by Jacob Rayne
The darkness swallowed them as they moved ever closer to the abattoir.
91
Osmo peered through the gnarled limbs at the end of the treeline like a ’Nam vet about to order a fresh wave of napalm.
‘Yep. Just over there,’ he said to Campbell, pointing to a grim edifice in the distance.
Between them and it were half a dozen fields, some of which were hidden by a dip in the land.
‘Bet you’re pleased to see them again,’ Osmo said, pointing to a scarecrow mounted against a stout wooden pole.
Campbell looked at him as if to say, have you lost your mind?
The nearest one was roughly halfway across the next field.
They could see at least four more in the sections of field visible between them and the ominous abattoir.
‘Let’s go pull him down,’ Osmo grinned.
Not for the first time, Campbell realised how utterly crazy his friend looked.
The scarecrow didn’t seem to be moving as they approached.
A thick hessian sack, soaked through with blood, naturally, was pulled over his head. Two eyeholes had been crudely poked in the material.
‘I’ll pull him down, you stake the son of a bitch,’ Osmo said.
The scarecrow’s ragged clothes fluttered in the breeze. Other than that he was still.
‘Lulling us into a false sense of security,’ Osmo said.
The scarecrow put up zero resistance as Osmo ran in and pulled him free of his moorings.
Campbell ran in and plunged the stake into the man’s chest. The lack of free-flowing blood was what first alerted them to the fact that the man was already dead.
Osmo gulped. When he took a closer look, he noticed the trough beneath the pole, three quarters full of thick dark blood.
Even Osmo let out a cry of alarm when he pulled the bag off the scarecrow’s head.
The man’s eyes had been plucked out of his head, leaving two blood-choked empty sockets that nevertheless seemed to follow their every move.
Strips of the man’s face had been peeled off, the lines ever so neat, like someone had taken great care and time to do it just so.
‘What the fuck?’ Osmo said.
He ripped the jacket and shirt open, saw the stomach was torn apart, loops of intestine hanging down, presumably to dry in the sun. The man’s torso was also flayed, exposing a redraw mass of muscle and gleaming bone.
‘Man jerky,’ Osmo said, an attempt at humour which fell flatter than a pissed up Bambi on ice.
Campbell’s last meal threatened to rocket up his throat and spatter the ground at his feet but he just managed to hold on to it.
‘Let’s get on,’ Osmo said. ‘Can’t bear to look at this shit anymore.’
Nige had heard dripping water in the corridor ahead of him but thought nothing more of it.
It was as he turned the corner that the warmth of the liquid struck him.
‘It’s blood,’ he said aloud, and started freaking out.
Baz rushed to him, clamped a hand over his mouth, begged him for calm.
‘Get used to it,’ Baz said.
Nige inhaled deeply, nodded. His eyes were still like saucers but he seemed to have settled.
Baz pulled him against the wall as they heard footsteps echoing in the shadows ahead of them.
Nige gulped as he saw the tramp moving through the darkness. The pallor of his skin, the white, pupil-less eyes and the blood that coated the majority of his skinny frame were the first things that Nige noticed.
The child’s arm in his hands was the next, the bite marks in the limb shortly after.
Baz held up a hand to tell Nige to wait. He pulled one of the smaller knives from his belt.
Bigger knives for bigger monsters, he thought with a frown.
Nige watched with wide eyes as Baz crept up on the tramp, who was now sinking his fangs into the limb he held.
Baz winked at Nige and ran in, the knife above his head like a Viking warrior. The blade went straight through the tramp’s right eye with a horrendous squelch that echoed around the tunnel for what seemed like an eternity.
The tip of the blade poked from the back of the tramp’s head, dripping thick gore that gleamed darkly amid his matted hair.
The tramp squealed as he fell to the floor, his hands cupped to his punctured eye.
His screams slowly faded as his blood raced out to stain the concrete beneath him.
He seemed to take an eternity to die.
Nige felt certain he’d never forget the panicked look in his remaining eye, and the way his body had jerked and twitched.
The other scarecrows were similarly gruesome, the worst a man who was still alive despite his throat being a ragged wound that dripped blackened gore and his bowels hanging loose from his stomach, a number of teeth marks along the length as though something had been savouring every bite of the shit-filled snakes.
He screamed at the top of his lungs, obviously scarred for life.
‘Don’t go in there,’ he begged Osmo. ‘They’ll do this to you too.’
Osmo looked to Campbell. The unspoken thought that passed between them was clear: the poor bastard’s better off dead.
Osmo moved in and plunged the knife into the side of the man’s throat, liberating a thick gout of blood that sprayed him and Campbell in the face.
The man choked, uttering blood-sodden sobs, but they only lasted for a few seconds before he stopped twitching and fell still.
Osmo closed his bulging eyes with a deft flick of his hand. ‘God bless ya, son. You’re out of it now.’
The rest of the scarecrows were dead, but were in hideous states.
One had been decapitated, the head impaled on the spiked pole that bore him, obviously meant as a warning to Osmo and his friends.
Come in here and you’ll die, horribly, seemed to be the recurring theme.
‘I ain’t so easily put off,’ Osmo grimaced. ‘They took my family so they are going to suffer, come hell or high water.’
They reached the car park and Osmo pulled Campbell into the shadows as one of the tramps emerged, clearly doing a lap of the place. He was huge.
Campbell gulped as he saw him.
‘Ain’t nothing you and me can’t do,’ Osmo winked and set off towards the tramp.
He threw one of the stakes and Campbell was amazed at how bad his aim was, missing the tramp by a good few feet.
But soon it became apparent that Osmo had missed on purpose, to distract the tramp who skulked away into the shadows to look for the weapon.
Osmo beckoned Campbell and ran to where the tramp had been.
The tramp looked round just as Campbell got to the halfway point between him and Osmo.
Campbell drew to an immediate halt and backed up into the bushes at the edge of the car park.
The tramp’s head turned, scouring the hedgerow for the hidden voyeur.
Campbell tried not to breath, tried not to make any sound whatsoever. Osmo watched from the side, unsure of how to proceed.
With the slow but inevitable pace of a true nightmare, the tramp began to move towards Campbell.
92
Baz and Nige negotiated what they took to be half of the storm drain before they saw the next tramp. He was facing away from them, making wet noises that sounded very much like eating.
As they got closer they saw that he was hunched over a body, pulling the flesh directly from the bones with his sharpened teeth. He chewed noisily, obviously enjoying every bite.
By the time he turned it was too late.
His grinning, blood-smeared face dropped when he saw the long kitchen knife in Baz’s hand. He let out a faint cry as the blade slid neatly between his ribs and pierced his heart.
Baz smiled and shoved the dying tramp to the floor.
‘You do the next one,’ Baz told Nige. ‘Get ya used to it before we’re right in the thick of it.’
But it was too late to acclimatise themselves; in response to the tramp’s dying scre
ams, half a dozen of the filthy, blood-covered freaks came racing round the corner.
Campbell’s chest and lungs burnt from the effort of trying to hold his breath. The tramp stood no more than five feet from him now, looking right at him.
He could feel the tramp’s gaze crawling over him.
Could smell rank meat on the breath that steamed in the short distance between them.
‘Oi, oi, smelly!’ came a shout from his right that could only have been Osmo.
The tramp’s head snapped round.
‘Over here, stinky. Get yourself a fucking bath.’
The tramp snarled, blood-covered teeth bared and gleaming in the moonlight.
He turned to face Osmo, who was peering out from behind a bin, an immense grin on his face.
‘Get him,’ Osmo said.
Campbell didn’t need telling twice, he darted forwards and almost took the tramp’s head clean off with a wild swing of the sword he’d taken from Guildford’s place.
The tramp’s head lolled to the left, the sliver of flesh and bone that still held it to his body insufficient to keep it held upright.
Blood gushed out of the wound and the tramp spun to face Campbell, a terrified look on his face.
Campbell almost felt sorry for him, so sorrowful was the expression, but then he remembered the scarecrow – among other things – and finished the tramp’s decapitation with another wild swing that separated head from body in a vast cloud of gore.
‘That’s how it’s fucking done,’ Osmo bellowed, punching the air.
He clamped a hand over his mouth afterwards, remembering that this was meant to be a stealth raid.
‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘They know we’re coming. Let’s just fucking get it on.’
With that he ran to the nearest window and threw a brick through it.
‘We’re here, ya sun-fearing bastards. Prepare to die,’ he yelled and dived headfirst through the window.
Campbell sighed, shrugged, then dived in right after him.
93
Baz’s first two shotgun blasts popped the heads of the nearest tramps like blood- and brain-filled zits being squeezed by giant, remorseless fingers.
While he loaded, Nige was supposed to take down the next few, but the adrenaline that coursed through him made his hands tremble, making his blasts miss by a good few feet.
The first tramp hit Nige at chest height, his razor-sharp claws scoring deep wounds in his pecs. He fell back under the force of the attack.
The tramp landed on his chest, his bony hands crushing the air out of his lungs. He let out a cry that stabbed into Nige’s ears and began trying to sink his teeth into his throat.
Baz lashed out with the shotgun butt, hitting the tramp in the back of the head hard enough to unsettle him but not put him out.
Baz struggled to get more shells into the gun but another of the tramps batted it out of the way with a hard swing of his hand. His smile widened, sensing Baz was unarmed.
‘For Max,’ Baz shouted, pulling the stake and thrusting it up into the tramp’s groin.
The tramp screamed as maggot-laden blood oozed out of his mangled wedding tackle.
Baz grinned and gave the tramp his finest right hook. The tramp’s jaw snapped like kindling, moving a full three inches to the right.
While Baz lined up an uppercut, clawed hands grabbed him from behind. He lashed out with his elbow, swinging it back hard into the teeth that sought his throat. One of the ivory spears dug into his arm, freeing a steady stream of blood.
The tramp was back on top of Nige now and he looked rabid.
Nige’s arms fought to keep him away, but it seemed only a matter of time before those teeth burrowed into his skin and muscle to seek out the warm blood within.
Baz took a heavy blow to the back of the head and fell to the floor.
Within a heartbeat, three of the tramps were on him, fighting to be the one to open his throat and feast on the liberated blood.
As the winning tramp’s teeth dug in, releasing a trickle of blood from each of the tiny wounds, a strong hand pulled the tramp away.
Baz was expecting Osmo or Campbell (Nige was a fucking liability it seemed) but he got neither.
Instead he found himself staring up into the cadaverous face of one of the tramps.
94
The first room Osmo and Campbell landed in was a mess, foldaway chairs flung in haphazardly, creating a minefield for them to trip over.
Osmo nearly turned his ankle on them.
‘That would’ve been curtains,’ he confided with a sheepish grin.
A tramp came racing in to see what all the noise was about and was swiftly despatched with a stake strike to the heart from Osmo.
‘Oh yeah, baby,’ he grinned as the flying blood plastered his shirt to his chest.
They were out of the room before the tramp had even finished his death rattle.
They found themselves in a long corridor, doors on both sides.
Shadows concealed most of the corridor; it was absolutely rife with places the undead fiends could lurk.
A few of the doors were open, some were missing altogether while others were battered into splinters.
It still wasn’t clear whether the rooms were occupied.
‘We’re gonna have to take it room by room,’ Osmo said. ‘I ain’t taking any chances. You wanna split up or do it together?’
Campbell thought for a second.
‘Together.’
Osmo nodded.
The first room served to lull them into a false sense of security; it hid nothing but dust balls and discarded office furniture.
Still, they scoured every nook and cranny, wanting to ensure they weren’t turning their backs on a potential threat.
The next room seemed empty too, a thick carpet of dust covering most of the surfaces.
A three legged desk propped up the wall in the far corner.
Beneath it was choked with shadows.
Osmo peered under it, suddenly becoming aware of a low rhythmic noise that sounded very much like breathing. As he shone his torch under there, a pale face emerged from the darkness.
He banged his head on the underside of the table as he hurried backwards.
He readied his weapons for an attack but nothing happened for a long minute.
Shining the torch on it again, he revealed the reason the hidden figure hadn’t attacked him; a six-inch slash in its throat.
‘It’s ok, dead body,’ Osmo said, miming wiping sweat off his brow.
‘The rest’s clear,’ Campbell said.
Just as he moved out of the doorway, the door teetered in over, landing hard on him and knocking him to the floor.
A tramp loomed out of the shadows, his white eyes seeming to pin Campbell to the spot.
With inhuman speed, he threw himself at Campbell.
‘Get these two to the feeding area,’ Dwayne said, smiling as he stared down upon Baz and Nige, both of whom had come within seconds of having their throats torn out.
Baz was still in a daze so he barely felt the strong hands grabbing him and roughly hauling him to his feet.
Nige grunted and tried to put up a fight until one of the tramps slammed a fist into his belly. His breath exploded out of him and he fell to his knees.
The tramps dragged them along the corridor towards the ragged breathing and animalistic grunts in the distance.
95
Campbell was grateful for the door which had fallen on him as it was serving as a temporary barrier between him and the tramp.
The tramp’s dirty fists plunged through the cheap wood. His claws grazed Campbell’s chest.
Osmo ran in and booted the tramp hard in the face. His nose burst in a cloud of blood droplets which sprayed out as he emitted a pained cry.
He darted at Osmo but the moustachioed madman threw his legs back and laid his chest hard on the tramp’s shoulders, stifling his tackle and pinning him face down on the floor in a manoeuvre that reminded Campbel
l of a matador wrestling a bull.
The tramp writhed beneath Osmo, almost tipping him off his back.
Campbell ran in and tried to hold their assailant’s head steady, but the tramp’s dirty teeth sunk into his palm, bringing a hail of curses that Osmo thought would never end.
Osmo struggled to find a stake, needing his hands to pin the tramp’s arms by his sides.
Campbell lifted loose a broken chunk of the door and raised it high.
The tramp managed to squirm out from under Osmo, hissing threats through his burst lips.
Campbell brought the wood down hard, slamming the tip into the back of the tramp’s head. It bit in, sending a burst of blood out.
‘Gonna smash those goddamned teeth right out,’ Osmo said, flipping the tramp onto his back and snatching the stake from Campbell’s hands.
Even Campbell winced – echoes of his and Osmo’s first meeting by the canal forever lodged in his mind and brought to the fore by this modern day re-enactment – at the thought of what Osmo was about to do.
He wedged the piece of wood in the tramp’s mouth, so his jaw was stretched to its limits.
Then he stomped on it as hard as he could.
The sound of shattering teeth made Campbell shudder.
Osmo laughed like a maniac and put the wood back in for a second go when he saw that some of the teeth still remained.
Campbell retched at the thought of him doing it again, but that was exactly what Osmo intended.
‘This one’s for Grace,’ he said, grinning down on the tramp as he wedged the wood into place again.
The tramp was struggling not to choke on the thick stream of blood that ran down from the empty sockets where his teeth had been.
Osmo lifted his boot and brought it crashing down on the end of the stake, smashing it down hard enough to shatter the rest of the tramp’s teeth and send the tip of the wood through the back of his head in a shower of blood and sticky brain matter.
‘Wooohoo,’ Osmo beamed, going in for a high five on Campbell. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked when he saw that the ex-policeman’s hand was not there to slap.
