by Alan Kelly
Bunny slung the gun back over her shoulder and charged. She would trample the bitch until she was nothing more than a stain smeared in the earth. Alice stood her ground while Sally came at her. When the horse was within spitting distance from where Alice stood, Bunny used the opportunity to throw herself free. She hit the ground and the Gemini was thrown from her hand. Sally hit Alice, the horse pulling the woman under and crushing her beneath its hooves.
When Bunny looked over Alice was getting back up. The bottom part of her jaw had been ripped from her face and her tongue wriggled about like a worm left to die in the sun. Alice and Bunny were now trapped. If either wanted to escape, they’d be forfeiting their lives within the electrical storm that opening the port had generated.
Alice was making her way slowly but surely towards Bunny. Bunny had one more shell. She was shaking so hard she wasn’t sure if the barrel was aiming at Alice or not. Her vision was becoming impaired; a violent headache was hurtling in her direction. She remembered reading once that vision and migraines are intrinsically linked to storms. A fluorescent blur was gnawing away like a rabid cat at her corneas. This was her last chance. Alice was still coming at her. All Bunny could see now was little more than strips of colours circling the bitch. Her vision went from monochrome to lurid Technicolor until, without warning, it suddenly returned completely.
‘I always thought I’d have something witty to say in an apocalyptic situation,’ Bunny shouted, over the noise of the maelstrom.
She lowered the gun and blew Alice’s leg off at the knee. If Alice could have, she would have howled. Instead she just went crashing down. Bunny grabbed the Gemini and ran as quickly as her weary body could carry her over to the transmitter.
The Unicorn key was sticking out of the top like a blade parting a veil. She glanced above her. The Sisters were already racing down through the tunnel. Bunny was astonished at how beautiful they looked, celestial even. She needed to close the port before the temptation to get a better look took hold of her sanity, or she’d be obliterated. Once they got past her, well she might not care that much about the rest of stinking humanity, but she sure as shit wasn’t about to let these bastards lay waste to a world that might have beaten, raped and burned her, but nevertheless nurtured her in its own sick way to.
She was just about to use the Gemini to close the gate when Alice dived on her from behind. Bunny threw her head back. She felt Alice’s nose crack. Alice clung on, fists beating down on Bunny’s head, skin opening, more blood on her lips, in her eyes.
‘Give it up Fiend,’ she gurgled.
Bunny brought her foot down on the bitch’s instep. Alice let go but not before Bunny had grabbed her hair with both hands, and pulled her over her shoulder. The Unicorn key tore a hole through Alice when she landed on it, nearly splitting her in two. She was stuck there, a dying pathetic thing.
Bunny bent over to look into Alice’s eyes and, kneeling down, she gently pushed the hair from what was left of her face. She held up her hand, showing Alice the Gemini. A single tear ran down the fiend’s face. Tears welled up in Bunny’s eyes too, but not for cutting Jones up, or for this bitch She was crying for the creature she’d somehow become since losing her job; or was this the woman she’d always been? Gullible, witless, impulsive, violent, and all because of this bitch in front of her.
Bunny might be dead soon too and Alice was well aware of this. Perhaps in her own warped mind Ms Fiend believed that it was a minor victory; bringing Bunny with her. Bunny leaned in closer.
‘Take this you alien bitch,’ whispered Bunny to Alice, before plunging the Gemini into her throat.
The fiend’s body thrashed and shuddered and, a short time afterwards, she began to fade, the skin peeling off like old wallpaper, the bone softening, until Alice was blown away, bone by bone into the electrical field.
There was another keyhole where the Unicorn stood. Bunny took one more gaze up into Hell. The Sisters were closer and she could see them clearly. In another time folk might have called these creatures Angels. She knew no such thing existed. She placed the Gemini in the keyhole, looked back up at The Sisters and the burning sky and whispered, ‘Let me die a woman...’ before she closed the port.
The End
