But she couldn't think about that now. Jane was a distraction. Just have a smoke and try to let it go.
He could see her moving about through the frosted glass of the door. Room 114. She'd just turned and was walking away, her silhouette growing fainter by the second. Probably locked it.
Poor, simple Polly.
Still believing that mere doors and windows were enough to keep her safe.
It was time to teach her a lesson.
One which she would never forget.
Polly had just lit the cigarette when she saw it. A man-shaped shadow outside the door. Dark. Hulking. Growing larger as it approached.
Shit.
Thoughts of Jane had distracted her and she'd left the fucking knife on that little bookshelf. She sprung from her chair at the same moment the glass in the window exploded inward in tiny little chunks that looked like crystalline boulders. They rattled against the floor, not crashing like normal glass, and the elbow that had smashed its way through straightened into an arm. An arm which easily flicked the lock and swung the door open.
Before her stood what appeared to be a monster. Its face was lumpy, bloody and battered beyond belief with lips swollen and split, a nose zigzagging at odd angles, hair matted with gore in some places, slick with blood in others. It's clothes looked like some sort of tattered fatigues that had been cut and abraded to the point where there seemed to be more holes than fibers. For all intents and purposes, this thing looked like the victim of a fatal car crash who had just decided to pick up and walk away.
It stepped into the room, breathing so heavily she could see its shoulders rise and fall.
At the same time she took a step backward as she glanced around the room, trying to plot a way to circle around and get her hands on that knife.
“Looking for an escape route?”
The voice sounded as if it were speaking through a mouthful of mush. Which wasn't surprising considering the state said mouth was in. But there was something familiar about that voice....
“No escape for you... not this time.”
She took another step backward, but her eyes stayed trained on the monstrosity before her. Watching for the slightest movement that would indicate the start of an attack.
“Pretty, pretty Polly.”
She gasped.
“Richard?”
The classroom filled with laughter.
“No, baby. I told you. Richard's dead. Call me Rick. Or Dick. You like Dick, don't you Polly? I know you do.”
More laughter again.
Seriously creepy deja-vu.
How the hell had he found her?
Her heart thundered like a herd of galloping zebras.
“I was hoping you'd have a message for me.” Richard said. “What a shame.”
He seemed to be speaking directly to her tits. Or maybe her shirt. But why would he do that?
Because he's bat-shit crazy, dearie. Look at him. You didn't even recognize him at first. How the hell do you think he got all fucked up like that? Crazy....
Richard stepped further into the room and he seemed to grow larger with each step. It was obvious that he felt powerful, completely in control of the situation. And, in a way, he was. She knew she didn't have the physical strength to fend off his attacks when they came. She'd been down that road already. No, she needed some way to get to that knife. Some weakness she could exploit.
“I don't know whether to fuck you and kill you,” Richard said, the words slightly slurred through his busted lips, “or kill you and fuck you.”
His laughter filled the room again as if he'd just told the joke of a lifetime. But it ended as abruptly as if he'd choked it off.
“But maybe I'm thinking I should just outright kill you.”
Polly had backed up to the point that she 'd bumped against Mrs. Haversham's desk.
Richard came closer still and she could now see the large bulge in the front of his pants.
“I'm thinking that might just be the thing to do, you little cock-tease bitch.”
That was it. His weakness. Now, she only had to work it to her advantage. She pushed her revulsion deep down within herself, tucked it away in a cold little spot somewhere behind her stomach.
She slowly wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Now, dearie, you don't really want to do that do you? Not before you've had a little taste of this.”
She slid her hands seductively along the curves of her breasts, down her sides, to her hips.
There was a sharp intake of breath from Richard and he stopped for a moment.
“I shouldn't have fought you back there, but I was scared. Because of Jane, see.... ”
“Jane's dead.”
The statement was so cold, so as-a-matter-of-fact that for a moment her mind balked. But she knew she had to keep going, had to play this scene out to its final conclusion. They words were hard to say, but necessary.
“Good. Now there's nothing... no one to get in our way, Richard, and... ”
“Richard is dead!” he bellowed.
“I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry. I'll call you whatever you want.”
She tried her best to act simpering, subservient. Totally enthralled like a groupie in the presence of a rock star.
Sitting down on the edge of the desk she slipped out of the t-shirt and tossed it to the side. Licked her lips again and leaned back on the cool wood as her fingertips traced circular patterns over her bra. This had better work, God damn it.
“Come on, baby. Let's do it. I want you inside me.”
For a moment Richard seemed to teeter on indecision. He started forward but then stopped. Started and stopped.
She moaned, really turning up the juice on her performance as she arched her back slightly.
“Oh god, I'm so wet... ”
One hand over the mouth. Giggle. Shy. Coy.
“I need you, Richard. I need a big strong man like you in me.”
“I told you, call me.... ”
“I'll call you anything you want, sugar, just do me. Do me hard.”
She'd finally pushed him over the edge. He came rushing at the desk and Polly held her breath, waiting to see if he were buying into all of this. Or if he really was coming to kill her.
He towered above her, staring down, practically panting through his nose, eye ablaze with some strange glow she'd only seen that one time before. In the kitchen....
His hand balled into a fist which he pulled up to chest level and his nostrils flared.
But then the hand opened and he was squeezing her breast so roughly it felt as if he were attempting to rip it off her chest.
“Be gentle.” she whispered.
“No. I'll be whatever I want. Do whatever I want. Which is why I am God and you just another little whore to serve my needs.”
He lowered his face toward her chest, wanting to smell that scent... the wildflowers and spring rain. Never noticing her hand as it crept across the surface of the desk.
“Richard?”
It was a light, sing-song tone but anger flared within him. Fuck it. He should just kill the cunt now.
“I told you, call me... “
His bellow morphed into a scream as Polly rammed the ends of the little flags directly into his eyes. The sharp tips, like tiny spears, ripped into the tissue easily and they were spaced apart just enough so that each one plunged into a separate socket. Blood and some sort of milky white fluid oozed from the twin wounds as Richard reeled backward, screaming in agony.
Ripping the flags out of his eyes, he stumbled about the room, tripping over desks, falling, struggling to regain footing as he slid on pencils and books and loose sheets of paper from the toppled desktops.
Polly skirted around the perimeter of the room, over to the little bookshelf. The knife felt cool and natural in her hand. She watched as Richard spun in drunken circles, screaming repeatedly: You bitch! You Fucking Bitch!
Timing it just right, Polly dashed in and lunged with the knife, dri
ving it deep within his back, near the left kidney. She pulled it out, ducked low beneath his swinging arms, and grasping it's hilt with both hand, plunged it upward with all her strength.
No words now, only animal howls of pain as Polly stabbed the blade into his groin. Over. And over. And over.
Richard fell to the floor, cupping the shreds of his mutilated manhood and Polly dropped down, driving one knee into his throat. And then the knife was nothing more than a silver blur as it sliced the tip of his nose, jabbed into his cheek, plunged into the gore-filled eye socket.
And then she realized she was screaming, too:
This is for Cody! This is for Jane! This is for me and this is for me and this is definitely for me!”
She stood and kicked him in the side of the head once. And then, pointing the knife downward, she dropped again and the blade disappeared deep into his chest.
He was moving so very slowly now. The life draining out of him. Sprays of blood coming up with his weak coughs. The wheezing sound of chest wounds as he struggled for breath.
She leaned in close to his ear and whispered.
“How bad do you want me now, Richard?”
He tried to say something, to form words, but there was only a gurgle from somewhere within his chest.
“Oh, I'm sorry... ”
She gave the knife in his chest a little twist.
“... dick.”
She'd watched him die in that classroom. Had waited to make sure there was nothing he could do, no way that he could wiggle out of this one. But she didn't have to wait long. By the time two cigarettes had been smoked down to the filter and crushed out on his stomach, he was dead.
Outside, the sun had just begun to rise above the horizon. Time to move on. There had to be a way out of this town. And she would find it, even if it meant swimming ten miles upriver. She would find a way out and would try to reclaim her old life again. Or at least as much of it as she could. Be she would never be the same. She had changed. She knew this.
She reached for the black t-shirt on the desk and was getting ready to pull it back over her shoulders when she paused.
Instead of putting it on, she laid it flat on Mrs. Haversham's desk and walked to the blackboard where she picked up a piece of chalk. Returning to the desk she scrawled a quick message across the front of the shirt, bearing down so hard that she snapped the chalk twice.
Then she pulled the shirt over her head and walked away from Richard's mutilated body. He had no eyes to read this particular message, no brain function to interpret it. But that was okay. It wasn't meant for him anyway. None of it ever was.
Polly stepped out of the school and into the morning sunlight.
The long night was over and, oddly enough, the birds were singing.
But she could still hear the gunfire. Could still smell the smoke and see the out of control flames licking at the skyline.
And she walked toward this warren of chaos, armed only with her knife and a black t-shirt with words scrawled in chalk across the front. Words which gave her hope and reassured her that, no matter what happened, she would find a way to make it out of this hellhole alive. She was smart. She was strong. And her t-shirt said it all: BE YOUR OWN HERO.
“Bring it on, baby. Mamma's comin' home.”
# # #
Named by The Google+ Insider's Guide as one of their top 32 authors to follow, William Todd Rose writes dark, speculative fiction which often lends itself to the bizarre and macabre. With short stories appearing in various magazines and anthologies, his body of work also includes the novels Cry Havoc, Shut The Fuck Up and Die!, The Dead and Dying, and The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People, as well as the short story collection Sex in the Time of Zombies. For more information on the author, including links to free fiction, please visit him online at www.williamtoddrose.com
PLEASE TURN THE PAGE TO ENJOY A SNEAK PEEK OF APOCALYPTIC ORGAN GRINDER ALSO BY WILLIAM TODD ROSE
APOCALYPTIC ORGAN GRINDER
I.
This is how our world died …
Once upon a time, in a kingdom called the United States, there lived an evil wizard who thought he was good. He lived in the middle of a vast desert and spent most of his days seeking guidance from a book of stories. One of his favorite tales in this book told of a time when the kingdoms of Earth would be overrun by the wicked. During this time, sickness and death would hang over the world and herald the coming of a great hero. The hero, it was said, would vanquish evil and lead His people into a land far, far away where they would live happily ever after.
The wizard believed in this story so much that he wanted to do everything within his power to help the foretold events come to pass. Because he was a wizard, he was able to cast spells with his words. The frightened, the lonely, the broken, and lost: these were the ones who most easily fell under his spell. Leaving loved ones and possessions behind, they journeyed to the desert on a sacred pilgrimage just so they could stand by his side and learn from his teachings.
It came to pass that the wizard stood before his congregation one foggy morning and announced that the great hero had come to him in a dream. The hero whispered in the wizard’s ear, sharing with him divine instructions and repeating them over and over until they had been committed to memory. So the wizard kissed his wives upon their mouths, closed the oak door on his workshop, and was only seen by his most trusted knights for nearly two cycles of the moon.
When he finally emerged, the wizard had grown a bushy beard and held aloft a vial of magic liquid. What made this liquid magic was that it was actually alive. Tiny creatures, much too small to be seen, swam within the container and the wizard told his people how these organisms were actually bits of the angel Gabriel, who would cleanse the world with his fiery sword.
The magic liquid was then transferred, a little at a time, into other containers that were called cigarette lighters. Cigarette lighters had a little button that, when pushed, would cause fire to jump out of a hole on its top. The wizard’s special cigarette lighters, however, produced no flame. Instead, there was a small tab that could easily be pulled out. Once the tab had been removed, the liquid turned to gas and seeped out through a crack in the plastic that was thinner than a human hair. The gas then carried the pieces of the angel Gabriel into the air, where they could be brought into the body through breathe.
In this time, there were also giant metal birds that flew all over the world. The birds would land at nests where people, like you and me, would climb into their bellies and be carried away to distant lands. And it was to these nests that the wizard and his disciples went.
Instead of allowing the metal birds to eat them, however, they stood outside the nest and watched for people who had normal cigarette lighters that had stopped working. Using a decoy lighter to produce fire, they then swapped it out for one of the Gabriel lighters and told the weary travelers to keep it as they had many, many more. So in the course of a week, bits of the angel had been sent out to every kingdom of the Earth.
And that, dear children, is where the fucking fairy tale ends.
II.
Tanner Kline crept through the forest with the stealth of a mountain lion. Placing one foot in front of the other, he was acutely aware of every brittle twig and dry leaf. The worn soles of his combat boots hit the moss covered earth heel first. His toes then followed suit in a rolling motion so smooth and practiced that the sound of his steps were no louder than the wind rustling the trees overhead. He breathed as slowly as he walked, pulling air through the cloth particle mask that covered over his nose, and then exhaled it through his mouth so measurably that the dirty cotton didn’t so much as bulge.
On cooler days, the mask was the worst piece of his uniform. The elastic band held it so snugly to his face that the metal band across the nosepiece felt as if it were grinding into his bones. In addition to this, the air within the mask always felt warm and moist, which lead his skin to itch in the places where the concave piece of cloth rubbed against his cheeks
and chin. On this particular day, however, it wasn’t the mask he mentally cursed –it was the white Tyvek suit that crinkled like a tarp with every move he made.
Originally, the suit had been designed to keep chemicals from leaking onto the clothes and skin of workers unfortunate enough to spill a barrel of sulfuric acid or caustic. As such, the material was so tightly woven that not even the smallest drop of contaminant could seep through its pores. The inverse, however, was also true. The suit trapped body heat like the glass walls of a greenhouse, even within the shade of trees.
Tanner's back and chest were slick with sweat and he knew he'd have to stop for water soon. But first he had to ensure the immediate area was clear: it simply wouldn't do for him to unzip his naked body from the protective shell and take a long pull from the canteen slung over his shoulder only to have a Spewer come along. He'd be as defenseless as a baby bird with a broken wing, his entire body exposed to potential infection. As a Sweeper, it was his job to be cautious and methodical, to patrol the forests surrounding his settlement and eliminate threats to the community. Dying out here, in what should have been his realm of expertise, would be a dishonor that would taint his family for generations to come. So he had to be certain he was completely alone before he'd so much as pull the mask from his face.
He stalked through the clearing, circling the perimeter as birds chirped overhead, and clutched his antique thirty-ought-six in gloved hands. The wind whispered through the boughs of trees as sweat trickled down his spine. Even more than a drink of water, he wanted to feel that breeze on his bare flesh, to relish the coolness of evaporating sweat and let the stink of his body be buffeted away. When on patrol, he usually hoped to stumble across a Spewer; besides the swell of pride that accompanied a clean kill, there was a certain satisfaction that came with knowing he'd made the world a little safer for his daughter. He dreamed of a day when she could run and play in the fields without the escort of an armed guard, when she could just be free to be a kid. But, at least for now, he prayed that there was nothing out there but plants and wildlife.
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