Plebs

by Jim Goforth

  "What? Why?"

  "Because the Plebs will be coming. I know that, you know that, everyone who knows anything about the Plebs knows that. All this blood, all this meat. And nice fresh meat is liable to keep them rooted in the one spot for a whole lot longer. Giving us time to do what we've got to do."

  "You can't do that!"

  "And who are you to be telling anybody what to do?" Blaise said. "In any case you don't get a choice. We already have one incapacitated person to fill the spot and since I don't fancy lugging Lardass anywhere, you're coming with us."

  "You can't make me do shit, bitches. I'm not playing your stupid games."

  "Games? You think this is a game? You didn't have to burn our camp down. You didn't have to kill anyone not in with Raven, or not quick enough to get away. You didn't have to come out here with Errol Haskell and his band of fucking psychos. And you didn't have to bring the mentally defective deranged Plebs from the underground out here to get loose and pose a massive threat to anyone and everyone here. But you and your fucking gang of traitors did.

  You did all of that and more, way fucking more. So you right here, you're going to be accountable for what you and your crew have done.

  So, if you think any of that, or this is a fucking game then guess what darling? It's game on and you're in. So let's play."

  This all came out in a grated scowl while Blaise leaned in very close to Lynn, her green eyes dark with menace and her visage set in a hard unremitting expression.

  A whimper floated from the left hand wall and Corey guessed it must have issued from the one he referred to as Pierced Girl, also known as Hayley, or less complimentary, Lardass.

  She must have come to as well, just in time to hear that she was the number one candidate to be left behind in the church ruins, the fresh meat to entice the Pleb hordes to hang around St Agnes a little longer than they might otherwise have.

  Corey almost felt sorry for her...and Lynn too.

  Then he remembered what they'd done.

  Lynn was one of those instrumental in undressing Ryan, leaving him exposed and vulnerable to Jett, had helped 'prepare' him for the unwilling sexual activity.

  If Melissa and Blaise hadn't crashed the party quite literally, she probably would have been next in line to follow Jodie in molesting Ryan's headless corpse.

  Unless Corey was intended to be next for the fucked then decapitated treatment.

  Then it would have been him, headless and sprawled under a perverse gyrating necrophiliac.

  As for Hayley, she was the one who captured the bouncing severed head of Ryan, lewdly rubbing the dead face against herself, no regard for his death and no remorse for her actions.

  Corey had no remorse for her now. Any inklings of pity he might have felt for her plight immediately vanished.

  Fuck her and fuck Lynn too. Let them be ripped asunder by the Plebs.

  Wonder how amusing they would find death then, when it came to claim them in the shape of horrendous black claws and slavering bestial Pleb maws.

  Memories of the horrible moments leading up to Ryan's death and everything thereafter put Corey in mind of another worrisome matter, but before he had the opportunity to voice it the two renegade girls spoke up again.

  "I didn't do anything!" Hayley whined from her spot of floor, her voice thick and husky.

  "Yeah WE didn't do nothing," Lynn chimed in, shrinking under the baleful intensity of Blaise's glare. "We were pretty much forced to be part of this all. Raven, Jett and Errol, everything has been their idea."

  "Really?" This came from Desiree, and her beguiling eyes were slitted in fury.

  She strode to where Lynn cowered and stood above her, the Toxic Twin guise well and truly engaged.

  "Fucking really Lynn? You didn't strip Ryan to be Jett's play thing; you didn't laugh and cheer when he was decapitated? You had no plans to have your own fill of his helpless body? And you Hayley? You didn't facefuck his severed head, cackling like a sick fucking lunatic? These things were all done by the hands of others were they? You two are pure and innocent as the driven snow right?"

  Lynn was taken aback by Desiree's verbal assault and she cowered even more, seemingly having lost her ability to speak.

  Corey made a mental note not to get on the bad side of Desiree, filing it away alongside notes he already had along the same lines about Blaise and Melissa.

  God forbid he ever do anything in the relationship to hurt Desiree, her sisters in violent retribution were liable to chop him up into meaty chunks and mail separate parts of his dismembered body to every different continent around the globe.

  With Ryan hot on the list of current topics Corey took his chance to speak of his troubles, dropping his concern into the heavy sea of silence that swelled up as Desiree stared Lynn down, waiting for a response.

  "Ryan's body," he said. "I don't want to leave him here to be ravaged by the Plebs."

  Eyes turned to him, understanding his need, but ultimately saying it was impossible.

  "Corey, I'm feeling you there hun," Blaise said gently. "Really, I am. But how fast do you think we'll be able to travel with us tied up trying to carry Ryan too?"

  "We can't leave him here like this for those beasts. I've already lost Tim and I don't see how we're going to be able to go and recover his body before something-someone-whatever gets to it. I don’t want Ryan to suffer that indignity too."

  "Shit, Corey, this is about survival," Melissa said bluntly. "Are you going to carry him? And his head?"

  "If I have to," Corey replied resolutely, though inwardly he knew they were right and pursuing it was a case of banging his head against an immovable wall.

  He didn't want Ryan's corpse to be left here amidst the pile of human wreckage knowing that when the Plebs discovered it they would eat parts of it as readily as any of the others sprawled around the church, but nor did he want to have the headless figure -as well as the decapitated cranium- so close to him, carting it through the minefield of danger and threat of the woods all the way back to where they left their cars.

  Not only that, but if they were ambushed by the Plebs on their mission what were the chances of keeping Ryan intact -or rather, the separate pieces of Ryan- as well as fending off the feral brutes, trying to move fast and fundamentally remain alive?

  "Here's what we can do," Blaise spoke up. "How about we put Ryan in that room back near the confessional where the clothes are? We can bury him under all the things in there, keep the door shut. Chances are when the Plebs come in-and they will-they might never look there."

  Desiree nodded in assent. Corey knew even she would be opposing the notion of carrying Ryan and his lopped off head the distance they had to cover and Blaise presented a viable alternative.

  Really, the only viable alternative.

  CHAPTER 46

  "Okay, that's a plan," Melissa decided. "We're losing minutes but I understand where you're coming from Corey. You happy with that idea Corey? Take it or leave it."

  Corey nodded firmly.

  It was the most appealing notion, not that there was anything remotely appealing about transporting a corpse missing its head, as well as that head, especially when it was one of his best friends, anywhere. At least it was a far better one than leaving him among the bodies of his killers, all to be rendered identity-less meat probably sooner rather than later.

  "Grab his feet then. Or his...upper body," Melissa ordered. "Make it snappy."

  Still nodding Corey picked his way through the tangle of slain forms, aware of the pooling and congealed blood underfoot sticking to the soles of his boots, squelching unpleasantly as he walked to where Ryan lay motionless.

  "I need a knife." Ryan was still lashed to pews on either side, spread-eagled in some disfigured crucifixion pose. "Never mind, got one."

  It wasn't particularly one he wanted to touch, but it was a knife nonetheless, one of the implements originally used to cut the dead man’s pants from his legs by Jodie or Lynn.

  Discarded on t
he floor, it was residing in puddles of blood, tacky with the residue.

  Shreds of Ryan's pants lay scattered around also so Corey seized one of them to wrap around the handle though the fragments of fabric were also blood spattered.

  He slashed the four ropes binding the body, studiously attempting to avoid too much lingering with desolate eyes at his buddies deceased figure.

  It was now a Catch 22 as to which end of the body would be best to carry since he was designated to be one of the carriers, no way around that.

  He did not want to be up near the gory stump of a neck, but nor did he want to be down the other end with the corpse still naked.

  It wasn't the fact of seeing Ryan's exposed genitals, it was more the atrocious memories of how they had last been used, before his death, during his death, even after he was dead that left Corey cold.

  'Make a choice Corny' he chided himself and took a deep breath, hoisting Ryan's bare legs.

  Desiree looked back up the aisle and started to make her way up it.

  Melissa stopped her with a firm hand across her chest, just above her bountiful breasts.

  "I'll do it babe. You stay and keep an eye on this dog," indicating Lynn. "Blaise, get Ryan's head."

  "Where's Ryan's head, Hayley you twisted cunt?" Blaise snarled at Pierced Girl, now sitting up with her back to the wall.

  Corey had been trying to avoid looking at either part of Ryan's mutilated body ever since they'd re-entered the church, but now it appeared imperative they locate it, a fact he really only had himself to blame for.

  "There," Melissa pointed and randomly Corey noticed on her pointing finger that her nails were still painted black. Staring at her fingernails kept him focused on that rather than following its trajectory to see the item in its line, but all the same the black polish made him start thinking about Plebs and their hooked black talons.

  Blaise carried the severed head in one hand, possibly by the blonde curls; Corey wasn't sure since he was walking backwards.

  She lead the way, ready to click on her flashlight for the dark room and the other two followed, a spartan and rudimentary pair of pallbearers for the temporary burial in clothes.

  Looking at Melissa was a far more attractive proposition than gazing down at Ryan's dead nudity.

  Even splattered with blood, dried crusts of it and otherwise, Melissa was still a hell of a stunning beauty, frightening and intimidating for sure, but irrefutably gorgeous.

  As they exited Corey heard Desiree addressing Lynn, her softy silky voice still laden with simmering anger and threat.

  "And what about me Lynn? What was going to happen to me? You were just going to sit back laughing and cheering while your degenerate friends used me and Corey however they pleased? Or did you fancy a crack at Corey yourself? Tell me, were you suddenly going to develop a conscience at that very point and put a stop to everything?"

  "You, well nothing was supposed to happen to you. Errol would have been breaking the agreement. You were for Raven only. Errol wanted Blaise, but he thought she was dead. So since Raven wasn't here..."

  "Fuck you!" Desiree slapped Lynn across the face with a powerful vicious slap that hammered the woman’s head sideways. "Don't come at me with any shit about being forced to do things. You were all up to your necks in it from the word go. Just like Blaise said."

  "She'll be lucky if she's alive by the time we get back," Blaise remarked as she switched on her torch and shined the ensuing beam towards the door.

  Corey wasn't sure if she was joking, being ironic or matter of fact. He guessed that Blaise meant it.

  After her ordeal thus far Desiree was a furious ticking time bomb and just maybe she was ready to blow and start racking up a body count to match that of Melissa and Blaise.

  Lynn was still alive once the trio completed their grisly task and returned to the main body of the church and both she and her wounded compatriot Hayley were still chattering needlessly, fruitlessly attempting to win a stay of execution as it were.

  "You're going to carry his friend who is already dead, even his chopped off head, and hide him just so the Plebs can't get to him, but you're going to leave me here, a cripple since Melissa broke my knee, you're going to leave me here unable to walk just to be slaughtered? Come on, that guy is dead, he doesn't care what happens to him, he doesn't even know! But me, I'm still alive, I'm wounded, I need the help. I need to be hidden. Come on, where's your humanity?"

  "You're the fucking reason he's dead in the first place! You and your twisted psycho friends killed him!" Corey exploded, wanting to run up and kick her face through the back of her head, punching all those piercings through her skull. "Don't you talk about humanity; you don't have any right to it!"

  Melissa went one further.

  "Humanity Hayley? Humanity?" She snarled. "We don't have any. We don't have any, remember? The press, the newspapers, they've had plenty to say about that. None of us three have any humanity whatsoever. Twilight Twins, Toxic Twins whatever they called us from week to week, and Black Widow Justice. We are killers. Forget the real purpose behind why we started doing what we did. Or better yet just completely concentrate on that purpose and you might begin to acknowledge that it isn't just rapists, abusers, rock spiders and kiddy fuckers we're dealing with now. We've branched out into a whole new bunch of vengeance. And you, you debased worm, you happen to fit right into that bracket of new scum that need to be eradicated.

  So know this, we don't have any humanity."

  "Too fucking right," Blaise added simply.

  "We wanted those personas dead and buried," Desiree had words to say too. "And we had achieved that. We were doing good things too, we had lives and we'd created a sanctuary for troubled women-women like you and those that threw their lot behind Raven-and it might not have been an absolutely ideal existence, but it was better than most of you came from. And you all destroyed it. So if you want the old us back, worse and more vengeful than you would ever have remembered, you better be real careful what you wish for!"

  Melissa's seething words were like a grenade going off and Desiree's followed like a nuclear warhead detonating.

  They punched into Hayley and Lynn, stole all colour from their faces and rendered them both immobile and speechless.

  They knocked Corey's breath out too.

  Desiree's dark side bubbling up to the surface was an eerie and frightening thing.

  He already knew his life as he knew it was now drastically changed forever in many more ways than one and if he was still alive by the time the dust settled on the most terrifying violent night of his entire existence he had no clue what was going to happen after that.

  "On your feet Lynn," Melissa commanded. "We're moving out."

  "Now, bitch!" Blaise ordered when Lynn failed to move, still shocked. She followed through with a solid kick that thumped against Lynn's thigh.

  Another failure to do much more than squawk in protest got Blaise's gun barrel jammed up under her nose, and then Melissa and Desiree together hauled her up, almost pulling her off her feet altogether.

  "No!!!" Hayley suddenly wailed. "No, don't leave me here, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry; I didn't know it would go so far, this far, I'm sorry!"

  "Burning down a whole established village which was a refuge for women who needed that safety and massacring them in the very place they were supposed to feel safe, betraying them all, that seems like it was going pretty far from the very start," Corey surprised himself, his virulent statement sounding like it should be coming from the mouths of one of his three beautiful but deadly companions. "So fuck you. There's no sympathy for you. You deserve but what's coming to you."

  "Fucking A!" Blaise enthused. "Now we're cooking with gas!"

  Desiree grabbed Corey, spun him around and planted a big passionate kiss on his mouth.

  Even Melissa was impressed, an admiring grin tugging at the corner of her lips.

  "That's the right mindset Corey. That's why we are going to walk out of this hellatial fuck up of
a night."

  "Maybe we should gag this one," Corey indicated Lynn, on a roll now. "So she doesn't scream like a banshee to alert any of the others."

  "Good fucking thinking 99," Blaise declared.

  She immediately grabbed Lynn's arm clad in a long sleeve top and set about slicing one of those sleeves off, then the other. With them she made a tight gag wrapped around Lynn's face, pulled into her mouth, clamped between her teeth.

  She worked so rapidly Lynn, who had been mustering up a scream, inspired too late by Corey's words never got the opportunity to unleash it, the would-be shriek became a muffled blur of nothingness.

  "As for you," Melissa directed at Hayley. “Scream your goddamn lungs out. Scream the motherfucking walls down if you wish. Maybe your verminous traitor friends will come and rescue you before you become Pleb fodder. And if they do well that's awesome. When we come to kill them, we'll get to kill you too."

  "Let's get out of here," Desiree decided. "We've been here too long already I think. Front or back door?"

  "Back," Melissa said without hesitation. "I considered the front, but chances are they could spread out in the woods like we were while they were in here. There's also the chance that whoever shot at me may have gone around the back or Haskell has sneaked back but shit, it's six of one half a dozen of the other.

  We've gotta go one way or the other, I think back is the best choice. More immediate cover out there and we can get almost straight into the woods and then circle around the way Blaise and I came down to begin with. Better than going out the front and having to be right out in the open before we hit the trees."

  Corey had to agree with that logic, the back was definitely the better option.

  Though there was still an off chance that Errol made the decision to return, or even that the shooters in the woods might have elected to follow Melissa's path and then deduced she’d entered the church through the back, Corey didn't fancy going out the front to whatever indeterminable hell might be lying in wait.