by Brian Keene
Hoping that the body of their wounded comrade would slow the rest of the creatures, Heather turned around and limped toward the tunnel’s exit again. When she reached the grotto, she felt her way out of the crevice. Unlike before, the strange room was pitch-black. Some of the fallen papers rustled beneath her feet as she plunged forward.
Behind her, the sounds of pursuit continued.
***
Javier tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. His head drooped as they forced him onward. His eyelids fluttered. Fatigue had settled over him like a coarse, heavy blanket. Each shuffling step seemed to take an enormous amount of physical effort, and when he slowed, Scar-Face and the hairy girl shoved him forward. What he wanted more than anything at that moment, even more than escaping, was to lie down and take a nap. He fought against the desire, still retaining enough alertness to know that if he did that now, he would surely die.
The truth was he was probably going to die anyway, unless he figured out something soon. His captors were ruthless and showed no remorse. They’d cut his wrists with the same practical efficiency and disregard that someone making a salad might show toward a stick of celery. He wasn’t sure how long he’d bled, but when they deemed him sufficiently weakened, Scug had called a halt, and they’d tied his wounds with scraps of damp, mildew-covered cloth. Then they’d applied pressure before marching him forward again. His wrists still hurt, but the bleeding had stopped. He was sure that it would start again—and from more places than just his wrists—when they arrived at their final destination.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, his voice slurred.
His captors didn’t answer.
“Hey,” Javier tried again. “Where are you—”
Scug backhanded him, splitting Javier’s lip open. Wincing, Javier spat blood before he could swallow it.
“No more talking,” Scug warned, cracking the belt again. “Do it again and I’ll gut you right here. Let your insides slip out and show you what they look like, all wet and shiny. Ever strangled a man with his own intestines? I have. Plenty of times. It’s always a funny sight, watching them flap around and choke, eyes bugging out of their heads, faces turning as purple as the guts wrapped around their throats. I’ll do it to you, too, if you don’t keep walking.”
Deciding to take a gamble, Javier just shrugged his shoulders and did his best to smile. It hurt his mouth, but got the man’s attention. Blood welled out of his split lip.
“What are you grinning about?” Scug asked. “You smile too much.”
“I’m just thinking that it doesn’t matter anyway. Do what you want. The police will be here soon. We called them before we came inside.”
“No, they won’t. The police never come. And even if they did, do you think we care? This is our home. Our place. They can’t hurt us here. No man can hurt us here.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“We have always been here. Our people were here before the city, before the buildings and the cars and everything else, and we’ll be here after it’s all gone. Us and the cockroaches and the rats.”
“Your people? What are you, exactly?”
Scug didn’t answer. Javier repeated the question, and again his captor refused to answer, so Javier decided to ask something different.
“Why do you wear women’s skin over your own?”
Scug’s lips pulled back in a sneer. Spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth. He rushed forward, fist raised over his head, ready to strike Javier again.
“This is my skin! My fucking skin. Got it? Now, no more talking. Move!”
Scar-Face and the hairy girl forced him to pick up the pace, and Javier struggled to keep up with them. He tried to keep track of each twisting passageway and of each turn that they made, but he was soon hopelessly disoriented. The weak flashlight beam did little to dispel his confusion. The only thing he was sure of was that the ground seemed to be staying relatively flat, rather than sloping upward or deeper into the earth. His mind began to wander again, and the pain in his wrists and lip dulled. His feet moved automatically, in time with those of his captors. He didn’t come to his senses again until the dwarf popped out of the wall.
One minute, it had just been the four of them in the tunnel. The next, there was a dwarf standing by Scug’s side, chattering excitedly in a guttural, ugly language Javier couldn’t understand. Some of the words were rudimentary English. Others seemed nothing more than a collection of snarls, grunts and homeless syllables. Javier raised his head and noticed a small passageway to their right. He assumed that the new arrival must have come from there. The dwarf was completely hairless, and its naked body was covered with thick black scabs. He listened to its conversation with Scug, and tried to figure out what they were talking about.
“Anyone catch her yet?”
The dwarf shook its head.
“Well, I’ll look into it myself. It’s my fault for letting her give me the slip earlier. Can’t have her hurting the babies.”
The dwarf spoke again. It seemed agitated.
“When it rains, it pours.” Scug shook his head. “How many are there?”
The dwarf held up six crooked fingers.
“I’ll check the nursery,” Scug told it. “Take care of the bitch once and for all. You go find Noigel. He’s probably still fucking that kid’s brains out back near the basement steps. Tell him we have more visitors up top.”
The dwarf squealed a reply.
“You do as I say and interrupt him,” Scug replied.
“He won’t hurt you if you tell him I sent you. Can’t be many brains left in that kid’s head by now anyway. He can worry about spraying his ball juice later. We need him on the hunt.”
The dwarf made an almost comical salute with one hand, then turned and dashed back up the side tunnel.
“And tell him not to fuck these six in the head after he’s killed them,” Scug called after the fleeing form. Then he turned to the women and pointed at Javier. “One of this one’s friends—I’m guessing the girl I was chasing earlier—is near the nursery. The babies are worked up. I’m going to go tend to that because none of the rest of you seems to be able to fucking handle it. You get him situated. Tell Curd that there are more on the way. A bunch of new arrivals just showed up. They’re at the door now. Tell Curd that Noigel will be bringing them down. Give him a hand butchering if he needs it.”
They nodded their assent and Scug skulked away, disappearing into the darkness, heading back down the passageway. Javier tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. New arrivals? Who could it be? The police? The gangbangers who had chased them in here in the first place? Maybe their parents, come to look for them after discovering the car? And who was at the nursery—whatever that was? Scug had indicated that it was one of Javier’s friends and that it was a female. That meant it had to be Heather or Kerri. He felt like calling out, regardless of whether they could actually hear him and telling them to hide because Scug was on the way, but such an effort would only waste energy. He’d be more help to them if he was free. Then another thought occurred to him. Scug had twice mentioned Noigel and something about him skull-fucking somebody. The first time, Javier hadn’t paid attention, but this second time, Scug had indicated that the assault was taking place near the basement steps. Could the victim be one of his friends? Could it be Heather?
Javier’s heart pounded. A sense of urgency swept over him. He needed to get free and he needed to do it now—both for his friends and for himself. With Scug’s departure, the odds were a little more even. He sensed that this might be his last opportunity to escape. He concentrated on his breathing as they marched him forward again, trying to simultaneously calm himself and wake himself up. He allowed the females to lead him onward until he was certain that they were out of Scug’s earshot. Then he took a deep breath and made his play.
Javier lurched forward, shifting his weight. At the same time, he squirmed, trying desperately to free his arms from their grip. His ploy worked, but
not without consequences. The woman’s flashlight clattered to the floor. His right arm slipped easily enough from Scar-Face’s grip, but the hairy girl squeezed harder on his left arm. Her nails sank into his wound, and blood flowed again. Screaming, Javier wrenched his arm free and stumbled forward, slamming into the tunnel wall.
He shook his head, trying to regain both his senses and his footing. The women lunged for him. Javier turned to face them. The hairy girl grabbed his left hand and jerked him toward her. She twisted his arm at the same time, so that his wounded wrist and his palm were face up and his fingers were folded back. Her head darted forward. Her eyes and teeth glinted in the darkness. As her mouth came down on his hand, Javier grasped her upper lip with his fingers and pulled. The girl uttered a muffled shriek and let go of his hand. He pulled harder, savagely yanking the lip toward him. It stretched like warm bubblegum that had been left on the sidewalk on a summer day. Javier felt the skin start to tear. Then Scar-Face broke his grip with a blow to his forearm. Both Javier and the hairy girl stumbled backward.
He landed on his rump and his teeth clacked together painfully. Javier tried to get up, but before he could, Scar-Face leaped on him, slamming him back to the floor. Behind her, the hairy girl was moaning and crying, patting at her mouth with the back of her hand. Her lips were bleeding, and Javier felt a surge of savage joy. It vanished a second later when Scar-Face’s fingernails opened four ragged, bloody furrows on his cheek. Her mouth opened and her teeth tried for his injured wrist even as he pulled back to strike at her again.
Javier rolled sideways and did his best to dislodge her, but the woman held on to his legs with her feet. Too late, he realized why. Her double-jointed toes clutched at him like hands. They felt like what he imagined a monkey’s feet would feel like, capable of clutching not only the fabric of his jeans but the skin beneath them, as well. She held on and rolled with him. Her teeth snapped as she tried to find a way past his defenses. He blocked her again and struggled to get free. Behind them, the hairy girl continued to whine.
“Get the hell off me, bitch!”
Scar-Face snarled, well past the point of any coherent speech. Her teeth flashed. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and pulled on the ragged edges of the wound. Javier wailed. Her nails opened new gashes beneath the first cut. Fresh blood flowed. Hissing, Javier twisted his arm, breaking her grip enough that he could push his fingers and palm up against her chin. She couldn’t bite if she couldn’t open her jaw. Scar-Face turned her head and tried to get away, but he wouldn’t let her. He didn’t dare. Sharp as her fingernails might be, her teeth were much more dangerous. Javier thought of the attack on Brett earlier in the evening. He couldn’t risk losing a finger. A muffled cry of frustration slipped past her closed lips and Javier grinned in response.
“That’s right. What you gonna do now, you crazy fuck?”
Scar-Face continued to struggle. Over her shoulder, Javier noticed that her companion was shaking off her fugue and preparing to rejoin the battle. He had to finish this quick. He reached out with his other hand and grabbed her ear, clenching it in his fingers. He noticed that fresh blood was running down the inside of his forearm, but it was only trickling, rather than gushing. He squeezed her ear, pulling and twisting as hard as he could. Javier both heard and felt the cartilage snap. She shrieked in agony and he yanked a second time, trying his best to pull her ear off completely. She was too preoccupied with her pain to attack him, and the hairy girl cowered against the tunnel wall, suddenly afraid. Javier pulled a third time. The woman thrashed on top of him as he twisted. He screamed right along with her, no longer caring if any of the other creatures heard him. He was focused only on tearing her ear from her skull. They rolled out of the range of the flashlight beams, and Javier heard something rip. A moment later, he was free—her severed ear still clutched between his fingers.
Scar-Face howled in the darkness. Javier clambered to his feet, tossed the ear at her and then kicked her in the face. Her nose exploded beneath the sole of his shoe. He kicked again, catching her in the ribs. His third kick slammed her in the temple. The hapless woman went limp. Javier didn’t care. He was aiming a fourth kick when Scar-Face’s companion leapt onto his back. Her bloodied, swollen lips pressed against the back of his neck, but he felt no teeth. Javier realized that she was either too panicked to bite him or he’d damaged her mouth even more than he had first thought. One of her arms wrapped around his throat. The other clawed at his face. Her fingers sought his eyeballs. Moving fast, Javier stumbled backward, slamming her into the rock wall. Then he lurched forward and did it again. After several collisions, the hairy girl slipped from his back, unconscious.
Panting for breath, he studied them both. Their chests rose and fell slightly, but their eyes were closed. He didn’t think they were faking, but there was only one way to be certain. He cocked his head, listening. The tunnels were quiet. If the sounds of their battle had been noticed, then whoever was lurking in the darkness was remaining silent. Javier didn’t think that was a possibility, though. He was positive that they were alone—for now.
Kneeling, he leaned over the hairy girl, wrapped his bloody fingers around her warm neck, and squeezed. Her eyes shot open, bulging in their sockets.
“Auullkgh!”
The sound was not a word, though perhaps it was meant to be one. Javier did not know and didn’t care. His fingers pressed in on her carotid artery, and on the thick vein that mirrored it on the other side of her delicate, grimy neck. Both veins throbbed beneath his fingertips. He could almost feel the blood surging through them.
She tried one last time to get away and her fingers sank into his thighs as he squeezed harder still. He ignored the pain, and watched her, relishing the expression on her face when she realized that she could not breathe. Her swollen lips parted, and Javier increased the pressure. Every muscle in his arms and legs stood out. He shivered with strain. His sweat and blood from his wounds dripped onto her face and chest. Javier was dimly aware that he was panting.
The strong pulse under his fingertips slowed and stuttered and then stopped. Still, she tried to breathe. Still, he kept his grip firm. Her legs thrashed, kicking and flailing. She slapped and clawed at the floor. Javier maintained his vise grip and squeezed as hard as he could. His grin grew wider.
A moment later, she stopped struggling.
Javier held her a moment longer than that, then finally released his hold. The hairy girl didn’t move. Not satisfied, he seized her head in both hands and turned it to the side until her neck snapped. It was one of the most satisfying sounds he had ever heard.
He rested a moment with her corpse in his lap and caught his breath. He examined the cuts on his wrists. Both were bleeding, but not badly enough that he’d die or lose consciousness. Although the fight had reopened them, both wounds were clotting satisfactorily. They’d need to be cleaned and stitched later, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. His main concern was fatigue. He’d need to rest soon, if only for a few minutes. He listened again, but the tunnel remained quiet. The only sound was the unconscious Scar-Face’s low, shallow breathing. Javier shoved the hairy girl from his lap. Her corpse sprawled across the tunnel floor. He stared down at her and spat in her face.
Then he turned his attention to the other one.
He kicked and stomped on Scar-Face, turning her to jelly. He relished every breaking bone, every shattered rib, and every ruptured organ. He laughed when one eyeball spurted from its socket and when shards of broken bones tore through her flesh. Then, still not satisfied, he leaped into the air and jumped up and down on her corpse. Flesh and blood and hair matted between the treads of his shoes. Then he dipped his index finger in her remains, and used her blood to add two more slash marks to the scorecard on his arm.
When he was finished, Javier picked up the flashlight. His body trembled and ached. His teeth were chattering. He’d never felt more alive than he did at that moment.
“Ready or not,” he called, “here I come!”
He ran back the way they’d come, calling out for Scug to come and play.
***
Kerri grabbed the arms that had encircled her in the darkness and tried to dislodge them, but it was like trying to push stone. Although her assailant’s flesh was soft and slippery with sweat, solid, massive muscles bulged beneath the skin. They rippled as the creature squeezed harder. Kerri tried to scream but could barely even breathe as the air was forced from her lungs.
The thing laughed again. Its grip slackened just enough that Kerri had time to draw a breath. She inhaled the foul air it had just exhaled, and then the creature squeezed again, mashing her breasts and abdomen against its body. Her arms were now pinned to her sides. Her hands flailed helplessly.
“Hugs,” the monster rasped in an oddly childish voice. “I give you hugs.”
“Get . . . off. . . ME!” Her demand was half-scream, half-gasp, and it only seemed to amuse the creature even more. Its laughter echoed through the darkness, seeming to come from every direction at once. There was no hint of menace in its laugh. It sounded more like glee and wonder.
“Nice. Pretty.”
Kerri thrashed in the mutant’s viselike grip, shaking her head furiously back and forth, but nothing broke its hold.
“Kisses,” it said. “I give you kisses.”
“Oh, God . . .”
Something long and wet and smelling of sulfur and rotten meat touched her face, licking her eyes and then her nose and then slipping between her lips. She thought of earlier in the night, when she’d bitten a previous attacker’s tongue off, and steeled herself to do the same again, when the proboscis was suddenly pulled away. Stinking, hot saliva dripped from Kerri’s face.
