by Alan Spencer
Dig in, Mercy. Don't be shy. Make your choice. Yes, Mercy, yes! Great selection, my boy. A severed hand! That's a very good choice.
Now place that hand in the tithing basket, son. Show the heavenly father what we do with sinners. We give them back to the maker, so he can re-make them in heaven.
Now why don't you put something else in the tithing basket? There's many other parts to choose from. Get your hands nice and bloody.
To know sin, Mercy, is to also know God's will.
Go ahead, Mercy. If it's one thing I want you to remember, my son, it's to be generous when giving to the good lord.
Our tithing baskets are always heaping with gifts to him.
* * *
Mercy flew through the door and crashed into the guest room. Ram's punch had enough force to lift him off of his feet. He landed on a bed covered in strewn guts. A woman's head was stuck between two pillows, the neck stump jagged and serrated from a serious bite from serious teeth.
God's creatures are working alongside us to bring everybody where they belong.
The lord provides.
I shall reap his will upon the sinners.
Water was spilling from the continually forming cracks and gaping holes in the walls. Floods were gushing from every direction. Whatever shark had killed the people in this room was long gone. He was alone here.
Mercy was slow to think. Ram's punch had both his nostrils bleeding. A bomb had detonated in his sinuses. He could taste iron leaking down his throat. He didn't have a chance to stop the bleeding. He had to go back out there and slaughter Ram Rogan, the biggest sinner of all.
Mercy was trudging against the ever-rising waters back into the hallway when a giant tide rolled towards him. He caught sight of the great white shark swim by in a blur of motion. The shark's passing caused a new ripple of water, and that ripple forced him back into the room he just exited. He was pounded by many sources at once. Mercy was hoisted up off of his feet. He was thrown right up to the ceiling. Mercy cried out in terror, afraid he was going to die before his mission was over.
He closed his eyes, and prayed, prayed, and prayed to survive this ordeal.
For the massacre was far from over.
The 1%
Irving White was one of over two hundred elite members of Globo Corps' top investors crowded into a large convention room. This is the way they were being treated, Irving thought. Herded like cattle. Packed like sheep being led to the slaughter. This was second class living. Sub-standard accommodations. The room was hot, stuffy, and without food or refreshment, or even anywhere to sit. Such treatment. Un-fucking-acceptable.
A team of twelve security members had led Irving, and his many fellows, into what was called a "bug out" room, for safety reasons. The walls were extra thick steel. No water was going to flood into this part of the ship. No sharks, or psycho killers, or whatever else, were going to invade their space either. This was the safest part of the ship. Guaranteed. It was also the most boring part of the ship, Irving thought. Globo Corps could've at least sprung for a wet bar or threw a Rembrandt painting on the wall.
Chatter and restlessness filled the large space. The room was getting hotter, and stiflingly so, as everybody was unleashing their displeasure at how things were being handled.
And what had happened to poor Lindsey Messingham? She was enjoying her dry martini one moment, then she was screaming in absolute agony the next. Irving had seen how her fingers had sizzled off. That pink water had splashed onto her arm from that damn water fountain, and dear God, she had no arm anymore! Where had the officers taken her? Nobody would answer that question.
Everybody was demanding answers for this gross malfeasance.
The disdain was a growing humidity in the room.
Irving really wanted a drink, a cigar, and a fine set of legs. His set of legs had drowned on the fourteenth floor at one of the many open bars on the way to this box trap. Betsy Boatwright was a super model, actress, and she loved the way Irving slurped caviar from her naval. Betsy was now a dead buoy moving about the ship.
Damn Globo Corps, he thought. The fuck ups! I paid too much money for this to happen.
A pair of security officers stood at the head of the room and demanded everyone to be quiet. When one officer produced a knife, cut a thin track on his arm, and drew a holy cross in blood on his forehead, everybody shrank to the back of the room, including Irving.
Two others posing as security guards opened the double doors at the room together.
One of the women whose cross bled down to her mouth in heavy trails shouted, "THE LORD'S WILL REIGNS SUPREME!"
A great wall of pinkish water blasted into the room. The giant wave slammed into the hundreds standing in the room. Tidal waves smashed people dead into the walls. Tiger sharks, blue sharks, killer sharks, and many other varieties all invaded the room. Irving thrashed in the water and could see fins slice across the rising surface.
He expected to be devoured whole. What happened instead confused everybody who was still alive once the water settled. The room was five feet high with water. The sharks were forcing the hundred odd people into the center of the room by slowly tightening the circle they made around the survivors.
The boxing in was going on for several minutes before the next thing happened. From each set of gills on the sharks, a noxious pink gas exuded. Those in the room couldn't help but to breathe in the sulfur-smelling fog. And when they did inhale, those alive wished they hadn't survived.
A new grotesque reality became their living hell.
The Mouth of the Beast
Ram had fallen onto his back. Buffy was clutching onto him and screaming in an ear-piercing shrill for her life. His back struck something that felt like a cross between leather and fruit skin. Teeth large enough to chew up a bus surrounded him.
They were inside the great white's mouth!
Ram wasn't sure how he got it in his hands, but there it was. A steel rod. Maybe a damaged part of the ship, he guessed. However it happened, he thanked God for that rod, because he was using it to keep the great white from biting down on them. The rod was wedged on the top of its tongue and up against the roof of its mouth.
The great white shark roared with anger. Buffy kept unleashing her terror. Ram kept his arms firmly on the rod. If that mouth bit down on them, they were finished.
The evidence of certain death came from the screams echoing from down its cavernous throat. Dozens of people were lamenting their terror in the dark. They could hear stomach acids reduce bodies to digestible liquids. Pops, gargles, belches, stenches, and screams played on repeat.
Ram couldn't think beyond the simple fact of being trapped in a shark's mouth with only a steel rod preventing them from being eaten alive.
How could they escape the shark's mouth?
The shark beat its head against the wall. It was trying to shake them out of its mouth. Ram clung to the steel, and Buffy latched onto his body.
The shark launched itself full-speed down a hallway stretch and slammed into a wall. Ram was knocked backwards, struck the top of his head against the back of a tooth. He let go of the rod, but Buffy quickly clutched onto it. The problem, she wasn't strong enough to keep it wedged in place. She was too scared to do anything. Ram could read it on her face, that strangled look about her.
The collision not only knocked Ram forward, it also forced up a broth of partially eaten hands, torsos, and ravaged bodies from the shark's throat. Sickening as it was, Ram was grateful, because a .50 caliber M-60 floated in that gruel mix. It was covered in strings of pearly white guts. Ram didn't care. He grabbed it and started firing at the roof of the shark's mouth.
"Die you fucking shaaaaaaaaaaark!"
Bullets blasted mouth debris in every direction. Shards of bone, bullet casings, jets of syrupy blood, and hot brain paste were chewed up and turned out. Soon, the shark stopped moving altogether.
Ram couldn't believe it.
He had blown a nice hole through the shark's skull.
>
The machine gun was out of bullets. Ram threw it aside, helped Buffy off of the tongue, and they used cracked sections of skull as the purchase to climb free out the top of its head.
They were now in a different section of The Redeemer.
Up ahead was a courtyard full of blooming flowers and trees. It was the nature walk corridor. Floods of water had turned the area into an upside down mud pit. The glass walls were streaked in mud, blood, and fish guts.
Ram noticed most of the bodies in this area were lower ranking security officers. Many had their throats torn out. Eyes were vacant holes staring into horrible death. Other bodies had suffered bites from smaller sets of teeth.
"I don't understand," Ram said. "This doesn't make any sense."
Ram didn't realize how bad they looked until he had a good look at Buffy. Buffy's hair was caked in a red gelatin mess. Chunks of shark brains were glued to her clothing. She looked like she'd crawled out of some nebulous monster's gut cavity.
Buffy was pissed.
"What doesn't make sense, Ram? The world being burned up? A super space ship flying us to safety? A guy with a cross painted on his head wanting us dead? Mega sharks attacking us on a space ship? What specifically doesn't make sense? Please, fill me in. What else does this day have for me that'll stump my brain?"
Ram couldn't lose her to the insanity of the situation.
"Get yourself together! I know you're a strong woman. Don't prove me wrong. I need your help. Look at these bodies. They weren't attacked by sharks. The wounds are too small. So what killed them?"
"I don't know. You want me to call the police?"
"Buffy, please!"
"We're not making it out of this alive. If you expected a polite end of the world buddy, you picked the wrong fucking bitch."
"Listen. You hear that?"
The ceiling of the courtyard started to tremble. Squares of wood paneling started to come undone. The structure was giving out to the pressure of incoming water. The entrance doors, already off the hinges, allowed the new tide of incoming water to rush in at them that much faster.
"Run!"
Ram shoved Buffy forward. They were stomping through thick mud. Their pace wasn't fast enough, and in seconds, massive waves knocked them to the ground. The room was overflowing with raging, angry walls of water.
He was plunged under the surface without power to resist the tide's force. The water was doing its best to drown him. He had lost Buffy. He wondered if he would ever get her back.
Whatever was turning the ship inside out would easily snuff him dead. He kept trying to reach the surface and couldn't find it. Everything was growing darker as his lungs tightened. Pinpricks of painful sensation attacked his skull. He was going to drown; that much was certain. Ram was sure the same fate would befall Buffy.
One good thing would come out of this ordeal, Ram thought. At least he wouldn't be eaten alive by a shark.
No More Mercy
The congregation at the Church of the Holy Salvation watched the Super Bowl game in rapt attention. Mercy was also engaged with the big screen in the main area of their church. The pews were packed to full capacity with their fellow members. The St. Louis Rams were winning by two touchdowns. Half-time was drawing near. Mercy could feel the tension rising in the room. Then that tension broke when Jake Lazar appeared in the end zone. The camera panned in close. Jake threw off his black shroud and revealed the bricks of C-4 covering his torso. They heard Jake's practiced sermon over the television.
"I am the Red Revolution. God has willed it, so it shall be. We know of Globo Corps and the future of the world, and how mankind will end. Choose death now. Go willingly to God. I am the hand of G—!"
Mercy choked on his shock.
The congregation gasped.
Others were crying.
The camera panned to quarterback Ram Rogan sending a Hail Mary from mid-field. The football sailed high and then punched Jake right in the nose. Jake fell into the end zone, and landed on his back with blood burbling from his nostrils.
Mercy's brother didn't get up.
It turned out he wasn't unconscious.
Jake was dead.
Ram Rogan had subverted the will of God. Such incredulousness! How dare one man go up against the will of God? Mercy vowed in that moment the bastard would pay for this injustice. Mercy came up with a plan to enact such a measure, and shared it with his grief-stricken congregation.
Mercy reached out with his hands, grabbed hold of the broken chunks of wood, climbed, and thrust his body upwards through the gaping hole in the ceiling and avoided certain drowning. The water that surrounded him in that guest room had lifted him to safety. The guest room below him was completely submerged in water.
God is watching out for you.
He wants you to complete his task.
Mercy realized he now was in another guest room. He wasn't alone. A familiar face shared the room with him. Her name was Sharon Hillman. She was a younger member of his congregation. Sharon was twenty-one years old. Mercy remembered how Sharon dated his brother before his death. She wanted to carry on Jake's legacy.
Sharon was sitting on the floor. She had a gaping bite-wound on her side. Her midsection was leaking blood very fast. She wasn't going to be alive much longer.
Mercy lowered to her level and held her close.
"You are a worthy vessel of God, Sharon. You have done the Red Revolution proud. Jake is watching over us, and he knows you did your very best."
Sharon wasn't accepting of his words. Her face was a strange mask of contempt. "I have seen things nobody should see. The things that did this to me, they're hideous. Just, hideous! God can't exist in a world that's bred such evil!"
"You mean the sharks did this to you?"
Sharon's words were laden with the blood quickly filling up her mouth. "No, Mercy. Not the sharks. Something else. Something very evil. Hideous.
"God is not watching over us. God left us when we launched into space with these awful sinners. Just kill me. I can't stand it. The things I've seen. They can't be un-seen!"
Mercy picked up the machete that dangled loosely in Sharon's hands.
"God loves you," Mercy whispered. "You will be with him very soon. Say hello to my brother. Tell him I'll be there soon with him, up there in heaven."
Mercy dragged the machete's exacting blade across her throat.
He listened to her choke and gargle on blood. Sharon's face reflected relief. Almost a degree of joy, Mercy thought, as she edged closer and closer to death. She could see the other side, and she liked what was incoming.
When Sharon's corpse went limp, a new energy surged in Mercy's veins. The Red Revolution wasn't over. Not even close. People still lived and breathed on this space rig. One thing he vowed to do before his own death: confirm Ram Rogan was dead.
The football player had taken so much from Mercy, and his congregation.
God willed it.
So shall it be.
Mercy stormed out of the guest room with machete in hand and the hunger for death gleaming from his eyes.
Tight Quarters
Death was cold. Death was a dark confining space. Death was a blow to the skull. Death was a paralyzing feeling of fatigue. Every inch of Ram felt like death. His muscles ached from top to bottom. He had blood flowing from the top of his head. He had struck something on the crown of his skull that created a small gash. The pain from the wound was the thing that convinced him he wasn't dead. He was very much alive, and very confused.
The tight space resembled a coffin. He couldn't twist around, or stick out his arms or legs. He was squished between four walls of confining steel.
Ram tried to piece it together, now that he knew for a fact he wasn't a goner. He had been fighting those incoming waves inside the nature walk area. He must've been forced up to the ceiling. Yes, he thought, because he had struck his head on a torn part of the ceiling, and that metal was sharp. The next time the waves shot him upwards, there was an open duct
, and he reached for it. He must've hit his head again and blanked out.
Lucky, Ram thought, that he managed to get inside the duct system before going unconscious. If he'd fallen back into water, he would've drowned.
This situation wasn't exactly something to celebrate. He could only inch forward. Each shift, he was rubbing the skin on his elbows and knees raw. Ram couldn't turn around. He could only worm forward.
Worst yet, Buffy was missing.
Ram called out to her until his voice gave out. She could be down in that nature walk eaten, drowned, or a floating piece of shark bait. Ram tried to turn around in the tight duct space. The feat was impossible for his bulk.
He called out to Buffy some more, with the same results.
She was gone.
Ram decided he wasn't going to find anybody stuck in this tight space. He crawled forward, using the limited energy he had left to fight his way onward. His knees were bleeding. His elbows were stinging from broken skin. Ram clenched his teeth and kept fighting to move. There had to be a way out of this duct, he kept thinking. The space felt like it was getting tighter and tighter. He imagined being in a giant's closed fist, and slowly, the giant was clenching that fist and waiting for him to break.
I'm not going to break, Ram kept telling himself. I won't. Damn it all, I won't!
He kept crawling onwards, bumping his head and back against the top, and doing everything his body could do to muster forward.
Was he heading in a direction of escape, or was he going deeper into an unknown dark abyss? What if he hit a wall and couldn't turn around? He would die here. Maybe he would've preferred being eaten alive. Horrible as it would be to be chomped into pieces, at least it was fatal and quick. Dying in this tight tomb would take days. Agonizing days.
Panic filled his body. Maybe he would break after all. His heart was beating a thousand pumps a minute. The metal walls seemed to hug him. Ram sucked in air, and all he got back was his own stale, burning hot breath. It felt like there was a plastic sack over his head, the way the air was fruitless and so thin. The energy in his body was depleted. This was as close to being dead without actually being dead, he thought.
