by Jim Goforth
Both shots tore through Jess, spinning her like a drunken ballerina, one ripping a gory hole in her throat, the other smacking her above the right breast and kicking up a gout of blood.
Pete and Jess fell almost simultaneously, a second or two after each other, going in different directions.
Pete's body thumped against the sideways bonnet and Jess splayed in the grass.
Errol turned to Lee and Tasha while Rachel, mouth gaping in soundless shock started to run towards Jess.
Jett blasted her with the shotgun.
She was about three or four feet from Jett when the necrophiliac crazy pulled the trigger.
The roaring shotgun detonation made a mess of her.
She was literally blown off her feet; stomach churned into a bloody mass of shredded muscle, fat, internal organ mush.
"This one's compliments of Greg, Hunter!" Errol barked and buried the blade of the hatchet in Tasha's face with one ferocious downward swipe, cleaving her skull, splitting her whole head in two.
Blood fountained in a geyser that poured a gruesome red rain over Errol, but he thrilled in the hot impromptu shower, leaving the murder weapon embedded in the girls devastated cranium as her corpse slumped in a shapeless mass.
Lee's horrified wailing rang discordantly in Corey's ears, his head already ringing with echoes of the gunshots and a similar screaming shriek issuing from Dennis back on the tree line.
Errol turned his gun on Corey.
Jett trained hers on Dennis.
From the bush burst an incredibly fast moving shape, cannon-balling into Errol from behind, taking him off his feet at maximum velocity.
His gun went flying from his hand as Desiree thundered his face into the ground.
Melissa whipped around in some kind of martial arts position, her extended leg sweeping Raven's out from under her, dumping her on her ass on the ground.
Corey crash-tackled Jett and as he drove her to the ground Blaise sprang up from the grass.
'At least one of us will always be a Phoenix.'
Vickerman dropped to his knees, scrabbling at the bags with lumpy fingers.
Raven found her feet again; she darted to him snatching at his shoulder.
"Just grab them and run! Come on!" She urged.
Taking her advice Vickerman did so, his brawny muscular arms bulging immeasurably as he lugged the weaponry up and followed her.
Errol slipped away from Desiree, clubbing at her with the barrel of his regained gun.
The strike opened up a thin line of blood on her cheekbone, but a glancing blow was all he could manage.
He saw Raven and Vickerman vanishing, bolting between the mass of the truck cab and the smoldering husk of St Agnes.
Jett rolled onto her back and brought a knee up between Corey's legs.
His testicles probably screamed louder than he did.
He fell off her and curled into a foetal ball, pain reverberating throughout his whole being and squeezing involuntary tears out of his eyes.
Errol managed to put distance between himself and Desiree.
He pointed his gun and it clicked on empty.
He threw it at her and beat a hasty retreat, skirting around Melissa with a solid palm off, his football days finally paying off away from the sports field.
Once more on her feet Jett knew she wouldn't be able to get them all with the shotgun.
She ran.
Melissa didn't try to get in her way as she bolted on the heels of the fleeing Errol.
She might have to reload afterwards, but she may just be able to rip Melissa asunder Rachel-style.
Following the trajectory mapped out by the first two maniacs to make their escape Jett dashed between the truck and the burnt out church corpse, disappearing into the wooded area that would ultimately lead to the cemetery.
CHAPTER 51
"They're...getting away," Corey moaned, struggling to sit up. Jett had briefly incapacitated him but in the overall scheme of things he’d copped worse blows to the balls before.
"Let them go," Melissa said flatly, her voice colder than a dip in an Arctic ocean. "We're still going to hunt them down."
She walked to Desiree and helped her up, a strong arm pulling the shorter woman into a firm embrace.
Blaise hunkered alongside Corey.
In each hand she held the two pistols, plucked from the lifeless fingers of Pete and Jess.
"You doing okay hun?" She enquired.
"Well that wasn't the highlight of my evening, but I'm pretty sure I'm in one piece. Bitch didn't really get too good a shot in on me. Won't get another chance that's for damn sure."
Corey didn't know if he was in a cocoon of shock or if he was numb or just had no more tears, but all he felt at this precise moment was a seething insane white hot fury he'd never experienced before, crackling and sizzling in every nerve end.
He stood up, supported by Blaise, and surveyed the absolute carnage of the scene spread before them.
Still wailing a long desolate keen that now subsided in pitch and volume, but not in desperation, Lee cradled the wreckage of Tasha's body, his clothing drenched in blood, his face hidden by his dreadlocks, his head bowed.
Likewise Dennis slumped over Rachel, fingers touching her dead face, a litany of murmured, but indecipherable words flooding from his persistently moving mouth.
Over at the bulk of the incorrectly positioned BIGWES Pete lay on his stomach with both arms outstretched with fingers crooked and curled, head tilted to one side.
Behind him Jess was on her back, her body contorted in an unnatural bend, muscles and limbs bestowed with a strange ability to be in positions life wouldn't give her, but death had granted.
Blood seeped in rivulets down over her arm and shoulder from the chest wound while her torn open throat looked like somebody had performed a badly botched tracheotomy on her.
Corey, Blaise, Desiree and Melissa met in the centre of the area formerly occupied by the four murderous escapees.
Corey's eyes met those of Desiree.
As always he could stare in those eyes for an eternity and drown in them.
Though she didn't smile she reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.
Looking at her, even with a trail of blood marking the beauty of her countenance was preferable to gazing at the sanguinary destruction strewn all around them.
All the same even looking upon the terrible scene, the torn dead bodies, the sight of Lee and Dennis in their inconsolable lamenting states, the slow burning cars, none of it engendered the sort of feelings in him he thought it might.
No grief, no desperation, no desolation. No fear. Only cold hard anger and hatred.
"This is it," said Blaise. "Down to us. We're it. The four horse riders of the apocalypse."
"That's good," Melissa nodded, tapping a long black nailed finger on her cheek then pointing it at Blaise. "I like that. The four horse riders of the apocalypse. We might have to use that for future endeavours. That is..."
Now she turned her dark piercing eyes towards Corey.
"That is if Corey wants to take up with three very bad female felons."
"He does," Corey nodded solemnly.
There was no going back now anyway, the Corey of old was dust, buried and gone.
The old Corey could never return.
He understood now part of what Desiree was alluding to in the car.
'Are you with me Corey?'
'Forever. To the death. And beyond.'
If he was with her, he was with Melissa and Blaise too.
"I'm in," Corey vowed. "All the way. This, and anything else."
"Forever? To the death and beyond?" Desiree asked with a slight grin twisting the corner of her mouth, her voice echoing his own that rang in his memory a split second before.
For the briefest of instances he wondered if she had read his mind.
"Yes," he replied simply.
To his sheer surprise Melissa leaned forward and kissed him, her lips soft and
pliant against his. She tasted sweet and slightly smoky.
Then she kissed Desiree. Finally she kissed Blaise.
After that Blaise kissed him too, more aggressively than Melissa and with a hint of tongue darting between his lips.
Ultimately and best of all Desiree kissed him, long and passionately.
When they broke their clinch Corey was reluctant to break eye contact with her.
Although he knew the four of them weren't going to stand around here forever, having some bizarre love square he most certainly wanted to.
He wanted to see what would happen next.
He knew something had changed, and perhaps dramatically.
He knew he was part of some inner sanctum, part of a world that was maybe the only world he would know now.
But first...first he had to survive.
They weren't just going to stand around here looking into each other’s eyes, kissing, touching, whatever else because they had to face death. For the last time.
Whatever the outcome.
Inanely the hook from 'The Final Countdown' ran through Corey's head.
It lent an air of brevity to the solemn, threatening, danger-heavy atmosphere, but Corey didn’t want the foolish sensation to steal away the air of eroticism that stealthily crept in before.
Now it was just ominous shrouds when Melissa said in a low tone,
"Okay, let's do this."
"What about them?" Corey wondered, referring to Lee and Dennis and their respective rag doll corpses, the pair of them saturated in blood and lost in their grief states.
"They're no use to us anywhere but here. They'll be in the way. They will get themselves killed."
Melissa's words hung heavy and Corey didn't have to be a genius to know how she intended those statements and he knew she was right.
As grief stricken as he might be over the dead woman he cradled hopelessly in his arms, somewhere in some corner of his brain Lee would have to know, have to acknowledge the big part he'd played in that death.
Escalating it, bringing it to fruition whether it was meant to be or not.
Corey tried to keep his mind free of dwelling on that because he didn't want to cloud it with hatred that would encompass more than just those he needed to direct it at.
He didn't need to include Lee in that too, Lee's punishment had been severe.
His stupidity, his recklessness, his endangerment of them all had been supremely costly.
Without it Pete would be alive. Jess. Tasha. Rachel.
Corey pushed it all away.
Blaise offered both of the pistols to Corey.
"Here hun, you take these."
He hesitated and she pressed them both into his hands.
"Both? Desiree?"
"You take them."
Perplexed Corey took both of the guns. That left only him bearing firearms as obviously Raven relieved Melissa of hers after she had flown through the windshield.
He didn't like the thought of Desiree, of any of them being without a gun, knowing what the fleeing foursome possessed in the weapons bag, but no concern, consternation or anything of the sort seemed to be troubling them.
"We've got our blades Corey," Blaise offered by way of explanation as if that was sufficient to pacify his worries.
He didn't press on, didn't want to draw up a lengthy pros and cons list of a handful of knives versus a heavily armed quartet of bloodthirsty lunatics who had no qualms about murder at the drop of a hat.
Instead he said,
"So why do you think they ran? When they obviously had us outgunned?"
"They ran because they knew some of them would have died if they stayed," Blaise said simply. "Raven may be mental, but she isn't stupid. She knows what she's up against. They will have gone to hole up somewhere, to arm up properly and then they'll come at us like hell unleashed. Don't think they have run away to get away and keep running to escape. They haven't."
"And since the church is cactus, their cars are probably all cactus, the best spot to hole up is..." Melissa prompted.
"The cemetery," Corey said without hesitation and then it hit him, like a brilliant bolt of lightning. "And I know exactly where they will be."
'It'll be over among the old graves. That's where it ends. Down among the old graves.'
He duly observed he was walking.
They were walking. In twos.
Melissa and Blaise ahead, Corey and Desiree following.
Leaving behind the field of death and destruction.
Lee and Dennis and their slain grief sources.
Skirting around the bulk of the silent empty Pleb carrier instead of the path between it and the blackened smoking churches funeral pyre.
"Where's that, Corey?"
"Among the old graves. Down among the old graves."
"I see," Blaise mused. "What makes you sure of that?"
'Ryan told me,' Corey said inside his own head. 'Ryan and Tim'.
He didn't repeat that out loud. How would that sound, telling them it would end, it would all be over down among the old graves because Ryan's disembodied head had spoken those very words to him while he sprawled in a fugue over the steering wheel inside BIGWES while Raven, Errol and the other two took captives and prepared to rape and kill?
What he didn't know was how it would end. What the result would be when it was all over, down among the old graves.
Perhaps seeing Ryan and Tim meant he was going to soon be with them.
"Just a hunch," was what he said aloud. "A strong hunch. They're going to be there."
"Aren't they all old graves?" Melissa wondered.
"Yes but no." Corey said. "To me the old graves are the oldest of the old. The cemetery has been here way longer than the church has.
The oldest graves are right up the very back, several hectares away from the church, they went in first. Possibly natives, indigenous people, others. Battle dead and those slain in wars, that kind of thing. I think it was probably a native burial ground of sorts before the townsfolk made it their own and then of course, they built the church."
He remembered telling Desiree parts of this back at the house. After they’d made love again...no, wait, after they'd fucked.
Good hard strong powerful passionate nerve settling fucking.
That seemed so long ago and yet it was only earlier in the evening.
Damn, Corey wanted to push through all the horror, the death, the violence, the never ending nightmare to a future where there was less of this and more of the time with Desiree. Sweet moments. So much time he wanted to spend with her, free of the curses that brought them together in the first place.
"Anyway, for whatever reason, the churchgoers, the religious freaks et cetera et cetera, once they had the church, they had the graveyard they made that their own. Only they kept their graves and plots separate from the old. Instead of carrying on placing the dead to rest in the same format the old graves followed they just started at the very opposite end, right out the back of the church garden there.
No idea why, maybe some inane fervent Christian bullshit to keep the pious separate from the perceived heathens I guess. I don't have a clue how religions work, what the deal is there."
"Sounds about right," Blaise snorted. "Religious whackjobs."
"Pretty much. So anyway, the cemetery isn't entirely a full one, it pretty much isn't even active anymore and most of the graves wouldn't even be visited any longer, families all died out and so on. It's a weird conglomeration of things all kinds of different religious denominations and even non-religious buried in it, but as I said, it's inactive to everyone now.
Technically the newer graves are in the middle of the grounds; having plots stretch out from the townspeople digging their holes as far from the old land as possible until they had no choice but to expand.
All the same there's a big expanse of land between the old graves and the new. Consequently the old graves are the beginning of the cemetery, and a long way from here."
Mel
issa was quiet, though she seemed impressed by Corey's brief history lesson.
"In that case they certainly would be the old graves wouldn't they? And what makes you so sure Raven and co are going to trek all the way to these old graves to hole up? Instead of just dropping down near the front of the cemetery ready to open fire if we show? When we show?"
"No place to hide down there. Haskell and his cronies, others with a fetish for vandalism have smashed things up pretty well. Knocked over headstones, broken them, desecrated graves, all sorts of things. It's mostly just rubble, broken stones, angel statues and stuff like that. The old section is full of much more untouched stuff, mainly because nobody goes there.
Stupid that the godpuppets wouldn't put their dead there because there are mausoleums, monoliths, monuments, all kinds of things. It's not just a heathen place. Others were using it before the church took the land."
Corey's explanation as to why they wouldn't skulk just inside the towering old wrought iron gates made sense even to himself, though mostly he'd been looking to justify why he was so adamant that it had to be the 'old graves'.
Even so, Ryan's severed head hadn't exactly stated that Haskell and company would be down among the old graves, just that it would end. It would be over, there.
Which ultimately was open to wide interpretation.
If he did happen to disclose his strange premonitory encounters with the girls perhaps they would each have different slants on what it meant.
Or if it meant anything.
Or if it just meant Corey had taken too may knocks to the head tonight.
"Guess that stands to reason too," Melissa nodded, apparently accepting Corey's reasoning.
In Corey's mind he clearly saw Errol attempting to convince Raven that they didn't necessarily need to go all the way into the dark depths of the cemetery.
While the Spot, AKA St Agnes itself, and the cleared areas, even the rubbish dump ex-garden and so forth may well have been the domain of Haskell's vile gang, Corey had a very strong suspicion that even they didn't like venturing too far into the cemetery.
Especially way back into the old graves.
'Hey, how 'bout we hold up right here? Load up some weapons and get ready to blast these bitches and bitchboys.' Errol.