by Jack Quaid
Out of determination?
Out of luck?
Who knew? But the son of a bitch was dead.
“Typical,” Parker said. She tossed the machine aside, pulled her machete from its sheath, and gripped that bad boy as the slashers circled.
Corey’s words intensified, and with it, so did the wind swirling around the church. It sounded like a tornado out there, like at any moment, everything was about to kick it up a notch. If there was one word to describe this situation, that word would have been fucked.
Corey yelled into the wind. “Ogthrod ai’f, geb’l—ee’h, yog-sothoth, ngah’ng ai’y, zhro.”
The slashers all took a step forward. The circle grew smaller, and they were all just about to attack when suddenly, the roof tore off the church, flew up into the air, and got sucked into the hell gate.
Then, one by one, each slasher tried to attack Corey and Parker, but just before their blows were about to hit their targets, they were sucked up and out of the church and into the hell gate. And it wasn’t just the slashers in the church. Slashers all around Bastard Town were getting sucked up into the air and thrown back into hell.
FIFTY-SIX
Corey kept going. “Y’ai ng’ngah, yog-sothoth. H’ee—l’geb. F’ai throdog. Uaaah. Ogthrod ai’f, geb’l—ee’h, yog-sothoth, ngah’ng ai’y, zhro!”
With each and every one of his words, a slasher was sent back to hell—all except one. No matter how hard the hell gate tried, there was one slasher left with his feet on the ground. He was a real old-school-looking slasher as well. Big and ugly, he was wearing a mask and gripping an ax. He was going straight for Corey. There was no mistaking it—Corey Hayes, reading from that Book of Evil, was firmly in the slasher’s sights.
He swung his ax, and for a moment, it looked like it was all over red rover for Corey. But at the very last millisecond, Parker jumped in, and with one hard blow, she separated that slasher’s arm from his body.
The suck from the hell gate was so powerful that the arm didn’t even fall to the ground like an arm that has just recently been cut off should, but it hung there, hovering in the air. Parker had seen some crazy shit in her time, but a severed arm suspended in the air was completely new to her.
Nevertheless, despite missing an arm, the slasher still tried to take a couple of steps toward Corey, who was still shouting out those words from the Book of Evil, but his feet seemed to weigh a hundred pounds each. No matter how hard he tried, it was becoming close to impossible for him to even move. He kind of just stood there, frozen, for a moment. Then, just like all the other slashers, he was sucked up into the air and straight through the hell gate.
A soon as he made it through the fiery rip into another dimension, the hell gate slammed shut, leaving a horizontal line of sparks lingering in the sky for a couple of moments before dropping from the sky and extinguishing then falling to the ground. The wind, the noise, and the horror of it all disappeared. It was suddenly just another peaceful night in Bastard Town.
Covered in sweat, blood, and grime, neither Parker Ames nor Corey Hayes knew exactly what to say, so for a long time, neither of them said a word. Parker slumped to the floor, with her body so full of aches and pains that the idea of moving was about as appealing as sitting through an entire Barry Manilow concert. The most she could manage was slipping her fingers into the pocket of her jeans and taking out a crumpled-up pack of Newports. She pulled out two cigarettes, slipped them both between her lips, and lit them. She passed one to Corey, and the pair of them stayed like that while the morning sun broke through the night sky and the birds chirped somewhere off in the distance.
Corey smoked that cigarette down to the butt, and when he was finished, he crushed it under his shoe. “You know,” he said. “I’ve never, not once, been out of Bastard Town. My dad was here. My friends were here. The jerks in my American History class were here, and now they’re all dead.” He looked at Parker. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“I might have an idea,” Parker said with a smile.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Samantha Jane was convinced there was a monster under her bed. She was eight and a half years old and old enough to know that monsters didn’t really exist, but there she was, lying in bed, convinced there was a monster underneath it. When she finally made the decision to go downstairs and tell her mom, it took her almost ten minutes to work up the courage to even move a muscle. She was so frightened that every single little move from sitting up to sliding off the end of the bed to putting on her slippers took forever, because for some reason, she thought it would be better to escape her room in slow motion rather than making a mad dash. So after close to ten minutes, Samantha Jane was out of her room, down the hall, and standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at her mother sitting on the couch and watching Miami Vice.
“There’s a monster under my bed,” Samantha Jane said, almost scaring her mother half to death with just the sound of her voice.
After she got over the initial shock, Samantha Jane’s mother climbed off the couch, made her way up the stairs, and leaned down to her daughter. “Baby, you know monsters don’t exist.”
Samantha Jane wasn’t buying it and pointed with her finger back down the hall to her room. “He’s under the bed.”
“Okay,” Ashley said with a slight tinge of frustration in her voice. “Let’s go have a look.”
When they walked into Samantha Jane’s bedroom, Ashley paused and looked around. “Now, where’s that monster?”
Samantha Jane pointed under the bed.
“Is that where he is?” Ashley asked.
Little Samantha Jane nodded.
“Okay, then.” Ashley got down on her hands and her knees, and when she looked under Samantha Jane’s bed, all she found were a couple of dirty socks and dust.
“See? There’s nothing there,” she said, climbing back up to her feet and wrapping her arms around her daughter. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Samantha Jane climbed back up into bed, and her mother tucked her in, nice and snug.
“I’ll put this on,” Ashley said as she turned the nightlight on Samantha Jane’s bedside table. “Just to keep the monsters away, okay?”
“Okay,” Samantha Jane said. “And if I’m not scared, I’ll turn it off.”
It was a deal.
Ashley gave her daughter a kiss, switched off the overhead light, and closed the door behind her, leaving the room washed in a glow of blue. Samantha Jane wriggled around a little bit, just trying to find a comfortable position, and once she did, the girl closed her eyes.
She wasn’t afraid anymore, and she didn’t need the nightlight. She was a big girl now. So she reached out from under the covers and flicked off the nightlight.
Darkness fell over the room, and for a moment, everything was the way it should be—calm, quiet, and peaceful.
Then the closet door creaked open, and out of the darkness emerged two boiling-hot red eyes.
Samantha Jane screamed. Then just as that scream left her lips, her bedroom door was kicked open, the lights flashed on, and there stood Parker Ames with her trusty machete in her hand.
Standing right next to her was Corey Hayes. He had a chain saw in his hand and a grin on his face. “You’re in deep shit now, slimeball.”
THE END… FOR NOW
Dear reader,
Most people have a list of places they want to visit. Some people might want to visit Paris, others might have always dreamt of seeing the Grand Canyon. I have a list of places I don’t want to visit and Bastard Town is now at the top of that list. Also, don’t ever send me a teddy bear in the mail like that kid got at the beginning of this book. That would freak me out.
The last Parker Ames novel through our chainsaw wielding hero into her strangest adventure yet… motherhood. Set ten years after the mess in Bastard Town, Parker has left all her hacking and slashing ways behind her. He’s got a home, a family, a job and she couldn’t be happier… that is until Hurricane Williams rolls into tow
n with a score to settle.
To download Parker’s next hack ‘n’ slash adventure head straight here: XXXX
And if you want to leave a quick review for Escape from Bastard Town on Amazon that would be great.
We hope you had fun! Thank you for reading! You rock!
Luke Preston
Also by Jack Quaid
World War Metal Vol: 1
World War Metal Vol: 2
World War Metal Vol: 3
Captain of the Universe
arcade squad
Star Defender
Game Over
Escape from Happydale
Escape from Bastard Town
Escape from Slaughter Beach
Exorcist 90210
The City on the Edge of Tomorrow
A Coin Operated Future
A Fist Full of Credits
For a Few Credits More
The Good, the Bad and the Artificially Advanced
Atomic Pussycat
Hard Boiled: Reloaded
Hard Boiled: Out of Exile
Hard Boiled: Extraction