by mike Evans
He finally noticed the blood covering his hands and began wiping them down his jeans. He didn’t seem disgusted with the fact that he’d just killed someone, only freaked out by the blood itself, and she knew that he was secretly wishing he’d kept his latex gloves on.
“I don’t know, home?” Rebecca replied. “The police?”
Mrs. McReath had stepped closer to Rebecca’s side, her warm, panicked breath fanning across Rebecca’s neck. The old lady was clutching her knitting needles tightly in her hand, her eyes wide and her breathing ragged.
“It’s going to be okay.” Rebecca nodded her head again. She had always been a glass-half-full kind of woman, even when her glass had seemed like its contents had been spilled all over the floor and the glass smashed into a thousand pieces.
“I…I…” Mrs. McReath swallowed, her breathing becoming even more frantic.
“Ma’am, it’s going to be okay.” Rebecca gripped her gently by the arms and looked into her face. She hadn’t known the old lady long, only a couple of months, so she didn’t know enough about her to know what her circumstances were or if she had family outside of this building. She only knew that she, surprisingly, enjoyed heavy metal music and knitting. In that order.
As Rebecca’s mind scrambled to find some soothing words to help calm her down, Mrs. McReath tightened her hands into small fists and took a shaky breath.
“It’s Joan. My name is Joan,” she said. “‘Ma’am’ makes me sound like an old lady.”
Rebecca smiled, not wanting to comment that she was an old lady. She had a grandmother of her own, and she knew the way to Joan’s heart would be to deny the fact. “Well, Joan, you have nothing to worry about. Whatever this is, it’s going to be okay. André here is going to help me figure out how to get out of here, and we’re going to look after you, okay?”
Joan nodded, and Rebecca turned her attention back to André.
“Hey, isn’t that the security guard from downstairs?” Marley said. “What was his name?” He was crouched down and poking at the dead body on the floor. “Billy, Bob, Brent…” He looked up at Rebecca. “Bailey, Buster…”
Rebecca looked down at the body of the man with the now very crushed-in head. Blood had pooled around his body and had already begun to congeal. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that he had a huge hole in his back, as if a rabid dog had taken a large chunk out of him at some point.
“Charles! It’s Charles.” Marley smiled, but his smile swiftly fell. “Poor guy, I wonder what got into him.” He looked back down at the body of Charles. “He was one of my best customers. Poor old Charles. You’re free now, Charles, free to be whatever you want to be.”
“That’s not Charles, that’s Crazy Jake,” Rebecca replied sadly.
“Ooooh, well that’s great news for Charles!” Marley laughed.
“There’s another one,” Joan stuttered out, pointing toward Holly—the youngish girl who ran the incense and scented oil stall. Her long blond hair was tied back into a messy high bun, and blood dripped down the side of her neck, spreading across the front of her white dress like an ink stain.
“Oh shit!” Marley said and stood up, backing slowly away from the person coming toward them. “Hey lady, it’s cool, it’s cool.” His long hair swayed by his face as he looked both left and right, his expression of real fear as Holly’s gaze fixed on him and she began to snap her teeth at him. “We got more coming.” Marley nodded his head toward the elevator where two more people were rounding the corner.
Only they didn’t look like people. Not really. Rebecca watched them for a few precious seconds, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with them.
They lurched rather than walked, almost stumbling their ways toward the group as if in need. But their eyes were vacant and glazed over as they raised their noses to the air and began to growl.
“What’s wrong with them?” she muttered.
“I got nothing, DC.” André shrugged, his voice sounding even deeper than usual. “But I’m really not happy about cracking skulls with so many witnesses. My probation officer will not be pleased with me.”
From what Rebecca could see, the people by the elevators were like the rest of the people that had tried to attack her in the last twenty minutes: bloody, feral-looking, and highly aggressive.
Holly had gotten closer, her nose lifting and catching the scent of Rebecca’s group, and she picked up her pace as she stumbled toward them all, a soft, throaty growl emitting from the back of her throat.
“We need to move,” André said, backing up but still staying in front of Rebecca and Joan. “Let’s get back to the studio.”
A grunt from Joan had them all turning and staring in shock. The old lady had slammed one of her metal knitting needles right through the center of Crazy Jake’s forehead. His body slammed to the floor and blood bubbled up around the small wound. Joan leaned down and gripped the needle, grunting again as she tried to pull the needle back out. When it didn’t budge she turned to André.
“Be a doll, would you?” She smiled and stepped back as André leaned down and pulled out the needle, awe and confusion covering his face as he wondered how she’d had the strength to get that needle through his forehead.
Joan pulled out a tissue from her sleeve and wiped over the tip of the needle. “Right, let’s get going then. My motto is ‘no time like the present’.”
“Mine is ‘Happiness is regular sex and potatoes’.” Rebecca snorted out on a laugh. Marley laughed and André frowned. “Whatever, come on.” Rebecca replied, her face blushing crimson.
They all nodded and began walking backwards, not wanting to lose sight of any of the…
“I hope my client called infection control,” Rebecca said as she continued to move backwards. “And the police.”
“Not the police!” André yelled, drawing the attention of the people by the elevator. He glared at Rebecca as they all quickened their pace. “I just killed someone!”
They headed back a different route, passing the emergency fire exit and checking all around them.
“I’m sure that the police will understand that you had no choice,” Joan pleaded with him. Some of her gray hair had come untucked from being tied back and it blew about her head in wisps, giving her a slightly crazed appearance.
Marley let out a dry laugh and everyone turned to look at him. He shrugged. “Do you have any idea what will happen to a man like you in prison, man? Let me tell you, yours is not a face that will do well in a place like that.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes and glanced into the piercing studio as they passed it, but Butch was nowhere to be seen and she breathed a small sigh of relief.
“See!” André said. “I’m too pretty for prison!” he whined.
“Hodgepodge!” Joan called out, her tone sounding angry for the first time since this had all happened. “You’re a big boy. You can handle yourself.” She pointed a knitting needle at André and he jerked back with a small yelp.
“Do you have any idea what they’ll do to a man like me in a place like that? I’ll be a prime rib in a tank full of sharks! And there’s no way the guards are going to help out a guy like me—not if it means keeping the peace with the inmates.” André’s words rushed together as he put two and two together and came up with a five hundred and thirty-five. “Oh dear God, my poor ass.”
“André, will you calm down? No one is going to prison. Let’s just get to the studio, lock ourselves in while we wait for help to arrive, and figure this shit out properly.”
Rebecca’s words trailed off as they finally reached the studio and stared in at the mess that was inside. Though the door was shut, someone had clearly been inside. If the overturned tables and ink spilled all over the floor weren’t a big enough clue, the bloody handprints across the windows were.
“My client,” Rebecca mumbled as once more guilt pooled in her stomach. “Shit. I should have made her come with us.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Marle
y said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t know that she was going to get eaten up like tofu. That shit isn’t predictable.” He smiled reassuringly, and then his eyes took on a faraway look for a split second before refocusing. “I could really go for some tofu right now. How ’bout you, Alice?”
“Ughh,” Rebecca grunted and shoved out from under his grip. “It’s the end of the goddamned world and all you want to eat is tofu?”
“Is that what this is?” Joan asked, her voice quiet.
Rebecca glanced over her shoulder at the woman, feeling guilty for being so blunt. “No, of course not.” She forced out a dry laugh. “But I’m damned glad I didn’t bother to get my flu shot this morning. Getting the flu is the least of my worries.” Her laugh was threatening to become manic and she struggled to rein it back in. “André, you got my back?” she finally said.
André pushed in front of her, his large frame filling the doorway. “Rebecca, I’ve got your front. Always,” he said, and Rebecca frowned. “Umm, what I mean is, I’ll go in first.”
He pushed down on the handle and let the door swing open wide, and they all waited with baited breath for the creak of the door to signal the…monsters?...whatever the hell they were, to their location. But the door swung open soundlessly, not even bumping up against the wall. It was underwhelming to say the least.
André stepped inside and Rebecca followed him, with Joan and Marley directly behind her. They moved silently as a group throughout the studio and toward the storeroom, following the trail of bloody footsteps across the normally cream-colored tile floor.
In the back room the sound of grunting could be heard and Rebecca felt her heart begin to pound even harder. André had already killed someone and she wondered if it was fair to allow him to do it again, or if she should step up and deal with this next person. Technically she had killed mister toupee and Spike, but they weren’t real kills like André’s—not really. More like accidental deaths.
“Oh God,” she whispered, the words barely a sound as they left her lips.
They reached the storeroom at the back of the studio, the smell of the woman’s vomit permeating through the crack under the door.
“She’s definitely in there.” Rebecca grimaced.
“So like, what do we do now?” Marley asked, pulling out a candy bar from his pocket.
André snatched the bar away from him and raised his arm to throw it away, his anger spiking at Marley’s casual attitude to what was happening.
“No, not my Snickers!” Marley jumped up for the bar, his shoulder barging into the closed door and sending out an echoing thud. “Anything but my Snickers. Or my weed. Or my Hershey’s kisses… Gotta love those kisses, right?”
Marley’s fingers grasped at the Snickers bar in André’s hand, and André let go. “There’s something seriously wrong with you!” he bellowed.
A thud from the other side of the door sounded out, and everyone froze in place, their attention turning to whoever—or whatever—was behind the door.
Rebecca stepped forward and let her knuckles rap lightly on the door. She pressed her face to the wood. “Hello, Mrs.…” She grimaced and looked to André, who shrugged. “Ummm, are you okay in there?”
Another thud slammed against the door and Rebecca yelped and stepped back. André held up his bat as another fist, or a foot, hit against the wood. He placed his palm on the handle but Rebecca tugged at his arm and shook her head frantically.
“What? We can’t just leave whoever it is in there,” he whispered to her.
“Yes we can,” Rebecca replied defiantly, cocking an eyebrow at him.
“She’s your client!” André said, sounding shocked at Rebecca’s dismissive attitude. “Her tattoo wasn’t even finished.”
“I think her tattoo is the least of her worries right now, André!”
“I agree,” Joan replied.
“I disagree,” Marley said, smiling as the group turned to look at him. “What? Every man is entitled to an opinion in this. And woman, of course. And child. But not dogs. Dogs are dumb, they can’t have an opinion in this. They’ll totally lose their train of thought and end up chasing their own tails or some shit.” He laughed and tore open his Snickers.
“It’s bad for business,” André said, ignoring Marley and turning back to Rebecca. “It’s not even properly covered. It could get infected!”
Rebecca pinched between her eyebrows, feeling the beginnings of a headache. Or a dumbache, as she often referred to headaches brought on by someone saying something so dumb that it felt like her brain was about explode in her skull. “Do you even hear yourself right now? Between the head-smashing you just committed and the weird shit going on with everyone else, our business is the least of our worries.”
“Well I’m shocked,” André replied. “I thought you took this business seriously.”
“I do!”
“Well then let’s open this door, deal with whatever is going on in there, and then cover her tattoo up.”
“Excuse me…” Mrs. McReath’s voice broke through the conversation, but was ignored.
Another thud sounded from the other side of the door…
“If we open the door, she’s going to attack us!” Rebecca yelled.
“Excuse me…”
Another thud echoed out, followed by a throaty growl…
“You don’t know that,” André replied.
“Excuse me!” Joan shrieked.
“What?” Rebecca and André both yelled together.
“It’s incredibly bad manners to interrupt someone!” Rebecca added on in disgust.
“Well, there’s a hairy, angry, bloodthirsty-looking Butch on his way toward us, so I thought you’d want to know,” Joan snapped back.
André and Rebecca turned to look at Joan in time to see Butch from the piercing store shamble toward them all. His neck was oozing blood from what looked like a bite mark, though it was hard to tell from the amount of hair that he possessed. It had always been bewildering to Rebecca how one man could have so much hair covering him. Every step he took made fresh blood squirt up and ooze out of the hairy hole.
Joan screamed.
So did Marley.
Butch lifted his nose to the air and growled.
Rebecca squeezed her eyes closed for a split second before biting the proverbial bullet and heroically stepping forward. She slashed the air in front of her with her puny knife.
“Back up, Butch. I do not want to have to use this on you, but I will.” She slashed the air again, glaring up at him.
Butch continued moving forward, his footsteps unfaltering. He growled again and Rebecca’s hand trembled as she slashed in front of her, the small knife close enough to slash at Butch’s shirt.
He didn’t flinch.
Not even when the tip of the blade dragged across his skin and tore open the first layer of his stomach lining.
With the feel of tearing flesh still echoing through the blade, Rebecca felt bile rise in her throat and she staggered backwards, ducking under Butch’s reaching arms and getting a shower of blood on top of her head for the effort.
Rebecca had barely managed to stand up straight when André raised his bat for the second time that day. He didn’t bother wasting his time with an arm or back shot, but instead went directly for a head shot. He clipped Butch at the side of his head, the soft thud and crunch of the man’s ear clearly heard by everyone.
“Oh gross!” Marley called out as blood began to trickle from Butch’s ear.
“Oh my!” Joan replied with a grimace.
“Oh God!” Rebecca called as Butch stepped forward, and André was backed into the corner. His only place to go was inside the room where Rebecca’s client was.
Marley picked up the giant metronome and threw it at Butch. It smashed into his back, and for the first time in months was blissfully silent. Rebecca didn’t have time to feel any relief, though, as André leaned down on the door handle and pushed against it as Butch came closer. The door swu
ng open and Rebecca saw the unmistakable image of a peace sign on her client’s stomach as she came forward and grabbed hold of André, dragging him to the ground.
The echo of André’s bat hitting the floor was almost nonexistent against his screaming as both Butch and Rebecca’s client fell to their knees and began grabbing at André, tearing at his clothes and skin, and pulling. Blood squirted upwards like a fountain, frothing as it hit the floor with soft splats.
“André!” Rebecca screamed and ran forward, only to be blocked by Joan, who gripped her by both shoulders. Sweet old Joan, who, despite her age and the fact that up until now she had seemed like such a sweet old lady, was surprisingly strong and feisty. “Let me go!” Rebecca shoved at Joan, who only continued to hold onto her.
“Let you go? So you can do what?” Joan yelled at Rebecca.
“Dudettes, we need to go.” Marley reached down and grabbed André’s bat. “Sorry, man, don’t haunt me for this, I’m totally not down for some poltergeist drama right now.” He stood back up and grabbed Rebecca by the arm, and began directing her away from the bloody mess on the floor before the two people chowing down on André realized that there was fresh meat still up for grabs.
Rebecca glanced back over her shoulder one last time as they left the studio, sobbing sincere apologies.
Four.
Kowabunga
“Where can we go?” Marley panted as they ran. “The stairs? The fire exit? The ice cream truck?”
“The building’s in lockdown, there’s no way out!” Rebecca said, fear lacing her words as the realization of them hit her. “We’re trapped in here. With them, this, whatever is going on.”
“No, there has to be a way out,” Joan replied stubbornly. “Think!”
But Rebecca couldn’t think, not with André’s grunts of pain and the sound of his tearing flesh still ringing in her ears. Even the smell of blood, which normally made her dizzy and want to barf, wasn’t bothering her right now. He had been her oldest friend, almost like an annoying older brother, and now he was gone, all because of…
