by Goforth, Jim
“Here. Give me that!” She ordered, her face streaked with tears, but full of wrathful hatred and fury. “The chair! Give it to me!”
Without hesitation, Seth thrust the piece of furniture forward and she took it, literally snatching it away in her desire to have it in her grasp. Blinded, with blood runnels streaming down her face, Jazmyn clapped a hand to her ruined countenance, the other slapping the cold plane of the floor, feeling behind herself for the surrendered firearm. Then Scarlett slugged her with the chair, smacking her with two legs, the blow knocking her arm away from her face. In the opportunity presenting by the hand dropping away, Scarlett swung the chair again, a fierce, savage battle cry of desolation blended with rage accompanying the action, and the metal leg connected with the exposed side of Jazmyn’s head. It blasted the half seated woman sideways in an awkward bizarre slump and Scarlett stepped in, standing astride the dazed, blinded figure of the Kathaarian traitor and raised the furniture-weapon high. The chair may have only been a reasonably lightweight item, but those legs were all steel, and with the frenetic, lunatic tempo Scarlett begin to swing it, bludgeoning the legs against the head of Jazmyn, the damage was going to be maximum.
Staring in an almost hypnotic trance at the arc and fall of the chair legs in the sickly, jerky glow of the perpetually moving green glow, Seth saw blood spurting up now, spraying in a fine mist that sparked from light to dark as it travelled through the nauseous illumination.
He didn’t know what the fuck might be occurring back behind them, but he could hear the pop and crack of gunfire, screams from those in the cages who weren’t true death heads, ensnared by the marauding maws of those who were susceptible to morph into undead monsters, all of it set to the horrendous thunder of the Zombie Trigger in full swing.
At Scarlett’s feet, huddled in a shapeless mass, Jazmyn no longer possessed anything reminiscent of a face, or even really a head. All that was left was a bloody mush resembling a watermelon busted open with a sledgehammer, and if the light were better and brighter here, Seth knew without much doubt that he would see bone shards fragmented in that sanguinary mire. Though he already owned so many terribly gruesome memories etched and scarred into the depths of his mind that nightmares for eternity seemed inevitable—that is, on the remote assumption his breathing status would continue outside this room―he was in no rush to add any to that tally, and witnessing a technicolour close-up of a woman’s head violently smashed open in a vengeful rage was one he’d happily pass up.
As it was, he was studiously trying not to cast any sort of gaze in the direction of Blizzard’s splayed body, as if not looking at the still figure, pooling blood in a black circle around the blonde spread of his locks, might somehow mean that he wasn’t really dead after all.
Not that he needed much in the way of a deterrent, the brutal, mesmerising dance of Scarlett with her murderous chair, its legs so thoroughly abused that they were now bent at irregular angles and running thick with blood, was a hideous entrancement he could barely look away from, even if he truly wanted to.
Presently, he realised just how close to the exit door he and Scarlett were, and the acknowledgment sparked a fierce surge of hope in him. He could literally just grab her and the pair of them could escape―unless they’d been locked in. Although even that wouldn’t provide too much of a barrier, he supposed. They could bash the door down, couldn’t they? Scarlett had just used a simple lightweight chair to turn a human head into a bloody stew inside a skull bowl, surely they could force their way through a locked door, borne on desperation.
Maybe he could raise the attention of some of the others, ideally Mark and Miranda, without having to venture back into hell cracking open behind him, drawing a bunch of them into a collective human battering ram against the door.
The hint of freedom, the tantalising prospect of it splashing hopeful drops across him, was buoyant, but still hammering the unrecognisable bloodied slump of Jazmyn, Scarlett was in her own world of violent revenge. As if she’d completely lost it. Snapped. Gone beyond the point of no return.
Desperately, he dared look behind him into the eye-fucking swirl of the ghastly green light, trying to pinpoint where Mark and Miranda might be. In an ideal situation he would rather all of those he’d spent this whole monumental nightmare of an excursion in the company of would be able to be rescued, spirited away to safety, but he knew that was impossible. For a start, one of them was already deceased, mere feet away from where he was right now. Blizzard. The Subversion band now down an original member. For good.
Illogically, Seth was struck with the ludicrous notion that if the trio of Subversion as Hunters needed to be a complete unit to carry out their despatch of Undead Fleshcrave, then they were already destined to fail. Their lanky blonde bassist lay in a broken sprawl, mowed down before the unit were able to engage.
He saw that Black’s abrupt, unexpected assault on one of the unwary, sickened Masters had brought success, at least for him, though he hadn’t the chance to wrestle a firearm away. Instead he was making use of the biker, a broad-backed individual running to fat, as a shield against those who’d opened fire in a panic, the man’s greater girth proving to be an asset.
There were some dark shapes spread out on the floor amidst the tangled wreckage of overturned chairs, but Seth couldn’t ascertain whether that was due to the fact they were still in reposes of sickness engendered by the Trigger or whether they were unfortunate recipients of bullets blasted from Renegade Master guns. Whatever the case, he couldn’t exactly tell where Miranda and Mark were, it just seemed to be a bizarre flurry of panicked activity, the lot of them milling around like a frightened herd of animals, clueless and rudderless, not sure which direction they were supposed to go.
As Seth feared from the get go, his crew were sadly lacking in defence skills for the most part, with the exception of the Subversion members, their affiliates, and his friends. All the others swallowed up in the maelstrom brought nothing to the table, and were lambs to the slaughter. The Masters had bolstered that lagging crew, shored it up with their immediate desire to slot in and help in the battle against the undead armies, eased Seth’s mind, but that was all for naught, all a charade. Now that was snatched away, the bikers playing for the other team all along. And the pitiful conglomeration of folk left wouldn’t have stood a chance had they been armed with anything. With nothing, they were looking down the barrel of a bloody slaughter before the morphing death heads were even let loose from the cages.
The pincushion Master being swung around by Black took a few bullets in his broad back, but he was far from dead. He managed to get a huge meaty paw on Black and barrelled his weight against him, the enormous bulk of it enough to drive even the powerful Black back, the Master’s own frantic attempts displaying an insane strength.
Black was slammed back bodily, and into the bars of a cell. Seth gasped, his heart threatening to evacuate his body as hands lurched through the gaps, fingers clasping, seizing. With a Herculean effort, Black bent his arms backwards at what must have been an excruciating angle, and then shrugged out of his leather jacket, slipping loose, leaving nothing but the garment in the clutches of the swarming fiends.
The Master wasn’t prepared for the solid shelf of Black’s forehead bashing against the bridge of his nose, resounding with a crack that was extraordinarily loud even in the swirl of chaos all around it, and blood jetted, splattering both Black, and over his shoulders, into the hellish mass throwing themselves in a hungry fervour against the bars. The scent of blood further drove the undead into slavering tantrums, their grunts, groans, and hideous collective of sounds swelling into a nightmare montage. Black capitalised on his slim window of opportunity, stepping out of the circle of the Master’s arms, to the side, then behind him.
Both hands thumped against the bristly back of the biker’s skull and forced the man’s bleeding face right up against the bars, pushing inexorably further, as if he were hell-bent on thrusting the Master’s entire head inside the cag
e. That in itself wasn’t necessary though. Enough of the bloodied visage was mashed up against the bars, flesh pushed in through them, and the ravenous zombiebeasts inside went insane to obtain the proffered meat.
The scream that erupted from the unfortunate soul destined to be entrees for the undead was a haunting one that jerked chills up Seth’s spine, as he witnessed the nearest death head, a hulking brute in what he supposed was an Incantation top, push his own face right up against the trapped visage of the screamer, sinking teeth into whatever flesh was available, ripping away great bloody flaps, leaving exposed muscle in strings. More death heads pushed and shoved like insane shopaholics at a Boxing Day sale, hooked finger claws raking and ripping off their own pieces of flesh, more teeth clamouring to get to the meat.
The zombies contorted their heads, their whole bodies in bizarre knots in order to force themselves closer to the tantalising morsel the Master presented, others wising up and snatching his hands to yank them inside. The gun he’d been clasping vanished inside as well, dropping uselessly to the floor of the cell, an item undesired by the pack of humanivores as they sought the blood and the flesh, yanking more ear-splitting screams out of the doomed biker at the same time as they yanked his arms right off.
“Let them out!” SamEdi’s guttural roar suddenly split the middle of the Zombie Trigger in half, his almost indecipherable mantra ceasing instantly to be replaced by his clear, loud directive. “Open the cages! Let them all out!”
“Hold up!” Nate hollered back, somewhere off to the left, up ahead of where Seth crouched, hoping to remain in shadows long enough to locate where Mark and Miranda might be. “Hang on, let me get my men out!”
“Open up the cages!” SamEdi boomed back, not shifting on his stance. Behind him, the horrendous compositions instrumentation hammered on unabated, but without the lyrical additions of the guttural vocalist. Instead his eyes blazed unholy fire as he blasted the directive at Nate. “Open the fucking doors! Now! Or forfeit your reward. The job’s not done until it’s done!”
“Fuck you then!” Nate howled. “Let ‘em out yourself then! My boys aren’t your fucking stooges to be cast to the wolves like your fucking Sentinels! Come on, boys, fall out, let’s roll outta here, there ain’t gonna be no reward for us anyhow!”
Seth felt some hint of grim satisfaction there, realising that one of the thoughts he’d had fluttering through his mind appeared to be somewhat on the money after all. Undead Fleshcrave and Global Death cared zero about any collateral damage, any hired hands roped in to fulfil their goals were all expendable pawns, and the Renegade Masters were no exception, as gullible and trusting as Seth and his own band of friends could consider themselves to be after believing the Masters were firmly on their side.
He felt a flurry of hope jab at him as well. If Nate was going to pull his men out without releasing the squalling, squabbling, undead hordes trapped inside those cells, then there was every chance he and his friends were going to make it after all.
“Come on, big man,” SamEdi smirked, his chuckle an insidious bubble of sound reverberating into the microphone and around the room. “Your boys are all well-armed. You have plenty of time to escape. There’s easier meat than you lot to go for first. Use your loaf. You want a big pay day or you want to put yourself right in Global Death’s sights by running like a little bitch?”
“Jaz!” Nate was bellowing, his eyes still locked on SamEdi as the shiny domed vocalist leered down at him, the other four members still churning out brutal death metal, but now it just appeared to be a looping section of the Zombie Trigger instrumentation, as if SamEdi’s vocals were required to keep it rolling. It didn’t really matter anyway, the damage was already done, the switch already flipped. All sets of cages on each side of the room were filled with snarling hungry zombie brutes and torn bodies. There were no more to turn, except those still free in the uncaged area of the room. “Jaz, where’s the keys to this door? Get this fucking door open, hun?”
Seth knew Jazmyn wasn’t likely to respond to that anytime soon, she was a crushed head mess of sloppy red mush, but Nate didn’t appear clued in on that little fact just yet.
Elsewhere in the place, the flurries of action all ceased, everyone at a sudden standstill as this new development emerged, putting the brakes on everything. A Mexican standoff.
Nate hadn’t called for his men to hold their fire or anything of the sort, and neither had Black instructed anybody to halt their rushed haphazard plan to rush the Masters, but simultaneously everybody held off doing everything. All of them understood the implications of Nate’s refusal to throw his men to the dogs like disposable soldiers. If he wasn’t prepared to go ahead and let the zombies out to run amok and endanger everybody, but the impervious Fleshcravers onstage, then quite possibly nobody else was going to die inside this impromptu performance place.
“What’s it going to be?” SamEdi growled, his patience wearing thin, his wary eyes flickering from not just Nate, but around to all the others in the room. The other Masters, Black and his associates, now with very few still situated in their original seats. Knowing that his protected position no longer was as safe as it had been prior, the folly of tipping his hand a little early and letting the Masters see that they were not indispensable, or truly valued members of this exercise, laid bare. Leaving him in a precarious position.
As Scarlett slipped down low into the shadows and slunk over to where Seth crouched, her figure a bloody drenched shape, Seth clung onto that fiery little spark of hope trying to fan it into a bigger blaze, daring to hope that the result of this stand-off meant somehow he and his cronies weren’t about to join Blizzard, Jazmyn and those other dark body masses slumped on the floor among upturned chairs.
A fraction belatedly, Seth acknowledged the importance of Nate’s panicked earlier statement, calling out to Jazmyn.
The door was locked behind them. Jazmyn had the keys. And Jazmyn’s battered corpse was only several feet away from where he and Scarlett hunched in the corner, trying to avoid getting pinpointed in the green glow of intermittent light as it persisted with its constant strobing and flickerings.
If either one of them could crawl back to the bloodied, pulped head mess and dig around in whatever pockets may be in that outfit she was wearing, underneath the filmy cloak. Which had to be completely saturated in gore.
Searching through the bloody mire of Jazmyn’s body and her blood-drenched clothes didn’t rank as supremely high on the wish list of Seth, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t already awash with blood, albeit old drying stuff. Being covered in a deluge of fresh gore was no joy, but it was far preferable to feeling his own spurt in hot gushes from his own body if those ravenous humanivores got to him and started ripping in with their teeth.
He imagined that sharp animal canines would be painful enough with their ability to pierce and puncture, but the thought of squarer human peg teeth having to put more physical effort in to sink into flesh and then tear profoundly at it to wrench the bloody meat away left him even colder.
If he could manage to locate the keys and get the door unlocked…
CHAPTER FORTY SIX-UNLEASHING THE BLOODTHIRSTY
The idea had merit, but was fraught with other issues. Seth needed to obtain those keys, somewhere in the blood-spattered clothing of Jazmyn, without being noticed by Nate. Then if he wanted Mark and Miranda safe as well, he needed to gain their attention, which might prove to be a difficult task, since he still had no clue where they were. It was a terrible possibility that if they weren’t crouched together on the floor then they were among the bodies strewn there.
As for Black, Tempest, Dax, Roxana, they weren’t immediately going to bolt for the escape route, because regardless of how they ended up in this room, they were in here with the targets of their relentless pursuit, the mission which had carried them all a long way from Armada, decimated many of their troops, and left them at this rapidly approaching culmination.
Well, maybe not Dax. Given his impassioned ou
tburst regarding survival, perhaps he would be first to bolt for the door if he saw it crack open and offer a passage to escape, but not Black and Tempest. Like they said, it wasn’t about them staying alive, it was about Undead Fleshcrave being dead.
Which then brought Seth to the difficult proposition of Scarlett. As much as he desperately wanted to spirit her out of this perceived escape route he was so tantalisingly close to―once he got his hands on those keys―was she just going to go with him, leaving the others to their devices? Abandoning Black and the rest, since it was clear they would pull all stops out to ensure their hell-bent mission was achieved?
As much as he might have wanted to believe she would immediately jump at the opportunity to flee with him, he had a terrible sinking feeling she too, wanted to see the death metal zombie-makers dead first.
“Hold up a second,” Nate addressed SamEdi, and since he lacked the microphone the vocalist used to bellow over the outlandish noise swell emanating from the hungry and getting hungrier caged undead, the band also ceased playing their unmusic, and the sudden lack of pummelling soundscapes was eerie and bizarre. “Hang on, I’m giving it some thought. Boys, start moseying over this way. Everybody be cool. Jaz, get them keys ready.”
Again, Nate wasn’t looking back towards Jazmyn, he was keeping wary eyes on the band as if he suspected they were holding cards they hadn’t yet played, but were quite capable of.
“We’ll let ‘em out, but only when all of my people are over here and ready to get out in a flash. You dig that?”
Shit! Seth concluded that Nate was still going to try and scrap up his promised pay day from Global Death. He just wanted to do it on his terms. Meaning the rest of the crew were still fucked. Still no weapons. Even less chance of getting them. No Masters left to use as Black inspired human shields. The lot of them meat for the humanivores.