Plebs

by Jim Goforth

  Remembered Haskell burying a hatchet in Tasha's cranium.

  Raven's eyes slithered from Corey to Melissa to Blaise. No regret, no forgiveness, no repent lurked there.

  Only pure hatred, malignancy and frustration.

  The same hatred felt by Corey as he stared back at her.

  Holding the shotgun firmly he almost wished she would try and break free from Desiree so he could blow her into pieces.

  Remembered Raven blowing Jess away. Two shots.

  He would only need one. Blast Raven's hateful head right off her shoulders.

  What Desiree did next was probably worse. Less fatal, but infinitely crueler and calculating.

  Desiree flung Raven away and the dark girl stumbled unsteadily, but stayed on her feet.

  As she swiveled Desiree met her jaw with a massive elbow strike that dropped her falling face down on the rock plane of the ground.

  Hunkering at her feet Desiree took her knife and as Corey watched the wicked blade glint briefly in the glow of the moon Desiree swiftly rolled up the pants bottoms on each of Raven's legs.

  She slashed and sawed right through both of Raven's Achilles tendons.

  The ensuing scream was horrifying, bloodcurdling and ear-piercing.

  CHAPTER 54

  Raven flopped like a fish out of water, shrieking incessantly.

  The ruthlessly effective method used by Desiree to prevent her from being able to walk made Errol Haskell's complicated chairs and jury rigged ropes manoeuvres seem like child’s play in comparison.

  "Fuck," Errol groaned. He attempted to stand. The stab wounds under his arms jolted bolts of agonising fire through him. He saw Blaise standing before him and assumed she intended to do likewise to him.

  "Come on, game's over," he pleaded. "We give up okay? We're through, you'll never hear from us again hey? We'll leave town for good, we'll be dust, that's it."

  Stooped in front of him Blaise looked like some predator examining its downed prey, kicking and flapping in a death spasm.

  "Do you think that's how this works Errol?"

  "I don't know, come on come on. I mean you'll never EVER hear us, see us, KNOW of us ever again."

  "Learned your lesson have you Errol?" Melissa spoke up. "No more raping, torturing, killing, grave desecrating, kidnapping, abuse?"

  "Yes!" Errol grabbed onto Melissa's words as if they were a lifeline flung to a drowning man. "We're done with all that. Never again. We've all learned a big lesson."

  "Speaking for Raven and Jett too?" Desiree queried. She prodded Raven's flopping screaming form with a toe. "I don't think you know enough of these two to speak for them. After all they killed the old man who took them in, even if he was a twisted unit. And the creator of the Plebs."

  "Oh you fucking bitch," Raven moaned, her useless feet flapping like vestigial bits of meat. "I'll kill you and fuck you after. I'll keep your corpse for a plaything."

  "See? She hasn't learned a goddamn thing. She never will. Just like you Errol. Words are easy to throw away. Hollow words. And they mean nothing. I may as well be deaf for all I'm hearing from you because nothing you're saying is believable."

  Corey watched from where he stood, shotgun cradled in his arms.

  It would have been chilling, frightening to anybody else witnessing the three intense purposeful women with their enemies right where they wanted them, beautiful but brutal.

  Black Widow Justice and the Toxic Twins. Reborn. Rejuvenated. Remade and forced to return by the savagery and cold blooded killings perpetuated by Errol, Raven and their followers.

  Brought back into existence to once again rain vengeance upon those who deserved it.

  Of the forty or fifty women who once belonged to the refuge camp formed by the girls only five of them remained here in the cold dark amongst tombs and crypts.

  The two perpetrators of the mass funeral pyre and the three sole survivors of both that and the slew of killings carried out at the Spot, and whilst Lee and Dennis were still alive presumably, somewhere back through the darkness in the vicinity of St Agnes, here was only Corey.

  So any pity the old Corey might have felt watching the trapped lunatics drained out of him. Here in its place was only cold hard satisfaction.

  'Humanity?' Melissa's words from back in the church rang through his memory. 'Humanity? We don't have any.'

  "Raven," Desiree said quietly. "No you won't. You won't kill, you won't hurt, you won't torture, you won't betray, you won't destroy anyone. Anything. Anymore."

  "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you ALL!” Raven screamed furiously; spit flying from her mouth, her body thrashing, her limbs flailing.

  "You know what?" Melissa spoke up. "You are all like the three unwise monkeys. Well, four unwise monkeys." She included Vickerman's prone figure in that.

  Blaise nodded once and then as Corey looked on, knowing profoundly that Melissa's offhand remark was in fact a chilling directive, she hoisted her knife and cut off Errol Haskell's right ear.

  She tossed it away in the dark, wiping the blade on the front of his shirt.

  "You hear of evil and you want to do it. You hear evil all around you and you encourage it. You hear your victims begging, pleading, you hear their cries. You ignore them. So you won't be needing this."

  She sliced off his left ear. Flung it like a diseased dried apricot in a different direction to its fellow.

  Howling in pain Errol fell down on his back on the stone floor, grabbing at the sides of his head, then clapping hands under his arms, thrashing, flopping, yowling, kicking.

  He looked like an abstract artist unsuccessfully trying to incorporate spray-painting with blood with unorthodox break dancing.

  Jett began to scream, relentlessly and loudly, her banshee shrieks tearing through the night in a soundtrack of aural horror.

  Raven however, went dead quiet.

  "Jett," Melissa addressed the screaming sister. "You yourself are just a sheep. You see evil and you revel in it. You see what you want and even if it doesn't belong to you, you have to take it. You see what the instigators do and you have to be just like them."

  Renewed terrified screams ripped from Jett as it dawned on her which monkey she was.

  She clawed desperately at the foot planted firmly on her throat, but Melissa ground her boot down further, crushing her attempts, the clamouring scrabbling fingers of Jett weakening.

  Corey could drum up no sympathy for Jett, no remorse whatsoever.

  Remembered her astride Ryan's helpless body, riding him. Urging Mohawk to strike and cleave his head from his shoulders at the moment she climaxed.

  Remembered her blowing Rachel's guts out with the very shotgun he held now.

  Melissa suddenly dropped and punctured one of Jett's eyes with the point of her blade. Then the other.

  Blood, optic fluid, goopy stuff exploded from around the blade.

  Jett's screaming went on and on and on, thin, reedy, horrible.

  Corey already knew what was coming next.

  Desiree stalked around Raven, stood astride her, one foot on either side of her body.

  "No you fucking don't!" Raven gasped, wriggling hopelessly along the stone path.

  Desiree followed her, flipped the traitor queen over onto her back. Dropped both knees into her stomach with savage force, punching the wind and all will to move out of her.

  "And you Raven. Well you're the worst of the lot. You speak evil and others listen. Others are manipulated by your evil tongue and the hate that breeds in your mouth and they clamour to do your bidding. They blindly follow, and then they betray those who offered them sanctuary. The more evil you speak, the more evil is done, and ultimately when you've expended all those pawns you need to do your bidding you do the evil deeds yourself. You manipulate, you control, you speak evil, you breed hatred and death and you brought back a culture we tried to eradicate. You've undone so much hard work; you need to be undone yourself."

  Corey remembered the blazing funeral pyre of the girls camp
s and Desiree's abject desolation, remembered wondering if Raven was among the charred corpses until he discovered she was the mastermind of the destruction.

  Remembered her laughing at him falling in the lake, remembered her praying for Lee to fall from the perilous rope bridge to his death.

  Remembered her kicking and stamping on the captives out in the field surrounded by thuggish onlookers waiting to rape and murder.

  Remembered her taunts, her insults, her cruel laughter, the evil glare in her snake eyes.

  Remembered her slicing Serena's belly open so internal organs fell out to distract the Plebs while she, Errol, Vickerman and the others could escape the marauding beasts and inflict more torment on others.

  Remembered her shooting Jess down, a bullet through the throat, another kicking up blood from her chest.

  So it was with a sinister sensation and feeling of malevolent glee, triumph and perverse pleasure that he watched as Desiree cut out Raven's tongue.

  Jett's screams ran ragged into harsh sobs, Errol's bellows almost bordering on the same and Raven with her vile mouth filling with blood could do nothing but choke on it.

  Melissa turned eyes toward Corey, the one surrounded by the star tattoo looking even more piercing under the moon when she moved out of a tombstone shadow.

  Blind Jett wouldn't get far, Raven could neither walk nor talk, it was only Errol who might have been able to mount any sort of offensive.

  And Vickerman.

  "It seems with the three standard monkeys all used up we still have one monkey left. Corey? You want to do the honours?"

  See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Corey racked his brain.

  The old Corey wouldn't have a bar of this, the old Corey would have probably thrown up or passed out or both long long ago. Long before he’d even made it this far.

  Not this Corey. Not the Fourth Apocalypse Rider.

  This was the final part of the initiation. This would forever shed the skin of old slacker shiftless, purposeless idle rich kid Corey Somerset.

  He thought for a second. He knew at least three sets of eyes were watching him.

  He strode to where Jackson Vickerman was stirring, groaning, mumbling curses.

  Remembered Vickerman suggesting the rapes and murders of Lee, Tasha and Serena.

  Remembered Vickerman warning Errol and Raven about Pete and Jess trying to save the day, and essentially sealing the deaths of both.

  Remembered brutal fists pummeling him, wrenching his hair. Smacking his head into a headstone.

  He stepped on one of Vickerman's outstretched wrists.

  "You, Vickerman. You and your big brute hands. You do evil with them, you listen to what Errol says and you do as he tells you. How many unfortunate women have suffered at these meathooks? Too many I'll wager. No more. For all of you, it's game over."

  Corey pushed the muzzle of the shotgun right against Vickerman’s hands. Discharged it. Blew all of his fingers off in a shower of blood and bone fragments.

  Then he repeated the process with the other hand.

  Vickerman's hammy hands now looked like just that. Bloody fingerless stumps. Big gore dripping balls of ham.

  He bellowed hopeless hollow curses that dissolved into choking strangled utterances that were barely audible and barely made sense anyway.

  Looking around from face to face, Corey witnessed approval on all three of his girls -his girls?- on all of the three women’s countenances.

  Nothing but savage joy, triumph and power exploded inside him. No sorrow. No regret.

  "Where's the bags you stole from us?" He addressed Vickerman.

  "What do you fucking need them for? You've already ruined me!"

  "Not completely. Still have to carry out my promise of blasting a hole in your junk don't I? This is going to make a bigger mess than my pistol."

  The shotgun was empty of course; both barrels spent on removing the fingers from each of Vickerman’s meaty paws but stupefied with pain, Vickerman wouldn't have any idea about that.

  "Motherfucker, they're in the open crypt back there. Next row over."

  "Shut it Vickerman!" Errol hollered, sitting up with his face a blood-soaked wreck. Blaise might have sliced his external ears off, but he could still hear just fine; she probably should have driven her knife points into his eardrums. "Oh you fucking bitches will pay. My fucking ears."

  "My fucking fingers!" Vickerman added. "What the hell do you expect me to do with no goddamn fingers?"

  "Nothing," said Melissa. "I don't expect your life expectancy to extend to any point where you're going to require fingers for anything."

  "Watch him," Blaise advised. "I'll go get the bags."

  Both Desiree and Melissa nodded in unison and Corey lifted his shotgun.

  Maybe Errol was a little more with it than Vickerman to realise it was empty, but Corey doubted it.

  He was losing more blood than a hemophiliac in a dodgem car so he was probably a fraction preoccupied by that.

  All the same he made a last ditch effort to take down those who so violently and comprehensively turned the tables on him and his psychotic gang.

  He lunged, aiming for the person closest. Desiree.

  Almost as one entity the Toxic Twins struck.

  Desiree put her knife through his left palm; Melissa mirrored the attack with a blade through his right.

  They dragged him to where Raven lay.

  Melissa brought up her knife with Haskell's hand skewered and plunged it through Raven’s left hand.

  The tongueless Raven couldn't scream, she could only bubble frothy red blood rivulets while her eyes widened in agony.

  "Corey," Desiree said, and that was all she needed to say. He knew what she wanted.

  He hauled the blind screamed out figure of Jett and dumped her alongside Errol's other out flung hand.

  He punched Desiree's knife blade remainder through Jett's hand himself.

  Blaise returned while the three of them were affixing Vickerman to Raven's free hand.

  She halted and then a smile swept broadly over her face as she gazed upon the skewered psychos.

  "That's a nice touch," she nodded. "If you want to go hand in hand with maniacs, careful how that's going to end."

  Around them Corey became aware of the fact that they were not alone in this old graves region of the cemetery.

  Something lurked, skulked, loitered among the graves and the tombs. Creeping amidst the crypts, stealing through the dark of the shadows. All around.

  Surrounding the bloodstained area, swarming amidst the trees.

  Slowly Corey swiveled around and around in a full circle, the useless shotgun clasped in his hands.

  Plebs. Everywhere. Hordes of the beasts.

  Some still pale and white, almost resplendent in the moonlight. Some blackened with ash, others with scorch marks, black charred blistered skin. Some horrendously disfigured with facial features that looked as if they were melting.

  Others missing limbs, or hands, ears, some with their bristly hair tufts burnt off and yet others, untouched by the ravages of fire, eyes gleaming malevolently through the dark.

  Blaise saw them too. The smile didn't drop from her face though.

  Desiree and Melissa must have noticed them too, shit how could they not?

  The creatures were all around them.

  Corey's triumph died away to a terrible cold knot of fear.

  Blaise regained the pilfered bags of weaponry, but for what?

  There was no time to rummage in them, find guns, load guns and start up a final desperate stand against the feral bloodthirsty brute’s right after he thought the final stand was just about played out.

  He felt despair settle a midnight black shroud around his entire being.

  After all this, after everything that had eventuated, was this really how it had to be?

  Yet, the Plebs did not attack.

  They came up through the trees and amidst graves and crypts, but once they reached a certain point they
just stood, watching proceedings almost reverently.

  Waiting.

  Waiting to be invited?

  Corey was shitting bricks, but he was puzzled too. His companions seemed completely devoid of concern.

  Melissa held her hands aloft, slowly turning around encompassing all the assembled Plebs in her steely and still triumphant gaze.

  "Here you are Plebs," she said. "Those that would control you, enslave you, imprison you, use you and ultimately try to eradicate you. Our little present to you."

  "What the fuck?" Errol twisted his head up to see. His eyes beheld the circle of Plebs, the unharmed ones, the burned ones, the horribly deformed ones. "No! No!"

  Raven too saw what he saw. Her screams were soundless, her eyes conveying all her utter terror in a litany of expressions.

  "What? What? What is it?" Jett couldn't see what her fellows witnessed, but she knew it was a source of sheer horror for them.

  "The fucking mutants," Errol moaned, yanking hopelessly with his hands, vainly attempting to free himself from the blades pinning the lot of them together. "We're fucked."

  "We've taken out revenge," Melissa continued to address the waiting Pleb hordes. "Of sorts. Ideally we would kill these degenerates ourselves, but in effect it will be poetic justice handing them over to you. You can take your revenge."

  Corey didn't know if the Plebs understood a single word they were being addressed with, but as he gazed upon them, their patient reactions, their quietly reserved and reverent nature as Melissa spoke, he acknowledged incredulously that they must.

  "They're yours," Melissa finished. "And essentially since they've relocated you from your home, these woods are yours too. The four of us will bring no harm to you."

  She turned to the others, drawing Blaise and Desiree in to her with her arms, Desiree reaching a hand out to grip Corey's.

  "Let's go," Melissa said quietly and began to walk up the stone path, away from the row of crypts.

  She turned the group right and started them all moving up the original pathway Corey first trailed down after Jackson Vickerman.

  To Corey's total astonishment the ensemble of thronging Plebs parted, moving aside and away to let them through, and begin the ascent up the sloping walkway.