Go Kill Crazy!

by Bryan Smith

  “Halt!” the one to her right shouted.

  The other girls climbed out of the car to flank Echo, each posing with a hip cocked outward in a manner meant to be distracting while not being obvious about the intent. It was a tactic that had worked well other times, and Echo was pleased to see it was already paying similar dividends here.

  The men glanced at each other before lowering their rifles. The one who’d already addressed them spoke again. “What are you ladies doing out here? This is a private road.”

  Echo summoned a smile intended to convey guilelessness. “Oh, that’s interesting. We’ve actually been looking for a…private…party…”

  She trailed off as a noise she hadn’t expected to hear yet became audible somewhere off in the night. The guards ceased paying attention to her and turned toward the distant ranch house. The sound steadily grew louder, eventually becoming identifiable as helicopter rotors. And soon after that multiple sets of lights appeared in the night sky somewhere to the rear of the ranch house.

  Before Echo could think of what to do next, Dez broke for the Impala and bent down to stick her head through the open window. She reemerged seconds later clutching two handguns. She kept one for herself and slapped the other into Echo’s hands an instant before she streaked toward the oblivious guards.

  One of the men started to turn toward them.

  He was a millisecond too late.

  Dez put the barrel of her gun to his ear and shot him. He slumped to the ground, a puppet with his strings cut. The other guard spun around and reeled backward, his gun raised ineffectually toward the sky. Echo aimed at his face and fired once. The bullet made a ruin of his face as he staggered backward another step and collapsed into the brush by the side of the road.

  Dez nodded approvingly. “Good shot.”

  Echo looked at her. “You taught me well.”

  Dez smiled. “Ah. You still love me. I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Wonder no more.” Echo approached the Hummers and took a closer look around. She saw more dark vehicles farther down the little road, but no people. It was difficult to be sure about that in the dark, but she felt a certain deadness from that direction that strongly indicated a lack of human presence. “I thought there’d be more guards.”

  Dez sidled up next to her, leaning close to whisper in her ear. “I get so excited when I see you in action. I wish it could just be me and you again.”

  Echo looked into her eyes and, for the first time in a while, felt a stirring of Dezsexuality. She understood what Dez was saying. Only other people like them would get it. There was nothing quite like the buzz you got from killing people. She had almost forgotten it with Casey around again. “I…need to think about things.”

  Dez smiled. “You do that. Just don’t think too long. Opportunities have a way of slipping away.”

  Lana cleared her throat.

  Echo and Dez turned to look at her.

  Lana had liberated an assault rifle from one of the dead guards. The way she held the weapon—with a comfortable familiarity that would surprise anyone but her friends—made her look more like a trained killer than a professional stripper.

  Dez and Echo, of course, knew she was both those things.

  “If you bitches are done sharing your intimate moment, what do you say we get up to that house and save the fucking day before the boys can get there?”

  Dez and Echo smiled as they shared a look.

  Show up the guys at their own game?

  That sounded like an excellent idea.

  Two military-grade helicopters packed with heavily armed mercenaries seemed like overkill to Casey, though he supposed going into a situation like this with more than you needed was preferable to being caught short when the fireworks started. The noise the big birds made rendered stealth impossible. There would still be something of an element of surprise, but Casey soon realized the air approach had little to do with that anyway. Ted’s overall philosophy was pure cowboy and his true motivation for doing things this way was easy to figure out—it was all about one-upping the other guy.

  Oh, so you’re gonna send some soldier boys to bust up my contraband distribution point? Okay, well, guess what? I’m gonna launch a goddamn AIR ASSAULT on your asses.

  Death from above, motherfucker!

  Even more absurd was the stogie-chomping maniac’s insistence on playing music through the retrofitted helicopter’s stereo speakers. The speakers produced a punishing level of volume, which was necessary to be heard over the sound of the rotors. Casey spent the flight out from the private helipad to the de Rais compound feeling like he was trapped inside a speaker cabinet at a death metal concert. The playlist was of Ted’s own devising and the song playing as the ’copter flew in low over treetops just before arriving at the compound was “Undercover of the Night” by the Rolling Stones.

  The guy probably saw himself as a drug kingpin version of that character from Apocalypse Now, with the Stones in place of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. How the pilot could hear to communicate with the pilot of the other bird was a mystery to Casey. He breathed a huge sigh of relief once they finally touched down safely in the field behind the ranch house and the assorted outlying buildings.

  Wilkinson’s mercenaries wasted no time streaming out of the helicopters and commencing a door-to-door search of the cabins. The area was lit up by a sea of bobbing flashlights. Casey and Wilkinson brought up the rear, allowing the professionals to take care of business with machine-like efficiency. A trend was soon established—the cabins were all empty. Focus then shifted to a larger building closer to the big ranch house. Other than the ranch house, it was the only illuminated structure in the compound. Light was visible through a few small windows. A mercenary kicked the door open and went inside, followed closely by several of his comrades.

  Casey made like he was about to go in after them, but Ted stopped him with a hand splayed across his chest. “Hang back a bit longer, son. Let these men do their job first.”

  Casey already felt ridiculous outfitted in full military gear and body armor, especially since they were encountering no resistance at all so far. This should have come as a relief, but it somehow felt oppressively ominous instead. Something had gone very wrong here. He couldn’t put his finger on what it might be, but he felt the bad vibes in his bones. Other things had dominated his attention over the last few days, but now his concern for Keely’s safety returned in full force.

  She’s either dead already or soon will be. Shit.

  In addition to that, there was this issue of what to do about Ted and his domineering sister. He had a hunch the real reason Ted was keeping him out of the action—or lack thereof, given how things were developing—had more to do with her desires than letting the professionals do their job. She had probably ordered him to keep her new boy toy safe and sound. His forefinger twitched outside the trigger guard of the M16 clutched in his hands. It was tempting to put a bullet through Ted’s temple and be done with that part of it. The only thing that stopped him was the suspicion that one of Ted’s hired men would kill him immediately afterward.

  The building’s front door creaked open and a mercenary stepped out onto the little porch. His expression was grim as he addressed Ted. “Sir, the building’s been secured, but you’ll want to take a look inside. It’s…pretty bad.”

  Casey experienced a deep sense of dread upon hearing those words. “Shit.”

  Ted glanced at him. “Sure you want to go in there?”

  No.

  He grimaced. “Got no choice. I have to know.”

  Ted clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s have a looksee then.”

  Casey held his breath as he followed Ted and the mercenary into the building. He let it out and felt a rumbling deep in his gut once he stepped through the door and got his first look at the horror inside.

  “Oh…fuck.”

  Ted swept off his helmet and palmed sweat from his brow. “I echo that sentiment. I’ve seen some shit
in my day, son, but this takes the cake.”

  They were all dead.

  Casey walked numbly down the aisle between the rows of chairs, scanning the faces of the dozens upon dozens of slumped-over bodies in search of Keely. Most had fallen out of their chairs to the floor. Their frozen expressions were contorted and their limbs were twisted in ways that indicated they had died in extreme agony. Everywhere he looked he saw discarded plastic cups and red stains on the floor. But the stains were spilled punch rather than blood. These people had been poisoned. Casey felt a flabbergasted rage building inside him that pushed aside the numbness. These people had gone willingly to their deaths. There had to be at least a hundred corpses in this building alone. What brand of follow-the-leader insanity could compel so many to throw their lives away?

  He reached the front of the stage and turned around to face Ted. “She’s not here.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  Ted scratched the side of his head. “Well…that’s good, right?”

  “Yeah, but—” A faint popping noise made Casey turn his head and stare out one of the dark windows. “What’s that sound?”

  Ted’s brow furrowed as the popping sound came again. “Sounds like gunfire.”

  Casey dashed up the aisle, brushing past Ted and stepping on bodies in his haste to get back outside. Keely wasn’t among this mass of dead. That meant she was still out there somewhere, possibly even still alive. And as long as any chance of that remained, he meant to be in the thick of the action until he knew for sure.

  The back of the plump woman’s head exploded in a shower of blood and brains. The heavyset man screamed and struggled to his feet, apparently intending to charge at Jade. Keely understood his rage, but his attempt to get at Jade was ill-advised. He was unarmed and she, well…

  Jade fired two more times. Both bullets hit the man in his chest, each impact making his body jerk before he fell over and landed on the floor with a tremendous thud that shook the furniture in the room. The female couple separated and screamed as they scooted rapidly away from Jade. The guard by the door had the thin, hollow-cheeked features of a young man barely out of adolescence. His nervous, darting gaze also betrayed his youth and inexperience. He had taken a tentative step away from the door and looked like he knew he should take some kind of action but lacked the decisiveness to do anything without being told.

  Jade shot him in the face.

  One of the women got to her feet and bolted toward the door.

  Jade shot her in the back.

  Something in John’s top surviving female lieutenant had snapped, yielding at last to the monumental pressure she had to have been feeling all along as she contemplated her own imminent demise. It was either that or she was just a murderous lunatic. On reflection, Keely decided it was likely a combination of those things.

  And it’s only a matter of time before the bitch works her way around to me again. Gotta make my move.

  The other half of the female cult couple had her back to the wall and was struggling to stand, her hands held palms-out in front of her in a pleading gesture. She was crying and shaking her head.

  Keely didn’t get it.

  All these idiots had been so sure they wanted to die…up until the moment someone was pointing a gun at them.

  Jade sneered at the crying woman. “Time to die, Kate.”

  She shot Kate.

  She glanced at Keely. “And now your turn.”

  Jade aimed the gun at Keely.

  But the sound of shots ringing out somewhere else inside the house made her hesitate. Keely shifted her hips and swept her legs at Jade’s ankles. The move was well-timed, but Keely also benefited from her adversary’s temporary distraction. Jade lost her grip on the gun and it flew into the air as her legs went out from under her.

  Knowing she wouldn’t get more than the one chance, Keely acted fast, rolling over and getting to her hands and knees as she scanned the floor for the gun. She spotted it an instant before Jade did. It was by the body of the plump woman in a puddle of her blood and brains.

  Both women scrambled toward the gun.

  Keely got to it first.

  Her right hand closed around the handle in the same moment someone kicked the door open.

  The first floor of the ranch house was utterly deserted as John came inside through the back door. The emptiness did not strike him as haunting, despite how different it was from the bustle of activity that had formerly characterized the place. This house had never been anything more than a kind of way station, a temporary spiritual oasis his inner circle inhabited on their way to somewhere even better.

  The lights were off in most of the bottom floor rooms, save for a lamp here and there. John opted to leave them that way as he made his way toward the foyer. The darkness enhanced the impression of the house as a transitional place that had served its purpose and was now being left behind.

  He had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase when he heard voices outside on the porch. He stood with a foot planted on the first step up and listened a moment. The voices were female. Detecting this was easy because they were not attempting to be quiet. John glanced up the staircase and wondered whether he should head on up there anyway or go to the door to see if he could learn more about the intruders. Whoever they were, they had gotten past the remaining guards at the gate, which could only mean their intent was hostile. Whether they were police—unlikely—or vigilantes out to avenge some portion of the night’s events was immaterial.

  The remnants of his inner circle were waiting for him.

  It was time to join their brothers and sisters in the afterlife.

  He took another step up the staircase.

  And that was when multiple shots from a large-caliber weapon blew the lock off the front door. John tugged his gun out of his waistband as someone—he glimpsed the silhouette of a woman with the legs of a goddess—kicked the ruined door open and stood framed in dim moonlight.

  John fired several rounds from his gun.

  The woman staggered backward and fell off the porch. There was a scream of rage coupled with anguish and in a moment someone else out there returned fire. John also experienced rage. He would not be shot down before he could reach the last of his faithful and depart this rotten world in their company.

  He fired another shot at the door and took off up the stairs as fast as he could go.

  John Wayne de Rais came into his quarters with a look of panic on his florid face. This shifted to an expression of surprised anguish as he took in the carnage.

  He shook his head at the two still-living women on the floor. “Why?”

  Keely almost said something about how Jade had lost her mind and started shooting everyone in the room, but she was distracted by the sound of footsteps outside in the hallway. Jade made a grab for the gun in Keely’s hand in the same moment, but she did it from an awkward position and her hand slid over the barrel without grasping it.

  Keely rolled away from her, sat upright and aimed the gun at her.

  Jade’s eyes went wide. “No.”

  Keely sneered. “How’s it feel to be afraid?”

  John pointed his gun at Keely. “Don’t you—”

  There was a boom from the hallway and John’s body lurched as a bloom of exit wound red appeared at the center of his chest. Two more bullets made a wreck of the deluded old scam artist’s head. His now-lifeless body did a crash-landing atop the corpse of the guard.

  Keely stared past the bodies at Jade. Even at this late and apparently hopeless stage of the game, the woman had a look of cold calculation in her eyes. She was still as deadly as she had ever been and now John’s gun was in grabbing range.

  She made a dive for it.

  Keely put a bullet through the top of her head and let out a breath so big she felt like she had been holding it for years. Her head snapped up as someone else came through the door. She frowned. “Echo? What are you doing here?”

  Echo’s fa
ce was wet with tears as she kicked at John’s body. “Son of a bitch!” She pointed her gun at the dead man’s back and squeezed the trigger until it was empty. “Son of a bitch!”

  She let go of the gun and dropped to her knees, sobbing into her hands.

  Keely opted to hold on to the gun when she heard more voices out in the hallway. She still had no sense of what was happening here, beyond the happy facts of the deaths of the big bad wolf and the fucking wicked witch. Echo’s arrival on the scene was a thing she could never have predicted, incongruous enough that it bordered on surreal. She couldn’t even begin to guess how it had come about. Then more people were streaming into the room, scary-looking guys who looked like soldiers. They had lots of big guns and exuded enough testosterone to make the makers of Viagra weep.

  And then came Casey.

  Looking like some kind of fucking commando.

  Keely laughed. “Casey,” she said, wiping away tears. “You look ridiculous.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I know. Are you okay?”

  “I want out of here.”

  A bald-headed older man also dressed like a commando came into the room, winking at her as he lit up a cigar. “Don’t you worry about a thing, darlin’. We’ll all be out of here in less than five minutes. Wouldn’t do to still be around when the law shows up.”

  Casey set his rifle aside and dropped to his knees next to Echo. “Baby, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  Echo sniffled and looked at him through bleary, red-rimmed eyes. “Dez is dead. That son of a bitch de Rais killed Dez.”

  She pressed her face against Casey’s shoulder and resumed sobbing.

  Keely felt genuinely bad for her. She had always liked Echo and had been sorry to see her disappear from Casey’s life. But her empathy for her old friend’s loss couldn’t dampen her own happiness. She was going to get her second chance after all.

  And I’m damn well gonna make the best of it.

  She smiled and finally let go of the gun.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Synchronicity

  The memory of it kept coming back at random moments. The three of them on the porch. Lana shooting the lock off the door with her commandeered rifle and Dez kicking the door in seconds later. Then Dez’s head snapping backward as a bullet punched through her cheek. The end of everything the three of them had been together right there in that moment, over and done too fast to fully comprehend until later.