Just Like Hell

by Nate Southard

  Kevin awoke to a sudden sensation of cold wetness. His eyes popped open, and he saw a dark figure standing over him, back-lit by the glaring kitchen lights.

  Dillon.

  The shadow-cloaked man held an empty glass in one hand, water dripping from the rim, and Kevin guessed the liquid that had once been inside had been used to wake him. He spit water from his lips and tried his best to sneer up at his captor.

  “Fuck you, buddy. Shouldn’t have woken me up. Now I’m really gonna have to whoop your ass.”

  Dillon refused to answer, instead staring in stony silence.

  Kevin’s head sang with pain, and his back ached. He was on something hard. The floor? No. He was too high up.

  The kitchen table.

  “What’d you do, Dillon? Put me up here so you can do me? You wanna light some candles, you piece of shit? Make it romantic?

  “Go to hell, man. As soon as I get up off this table, you’re ass is fucking....”

  He tried to sit up, only to find he couldn’t. His torso wouldn’t rise, neither would his arms or legs. Something restrained them. He raised his head to peer at his own body and found Dillon had tied him down. Loops of rope covered his chest and circled underneath the table. Each of his limbs had been stretched tight, then secured to the table’s legs. He jerked at the bonds, hoping they would at least give a little, but they held him fast. He hissed at Dillon.

  “Afraid of me? Is that it? You scared I’ll get pissed off and really do some damage? C’mon, you fuckin’ pussy! Let me up, and let’s see who’s the real man!”

  Dillon turned away.

  “S’what I thought!”

  He watched Dillon step out of the kitchen, heading toward the living room. The running back disappeared from sight, but his footsteps continued on. What? Was he just going to leave him here?

  “Hey! You get your ass back over here, Dillon! Don’t you even think about walking out of here! Hey!”

  The footsteps fell silent. The air hung heavy and still.

  Kevin held his breath, trying desperately to hide the fear inside.

  The footsteps returned, heading back to the kitchen. Kevin craned his neck, looking toward the living room, and waited for Dillon to return.

  “That’s what I thought, go—”

  Dillon had an axe.

  Kevin’s breath hitched in his throat. He stared at the gleaming axe-head with wide, horrified eyes. Years of scratches marked the metal. Its red paint was dull behind a sheen of dirt. The cutting edge shined through, a wicked angle of doom.

  He saw Dillon’s fingers, bloody and cracked and dirt-caked, tighten around the handle.

  “You’re joking, Dillon. I get it, man. You wanted to scare me, and it worked, okay? Look, I’m sorry. I said that, right? There’s no reason to keep doing this. I’ll turn myself in, if that’s what you want. I’ll even tell the cops I killed Slug. I’ll say it was all me.

  “Just put the axe away. Is that cool?”

  Dillon looked down at him, shadows cloaking his eyes. He didn’t say anything.

  Kevin thought he might have seen Dillon’s jaw clench.

  “C’mon, man. It’s me. It’s just Kevin, y’know? We’ve known each other for how long? Tell me. Tell me how long we’ve known each other.”

  Dillon rolled his neck from one side to the other. He set his feet.

  “You wanna know something, Dillon? I did this for you, because I care about you. You’ve got four scholarship offers, man! One of them’s for Texas! Texas, Dillon! You go down there, you’re gonna end up in the draft for sure. You know that, right?

  “You think for a second that they’d let you keep that scholarship if they knew you were putting it to Randy-Fucking-Martin? Bullshit! They’d drop your ass like a bag of fresh shit! You know it! I did this so you could keep your scholarship, man! I did this because I fucking care! Because I care!”

  Dillon hefted the axe. He cocked it back.

  “Goddamn it, Dillon! Put that fucking thing down before I kick your faggot ass into a smear! I swear to fucking Christ, I’ll—”

  Dillon swung the axe.

  Kevin heard the blade thunk into the wooden table a split second before the pain exploded like fire just below his knee. The scream burst from his mouth like a runaway train, but he couldn’t hear it. The agony blurred out everything else. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard he saw nothing but a light so white and hot it burned all the way into his soul.

  The pain did not dull, but he stopped screaming as his breath ran out. He let out a series of choking sobs, and tears spilled from his eyes like water from a gutter. His body went rigid against the ropes, and his hands tightened into fists.

  He hitched in a freezing breath and opened his eyes.

  Dillon pried the axe free of the table and stepped around to his right side.

  He tried to beg, but the words wouldn’t come. He shook his head back and forth in desperation.

  The axe came down again.

  Another scream erupted from his throat, burning like liquid steel. It dried up and died, and his body began to buck against the table. He wailed into the room, his tongue incapable of the slightest syllable. His skull rose and slammed back against the tabletop once, twice. His eyes rolled back into his head, his eyelids fluttered, and he passed out.

  He did not wake up before Dillon finished.

  Dillon looked down at the ruin of flesh and bone that had recently been Kevin, a boy his age who he had once considered a friend. Now, there wasn’t much left that was even recognizable as human. The splintered and crushed remains of a skeleton jutted from raw piles of meat. Fleshy ropes hung off of the table and collected on the floor. Blood squished under the soles of Dillon’s shoes.

  He’d done this. He knew it and he could accept it. If anybody deserved it, Kevin did. Now that it was done, however, Dillon’s rage melted away, leaving a weary sickness in its wake.

  He needed air, and he needed to do one last thing.

  Strength all but gone, he stumbled out of the cabin’s backdoor. He traveled almost ten steps before collapsing to his hands and knees and dry heaving. His body shivered and shuddered as his stomach tried to expel contents that were not there.

  Slowly, he crawled forward, his eyes fixed on the fresh grave at the edge of the yard and the shovels that lay beside it. He willed his arms and legs to move. One last thing to do, and then he would be finished.

  He would not quit until it was done.

  He reached the loose dirt and climbed to his feet. He lifted a shovel and got to work, digging despite the pain and weakness.

  Digging because he needed to.

  Eventually, he dropped into the hole and dug with his hands. He did not stop until he found Randy’s arm, and then he only dug faster.

  He dug until Randy was free.

  Dillon brushed as much soil aside as he could, but the grime still clung to Randy’s body. The blood on his lover’s face had dried and flaked away, and he could see a glimpse of Randy’s former visage through the dirt.

  He kissed Randy’s cheek, and his tears began to flow.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he was not shocked to find his own voice sounded alien to him.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He held Randy close.

  “I love you, Randy. I love you.”

  As the sun began to rise, ending the horrible night, Dillon rocked Randy to sleep.

  Adam Clark looked up from his computer when the first explosion rocked the sales department. Through his office window he watched his employees look around with frightened eyes. He could hear a chorus of concerned grumbles through his door. One of the women screamed. Adam felt a brief surge of disappointment.

  Then the second explosion came, forceful enough to shatter his window.

  He reached under the desk and grabbed the AK-47.

  He stood up from his desk, thumbing off the rifle’s safety. Nobody was going to attack his floor and live to tell. Maybe customer service would roll over for that kind
of treatment, but not Adam Clark’s sales team.

  He exited the corner office and surveyed his team. Peter, his senior sales rep, stood up from his desk as he slapped a fresh clip into a .45. He threw Adam a nod, his eyes as cold as steel behind the coke bottle glasses. Karen let out a sigh, willing her hands to stop shaking, then retrieved a Mac-10 from her purse and machete from beside her chair. She stepped away from her desk, tossing her crimson hair from side to side, and a feeling of both pride and lust swelled within Adam. Once they had repelled the attack, he might have to take Karen into his office for a little victory celebration.

  “Who do you think it is?” Peter asked as he took his position at Adam’s side. “Accounting’s been feisty lately.”

  “They don’t have the balls to take us on,” Karen said. She grabbed the hem of her skirt and tore it, creating a slit that went all the way to her hip. Adam eyed the smooth, porcelain skin of her thigh. “Mobility,” she answered when she noticed his stare.

  “Doesn’t matter who it is,” Adam said loud enough for his entire team to hear. They clustered around him, a little more than fifteen workers. He could hear screams and sobs from the other end of the office, but his team was silent, strong. They’d be ready for whatever was coming.

  “We knew this would come sooner or later,” Adam said. “We’re ready for this. We can handle it.” He saw his team members nod, their eyes hungry. Peter hopped in place, the .45 at his side. “Take positions, everybody. We’re not showing any mercy, okay?”

  The sales team cheered. Adam threw them a nod, and they dispersed, taking their places among the rows of cubicles. He watched them approvingly. They would do fine.

  “Mr. Clark?” It was Karen, looking up at him from behind a red wisp of hair.

  “Yes?”

  She stepped closer. Her breasts brushed up against him. “Could I have a word with you once we get through this?”

  “Sure.” His throat felt suddenly dry.

  “Good.” She blew him a quick kiss, then crossed the floor, taking a forward position across from Peter.

  Then the attack came.

  It was the mailroom, the last department Adam had expected. They poured out of the hallway, hunched over and moving like apes, their warcries high and piercing. Most carried baseball bats, but a few held axes. They had smeared the blood of their previous victims over their faces and uniforms. They must have come up floor by floor, killing along the way, and now they had reached the seventeenth floor, ready to take on the sales team.

  Adam opened fire.

  The front line disintegrated as bullets tore through them. The next line danced as more rounds slammed into them. They fell as Adam paused to slam a fresh clip in, and another wave moved in behind the dead. There were a lot of them, and they were angry, hungry for blood.

  Adam began to worry.

  Then Karen and Peter joined the fray.

  Karen leaped from her hiding place, blasting the first mailclerk she saw in the face with a burst from the Mac-10. His head exploded like a melon, and Karen swung the machete in a wide arc, decapitating a trio of the beastly clerks before they even had time to spot their attacker. Peter swung his .45 from target to target, taking out each with a single headshot. When his clip went dry, he pistol-whipped a clerk before backing off to reload. Adam smiled at the sight, then opened fire again.

  Wave after wave of the primitive mailclerks came, working their way into the room through sheer numbers alone. Karen and Peter fell back to allow the rest of the team to enter the fight, and the battle turned even more savage and chaotic. Adam watched as members of his team fell, clubbed to the floor and torn apart by hand. He saw a mailclerk crouched over Tina, one of the new-hires, gnawing at her open throat. Adam shot the creature in the head, kicked another one that tried to take it’s place. He had lost sight of Karen and Peter in the course of the fight, but was able to tell their positions from the sounds of dying clerks. They would win this. There was no alternative.

  Then an electronic voice cut through the air, and everybody froze.

  “Management has called for lockdown procedure. Building will seal in five minutes.”

  The floor fell silent, the combat on hold for a moment. Lockdown procedure had never been used before, was to be used only under the most dire of circumstances. In five minutes, every exit would be sealed, as well as all windows and ventilation systems. Then, cyanide gas would fill the building, killing everyone left inside.

  Adam looked around. He had eleven team members left. They looked a question at him.

  “West stairwell!” he answered.

  The sales team charged as one unit, cutting through the last of the mailroom staff. Adam herded them along, leading them to the stairwell that would be their means of escape.

  Seventeen floors in five minutes. No problem.

  Peter and Karen held the stairway door open as the team charged through. A panicked employee came from the other end of the hall. “Help me!” cried the bloodied accountant as he ran for the door. Peter planted a round in his kneecap, and the accountant went sprawling. Karen finished him off with another burst from the Mac-10.

  She threw Adam a nod. “Let’s go.”

  The west stairwell was dark, the emergency lights sending single shafts of illumination down the walls. The sales team was already two floors below them as Adam followed Karen and Peter down.

  “Why do you think they went to lockdown?” Peter asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. We just have to get out of here before the gas starts pumping.”

  “Amen.”

  There was a shudder, a metallic groan, and Peter and Karen stalled in mid-step. Adam heard worried murmurs from his team below. “Keep moving!” he called. “Goddamn it, keep moving!”

  He heard the sound of footsteps, then another burst of bending metal.

  Then screams.

  Karen and Peter cast a glance back at him. He listened to the horrified screams below. The sound echoed up the stairway, doubling and trebling in power, until the hallway shook with the sounds of terror and pain. He charged past his team leaders and sprinted down the stairs, chasing after the rest of the team, determined to save them from whatever had happened. Karen and Peter followed on his heels.

  He found what was left of the team, a fat man named Derrick and an older woman named Clair, huddled together on the ninth floor landing. The stairway below had been ripped apart. What remained hung from the wall in loose metallic tatters.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Clair stared at him with wide, wet eyes. “Something—”

  And then a tentacle wrapped around her and dragged her off of the landing.

  Adam stared as the appendage shook Clair like a ragdoll. It was a sickly gray-green color and as thick as a tree trunk. The emergency lights glistened off of it, reflecting across the rest of the stairwell. Clair shrieked, and Derrick screamed almost as loudly. Adam heard somebody’s hand slap Derrick across his fat face, and the man quieted. Clair’s scream grew in intensity, and Adam saw blood seeping from her nose and ears. He heard her ribs snap one after the next. The tentacle was crushing her to death.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

  Then more tentacles appeared.

  They swept over the edge of the landing, slithering across the floor as if searching for fresh meat. Adam blasted them with the AK, and they retreated. More came, though, looping across the cement and steel as if they were spring-loaded.

  “We have to get to the other stairwell,” he told what was left of his team. They nodded, and he kicked open the door, his mind barely registering that Clair had fallen silent. He charged through, holding the door open for the others. A tentacle flopped through the door, and Karen hacked it off with her machete. Adam slammed the door, glad to hear it latch shut, then turned around to examine his surroundings.

  They were on the ninth floor. Acquistitions.

  Something had happened here.

  The floor was choked with fog, great white clouds
that rolled over cubicles and through hallways. Adam could only see a few feet in any direction, and his remaining team members appeared hazy and indistinct even as they stood by his side.

  “What the hell?” Peter grumbled.

  Derrick began to cry.

  “How much time do we have left?” Karen asked.

  Adam checked his watch. “Little less than three minutes. Let’s go. Stay close to the wall.”

  He led the others across the floor, the wall to their left and bays of cubicles to their right. He moved quickly, his eyes scanning the fog for any movement, any sign of life. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, but was unable to make out any other sounds. The entire floor seemed still, dead. It set his nerves on edge. Something was wrong. Something was waiting.

  “How far?” Peter asked, and Adam could have killed him for breaking the silence.

  “Around the corner,” Karen answered. “Now shut the—”

  A lonely howl cut off Karen’s admonishment. The sound seemed distant, but there was no way to tell through the fog. Another howl answered the first, and this one sounded closer. More howls rose, filling the thick air until there was nothing else.

  Derrick fell to the floor, curling into a ball and weeping. Karen looked to Adam.

  “Run,” he said.

  They broke for the east stairwell as the wolves bounded out of the fog. They were huge, each standing at least four feet high, covered in black, matted fur. They reeked of dirt and decay. Adam fired a burst from his rifle and saw one wolf’s head explode. He saw a trio of the beasts pounce on top of Derrick and tear him apart as if he were made of paper, Derrick’s screams cut off before they had a chance to really get going.

  He heard Peter bellow a warcry. The salesman began firing as he ran. He unloaded several rounds into a wolf, destroying its skull, then ejected the spent clip and slammed in a fresh one. He squeezed off three more shots before another of the vicious creatures leapt out of the fog and slammed into his side, knocking him against the wall and to the floor.