“You got that right,” Big Six shouted over the trance music. “Better idea. You put your gun down, then we can speak.”
“Okay, okay.”
Big Six dropped the duffel next to his foot and aimed his gun at the car. “Who else is in there with you?”
“We’re all here.”
Toe Tag booted the car door open and jumped out with his gun drawn.
The DJ didn’t know who to look at first. He looked from Freddie to Ahmed, who climbed out of the car. Toe Tag’s gun reflected the beams from the disco ball and into his eyes.
The DJ covered his face with his arm and tried to block the light.
Toe Tag clutched the hanging remains of his face as he spoke. “We need to get outta here. It’s all cool. We just need to ghost before the cops show up.”
“What happened to your face?” Big Six asked.
“Just a flesh wound.”
The DJ’s retinas grew smaller as he focused on the bizarre beauty of the woman exiting the passenger side of the car. Unaffected by the carbon fumes produced by the Bugatti’s exhaust, she drifted through the smog and joined the shaken Ahmed.
Toe Tag and Freddie held their guns at Big Six, who returned the sentiment and threatened to fire.
“What’s going on here?” the DJ asked himself.
“I’ll tell you what’s goin’ on here,” Big Six said. “We got ourselves into a real sticky situation. And it’s gon’ get even stickier if these two pricks don’t drop their guns.”
Freddie stepped forward and peered at the duffel. “Big Six?”
“Fuck me. You’re learnin’ fast, my terrorist buddy.”
“I got an idea.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, man,” Freddie tried with caution. “You take the cash. We take the ride. We’re even, yeah?”
Big Six thought about the offer. It seemed too good to be true. He turned to Toe Tag for his approval.
“We cool?”
“Yeah,” Toe Tag said. “We cool.”
Freddie and Ahmed exchanged glances. The latter shot the former a deep look of confusion.
“What?” Ahmed mouthed.
Freddie winked back, hoping Big Six would bend over and lift the duffel up from the floor. “Yeah, see. It’s a good deal. And we all walk away.”
Toe Tag knew what Freddie was up to. “We go our separate ways, Six. Lay low. The rest of our lives are our own, man.”
“And what about her?” Big Six asked. “How do you know she ain’t gonna sing like a fuckin’ canary?”
Toe Tag snorted so hard that a blob of congealed blood coughed down his top lip. “You serious right now? She ain’t gonna say a damn thing. She’s said nothing all night, what makes you think she’s gonna start now?”
Big Six shook his head. “No witnesses. She needs executing.”
He fired a shot in Iris’s direction.
The bullet rocketed out of his gun and traveled across the dance floor in slow motion. Iris shifted her body back a step and bypassed its trajectory.
Toe Tag fired three shots at Big Six.
The first bullet caught him in the forehead. The second, in his neck, and the third in his chest.
His ribcage exploded in tandem with his head as he stumbled back and yanked on the trigger. A series of bullets sprayed in all directions as Iris hit the deck elbows-first.
Toe Tag dropped to his knees, along with Freddie.
One of Big Six’s bullets blasted through Ahmed’s shin, snapping his left foot away from his ankle.
“Gaaooowww,” he screamed and buckled, before crumpling to the floor in agony. “My leg, m-my leg.”
The DJ caught a stray bullet with his right cheek. The force of the ammunition sent him spinning 360 degrees and crashing onto the vinyl turntables.
The trance music zipped to a halt, leaving only the sound of death and Ahmed’s cries of anguish.
Big Six fell to his knees and dropped his gun. It slid across the dance floor, headed for Iris’s feet. He opened his mouth and spoke through the flood of blood gulping its way down his throat.
Iris stared him out, utterly breathless.
“I t-told you sh-she was b-bad n-news,” he said, before falling face-first to the dance floor, dead.
A shuffling sound, accompanied by a guttural howl of death came from the Bugatti.
Freddie and Ahmed turned around to find Toe Tag slumped against the hood, clutching his chest.
“Shit. I’m h-hit.”
“Daaaamn,” Freddie muttered to himself.
He left Ahmed on the floor and ran over to the man, noticing for the first time the cream-colored label attached to Toe Tag’s ankle.
“What the—”
“—Aww, fuck,” Toe Tag cried, keeping his vital organs pressed into his chest. His beating heart folded between his fingers, pushed into his hand by his wheezing, burst lungs. “I’m dead, man. Look at m-me. I’m f-fuckin’ d-dead.”
Freddie swallowed and shook the fatigue from his head. He pointed at the tag on the floor. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Ugh,” Toe Tag half-croaked through the pain. “I c-can’t b-breathe.”
“The dead don’t breathe. It’s like that fat black guy said. No witnesses.”
“Kill him, already,” Ahmed squealed from the dance floor. “Do it.”
Iris watched on as Freddie buried his gun into Toe Tag’s forehead.
“Sorry about this, man.”
Toe Tag closed his eyes and spluttered. “Hurry up and do it.”
Freddie turned his face away as he pulled the trigger.
Bam-bam-bam.
Three shots into Toe Tag’s brain failed to finish him off, but produced even more blood, most of which splattered across Freddie’s face.
“Ah, shiii-iit-tt,” Freddie wailed as he inspected the damage done by the bullets. He pushed the gun into the man’s mouth and fired again.
Bam-bam.
Toe Tag’s cheekbones splintered out through his skull. The back of his neck blossomed and spat the contents of his throat up the side of the Bugatti.
Freddie removed the gun and took a step back, absorbing the disgusting sight of the disfigured man he’d tried to execute. “Why won’t you just fuckin’ die?”
Iris clicked her fingers. The moment she did it, Toe Tag’s beating heart exploded, killing him dead in a flash.
“Huh?”
Freddie focused his eyes on Iris’s, and then to the end of her index finger which pointed to the label attached to Toe Tag’s ankle.
“What? That?”
Iris nodded.
Freddie crouched to his knees and tore the label from Toe Tag’s ankle, which finished the man off once and for all.
“Uhhhh.”
“That’s all I had to do? Click my fingers? Remove the label?”
Freddie turned to the label up and read the black, scribble where his name was - 706 T3.
“Eh?”
He’d seen that text someplace else - and recently. Then, he remembered where. Sure enough, buried beneath the butterfly tattoo on Iris’s wrist, he saw the thick, black text on the skin over her veins as she held her wrist out.
“Tower Three?” Freddie asked in a daze. “The third tower? The one that was on fire?”
Iris nodded, producing a tear from her right eye.
“B-But…” Freddie stopped speaking, trying to make sense of it all. Somewhere inside he felt his soul turn to mashed potatoes. Something truly odd occurred, and the fear of God entered his stomach. “You m-mean—”
“—Aww, bro,” Ahmed spat as he tried to stop the gush of blood from his ankle. “I’m bleedin’ out, here. Forget about her. Put a bullet in the dude’s head and let’s get outta here.”
Freddie dropped the label to the ground and stood up straight. “Umm, bro? I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She ain’t interested in us. Or them. She needs to get to the Freeway Five, man. She ain’t gonna say shit to nobody. Trust me.”
“Uhhhhh, g-gimme the gun and I’ll p-pop her myself.”
“Shut up.”
Freddie’s right arm shook beyond his control. The gun in his hand danced around his palm as he lifted it up and pointed it at Iris’s face.
He could shoot first and get it over with, or get shot by her.
There was little choice.
He pointed his gun at her face.
Before he pulled the trigger, Freddie steadied his arm as best he could. “Sorry about this, lady. Nothing personal, yeah?”
Then, as if in slow motion, Iris lifted her right hand with the intention of aiming Big Six’s gun at Freddie.
Ahmed inhaled and let out a blood-curdling shriek. “Freddie? Stop flirting with her and just shoot her.”
Freddie bit his lip, took aim, and pulled the trigger.
Click-click-click.
His gun was empty.
“Oh, shit.”
Iris trained the gun at Freddie and hooked her finger around the trigger. He chucked the empty gun to the floor and held out his hands.
“Mercy. Please, I beg you.”
Iris squinted and, for the first time in a long time, a smile etched across her face. She was in control, now. All she had to do was kill the two men and walk off with the duffel and into the night.
If she did, she’d be one of the lucky ones; relatively unscathed, at least physically.
A chorus of police sirens echoed through the broken wall. Time was fast running out.
Iris turned the gun to the squealing Ahmed, but didn’t shoot him. Instead, she waved the gun upwards, suggesting to Freddie he go and help his brother.
“Huh?”
She lifted the gun once again.
“Uh, okay.”
Freddie darted over to Ahmed and grabbed him by the arms. “Uh, I think she wants us to leave. Or leave her alone. Probably just leave, actually.”
“Guuuh, h-help me up.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Freddie hopped over two corpses that had spilled from the back of the truck. They’d begun to thaw, creating a stench of death that perfectly underpinned the new, neon graveyard that he found himself in.
“Get up.”
Freddie lifted Ahmed to his feet and placed his arm around the back of his neck.
“We gotta get out of here.”
“Ugh, my foot. I c-can’t walk,” Ahmed complained as he hobbled forward.
“Yeah, it’s cool. We’ll fix you up.”
Freddie moved Ahmed to the Bugatti and scanned the entrance tunnel. Filled with bodies, any attempt to circumvent the carnage would prove difficult.
But attempt, they surely must.
Freddie stopped and kept Ahmed propped up. A final look at Iris was due. He didn’t know who the woman was or where she came from, but he had an idea where she might be headed.
Before he could say anything, a distinct and loud snoring sound came from Iris’s throat as she stood, staring at him.
“Lady?”
Snore… snore…
Freddie’s parting remark came across as pithy, and he knew it as he said it.
“I hope you wake up real soon, lady.”
He wasn’t about to tackle the woman with the gun in her hand. She pointed at the duffel and could have said “you got a problem with me taking this?” to which Freddie’s answer would have been “God, no. You take it all.”
Iris smiled once again and shooed the pair away. They duly moved out of the dance floor and disappeared towards the entrance.
Standing alone in her brand new graveyard of bodies, Iris dropped the gun to the floor. To her left, Big Six’s corpse lay amongst dozens of others.
To her right, the green duffel begged to be taken.
She picked it up in her right hand, and turned to the fire escape behind the DJ turntable deck…
Chapter XVIII
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“I don’t want to go in there with him.”
“Stop your foolishness, Iris Baskeyfield—”
“—But Mom—”
“—Do not argue with me, now, Iris. Get undressed. You need your bath, now.”
Six-year-old Iris rarely saw her mother’s face. Gina was an exceptionally tall woman, and her legs were always in sight as she walked around the house.
Her father didn’t say much during her childhood. He didn’t do much, either, sitting on the couch and smoking his pipe. It was best not to interfere with mother’s plans.
Even as a child, Iris has a look about her which meant people stared. Her older brother was no exception.
Sunday nights were bath nights.
Lennard, her brother, was always first in. An enterprising young boy, he usually got his way. Like every Sunday, he’d managed to run the extension cord into the bathroom so he could listen to the radio.
The old FM radio with the damaged antenna sat on the edge of the bathtub.
Lennard had already disrobed and was enjoying the suds, muddying the water with the weeks grime and dirt that had collected under his flabby breasts, hanging stomach, and sickly-smelling armpits. And the hair. The greasy, black strands of hair that resembled a thousand spider legs.
He smiled as Iris covered her modesty with her arms and approached the bath.
“Careful you don’t knock the radio in the water or we’ll get killed.”
Iris glanced at the hissing device. The radio played music - barely. She couldn’t tell if it was the Bee Gees, or Kool and the Gang, or… who knows.
The radio sat perilously close to her end of the bath as she lifted her left leg over the edge and planted her foot in the piping hot water.
No suds at her end. Lennard had managed to scrape much of it over to his end and fashion a stupid beard with them.
“Stop looking at me,” Iris said, knowing her brother was staring. “It’s not nice.”
Lennard pushed his flabby breasts together with his palms. “I’ve got bigger tits than you.”
“Shut up.”
He didn’t have time to see much before Iris submerged into the dirty water. Despite its sodden and murky texture, it just about managed to cover her breastplate, and that was enough.
She scooped as much water as she could and splashed her face with it.
The soapy ocean burned into her eyes, having seeped inside a fraction of a second before she closed them.
“You’re listening to the Sunday Top Ten,” the DJ announced via the radio. “And in at number seven, a new entry from—”
Sprrissh.
The static crept in and shrouded both the voice and the music that had started to play.
Lennard pushed his feet forward and wiggled his toes through the suds. “Look. They’re like little fishes.”
Less than impressed, Iris reached for the bottle of shampoo and squirted a coil of it in her palm. She soaped herself with it, and ran her drenched fingers through her hair. She’d managed to do it with her eyes closed.
Time was of the essence.
All she wanted to do was get out of there.
She felt a bulbous collection of “little fish” nibbling at her ankle, before sliding up her shin to her knee.
“Hey.”
Lennard chuckled. “What?”
“Stop doing that.”
The fish disappeared as he lifted his knee out of the cloud of suds.
“I wanna show you something,” he whispered as he checked the bathroom door. “Promise you won’t tell?”
Curious, Iris wiped the soap from her left eye and lifted her eyelid. Her right stung from the solution; a fat, black brother against the faucets and wall with absolutely no depth perception.
The door was only slightly ajar, which was good enough for him to do what he wanted to do.
“Look.”
The two, fat submarine-like knees laying a foot in front of her drifted apart. Lennard gripped the edges of the bathtub and lifted his hips.
“What do you think of this?”
&
nbsp; Iris froze solid, and looked at Lennard in fright.
“What h-happened to you?” she just about managed to say.
“Come here.”
“No.”
“It’s okay. Come here.”
“Nuh-nuh,” she gasped, suddenly deathly afraid of the proposal. “I d-don’t want to—”
“—Damn it, Iris, come here.”
“No.”
He slapped his hands to the water and created a mess, the force of which made the radio hop, skip, and jump an inch or two towards the water. The antenna wilted under its own weight.
Iris pushed herself back against her end of the tub. “Please stop—”
“—and it’s a new entry at number six,” the radio announcer said. “This is the younger BeeGee brother, Andy Gibb, with his breakout single I Just Wanna Be—”
“—Lennard, stop it. You’re scaring m-me.”
He moved forward and grabbed her thigh in his hand and hulked his large frame over to hers. “Shh. Shut up.”
“Wh-what are you d-doing?”
“Shut up,” he whispered over the music. Never tearing his eyes from hers, he seemed to be enjoying her torment. His pudgy fingers clinched the volume dial and span it counter clockwise.
The music loudened, just as he sidled up to her and ran his left hand up her thigh.
The bathroom lights flickered the instant lips pressed against her shoulder.
“Oh, God. S-Stop—”
“—Shut up.”
A peculiar sound rumbled through the walls as the lights zipped along to the music. Then, the four walls shunted forward an inch.
Iris pushed him back, to little avail. The hulking, dark body slipped through the suds and against her chest.
Iris hyperventilated, “G-Get off m-me!”
“Shut up.”
What felt like five black stick insects crawled around the underside of her neck.
The walls threatened to push forward as Iris screamed at the top of her lungs. “Mom—”
The insects melted together and formed a giant bat wing, which wrapped around her mouth.
“Fucking shut up. Tell mom and I’ll kill you.”
A bunch of bubbles raced to the surface next to Lennard’s ass and burst open, releasing tiny black dots. Like birds, they whizzed around the room in formation as the walls shunted forward once again.
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