Halfway House

by Weston Ochse

  “But be happy, my Angels, soldiers of San Pedro, and mi amigos. Where you go, I will lead. When you fight, you fight with me, and as brothers we will win. For I know that Holy Baby Jesus and his blessed Mother Mary are with us, lending power, shepherding us to divine victory. So come, my brothers. Come, my Angels. Come to the halfway house. Come now!”

  * * *

  Lucy led the mob as they assaulted the front door and the windows to either side. They tied ropes to the security bars covering the windows and tied the other ends to the bumper of an ’88 Caprice. Lucy used a sledgehammer to pound at the front door. What had appeared to be simply wood was painted steel and as impenetrable as the cliffs of Cabrillo. After a moment’s more pounding, he backed away and allowed one of his Angels, a teenage thief named Rico, to kneel and try a simpler, more elegant method.

  Twin crashes announced the removal of the security bars on the windows a second before the Angel succeeded in picking the lock. He grinned as he opened the door. He was about to say something to Lucy, but was jerked through the opening and into a darkened hall. It happened so fast that Lucy didn’t even have a chance to move, and by the time he did, the door was closed and locked once more.

  A crash sounded above them. Glass shattered from a third story window as a body shot free of a window, flew through the air and landed on the Caprice, shattering the windshield and crumpling the hood. Lucy and the others, including Bobby and Vincent, rushed over. What had moments ago been a fully fleshed Rico was now a boy devoid of skin and hair, raw red meat glistening with body fluids that had nothing to keep them from flowing free. The boy’s mouth was cracked open in an impossibly wide scream, the only sound a shattered-glass groan barely audible above the terrified silence.

  The men stared at each other with fear in their eyes. Was this the first taste of the magic they were up against? If so, Bobby couldn’t help think they were overmatched. He saw his own sentiments mirrored on the faces of the Angels.

  Then someone pointed to the window. “Allí. Es un demonio.”

  The leering face of a warden appeared in the window. In the darkness his eyes glowed. He looked as deadly as any creature from any comic book or movie. The warden stood as if to say that he would do the same to the next person. More than one Angel looked from the window to the dying boy on the Caprice. They had to be thinking the same thing.

  Then a small orange glow from the palm tree next to the window drew everyone’s attention, including the warden’s. Trujillo had climbed the palm and lit a Molotov cocktail, a bottle filled with gasoline and detergent. He threw it and a cheer went up as it struck true, shattering in the face of the demon.

  Lucy and Bobby exchanged glances of relief. They’d almost lost their mob. But as Trujillo leapt from the tree to the open window and disappeared inside, so did three more who’d been shimmying up the trunk beneath him.

  “Inside you bol de pendejos! Get inside and help him! You want him to do everything for you? That fucker is old enough to be your father.” Lucy grinned fiercely as the fight was on again and he launched himself at the front door, sledgehammer swinging like the ghost of John Henry had taken him.

  Angels poured through the windows, engaging unseen foes within. The noises of their battle could be heard even from where Bobby stood, across the street. Lucy hammered on the door. Behind him a wedge of Angels waited, rakes and shovels raised.

  Suddenly the door flew open and Lucy roared. Angels shot through, weapons leading the way. Lucy paused but took a moment to look back to where Bobby stood. The gangbanger’s face glistened with sweat. He nodded once, then vanished into the house.

  The door slammed shut behind him.

  Had Lucy broken in, or had the house let him in?

  Long seconds ticked by as Bobby watched and waited for a call. He heard screams and shouts from inside. The upstairs windows were lit by fire, but there was no sign of anyone; it was as if the house had eaten them. Bobby shuddered. He could only imagine what was happening inside.

  * * *

  Insanity.

  Lucy swung and missed. The damned things moved too fast. What had once been gray-garbed men dressed as wardens were now giant man-sized wasps with human heads. They flitted and flew with impossible speed. One minute they were in front of him, the next they were behind, raking with razor-sharp spurs on the ends of their insectile legs. It was as if they teleported from place to place rather than flew.

  All along the hallway and foyer, Angels battled the creatures. Lucy watched helplessly as one demon-wasp gripped the back of a young Angel’s head and speared its legs through the boy’s eyes.

  What had Lucy gotten his men into? This was so much more than he’d thought it would be. A growing voice within him urged him to bolt and run.

  An Angel’s chest exploded as a demon-wasp tore through, transiting the body from back to torso. Organs and blackish-red blood slopped free, the floor and walls splattering as the demon-wasp flitted from side to side.

  Lucy brought his sledgehammer around and missed it. Another of his men went down as a demon-wasp attached itself to the man’s back. Four legs stabbed the Angel’s torso over and over. Enraged, Lucy threw his useless hammer aside and dove atop the beast. He gripped two of its arms where they met the carapace and pulled with all his might. The legs broke free causing the demon-wasp to thrash and shriek inhuman cries from a human mouth. With the razor-tipped legs in his hands, Lucy returned the violence upon the creature and stabbed it over and over until vile yellow blood splattered him and the walls.

  Lucy stood and held the legs in front of him like weapons. When another demon-wasp came for him, he wove the legs before him in a figure-eight pattern, catching the incoming creature before it could attack. “Take that you demon-wasp fuck!” he screamed.

  His men heard him and redoubled their own efforts. Now working in unison against individual creatures, several followed Lucy’s example and began to use the legs of the creatures as weapons.

  But another horror struck as the walls in the hall began to breathe as if they were inside the esophagus of a huge creature.

  In and out.

  In and out.

  Where it touched his men, they were absorbed, disappearing as they kicked and screamed. Soon only Lucy was left in the hallway, blinking furiously at the turn of events, and then he was absorbed as well.

  Chapter 32

  Radio silence had long ago been shattered. Now the cell phone in Bobby’s hand was awash with a chorus of screams, shouts, and curses. An unintelligible mish-mash that was impossible to ungarble. Still he tried, catching a word or a phrase here and there, nothing like the preplanned signal they’d talked about before it had all started. Twice he’d jumped to go and Vincent had held him back.

  “Not yet,” Vincent had said both times. His countenance was so calm and reasonable that Bobby had allowed himself to be guided.

  Suddenly Vincent’s phone rang. “Yeah,” he answered, his gaze fixed to the front door of the halfway house.

  Bobby watched the man with the teardrop eyes and tried to glean the unheard part of the conversation. He slipped a Topomax under his tongue and replaced the bottle in his pocket. He couldn’t afford a seizure now.

  “Are they coming?”

  Pause.

  “How many?”

  Pause.

  “Hell!”

  Vincent sighed heavily, his gaze flicking to Bobby, then back to the house.

  “I think it’s time we stopped this nonsense once and for all.”

  Pause.

  “I know, but now it’s too late. Wrap it up and burn the place down.”

  Pause.

  “And Gabe?”

  Pause.

  “Be careful.”

  Vincent switched off the phone and shoved it into his pocket. Turning to Boonie he ordered, “Run to the car and get the shotgun and the case of ammo. Then find a way to get on the roof. We’re going to have company in about five minutes and need to be ready.”

  “Who’s coming
?” Bobby asked.

  “MS 13.”

  “Now? Why now?”

  Vincent looked at Bobby like a parent might an errant child. “When better?”

  Chapter 33

  Lucy fell into a room, his head crashing against the base of a twin bed that stood against the other wall. He still held onto the crazy insect legs. Other than a goose egg growing on his forehead from where he’d hit, he seemed okay.

  Then he heard a growl.

  He sat up quickly and searched for the origin of the sound.

  It came again, deep and animalistic.

  He zeroed in on the closet. The door was open, but with the room only lit by the lights from outside, the foreboding interior blinked darkly.

  Lucy stood just in time to get a creature full in the chest. It sent him back to the floor. As his back hit, air left him in a rush. He lost his grip on both of his weapons and struggled to hold the slavering creature at bay.

  But it wasn’t really a creature at all, unless creatures dressed in pastel pants, golf shirts and had ten thousand dollar capped teeth. No, this was one of the mourners. The man’s eyes had turned gray. The skin around his mouth was stretched white as he slavered and snapped.

  Lucy tried to adjust his grip, but the man managed to slip free. His head came down, teeth sinking into Lucy’s forearm. Lucy screamed and tried to shake him off. The pain was incredible, far worse than a gun or knife wound. God, what he’d trade to get shot instead!

  He shook and pounded the man’s head with his free hand, desperate to get loose. He switched to his elbow and after three blows, the man pulled away with a chunk of skin. Lucy’s bile rose as the man chewed and swallowed.

  Lucy scrambled to his feet and snatched one of his weapons from the floor. He raised it as the zombified man staggered to his feet. But instead of striking, Lucy head-butted his attacker, knocking him to the floor. Lucy snatched a sheet from the bed, wrapped it loosely around the body, then tied it. Soon the zombified man was a pig in a blanket, struggling to get free.

  Lucy took a moment to rip a length of pillowcase to tourniquet his arm, grabbed his weapons, then yanked the door nearest him. It opened into another room where Manolo and an old black woman lay entwined in a ball of screams and snapping teeth. Manolo had fared far worse than Lucy. Several wedge-shaped divots showed on his left arm. Blood coated the floor, making the fight to get a better grip all that much harder.

  Slamming the door behind him, Lucy leapt into the room. He kicked the woman twice in the head. He missed the third time and almost fell, but somehow managed to land on the bed. He ripped off the bedspread and in a drunken ballet of head-kicks and shoves, managed to wrap the woman in the blanket and cinch her tight.

  Manolo seized the opportunity and brought his rake down on top of the body. But he over swung, his feet slipping from beneath him. He struck the floor with room-rattling force. Lucy kicked the rake free from his grip, then helped him to his feet.

  “We can’t kill these people. They’re bystanders just like the rest of us.”

  “Bystanders, my ass. Look at what the bitch did to me!”

  “I know. I have one to match. But by the grace of God, it could be us, you know?”

  Wild fear had found home in Manolo’s eyes.

  Lucy smacked him.

  “Manolo, come back to me!”

  Lucy hit him again. Hard.

  The fear left him and realization entered Manolo’s eyes. “What do we do with them?”

  “We need to get them out of here. Get on the phone and tell everyone not to kill the mourners. Tell them to meet me in the hall. And tell them to hurry. This place is sure to find another way to kill us.”

  Manolo nodded. His hands trembled as they worked the walkie-talkie function of the phone.

  Lucy headed for the next room.

  But what he saw in this one made him want to crawl under a bed and never come out.

  Chapter 34

  Like a lure on the end of a fishing line, Trujillo hung from an immense tentacle that originated from the ceiling where an octopus-like maw lay ruined and broken, the beak shattered in a hundred pieces. The tentacle had wrapped thrice around Trujillo’s waist. Although his face was blue, his lips moved and his eyes fluttered.

  Lucy wanted to plunge into the room and save his old friend, but half a dozen more tentacles, three with captured prey and another three which seemed to be waiting for prey, waved back and forth like the deadly appendages of a man-o-war jellyfish.

  But Lucy had to do something to save Trujillo. With the two demon-wasp legs held in front of him like swords, Lucy advanced cautiously into the room.

  Two tentacles shot toward him, the speed far too fast for their size.

  Lucy leapt over one and hacked at the other as it shot past. He severed it with the razor-sharp spurs on the legs. He barely sidestepped the tentacles as they came back in a return sweep. Swiping again at the wounded tentacle, he removed half its remaining length. He barely managed to leap free of another tentacle. As he leapt, he swung, giving it a long ugly gash. He never saw the last tentacle as it slapped him to the floor. Stunned, Lucy could do nothing as it began winding itself around his neck.

  He felt a hundred tiny needles pierce his skin. Pain flared briefly, then disappeared as he lost all feeling except the pressure of the tentacle accompanied by the sickening sense that he was suffocating. His vision blurred as he reached blindly for his weapons. Then he realized he’d never dropped them and brought them up. As soon as the weapons came close to the tentacle it tightened, making him choke and gasp until he had no choice but to lower them.

  Lucy caught Trujillo’s gaze and saw the truth. There was no escape from this creature. Some earthbound man-o-war had snatched them on the second floor of this supernatural rooming house and was about to end their lives.

  Lucy’s gaze shifted to the other three Angels bobbing from tentacles. One he recognized as Salvador Ruiz, or Chava as they all called him. Lucy remembered telling the boy’s father that no harm would come to him.

  A scream erupted from behind. He couldn’t see what was going on, but the tentacles began to wave again. The screams were followed by the sounds of impact and shredding meat.

  The tentacle around his neck tightened and tightened until he thought his head would pop. Suddenly he fell free. He felt himself hauled to his feet to where Manolo stood, grimacing.

  “My turn to save your ass.”

  Lucy tried to speak, but a length of tentacle still constricted him. He went to pull it away, but found that whatever had pierced his skin still held it in place. The pain took him to his knees. Instead of removing it, he sawed away the ends so it looked as if he wore a thick slimy collar.

  Manolo had shredded all the tentacles, even those holding prey. All the Angels were dead except Trujillo. Lucy rushed to his side. His hands pulled the tentacle free from the man’s waist, and with it came skin and muscle. Innards began to spill free in a gush of blood and bile. Trujillo caught and held them in place, but the pain in his eyes said he wouldn’t be able to hold them for long.

  “Mijo,” Lucy gasped, his voice raw and low. “I’m so sorry, my old friend.”

  The oldest Angel’s eyes unfocused then focused.

  “What do you want, old friend? Do you want me to...?”

  Trujillo nodded, the movement barely detectable through the shaking that was beginning to consume the man.

  Lucy didn’t hesitate. He drew the razor-edge of the spur across the Angel’s throat and released Trujillo from a slow painful death. Two gasps and life left his eyes.

  When Lucy finally turned to go, rage filled him.

  “Enough of this bullshit. Where’s that dead bitch?”

  Chapter 35

  MS 13 was a block away when Vincent told Bobby to leave.

  “Get out of here. Me and my boys will handle this. I have an old score to settle with them anyway.”

  But instead of running down the street to where Vincent had gestured, Bobby grabbed a 9-mm
pistol from Vincent’s waist and dashed toward the house. Bobby thought for a desperate second that Vincent would chase after him, but the only thing that followed him as he ran into the house were the words, “Be careful, Bobby!”

  He shoved the door open with his shoulder, keeping the pistol pointed to the ground. He’d heard Manolo’s comment on the phone and knew that things were more under control than they’d appeared to be. But the scene he came upon was nothing he’d ever expected to see this side of a comic book, where Doctor Strange and Green Lantern did battle against wasp-men mutants and undead monsters.

  He stepped over the remains of some mutated version of a warden and giant wasp. Bodies and their disparate parts littered the floor. Halfway down the hall he came across a man who’d been eaten by the wall. The lower half of his body hung like a hunter’s trophy in reverse, his upper half nowhere to be seen. Bobby prodded the leg to see if it would kick back, but it was dead meat.

  From behind him and in the street came the sounds of shotguns blasting. From in front of him and down the long hall came a scream.

  He moved his pistol to the ready and ran toward the scream. He had to turn three corners and leap a dozen bodies, including something trussed and struggling within a sheet, before he found the remaining Angels huddled in a group as a doorway ate one of them.

  “What the fuck, Lucy? We’re never going to get down there.”

  Bobby picked out the gang leader in the crowd of twenty gangbangers and pushed his way through. “Lucy!”

  The man turned, and when he did, Bobby halted in his tracks. Lucy’s face was splotched with orange, red and green spots. What he’d mistaken for some sort of wrap around the neck seemed to be a piece of tentacle that had lodged there. “Are you all right?”