Brew

by Bill Braddock

  Cat brought the pan down hard on the kid’s head. The noise it made was straight out of a clown show, a muffled gong and all that laughter clipping off abruptly. The kid belly flopped onto the floor and went all loose and wobbly.

  "Let’s go," Cat said. They ran down the hall, passing an open door through which Steve registered a vaguely familiar girl sprawled motionless on the floor, and entered the stairwell, where smoke filled the air. They rushed down one flight of stairs, turned the corner, nearly cleared the next, and slammed to a stop just above the second floor landing.

  Chapter 7

  The guy lumbered toward her like something out of a nightmare. He was fifty or fifty-five and looked it. Big barrel chest, bigger belly, the whole thing furred over with gray hair. His dick, strangely skinny for his stout body, poked from a tangle of white pubic hair, its head swollen purple. Worst of all was the mask. It was standard issue; a zippered, black leather S & M number that Joel had picked up at the sex shop outside of town. These old timers were raring to do the girls, and they loved that it would play on the web, but they weren’t about to show their faces. This guy’s overeager eyes filled the mask as he leaned over Jenn, who didn’t look so fired up anymore. To her credit, she managed to smile…but her arms were crossed over her tits, and she was drawing her legs up as if she were about to be kicked.

  "It’s okay," Joel said, sipping his tonic water and trying to look casual. He could feel cold sweat running down his back.

  Tonight was Old Boys’ Night. For Joel and the rest of Theta Omega Xi, that meant treating sixty-some alumni to a knockout party that would leave all these old, horny bastards with the impression that all remained well back at the frat. If you did it right, the old timers, some of whom owned businesses verging on empires, would hook you up. Joel was making pretty good money off the Fratfuckin website now—horny guys everywhere wanted to see real college girls screwing frat boys, it seemed—and he’d keep that for as long as he could, get somebody else to do most of the legwork, and use the thing for passive income, but he really wanted a power position, something corporate that would afford him the lifestyle he’d always known he would attain.

  Everything had been going so smoothly. Now things were getting kind of fucked up.

  The old heads ringed the couch, mesmerized. Joel noticed with distaste that at least two of them had their peckers out, stroking them. Creepy shit. The night had better pay off big. His inner business voice swore it would. "Relax, Jenn. You’re okay, babe."

  Jenn nodded and unfolded her arms, but her legs remained drawn up tight. The guy was hovering over her now, blocking the shot and beaded with sweat. Drops of it fell onto Jenn, who was still trying to smile.

  "Hey, bud, you’re blocking the shot, man," Dean called, but the old guy didn’t adjust.

  Probably doesn’t even hear Dean, Joel thought. Carpe fucking diem.

  The old guy reached down and took Jenn’s breast in one of his boxy hands. As he groped her, he shuddered and moaned, mumbling in a low voice. Jenn laughed nervously then winced. "Ow," she said, still smiling. Her eyes flicked toward Joel, not a drop of smile in them.

  Reading her desperation, Joel said, "Ease up there, Mr. P. No rough stuff. Nice and easy."

  Mr. P shivered. He sounded like he was growling. The other guys stood there wide-eyed, beers in hand, grinning like madmen. Most of them had their cocks out now. Joel and Dean exchanged anxious glances.

  "Ouch!" Jenn yelped.

  The guy had her by her hair and was turning her roughly onto her stomach.

  "Hey," Joel said. He stepped forward, but a pair of brothers interposed.

  "Let him have his fun," one of the guys said. "It’s okay."

  The energy in here was bad. Way bad. Having orchestrated plenty of orgies, Joel knew the weird, nervous vibe that got rolling as things were getting going. It felt like anything was possible, and the hardest thing to do was to just stand still and do nothing; but the energy here was even higher, and dark, too, an eerie, violent edge to the whole thing.

  "It’s okay," Jenn said, turning her head sideways to face the camera. "It’s okay. You don’t have to get rough. I’ve got what you want." And she lifted her ass toward him.

  The circle was closing. The old heads were stepping out of their pants now, jumpy and focused, both at the same time, like a bunch of speed freaks.

  From behind the camera, Dean caught Joel’s attention and raised a brow. Joel twirled his finger in the air: Keep rolling.

  Mr. P was in full rut now, thrusting hard enough to drive Jenn into the wall over and over. She raised her arms to protect her head.

  Joel sipped his tonic water. I’ll make it up to her. Pay her triple, no problem. For as fucked up as these guys are, they’re rich, and they’re getting off. This is their wettest dream come true. Hell, if I find the right girls, legacies would come for this weekly.

  But he didn’t like the other guys closing in. The whole thing was supposed to be straight as an arrow—a few old guys getting their rocks off with some young college girls, the whole thing caught on film and uploaded to the website that these guys could access from their suburban baronies in weeks to follow; it was supposed to be straightforward and one-on-one, no rough stuff, certainly no rough gangbangs. Now, unless Joel did something, this little underground party might lose him his best girl, and that was totally unacceptable. No way was he going to lose Jenn.

  "Lighten up, guys," he said. "One at a time, and let’s keep things nice."

  One of them flipped him the finger.

  Jenn was crying. Some of the assholes were grabbing her, poking her, pinching her.

  "Stop," Jenn’s voice said. "No more."

  Mr. P. kept thrusting away, and more old heads closed in. They started yelling and laughing so loudly that Jenn’s cries became inaudible. Joel knew he had to stop this. But how?

  One of them threw his head back and shrieked, loud and shrill as a siren.

  And then Joel had it. He motioned to Dean, who left his camera to cross the room.

  "What do we do?" Dean asked.

  "Run upstairs. Pull the fire alarm. Move."

  Dean nodded and ran.

  Joel ran a hand through his hair, willing Dean to hurry. Shit. What a mess. They rolled Jenn over on her back. Her eyes were shut, and Joel could see her crying though he couldn’t hear her over these crazy bastards. One of them arched his back and popped off. Then another one let go. And another. Fuck. What’s keeping Dean? I’ll be lucky to keep Jenn from calling the cops.

  With disgust, he noticed one of the old heads was actually drooling. Green? Green drool? What the hell had this guy been eating?

  Then Mr. P punched Jenn in the face.

  Her nose shattered in a fan of blood. She had just enough time to shriek once; then his fist was thrusting into the red mess that had been her nose, and the room exploded with a roar of appreciation from the dazzled old heads.

  "Bastard!" Joel yelled, moving toward Mr. P, who was now choking her, the sick fuck. He drew his leg back, ready to drive a kick into the mask; but then, really seeing the others, he stopped himself. A mass of arching backs, wobbling potbellies, and wagging erections, they squeezed her and poked her and sucked her, sucked her thighs, her fingers, her breasts…

  Then one of them, Epson was his name, the guy who’d been joking earlier with Joel about setting up naked corporate conferences, raised his head from between her legs, and Joel screamed.

  Epson wore his own mask now. Washed to the eyes in blood, he grinned at Joel, his teeth clamped around something wet and red and meaty…a chunk of Jenn’s thigh.

  Joel didn’t kick anyone. He didn’t yell for them to stop. He rushed up the stairs and hit the main floor of the frat house hollering, yelling for help, expecting an army of brothers to rush to his aid.

  What he hadn’t expected was the hell awaiting him there.

  First he saw Carter, the pledge he had forced to sprint naked up and down Sorority Lane. Carter wasn’t running anywhere now; n
ow he was lying flat on the floor, staring dead ahead, his head obviously broken in some awful way. It was distended at its top and flat on one side, and blood was pooling around one ear.

  Everyone was fighting, screaming and laughing, brother versus brother, killing each other. Marcus was beating someone—it looked like one of the old heads—with a fraternity paddle he’d yanked from the wall; Jenkins and Hutchinson were dancing and grunting and laughing, plunging kitchen knives into each other’s backs and stomachs; two girls were raking some brother’s head back and forth over the jagged teeth at the base of a shattered window, literally sawing through his neck.

  Joel stood, unable to move, unable even to think, staring in disbelief. He saw Rodriguez crossing the room, coming at him with what looked like a table leg, hopping bodies, ten feet, five…but Joel couldn’t move. Shock paralyzed him. Rodriguez raised the makeshift club, howling with glee, green drool running down his chin.

  Then Rodriguez flew from his feet, driven hard into the wall by Dean’s sprinting tackle. Rodriguez slumped to the floor, huffing, patting the floor to retrieve his weapon, as Dean regained his feet and shot for the front door, jerking Joel along with him. "Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!"

  Joel snapped out of his trance and made it to the door first.

  "Joel, wait!" Dean yelled as Joel yanked the front door open. Looking back, Joel saw Dean struggling to free his ankles from the little pledge they called Squirt. Squirt’s mouth opened wide, his head snapped forward, and he clamped his teeth onto Dean’s calf muscle.

  Dean screamed.

  "Come on!" Joel hollered. A pair of old heads, both of them big, athletic looking guys, not long out of school, stared up at him from the messy remains of what had been a girl.

  Dean broke free, and now it was a race, Dean running from the left, the old heads rushing from the right, all of them pointed for the door…where Joel stood, gripping the door knob.

  Dean ducked as someone swung a fireplace poker at his head, then stumbled and jumped, just clearing an overturned coffee table. The old heads were closing in, eyes locked on Joel, on the door…

  Which he slammed.

  "No!" Dean screamed from the other side. Joel took a step back, raising one hand to his mouth as Dean hit the door. It started to open, then slammed shut with a jarring thud. And the screaming started.

  Dean’s screaming.

  Joel sprinted off the steps and down Fraternity Row, telling himself, It was Dean or you, Dean or you, over and over, till it became a calming mantra in his head. Dean or you.

  He ran low to the ground, keeping his head down to maximize the cover afforded by cars parked along the sidewalk. All up and down the street of stately stone fraternity houses, mayhem ruled. Someone hung limply out an upstairs window of Sig Tau; on the lawn of Alpha Xi, some kid humped a screaming girl until some other girl, her own mouth smeared green, crushed his skull with a paving stone; flames glowed within a few of the houses, smoke pouring thick and dark from the windows.

  "To hell with this," Joel said, coming to his BMW. There was nothing else he could do here. And starting his mantra up anew—Dean or you, Dean or you—he turned the key and roared away from the curb.

  Chapter 8

  Great, Boyd thought, just great. As if I didn’t have enough distraction. All he wanted was to finish this research and get to the party. Who spent Saturday night on the sixth floor of the library?

  Boyd did. At least tonight. Mr. Time Management himself. And now this…

  Everyone but Boyd pressed against the windows, looking down at campus, where a lot of people were screaming.

  Streakers? Boyd wondered. Finally giving in, he rose from the table and joined the others.

  Murmurs rippled along the windows. Someone ran toward the elevator. The murmurs grew more excited. Boyd peered out the window.

  "Must be a riot," someone said.

  "Idiots," a girl with frazzled red hair said. "The game."

  "I don’t think that it’s a riot," a deep voice said. "Not exactly."

  Boyd squinted. It was hard to tell from this height, but it looked like a battle royale had erupted on Flinder Avenue, fifty or a hundred people down there, moshing around, knocking the hell out of each other. You never knew what you’d see on campus. People showing off, everybody stressed out, all that booze, you just never knew. Boyd whistled, his eyes trying to make sense of everything happening six stories down.

  "No, not a riot," the deep voice continued. "It’s a fight. A big one."

  Boyd looked away from the window. The deep voice was owned by a tall, slender, black man, a handsome, together-looking guy a few years too old to be a traditional undergrad.

  "It’s the game," the redhead said, sounding disgusted. "Football-induced mania."

  "I’m not so sure," the black man said.

  "Let’s go find out," Boyd said. His spirits lifted a bit. Ditching work was bad—if he missed Monday’s deadline, he was screwed—but hell, this was something. He’d be a fool not to take a quick look, a study break, then he’d come straight back up, do his work. Simple. And the stories he’d have to tell once he got to the party…

  But he’d only made it a few steps when the black man caught his arm. "I wouldn’t go down there, friend. Not yet. Not until we know more."

  Then, as if cued by the warning, a loud crash sounded outside. "A car plowed into them," a girl at the window said. Boyd looked over and didn’t know how he’d missed her before, a good-looking girl, but all Goth, tall black boots, long black hair, and—Boyd did a double take—a pair of Halloween batwings, black and fuzzy, on her back. "Holy shit," she said. "He drove right into them."

  Boyd made it to the window just in time to see the car back off the curb and flatten two more people. The crowd swarmed it, and Boyd saw people punching through the driver’s window, people up on the hood, kicking at the windshield. Someone got the door open. The car lurched, yanking the door-opener from his feet and dragging him backward, but then the crowd had the driver, and Boyd whistled again, seeing the guy’s yellow shirt as they pulled him from the car and onto the street, where the yellow shirt disappeared beneath a canopy of stomping lunatics.

  "Holy shit!" somebody said. "They’re killing him."

  "Someone call the cops."

  "That one guy did already."

  Boyd and half the others tried their cell phones. No luck: network full.

  A skinny kid near the windows pounded fists on the glass. "What are they doing? They’re killing each other! What are they doing?"

  Down on the ground, the crowd was turning on itself again, everybody fighting everybody else.

  "No one panic," the black guy said.

  The redhead snorted. "We’re witnessing mass murder, and you’re telling us not to panic? Unreal." She marched to the table and started shoving books into her backpack.

  Boyd said nothing. He leaned against the glass, watching, the sense of waiting strong in him. This was big, something he’d never forget his whole life through, but more was coming, worse was coming. Intuitively, he was sure of it.

  "Others are joining," the black guy said. His voice, somehow authoritative, remained calm, and Boyd had to wonder about the guy, keeping it cool, not amused, no, seeing everything but keeping it together, nodding now toward West Quad, and Boyd followed his gaze and saw thirty, maybe forty students charging the battle.

  "Vigilantes?" Boyd said, thinking aloud.

  "Whoever they are, they came prepared," the black guy said.

  The mob from West Quad brandished hockey sticks, baseball bats, and broken fence rails. With an audible roar, they plowed into the others.

  "I’m going home," the redhead announced.

  "I’d strongly advise against that," the black guy said.

  The elevators groaned. The group turned. Boyd’s fingers were cold and tingly. Realizing he’d been breathing through his mouth, pulling in shallow, little half-breaths, he thought, Shit, I’m scared. It surprised him, but it was true, and fleet
ingly he was seized by an irrational fear that four or five hundred lunatics were going to come screaming off that elevator and rip him limb from limb.

  The doors opened, and a middle-aged guy wearing a library STAFF pin on his knit sweater emerged. "Hi folks. We have some sort situation."

  "No shit, Sherlock," the redhead said.

  The black guy raised an impatient palm in her direction and crossed the room to talk one-on-one with the staff member. He stood, hands on hips, listening and nodding as the staff member spoke.

  "Who does this guy think he is," the redhead asked, pissed and amused all at once, "our fearless leader? I’m out of here."

  Boyd shook his head. "Wait."

  The redhead smiled; it wasn’t friendly. "Oh, I forgot. We were ordered to stay. What are you, campaigning for Boy of the Year?"

  Boyd looked at her, and she looked at him, and he said, "It just feels wrong, like something else is about to happen."

  "You’re right," the redhead said, "and that something that’s about to happen? It’s me, getting my ass away from all this crazy shit." She shouldered her backpack.

  A few of the others stirred into motion. "I can’t study anymore," someone said. Boyd saw the skinny kid holding the elevator, people packing in with him, saw the redhead hesitate before squeezing onboard, saw the staff member shake hands with the black guy, turn, and force his way, somehow, into the overloaded car, leaving just a few people on the floor: Boyd, the bat-winged beauty still at the window, an athletic-looking Asian guy in a soccer shirt, and the black guy, who looked calm as ever but different now, almost grave. The elevator doors started to close, jarred, and reopened, and the redhead struggled free, looking pissed. "I’ll wait for the next one," she said.

  The black guy returned to the windows, saying, "I hope he has better luck talking sense into those kids than I did."

  The word kids threw Boyd a little, made him look again, and he saw he’d been wrong, that this guy was more than a few years older than traditional undergrads; thirty, maybe older, fit and sharp, but with gray in his short hair.