A Feast of Flesh: An extremely gory horror novel (Flesh Harvest Book 2)

by Jacob Rayne

Campbell followed, not liking the way the floorboards creaked.

  ‘In there, please,’ Osmo said, pushing Campbell into a lift. ‘Now, we’re gonna have to get to the ground floor, cos, as far as I know, there’s only the one lift goes down to the sub-basement.’

  Campbell nodded, only half hearing what Osmo was saying.

  His mind was fixed on pale flesh, blood-smeared teeth, breath that stunk of the grave.

  ‘We can take ’em, trust me,’ Osmo said.

  The lift stopped on the ground floor, right on the lobby.

  Osmo glanced round, seeing a corridor full of patients, guards and nurses.

  ‘Try and blend in,’ he told Campbell as he snuck out of the lift.

  A few of the guards watched them, but didn’t react. The nurses also cast eyes over them. Nothing was said.

  Osmo smiled as they reached the lift they needed without being stopped.

  But, as he waited for the doors to open and took a furtive glance around him, he saw his boss from the corner of his eye.

  He muttered a brief prayer that he wasn’t spotted.

  The prayer went unanswered.

  ‘Momente,’ his boss called out as his feet slapped the floor.

  Half the corridor turned to see what was going on.

  Osmo cursed under his breath.

  ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.’

  For once, Osmo was lost for words. He hadn’t planned for this.

  ‘I’ve got three toilets backed up on the third floor, a ward door that’s about to fall off its hinges and an entire wing that could do with a lick of paint. So please explain to me why you’re down here messing about with this patient?’

  Osmo’s mouth moved but no words came out.

  Think of something, dummy, he thought.

  Osmo’s boss called to the security guards to tell them to take Campbell back to his room.

  ‘It’s ok, I’ll take him,’ Osmo said, noting the obvious bulge of the weapons under Campbell’s clothes. They were fucked if the guards discovered those.

  ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ the boss asked Osmo. ‘Get up there and start fixing this place up.’

  His boss was now stood a few feet away, his bacon-grease breath steaming on Osmo’s face.

  Osmo could see no other way out of it. He clenched his fist tight and swung it at his boss’s fleshy jaw.

  It thudded hard, making his jowls shake, then his boss hit the deck.

  The security guards and most of the male population of the corridor began to run towards Osmo.

  ‘Sorry,’ Osmo whispered.

  Campbell just had time to wonder why his friend was apologising then he had Osmo’s arm wrapped tight round his throat and a knife pressed hard against the side of his neck.

  ‘Don’t come near me,’ Osmo screamed, sounding utterly insane. ‘Or I’ll cut his goddamn throat.’

  Osmo still has the crazy, Campbell reflected. Even he believed the threat, so intense was the delivery.

  The men formed a loose semicircle around them. One of them gingerly stepped forwards.

  ‘I mean it, any of you pricks move a goddamn muscle and you’ll be swabbing blood off this floor for weeks. Back the fuck up. Now.’

  While the guards sized Osmo up, he dug the blade in a little, drawing a thin ribbon of blood from Campbell’s throat.

  ‘Get outta here, right fucking now.’

  The guards turned and began to back away.

  ‘Take that sack of shit with ya too,’ Osmo said, digging a boot into his boss’s ribs with barely concealed glee. ‘And get the fuck outta here before I carve him up like a Christmas turkey.’

  Osmo watched them drag his boss away then backed into the lift.

  Only when the doors were shut did he remove the blade from Campbell’s throat.

  ‘Sorry about that, my friend,’ he said, wiping the blood off Campbell’s neck. ‘Desperate times and all that.’

  Campbell nodded. He still couldn’t help but be a little frightened of Osmo.

  ‘Now, we’re gonna have to just go steaming in there, I’m afraid. Ain’t no time for subtleties. They’ll have heard that commotion and will be ready for us. Just get in there and get among it.’

  Campbell gulped.

  His throat rasped as he tried to swallow.

  His breath was already beginning to labour, his heart already thrashing against his ribs.

  Osmo handed him some more weapons.

  The lift stopped on the sub-basement.

  ‘You ready?’ Osmo said.

  Then he was out of the lift, uttering a bloodcurdling cry as he charged into the darkness.

  Campbell had never felt less ready for anything in his life, but he followed regardless.

  Part 2 – First blood

  32

  The darkness seemed to drown Campbell as he came out of the lift. He could hear Osmo’s enraged bellowing off in the distance, echoing madly around the basement.

  There was a dim light ahead of him, revealing murky outlines in the gloom, but his eyes couldn’t make sense of them.

  The stake in his trembling hand felt utterly insignificant. He doubted he could even do any damage with it, so much was his hand shaking.

  He hugged the left hand wall, so at least there was only one direction the monsters could come from.

  Osmo’s hissed curses came from off to his right.

  He held the stake ready, hoping whatever lurked in the dark would just run onto the tip and take all of the work out of it for him.

  Nothing came for him. He pressed onward, knowing that each inch he moved forward was an inch closer to death.

  His heart pounded faster with every step.

  Finally he saw a dark shape and he found that, with it in sight, he felt a sudden, irrational anger, as though its very presence had stirred up the memories of losing his wife and son to the hideous thing in the barn all those moons ago.

  He let out a low growl and charged at it. Just before his stake pierced its heathen heart, he heard, ‘Whoa, what the hell are you doing, Officer Campbell?’

  He stopped the stake just as it grazed Osmo’s skin.

  ‘No one here,’ Osmo said. ‘I’ve scoured every goddamn inch of this place and there ain’t no one here.’

  ‘Where could they have gone?’ Campbell said, feeling a strange mixture of elation and disappointment.

  ‘Not sure. We’ll have to take a closer look. Can’t have gone far. There are still fresh bodies in here.’

  Behind them the door slammed open.

  ‘Shit it’s them,’ Osmo said, pulling Campbell down.

  But it wasn’t.

  He saw the flabby outline of his boss in the doorway, a large group of security guards behind him.

  Osmo whispered to Campbell, telling him to get into the far corner of the room.

  There was a slight draught coming from down there.

  Osmo squinted as he tried to see what waited for them.

  The torch in his pocket had been forgotten in his haste to race in and slay whatever lurked in the shadows, but now he couldn’t use it as he would draw attention to himself.

  He cursed. Investigated the source of the draught and saw an air duct to his right. The grille was hanging loose, replaced almost as an afterthought. This had to be where the creatures had gone.

  He carefully pulled it away, shoved Campbell in and climbed through.

  While torch beams tore the darkness behind them, he pushed Campbell forward until they could hide round a corner.

  Out of sight of the torch beams, they pulled in frantic breaths and tried to figure out their next move.

  The air ducts went both left and right from where they stood. They’d turned slightly to the right as they’d come in, just to duck out of the way of the torch beams.

  ‘May as well go this way,’ Osmo said, eyeing both directions which looked pretty much identical.

  They moved quickly into the duct, eager to leave behin
d their pursuers.

  As they reached another crossroads, Osmo spied what looked like a blood smear on one of the walls of the duct.

  Both men gulped as they found a savaged body lying in a vast pool of blood. The terror on the man’s face was still plain to see, despite the mutilation that had been carried out.

  Osmo’s torch did little to hold the darkness at bay.

  As they turned the next corner there were more smears of blood.

  Liquid dripped down from the ceiling, plopping to the bottom of the tunnel. As Campbell inched closer, he noted that it was blood.

  He looked up and saw a heavily bearded man hanging from his ankles.

  Blood poured from his open mouth, which showed yellowing, pointed teeth bared in what Campbell took to be a grin.

  Then the man was falling towards him.

  33

  Campbell had time for a shrill scream before the man was on top of him, spitting, snarling and biting.

  Dirty teeth snapped at his neck but he managed to push the tramp’s head aside. Still, his attacker’s filthy fingernails gouged holes in his chest. The pain was immediate. Blood began to roll down his chest, plastering the hospital gown to his clammy skin.

  Campbell was doing his best to get to the stake, which was trapped against his side by the tramp’s weight.

  His other hand grabbed the tramp’s chin, wincing at the sticky coagulated mess that coated his beard, and shoved it hard away, just as the teeth snapped shut again.

  As suddenly as the man had fallen he was hauled off Campbell’s chest.

  Osmo hurled him face first into the metal tunnel floor, his boot slamming down on the back of his skull with a crack that reverberated around the tunnel and made Campbell retch.

  As the tramp writhed and tried to recover his senses, Osmo raised the stake high and plunged it down.

  The metal weapon slid through the tramp’s back with a hideous wet sound that Campbell felt would remain with him till his dying day.

  There was the sound of racing liquid then a sharp metallic clang as the tip of the weapon hit the tunnel floor.

  The tramp twitched madly, thick dark blood pouring from his open mouth and tangling up in his beard.

  Osmo gave the stake a twist and pulled it out, grinning and nodding to himself when he saw that the homemade weapon had left a fist-sized wound in the tramp’s torso.

  He wiped the stinking blood on the tramp’s clothes.

  Already the tramp had fallen still.

  Campbell felt too stunned to move, but he didn’t want to feel the tramp’s blood on him. The glistening pool was drawing closer to him with every second he laid on the floor. Grimacing, he pulled himself up.

  ‘Thanks,’ he breathed.

  ‘Get your head in the game, Officer Campbell. I hate to say it but you might end up looking like him if you don’t.’

  Campbell nodded. He felt he’d been given a warning, a wakeup call. Time to start kicking ass and taking names.

  ‘You reckon we should go up there?’ Campbell asked, pointing up to the duct where the tramp had been hidden.

  Osmo pursed his lips for a second, then shook his head. ‘I reckon they’ll stay low down. Dirty rat bastards.’

  He spat on the tramp’s still corpse and set off into the tunnel, the torch their only weapon against the all-consuming darkness.

  34

  They were on edge with every step they took, but nothing jumped out at them.

  They’d both begun to get the feeling that they were wasting their time when they’d heard the unmistakable cry of one of the creatures.

  Osmo grabbed Campbell hard and shoved him against the wall.

  ‘They’re close, sonny,’ he grinned. ‘Get ready. Death or fuckin’ glory.’

  Campbell nodded. He hadn’t come this far just to give up now. He was going down fighting.

  Osmo peered round the corner to their right. There was a tramp there, a bloody sickle in his hand.

  He was marching back and forth across the entrance to the next section of tunnel, keeping sentry, as though he knew that he would soon have company.

  Osmo gulped. ‘You want me to divert him, or you?’

  Campbell thought about it. ‘I’ll distract him. You stake him.’

  ‘You sure? Might be a good idea to get some blood on your hands again.’

  Campbell shook his head. ‘I’ll take the next one. You do this one.’

  ‘Have it your way,’ Osmo smiled. ‘Get up into the tunnel behind us,’ he said, indicating the corner to their left. ‘And start making one hell of a hullabaloo. Get running. While his attention’s taken up with you I’ll dive on the pale fuck and stick him one.’

  Campbell nodded.

  Osmo glanced round the corner. The tramp was looking in their direction, as though he had heard them, or could smell their warm blood.

  ‘Go,’ Osmo said when the tramp finally looked away.

  Campbell crept up the tunnel to their left, taking little glances over his shoulder every few steps.

  When he got far enough away he looked back and Osmo gave him a thumbs up.

  Osmo killed the torch and waited.

  Campbell took in a deep breath, let it out and began jumping up and down on the tunnel floor, shouting gibberish at the top of his lungs. It was a pitch-perfect rendition of the aborigine routine he’d done for his son, usually using a kitchen roll tube as a didgeridoo, and it filled him with resolve to finish this, for his family.

  Somewhere off in the darkness he heard a snarl and heard the tramp’s footsteps thudding towards him, his speed startling.

  He turned and ran, the torch barely enough to reveal his course to him.

  Osmo heard the tramp race past him, felt a cold rush at the memory of just how fast these fucking things could move, and readied his weapon.

  He wanted to give it a little while, let the tramp get fully absorbed in its hunt for Campbell, so it didn’t hear his footsteps thudding up the tunnel behind it.

  He counted under his breath, the stake held tight in his surprisingly steady hand.

  Campbell almost ran straight into the tunnel wall.

  Trust me to reach a dead end.

  He turned and sought to retrace his steps but the tramp was already blocking the tunnel entrance.

  This one was huge, muscles rippling beneath its tattered, blood-streaked shirt. Its neck muscles stood out like high-tension wires. Its eyes were fixed on him, tiny, as white as its bloodless flesh. The teeth on this one seemed bigger too.

  Maybe it’s begun to change, Campbell thought. It certainly looked like it was a hybrid of bat and man.

  It bared its teeth, blood-flecked spittle stringing from its gnashing jaws.

  Then it let out a roar and began its dash towards him.

  He clung to the hope that Osmo was going to launch himself onto its back, but with each second that passed the tramp was still continuing its relentless charge towards him.

  He heard muffled sounds from further down the tunnel, but couldn’t make out what was making them.

  His eyes and ears were more interested in the snarling, spitting thing that was racing at him, eager to separate flesh from bone.

  As it started to dive at him, he hesitated for just a second, still utterly convinced that Osmo was going to come through for him like he had so many other times.

  When Osmo still hadn’t tackled the tramp to the floor and sunk the stake into its heart in a veritable orgy of blood and splintered ribs, he reluctantly went on the offensive.

  The mallet slammed into the tramp’s head with a meaty thud, knocking it slightly to Campbell’s left and sending the sickle flying into the shadows.

  The tramp’s head hit the tunnel wall, leaving a huge cloud of blood, and Campbell thought he’d knocked it out from the force of both impacts, but no sooner had it landed than it was hurling itself off the wall and at him again.

  He lashed out with the stake as the tramp took his legs out from under him, but the blow was superficial
at best, the sharp tip scratching a shallow wound across the tramp’s cheek.

  As a thick ribbon of blood wound its way down its face, the tramp let out a horrendous cry, giving Campbell the unsettling impression that his efforts so far had done nothing other than piss off his enemy.

  Its mouth opened, eager to rend his throat. He fended it off with a forearm smash that mashed its lips against those jagged teeth.

  He fought to get the arm that still held the stake from the tramp’s grip.

  The tramp seemed to know exactly what he was up to though, and shifted his weight to press harder on the stake arm.

  Campbell threw another forearm smash as the tramp’s mouth came back for round two. His efforts were rewarded when a jagged incisor fell from the tramp’s rotting gums.

  The tramp screeched, filling his ears with terrifying promises of a spectacularly gory demise.

  Campbell rolled hard to his right, seeing as most of the tramp’s weight was on that side. He almost tipped it off, but it regained its grip.

  Its clawed hand gripped his chin hard and brought it up, pausing for a moment, seeming to relish the terror in Campbell’s eyes, before slamming the back of his skull into the tunnel floor.

  He tasted blood from where his teeth had bit into his tongue and this began to spill out of his mouth.

  The tramp held his face tight, the clawed fingers digging into his cheeks hard enough to almost force his teeth out of their sockets, while his long grey tongue poked out of his mouth and licked the blood off Campbell’s face. He moaned as if in the throes of orgasm.

  The slobber the tramp had left on his face stunk like an abattoir.

  His hand held Campbell’s head still. He bent his neck to the right, aiming to sink his teeth into the throbbing mass of veins in the left side of Campbell’s neck.

  He drew closer, the stinking breath even worse than the decaying scent of the slaver on his face.

  Campbell tried to remain calm, though it seemed clear he was seconds away from death.

  The tips of the tramp’s teeth grazed his neck. The tramp’s eyes rolled up to look at him, savouring his terror as an appetiser before the main course of warm flesh and coursing blood.