Plebs

by Jim Goforth

' Because there's no cover here Flynn.' Raven 'My guess, you dickweeds got fucked up and trashed all these headstones, dug up graves and shit, wrecked everything, so now there's nowhere to hide is there?'

  'Shit, they're not gonna come in here,' Errol 'What's the point of going all the way into the dark?'

  'Are you fucking serious?' Raven 'You really don't have any idea do you? They'll come in here.'

  'Scared of the dark Errol?" Jett 'Or the ghosties and creepy crawlies in the graveyard? All the pissed off spirits that aren't happy about you desecrating graves and probably robbing them for your little church decorations?'

  'Fuck up Jetset. I'm not scared of shit.'

  'Then wise up asshole,' Raven 'If you think these girls aren't going to come in here just because it’s some spooky old cemetery you haven’t learned squat about them.'

  Corey had learned plenty about his three companions and even he didn't need the imagined voice of Raven inside his brain telling him that they wouldn't hesitate to enter the cemetery; it was neither hallowed ground nor sanctified or anything that would keep them out.

  They weren't hesitating to enter it right now.

  At the gates to the abandoned cemetery Corey noticed that his line of thinking that their enemies entered the graveyard seemed to be spot on so far.

  When last he’d cast eyes on the giant partially rusting spikes of metal constituting the gates they'd been firmly closed.

  Not now.

  They were creaking open, one of them pushed in several feet, definitely enough to allow people the size of Vickerman and Haskell through.

  Once upon a time padlocks and chains kept the gates stably locked, but that was prior to the heinous hoodlums arriving to claim the ruins of St Agnes and desecrate the various surrounds.

  As for the assortment of bones that were previously hanging as adornments inside the now charred wreck of the Spot, well the suggestion had arisen inside Corey's mind while he ran through the possible scenario of the four fiends talking inside the graveyard fence that they could indeed have been sourced from the cemetery.

  At first he'd suspected they belonged to murder victims and hapless souls brought to the Spot for the twisted perverse amusements of its residents, but it was just as easy to imagine the reprobates digging up graves, destroying coffins and crypts to obtain their macabre artistic touches.

  Most likely scenario, the bones came from both outlets.

  Melissa lead the way in, twigs and leaves crunching underfoot as she did despite any of her best efforts to keep the noise to a minimum.

  Blaise followed suit, slipping into the quiescence inside the cemetery.

  Desiree came next and finally Corey who tossed a glance or two back at the big blackened husk of St Agnes.

  It was quiet there too, no more screams, no howling burning Plebs, barely even any crackles of fire.

  Corey could see no signs of movement from the place whatsoever, only slight motion from overhanging branches in the back yard, blowing slightly with sporadic gusts of wind.

  He turned his attention back to the cemetery.

  The final frontier.

  CHAPTER 52

  Already tonight Corey had set foot in all of the other places on this godforsaken parcel of land he never in his worst nightmares would have imagined he would be, and now here he was in the last of them.

  The creepiest of all.

  Filled not just with graves of ancient dead, many of them disturbed and desecrated, but also with four murderous killers with enough guns to supply a small army, no doubt heading to the deepest darkest recesses where hiding spots would be so abundant it was going to be like looking for needles in a haystack.

  Dangerous deadly needles. The type of needles that would kill in the blink of an eye.

  Despite the fact that the chill wind that existed earlier on in the evening died away to a mild bearable breeze that was present now, Corey still felt as cold as ice.

  A gun clenched in each hand and he still wanted eyes in the back of his head.

  The moon was still providing illumination galore, but there were myriad areas in here where no light would stretch, dark pockets of shadow where anything and anyone could be lurking.

  They stalked through the mass of damaged and destroyed graves, stepping over and around fallen statues, headstones and other debris.

  Glancing at some of them Corey decided his belief that at least some of the Spots bone adornments were ripped from mutilated graves wouldn’t be far off the mark.

  Some of the graveholes looked as though they had become trash receptacles instead, bones and coffins replaced by empty beer cans, food packets, tattered clothing.

  There were plenty of trees standing amongst the graves, having sprung up over the years as the place fell into disuse and abandonment and the further they journeyed from the initial plan spreading out from the fence the lay of the graves became more irregular and haphazard, and there were loads of patches where trees had free reign.

  From a distance some of the trees, even some of the headstones standing further away looked suspiciously ominous, as if they could be something other than what they were.

  All four of the group were silent now, the sounds of quiet walking all that was audible.

  Corey felt nerves starting to chew on him again the deeper they traveled into the eerie quiet and dark shadows of the cemetery.

  They only got worse as they passed the last series of rows of relatively intact headstones and grave markers that essentially were the newest or at least the very last to ever be created before this cemetery became an unused spread of land, because now they’d reached the expanse of empty land that segregated the old from the new.

  This trip ran down a gentle sloping incline to a flatter plain then dipped again into another slope before it would hit the old graves region and original burial ground.

  Years upon years of disuse, inactivity and lack of grounds keeping meant this border between the two separate areas of the cemetery was fundamentally more woods, liberally thicketed with trees, choked with vegetation and abundant smaller shrubs and undergrowth.

  Corey supposed there were a number of reasons the townsfolk hadn't proceeded with the original lines of burial and instead started it off on their own terms, marching out from the back of the garden grounds.

  Perhaps it was due to the slopes, the inclines, rough gradients and so forth that led to the decision to abandon the continuation of setting out the cemetery how it had been, but Corey was inclined to think otherwise.

  All the 'new' graves and those that had come in conjunction with St Agnes were either Catholic, or Christian, Corey couldn't quite recall and didn't particularly care. He knew it was one unified religion, the sort practiced in the church with appropriate services and the like conducted whereas all the 'old' graves were not.

  They were a vast assortment of religions, or not even religious burial sites at all.

  Beginning with simple plain graves including multiple unmarked ones, it spanned a diversity of basic wooden crosses which the elements had not been kind to, through to heavy stone ornaments, even family crypts, also intricate and ornate mausoleums.

  No particular religions were segregated; it all just meshed together making it an entirely unique and unusual collection for the dead.

  It was Corey's guess that the St Agnes congregation wanted to keep themselves far from this mish mash, believing their mingling or fraternising with heathen hordes or religiously confused would jeopardise their tickets to heaven.

  Melissa pulled the quartet to a halt at the top of the first slope, gazing down into the wilderness below.

  Some of the more impressive and larger mausoleums were vaguely visible in part, with spots of white stone or marble showing through infrequent gaps in the tree line, but for the most part it was all largely obscured down there.

  "That's the old graves down there then?" She queried though it was more of an affirming statement than a question.

  "Yep," Corey confirmed.

/>   "You been down there before?"

  "Never."

  "Well buckle up. You're about to pop that cherry."

  Corey knew it. He wasn't looking forward to it. For a variety of reasons.

  The main one being that four insane gun packing killers who wanted him dead were down there.

  "Let's finish this," Blaise suggested. She wore an expression that seemed to be an odd concoction of wrath and malicious glee, both chasing each other across her face. "It's time."

  "Okay," Melissa looked at Corey. "Stay low, keep out of sight as much as possible. Don't rush anything, don't stress and don't panic if you can't see us. At least one of us will know where you are even if you aren't aware of us. Don't betray your position unless you're dead set guaranteed of taking one of these fuckers down.

  And finally, if possible, take them alive. Sounds like it isn't an easy task, it's not as difficult as you might think. I bet none of these fools know this area at all, even big man Haskell.

  I bet he's never even been out here once."

  Corey noticed that Melissa gave no instructions or advice to the other two.

  Clearly they didn't need any. They all knew what they needed to do.

  Corey’s palms felt sweaty on the grips of his pistols. He stuck both of them in his belt and wiped his palms on the front of his shirt.

  Easy for Melissa to dispense suggestions and helpful advice and assume it wasn't quite as difficult a mission as it seemed.

  For Corey it was madness, a suicide mission, a wander into dark realms of uncertainty and very scary possibilities.

  This, the final nightmare, was going to be the worst of all. That was on top of a night where just when Corey would think nothing worse could happen it inevitably would.

  Wiping his hands didn't alleviate the clammy nervous feeling any.

  "Think of it like this. If you genuinely want to be one of the Riders, a member of a very exclusive club then this is your initiation, your final test," Blaise spoke up. "You've come through everything else; this is the very last obstacle standing in your way. Standing in the way of all of us. Just think of pushing through to get to the other side, and all of the good things waiting for us once that happens."

  She said it simply enough, but it also came out with a lascivious bent, an enticing vibe loitering in those uncluttered words.

  It sparked wonder and intrigue in Corey.

  He glanced across at Desiree.

  She held his gaze and merely smiled mysteriously.

  All of a sudden Corey wanted to power through that final obstacle and unlock whatever wonders were in store and become more than the old Corey Somerset.

  More than the shiftless slacker whose affluence killed the need to be motivated or find a purpose.

  "I'm ready." He swallowed hard, and nodded, revisiting a sequence where three sets of gorgeous female lips were taking turns kissing his. "Let's do this."

  "Good man," Blaise winked at him. "Game on babes."

  She melted into the woods, slipping away down the slope. Vanishing. There one second, gone the next.

  "You'll do great babe," Desiree assured him. "Remember what we came here to do. And never lose sight of what will be on the other side."

  She too disappeared, almost as if she had magically become invisible right before his eyes though he knew that she’d rapidly descended down the first incline and entered the thickets of trees.

  Then it was just him and Melissa.

  Melissa smiled, one of the very first true and genuine smiles he'd ever witnessed grace her countenance and it softened her face immeasurably, lit it up with a radiance that made her achingly beautiful and desirable.

  "We're meant to win this Corey. Just you wait and see."

  Like the others she too was then gone.

  Corey was alone.

  He crouched at the top of the slope peering down into the trees as if he was going to be able to see any one of them.

  He saw nothing bar hordes of trees. No movement. No girls among the woods.

  No gun toting maniacs lurking and leering out there either for that matter.

  What was to stop him now from just hightailing it the hell out of here, evacuating this hellish cemetery, back to the burnt out Spot; grabbing the grief stricken Lee and getting a car -any of the still drivable vehicles, if any existed- and leaving here forever, taking both of them way way out of the worst nightmare they ever had the misfortune of being embroiled in?

  They would be alive, scarred immeasurably, mentally and physically destroyed, and missing the friends they'd brought with them to this place of atrocity, but they would be alive.

  Many things stopped him.

  Predominantly three very important things. Desiree, Blaise and Melissa.

  Leaving here meant he would almost certainly never see any of them ever again.

  Melissa said to him they would know where he was even if he couldn't see them, so if he left, therefore they would be aware of him doing so.

  He didn't think they would attempt to stop him if he turned tail and fled. They would leave him go and wipe him from their lives.

  Corey couldn't bear that thought. He couldn't deal with the idea of never seeing any of them again, not now.

  All three of them were embedded within his mind, his thoughts, his psyche so deeply they would be there forever, for the rest of his life, which granted might not really be that long a duration if the cold blooded quartet in the boneyard got their mitts on him.

  As for Lee...well, Corey had cut Lee so much slack in his life that it virtually was all slack.

  He didn't know how much forgiveness he had left in him when it came to that fellow.

  While Corey felt like he himself had evolved in some way, Lee digressed instead.

  He knew one thing for sure.

  He would rather die with Desiree, Blaise and Melissa than escape unscathed without them in his life.

  He shook his head and slid down the grassy slope into the trees.

  From tree to tree Corey moved, feeling like some half assed survivalist evading detection out in some isolated wilderness, creeping closer to some ultimate prize.

  Presently he was in the woods of the flat plain, crunching grass underfoot.

  To his ears the noises of his walking-creeping-sounded terribly loud although he knew they really weren't.

  It was merely the nerves, the apprehension amplifying everything in his mind.

  Here the tree cover was comprehensive so it blotted out much of the moonlight.

  He felt safe to an extent in such dark, but by the same token if nobody could see him then he couldn't see a great deal either.

  It would be dicier on the final slope before graves started springing up.

  Less trees, more open spaces. More hiding spots down in the old graves where anybody watching from a secreted position could see him coming.

  That suggestion sent him down to the ground.

  He crawled. Through the trees. Through the grass.

  He placed an accidental hand on a loose rock.

  It dislodged itself from the sloping side of the hill and overbalanced Corey Somerset's precarious position coming down the gradient.

  He tumbled down the incline in a hapless tangle of limbs, scratching exposed skin on pebbles, sticks, leaves, mashing his face against dirt, and ultimately thumping the back of his head on the earth as he came to a rest flat on his back at the bottom of the slope.

  'Don't betray your position,' Melissa's voice berated him inside his head.

  'And don't be a fucking clumsy idiot Corny,' he added himself.

  Holding his breath like stilling his breathing would aid in not betraying his position, Corey lay where he'd landed staring at the stars.

  The ground felt slightly raised under his spine and he had something hard pressed against his right side, solid against his ribs.

  He came to the conclusion that he was on top of a grave and was thumped up against a headstone.

  "Shit!" he hissed in a tiny
whisper and sat up.

  Haskell and his freaks may have little to no respect for the dead, hell they had no respect for their own dead. After all they'd dropped Pat Howard's headshot corpse like a ragdoll to the ground, they'd left their friends dead en masse in the church, they'd hurled Molotov’s in to burn everything, they'd used their own people as suicide drivers, they dug up graves to steal bones, they killed their own, they left them for the Plebs to devour.

  Corey, on the other hand, had a healthy respect for the dead.

  He also had a very fervent desire not to join them any time soon.

  As he started to shift himself off the grave he had ended up on, a pair of hands came flashing over the top of the headstone and grabbed great fistfuls of his long hair.

  It was an automatic response to clap his own hands over the big meathooks tangled in his locks to wrestle free, but the unseen assailant still managed to yank him back and smack the side of his face against the headstone marker to the grave he was perched upon.

  It was certainly an action intended to knock him comatose on the unforgiving stone, but it didn't quite have that effect; with his hands clasped around those of the aggressor, he stilled much of the impact.

  It was a glancing blow, but it hurt like a sonofabitch nonetheless, dazing him and spinning a few stars dancing around before his vision.

  The fists gripping his hair too, that hurt as well, pulling at the roots in his scalp.

  He released one to slap a hand over the butt of one of his belted pistols and a bunched fist came from his hair and hammered his face.

  Only a short punch. Not much of a wind up to it, but it was brutal and hard all the same.

  Corey sprawled back and went sideways off the grave as the unidentified attacker finally released his hair and then a large black bulk vaulted over the headstone.

  Booted feet clomped down on the earthen pile Corey was formerly splayed on then one of those boots came up and stamped down again on Corey's solar plexus. Punching the wind out of him.

  Leering sadistically with moonlight pouring over his great muscled knots of shoulders Jackson Vickerman loomed above him with clenched hams for hands.

  He brandished no weaponry. Not that he required anything right now. His massive meathook fists were damaging implements as they were, free of additional pain bringers.