The man twisted the woman’s hair and she hissed, tried to raise herself up, but couldn’t find the strength.
“Paco…shoot him. Shoot him!” Mr. Harrell said.
The man stepped further into the room, dragging the Harrells along, and bent himself at the knees so he was eye to eye with Paco. “Paco, huh? Name’s Calico, and this is Beauty.”
“Unnannungh.”
“H-hi.” Paco eyed the dead girl for a moment. “Where’s my sister? Where’s Sophia?”
Calico pursed his lips, stood back up with a yank of the Harrells’ hair. “These two meathead scumbags sold her. The men that have her…they’re bad men. She’s in trouble. She needs our help.”
Paco shook his head. “But you were with them. Why didn’t you bring her back with you?”
“It’s complicated. But I’m trying to fix things, trying to make things right.” He tossed Mr. and Mrs. Harrell to the floor, shoved the bottom of his foot into the back of Mr. Harrell’s head. “You’re alive. I had to come back for you first. Couldn’t leave you alone with these people for another minute. You know you’re probably the only living kid in the whole city?”
“Yeah, that’s what I keep hearing,” Paco said. “So we’re going to get Sophia? Together?”
“That’s right. If I was you, I’d want to see the men that took my family away from me, make them suffer.”
Paco nodded, gulped. “I shot someone…a few days ago. A police officer.” His hands began to shake. “He was t-trying to eat her. I killed him.”
Calico scratched his chin and nodded. “It’s a new world, kid. Fleet’s got the police in his pocket, so don’t feel too bad about it. Fucking scum just like the rest of this city. You do what you’ve got to do to protect you and your family.”
Mr. Harrell had lifted himself back to his hands and knees and Calico gave him another kick.
“What are we going to do with them?” Paco said as he stared into the petrified faces of the drug-addicted man and woman on the floor. They kept mouthing words, but he couldn’t decipher the message.
“I leave that up to you. They did you wrong, not me. You hand down the punishment.” Calico shot a worried look toward Beauty. “But hurry. See that light blinking? That’s an explosive. I’ve been expecting that thing to blow at any second, but for some reason it hasn’t yet. I don’t know how long our luck’s going to hold up.”
“Can’t you just pull it out?”
Calico shook his head. “Might set it off on accident. Or it might trigger some kind of alarm and alert Fleet and his men.”
“Fleet? Like Ted Fleet? The meat guy?”
“That’s the guy. He’s got your sister, kid. Now come on, let’s do this.”
As the words left Calico’s mouth, the Harrells exchanged a look, then both looked up at Paco as if their prayers were answered.
Paco pointed the gun at Mr. Harrell’s face. “It’s because of you my sister was taken, it’s because of you she’s in trouble.” He swung the gun toward Mrs. Harrell. “Both of you deserve to die.”
The man and woman began to sob, both letting their heads droop, neither of them able to look Paco in the eye as he let the gun sway from head to head.
His finger fondled the trigger.
Part of him wanted to see their brains on the floor, wanted to see their blood pouring out of them. But he couldn’t keep his hand steady, couldn’t see clearly through the blur of his tears.
“I-I can’t do it,” Paco said. “I can’t kill them.”
Calico only nodded, held the dead girl as she mumbled up at him.
“Oh, Paco, son, thank you. Thank you!” Mr. Harrell said.
“I knew you wouldn’t kill us…You’re a good boy—”
“Shut your mouth!” Paco stepped forward and kicked the woman in the middle of her face. She gasped as blood exploded from her nose and mouth, then fell face-first into the carpet. The blue penis bent under her and she didn’t move again.
“Hey, you—” Mr. Harrell started, but Paco swung the gun and cracked the man on the side of the head with the barrel. Mr. Harrell writhed and moaned beside his motionless wife.
“I would’ve carved them up good, but suit yourself,” Calico said. “You ready?”
Paco nodded, wiped the tears from his face. He followed Calico out of the room, ignored the muffled voice of Mr. Harrell.
“You little bastard!”
As they moved down the hall, Paco saw the splayed body of Jake lying spread eagle on the floor. Blood spread across the tile in a misshapen pool, and the meaty smell in the air made Paco want to puke. But he was glad to see the man dead, glad Calico did what he did.
“They’re going to fuck your sister, you hear me? Fuck her and then eat her!” Mr. Harrell’s voice echoed down the hall.
Paco stopped in his tracks, eyes still on Jake’s mutilated corpse.
“Don’t listen to him,” Calico said. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Paco shook his head. “These people…they’re evil.” He weighed the pistol in his hand and looked back down the hallway toward his bedroom. “They have to be stopped.”
And with no tears, no anxiety, he strolled back to the bedroom where Mr. Harrell now lay on his back, shouting more obscenities and threats. The man’s face contorted when he saw Paco again, and the bullet hit him in the nose, blew the back of his head over the wall and floor. The man’s left leg kept twitching with a steady rhythm.
Mrs. Harrell still lay unmoving on her stomach, and Paco calmly walked up to her and put a bullet into the back of her head.
How many kids were killed because of these pieces of shit? What did they do to them?
He stared at the two for a moment, spat on the carpet between them, then walked back out into the hallway and followed the waiting Calico out of the mansion.
- Chapter 26 -
The director stroked his engorged cock at just the thought of what was to come that night. He chewed a mouthful of aged meat and rubbed the head of his throbbing erection with his thumb. The camera crew was getting everything set up, and the director had just gotten off the phone with Ted Fleet.
“Quickly, everyone!” he said as he rose from his chair. “Mr. Fleet himself will be here to watch us film this…this momentous moment in snuff history.” He giggled as he rounded the room, patting his crew on their bony shoulders. “This, my friends, will be a night none of us forget.”
***
Paco sat in the front seat with the dead girl in his lap. Calico drove, the steering wheel, dashboard, and window covered in fresh blood and bits of meat and bone. The dead man with the gaping hole in his head mumbled in the back, flopped around behind the seat as they drove through the rich neighborhood. Papa’s rifle lay on the back seat, and the few loose bullets Paco had found in the bed of the pickup were in his pocket. He had wanted to drive the pickup, but Calico said they needed the black SUV to blend in, so he just went along with it.
I’ll be back for the truck. I hope.
Paco shifted his position—Beauty’s pelvis drove into his thighs. She looked up at him and gurgled, and Paco could tell from the tone it was friendly. She reminded him of Mama, the way she looked at him, the way she almost spoke to him.
“Did they tell you why they want my sister?”
Calico twisted his grip on the steering wheel and Paco could see the man’s jaw muscles twitching. “You don’t want to know, kid. Just know that they won’t get the chance to do it if I have anything to say about it.”
“And me,” Paco said.
“That’s right. And you.” Calico chuckled as they took a sharp turn. “You’re a little bad ass, aren’t you?”
Paco shook his head. “No, I’m a failure. It’s because of me all this happened, because of me my whole family is dead. And I made Sophia go to the Harrells’ mansion. She didn’t want to, didn’t trust them, but I didn’t listen.”
“Come on—”
“You don’t know. You don’t know what happened. But I won
’t let anything happen to Sophia. Never again.”
The dead man stuck his obliterated face between the two front seats and spat blood as he tried to mumble something. Beauty leaned over and touched foreheads with him, and they went back and forth with gibberish that only they could understand.
“I remember this guy…he was at the mansion, right?”
“Yeah, one of Ted Fleet’s men. The first of many that’ll join the ranks of the walking dead tonight.” Calico’s triceps bulged as if he were about to tear the steering wheel completely off.
Paco looked back at the dead man. “So he wasn’t an addict, right? That’s why he woke up?”
Calico took a sharp turn and the passenger side lifted. Paco held onto the dashboard, let out an uumph as Beauty bounced in his lap. She grunted at a high pitch as if she were on a roller coaster.
In the darkness, Paco could just barely make out the pretty neighborhood that housed the Harrells. Late night joggers stopped in their tracks to stare at the speeding vehicle, some raising their fists in disapproval. Paco could tell in their faces that they were functioning addicts, every one of them.
“None of Fleet’s men are addicts. He doesn’t allow them to be, says he wants them with clear heads and meat on their bones. But Fleet,” Calico said, another flash of anger twisting his face at the mention of the name. “That motherfucker’s got it bad.”
“Why are you keeping him in here? Why not just dump him?” Paco said as he watched the dead man rub his head wound on the window.
“I got plans for these boys.” They drove on for a little while, cutting across the rotting city streets. Calico lifted one hand from the steering wheel and pointed. “There. That’s where your sister is.”
The place ahead looked like a military base, the kind Paco had seen in the movies. From that distance, he could see the metal fence surrounding the facility, topped with spirals of barbed wire. A parking lot was full of identical SUVs like the one they were in.
Here we come, Sophia. Please be okay.
***
The director’s favorite male actor sat on the bed, preparing himself with one of the fluffers. He already had his skull mask on, and he gripped the woman by the ears as he fucked her face. She gagged, even spat up a few times, but kept sucking.
“Good,” the director said. “That’s the spirit.”
Skull Face’s bones pressed against his skin, his tight, wiry muscles twitching as he worked himself into the woman’s mouth.
“Your boy almost ready?” Ted Fleet said as he stepped into the studio. The man wore his usual cowboy hat and a gray checkered suit. He chewed on a thick cigar, a group of his men behind him.
“Yes, sir. Just making sure he’s up and prepped.”
“That’s fine, just fine. You see the star yet?”
“No, sir. I’ve got costume and makeup with her now. Our girl will be so gorgeous on film, sir. This will be…the greatest snuff I’ve ever filmed.”
“It better fuckin’ be,” Ted Fleet said as he turned his head and stared the director dead in the face. His pasty skin hung from his skull, and the cigar rolled from left to right in his mouth. “You fuck this up…let’s just say you won’t ever work in this town again, yes? Or anywhere for that matter.”
The director’s eyes widened, and as a reflex, he reached into his pocket and pulled out another hunk of meat that he was saving for the shoot. But he needed it now, needed it to calm his nerves, make the shaking stop.
Fleet checked his watch, adjusted the hat on his head. “Bring the girl, huh? Let’s get this show on the road.”
***
When the SUV pulled up to the fence, Calico craned his neck to make sure nobody was manning the booth. There was usually at least one Ugh there, sitting in the tiny stall thumbing through smut magazines and jerking his dick. Not very many people had the balls to approach the Ted Fleet facility without an appointment.
But the booth appeared to be empty, which brought on a feeling of both relief and disappointment. Calico swiped the card he boosted from Bunny Rabbit’s pocket and the gate slid open.
Calico eased the SUV into the parking lot, watching as the barbed wire atop the moving gate bounced.
“Do you know where she is?” Paco said.
“I know where they’re taking her. We can only hope she isn’t there yet.”
“If they touch her…if they’ve hurt her—”
“I know, kid. You’ll fucking kill them, right?”
“Hell yeah.”
“I’m with you. Let’s just—”
“Hold it right there!” The voice came from the boy’s side of the car, and Calico couldn’t help but get anticipatory butterflies in his stomach. A brilliant grin stretched his face wide as he saw the guard come jogging up to the passenger side.
“Wh-what do we do now? We’re caught…”
“Beauty, baby, get in the back, okay?” He lifted her with his free hand and placed her over the middle console to join the dead man in the rear. She grunted at him, cooed, but obeyed.
“Here he comes. He’s got a gun, do you see it? Oh, shit—”
“Get down, Paco. Cover your face.”
The boy didn’t hesitate at all, spun all the way around in his seat and submerged his face in the cushion.
Calico used the electric window control on his door to lower the passenger window, whistling “The Entertainer” the whole time. As the man peered into the SUV, Calico winked at him.
“What the fuck are you doing driving?” the man said, his gun still at his side. “Stay right there.” He pulled out a walkie talkie, almost had it to his lips.
The gun went off in a flash and the man’s head jerked back. Calico tucked the gun back into his beltline, uncertain how many bullets he had left. The man’s body stumbled on its feet for a few seconds, then fell forward. His chin got caught up in the window and he hung there, spewing blood down his face and coating the window and door in it.
“You can get up now,” Calico said.
Paco looked up and sighed. “I heard the shot and I thought he killed you.”
“It’s a shame,” Calico said. “Would have loved to carve this motherfucker up. But there isn’t time for that.”
The man hung there for a few more seconds before his eyes opened and he started moving again, though he still couldn’t manage to dislodge his chin from the window. He just moaned and wiggled his head, every time his mouth opened a new splash of blood burst out, raining down on Paco.
But the boy didn’t seem to mind, either that or he didn’t notice. He peered out of the windshield into the vast parking lot, eyes squinted. “My sister is here somewhere.” He said this to himself, ignoring everything else around him.
Calico left him to his thoughts, stepped out of the SUV and hurried around it. He gripped the man under the armpits, tossed him in the back with Bunny Rabbit’s writhing corpse. They seemed to wrestle with each other, limbs flailing, teeth clicking.
Then he saw it. Halfway out of Bunny Rabbit’s pocket, a tiny red light blinking at the top, an antenna shoved down to a silver nub. Calico grabbed it, stared at it for a minute without knowing what to do.
We could leave right now. Me and Beauty. They don’t have shit on me anymore.
But he knew he couldn’t do that. Not with that little girl in there.
He pulled his knife out and stomped toward the back seat, smiled wide at his daughter—she smiled back. “Come here, baby girl.”
“What are you doing?” Paco said.
But Calico didn’t answer as he pulled Beauty close and inspected her face. He wanted to pull the explosive out without cutting her, but he didn’t have the tools or the time. “I’m sorry, baby. Daddy loves you.” He pressed his blade to her face, made an incision right above the blinking light.
Beauty clicked her teeth, moaned as he dug his fingers in and pinched the metal sphere. He slowly pulled it out, then clenched it in his fist and sighed. Beauty hugged him, rested her face on his neck and cooed.
Paco nodded, curled his hands into fists, flared his nostrils.
Calico jogged around the vehicle, jumped back into the driver’s seat, and zoomed through the parking lot until he recognized the door he and Bunny Rabbit had exited earlier. He cut off the engine, reached back and grabbed hold of Beauty by her gaunt torso, sat her in his lap as the two of them stared at Paco. A trickle of black fluid ran down her face where it was cut.
“No matter what happens, you stay behind me, all right? No funny business. You shoot when necessary.” He put the gun in Beauty’s hands.
Paco flinched, fluttered his eyes as the dead girl swung the gun around wildly. “Are you sure she should have that?”
“We’re going to need all the help we can get, kid. Ted Fleet has a lot of men on his side, and none of them are little weakling addicts. You ready for this? You ready to go get your sister?”
The boy bared his teeth, slapped the dashboard. “Yes, yes I’m ready! Let’s go!” Calico pulled the pistol back out and handed it to him. “But…what about you? I could use Papa’s rifle, you need—”
Calico twirled his knife, ran it down both cheeks. The pain was incredible as the warm blood ran down his neck. “This is all I need right here. Besides, that rifle won’t do you any good in there. You need to be quicker than that.”
And the three of them exited the SUV. Calico swiped the key card through the slot and the door buzzed opened.
- Chapter 27 -
“What’s the fucking hold up now?” The director stood on his chair and glared at his masked star. He shot a quick look at Ted Fleet who snorted and shook his head as he continued to chew on his cigar, the little dead girl whimpering just in front of him. His men stood still as gargoyles.
“I’m…I’m sorry. I’ve never done a, a kid before. I need to get high, I need to get really high first.” Skull Face visibly shook, his flaccid penis hanging down like a sleeping elephant’s trunk. The fluffer sat on her knees in front of him, furiously stroking the limp dick, but getting nowhere.
Addicted to the Dead Page 17
