Getting Ugly

by Mike McCrary

  “Done?” Talley asks.

  Buster snorts. “Yes.”

  Talley nods.

  They trudge toward the mega mansion without making eye contact.

  20

  Leon, Pike, and Patience check each door along a long hallway carpeted in thick red shag.

  Leon half expects to see twin girls and something about Red Rum. They push on, guns at the ready as they perform a room-to-room sweep. Leon flings open the first door. They find what can only be described as an artillery room, packed wall-to-wall with weapons, ammo, and explosives. Leon thinks he sees a trident in the corner; maybe it’s a pitchfork. He motions to the others that it’s clear.

  Something bothers Pike. “That prick Rasnick went after the money on his own, didn’t he?”

  Patience seethes.

  Leon knows he’s right, but they have to stay on task. “Greed’s a bitch. Keep your damn voice down.” He throws open another door, finding an empty spa-like bathroom. Scans the area. Clear.

  Patience looks to Leon. “That your big plan? Dash with cash?”

  Leon doesn’t answer, thinking, It’s not the worst idea.

  Pike chimes in. “It’s always about the money, my man.”

  “I have other goals, my man,” says Leon.

  Patience’s voice goes soft. “Do tell. What’s this all about to you?”

  Leon readies himself at the next door. “Not important.”

  Pike senses his woman’s interest in Leon. “If the man don’t wanna talk, he don’t wanna talk.”

  Patience zeroes in on Leon, trying to strip away at his defenses with her ample sexuality. It’s an effective strategy that’s served her well. “Come on Leon, give it up,” she purrs.

  Leon looks at her. For a second she seems like a human being, an actual real, caring female. Her green eyes glow. “C’mon. Please?” Leon is a strong, disciplined man, but he is a still a man, and men can be weaker than shit. It’s nature. The basic heterosexual need for female attention fueled by the primitive need to procreate. Not to mention, it’s been awhile since a woman gave Leon the time of day, let alone acted like she wanted to hump him.

  Leon gets lost her gaze as he explains, “It’s about taking back what was taken from me. Finding something positive in all this bad. I lost everything to that man, a life and a woman I loved more than anything. I can never get it all back; I’ve been reduced to next to nothing. So now, I guess, it’s all about just getting back to good.”

  Pike and Patience actually look moved by his honesty.

  Patience takes Leon’s face in her hands. “That’s best reason I’ve heard yet. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt, you gorgeous man.” She gently caresses his cheek with the tips of her fingers then whispers, “But you’re a complete pussy.”

  Pike and Patience roll with laughter.

  Leon moves on.

  Why do I bother?

  21

  Rasnick moves through an area of the house that looks like a luxury hotel lobby was picked up and dropped directly into the mansion. Brass fixtures, wall-to-wall hardwood floors, and antique furniture placed around the room with perfect symmetry.

  Rasnick scans the open space for signs of where the money could be hidden, as well as signs of a crazy fucker trying to kill him. There’s an elevator at the far end of the room, with an open stairway next to it. Various doors lead everywhere, as if the room is the connector to the various arteries of the house.

  Back in the red shag hallway, Pike and Patience are still giggling. Leon is pissed but hides it fairly well. “Can we?” He gestures down the hallway.

  Leon throws open the next door, which leads into a swinger’s style love shack equipped with mirrored walls and ceiling. An Olympic-size bed takes up half the room. A sex swing hangs in the center of the room. Leather hoods, whips…you name it line the far wall. It’s as if Hustler threw up in here.

  Pike and Patience step in. One would think this would be Toys’’R’’Us to these two. She pushes the sex swing. “Gross.” Pike nods in complete agreement. The two of look around, disgusted by what they see. Patience looks at her man and asks, “Since when is that making love?” Leon can only stare in utter disbelief.

  The lights go out.

  Complete darkness.

  Pike barks out, “Cocksucker.”

  “Take it easy.” Urges Leon.

  Rasnick is also now in complete darkness. Can’t see a damn thing save for the few shards of streaking lightning firing off outside, flickering, flashing, and bouncing light off the polished floor. Rasnick clicks on his tactical flashlight, illuminating the wood paneling that lines the walls of the room.

  Just off his left shoulder, he hears the sound of a door opening.

  Rasnick fumbles, quickly shutting off the flashlight plunging the lobby into darkness again. A lightning strike cuts the blackness just for a moment, followed by the roll of rumbling thunder. Rasnick presses himself against the wall trying to become invisible.

  A shadowy figure slips through the darkness.

  Big Ugly.

  Rasnick watches, holding his breath, gulping to keep his pounding heart out of his throat. Every part of his being is taut, trying to hide as pure evil walks past. Rasncik pushes harder against the wall. The wall gives a click.

  Rasnick’s cells freeze.

  Big Ugly stops in front of the elevator doors, scans the darkness.

  Flipping on the laser sight on his Colt, Big Ugly looks around the room. The red beam carves through the darkness. The wall behind Rasnick has actually opened up revealing a secret door. Rasnick slides through as quickly and quietly as possible, closing the door just a fraction of a second before Big Ugly’s laser sight scans over the wall.

  In the secret room is nothing but black in every direction. He can’t make out where he is.

  Rasnick listens closely outside, praying to a merciful God that Big Ugly does not find him.

  Big Ugly sweeps his laser sight around the room again. Pauses. Listens closely. Once satisfied there’s nothing there, he moves on.

  Rasnick listens. Sounds like he’s gone. He allows himself to breath again. Hopes he didn’t piss himself. He clicks his flashlight on, revealing a steep concrete stairway leading down to a steel door at the bottom. He moves down the stairs toward to the door. Readies his weapon, takes a deep breath, yanks the door open.

  Pitch black.

  Rasnick sweeps the room with his flashlight, stopping as the light illuminates something. He can’t make out what it is, but it’s something displayed on a small pedestal. A display case of some kind. It’s damn peculiar.

  Rasnick’s jaw goes slack as the contents of the case finally register.

  “What the fuck?”

  Part IV

  Patience, wait!

  22

  Leon, Pike and Patience are still in darkness. Patience breaks the silence. “Not loving this shit.”

  Leon keeps his voice calm and flat. “Hold it together. I got a flashlight here, somewhere…”

  There’s a thick slap of flesh, a crack of bone followed by a muffled yell trailing off into the darkness. Then nothing. Not a sound. Only a bone-chilling silence.

  “What the hell happened?” Patience frantically asks.

  “I don’t know,” says Leon.

  Thunder crackles.

  Fear splits Patience in two. “Baby doll?”

  Nothing.

  Patience’s voice shakes. “Baby?”

  “Pike?” calls Leon.

  The lights kick back on.

  Patience and Leon are all alone among the perverse tools and sexual aids. No Pike. A rippling wave of panic pours over Patience. “Where is he? Where the fuck is he?”

  Leon spins, checking all the angles of the room. “I don’t know.”

  Patience spits out the only question that matters. “What did that fucker do to him?”

  “We’ll find him.”

  “If he even thinks about hurting him, I’ll kill him. I will fucking…” She suddenly stops ra
ging as a cold shard fires up her spine. Her eyes have found a trickle of blood leading out the door. Leon sees it. Shit. He tires to put a soothing hand on her but she throws it aside.

  “Patience, I know what you’re thinking, but we have to be careful here. He wants us to get pissed, get emotional, and make a mistake. This is what he does. Please hear what I’m saying,” Leon pleads.

  Patience lights caution on fire, pisses on its ashes. She throws open the door. In the hallway, the blood trail snakes down the thick red shag carpet to a door at the far end. The blood is just enough of a shade off the carpet’s red to be easily seen. Patience races at full speed, Leon chasing behind her trying to keep up. With guns drawn she flings the door open and rushes through, Leon trailing.

  They find themselves in the elevator lobby, now fully lit. The blood trail runs across the hardwood floor, ending in front of the elevator doors.

  Leon and Patience aren’t allowed time to process information, not given the luxury of time to think. Not even a single second for Leon to try and talk Patience off the ledge.

  The elevator dings.

  It’s coming down.

  Patience’s breathing becomes low and controlled, her delicate balance of love and hate pulsing. Her emotional levels are spiking beyond normal comprehension.

  She commands Leon, “Be. Fucking. Ready.”

  Leon looks on. Yes, ma’am. He tightens his grip on the AR-15, taking aim on the elevator doors. Patience has her M4 ready to rock, rage rippling under her skin. It’s hard to contain but she keeps a steady hand, aim dialed in.

  Ding.

  It’s as if the air is sucked out of the room. Nerves are pulled taut. Waiting. The seconds tick away, seeming to last forever. Finally, the elevator doors spread open.

  Blood pours out from the elevator like a wild river spreading across the marble floor, covering it. It’s as if gallons of dark red paint had been dumped out.

  Patience and Leon double-blink, jumping back to avoid the crimson wave. Leon fears the worst. Patience is already there. Her body tremors with anger as if volts of electricity were coursing through her.

  Pike’s body slips out of the elevator, sliding out on a wave of his own blood. He has been cut open from neck to nuts.

  Patience goes apeshit. It’s a Titanic-size crush of psychosis that most chemically balanced people will never know, and never should.

  From the elevator steps Big Ugly. Leon’s pupils flare with hate.

  Big Ugly blows Patience a kiss.

  All.

  Hell.

  Breaks.

  Loose.

  Leon opens up, spewing bursts of AR fire at the elevator. Obliterating pillars. Sending fistfuls of marble flying. Big Ugly returns fire with thumping blasts from his Colt.

  Bullets? Not personal enough for Patience. She needs to, has to, must kill Big Ugly with her bare hands. She runs screaming with the finesse of a rabid boar toward Big Ugly, bare feet sloshing through the blood-drenched floor. Big Ugly keeps laying down firepower to keep Leon at bay. He turns his Colt to Patience at the last second, but not before she lunges on him. She wraps her hands around his throat with the force of a sledgehammer shot from a cannon, the collision sending them both hurtling backward into the elevator.

  Leon yells, “Patience, wait!”

  The doors shut. Elevator dings. Leon is left in the lobby alone with the pools of blood and Pike’s corpse. He races to the stairway next to the elevator.

  In the elevator rages an all-out war.

  Combat in a tight, confined space.

  If you took two orangutans, fed them cocaine, then dumped them in an elevator with weapons, this would be the result. Unseemly violence. No style points awarded here. Patience alternates lightning fast jabs to every part of Big Ugly she can hit, unleashing an avalanche of hurt.

  Big Ugly gets a good grip on her and tosses her against the opposite wall. He pulls his Colt. Patience springs up with mouth wide, biting down hard on his hand. Blood drips from her lips. Big Ugly pulls back, but her jaw is locked. His Colt drops.

  At the stairway, Leon takes the stairs on two, three at a time racing to meet the elevator.

  Big Ugly tears Patience’s jaws from his hand, but not before she takes some skin and meat with her. Blood smears across her pretty face.

  Ding.

  The door opens. Patience grabs the Colt. Big Ugly’s eyes go wide and he blurs out the door as Patience fires with reckless abandon.

  Big Ugly spins out into the hall, only to be met by multiple shots snaking up the carpet toward him from Leon’s AR. Big Ugly flips a tactical blade at Leon, planting it in his leg. A high velocity splash of blood flies as Leon drops to a knee with a yelp.

  Big Ugly makes a jolting leap back into the elevator, ducking Patience’s wild, emotional gun blasts.

  Leon wails as he pulls the knife from his thigh, the blade taking a piece of him with it.

  The sounds of muted, ultra-violent insanity echo from inside the closed elevator.

  Ding.

  Doors open.

  Out comes Big Ugly with Patience attached to him. She faces him, legs wrapped tight around his waist. She has one of her thumbs dug into his eye socket as she fights to angle the Colt with her free hand. She can’t get a good shot, but that doesn’t stop her. A blast fires off harmlessly, missing Big Ugly’s face completely.

  Big Ugly wobble-walks through the lobby while fighting and pulling her hands away the best he can. They make their way to the mansion’s kitchen, a magnificent room built for gourmets to lust over. Over an island hangs a rack of pots and pans above a butcher’s block of ceramic knives.

  Outside the door are the sounds of the storm, along with a pack of dogs going berserk. They bark and howl, paws clawing at the door.

  Big Ugly can’t get Patience off of him. She wails and swipes her long black nails at his face, head and neck with a terrifying level of persistence. She jams the Colt to the top of his head but he swats it away. The stray bullet blows out the sink, water spraying into the air. Big Ugly’s hands grab, reaching for anything he can find. His fingers fumble, finding the handle to a hanging pot. He whips it around.

  A dull fwap of Calphalon slaps Patience’s face, sending her skidding across the tile. Big Ugly yanks a massive ceramic knife from the island. He turns, only to be met by a double blast from his own Colt courtesy of Patience, who is laid out flat on her back. Both shots pound his chest, the brutal force sending him over the kitchen island.

  Dogs still bark their balls off from outside.

  Lightning fires off.

  Patience gets to her feet; she knows damn well he’s got a vest on. She steps around the island, her back to an open steel door that leads to a huge Sub-Zero walk-in freezer.

  Thunk.

  The handle of the ceramic knife bobs from her chest.

  A gift courtesy of Big Ugly. Most MLB catchers couldn’t make that throw from their knees. Patience’s expression drifts to a remote place in the universe, a place far from this kitchen. Her hand releases the Colt, letting it bounce to the tile.

  Big Ugly gets to his feet, his ballistic vest now visible through the bullet holes in his exquisite silk shirt. Patience shakes. She summons her remaining shreds of rage as she stumbles toward Big Ugly. Big Ugly pulls another knife from the block, plunging the blade in her stomach with another expert-level throw. He takes a moment to acknowledge how good he is.

  The dogs outside continue barking through a storm that is gaining strength.

  Patience makes a bounce backward toward the walk-in freezer, but does not go down. Will not go down. She pulls a hidden .38 from under her dress, firing as she lets loose her last death yell.

  Big Ugly ducks, spinning toward the back door. He throws the door open to a mad rush of rabid Rottweilers and Dobermans. They leap on Patience with jaws spread wide, the pile of dogs and crazy woman falling back into the walk-in freezer. Big Ugly slams the freezer door shut.

  Chewing.

  Gnawing.

 
Tearing.

  A few gun shots.

  Extremely unpleasant sounds echo and bump from inside the freezer. Big Ugly fixes his hair and adjusts his tie, vanity still on the job.

  “Uppity bitch,” grunts Big Ugly. He picks up his Colt. Peels a banana on his way out the back door.

  The storm rages on.

  23

  Buster and Talley clear a six lane bowling alley with their SWAT proficiency, pausing at the rumbling sound of distant barking.

  “Dogs?” Talley asks.

  Buster stands still, staring mesmerized by the porn blazing on the hanging HD screens. Wrinkles his nose. “Dude, I have this one.”

  “Move,” says Talley.

  “You think those girls are like, ya know, down–to–earth and shit? Can they talk about things, ya know? Life or whateverthefuck. Anything other than penetration and semen?”

  Talley can’t look at him.

  “What? Seriously. If we’re gonna have this kinda jingle in our pockets, we’re gonna attract these type of ladies so, therefore, I need to know these type of ladies, right?”

  Talley puts up a finger for silence. For the love of sweet Christ, silence.

  Buster pulls back, hurt. “Rude, dog. You’re improving your delivery, slightly, but still flat-out fucking rude.”

  They reach a door and move into the elevator lobby. Talley and Buster sweep the room, stopping at the river of Pike’s blood that’s spread across the floor.

  “Jesus,” Buster says.

  A muffled yell.

  Buster and Talley spin around, fingers on triggers. It sounds like a voice is coming from inside the wall. Stranger still, it sounded like their brother. Buster and Talley look to each other. No way.

  The secret doorway cracks open just a bit. Buster and Talley ready their guns. Their brother peaks his head out.

  “About motherfuckin’ time,” Rasnick whisper-yells.

  “What the hell is going on here?” asks Talley.