Crucifax

by Ray Garton

  "… go home and talk, your sister will be so happy…."

  "… everything's going to be fine, now, honey, just…"

  But not many decided to leave.

  "Any more?" Mace called finally. "Anyone else want to go? It's up to you. You know what you're in for better than I."

  His gun still raised, Brubaker said, "Okay, enough of this bullshit. None of these kids're staying here, got it?"

  "You want to take them, Mr. Brubaker?"

  "Damn right, and I'm starting with you, Wayne. Get your ass over there to your mother."

  "Fine," Mace said. "You take them. But I… am leaving." Raising his voice to a booming shout, he said, "Anyone who wants to come with me will have to come now."

  "And just where the fuck're you going?" Brubaker demanded.

  Mace ignored him and began speaking in the same lulling manner he had minutes ago.

  "There will be no pain," he said, "only a sudden relief, an immediate escape from the life you know now, the life you've tried so hard to leave behind…."

  "No!" the reverend shouted from the staircase, hurrying down to the floor. uDon't listen to him, he's lying. Think about what he's saying, what he's asking you to do!"

  "… you'll be free of the demands made upon you, the love denied you…"

  Jeff felt dizzy because suddenly too many people were speaking at once.

  The reverend was shouting, pleading….

  Mr. Brubaker was cursing Mace, moving the gun closer to his head, insisting that he shut up….

  J.R. snapped at Jeff as he tried to move closer, Erin at his side….

  An unexpected voice called from the staircase.

  "Jeff!" Lily screamed. "Don't! Remember Nikki! You think she's happy now? Get up here, get Mallory and get up here!" Even in the poor light, the white of her knuckles was visible as she clutched the rail.

  Others were shouting unfamiliar names from the staircase, some pleadingly, some angrily.

  Jeff turned to his mother again.

  Her eyes were open to their limit, her mouth gaping in horror as she tried to push toward them unsuccessfully, helplessly slapping J.R.'s shoulder and pointing at Mallory, screaming.

  Jeff felt a small, soft hand on his bare arm, and he turned to Mallory as the blanket fell away from her naked body. She put her other hand between her breasts and closed her fingers over the Crucifax, slowly lifting it—

  —and he suddenly became deaf to all the other sounds and voices in the room, could only hear his lungs filling with air as he sucked in a breath to shout at her, make her stop.

  Jeff reached for her wrist as she spoke, but no matter how fast he tried to move, he couldn't move fast enough. Her soft voice seemed piercing in the blanket of silence that engulfed him:

  "Please come with me, Jeff."

  He thought he heard the tearing of her flesh as she pulled the Crucifax across her throat, the liquidy gush of blood that spurted from the gash and cascaded over her breasts and gathered in thick black-red droplets on her erect nipples.

  The Crucifax dropped from her hand and splatted onto her bloody chest as she tried to gurgle his name, her hand clawing the air. Her grip on his arm tightened a moment, then eased up as her body began to sway.

  When Jeff finally screamed—it was a long, ragged scream that seemed to tear the inside of his throat—the noise around him returned with a vengeance. Jeff heard his mother's wail and J.R.'s strained curses, but could not take his eyes off Mallory. Her blood spattered his face and chest as it continued to shoot from her throat in dark, wet strings. Jeff became dizzy and grabbed her shoulders, both to keep her from falling and to hold himself up. But he was still weak from the drugs, and his hands slipped through all the blood. Mallory fell forward, and she tried once again to say his name, but only more blood poured from her mouth.

  She toppled into the deep end of the pool, landing with a muffled thump on the blankets and cushions. As she kicked and writhed in her last moments of life Mallory hit the uncovered kerosene lantern with a blood-streaked arm, knocking it on its side and spilling flames over the blankets.

  By the time Mallory's hair began to burn, she was dead….

  Reverend Bainbridge saw Mallory Carr slash her throat seconds after he reached the floor of the pool room. An instant later, Wayne Brubaker did the same, spraying his father with his blood. Mr. Brubaker came apart; he dropped his gun, held his head in his hands as he stepped back, and began shrieking like a child as he watched his son die.

  "We're leaving now!" Mace shouted, lifting his arms as if about to embrace the teenagers around him. "Don't let us be separated! Go now! Now!"

  "Noooo!" the reverend screamed, his eyes filling with tears.

  Smoke began to rise from the pool as Bainbridge pushed through the crowd, desperately looking for familiar faces, hoping to stop them, but knowing, as blood showered him from every direction, that he was too late.

  He screamed the names of those he knew, pleading with them to stop, but their throats were already open, and their blood mingled with his tears, dribbled onto his lips and into his mouth. He tripped over the legs of a girl twisting on the floor and fell on top of her, trying to cough away the slick, coppery taste in his mouth, retching as more blood rained down on him.

  Mustering his last ounces of faith, the reverend closed his eyes and prayed, hoping against hope that if there was a God—and there had to be some presence, some power, something, even if it was not the God he'd thought he was serving for so many years—He would have some feeling, some sympathy, for the kids.

  As he began to pray—

  Dear God, if You 're there, if You have anv feelings for us at all—

  —one voice rose above the others and cut through the reverend's thoughts—

  —please, please make this stop now before we lose any more of them—

  —a voice that first made a flame of anger flare reflexively in the back of his mind, then brought a shadow of guilt—

  —if You would just give me the strength to help them, to help just one of them, just one—

  —Jim's voice. Jim, who had loved so much to write and whose work Bainbridge had torn up and thrown away. His voice—

  —Jim, let me help Jim, Lord, let me redeem myself, please….

  —was growing louder, closer…

  Bainbridge opened his eyes and sat up on his knees, saying Jim's name aloud as the boy's voice became even louder, and the reverend looked up into a screaming face of fire. The smell of sizzling flesh filled Bainbridge's nostrils as the flames fell on him, engulfed him, sucked the breath from his lungs.

  The reverend's final thought as Jim's fiery arms embraced him was a silent plea for forgiveness, but it was not directed at God….

  J.R. gripped Erin's shoulders and shook her hard as she screamed again and again, her body trembling violently as she tried to push him aside.

  "Erin, stop it, Erin!" he shouted. "You've gotta get out of here! Do you hear me? Listen to me!"

  She pummeled him with half-clenched fists, screaming "Malloreeee! Malloreeee!"

  "You can't help her, Erin, you've got to go now while you still can, before the fire—"

  "Juh-Juh-Jeff, my God, where's Jeff?" Erin suddenly clutched his chest, her eyes darting around the room.

  The stench of blood was beginning to cling to J.R., curdling his stomach; he thought he could feel it as well as smell it, like grease in the air, and he curled his nose against it, narrowed his eyes, and tried to swallow down the rebellious contents of his stomach.

  The room was becoming bright with fire, glowing a bright pumpkin-orange, the light shimmering, writhing, as if in its death throes. Over Erin's shoulder, J.R. saw a squat, overweight boy hacking at his throat with a Crucifax, blood spraying from the opening like warm, foamy beer from a shaken can. J.R. tried to keep his eyes fixed on Erin's face. He felt his mind beginning to numb, felt parts of it shutting down like overworked machinery, unable to function in the face of all the violence around him, and he tried
to keep his attention off the bloody, convulsing, and burning bodies, tried to shut out the wet, sputtery screams of the dying and the mournful wails of their survivors.

  Everyone was running madly around the pool; those who were not dying were confused by the blood and the fire, dashing blindly in fear, crying out for their children or friends.

  "I'll find Jeff!" J.R. shouted at Erin. "I promise I'll bring him out with me if you'll go now!"

  "And Mallory? You'll bring—"

  "Mallory's gone, Erin, she's—"

  "You'll bring Mallory?"

  Reason had left her eyes, and they shone only with tears now; her face had lost decades and was now that of a child begging for promises and reassurances.

  "I'll bring Mallory, I promise," he said. "Just go."

  As he turned her toward the stairs a rusty-haired freckle face fell between them, and J.R. reflexively caught him in his arms only to be showered with warm, sticky blood that shot from the boy's mouth and throat.

  Erin clutched handfuls of her hair as she stepped back, screaming, and J.R. lowered the dying boy to the floor as a ball of flames screeched by inches from his body. J.R. watched it as it scurried between feet, catching pant legs afire, burning shoes, spreading the flames like a disease from person to person, and J.R. realized it was one of those creatures trying to run from its pain. Through the legs that stood around him like small trees in a miniature forest, he saw others, some burning, some madly chewing on the bloody bodies that littered the floor.

  J.R. stood quickly, reaching for Erin, but her back was to him now, and she was moving away from him, arms outstretched and reaching for Jeff, who stood only a few feet in front of her.

  "Jeff-reeeee!" she called. "Jeff-reeeee! It's time to go home now, Jeff-reeeee! Come on, it's time to go home!"

  Behind Jeff, flames roared from the pool like a giant bonfire, and smoke was beginning to blacken the air, but J.R. could still make him out, could still see his dazed, blood-splashed face, and he could see the Crucifax in Jeff's hand, poised at his throat….

  "Please, Jeffrey," Erin coughed, staggering toward him, "let's go now."

  J.R. grabbed her, held her to him to keep her away from the fire, and tried to get Jeff's attention as the smoke thickened. But the boy seemed oblivious to everything but the Crucifax, which kept slipping from his bloody hand.

  As if from nowhere, Lily was suddenly at Jeff's side, pulling at the leather cord around his neck, sobbing and coughing at once. She lifted it over his head and threw it into the smoke.

  "Jeff?" she shouted into his face. "We're getting out now. Just walk with me."

  "I… I've gotta—gotta find Mal-Mallory," he babbled, shaking his head.

  Lily's shoulders sagged with an invisible weight, and she bowed her head a moment, crying, then stood up straight, filled her lungs, and screamed, "She's dead, Mallory's dead. Now, goddammit, we're getting out of here!"

  She began pulling on him frantically, pulling his arms, his neck, the belt loops of his jeans, until finally he began to walk with her.

  J.R. put his mouth to Erin's ear and tried to sound comforting as he told her to go with Jeff.

  "You'll bring Mallory?" she whimpered.

  "Yes." The word felt like a rock in his stomach.

  The stairs were packed with people hurrying out and littered with the bodies of those who had taken their lives on the steps. A heavy woman leaned over the rail, screaming, "Michael! Where are you?"

  A man behind her wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back, shouting, "There's nothing we can do now; we have to go!"

  Pressing his wet, blood-spotted coat sleeves to his mouth and nose for protection from the thickening smoke, J.R. turned away from the staircase to find Reverend Bainbridge.

  The crowd had thinned out some, but the floor was strewn with corpses, some in flames that sent up plumes of smoke that reeked of spoiled meat and burning rubber. Smaller fires were bursting out around the room as flames were spread to piles of cushions and blankets and wooden crates stacked in corners against the wall.

  Mr. Brubaker was kneeling beside his dead son, hacking at the smoke and wailing tearfully as his wife pulled on Wayne's legs, trying to drag him over the floor, saying, "We've got to get him to a doctor, to a hospital!"

  J.R. stepped over bodies and hunkered down between them, putting an arm around Mrs. Brubaker.

  "Look, Wayne's dead," he shouted. "You'd better get out of here. The smoke's getting—"

  "This is your fuckin' fault!" Brubaker shrieked in a mad, shrill voice, shooting to his feet and pointing a thick finger at J.R. "I don't know what you done, but you fucked up, mister, and I'm gonna have your ass for it, understand? I'm gonna—"

  J.R. hurried away, knowing he had no time for Brubaker's hysterics, but the big man came after him, his words slurring together in a senseless babble. J.R. heard Mrs. Brubaker call her husband and was relieved by the hint of sanity and order left in her grieving voice. Brubaker's screams crumbled into pathetic sobs.

  J.R.'s flashlight beam shone in the haze of smoke like a glowing sword as he searched for the reverend, calling his name repeatedly. He had to step around three bodies that had fallen one atop the other. The top one, a naked girl, bony and pale with stringy blood-tangled hair, reached out and clutched his pant leg, trying to turn herself on her side. Startled, J.R. turned the beam on her as her eyes rolled back in her head. She tried to speak and blood bubbled out of the long black opening in her throat, then her arm fell limp away from him, her head dropped forward and she was silent.

  He wasn't sure, but J.R. thought she'd said, "Daddy…"

  The flashlight beam fell on a dilapidated wall, slid along its length—

  —and caught a glimpse of long platinum hair disappearing around its crumbled edge.

  "Mace," J.R. growled, hurrying after him. Remembering the reverend, he stopped again, turned, and shouted for him.

  The others in the room were no more than darting shadows in the smoky orange glow. He wiped his watery eyes with the heel of his hand, calling one more time. When he did not hear the reverend's voice reply amid the remaining screams and cries, he hoped he'd already gotten out but feared he was hurt or dead in the fire.

  J.R. rushed around the end of the wall, shining the light ahead of him. He spotted the back of Mace's head bobbing rapidly as he clanked down some metal stairs.

  There were more bodies beyond the wall, and he had to slow down to avoid tripping. His light passed over a black, charred corpse sprawled in a corner, and he immediately looked away and hurried down the stairs.

  The dreadful, threatening sounds at the bottom of the stairs made him stop halfway down.

  Two dozen golden eyes sparkled up at him from the foot of the stairs, and his light glistened on sharp yellowed tusks. He moved the beam through the room and saw more of them all over the floor and crouching among the pipes that twisted from the low ceiling. Across from the stairs he saw the hole in the wall Lily had spoken of, and peering through it with a satisfied grin was Mace.

  Their eyes met and held for a long moment. J.R. felt his testicles pull up inside him, saw Dara again, her eyes so confident and cold as she drove away with his sister.

  Mace laughed a dry, bone-clacking laugh and said, "You lose, big brother."

  Then he was gone, his laughter washed away by the rushing hiss of the sewer.

  Smoke curled through the beam of light as the creatures, two and three at a time, hopped over the edge of the hole and followed Mace into the sewer. He felt the knife's hard, smooth handle in his palm as he slid it from beneath his belt. Holding the blade outward and screaming like an attacking animal, J.R. charged down the stairs, ducking his head low to avoid the pipes.

  Like monkeys from trees, three of the creatures dropped on his back as he passed beneath them, tearing their teeth and claws into his coat, releasing long, guttural squalls, their breath warm and moist on his neck. As he ran down the stairs J.R. slammed himself against the rail and felt one of the
creatures drop off. Two more pounced from above to replace it, and a few steps farther down he turned and threw himself back hard against the wall, felt bones crunch against his back. Two of them let go, and J.R. went on, swinging his shoulders until another dropped off. The remaining creature clung to his left shoulder, and he paused a moment to swing his right arm back, felt the blade of the knife pierce thick flesh, and heard the creature's wounded squeal as it fell away.

  When he reached the floor he screamed again, this time with fear as well as rage because they were scurrying up his legs, teeth snapping. Like a helpless drunk, he staggered in circles as he kicked his legs, knocked them away with his flashlight, and swept the knife downward again and again, cutting his own thighs as well as stabbing his attackers. Others continued to clamber through the hole to follow Mace.

  The flashlight beam danced madly through the dark sewer until J.R. regained his bearings. Several yards down the walkway to J.R.'s right, the light fell on Mace's back. He was walking at a leisurely pace, his stride confident and unhurried, long arms swinging at his sides, followed by a scurrying column of his pets. More were coming through the hole behind J.R., and he started after Mace at a slow jog, hoping to stay away from them.

  Mace disappeared around a corner, and J.R. picked up a little speed, not wanting to lose him. His lungs were on fire, and his mouth was so dry, his throat so thick, that each breath threatened to make him gag. His legs and back were stinging from the cuts he'd received, and he felt the warm, slow trickle of blood mixing with the sweat that drenched him beneath his clothes.

  When he rounded the corner, J.R. slowed to a walk, then stopped six feet from Mace, who was leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed, smiling. His pets were at his feet facing J.R., eyes bright in the sewer's darkness.

  "Looking for me, are you?" Mace asked.

  J.R.'s chest heaved as he gasped for air, swaying with dizziness. He tried to lean against the wall, but there was no wall, just a rectangular passageway that led into cold, drafty darkness. J.R. wanted to shine his light through it to see what lay beyond, but he was afraid to take it off of Mace.