by John Bruni
“Go,” Randall said to Skank. As soon as she got out, he ducked down to grab Pisser under his arms.
Pisser pushed his hands away. His pale face jiggled and sweat dripped down and diluted the blood on his shirt. “Get me to a hospital. They can fix me.”
“Yeah, in a minute,” Randall said. “We gotta’ get you out of here now, or the limo’s going to blow. You ready? Because this is going to hurt.”
“Just do it quick.” Pisser’s jaw tightened, and his gums ground against each other.
Randall snaked his hand under one of Pisser’s arms, feeling the sweaty cheese of his body odor coat his palm, and he reached around Pisser’s back with his arm. He gave one quick heave, and Pisser came up on his good foot. Still, his twisted leg moved, and Pisser screamed again.
“Almost there,” Randall said. “Stick with me, man.”
He moved backward, doing his best to support Pisser. Just before he got the aging punk out of the limo, Pisser went down on his bad foot, and the screaming intensified. Randall could smell Pisser’s fishy breath, and it took all of his power to not just leave him there.
Finally, Randall fell backward, and the punk rolled over him. He staggered to his feet and did his best to drag Pisser to a safe distance.
Skank peered through the flames into the front seat. She saw the charred, skeletal remains of Roberto, F and U.
“Are they . . . ?” Randall asked.
“Dead.”
“Help me get the others, then.”
Randall stepped forward, but before he could go any further, the car exploded, driving them both back, as if they’d been punched by an invisible giant.
Dazed, Randall sat up and saw flames crawling up his shirt. “Fuck!” He battered at the fire with his bare hands, snuffing it almost right away. It hadn’t spread far, but it had eaten through the fabric and had melted the hair on his chest.
“Skank, you okay?” he asked.
Before Skank could answer, bullets from the guns that had been left in the car started going off. Randall fell backward, holding Skank down, looking for anywhere they could use for cover.
Pisser didn’t notice. He kept screaming, holding his ruined leg until two bullets found him. One of them got him in the ass, and it probably wouldn’t have been very life threatening if the other hadn’t nailed him squarely in the head. His brains spat from his head in a gruel on the pavement.
Randall pulled Skank behind a fire hydrant. It wouldn’t be enough to cover them well, but it lessened the chances of catching a stray bullet. Finally, after a few more seconds, the volley died down to nothing.
Randall stood, offering Skank a hand. “You okay?”
She took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. “I think so. What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know,” Randall said.
“Holy shit! Skank, is that you?”
Randall and Skank both looked toward the sound of the voice. They saw Kelly running toward them.
“Shit, I didn’t know you were in there,” he said. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t fucking know.”
“What did you do?” Skank yelled.
“It was a Molotov,” Kelly said. “I thought it was a bunch of rich people. What were you doing in a limo?”
Randall glanced over and saw Pisser’s remains. He thought about the other punks who had died in the back of the limo. He didn’t even know these people, but he felt sorry for them, nonetheless. Just a few poor souls who wound up sucked into this horrible mess.
“They’re all dead!” Spittle flew from Skank’s lips. “You fucking killed them all!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
Skank roared as she jumped on him, her fingernails tearing into Kelly’s face in a mad frenzy. He screamed, but he didn’t do anything to stop her, as if he knew he’d done wrong and had to atone for it.
Randall realized he had to stop her from killing Kelly, but he truly didn’t want to. Kelly had just killed a carload of people—and almost Randall, himself—so he fully deserved Skank’s wrath. Also, she attacked him like a woman possessed. Randall honestly didn’t think he could stop her.
Still, he had to try. “Stop, Skank. We need him.” He pulled at her arm.
“Fucking asshole!” Skank screamed. She raked her nails across Kelly’s face, splitting his lower lip down the center in two flaps.
“Come on!” Randall yelled. “We need him!”
He pulled her away, even as she still tried to get at Kelly. Neither of them noticed the riot cops approaching. They moved in quietly, like ninja, training their rifles on the arguing punks. “Freeze!” one of them shouted.
Randall turned immediately to face them. He thought about his gun, which he’d left in the limo, and he didn’t know if he wished to have it or not. It might help him defend himself, but on the other hand, if they saw a weapon, the cops would definitely fire on him. He raised both hands.
Skank didn’t notice. Instead, she rushed from Randall’s side and jumped on Kelly again. She screamed, beating at his face.
“Stop that!” another cop shouted. “Get away from that man right now!”
“Skank,” Randall said. “They’re pointing guns at us.”
She dropped her knee on Kelly’s balls, and while he rolled on the pavement, trying to draw a breath, she continued ripping his face to shreds.
“You’ve got till the count of three!” the cop yelled. “One . . . two . . .”
4
Stacy and Wayne had driven up and down the grid of streets in their search for Skank and Randall. The southeast side blazed too badly, so they avoided that part of the neighborhood, but they scoured everywhere else they could think of. Twice, the police tried to stop them, but when they sped away, the authorities realized they had bigger fish to fry. Once the rioters tried to pull them over, but they weren’t fast enough. Even so, someone threw a brick at them. It dented the trunk but didn’t do significant damage.
A half an hour had gone by, and they worried that they were working at in impossible task. And then, at that very moment, they saw the flaming limo, and the altercation taking place nearby.
“There she is,” Wayne said. He pointed.
Stacy stopped the cab and followed the path of Wayne’s finger. She also saw Randall and mentioned it. The riot cops had surrounded them, and they all watched as Skank mutilated some poor bastard on the ground.
The cops shouted at Skank, who ignored them, and it looked like they were about to fire on her. “Shit,” Wayne said. “We have to hurry.”
Stacy knew she had only one bullet left in her clip, so she got the other one ready for a quick change. Then, they got out of the car just in time to hear the countdown begin. “One . . . two . . .”
5
Skank stopped attacking Kelly and pushed herself deftly to her feet. She whirled around, her face twisted by the anger that burned in her heart. “What the fuck do you want? You want some, too? Huh?”
“Calm down, Skank,” Randall said. “They’ve got—“
“I’m tired of seeing people die!” she yelled. “First Nutsack, now all my friends!” She turned her face to the sky and howled, an odd mixture of rage and sorrow, a sound that sent chills down Randall’s spine. It sounded like a mixture between a war cry and a death song.
Skank dipped down and plucked a knife from Kelly’s belt. She gnashed her teeth, brandishing it at the police.
“Drop the knife!” one of the cops yelled.
The image of Nutsack with a hole in his head seared its way from the folds of her brain so harshly she could almost see it whenever she closed her eyes. “Fuck you, pig!” She drew her arm back, ready to throw the blade.
One of the cops drew a bead on her chest and fired, sending a rubber bullet in her direction. But then, she leaned forward to give the knife its best momentum, and her head dipped down. Instead of nailing her just above her heart, the bullet popped out her left eyeball and entered her skull, mashing up her brain, ending all thoughts of Nutsack.
“Skank!” Randall cried. “No!”
6
“Oh fuck,” Stacy said.
“Let’s move,” Wayne said. “Hurry!”
7
Randall fell to his knees beside Skank, his fingers scrambling at her neck, hoping to find a pulse. No matter how much of her flesh he touched, he came up with nothing. The bat tattoo that fluttered around her skin drew close to her heart and folded in on itself, dying mere seconds after she did.
“Oh God, no. Not you, Skank. Don’t be dead.”
~
Another screen went to static, and Charles cried out in victory, pumping his fist in the air. “Thank you thank you thank you! You’re all too kind!” He held out a hand to William, who sighed.
“I don’t think that should count,” William said. “She wasn’t killed by one of the contestants. Or Samuel.”
“She died next, that’s all that counts. Right, George?” Charles grinned.
William gave Charles a look that could have withered kudzu. George didn’t utter a word, not knowing what to say.
“Pay up, Willie, old boy.”
William sighed again. This time, he held out his hand and transferred the funds.
“It’s just not your night,” Charles continued. “I hope you don’t mind me pushing for another wager?”
William merely looked at him. “I think my sporting blood is running out.”
“Don’t be like that. This is supposed to be fun.”
“In that case, I’ll take the fuckslinger. Stacy.”
Charles laughed. “Excellent choice! I think she’s tougher than you give her credit for, though. I’m going to have to go with the guy with the Red Death.”
“He is kind of a nancy,” William said.
“Shall we say a million this time?”
William thought his luck had to hold at some point. Why not now? “Sure.”
~
A loud pop rang out, followed by a deafening roar, and Randall cringed, hoping death wouldn’t be too painful. Perhaps it would even be nice to finally get answers about the afterlife.
When he didn’t feel anything tear into his flesh, and when he realized he could still open his eyes on this mortal world, he turned toward the sounds and saw that of the four cops, two were on the ground, one dead with a hole in his chest the size of an open hand, the other dying and coughing up blood. The two still standing now ran for cover. Behind all the action, Stacy and Wayne stood by a cab. Stacy reloaded her weapon, and Wayne held a double barreled shotgun, but he must have been out of ammo for it, since it hung by his side, smoking.
Stacy took a couple of quick shots at the retreating cops, and she nailed one of them in the back of the leg. He fell down, and his partner came back for him, trying to help him up. She aimed carefully at the good Samaritan, but Wayne gently touched her arm. “Let them go. They’re not going to hurt us.”
Stacy wanted to plug them, just in case. But she also knew she only had four shots left, so she lowered the gun. “Nice shooting, by the way. You sure you’ve never killed anyone before?”
Wayne tried to remember if he’d ever told her that he hadn’t killed someone before. He couldn’t recall. But he knew he’d never admit to David Nelson. No, not at all. He looked down the street to the cop he’d nailed with the shotgun. Even from this distance, he could see the corpse’s innards through the gigantic hole in his chest. To see a man unraveled like that made him feel a bit sick, but not nearly as bad as he thought he’d feel. Maybe killing David Nelson had inoculated him in some way, allowing him to kill more easily in the future.
The thought frightened him.
Stacy saw some kind of conflict in Wayne’s eyes, but she didn’t want to push him. Instead, she said, “Let’s check on them. See if Skank’s okay.”
He followed her down the street, to where Randall knelt next to Skank. “She dead?” Stacy asked.
Randall stood, wiping at his eyes. “Yeah. Fucking cops.”
Stacy nodded.
“I really hope you’re not here to kill me,” Randall said. “That would be the perfect end to my day.” He eyed them both, hoping for yet another reprieve.
“Nope,” Stacy said. “Wayne and I teamed up, and we came looking for you guys, hoping you’d join us.”
“We’re going to take down the rich fucks who did this to us,” Wayne said. “We’re trying to get as many of us together to do it. You in?”
Randall uttered a humorless laugh, looking down at the rubber bullet that still jutted from Skank’s eye socket. “The more the merrier.”
“Then we need to find a place to hole up,” Wayne said. “The heat’s getting to be a bit too much out here. The place is crawling with cops.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw a cop car speed by, lights swirling.
“We had a plan,” Randall said. “We were headed—“
“Later,” Stacy said. “I’m almost out of bullets, and Wayne’s shotgun is empty. We need to go.”
“Where can we go?” Randall asked. “I’m sure the cops’ve got the east side tied off from the rest of the city. And besides, we can’t leave Skank out here.” He looked down at her body and still couldn’t believe that mere minutes ago, she’d been alive and screaming.
“I know it’s a horrible thing,” Stacy said, “but we have to leave her. She’s dead, and we’re not. We have to look out for ourselves.”
“And that guy?” Randall pointed to Kelly. They could see that he still breathed, even though he was clearly unconscious.
“Grab him,” Stacy said. “We might need him.”
Randall looked down yet again at Skank and felt his eyes moisten. “Sorry, Skank. I’ll make them pay for you. For us.”
Wayne helped him pull Kelly to his feet. The punk moaned, and blood ran down his face in streams. He still didn’t come to.
“You know anyplace we can hide out?” Stacy asked.
Wayne shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe one of these mansions is vaca—“
“Not a fucking chance.”
“Then we’ve got to get out of this neighborhood. And fast.” He looked down the street, where another group of riot cops approached.
“I might know a place,” Randall said. “That your cab?”
“Yeah,” Stacy said. “Tell us on the way. Let’s go.”
Randall helped Wayne put Kelly in the back seat before they got in. He took one last look at Skank. “I’ll make them pay,” he said again. “Goodbye.”
Chapter 15
1
Jack wrapped a bandage around Steve’s left hand. The operation had taken a half an hour. Taking the chip out only took five minutes, but the rest of the time had been taken up by carefully sewing up the wound. Jack knew how to do it, mostly from closing up his own injuries over the years, but performing on another person threw him off a bit.
He knotted up the end of the bandage. “There, you pussy. See? Didn’t feel a thing, did you?”
Steve had, but it hadn’t been pain. He still felt Jack tinkering around under his skin, though. Uncomfortable, but it didn’t hurt.
Jack poured him more whiskey and put a pill next to the glass. “This pill won’t knock you out, but it’ll dull the pain when it kicks in. The booze will take some of the remaining edge off. Okay?”
Steve nodded and downed the pill. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t take a stranger’s medical advice, but he trusted Jack. After all, the man had been in his brain, hadn’t he?
“Now that that’s settled,” Jack said, “I think it’s time we got some guns.” He touched the screen of one of his computers, and a panel in the wall slid open, revealing an overstuffed cache of weapons.
Jimmy whistled. “Holy fucking shit, Jack. Planning on supplying an army?”
“Shut up, Monaghan, and grab something. Grab lots of somethings.”
Jimmy selected a .38 and a .44 and took holsters to go with each. The former clipped on to his belt at the small of his back, and the latter went under his shoulder and weighed his left side
down considerably.
Steve stepped up. Remembering his crack from earlier, he said, “Got a batarang?”
Jack only glared at him.
Steve took a couple of .45’s, just like he’d had back on the Job. One of each went under his arms.
Jack loaded down with a couple of shotguns, handguns and other hand-to-hand weapons.
“Got enough?” Jimmy asked.
“Not yet.” Jack went and got a duffle bag and loaded more guns into it.
“Isn’t that excessive?” Steve asked.
“Not if we find out the other competitors want to be on our side. They’ll probably need guns, too.”
Steve knew how much each of those weapons weighed, and he thought an average man wouldn’t be able to heft such a bag. Jack had giant muscles, though, and he shouldered them with ease. “You guys ready?”
They nodded.
“Up we go.”
Jack led the way, and he opened the ceiling panel. Once up top, he put the guns down and waited for the others to come up. “You guys get a head start. I’m going to lock up the trap door. It takes a second because of the broken latch.”
“Sure.” Steve walked through the kitchen and into the living room, Jimmy following behind. He walked to the door and opened it up. Outside, the burnt hulks of crosses rested in the distance, looking like dead creatures from a forgotten time. They tried to hide behind the tall grass, as if they thought they were being sneaky. Despite what they stood for, they almost looked beautiful, in a dirty kind of way.
Jack cursed at the broken latch, and Jimmy turned to give him a little crap. Behind him, Steve stepped outside the door.
Then, Jimmy heard an explosion from outside, and he whirled around to take a look.
2
Samuel pressed his back up against the side of the house to the right of the front door and aimed the shotgun to his left, waiting patiently for the first person to step out. He supposed he could have stormed the house like a SWAT team, but judging from the booby traps he’d found on his way here, he had no doubt the house had a few inside, as well.
