, but . . . ”
From behind a metallic sound issued. Baz turned, thinking it was Austin, but the man was still sitting in the car, terrified.
“You’re going to regret this, Dagana, more than you regretted my decisions about the tribe. You will be our mascot, my dear. And you will be displayed for all to see, a face that will live on in infamy as the poster child for why In Betweeners do not fuck with me.”
The strange sound issued again like a hand pounding on something metal. Baz paid no mind to the sound, even as it grew. Nothing on Earth could harm him.
Baz grabbed Dagana by the neck with one hand while his other hand dug into her lower back gripping her spine. He was about to transport her body to the In Between when the metallic pounding hit a crescendo, and then something made a popping sound that distracted Baz enough to remove his attention from Dagana and see what the hell was going on behind him.
That’s when a winged beast emerged from the trunk of the car. The look if the thing so disturbed Baz that he dropped his trophy onto the ground. He was going to have to fight this thing that flew toward him at break-neck speed, its sickly mouth snapping like a set of walking teeth: Chops the Inhuman Mouth.
Chops was on Baz in an instant that left Baz too dazed to properly defend himself before he fell to the ground with the giant larvae-thing gnashing and biting him all over. The thick, sharp talons at the end of its wings latching and ripping at Baz like the attack of a rabid animal. One of the talons ripped a hole in
Baz’s gut from which a cornucopia of strange guts spewed forth, guts that hardly resembled those of a human.
From his vantage on the pavement beside the car, Acronos watched. Dagana appeared to be as helpless as he was. How could that be? Acronos was under the impression that they were god-like and close to immortal, and then this ambush all but kills them. And that’s when he realized that he should be dead, that anyone who suffered the neck wound he had would have died by now.
Chops continued the destruction and desecration of Baz, as if making art with blood and guts was something the Human Mouth liked to do for fun. Acronos watched and realized that he was still very conscious and that even though his neck was destroyed and the blood had drained from his body, he wasn’t dead, and so he decided an attempt at standing. Perhaps then, he could help Chops and they could get Dagana and get the hell out of there.
His first attempts to stand were futile. His body was frozen in place. When he managed to muster the strength to shift himself, it felt as if his limbs were made of gelatin. Chops had turned Baz into a soup of blood, organ, and chopped meat, but Acronos wanted to get in on the action before Dagana came to. He couldn’t have the Inhuman Mouth showing him up. Far too much was at stake for that.
It was that very inspiration that motivated Acronos into standing, and though his initial steps were clumsy and misplaced, he found his legs and made his way to the massacre Chops made of Baz.
Baz was no more. He was still alive in his destroyed state due to being a sentinel, but he was nothing, and when his body returned to the In Between he would remain as something that could only pray for death to wash over him, and perhaps, if found by one of his tribal members, they would perform a ritual that would send him off to the next realm.
Chops was still hard at work. He’d chewed clear through Baz’s body to his spine and there was no stopping him from destroying the rest of the sentinel. Acronos decided to leave the Inhuman Mouth alone and went to Dagana to rouse her from her unconsciousness. She was alive, had to be because he himself had lived through yet another death, and she was far more prepared for this shit than he was.
“Dagana,” he said, shaking her. It was a somewhat human moment that seemed surreal. “Dagana!”
She stirred and groaned. Behind, Acronos could hear the juicy slurping and chomping of the Inhuman Mouth. In that moment, it made him sick. Perhaps it was because Chops was devouring one of their own (in a matter of speaking, for Baz and Dagana were more than mere In Betweeners), and that was equivalent to cannibalism, and even after his becoming the idea of eating his own was disgusting.
Dagana opened her eyes. They flashed from silver to human-blue, as if her forms were confused as to what she should look like. Acronos had no idea, but he assumed turning into a human would be more beneficial to her. Perhaps she would be returned to heath that way. He really wasn’t sure, but his neck had ceased its pain and he was moving around just fine, injury or not.
“Baz,” said Dagana. “What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
Now Dagana’s eyes opened wide, any ounce of humanity gone, replaced with a mercurial glow.
“He’s not dead. He cannot die unless I perform the ritual.”
“But—”
Dagana straightened herself and stood. Hearing that Baz was dead, she’d quite rapidly lost the appearance of someone who’d been beaten. Her maggoty soldier was hard at work decimating the sentinel she had once been foolish enough to have feelings for (yes, even in the In Between she had allowed herself to feel for him and feel what humans refer to as love, Satan damn it!). Watching what remained of Baz’ body being turned into an ectoplasmic jelly brought her great pleasure. It would be very easy for her to bag up his remains, head over to the In Between and perform the ritual that would damn his soul into the next realm.
“That’s good,” said Dagana, but Chops either didn’t know she was talking to him, or he didn’t care, because his voracious gnashing of bone and muscle didn’t slow down a bit.
“You can stop now, Chops. He’s as dead as he’s going to get,” said Dagana.
Chops ceased his savage attack and slithered backward, having discovered how to use and manipulate the giant muscle his body had turned into. The bloody wings retracted into his back as he slinked back toward the trunk of the car as if returning to a familiar place.
Dagana looked in the trunk for something to wrap Baz’s body in—preferably a yard waste bag—but there wasn’t anything that she could use. From behind, the sound of a door opening was heard. She hadn’t been aware that there was someone else in the car behind her.
***
Austin stepped out of the car trying to mentally prepare himself for dealing with more beings like the creep in the trench coat whose body was now soaking into the pavement like a giant piece of roadkill—no, more like someone who’d fell into a wood-chipper.
As he sat there, watching a massacre that was worlds separated and different than that of the metal-heads and the police, Austin wasn’t sure how things would end. He was quite certain that it was his end, and even now he was experiencing more fear and dread than ever before in his life. Just stepping out of the car took a mountain of courage.
“Who the hell are you?” asked Dagana.
The cat had his tongue. He opened his mouth to speak, but he looked more like a fish out of water when words wouldn’t come. Austin couldn’t believe his eyes. These things were something of nightmares, each and every one of them, especially the creepy looking worm-thing with wings. Watching it devour Baz made Austin feel sick to his stomach. Not that he felt bad for Baz, he didn’t, but Baz was his ticket back to that world where Audrey was, and he had to get back to her.
“Well, who are you?” asked Dagana again. She squinted her eyes. “Wait . . . I remember you. From the venue the other night. You had . . . ”
Then Dagana’s eyes widened just slightly, even in her monstrous state, before deepening.
“Yeah, that was me. And, again, I have,” Austin held up the parasitic demon he had been clutching the whole time he sat in the car watching the mayhem, “this.”
Dagana stepped forward with anger in her eyes as if she was going to run to Austin and snatch her precious little demon from him, but he squeezed the parasite hard enough to cause it to screech, which momentarily stopped Dagana from approaching him.
“Don’t think that you can threaten me,” said Dagana.
“I am. I’ve seen what you can do, and I have nothing to do with you, but I need something and I think you can help me.”
“Help you? Are you kidding?”
“I need to go to your world.”
Dagana smiled. She looked hideous, her smile evil with the glinting of her razor teeth. Austin didn’t know what to think of her. She was the one Baz had been looking for, and he had feared Baz like the plague. This thing before him (she hardly seemed a woman to him) was stronger, and she had two others like herself. It was imperative that Austin pick his words with precision. All he had to do was look at the stain that was left of Baz to know what the future held for him if he didn’t carefully step through this situation.
“Why? What’s in the In Between that concerns you?”
“Audrey. Baz kidnapped her and put her in your world. Strapped her on some kind of torture device.”
“Your girlfriend, huh? Audrey’s dead and raped twenty times over by now. He left her at a crossroads is my guess. You have no need to go to the In Between. You’ll die there a thousand times like just like Audrey.”
Austin’s mouth dropped. He didn’t know if he should believe Dagana. She could be bluffing, but why? Why would she want to detract him from saving Audrey from the In between?
“I have to see for myself.”
Austin decided to try an act of diplomacy. He extended his arm, the parasite clenched in his hand, and offered it back to Dagana.
“I don’t understand you or Baz, what you are and why, but I believe this is a part of you, and I want you to ha
ve this back. You may not understand, but Audrey is a part of me. If what you say is true, I have to see it for myself.”
Austin opened his hand. He knew what would happen next, but he had no idea what would happen after that. The tiny demon leapt from his open palm onto the ground and ran toward Dagana, latching onto her leg where it sunk into her flesh seamlessly.
“I think we should feast,” said Acronos who had remained silent until now. Chops lay across the trunk of their vehicle like an obedient dog, using its forked tongue to remove the stubborn pieces of the flesh caught in its teeth.
“You’re foolish,” said Dagana to Austin. “But I will gladly lead you to your doom, and when you are crying in pain and agony I will offer you a job and make you like them.” She gestured to Chops and Acronos.
Austin nodded.
“Do you agree to that?” asked Dagana.
“Yes?”
“Then you’ll have to trust me. There’s one way to get to the In Between. You’ll have to take my hand.”
“Dagana! Are you sure about this?” asked Acronos, clearly agitated that she was letting a meal go free. “He’s lying to you.”
Dagana shot Acronos an eye full of daggers, then refocused on Austin before she said, “He’ll be one of us in no time. He’s a fool. Fools rush right in to the arms of fate.”
Dagana grabbed Austin’s hands with hers. Things began to morph much the way they did in his car when Baz transported him. The green of the pine trees swirled with the gray blacktop and the yellow dividing lines, all mixed together with the colors of their cars until it all became a giant blur that threatened to cause Austin to puke. His head became light and the world he knew was swept from beneath his feet giving him a weightless feeling that filled his body with a synthetic morphine high that took his nausea to a whole new level. This time he puked and could feel the warmth of his insides as it wrapped around his body and he was unsure of whether he indeed puked or not. There was a moment when he thought that maybe Dagana had tricked him and perhaps he was experiencing his death since this trip was so radically different from the one in his car, but then he felt the ground beneath his feet once again and things began to take shape. The pine trees were replaced with drooping willows, the road with red sand, and he knew where he was.
