by Alan Spencer
Turf was tackled by someone he didn't see coming. He was shoved face first into a pile of leaves. His arm was twisted behind his back. The pain kept him from any retaliation.
"Hold him down real good," Dalton said. "Get him nice and mad. We're going to seriously ruin our greens keeper's day."
Turf did his best to shake off the four people holding him down. It was impossible. They were much too strong. He could only watch in horror as two people grabbed Mandy's arms and held her up against a tree.
Dalton approached Mandy with the same knife Jenny had been cut with earlier.
"The axe craves new blood," Dalton said dreamily. "This blood will come from this pretty young woman. The axe will stop at nothing to kill you. That's what it does, this thing of beauty."
Mandy was screaming, and out of her mind. "Teddy! Don't let them hurt me!"
Everything inside of Turf was on fire. No matter how he felt, there wasn't a damn thing he could do. One of Dalton's helpers put their hand over Mandy's mouth as Dalton dragged the knife's edge down her forearm. The gash bled generously down to her fingertips. Dalton smeared his hands in the fresh blood until they were dripping wet.
"Now, I shall anoint the axe with her blood."
"No, Dalton! I'll kill you. I'll fucking kill you! You're insane! All of you!"
Dalton heard Turf's words with acceptance. "I knew you'd get angry. I know your types very well. I gave you a job, even though you had a criminal record. I made you feel special. I paid you good money to do an idiot's job. I built you up to feel like you're somebody. I like to pedigree my victims. I want them to put up a fight. If they die like Jenny, well, that's no fun at all.
"The weekend reward I offered you was all by design. I knew you were bringing your sister here. And I finally had my battle axe. I knew this was my chance to see its true potential. You're a dumb son-of-a-bitch, Turf, but you're also one tough son-of-a-bitch. So yes, try and kill me. I'd love to see you try. I welcome it. I'll give you the chance."
Turf should've been enraged by Dalton's words. It pissed him off, but the expression of terror on Mandy's face stole his attention. His poor sister. He couldn't stand it.
"I shall anoint the battle axe with her blood," Dalton announced. "It will stop at nothing to kill Mandy."
A hushed silence fell over everybody.
Turf put it together what was possibly about to occur. He fought the people holding him down with new verve. They easily shoved him hard against the ground. There was absolutely nothing he could do.
Looking back up at his sister, he noticed something strange. The blades of the battle axe were bone dry, when the blades were dripping with Jenny's blood only moments ago.
Dalton posed his red hands to smear Mandy's blood on the axe head.
The group released Mandy.
The people on top of Turf let him go.
Dalton shouted, "Go ahead! Run! I'll give you a head start. Then I'll wipe Mandy's blood on the blade's of the axe. Best advice, run, and keep running!"
He didn't waste a second.
Turf grabbed Mandy, and they ran like hell.
Taking Shelter
Turf and Mandy sprinted as fast as they could through the trees. They didn't talk to each other, because they didn't have to. Escape was on both of their minds.
Swooshswooshswooshswooshswooshswooshswoosh.
The axe was on its way.
Already, Dalton! Turf thought. Some fucking head start!
Each swoosh was a powerful slash at the air. Stronger than helicopter blades. Whatever force allowed the axe to be airborne was a powerful one. Each thrust, each spin, every rotation, was a guarantee of dismemberment.
Turf caught the gleam of metal reflect the sunlight. It was seconds from striking Mandy. Turf shoved her to the left to help her dodge the blades. The battle axe immediately changed course, and righted itself to pursue Mandy.
Thinking fast, thinking critically, he lifted up the large broken tree limb on the ground and swung it like a bat. He struck the battle axe on the side of the blade. The axe soared right, spinning out of control, wobbling in many directions, until it wedged itself into the body of a thick tree. The axe was trying to jerk itself free, buried so deeply in the wood.
Turf couldn't believe his eyes. What he did believe was flesh, blood, and death, and he'd seen it all in a span of ten minutes.
He forced Mandy onwards. Turf knew he had little time left to escape. He worked his brains to figure out where he was at in the thick of the woods.
The trees would clear ahead, so he guided a sobbing Mandy onward. Soon, a storage shed appeared. This was Turf's office where he kept every piece of equipment and his supplies to maintain the greens.
There was a phone inside.
Turf could call for help.
This could all soon be over.
Mandy was hysterical. She couldn't say anything. Her breathing was erratic and obscuring any syllables her tongue tried to shape into nonsense. Turf kept telling her not to speak. They would soon be safe. This horrible ordeal would be over.
Dean, Turf's co-worker, was on the ground outside in an undershirt and jeans cleaning the blades of the riding lawnmower. The beer-bellied, fifty year old coot, had heard their fast approach.
Dean smiled, at first. "So this is your sister? You didn't tell me she was so pretty. You sure you're the same blood?"
Dean saw the red on Mandy's arm, and the deep gash, and the expression on Turf's face, and any attempt at levity ended.
"Get inside, Dean! Hurry!"
"What in hell's backyard is going on here? You two look like you've just seen a--"
Too late.
Swooshswooshswooshswooshswooshswooshswoosh.
Dean's dopey eyes turned into trembling globes. The axe was doing figure eights and slashing at fifty miles an hour. The weapon sliced down Dean's body so fast, Turf saw Dean standing their one split-second, and the next, hundreds of cross-sections of sliced flesh, muscle, and bone were sent flying in all directions. He was an anatomical tornado. The pieces were spinning and crashing into each other until they hit the ground as slop. All that was left were Dean's two feet. The tops were gleaming cherry stumps.
"Get in the shed!"
Turf forced Mandy inside. He threw the door shut. The moment he locked the door, the axe pounded the barrier. The door would be in shreds in no time. Turf realized he hadn't bought them any real time.
Death was still coming.
"Quick, call the police, Mandy. I have an idea."
Mandy rushed to the wall phone in Turf's office. The second she lifted the phone off the receiver, the axe moved from the door to the side of the house.
Turf heard one chop.
Mandy tried the phone again, and again, and again. "The line just went dead."
"The axe cut the line," Turf growled. "This is impossible. How can an axe do these things?"
"It's like it can think for itself," Mandy said. "Why else would the axe cut the phone line? How can a piece of metal know about telephones and the police? This is fucking crazy. Axes can't kill people. People kill people. It's like the axe really is alive."
"I don't know what to think. I only know what I see."
He guided Mandy into the back room where every piece of equipment was stored. Among that equipment was an old truck. Turf took the keys from the office, unlocked the vehicle, and told Mandy to get inside.
"If we can't call for help, we'll have to go to the police ourselves."
Turf started up the truck. He hit the garage door opener button.
"Are you sure we can drive fast enough to escape? The axe, I mean, it's so fast!"
Turf reached for a shirt under the seat. "Wrap your cut in this. Don't try and figure this shit out. We can't. We might be both crazy, but we're not going to be crazy, and dead. I won't let that axe touch you. I promise."
Mandy gave him an expression that she wanted to believe he could do just that, but she didn't completely believe it.
Turf let it go
.
He revved up the truck, and when the garage was completely open, he punched the gas.
Drive Like Fucking Hell
Turf's foot didn't let up off of the gas. The truck vaulted out of the shed. The axe hovered above them, in waiting. Once the axe spotted the truck, it stalked after them. The steel was an impossible blur of spinning motion. Turf cursed, seeing the front grass colored in red. Poor Dean, he thought. The bastard didn't stand a chance.
"Drive faster!" Mandy screamed. "The axe is gaining on us!"
The truck was going sixty-five miles on a bumpy dirt road. Driving fast wasn't enough. He had to get off of the property, and fucking now.
Turf spun the wheel, changed direction, and floored it.
Mandy shouted in terror. The axe had struck a flock of birds. Each bird detonated into pink mist. Then the axe bolted for the truck.
Turf slammed the brakes. The axe overshot its target and struck the dirt road yards ahead of them. The flying weapon hit so hard, a giant poof of dust exploded from the ground. The axe had buried itself in the ground. There was no way to know how deep.
No time to waste, Turf hopped a hill. The truck left the ground for two seconds. Mandy kept screaming. Turf let her do what she needed to do to get through this ordeal.
He searched the area for Dalton and the others.
They were nowhere to be seen.
He decided the fastest way to get to a phone was cutting through the golf course. He would go to the clubhouse, find a cell phone if need be, and call for help. He would leave out the detail about the flying axe and tell the police Dalton Parker was the person murdering people at the club. Nobody would ever believe an axe had taken a life of its own and was on a killing spree.
"Shit!" Mandy saw it in the rearview mirror.
The axe rose up from the ground and was heading right towards them. It was well past nine o'clock in the morning. Members were on the course playing their rounds.
"They're all in danger," Turf said. "I don't know what to do."
"You honk the horn. I'll tell them to run."
Turf honked the horn. The members scattered about the wide expanse of green were startled by the horn, but not by the axe, because they had no time to comprehend it.
One white-haired man named Stuart Redding had his back to the axe. He took a swing with his nine iron. Instead of hitting the golf ball, the axe sliced him in two so fast, half of him went sailing across the green and plopped into a sand trap.
The axe slammed into a driving golf cart. The gas tank exploded, as did the two happy, clueless passengers. A young caddie had the top of his skull sheared off. The sheared section hit the golfer the victim was caddying for and knocked him to the ground unconscious.
Those on the green scattered. The on-staff pro, a woman named Melissa Hendrix, lost both her legs in one axe swipe. Melissa slammed into the ground so hard she snapped her neck. The two students with Melissa had their heads hacked off so fast, both severed heads crashed into each other and burst into gray matter confetti. Turf gasped, watching one of the students hit in the back of the head with such impact by the blunt end of the axe, both his eyeballs launched from their sockets. The sockets were like cannons going off. Both eyes landed on the ground, and rolled to make a hole-in-one.
Three golfers ahead of that hole got the worst of it. The axe came arcing down, hacking, slashing, pounding, and winning blows with insane precision. Turf lost his breath witnessing them chopped into perfect tenderloin pieces.
The golf green was stained red in minutes.
Nobody was left in a quarter-mile radius alive.
Turf kept driving.
Mandy sobbed continuously, "I don't understand. I just don't understand."
"Maybe it's not something to be understood," Turf said. "The only thing that matters is finding someone who can stop this."
"What if there isn't any way to stop it? You saw what it did to your friend, Jenny. The axe didn't stop until she was dead. So that asshole wipes my blood on the axe, and it will stop at nothing to kill me. That's the logic I got from that Dalton nut job. If I died, nobody else would be killed. Right?"
On the far perimeter of the killing ground, Turf saw a collection of golf carts driving near them. They were Dalton's sick groupies. They were still filming the axe in action.
"Yeah, you die, the axe stops," Turf said, "supposedly, and if we follow that logic, you die, these assholes find somebody else's blood to smear on the axe, and it keeps on going and going. People will die regardless of what we do. Dalton planned this a long time ago. This won't end by you dying. It will end by you living. The right thing to do is to get the kind of help that will keep the killing to a minimum. Because one thing's for certain...more people are going to be slaughtered before this is over."
Mandy absorbed his words.
Turf kept driving.
What he said moments ago proved to be true.
More people were indeed going to be slaughtered.
Bloody Resort
Being early July, the resort was packed with families enjoying the club. The pool area, the clubhouse, around the hotel property itself, and on the greens, customers and members were waking up to enjoy their vacations.
What they would enjoy was the wrong end of the axe.
"I'm going to honk my horn like a motherfucker," Turf said. "I need you to scream like crazy. Get their attention. We have to do something to save lives."
Turf checked the rearview mirror.
The battle axe appeared, sailing high and closing in on the truck.
Turf was a madman at the steering wheel. The truck leaped off of the golf course. He would have to cut through the grass between the pool and the clubhouse to reach the main road.
Turf honked his horn, and Mandy screamed, "Call the police! Somebody! Run! Take shelter! Please, listen to me! Please God, just listen to me! You're all in danger. Watch out. It's in the sky!"
Mandy screamed until her voice broke, and even then, she screamed some more.
Turf punched the horn, laying it on real good.
All their efforts did was turn heads.
The battle axe did the rest.
Those in the pool were playing a game of water volleyball. A young teenage girl was serving. The axe swopped down, lobbed off her head, and by the time the girl's body registered the decapitation, she served up her own head across the net.
Horror played out in the pool. The axe was so fast, three seconds passed, and everybody had lost their heads. The heads were bobbing in the water, staining the blue water a harsh pink color. Their bodies stood rigid in place for two seconds before their necks spurted blood, and their bodies tumbled over dead in the water. Heads were sucked into the pool filter box, thirty heads banging into one another against the pull of the suction.
Up the long winding stairs leading into the clubhouse, the three dozen retreating into the building were sliced at their hips. Over fifty torsos sloughed off of their legs crashed down the stairs. Intestines were strung out, criss-crossing and tying knots into each other.
A woman screamed into her cell phone for help. The axe struck the top of her head so hard, that every inch of the woman was compacted with such force, she completely exploded. Her pieces flew across the entire clubhouse's outdoor lounge area, spraying those enjoying their morning mimosas and breakfast.
Screams, terror, frenzy, panic, the axe served a heaping dose of horror to everyone. So much death, so much blood, so many pieces the county would run out of bags to put everybody in, Turf realized their attempt at saving anybody was rendered useless.
Mandy couldn't watch anymore. She clutched at the shirt covering up her wound and kept her eyes shut tight. The shirt was sodden in red. She couldn't stop the bleeding. Turf knew he had to do something to save his sister. Mandy needed medical attention, and probably psychiatric attention, after what had went down.
What could he do against an axe that seemed to be alive?
Keep driving. People are dead. Surely someo
ne called the police, or got away to do so. People will notice. Help will come, but for now, you can't stop for anything.
Turf drove up a steep hill and reached the resort's parking lot. He could turn onto a main road and keep driving. Movement was all Turf cared about.
He almost arrived at the main entrance when the axe surged in speed. The weapon disappeared under the truck. All four tires were instantly slashed. The vehicle lowered. Tire rims scraped against the pavement. The car didn't make it far before the front axel broke. The steering wheel locked up.
The truck was done.
"Shit!"
Turf wasn't sure what else to do in the moment. Mandy came out of her head to voice her terror. Turf held onto her and prayed for swift death. There wouldn't be much time to do much else, except pray death came swiftly and painlessly.
The Savior
"Move it! I'll get you two out of here. Get going, or you'll die! There's no stopping the battle axe!"
A Hummer drove right up next to the ruined truck. Turf didn't look to see who was driving the vehicle. He forced Mandy across the seats, held her up so she wouldn't fall, and forced her into the passenger side seat of the Hummer. Turf moved next. He made it inside the Hummer right when the driver stomped the gas. The Hummer's tires screeched. The second Turf closed the door, the axe sliced off the side mirror.
Turf shouted, "Whoa, shit! Close call!"
"Yeah, no kidding. A real close shave, buddy. The name's Freddy."
Turf introduced himself and his sister. Mandy was mute between Turf and the driver. She was clearly in a state of shock.
The driver was an older gentlemen with bold white hair and an expression that probably matched Turf and Mandy's: bewilderment met with awe.
"Get your seatbelts on," Freddy advised. "I know how to drive!"
The Hummer launched across the parking lot and nearly collided with a passing vehicle on the main road. That vehicle honked its horn at them. The axe flew at that car at very high speeds, crashing through the side. Turf gawked at the rearview mirror and saw the axe hack at the male driver and his wife inside. They were literally dismembered from top to bottom in seconds. The car rolled off the road, slammed into a tree, and burst into a great ball of flames.
