by Ian Woodhead
Max would grieve for their loss. He had no choice though. To allow just one of these monsters to remain alive away from the town could unravel everything. The town would allow a minor player to ascend and to fill the void. It wouldn’t take long; there were plenty of willing participants.
Paul growled, and pressed the pedal down to the floor. Max felt the Range Rover judder as it picked up more speed. If he didn’t act right now, it would be too late. He muttered an incantation and his Ka solidified.
The man’s eyes almost popped out of his sockets. He let out a single shocked yell and thrust both his arms forward. Paul shrieked even louder when his fingers encountered no resistance, pushed all the way through the apparition, and slammed into the vehicle’s windscreen.
Max’s Ka sensed the approach of something significantly larger than Paul’s Range Rover. He twisted around and nodded in satisfaction. This would be perfect. He looked back into the man’s terrified eyes one last time before rushing through the metalwork, listening to Paul shouting out for his mother. The car ploughed into the corner of a stone viaduct at over seventy miles per hour.
From where it floated, his Ka watched the man’s own Ka separate from his smashed up body. The spirit saw him and rushed towards his Ka, screaming incoherent obscenities. Before Paul’s Ka could reach him, unseen forces grabbed the spirit, and pulled it towards the ground. Max’s Ka watched with a little regret as it vanished beneath the soil.
Unlike his victims, Paul would have felt no pain before he died. Max understood why Paul acted like he did and knew that he could have never behaved in any other way. He and the rest of them in this cursed town could not deviate from their set path. Even so, he did not wish the spirit luck on its journey to the next realm.
‘The lid on Pandora’s box shall remain closed,’ he growled. Max believed the analogy was apt considering just how true that comparison was. He had kept up to date with events beyond the border. Many people believed that the world teetered on the edge of collapse, that man’s evil would consume everything. That would never happen, not while his town kept the equilibrium secure.
Over the sounds of the burning Ranger Rover, his Ka heard another vehicle approach. He moved off the road and floated just above the pavement. There was no reason for him to move away this time. It’s not like this car would be able to hurt him. He shook his incorporeal head in bemusement.
The car slowed and then stopped in the middle of the road a few feet from the burning wreck. It didn’t surprise him to see that it was one of the town’s police cars. They were the only vehicles that patrolled the outskirts. Like Max, they didn’t want any of the town’s locals to spread their foulness past the boundary. Unlike Max, they were driven by self-interest; they had no wish for the outside world to discover their town’s secrets. Most of the officers serving were local as well. Like Paul, they, too, were gripped by dark urges.
Max watched the driver study the flaming car for a few seconds before climbing out of the police car. He spoke into his radio then slowly walked around the bent and twisted remains of the car. Max should have returned to his body by now as his role in this drama was at an end.
His Ka would not obey his request; it stayed where it was, rooted to the spot, while the officer continued to watch the vehicle burn. Something caught the officer’s attention. Max watched him hurry over to the other side of the road and stoop to pick something up. His Ka suddenly began to move of its own volition, and he floated closed to the man.
The officer had found Paul’s leather satchel. How it had managed to survive intact was a mystery to Max, unless the impact had thrown it clear. He examined the contents and cursed before running back to his patrol car. Max watched him throw the satchel onto the back seat.
If the course of events ran to plan, the officer would not hand those knives over. They’d probably end up for sale in one of the town’s many junk shops by the end of the week. The officer would get a decent price for that set of knives as well. The man who had ended his life splattered over those stones wasn’t the only one in town who had an alternative use for a set of good quality kitchen knives.
The officer climbed back into the car and slowly turned the vehicle around before heading back towards the town. He found that his Ka no longer felt like a fly trapped in amber. He did not understand why the powers compelled him to witness the rescue of those knives. It did scare him. In all the centuries of guarding the town, the powers had never intervened before, at least, not with him.
This was the end of his role; Max had stopped the man from leaving town. He just wished that he could have completed the task without killing Paul. He watched the flames dying down. Within the next few hours, the town’s authorities would collect the car and take it to the local scrap yard to crush, probably with the man still inside. A clean-up crew would remove the debris, and that officer would report a minor traffic accident. It was how these incidents worked in their town.
Max sighed with relief as the pull from his physical body anchored the Ka and pulled it across the dark landscape towards where he lay. As he forced open his sleep encrusted eyes, the dull reality of his location hit him with the subtly of a rough stone. The acrid stink around his body caused him to gag, and it didn’t take him long to realise that he was breathing in the fumes of his own foul body odour combined with the stench coming from the filthy rags he wore.
He coughed and attempted to breathe using only his mouth. It had been well over a week since he had last bathed and that had been in the cold steam that ran through the middle of the local woodland. Max needed another dunk; he should also grab some more clothes as well.
The detachment of Ka from his body amplified all of his senses upon his immediate return, especially his sense of smell. It had been many years since he had returned to his body to find it clean and lying in a warm bed, complete with freshly laundered cotton sheets.
He groaned with pleasure at the memory. Max didn’t have to go to such extravagance. A meadow surrounded by spring flowers would have been far better than this. Even with breathing through his mouth, he could still smell the musty clothes in the bags under him and the reek of stale dog piss next to the corner of the shop door, even the exhaust fumes made him feel queasy. The rank smell coming from his own cooling vomit pushed aside what little resistance left, and Max’s stomach once more rebelled and ejected what little food he’d managed to hold on to.
Max slammed his jaw shut, narrowly avoiding cutting his tongue in half, when he started to experience the aches and pains that he could usually shut off. He wanted to die. No, he just wanted to flee this tortured suit of meat that encased his Ka and just leave this place, never to return.
Instead, Max crawled onto the bin bags, shut his eyes, and started to count down from a hundred. The bout of self-pity, just like the enhanced senses, would eventually subside.
He decided there and then that he would spend the next couple of nights luxuriating in a hotel bed. He needed to recharge his batteries; it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. Max had just stopped a runner, and he doubted that there’d be another one for at least a couple of weeks.
Two rats were creeping along the gutter. They had smelled his partially digested pizza spattered on the paving slabs and were eager to investigate. He smiled and willed them closer. Max promised not to disturb them, glad that at least one creature of the night would benefit from the meal.
Chapter Two
Dave Longbanks wrapped his fingers around the chrome pole attached to the edge of the oak-finished bar and brushed his other hand through his shock of blond hair. He waited for the dizziness to recede then gazed across the crowded dance floor. Dave’s eyes settled on some jail bait girl who looked like she’d poured her well-endowed body into that bright blue outfit.
By the looks of the way she was acting, the tart had already found a bloke to keep her body warm tonight. Not that Dave was all that troubled, his bed would not be cold tonight either. He groaned silently when the dizziness tried to knock
him off the barstool. This was just unreal; he’d only had five pints so far.
He gazed over at his mate, Phil Banks, and stifled a giggle. The big oaf was currently admiring himself in the huge mirror behind the bar. It hadn’t escaped Dave’s attention that Phil had already drained his pint and got himself a shot while Dave hadn’t been looking. Not that Dave would dare say anything to Phil. It just wasn’t worth the hassle. After a few pints, his mate had everything down to just three basic actions of food and fight, and then a good fuck.
Dave did not intend to experience his mate’s large fists working over his face. Phil drained his shot glass, and then he looked across towards the ladies toilet. Dave followed the man’s gaze, suppressing a grin. Their pick-ups had both retreated to the toilets a few minutes ago. Dave took a sip of his pint, wondering why the females always felt the need to accompany each other to the toilets.
“Hey, Phil, what is it with girls always going to the toilet together?” He tapped the lad on the shoulder. “Hey, are you in there?” His friend hadn’t even noticed Dave trying to grab his attention. Dave then saw where Phil’s eyes had landed. The big guy had spotted the young girl in the blue dress.
She’d decided to gyrate that firm body on the sparse dance floor. Dave punched Phil hard on the shoulder.
Phil spun around, rubbing his arm. “Are you wanting me to push your teeth through your throat?” He reached over, stole Dave’s pint, and drained it in one gulp. “You owe me a drink.”
“Will you shut the fuck up, and listen to me!” He grabbed the glass and banged it on the bar. “Stop drooling over Julie the schoolie over there. We’ve already got us some flesh remember.”
The barman silently picked up the glasses. Dave watched the man expertly filling them while Phil’s eyes had been drawn back to the young girl on the dance floor. The silly cow really was trying hard to look sexy and all demure. Dave stifled a giggle when she slipped and fell on her arse. He wondered if Phil really did remember that they’d already scored. They had agreed on the five-pint limit months ago. Any more than that, and either one of them would start throwing up. It was usually him. He paused before admitting to himself that it was nearly always him; in fact, Phil never threw up. The lad just got real mean if he drank more than the agreed limit—well, meaner than he normally was.
Dave watched the crowd swallow the embarrassed girl and then turned to find Phil staring at him. Judging by the state of his mate’s red-raw eyes, he concluded that the sly bastard had probably necked a bottle of JD before they hit the town. He wanted to kick himself for not spotting this earlier. He’d been too hyped up to notice. The prospect of finding a pretty girl had blinded Dave to his mate’s condition. He inwardly sighed, knowing that a bout of violence would now play an inevitable part in tonight’s proceedings. With luck, it would be just another pissed up lad would wouldn’t feel Phil’s heavy fists until he’d sobered up in the morning, and not one of the girls. Phil was not sexist. The lad would punch both genders.
“Do you know, Phil? Why do birds always go to the toilets together?”
The big lad grunted and shrugged before reaching for his fresh pint. Phil wasn’t listening to a word he was saying. Dave then noticed that bloody girl again. The crowd had moved. She had her arms around some bloke old enough to be her dad while precariously balanced on his knee. From where Dave sat, it looked as if the man wasn’t too happy with having some oversexed teen trying to undress him in front of the club’s audience.
Dave yelped in shock and pain when his friend tapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s well annoying, ain’t it, Dave?” asked Phil. “You wanna know what I think? I reckon that they go to the bog together so they can work on each other.” Phil ran his tongue across his wet lips. “Oh, yeah, that’ll be what they’re doing alright. Those birds would have squeezed into one cubicle and used their fingers on their twats, getting them all lubricated just for me.” Phil nodded. “Makes sense, really.”
Dave felt his mouth muscles rise. It was an automatic response. He had learned years ago that whenever Phil expressed some puerile statement, it was a good idea to go along with him. He should have guessed Phil would spout out some chunk of bullshit relating to his sexual prowess. The gorilla thought he was a sex-god, and that all women wanted to sleep with him. The sad fact was that Phil wasn’t that far off the mark. Most of the eligible teens in Brutality swarmed around Phil’s type. It appeared that the misogynistic, brain-dead, muscle-bound male was the in-thing in this fucked up town.
He tore his eyes off the girl in the blue dress and looked back at the toilets. Where were they? He pushed away his friend’s perverted images and guessed they were more likely to be stood in front of the mirror checking their make-up and discussing which lad they would choose. Dave so hoped the blonde one would pick him. That Lisa was so tidy, perfect teeth, beautiful deep blue eyes, and a cleavage that just demanded full attention. The brunette, Amber, was rather easy on the eye as well, but Dave did have a preference for blondes. He didn’t think that Phil would care about which lass he ended up in bed with.
His odd relationship with Phil went back to when his family upped sticks and moved into this hellish place. Brutality certainly lived up to its name, at least in the eyes of that thirteen year old boy. Phil Banks was the second kid he met. The first boy, a trollish ape going by the name of Brian Sheppard had taken an instant dislike to the new boy and took it upon himself to drag Dave into the corner of the playground and knock the shit out of him. As the blows rained down on his curled up body, he remembered thinking that the playground monitor would break it up. Through one eye, Dave spotted the woman stood amongst the assembled crowd. Nobody spoke, and Dave found that the most frightening aspect of the whole ordeal.
It was another ape who finally intervened. Phil Banks wasn't as trollish as Brian Sheppard, but that didn't stop Dave's torturer from backing off. Words of thanks and gratitude poured from Dave's mouth, only they were like water off a duck's back. The only reason why Phil broke up the fight was because he had the first privilege of breaking in the new boy.
The only thing that stopped Dave from receiving a second beating was the toe cringing sound of the lunch buzzer going off. Dave had been to many schools in his short life and knew the drill. Unlike every other crappy town that his parents had moved to, it appeared that this school had more bullies than victims. Meaning that if he didn't do something, Dave wouldn't survive the first week. He employed the tactic that had worked in his last school. Dave offered to help Phil with his homework.
The beatings promptly stopped, and Dave bided his time until his parents moved again, only that time never arrived. It looked like mum and dad had decided to settle here for good.
They had both left school, and within a week of leaving they had both started working at the same factory. That wasn’t so unusual since Dexter’s Meat packaging was the largest employer in their shitty little town every year, and the factory employed a smattering of school-leavers.
The job sucked out your soul, and the money they paid was a joke. Still, the free food did help to make up for the job’s crappiness; at least they would never go hungry. The damaged products that the bosses allowed them to take home did help to supplement his mother’s grocery budget. In his dark periods, he always tried to look on the bright side; at least he did have a job. Many in town didn’t.
They both worked side by side on the assembly line in the main building with a dozen or more other workers. Phil was not the most productive worker, and on more than one occasion Dave had no choice but to cover for his friend’s lack of productivity.
His generosity wasn’t without an ulterior motive. He benefited from the partnership as well. Phil allowed Dave to tag along at the weekend so they could pick up girls. Phil knew that if it weren’t for Dave helping him out, he would have joined the dole queue months ago.
The lasses had always flocked around Phil, ever since his balls had dropped. Despite the horrible way he treated them, there were alw
ays plenty more females wanting to share Phil’s bed. Deep down, Dave knew that he ought to be ashamed of himself. He was only using Phil so he could get the girls too.
Aside from alcohol induced mental bafflement and the chance of scoring on a weekend, their town had nothing else to offer. There was no cinema, no sports facilities, no nothing. Dave had never done drugs, and unlike Phil, he didn’t receive any thrills from knocking the crap out of people. Brutality was a complete dump. A hovel of a town set in the middle of nowhere, and he hated the place.
He watched the girls leave the toilets. The blonde pushed past a skinny girl, giggling when she fell into the back of a group of bikers. Dave’s heart sank as he imagined Phil doing the same thing. The two girls walked over to the bar. Dave watched the blonde make her way towards Phil.
“So, where are you two handsome boys going to take us next?” asked Lisa. She ran her tongue along her lips and then ran her manicured finger slowly down the front of Phil’s shirt.
He should have known this would have happened. As per usual, Phil had landed the looker while he had ended up with the cast off. Dave inwardly sighed and tried not to watch the blonde’s hand gravitate towards Phil’s crotch. He turned and smiled shyly at Amber and waited for his drink-blurred eyes to focus. She really wasn’t that bad looking. Granted the girl wasn’t a stunner like Lisa, but he’d been out with a lot worse. “Where do you lovely ladies like to go next?” he said, trying not to watch Phil’s hand climb up Lisa’s shapely thigh. There was never an ounce of hesitation in Phil’s advances. Even with a few pints down Dave’s throat, he still wouldn’t dare to be as forward as his mate.
Lisa giggled when Phil’s hand reached her backside, but made no attempt to remove it. “We ain’t got much of a choice have we?” she asked. “There’s only two clubs in town, and this is the best one.”
