Billie-Bob ran at the boy, pounding up the steps as the children cried out in alarm. The boy, who was at least twenty pounds heavier than Billie-Bob, turned just as Billie-Bob slammed into him, driving him to the floor. Billie-Bob tried to straddle him and get his hands around his neck but the other boy shoved him aside and climbed back to his feet, pulling a knife from his belt as he turned on Billie-Bob.
“I’m gonna eat your heart out of you,” the older boy said as he slashed back and forth with his knife. The children cowered against the wall as Billie-Bob smiled. Shaking his head, he pulled his pistol from its holster.
The children screamed as the concussion of the shot washed over them. The older boy’s eyes widened in surprise as the round took him full in the chest, the impact driving him against the steel door where he slid down to a sitting position, blood smearing the surface of the door behind him. He struggled to take a breath as his eyes locked with Billie-Bob’s, and then he slumped to the left as he died.
Driving the children before him Billie-Bob raced down the steps like a mother hen corralling chicks that wanted to go in every direction but the one she wanted. Reaching the landing for the second floor Billie-Bob caught sight of a shadow out of the corner of his eye just as another of the savage inhabitants of the building slammed into him from the left.
He’d obviously been hiding in the shadows, waiting for them to pass, before he launched his attack. Billie-Bob was driven against the wall, his pistol falling from nerveless fingers as his elbow rebounded from the block wall. The boy clawed at him, screaming unintelligibly, slashing at his clothes and flesh with his bare hands.
Billie-Bob managed to drive him away with his foot as the children huddled on the landing below. The boy launched himself at Billie-Bob who was still looking for his pistol on the landing. He caught the boy by his arm, spinning him around, and driving him into the opposite wall with a whipping motion not unlike snapping the tip of a wet towel.
He couldn’t find his gun.
He dropped to his knees, searching for his gun, as panic blossomed in the pit of his stomach. He crawled about, frantically searching the shadowy floor with his hands for his pistol. His fingers brushed against the barrel, knocking it away from him, and he heard it clattering down several steps before coming to rest. Before he could get back to his feet that savage little bastard slammed into him from the right, driving him against the wall where he pinned Billie-Bob across the throat with his forearm.
Panic shrieked in Billie-Bob’s mind as he fought against his attacker, kicking out wildly with little effect as he struggled to breath. He was going to die, right here, in some shadowy stairwell in the middle of a dying city. The victim of a child turned savage by the death of society.
“I’m gonna eat your heart out of you,” The boy whispered in his ear, his hot rancid breath washing across the side of his face as Billie-Bob turned his head away. A tremendous roaring filed his ears as his heart thundered in his chest, a trip hammer ramming against the prison of his rib cage. He heard the children crying on the landing below, the whispering snick of steel drawn across leather, and he spotted the faint shimmer of a metal blade in the boy’s hand.
No.
In his mind he returned to his uncle’s shadowy basement, the memory unleashed by the panic washing through him. He saw his uncle standing over his brother, his large hands clasped upon bony shoulders as he shook the boy with a wild rage.
Pain is love, love is pain.
No!
He had to stop him. He had to save Bobby. The images in his mind stuttered like a film jumping its tracks, cutting to a scene of his uncle leading his brother to that small stage. He became aware of a hammer in his hand, heavy, the straight claws pointed at the floor as he carefully approached his uncle’s back.
Love is pain, pain is love.
No!
He had to stop him. He grabbed the boy’s wrist as the blade came close to his throat. It hovered there for a moment, trapped between the savage boy’s need for vengeance and Billie-Bob’s desire to live. The arm across his throat loosened as the blade began to drift away from his face. He gulped in a lungful of air that gave him renewed strength.
Love is pain, pain is love.
No!
His uncle lay at his feet, Bobby standing beside him, their hands clasped. A hammer grew from the back of his uncle’s head as blood stained the floor around his face.
Love is pain, pain is love.
No!
He pushed back against the boy whose face was twisted into a savage snarl, his eyes burning with a predatory light that held no anger, no remorse, just a savage need to spill Billie-Bob’s blood.
He turned the boys arm, bending his wrist until the tip of the blade was pointed at the savage boy’s face. Those savage eyes blanched as he recognized that things were not going as planned.
Billie-Bob twisted harder, gaining the upper hand, turning the tip of the blade up as their interlocked grip slowly lowered between their bodies pressed close to one another. The boy’s flesh was slick with sweat in the stifling confines of the stairwell. Sweat dripped into Billie-Bob’s eyes, setting them on fire as he continued to struggle against the boys will. Under his clothes his entire body was sheathed in sweat.
The boy grunted, bone snapped with a muted click, and the tip of the knife slipped in between his third and forth rib. A look of surprise crossed the boy’s savage features as the knife passed through his flesh, the tip seeking out his beating heart, caressing the struggling organ as it sliced through taut muscle.
He coughed as Billie-Bob rammed the blade home, the boy’s lungs quickly filled with blood that spilled from his lips as his body relaxed and Billie-Bob slowly lowered him to the garbage-strewn floor. The smell of fresh shit and spilled blood washed across him. Their eyes remained locked as the boy’s life fled and the peace of death smoothed his savage features.
Billie-Bob crawled away from the boy’s lifeless body, shaking from the exertion of what he’d just gone through, adrenalin thrumming through his body, his clothing soaked through with sweat. He coughed as he struggled to catch his breath and bring a moment of peaceful calm to his raging thoughts. In his heightened state he saw once again, with his mind’s eye, his Uncle’s basement.
Thirty Seven
Jagged streaks of blood strained the walls in the harsh light, in the corner, where photographic equipment had been set up around a small stage. Something very bad had happened, the splattered blood serving as mute testimony to the savagery that had visited this quiet place. On the stage stood a small chair and the sight of it opened the floodgates of his memory.
He and his brother had spent many hours on that stage, together and apart, in various stages of undress, as his uncle ohhed and aahhed beyond the harsh lights as a camera clicked in rapid succession, and shadows moved in suggestive manners that awakened a sense of shame and self loathing.
But the tides had been turned.
Now his uncle sat in the chair that was much too small for him, his head resting against his bloodstained chest, a strange smile on his face. His body was scrunched up with his feet splayed out before him, his motionless arms resting comfortably at his sides. A bloody hammer lying in a pool of drying blood to his left. Around his neck a single piece of jewelry glittered in the light, two triangles, one wrapped about the other, formed by a single line that gave it the illusion of three triangles stacked together.
A simple piece that carried a much deeper meaning, serving as the unofficial symbol of an organization that had once existed in the shadows of a civilized world. Everything fell nearly into place then as Billie-Bob brought his breathing under control and crawled to the edge of the landing, beyond which the children watched and waited on the shadowy landing below him.
“Mr. Billie-Bob?” One of the young boys said, he had come up the steps to stand in front of him.
“Yes,” Billie-bob whispered hoarsely, his throat was going to be sore for a bit. But dammit, he was alive.
“Here’s your gun,” the boy said, holding his pistol out to him.
“Thank you,” Billie-Bob said as he took the weapon and checked the loads by pulling the slide back halfway.
Using the railing he pulled himself shakily to his feet, at the same time he became aware of the commotion on the steps above them. Shouts and screams drifted down from the shadowy stairs above them. Crossing to the steps he took them hesitantly at first, making sure he wasn’t going to lose his balance and fall the rest of the way to the bottom. As his confidence grew he guided the children down to the final landing that led to the foyer of the building and the street beyond.
At the open doorway, leading to the street on the other side of a shadowy lobby, two armed guards stood with their back to them. They were two boys, one on each side of the entrance, watching for external threats, not expecting any trouble from within the building itself.
Motioning for the children to stay put Billie-Bob cautiously crept across the gloomy lobby, staying to the shadows as he snuck up on the unsuspecting guards.
When he was twelve feet away, both of them in clear view, one of them happened to glance back into the building.
He spotted Billie-Bob nearly on top of them and with a cry of alarm spun around with the muzzle of his shotgun coming up. Billie-Bob fired, the shot catching the boy in the chest, and flinging his body onto the sidewalk. The second boy returned fire, the wad of shot whistling past Billie-Bob’s ear, several of the pellets passing through the flesh of his ear and igniting a white hot dagger of pain as blood splattered onto his shoulder. The pain touched off a rage that welled up from deep within him and he charged the second boy as he struggled to reload his shotgun, the slide having become jammed in his sudden panic.
Billie-Bob had no such problem as he bore down on his target. The boy managed to get the round into the chamber and had the muzzle halfway up when Billie-Bob’s shot took him high in the chest, flinging his body like a rag doll onto the front steps of the building.
With his head on a swivel he checked for more attackers as he approached the doorway and glanced down at the two boys whose bodies lay on the sidewalk. Satisfied that they were safe he motioned for the others to follow him and he led them onto the street, into the snarl of cars forever trapped in a traffic jam of the damned.
Reaching the other side of the street he looked back at the building to see Window and Meat working their way down the side of the building on a steel fire escape. Above them several of those savage boys threw anything they could find at them.
Billie-Bob unslung his rifle and steadied himself against the side of a car as he sighted through the telescopic sight. Young faces leapt into view, suddenly very close and he chose the one furthest to the right. Gently caressing the trigger the rifle bucked in his hand as he rode the recoil, his eye firmly planted against the eyepiece.
His shot was low, spraying bits of concrete into the boys face, forcing him to drop back.
Billie-Bob calmly chose his second target, adjusting for the bullet’s drop and gently caressed the trigger. The rifle bucked in his hand and the boys head exploded in a spray of blood, bone, and brains.
Billie-Bob kept a watch over the suddenly empty escarpment as Window and Meat broke through a window to access the floor below where the boys had gathered to worship their unholy god.
Thirty Eight
Even if the fire escape had been in good enough shape for them to reach the street they would have had to go back into the building anyway to finish what they had come to do. Leave no survivors, had been the edict from the council before they set out upon this journey, and after what they had seen inside, there would be no remorse, no hesitation, nor compassion in what was to come.
With the children safely out of the building, and under Billie-Bob’s protection, Window and Meat reentered the building from the fire escape, breaking through the window at the end of the hallway on the fourth floor.
As they entered the garbage strewn hallway, from above their heads came the sound of breaking wood and tearing fabric as something tore through the material that separated them from the floor above. Before they could move the ceiling collapsed around them, raining pieces of shattered concrete, covering them in plaster dust, dirt, and fiberglass insulation.
They both looked up into the unblinking gaze of a single large black eye that filled the opening, gazing at them with primitive fury. The flesh around the eye was gray with patches of what looked like infected flesh that glistened with a reddish glow. The eye blinked, the crusted lid coming together briefly before sliding back to reveal that black iris. Meat felt that presence again, the one that had awakened his old terror, and he struggled to keep his sanity from sliding off into that endless abyss as that creatures alien presence probed his mind.
Shouts and the sound of running feet came from the stairwell at the opposite end of the hallway, breaking the spell this presence had cast and they both raised their pistols at the same time. The concussion of the shots fired in such close confines pressed against them as the eye vanished behind that crusted lid and a high pitched, animal like shriek of pain and anger rebounded from the walls around them.
The sound drove into their skulls, probing the black depths behind their eyes, sending out icy fingers of terror. Black fluid fell from the shattered eye and they both jumped back as it splattered onto the filthy hallway. From the flesh around the eye slender appendages grew outward, clawing at the sides of the opening with wicked claws, pulling its mass through the shattered floor above, several of the appendages dropped down, their tips blindly searching for them.
To the left of the shattered eye a mound of flesh bubbled up. They watched in mute horror and disgust as it slip open to reveal another eye that watched them with growing fury as appendages pulled its bloated body through the hole it had created. The lid covering the center eye, the one they had damaged, slid back as lips to expose a tooth lined gullet that pulsed with a ravenous hunger.
“There they are,” someone shouted at the other end of the hallway.
Meat and Window were jarred from their fascination and with pistols at the ready turned to confront this new threat. Two of the boys were racing headlong down the hallway towards them, one carried what looked like a machete while the other carried a short knife. They both fired again, the boy with the machete dropping to the floor lifelessly as both rounds took him squarely in the chest.
“I thought you were taking the one on the right,” Window said as the other boy reached them. Meat stepped back, turning away as the boy tried to slash down at them. His momentum carried him past them and Window gave him an extra boost by shoving him towards the shattered window behind them.
Before they could fire the slender appendages emerging from the ceiling dropped down and wrapped themselves around the boys head and neck. He screamed in terror, slashing at them with his knife as he was pulled bodily up into the ceiling, his cries cut short by a wet crunching sound as blood washed down over his shaking body. He dropped lifelessly to the floor, minus his head, as those appendages worked to pull that bloated carcass through the narrow opening.
Neither of them wanted to hang around to see what would happen once it managed to get through and they ran side by side towards the stairs. Here and there Meat had spotted propane cylinders and as they neared the stairs three more boys emerged to confront them. Armed only with knives they were no match and were quickly dispatched as Meat and Window reached the stairs proper.
Another boy raced around the corner of the stairs above them, the sound of Window’s pistol reverberated through the space as the boy was driven against the wall where he dropped lifelessly to the ground. Another boy stuck his head around the corner, jerking it back as a 44 round slammed into the wall where his head had been.
“We don’t want to hurt you.” One of the boys shouted at them.
Meat saw that bloated thing drop from the ceiling at the other end of the hallway as those searching appendages waved in the light coming through the window.
He gathered paper and wood along with several propane cylinders that felt half full. Using the wood and paper he created a pile at the base of the steps as that creature pulled its bloated body down the shadowy hallway towards them.
“We better hurry,” Window said, his gaze alternating between the hallway and the stairs. Another boy poked his head around the corner and Window fired, clipping him as he cried out in pain. With the pile of debris waist high Meat set several of the propane cylinders on top and knelt down at the base. Using his knife and a flint he sparked a fire in the paper at the bottom, blowing on it gently until the flames greedily flared to life and quickly climbed the pyre of wood, filling the hallway with dense smoke.
Meat shoved another propane cylinder into the burning pile and he and Window raced down the steps to escape.
Behind them, as they fled, they heard several of the boys following them, managing somehow to get around the fire.
Smoke quickly filled the upper stairwell, the boys huddled there pushing back towards the roof, and racing across to the fire escape clinging to the side of the building. Billie-Bob was waiting for them and before they could retreat two of them died.
As that bloated carcass neared the flames the internal temperature of the propane tank reached a critical point. There was a high pitched whistle that was punctuated by the crump of an explosion that sent flames racing up and down the stairwell, enveloping those who had not made it to the roof, swallowing that approaching creature in cleansing flames that raced the length of the hallway, igniting debris, and exploding out through the window at the end.
Fanned by the wind the flames roared to life, and quickly spread into the rooms and hallways of the floors above, trapping the boys on the roof.
Window and Meat reached the lobby and immediately split off in different directions, fading into the shadows as the sound of pounding footsteps came from the stairs. The first boy emerged, carrying a shotgun that he dropped to the floor as Window’s shot took him in the throat. He was followed by a second who fared no better. Smoke billowed out of the doorway, flowing into the lobby as the distant sound of screams came from above.
All Roads Lead To Terror: Coming of age in a post apocalyptic world (Dreadland Chronicles Book 1) Page 15
