13 Bites Volume II (13 Bites Anthology Series Book 2)

by Adam Bennett

  “Juan Ramirez.”

  “It was Connery playing him, and Connery is a drunk, so his attack wouldn’t have been so accurate, instead falling shy of the target, and resulting in something more random like this!”

  I sigh as Lawrence beams with his logic.

  “First of all,” I start, “that’s slander.”

  “Against who?”

  “Connery!”

  “But he’s a drunk!”

  “That may be the case, but even so, we can’t tell if he was drunk at the time of shooting that scene.”

  “Probably was.”

  “Okay, let’s assume that, Crow, but the movie plainly showed what happened. It was written for the cut to be across the front of his throat, by Juan Ramirez, and not Sean Connery!”

  “Who was also a drunk.”

  “Fine, even so, maybe intoxication is why the attack was not accurate enough to be fatal!”

  “Shut up, Mister Accuracy, with your dollar store Made-in-China nutsack.”

  “Nutsack?” I look down, and see the object he means, resting majestically atop my kilt. “Tha’s me sporran! T’was me great-grandfather’s!”

  “So you’re wearing your great-grandfather’s scrotum?”

  “Now you’re just being crass. The Kurgan would approve. But you still look more like Joker mixed with the Crow.”

  “And you look like Braveheart.”

  “And you don’t even have a sword. Kurgan would.”

  “Oh, who cares? They’re just a hassle when you go to a convention.”

  “We’re not at a convention right now, Crow.”

  “So instead, you’re just breaking the law with a concealed weapon.”

  I pulled my claymore loose from the scant sling across my back and brandished it with heroic flair. “What’s concealed?”

  “Fine, whatever, man,” Lawrence-Crow-Joker-Kurgan said, walking off.

  “So what the heck are you doing?” I asked.

  “I dunno. Maybe try for some candy. I don’t have any fireworks or anything.”

  My best friends were all either out of town, glued to a girl, handing out candy, or otherwise out of the action. “Hey, Crow… I was going to go find houses that have cool decorations and junk,” I said, resisting making fun of the idea of him trick-or-treating, “and I was going to take pictures with my phone, maybe blog about it or something.”

  “...and?”

  “Ehh, never mind.”

  “Oh, I get it, Braveheart. You need someone to take pictures of you posing in front of cool houses, and figured you could talk me into doing it.”

  I wasn’t thinking that, but that wasn’t a bad idea at all. “Look, we’re both out here alone, and there are troublemakers out there tonight. Halloween, right? All the nuts come out. You’re not armed, so I thought you might want some muscle around.”

  Lawrence the Crow Kurgan burst out laughing. “Muscle?”

  Fair enough, it’s not like I was above average strength. “Okay, fine. Not overly muscle-y, but I’m armed.”

  “And whose eye will get accidentally gouged out first?”

  I feigned great indifference, and pointed my sword out to the horizon. Such as it was, cluttered with typical suburban fare. “The eye... of evil!”

  “Yes, Braveheart. Which way, then?” Crow joined the party. Level 27 jackass.

  I looked back and forth, and spotted a noisier cluster of tweeners migrating across the road. “We go to that intersection, then re-evaluate. They were either just at some place cool, or are anticipating arriving at such a place.” I started striding — yes, more than walking, striding — towards the intersection in question.

  “All right, then, Braveheart.”

  “Are you going to stop calling me that?”

  “As soon as you start calling me Kurgan and stop calling me Crow. I’m not the Crow anymore.”

  “But you were the Crow. I was never Braveheart. And you still don’t look like the Kurgan.”

  “Bite me.”

  I took no offense. This was the friendliest that Crow and I had ever been. It was an uncomfortable condition. We made it to the intersection with no additional banter then looked back and forth down the street. The direction the tweener group had come from was practically devoid of life, other than the string of houses with lights on and lower-rung decorations.

  The other way revealed a couple of dozen people in addition to the first tweener moblet. Blocks away, I could see the attraction. A house was throbbing with light, to a beat I couldn’t hear from this distance. I’d seen this sort of thing around Christmas. The lights were wired to an audio output, or maybe some pre-programmed sequence to go with music. The ones I’d seen then were mostly in Christmas colours; red, white and green, and Christmas carols were the musical selections.

  This house was showing only red, and from this distance, I could make out some of the motions and the surges from bright to dark. As we got closer, we could hear the music. Some loud, wobble-throb-dub-whatever. Not terribly Halloween-y, but it went with the lights and seemed to be getting the blood pumping for the crowd hanging around.

  Crow started walking with a bit of a dance in his step as we approached. What a wad. I’m not saying it’s uncool to dance when you walk, but... it’s hard to explain. Have you seen Spider-Man 3? Okay, Crow wasn’t being quite that bad, but it was down a similar path of lame.

  Before we got too close to the house, the music was already making conversation all but impossible. On the front yard, a man was dancing away, wearing an outer layer made of arrays of thin strips of light, matching the color and beats of the house.

  Using my incredible deductive acumen, I deduced he lived there, and that his neighbours probably hated him.

  In spite of myself, I found my head bobbing a bit to the music. I scoped the crowd for good costumes, or even ideas for cosplays, as if I was going to suddenly dump my Highlander bit. I saw a lot of the common costumes. Two Iron Mans, one better than the other, but still store-bought. I saw quite a few “sexy” costumes. Sexy cat, sexy nurse — oh, wait! Blood! It’s a Silent Hill nurse! You know, the bloodied, bandaged around the head, demon-creepy nurse? Yow. Unsettling and sexy. Ahem. If you’re into that kind of thing.

  Then, before I got any ideas, I saw she was with Pyramid Head. Well played, sir, well played. His headgear was likely well-painted cardboard, but the oversized sword he dragged looked like metal, and the way he dragged it told me that it was heavy.

  I nudged Crow, and pointed at Pyramid Head.

  Crow held his hand in front of his face, and mimed the motions of a blow job, to the beat of course. Classy, Crow. Mega classy. I’m not even really sure what he meant with it.

  I shook my head and shrugged before making my way over to Pyramid Head and his nurse. Maybe they were convention-goers. A good costume doesn’t necessarily mean they were, but it was worth going over and saying ‘hi.’

  With the music, it was more like yelling hi. I pointed at their costumes with a smile and gave a thumbs up. There was a lull in the music before a bass drop that provided enough relative quiet to make out the word “Cool Braveheart!” from Pyramid Head, and the start of Crow’s laughter.

  I did something dumb then; I put the edge of my sword to Crow’s neck, and yelled, as the bass dropped and the lights from the house flared: “There can be only one!”

  Massively stupid. If we were at a convention and an official saw that, I’m not sure how hard I’d be kicked out. But it was a bloody epic moment.

  Thankfully, those who saw it didn’t take offence. The nurse hopped with a fist pump. She gets it. It was official. The ladies like the Highlander. Not that I expected it to get me anywhere, but I counted it as a point over the Crow.

  As for Crow himself? He was grinning. I’d already taken the blade away. Thankfully the nerdy-playfulness appeared to have overridden the grossly irresponsible act of holding a blade to his neck. Frankly, I was lucky. I’d have to make a note that Crow didn’t make an issue of it when
he would have had every right. To reinforce ‘no hard feelings,’ I gave him a genuine smile and patted his shoulder. He was grinning, and his focus was already back to the music, and the lights on the house. They were currently showing some kind of oscilloscope across the front mixed with random shapes throbbing about to the music, crossing windows, wall sections, and the door.

  I tried to figure out how it was being done. A mix of LED displays, and projectors hiding in some bushes, it seemed. The homeowner in his light-laden outfit was all that prevented me from sneaking into his bushes to check out the hardware. Heck, if he didn’t seem too busy dancing, and the music itself wouldn’t drown out conversation, I would have started asking him about his setup.

  That’s around the time that stuff started going south.

  I didn’t see the thing at first, being focused on trying to peer into the bushes, but I heard the crowd react in a positive manner. Some huge... costume? staggered out from around the corner of the house. It roared loud enough to be easily heard over the music.

  The people cheered.

  This thing was at least twice as tall as a person, and it was hunched over. If it stood up straight, it would be closer to three times. It was a muddy looking brown, and shone with moisture. Matted hair, or maybe moss, grew from it in patches. On top of its shoulders, on the thing’s head, its forearms, and I’d have to guess, on its back. Its brow was low enough to nearly hide its narrow, black eyes.

  Its ivory claws were almost as long as my forearm, and when it used its claws to strike at the house itself, about a third of the light display flickered to death as a large chunk fell to pieces on the ground.

  The reactions from the crowd were mixed. Cheers, gasps of shock, but the group as a whole reacted physically as one, backing away. The creature may as well have expanded a force-field bubble around himself that pushed people back. One guy up front tripped and fell backwards. In a movie, he’d be first to get eaten.

  The homeowner stepped forward while reaching under his light-display costume, and turning it off. He faced the creature, a few metres away. I couldn’t hear over the music if he said anything, but he held out his arms in the classic “WTF dude?” stance.

  “That monster costume moves pretty realistically,” I said to Crow, forgetting that I couldn’t be heard. Crow was fixated on the thing and not me, anyway.

  The homeowner proceeded to vigorously point at the damage. Wiring and LED scrap was littered in between the creature and him, and now and then you could hear his yells through the music.

  The creature heaved forward with a growling screech, claws connecting with the homeowner’s abdomen. They caught on the homeowner’s outfit, yanking him to the side with the crunch of tech, and a splash of blood as he fell.

  Looking around, half the crowd were on their phones, either recording the scene, or calling 911. The other half were running away. A car in the street came to a screeching halt to not hit people who’d decided to flee.

  Crow was standing fast, stunned. Pyramid Head was leading the nurse away, abandoning his thick, heavy blade.

  I lifted my sword to my side, and stood ready, judging my attack options.

  That’s right. I just saw something take down a man with its giant claws, and my first thought was “Hey! I have a sword! I’ll live, as long as this isn’t a cut-scene!”

  I think I mentioned my incredible deductive acumen? So this made total sense.

  “Stop!” I heard Crow scream at me. I turned and looked, ready to be talked out of it. In fact, reason was creeping up on me already. I could have been easily convinced to wait for police. Or an ambulance for the homeowner, who was obviously still alive, but not getting up.

  ‘Reason’ wasn’t in the cards today. Crow held up one finger, then ran over to Pyramid Head’s giant, abandoned blade. So we’ll have two fighters. Great. Hopefully we won’t need a white mage.

  I side-stepped, facing the direction of the creature, who was poking pensively at the writhing homeowner. Just as I was going to holler to Crow to hurry up, he ran past me to charge, dragging the oversized sword beside him with both hands. I was able to catch up and keep pace with him. Despite his payload, Crow was picking up some good speed.

  With his sword starting from the ground, Crow’s attack was bound to be a diagonal slash upwards, so I planned my approach at the monster to not get a face full of Pyramid-Head-blade. The monster raised its hands, probably preparing to strike downward with its claws. Thankfully it wasn’t overly fast.

  The homeowner’s hand almost tripped me up as I passed him, before I plunged my sword into the centre of the beast. Crow ran right under the bloodied claw, and he pulled up, in a baseball-like swing. The strike flew as I had guessed, impacting the side of the upper midsection.

  To everyone’s shock, it was very effective. The monster’s top half tore off to the side, taking its head, and one of its arms off in the process.

  I was shocked, Crow was shocked, the guy we found in the middle of the creature was shocked.

  A giant puppet with a man in the middle. A man who thankfully was positioned forward enough in the costume to not be impaled by my sword. It was close, though.

  We stood there, all of us stunned.

  I realized that I had just led an attack that wrecked a heck of a costume. “Uh... I’m sorry?” I said, again forgetting that I couldn’t be heard. I pulled out my sword and leaned over to see if he was bleeding. He turned to inspect himself, just to make sure. He was all right.

  I turned to check the homeowner. Sure enough, he was just fine as well. Standing, and sort of smiling, he shook his head slowly. He rummaged in his pocket for a remote for a second before the music turned off. The wall-of-sound’s sudden absence rang in my ears.

  “Everyone’s okay?” I asked. I realized around then that the people had mostly come back, but still not as close as they once were.

  The homeowner leaned over to wipe some of the fake blood off into the grass, and looked to the puppeteer. “I told you it looked good.”

  The puppeteer was still stunned, looking to either sword, the damage on the costume, and to everyone else’s faces.

  Crow held the sword vertically with the tip resting on the ground. “If I said that battle was awesome, does that make me a bad person?”

  “You’re a bad person either way, but really... guys? Uh... we’re sorry for... everything?”

  “No, I guess it’s my fault, really. I should be more careful when using props. I can fix the monster getup, and the rest of the damage was planned,” the homeowner said, “thanks for the rescue, at any rate. It’s the thought that counts. I tried to stop you, but my face was down, and by the time I saw what was going on…”

  “Yeah, you tried to grab my ankle, didn’t you?”

  The puppeteer was still trying to decide whether, and at whom, he should be mad at when the red and blue lights came around.

  “Nice Highlander costume, by the way,” the homeowner said. Well, he knew a MacLeod when he saw one. I guess he was worth saving. “But your buddy here,” he said, turning to Crow, and his huge sword, “That’s the most messed up Cloud cosplay I’ve ever seen.”

  “The... the Kurgan,” I said, defending Crow’s pride for him.

  Crow looked at his salvaged blade thoughtfully. “I think I could do a good Cloud. Wanna be my Sephiroth?”

  I gave him a cold stare. “I’m Jeremy MacLeod, of the clan MacLeod. I vote that you should not be Cloud.”

  “I can be what I want, Braveheart. You can never take… my freeeeedom!” Crow tuned to the people milling abound, and the steadily approaching police officer. “Do you want to be my Sephiroth? Anyone? Wait! Aeris! No! Tifa!” Crow scanned the surroundings. “Tifa! Any Tifas here? Any Tifas wanna go have a drink with a Crow-Cloud?”

  “Just calm down, Crow-Joker-Kurgan-Cloud-whatever.” I grumbled at him.

  “Wait! All of the Tifas can go out with me! All at once! The Kurgan demands it! In the end, there can be only Tifas!”

  “I
think Pyramid Head and his bloody demon nurse are back, and he’s looking for his sword,” I said.

  By now, the police officer, who was probably called about the monster slashing the homeowner, was now more concerned with Crow, the raving idiot with the huge sword. “Excuse me sir, is that weapon sharp?”

  “I... I don’t know, officer, I was just about to return it to the fellow with the headgear and the bloodied-up girlfriend. What’s that all about? You might want to see if she’s all right. Halloween, right? All the nuts come out.”

  Ashton-Kate Wilson has dreamed of being a writer since early childhood. Inspired by JK Rowling, at school she was often rebuked for making up stories instead of doing her schoolwork. Now that she has grown up, she is making up for lost time, working on several novels at once. Her current work includes a science fiction series (of which the first book is soon to be published) about disaster unleashed on the world by irresponsible scientists.

  Ashton-Kate lives by the beautiful Mobile Bay, from which she draws much of her inspiration. When not juggling the competing claims of her work, a demanding job and her three small sons, Connor, Anderson and Kyp, she loves to take long walks along the beach in all weathers and revels in the textile arts, including crochet and quilting.

  THE DEAL

  Ashton-Kate Wilson

  Moving has never been high on my list of enjoyable things, but nothing could be worse than this move. The last few months have been nothing short of hell. While most teenagers enjoy hanging out with friends and sports, I have watched both of my parents slowly lose their minds.

  My normal life deteriorated right in front of me as my parent’s paranoia of spirits, demons, and ghosts took over their minds completely, and within a year there was nothing left of the people that they once were. Then one night I came home from a friend’s house to find both of my once loving parents dead, the living room destroyed and everything covered in blood. The police told me later that forensics showed that my father had brutally murdered my mother and then taken his own life as well.