by Jim Goforth
For some reason, in the split seconds before it landed again he thought his passenger door was open, and snapping off.
Desiree vanished off his lap.
Blaise bumped against him and then he went into a spell of darkness.
The bloodspeckled spectre was coming towards him again.
It wasn't as he remembered it.
This time it was bare-chested and had blonde curls. It was Ryan Richards.
His head still toppled off his shoulders and came to rest out the front of a swirling miasma of fog that appeared to be in a constant state of motion.
Ryan's head spoke to him.
"If it seems like the end," Ryan's disembodied head said. "That won't be the case."
Big Tim Hayworth appeared out of the mist. He stood near Ryan's headless form.
He wore a spear through his eye socket as if it were some kind of fashion accessory. He grinned the big goofy Haymaker grin as if he didn't even know he had a great length of sharp bloodied steel protruding from his face and extending out the back.
"If you think its curtains," he said. "It won't be."
More figures appeared to be milling around in the clouds of fog, but they were obscured by the perpetually shifting and thickening haze, they remained frustratingly indistinct.
Corey came to the conclusion that he was dead.
He hadn't exactly been expecting that Tim and Ryan would be bearing the very same injuries that had resulted in their sudden violent deaths, but it didn't seem to affect them any or impede on their abilities for speech.
Ryan talked with his severed head, Tim seemed oblivious of his speared cranium.
Peering behind them Corey tried to make out the identities of the many shapes there in the mist, but it continued to thwart him.
He wanted to see if Desiree was there, if she too had crossed over into this dead limbo land.
He couldn't tell, nobody, but Ryan and Tim were relatively clear and even they were surrounded by swirling misty drifts.
"It'll be over among the old graves," Ryan's voice rose from his head, on the ground before the shadowy silhouette of his headless body. "That's where it ends."
"Am I dead?" Corey wanted to know though it was pretty obvious to him that he was.
"No Corny, you ain't dead," Tim snorted, shaking his head so the spear swung from side to side with the motion. "You gotta snap out of it and get back there to finish it."
"Down among the old graves," Ryan repeated.
Corey snapped out of it; he must have only lost consciousness for a brief period of time.
He was still in the car; somehow he’d managed to get wedged over the steering wheel so instead of hanging upside down he was oddly upright and not wearing any seat belt to restrain him.
BIGWES was up on its side, the windscreen virtually completely gone.
Everybody else in the front, or rather all those who had been in the front with him before were gone. Only he was there.
He hung onto the steering wheel, turned his head slowly around in a half revolution trying to peer around the head rests to see if the back passengers got out.
Remembering Melissa punching through the windscreen in a shower of glass, elbows jolting it first and then her whole body following after.
She’d asked those in the back if they’d belted up and obviously they had done so, but none of the front four had.
Intentional decision on their behalf?
At the least the three alpha girls.
Ready to make their final stand.
Which Lee had royally screwed up.
Remembering Lee tumbling out the open door of the back passenger seat, his flailing grabbing hands snagging Tasha and dragging her out with him.
Corey saw shapes back there. He smelt smoke too, realised a small ring of flames licked around the entire car, biting at other part of it too.
He couldn't really tell if Jess and Peter were still back in the seats, he didn't know.
As for Desiree...Blaise...where were they?
It was an effort hauling himself off the steering wheel, but he managed, wincing, his ribs feeling like they had been used by a heavyweight boxing champion as a speed bag.
He dropped and felt the passenger window crack under his boots.
His head hurt once again, but nothing like it had after being clobbered senseless by Mohawks axe head flat, and he was pretty sure he hadn't actually hit it on anything as the Range Rover tipped and crashed onto its side.
Must have just blacked out for a couple of seconds. Probably still suffering from the knockout blow in the church.
He crawled out through the smashed mouth of the windshield, ignoring shattered glass fragments.
Maniacal sadistic laughter was ringing out around the arena, catcalls and triumphant jeering.
Corey crawled out further, past the sideways bonnet of the Rover, dragging himself away from the threat of flames.
Vaguely he wondered if the downed vehicle was dripping fuel from the tank and how long he might have before it was a great ball of explosive fire, roasting him and any occupants still inside.
He almost wished he'd stayed inside the vehicle until it did explode, taking him out in a massive fireball of death for he could see that would be more of a mercy than the one about to greet him here.
The other car rested about five feet or so from the tipped up Range Rover, its front end a crumpled mess, headlights busted though one still blinked a faint yellow glow.
Whoever had been behind the wheel of it was still there, albeit slumped over it, head resting against the windshield.
Though extensively spider webbed this windshield was still sitting in its frame, but the mass of blood matting the hair of the driver and trickling along the erratic cracks where the top of the head rested seemed to indicate that the person who'd slammed the auto like a lethal weapon into the side of BIGWES wouldn't be trying that manoeuvre again in the near future. Or ever.
CHAPTER 50
Corey saw that where they were was just off to the left of the church, almost at the big dark mass of the Pleb trailer.
To his left, as he craned his neck towards the source of the lunatic laughter he saw Errol Haskell standing just under the tree line, his pistol held aloft in one hand, a hatchet glinting in the other.
At his feet lay the curled figures of both Lee and Tasha, their respective recognisable heads of hair, dirty dreadlocks and long blonde curls identifying them instantly.
Blaise sprawled on the ground too, motionless, over in the centre of what was essentially a rough semi-circle created by those responsible for scornful laughs and malevolent sounds of triumph.
Above her stood Jett, fully dressed now as opposed to the last time Corey had laid eyes upon her, jumping bare assed out of the church window to flee the vengeful Melissa.
She'd appropriated the shotgun Blaise was formerly holding prior to the intentional collision and prodded the prone figure cruelly and unnecessarily with its nose, even once swinging it and clubbing Blaise in the back with it.
And Melissa. Raven had accounted for her.
Surprisingly she wasn't laid out on the grass like her friends, but she may as well have been for the end results were going to be identical for all of them.
She was midway between sprawling and kneeling, one knee propped on the ground, the other leg splayed out in front of her.
Raven stood behind her with a fistful of her hair wrapped tight around her hand.
In Raven's other hand she held a knife. To Melissa's throat.
A thin red line already spanned across the white of Melissa's skin as if Raven had already dragged the blade lightly across it, not quite enough to slice flesh and draw blood, just adequate to burn. Threaten and act as precursor to the inevitable.
Finally, completing the semi-circle of terror was Jackson Vickerman, a malicious smug smile on his face as he surveyed the wreckage, apparently not caring one iota about the state of whoever had been used as the driver of their suicide car.
>
He had nobody prone at his feet. What he had was the two bags of weapons, neatly lifted from BIGWES and the van.
Behind them the ruins of St Agnes still burned, but with the majority of wooden material burnt, the stone segments remained standing and the intensity had simmered down now, leaving a smoldering husk trailing acrid smoke into the air.
Corey could see nobody else. No Desiree.
He already knew what must have happened to her.
She was crushed underneath the side of BIGWES, dying or dead already.
He recalled her passenger door coming open as the hammered vehicle tilted and then she was gone, a split second before it thumped solidly on the ground.
Then Corey blacked out.
Whatever happened in those precious seconds...minutes...however long he was out for...left Desiree interred beneath the body of the Range Rover, Melissa captive to psychotic Raven and her throatslitting blade, Lee and Tasha dragged by Errol Haskell from wherever they had fallen from the careening BIGWES, Blaise subject to shotgun whippings from Jett and Vickerman in possession of all the weapons.
Obviously Pete and Jess remained in the wreck of the car. Knocked out. Or dead.
This was game over. The final stand wasn't about to be made by any of them.
It all came crashing down with the brutal impact of the suicide driver plowing into them, plans hamstrung by Lee's obsessive compulsion to prevent Melissa from carrying out what ever mission or agenda she had in mind.
Now Haskell had him… and Tasha. Raven had Melissa. Jett had Blaise. Vickerman had all the weapons.
Leaving the rest of them with very few options and very grim futures.
Corey debated attempting a crawl back to the ruined BIGWES to find his gun. A gun. Any gun.
None of the captors seemed to have paid any attention to him.
Did they think he was dead inside the car which now had flames starting to gather over it where fuel must have leaked or splashed?
Fuck, he had to go back. He had to get Pete and Jess out. But he didn't want to catch a glimpse of Desire's tangled body underneath the mangled auto.
He hadn't seen her there, but nor did he want to. He knew she was there.
Fuck it, what did it matter? It was all over for each of them.
Trying to haul the duo still in the car wasn't hauling them to safety. It was handing them a worse death.
"Hunter, Hunter, Hunter you little stoner fuck," Errol chortled. "Finally your number is up dirtboy. You've been ducking and dodging, running and hiding for years, but now...at long long last it's the end of the line. No Hayworth to save you your ass, no big bad crazy killer chicks to do the same. Finished for you all."
He punted Lee in the ribs with a boot and a stifled protest from the victim showed Corey that he was, perhaps unfortunately, still alive.
As with the couple unconscious -or dead- in the backseat of the Rover any death was going to be more merciful than at the hands of these four lunatics.
Ryan could attest to that, Caroline, Serena, anybody else they'd slain.
"Thaaat's right!" Raven sneered, twisting Melissa's hair tighter still, yanking at her scalp pressing the blade firmer against her throat.
Any wrong move from the star tattooed leader and she would be likely to hari-kari herself.
At this point in time Corey guessed Errol didn't particularly care if she did, he most likely would have preferred her out of commission anyway knowing full well of the violent mayhem she was capable of.
He would still commit all the heinous acts he intended to regardless and once they were all dead it would be at him and his cronies’ leisure.
"Gonna save Flea now Melissa?" Raven persisted. "Gonna save anyone?"
"I don't think so," said Jett in a sinister sing song chant. "Had your chance, blew it. Now it's your turn. To die!"
Vickerman just continued to smirk and nod his head emphatically.
"After we have some fun," Errol stated. "Or before. Might be better if you die first though, then I know you'll be no trouble. Cheating me out of my time with the fine slut. But hey, I got the bitch I really wanted back so no hard feelings hey? I'll save my 'hard feelings' for you 'til a little bit later on."
"But only a little bit." Jett held up a forefinger and thumb to specify just how little a timeframe the imprisoned ones would have to wait until being abused.
"Ha, can't get enough can ya Jetsetter," Haskell winked and aimed another kick at Lee. "Shame the fine ass bitch didn't make it to the party."
Those words scored deep wounds of pain into Corey, confirmed his worst fears.
He lowered his head to the grass, feeling the anguish and wretchedness eat into his body and gnaw on his heart.
Soon enough it would be over. Or actually, probably not soon enough.
He dully wished the Range Rover would just go ahead and blow up, but he knew that wasn't really likely to happen. Movie trickery. Impressive impossibilities.
The likelihood of it exploding like some fantastic motion picture action sequence was about as remote as Tim Hayworth parachuting out of the sky with a bazooka to save them all.
"For now," Haskell continued. "Hunter's gonna get his. Been a long time coming for the little weasel."
With this he jammed the gun he flourished into the waistband of his pants and used that freed paw to seize a big handful of Lee's dreadlocks, pulling his head back.
Lee's face was a terrible grimace of pain, eyes squeezed shut tight.
"Open your eyes bitch, I want you to see what you got coming."
How long would it take to get to Haskell, Corey wondered frenetically. Just how long would it be before one of the others got to him?
Or just loaded him up with lead?
He was surprised Vickerman hadn't bothered to arm himself with anything yet.
Still, why would he need to? He had bag loads of weaponry at his disposal, but there was nothing immediately threatening here ensuring he needed to make use of it.
There were no Plebs in sight anywhere. Possibly those who hadn't perished in the church fire decided to just high tailed it far off into the woods.
Leaving the fucked up foursome to their fun and games, the surrounding area around the Spot now freed up to be their own sick and twisted playground, the way they’d originally intended it to be.
Haskell held the hatchet up in front of Lee's face, loosely in his palm.
"Open your fucking eyes Hunter!" He commanded, punctuating the words with rough jerks on Lee's dreads.
Lee obliged, cracking his eyes just enough to see the weapon mere inches from his nose.
"Here you go Hunter, have a go. Grab at this why don't you? See if you can get it and take a swing. Go on, free swing."
Lee snatched at the hatchet. He snatched air.
Haskell closed his fist around the handle and raised it.
"Ah too slow Hunter. Too bad."
Something dropped from the trees above. Two of them. Landing on top of Errol Haskell.
One on his back was Dennis King. The other was Rachel, falling, but hooking an arm around his neck.
He staggered under the sudden weight of the pair, fell to his knees and released Lee.
Dennis rained blows on his head. Rachel choked him in a headlock, punching at his chest and midsection.
Errol found his feet and clawed Rachel's arm off him.
He punted her away and then rapidly backed against the trunk of the tree, slamming the aggressor on his back hard against the woody obstacle.
As Dennis released him with a grunt of pain and fell to the earth Corey made his move, bolting from his sprinters start position towards the melee.
Haskell whipped out his pistol, stepping away from Lee, Rachel and Tasha, moving out to see who dared assail him from above.
Corey stopped frozen as the steely eye of Jett's shotgun sought him out.
"Yeah, you sit tight Corny," she nodded.
"Fucking what? Dennis?" Errol blared incredulously with a demented edge of
laughter seeping into his voice.
Dennis crouched, looking like a cornered animal, his eyes nervous and panicked, but flared with anger too.
He pointed a shaking finger at Errol.
"You leave my friends alone Errol," he advised.
"The fuck? Your friends? Your fucking friends? Since when, dickweed? Since fucking when have Hunter, Somerset and these bitches been your friends?"
"Since they know how to be friends. I'm warning you Errol. I killed Wes and I killed Pat too and I'll kill you too if you don't let them go."
Errol filled the air with a stentorian gust of laughter that was an equal mixture of incredulousness, genuine amusement and scorn though an impressed air lurked in there as well.
"Shit, I'll be a motherfucking son of a gun. You? You killed Wes? And Patty? Well shit, I didn't see that coming. Still, guess it doesn't really surprise me. I'd love to be able to say damn Dennis your balls finally dropped, but well you shot Wes in the back and Pat in the back of the head. Not really manly stuff is it?"
"Dennis is twice the man you'll ever be Haskell," Corey snarled. "Nothing you do is manly you piece of scum fuck. At least he fights for his friends instead of leaving them to die; he knows loyalty to those who will treat him like a person instead of a circus freak fall guy scapegoat."
"You fucking been inhaling laundry detergent Somercunt? Dennis isn't shit, never has been shit and never will be worth being shit. How this has come about that he thinks you fucking idiots are his friends I have no idea, but I find it pretty goddamn amusing. And as usual, Dennis, you've come up short. So now you can die with all your 'friends'."
"Watch out Errol!" Vickerman suddenly bellowed.
Emerging from the twisted wreck of BIGWES were Pete and Jess, bloodied but alive, Pete gripping Corey's pistol, Jess with the one Desiree must obviously have dropped as she disappeared from the teetering vehicle on impact.
Errol swung his pistol up and pulled the trigger, the shot cracking through the night air.
The bullet punched Pete in the face and a red mist erupted around his visage.
Raven released her grip on Melissa's hair, whipped up the gun she'd stuck down the back of her belt and blasted twice.