The Bingo Hall

by Shane McKenzie

  The other wan creatures rushed Chris, the same ghastly face as all the others.

  “C-Chris…just d-do it…” Oscar’s voice was a strained whisper, and Chris hesitated just for a moment, scared of what would happen to the only friend he had left, but as the dripping hands reached for him, he ran the match over the rough edge of the box. The gas-soaked matchbox ignited into a ball of flame and scorched his fingers. He dropped it, then tossed the match at the oncoming workers.

  They burst into flame and flailed, bumping into the wall and each other. The small lake of gasoline exploded into a fiery wall. The things screeched as their flesh bubbled and melted off in thick chunks that slapped to the floor and burned.

  “Oscar!” Chris squinted and tried to find his friend, but could only see flames. He could barely breathe as the heat intensified.

  More screeching vibrated the air, coming from the kitchen. The workers in the hall had fallen to the floor, now cooking in their own juices, and Chris backed up, then sprinted and leapt over the flames. His feet landed just short, splashed in the fiery puddle of gasoline. His sneakers and the bottoms of his jeans caught fire, and he stomped and slapped at the flames, gasping and cringing as his flesh burned. Oscar lay on the floor, his legs black, tongues of fire still dancing across his khakis.

  “Shit, man…Oscar!” Chris swatted the flames away, then grabbed his friend by the shoulders and shook him. A red hand print was wrapped around Oscar’s neck, and Chris thought for sure the kid was dead.

  “F-fuck…fool…” Oscar’s eyes fluttered open, mouth twisting in agony as the pain of consciousness took him.

  “You all right, man? Shit, I thought you were dead for sure.” Chris hugged his friend, watched the flames lick the walls and blacken the ceiling.

  “Hell nah. My legs…they’re fucked up. But we got those motherfucker’s, didn’t we? Cooked their asses.” He glared at the burning mounds of flesh that were once the workers. More of them flew from the double doors, flickering flames eating them alive as the fire swallowed the kitchen.

  “We gotta make sure Mr. Big gets his, though. We gotta check on my dad.” Chris got to his feet and held out his hand. Oscar took it, but screamed when he tried to stand.

  “I…I can’t. It hurts, it hurts real bad.” Smoke spiraled from his roasted legs and tears poured from his eyes.

  “I can’t leave you here, man. Come on.” Ignoring his friend’s shrieks, Chris grabbed Oscar by the arms, hung them over his own shoulders and lifted. He draped Oscar over his back like a cape. A meat cleaver lay on the ground, its metal reflecting the orange fire, blood sizzling on the blade. Chris clenched his teeth and reached for it, yelped when the hot handle touched him, but he grabbed it anyway.

  I’m coming, Dad. Please don’t be dead.

  “G 48!”

  Maurice popped off two shots, but only one hit its target. The maggot gurgled, bright red blood squirting from the bullet hole in its side. But it kept coming, its lamprey-like mouth spinning with razor-blade teeth.

  Maurice steadied his hand and fired a shot down the thing’s throat. Its body jumped, flailed on the ground and splashed blood all over. The girl’s body that was hooked to its back flew free and slapped against the wall. Blood poured from the giant maggot’s mouth and head, and then it was still.

  More people shrieked as the maggots pulled them away from the crowd and fed. The kids continued to drop to the floor as the beasts inside of them exploded out of their bodies.

  “I 18!”

  Fuck this!

  Maurice stomped toward the stage again, but before he could get far, a man stood from his seat and threw a punch, catching Maurice off guard and blinding his left eye. The gun flew from his grasp and clattered behind him. He growled and grabbed the man by the back of the neck. He yanked him down as he thrust his knee upward and smashed it into the middle of the man’s face. There was a crack and Maurice tossed the man aside as a middle-aged black woman came for him. She bared her teeth and hissed and swung a jar at him.

  Maurice stepped aside, shot an elbow and cracked her in the temple. Her legs went limp and she fell, the jar crashing on the floor. A severed penis rolled amongst the broken glass and what smelled like vinegar.

  As he stomped forward, more and more people came to stop him from reaching Mr. Big. A fat man wearing nothing but yellowed briefs came for him, and Maurice thrust a front kick to the middle of the man’s chest, throwing him backward and crashing into the others. Behind them, more of the goopy pale men rose from the liquefied bingo balls, screeching and spitting mucus. Mr. Big watched all of this from his stoop atop the stage, cackling and rubbing his long hands over his blubbery, greasy pink skin. Squealing sounds erupted from his left where the concession stand was engulfed in flames. The fire worked its way into the hall as it climbed the walls and tickled the ceiling.

  Chris?

  Hands gripped his skin, tore at it, pinched and clawed. Maurice threw punches, elbows, did his best to bob and weave and avoid further injury. But there was too many of them, every one of them thirsting for his blood, hungering for violence.

  His knuckles slammed into an old woman’s face, crushing it, but as she fell backward, another person took her place. The bodies piled on top of him, and he didn’t even realize he’d fallen. He cried out as the weight pushed down, smashing the air out of him and making it impossible to inflate his lungs again. The giant maggots pulled some of them away, but not fast enough.

  Brenda’s face materialized from the sea of angry faces, and the begging words that Maurice tried to force out were quickly cut off as she rose her high-heeled foot in the air and stomped down on his throat.

  Chris set Oscar down gently and pressed his ear to the door. High-pitched screams and ripping sounds rattled the warm metal.

  “What is that, Chris?”

  “Don’t know. But those screams…they sound like kids, right?”

  “You think it’s Jay?”

  Or Sasha. Chris grabbed the door handle with an unsteady hand—his other hand squeezing the hilt of the cleaver—took quivering breaths through his nostrils, then swung the door open.

  Piles of organs and puddles of blood covered the floor, a few kids splashing around in them and screaming, writhing as they clawed at their stomachs. There was a commotion by the stage, the adults thrashing, looked to be ganging up on some other unlucky winner, pounding them into the floor. Chris couldn’t see the stage from where he stood, but he could hear Mr. Big’s cackling.

  What the fuck is that?

  Chris squinted as he stared across the bingo hall, not sure what he was seeing at first. He took a step into the concession area without meaning to, slammed a hand over his mouth before his scream could escape. What looked like giant maggots, spikes lining their segmented bodies, were picking off the adults and…eating them, lifting them into the air and sucking them down. The victims shrieked, fought to escape the massive jaws, but the others didn’t seem to notice or care. They just continued their assault on whomever it was they were stomping.

  “Oh God…”

  “C-Chris? Nnghh…!”

  “Sasha?”

  Sasha was on her stomach, crawling through the visceral muck toward him. Blood dripped from her eyes, nose, mouth. Her skin was pale and coated in sweat. She grimaced and curled into a fetal position while she hissed and raked at her stomach. “It hurts! Chris…oh God…it’s killing me…”

  “I…I got you!” Chris ran toward her, wrapped his arms around her torso and lifted her to her feet, careful not to cut her with the cleaver. Something under her skin bulged, like balloons inflating under her flesh. Chris held tight and dragged her toward the door. He did a quick search of the room for Jay, but didn’t see his friend anywhere.

  Sasha bellowed, spat a wad of thick blood that splashed over her feet. Chris growled as he pulled her through the doorway and into the hallway where Oscar
sat waiting for him.

  “Oh, shit. What’s wrong with her?”

  Chris slammed the door, turned Sasha around so he was looking into her face, but couldn’t see her eyes through the squint of pain. He dropped the cleaver, reached out and cupped her cheeks in both hands. “What’s goin’ on, Sasha? What’s happening—”

  Her neck bulged, stretched wide as if she were regurgitating a whole turkey. A milky pus oozed from her mouth, ribboned pink with blood, and she reached out, tried to clutch at Chris’s shirt, but he gasped and backed away.

  “What the fuck, fool! Get me up…get me up!”

  “Help me!” Sasha’s voice was muffled. Her eyes widened and she choked and convulsed. A wet ripping sound, then splashing blood. Sasha hit the floor and whipped her arms and legs, her eyes still pinned on Chris.

  “S-Sasha…oh God. Sasha!”

  She squealed as the writhing, segmented tip protruded from her throat, shoved its way out and ripped the corners of her mouth across her cheeks. Teeth popped free from her bleeding gums and rattled to the tile. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and her lids flitted over the bloodshot whites. Another splash of blood as the maggot’s other end tore free of Sasha’s jeans.

  “Get me the fuck up! Come on, fool, come on!”

  Warm tears rolled down his cheeks as Chris watched Sasha’s torso split down the middle. The maggot throbbed, squirmed in place as it inflated larger and larger, Sasha’s body a tattered mess hanging from the beast’s hide.

  “Chris!”

  Chris wiped his face, screamed as he lifted Oscar off the ground and draped him over his back. He thought about the tickle in the middle of his palm as she scribbled her number there, the hotness of her soft lips as they were pressed against his.

  The giant maggot squawked as its body thrashed and banged into the walls.

  Without another look at the mess that was once his crush, Chris grabbed the cleaver off the floor and trotted back down the hall.

  Chris grunted as he lugged Oscar up the small stairwell, his knees threatening to buckle and spill them both to the floor. Sweat covered him, soaked into his clothes, his shirt heavy and pasted to his torso. He stared at another door as the sounds of chaos blared from the other side.

  Chris ground his teeth as he eased Oscar back to the floor.

  Oscar hissed, and Chris shot his finger to his lips, shook his head. Chris rested his forehead against the hot metal of the door before wrapping his fingers around the handle, turning it and gently cracking it open.

  The door was on stage, behind Mr. Big. The monster had grown even larger than the last time they had seen him, now a living pile of horrendous flesh. Mr. Big laughed, his arms wiggling as he observed the carnage happening on the floor beneath the stage.

  The players continued ganging up on whoever was beneath their horde, punching and kicking and stomping and grunting. Chris still couldn’t tell who they beat on, but they went at it hard, each of them spattered with blood, their violence growing more potent by the second. The giant maggots picked off bodies from the outside of the pile, gurgling screams echoing from their hellish throats. The one closest to the stage had a woman in its mouth. Its teeth spun like a garbage disposal as it grinded her down and swallowed the shredded meat. And on its back…was Jay. Or what used to be him. His body was torn apart and split open and hung off the worm’s body like a conjoined twin.

  Chris eased his head back through the doorway, pressed the door shut again, leaned against it and ran his quivering hands over his head. He found it hard to breathe, hard to think. What the fuck can I do against that? he thought. I can’t stop this.

  “What’s goin’ on out there?” Oscar whispered.

  Chris glared at the cleaver in his hand, tested its weight.

  “Chris…what you gonna do, fool?”

  “I have to stop him. I have to save my family.” And though he felt weak and powerless against the hell on the other side of the door, he took three deep breaths, bared his teeth and walked out on stage.

  The flames wiped across the walls, but they were still too far away from Mr. Big to have any effect on him. More of the workers were down there, and they did their best to fight the flames, though they only succeeded in scorching themselves. Mr. Big’s head kept turning in the direction of the fire, but his giant body couldn’t move, and he faced his players and inched his face toward the microphone. His clawed fingertips plucked a bingo ball from his body. “G 46!”

  It was as if he needed to call out the numbers, needed to play the game just as much as the players did.

  The horde of people stopped fighting at once, glanced up at the stage, then dispersed to their seats. Chris saw Mama spring to her chair, grab her dauber and start studying her cards. The others did the same, whatever violence they had just been a part of now completely absent from their minds.

  And that’s when Chris saw the mauled form on the ground, blood splashed all around him. His dad’s head had been turned completely around, his tongue hanging from his lips.

  “No!”

  Mr. Big’s head spun around like an owl’s, and he opened his mouth and roared. Hot spittle singed Chris’s skin like cigarette cherries, but he held the cleaver high and surged forward, burying the blade into Mr. Big’s head, right between the dark yellow eyes.

  “Oscar…Oscar help me!”

  Mr. Big grimaced, tried to grab the blade but couldn’t reach it. Oscar crawled onto the stage, then gasped and widened his eyes.

  “You have to call out the numbers! Call them out or these people will kill us both.” It seemed the only time these people would stay in their seats was if they still thought they could win. But with Mr. Big screeching and snapping his jaws, the players started to rise from their chairs again, faces full of hate, some making their way toward the stage. “Hurry!”

  “Grandma? No…no! Grandma!”

  Chris yanked the cleaver out again, slammed it back down and widened the wound. A white paste bubbled out and ran down the grotesque body.

  Oscar’s grandmother lay on the floor in a pool of dark blood, not far from Chris’s dad. Her bones protruded from her thin skin where her limbs had been snapped. Just then, one of the huge maggots found her, sucked her into its maw and crunched her body in its jaws.

  “Noooo!” Oscar tried to stand, but fell back to the floor and hollered.

  “Oscar, please! Do it for her…you have to help me or we die…”

  Mr. Big’s hand wrapped around Chris’s wrist, squeezed. The bone snapped and Chris fell backward screaming. A man had hoisted himself on stage, cocked back his metal baseball bat, the thick end painted with blood.

  “B 7…” Oscar’s voice. Chris scooted himself away from Mr. Big, saw Oscar holding one of the many bingo balls that littered the ground. As he called out the number, the ball began to dissolve, and Oscar yelped and tossed it away.

  The man with the bat looked disappointed, like he wanted nothing more than to bash Chris’s brains in, but he couldn’t resist checking his cards, and he hopped from the stage and ran back to his seat.

  Mr. Big roared again, tried reaching for Oscar, but the boy had yanked the microphone from its stand and was just far enough away that the monster couldn’t reach him.

  Chris couldn’t help but take another look at his dad’s body, and he saw the black pistol lying in a pool of blood beside him. And down the aisle lay an untouched gas can.

  The flames extended farther into the hall, nearly touching the stage now. A few of the people in the outside seats were catching on fire, but they still didn’t move as Oscar called out more numbers. A few of the maggots crashed around on the floor as the flames rode their flesh.

  In his haste, Chris tried to use his broken wrist to push himself to his feet, and he shrieked and collapsed. Oscar ran his shirt sleeve over his eyes as he called out another number, then turned toward Chris and no
dded.

  Chris struggled back to his feet. Mr. Big yanked on the cleaver handle to dislodge the blade from his head at the same time he reached for his microphone. His roars were deafening. Chris hopped off the side of the stage, circled around the players as they daubed the numbers Oscar called out.

  He did his best not to look at his dad’s body, not to look at the madness in Mama’s eyes as he dashed around the congregation of players. The mucus-covered pale workers continued to fight the fire, but their bodies only fed it, and the hall was nearly completely engulfed now. The plan was working, but Chris knew that if he didn’t stop Mr. Big and get out in time, he’d die with all the others. With a quick glance at the monstrous maggots, he saw half of them had caught fire, curled up and blackened, and the remaining beasts were too busy swallowing adults to pay him any mind.

  I have to end this!

  He grabbed the gas can his dad had dropped, and sprinted toward the stage.

  Oscar kept calling numbers, keeping the players busy, not a single one of them even noticing as Chris charged forward.

  Mr. Big saw him coming, let out a guttural howl, his body sweating and glistening in the light of the fire, bathing him in flickering orange.

  Chris twisted off the cap and splashed the gasoline over the monster one-handed until the can was nearly empty. The pale men saw this, screeched, abandoned their useless fight against the flames to rescue their master.

  “I…I 22…” Oscar said into the microphone, scooting his way toward the side of the stage.

  Chris hopped over his dad’s corpse, grabbed the pistol, wiped the tears and blurriness from his eyes, and fired.

  The bullet penetrated Mr. Big’s bulbous body, but nothing happened. The monster continued to roar as more bingo balls popped from his body.

  Chris clenched his teeth, squeezed the gun tight and pulled the trigger over and over and over. The bullets hit Mr. Big, the wall, but one glanced off the black metal microphone pole, and a tiny shower of sparks sprinkled to the stage floor.

  There was a final roar that blasted from Mr. Big’s throat before his body burst into flame. His arms bucked and swung, bingo balls popping all over like popcorn. The monster shrieked and whimpered as its flesh blistered and melted onto the floor. The workers ran to him, swatted at his body, but only succeeded in catching themselves on fire along with him. And together they all burned.