by Ian Woodhead
Brutality
By
Ian Woodhead
By Ian Woodhead
Parasite
Shades of Green
Rags and Bones
The Mirrored Blade
Spores
Third Sight
Woven in Blood
Kingdoms of the Dead
Fungal Tide
The Bone Architect
Mouthful of Carrion
Scorched Flesh
Brutality
Chemical Flowers (with Suzanne Reeves)
The Zombie Armageddon Series
The Unwashed Dead
Walking with Zombies
Infected Bodies
Dead Veil
Dead Reaping
Human Filth
Harvest of the Dead (with Christine Sutton)
Table of Contents
Chapter One 5
Chapter Two 11
Chapter Three 15
Chapter Four 21
Chapter Five 26
Chapter Six 31
Chapter Seven 36
Chapter Eight 41
Chapter Nine 46
Chapter Ten 51
Chapter Eleven 55
Chapter Twelve 59
Chapter Thirteen 63
Chapter Fourteen 67
Chapter Fifteen 70
Chapter Sixteen 76
Chapter Seventeen 80
Chapter Eighteen 84
Chapter Nineteen 88
Chapter Twenty 93
Chapter Twenty-one 97
Epilogue 101
BURGER 102
THE SHED 109
POISONED 118
DEAD GIRL 130
BRUTALITY
by
Ian Woodhead
WARNING – This is an extreme horror story, intended for mature audiences only. Do not read if you are easily shocked or if you have a nervous disposition.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright revised edition, July 2015 by Ian Woodhead
Edited by Linda Tooch
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.
Chapter One
Max Bailey dragged his fingernails down the side of his cheek. He didn't need to look to know just how much grime his skin had accumulated over the past few weeks. Had it been that long since he had last bathed? The passing of time built up faster than the layers of shit that stuck to his frail body. Max so longed to immerse this foul-stinking vessel in a deep tub of hot water with a just a touch of bubble bath added. No, fuck it, he was going to use up a full bottle of the stuff.
The fantasy of him stretching out in this imaginary bath while he ran a soft soapy brush up and down his legs popped like one of the fictional soap bubbles. He couldn't allow these distractions to take hold. Max had to stay focussed.
This town called Brutality was on the cusp of destruction. The signs were everywhere if you knew where to look. The locals born in this vile place couldn't see how their behaviour had shifted, but he could. Max pressed his back against the shop window and tensed up, not wanting his previous visions from sliding back to infect his thoughts.
Nothing looked out of place. The town hadn't changed, and outwardly the inhabitants still carried on as they always did. Look beneath the veil, and that story soon changed. He tilted his head back; beyond the gutter and the rooftops, the pale moon peeked out from the dark clouds. Even the majesty of creation failed to calm him tonight. The thundering express train was almost upon him, and no amount of star gazing would alter that.
Max breathed in the cold air. He detected petrol fumes, cooking meat grease from the town's many takeaways, the hint of cheap perfume, and of course, the sour stench of lager. Yet beneath this concoction of human squander, he also smelled apple blossom, cut grass, and the sweet scent of spring flowers. Even here, even in Brutality, a smear of the good things still managed to cling on.
It was the latter that Max so wanted to embrace, but he dared not allow his inner urges to take root. His masquerade had to continue. He was the last remaining guardian of Brutality. To protect these people, Max assumed the role of an unseen scavenger; his desire didn't even enter into the equation.
The tiny hairs on his back shot up, and the landscape of the town’s closed takeaways blurred. He stared at the back of his hand, pleading to the Powers that this wasn't the prelude to the End of Everything. He swallowed the built up saliva, feeling the coldness slip down his throat. The tips of his fingers start to vibrate. “Oh fuck,” he moaned, now recognising the onset of yet another vision. “Not another one.” This was going to hurt, they always did. Still, at least this time he did know what to expect.
He thrust both his hands down to his side, and clenched his fingers tight around the filthy fabric, almost losing his grip on the layer of grease coating his trousers. His actions did not suppress the shakes now surging through his legs. That familiar shiver rushed through every cell of his body, rising until it reached his head. Max heard himself moan in anguish before feeling the strength drain from his legs.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Max collapsed into the middle of the road, the brief downpour from the evening had drained away, and only a few puddles remained. Max had fallen into the largest one and the displaced water soaked into his clothing.
Max's body was close to shutting down, the control he had over his functions were switching off one by one. One tiny spark of rationality buried under the layers of alien thoughts and emotions calmly informed him that he was lying in the middle of the road. Max channelled what little strength he had left and crawled to the kerb and then rolled his body onto the pavement.
He shuddered one last time; the few remaining lights flickered, dimmed, and went out.
It left him helpless, unable to move or talk. He would stay like this until the Powers had finished with him. Max prayed that it wouldn’t take long. The human nightlife tended to either ignore him, or they just didn't see him.
Even so, at this time in the morning, the inhibitions that the locals went to so much trouble to cover during the daylight hours were given a little more freedom. He had no wish to end up in one of their cellars, hanging upside down from a meat hook, or to find himself waking up in a buried wooden box.
Max found himself sitting in the passenger seat of a large car. It took a few seconds to place the vehicle; it was a red Range Rover, an older model. He looked out of the side window, watching the houses fly past. He knew where they were; this was Canal Road, about a mile from where he lay. The car sped through the quiet area of the town then slowed down and turned into Basing Street. Max looked through the windscreen and saw his own body lying in the middle of the road. He looked like a heap of discarded clothing, thrown out and forgotten. Max shook his head. No, that wasn’t how it should happen, he had moved out of the road. He managed to tear his eyes away from his form and for the first time, looked at the driver, recognising him immediately.
Paul Harrison lived on the other side of the town with his wife. Max had seen them a few times drifting through the shopping centre. His wife had even dropped twenty pence into his battered baked bean tin a few weeks ago and rewarded him with a pitying sad smile. Max had returned her smile then watched the big man turn to lust at a pretty pair of legs. While the flesh distracted him, he had scann
ed the surface of his mind and pulled out a whole chunk of interesting facts about the both of them.
Just like the rest of the locals, the pair followed the template; then again, they had no choice. Their fate was fixed from the moment of conception. They belonged to the town, part of the tapestry that bound all the locals together.
Their outward appearances were just a thin veneer covering up tainted personalities. Even the woman, despite the rare act of compassion, was capable of a whole host of actions deemed heinous to normal society. The man, though. Oh, he was a special case. Max had inadvertently discovered one of the inner core, one of the few that took their depravity to a whole new level. He decided that this man would need watching.
Max couldn't help himself, and like a kid tempted by the biscuit barrel, he just had to see how bad the man really was. Max dug deeper, and found...
...The pretty young girl, with those wide moo cow eyes, and that oh so long ash blonde hair, had stopped giving him that 'come to bed' smile. Paul sat down in front of her. In fact, she'd stopped doing much of anything now. He leaned forward, grabbed a handful of that hair, and pushed her head back. Judging from the slack features, the bitch had just died on him. Well, that was a bit of an anti-climax. No final scream, no gasp for air, just a quiet exaltation before shifting off this mortal coil.
He hadn't even had a chance to unroll his special ladies.
His knives lay beside his chair, still secured with the leather strap. Paul had wanted to soften her up first with his fun toys before getting down to the serious business of the actual carve. He slid the tips of his fingers along her mutilated thigh, feeling the uneven bumps beneath the congealing layer of thick blood. He guessed that his pretty girl shrieking her head off while he dragged the cheese grater up her leg might have been the final act.
She already knew what marvellous plans he had set out for her godlike face and that fantastic torso. Despite himself, he couldn't help spouting out her future. Why not? It's not every day that such a perfect looking hitch-hiker wanders into the town of Brutality. He was just thankful that he spied her before anyone else did. Some of the other freaks didn't appreciate true art.
Maybe it wasn't the grater; it could have been when he hammered the screws into her left kneecap. Paul tended to zone out in the middle of his warm up sessions, meaning she could have already been dead when he did pick up the grater.
Still, he'd started the job, so he couldn't stop now. The girls need to taste flesh; he just hoped they wouldn't be too upset when their razor sharp blades opened up dead meat.
Paul sighed heavily, knowing he wouldn't be able to create a true piece of beauty; his heart wouldn't be in it. Such a shame, too. This body had to be the best he'd found for years.
He reached for the roll-sack, almost jumping out of his chair when the girl's eyes shot open. Those large brown eyes rolled in their sockets, then they focussed on Paul's surprised face, and she shrieked. He giggled whilst scooping up his ladies. Somebody up there was looking out for him...
… Max had pulled out; he'd seen enough. Back then, whilst sitting in the shopping centre, Max could have scanned over a dozen minds, from the grey haired woman, hurrying past Paul and his wife, to the group of laughing teens leaning against the Mall fountain a few metres from him. Most of them were local, born in Brutality, and the ones born here could have been quite capable of performing similar atrocities on that poor girl. The only difference between Paul and the others was that she might have survived.
The man’s expression suddenly changed to exultation. Paul had just seen Max's body in the middle of the road. The man floored the accelerator and giggled. The noise was so unexpected, he sounded like a child. Max gritted his teeth and moaned when he felt the powerful vehicle plough into his frail body, watching his shattered form smash into a post box and splash the metal with an even brighter shade of scarlet.
The man howled in triumph then jerked the gears and reversed the Land Rover, still giggling. Max tried not to cry at the sight of his own body sliding down the front of the post-box before landing in a bloodied heap on the side of the road. This fiend had wrecked his body. He glared at the man sitting beside him and saw that he had not finished just yet. The man spun the vehicle around and backed towards Max's body until the rear wheel was in line with his head. The vehicle then inched further back and Max screamed, watching his head burst apart like an overripe tomato. His eyes shot open, and he slowly sat up, finding himself back in his undamaged body by the kerb. He turned around to see that he was just a few metres from the post-box. Max felt his stomach turn over and he threw up his last meal of half a cold pepperoni pizza that he had dug out of a litterbin about an hour ago. Max crawled over to the box and used it to get back onto his feet. “I can’t take this anymore.”
His strength had left him, and Max knew that if he released his hands from the cold metal, he would crash into the hard paving slabs and end up breaking a few bones or pulling a couple of muscles. He turned his head and saw an alternative. Max staggered forward and threw himself into a soft pile of black bin bags, sighing with gratitude that not everyone who lived in this town were born here. A local would never leave bags full of old clothing outside a charity shop.
The man allowed the softness of the fabric under the black plastic to caress his weak muscles while wondering if his ability to foretell a vision was weakening. He had long since given up trying to evade the visions, but he had experienced enough of the bloody things to see the signs.
“Oh, so I got the colour wrong.” Max had no doubt that everything else he saw would have transpired if he hadn’t moved out of the road. It didn’t make sense to him. Why would they show him an event that wouldn’t have even happened if they hadn’t subjected him to the agony of foresight? The maniac in the 4X4 wasn’t unique in this town; a few of them would have driven their wheels over his body. “Fuck, why do I still question their motives?”
Max eased the rest of his body off the bags and waited for his delicate stomach to catch up. He knew that despite their questionable motives, the Powers would have had good reason to subject him to the picture of watching his body flatten out. “Let me see if I can ascertain the reason,” he muttered. Max glanced along both sides of the street to ensure that he was still alone. He filled his lungs with the cold air, closed his eyes, and willed his Ka to leave this shell.
He saw Paul Harrison gripping the steering wheel and thundering through the deserted streets like the devil possessed. He would reach the town limits within minutes at this speed. The maniac must be pushing the car way past seventy miles per hour. Max pushed his Ka through the rear window, floated past the rear seats, and settled down next to the driver.
The comparison between this man and the one Max last saw, scowling at his wife for giving him money, was startling. The demonic mask of suppressed fury frightened even Max. Just what had happened? The man’s mouth opened and shut like a fish gulping in food. His mutters couldn’t be heard over the sound of the music blaring through the speakers. The noise was loud enough to rattle the windows.
His erratic driving could easily end an innocent’s life. From what he discovered from his vision, this man would cherish the prospect of wiping out a pedestrian. Max then noticed the dried blood splashed across his other cheek and guessed that he had already taken more than one life. There was even a chance that they were innocents. Max knew of a few remaining in town who hadn’t taken the hint to leave.
Max decided that it was time to find out just what was going on. He would not find answers by just observing. The man’s innermost thoughts held the answers he desired to know. Max’s Ka slowly floated up until he was level with Paul’s contorted face and then dived in.
That stupid, fucking, little bitch just had to go look. Why the fuck couldn’t the dumb slag not keep her big nose out of his stuff? Just how many times did he have to tell the wife not to go down there, that his workshop was off-limits to her? If wasn’t really his fault, though; he wasn’t going to take the
hit on this one. Fuck, how could he have known that she would pick the lock?
Curiosity killed the cat. It also killed the bitch of a wife too. Oh, he’d sorted her out all right, he’d shown Caroline just what happened to nosey parkers. Oh, yeah, remembering the hot thrill that coursed through his body as he wrapped his hands around the woman’s neck and squeezed made him grin. Watching her legs jerk spasmodically, kicking the walls and table, was just sublime.
The raw emotion so surprised him. He had honestly believed that he had squashed the urge to kill his wife again years ago. It looked like he was wrong. That feeling had never gone away. Fuck his statues, fuck her, and fuck this town. He needed out. He needed space, most of all, his girls needed to taste more flesh. They'll never forgive him for not allowing them access to Caroline. This time he wasn’t going to make the mistake of hunting in his own town. He couldn’t wait to get his blades wet again.
Max whipped his Ka out of Paul’s mind and floated in front of his face. The man was still muttering. He floated closer until he was directly in front of the man’s moving lips. Paul was only repeating four words: Jennifer, Carol, Linda, and Susan. Max pulled back, and glanced over his shoulder, spying a leather satchel lying on the back seat, the flap was open to reveal four long bladed knives. Was this creature talking about his knives? Oh, dear God, Max did not intend to go back inside to find out.
The town limits were not too far away now. If he didn’t stop this right now, the man would get away. Max had no influence beyond the border.
He hated this part of his role as guardian. He had been tasked with keeping the local population alive. Paul Harrison’s death would create a sudden void. The town would not notice his demise, and nobody would miss or mourn his disappearance. That didn’t matter. The delicate balance would shift, and beyond the boundaries of this blight on the landscape, there would be a mass killing. Another unexplained tragedy claiming innocent lives.
