by M. E. Betts
"Shit," one of them muttered, "I don't see why not. We'll tell Miller that little freak got him. He won't know any different. We'll be bringing back her head, anyway."
Red decided to take pre-emptive action against the rifle aimed his way. He gathered the fact that the group was intent upon retaliation for the mess in which he had entangled them, so he targeted the hand with which the woman supported the barrel. He pulled the trigger, missing her hand but obliterating the arm at the elbow.
In the space of less than a second, a full-blown firefight erupted between the duo and the newcomers. Daphne snuck toward the group while both sides were distracted. She didn't want Red to be taken out inglorioulsy in a gunfight with other sadists. Red was hers, her rightful prey. She quietly ambushed the group, clotheslining two of them beneath the chins with her spear while they re-loaded and dashing them down into the deep mine.
She tucked herself beneath a truck for cover as the two let out high-pitched screams just before they hit the mine's bottom. She saw an older male holding an AR-15 turn his muzzle away from Red, swinging it around the yard. Since he was distracted, Red and his partner targeted him next. Moments after he toppled, lifeless, to the gravel, another of his comrades fell. There were now only three members of the group left, including the woman whose right arm was hanging by mere shreds. She lay on the ground sobbing, her face red and shiny with tears. Her two remaining companions scooped her up, each of them supporting her under one arm and retreating around the corner of the building toward their bikes.
The rumbling of the group of motorcycles from down the road was now closer and noticeably louder. To her right, Daphne saw two undead--likely ones which she herself had created--rush toward the road before they were eclipsed by the building, obscuring them from her view. She saw Red and the other member of his two-person team resume their flight. Slithering out from beneath the truck, she paused for a moment as she stood, gauging the distance between herself and Red. She estimated him to have crossed about half of the length of the mine.
Approaching the massive pit, she peered down into its depths and dropped down inside, falling about six feet. She landed on a flat, one-foot-wide ledge spanning the mine's upper, inner circumference. Her bare feet were a blur as they moved, only barely touching the surface and creating no sound as she closed in on Red via the ledge, below the rim of the mine and out of his view. As the southern treeline began to loom closer, about twenty-five yards away, Daphne began to overtake Red. She sprinted faster, reaching the edge of the mine well before the evading pair.
She slung herself up and out of the pit, dashing twenty feet across the gravel clearing to reach the fringe of evergreens, the dense border where humankind relinquished control back to the forest. As she prepared to confront Red upon his arrival at the treeline, she saw and heard the group of motorcyclists arrive, their headlights shining from around the corner of the building.
Covered in dry blood and clutching the heavy wooden lance, Daphne waited as Red's footsteps drew near. She sat cloaked in the tangled, overgrown limbs of a mulberry tree with new green growth just beginning to emerge. When Red and his companion were around ten feet away, Daphne let out a low, inhuman growl.
"What was that?" asked the other person with whom Red was traveling. Daphne saw that it was Logan, the one who had administered the drugs prior to Red's freehand artwork on her back.
Daphne saw in red as she glared at him, the colorless rainbow pulsing frantically in the background behind him. Leaping from her cover of dense, reddish mulberry branches, she held her lance with its tip pointed at Logan's approaching abdomen. As his open leather jacket came within a few feet of Daphne's weapon, she fine-tuned her aim, going for the strip of his torso covered with only a t-shirt, between the open zipper of his jacket.
The point of her lance entered Logan's abdominal cavity readily, just below the sternum. She lowered her chin to her chest, glaring over her sweating brow. The clear sweat mixed with the red blood caking her from head to toe, creating trails of pink where the fluid ran down, then dripped off. She plowed forward and to her right, gripping one end of her lance with Logan impaled at the opposite end. He had no choice but to instinctually move backward to avoid the lance being driven in any further.
Leaning forward as Logan's feet neared the mine's edge, Daphne lunged, angling her torso forward and reaching her free hand, equipped with the dagger, out to her victim. She used the weapon in her left hand to slice away most of Logan's right ear. Sheathing the dagger once again, she grasped the ear between her left thumb and forefinger, then continued to hold it while she angled her weapon upward, forcing Logan up slightly onto his toes. His dark form momentarily eclipsed the middle of the rainbow behind him from Daphne's point of view. It was flashing with an even greater intensity. It reminded her vaguely of X-ray images of broken bones flashing at unfathomable speeds. She regarded the arch briefly as she yanked back on the lance, freeing it from Logan's body just before the leather-clad man fell, screaming, into the open pit. His had ear ripped away as he fell, its lobe still held fast in Daphne's firm grip.
She looked to her left, where Red was already twenty feet away, running toward the building. He had apparently forgotten, however, about the re-inforcement that he had requested from his allies only to cause the deaths, either directly or indirectly, of all but three members. The newly arrived group of motorcyclists emerged from around the corner of the building, about 150 yards away. Some raised scoped assault rifles, aiming in Red's direction. As Daphne had expected, he changed course immediately, bolting toward the woods to the west that led to the highway.
Daphne chased after him as a few rounds were discharged in his direction. She watched him escape into the treeline, where he slowed slightly to reload his gun. From the north, in the direction of the driveway, Daphne heard the sounds of many different types of guns all going off at once. Their varied sounds bounced around the mine and surrounding areas.
She didn't bother to wonder what was going on back near the building. She probed into the darkened wood, whereupon the sounds of gunfire were significantly and promptly dampened, though still quite audible. She noted Red ahead, his revolver pointed at her face.
She evaded upward into a tree, swinging her lance up and around a low-hanging branch. She hopped up slightly and gripped the lance with both hands to either side of the branch, hoisting her weight up and grabbing around its circumference with both of her bare feet. She swung herself onto the branch and sprang upright, side-stepping as she anticipated the squeezing of Red's trigger finger and the barking of his muzzle. He dispatched four shots, one after another, at his moving target. The rounds bit into the branch inches from Daphne's feet, sending chunks of bark and splintered fragments of wood into the air. Several splinters embedded themselves into her bare legs, serving to further enrage her.
She glared down at Red, wanting to ruin his monstrous visage. Before he could fire the last few shots, she dropped down onto him, her legs squeezing around his torso to cease her descent. Although Red more than doubled Daphne in weight, the force was sufficient to knock him onto his back on the carpet of wet, decomposing leaves. As her fists rained down onto Red's over-sized face, the overcast, over-burdened sky began to precipitate, rinsing away from her skin much of the blood that was already slightly wetted with sweat.
Her right fist moved up and down like a piston, barely pausing for re-positioning between blows. The back of Red's dense skull rebounded off of the ground as he struggled to lift his head. After several seconds of inundation, he managed to roll over, knocking Daphne off of him.
She rolled once, gripping her lance in her left hand, then leaped to her feet, driving the point of her weapon into the dirt. Holding the shaft with both hands, she used the weight of her upper body to push down on the implement while bringing her legs up, her feet in the air. She planted her soles hard into Red's face as he stood. The force didn't knock him down, but he visibly reeled from the impact. Having collected himself slightly after a
moment, he searched the ground for his revolver, which he had dropped upon Daphne's assault. He raked his boot across the fallen leaves, and felt the metal bulk two feet from where he had fallen. As his right hand reached down to retrieve the weapon, Daphne's lance spun low through the air, angled down, and pinned his palm to the ground.
As Daphne came in toward him, he yanked the lance free with a loud, groaning yell and a fair amount of difficulty. Although his right hand was ruined, his left dove into an inner pocket of his jacket. He grinned, his eyes twinkling and his brows raised, as he produced Daphne's beloved titanium talon, the gut hook-tipped knife that had been with her since the beginning. For a split second, in its pale, shining blade, she saw the rainbow reflected from behind her at the mine, visible as glowing fragments through the branches obscuring its totality.
From the north, the deluge of gunfire continued while the sky continued to rain, cleansing the mine and mill of some of the spilled blood. Daphne's pale, naked flesh was now rinsed clean, though pink, bloodied water still dripped from her long, russet hair. The wreath of ears around her neck rustled as a stronger breeze blew past and caused her to break out in goose flesh.
"You know what I did with this knife?" Red asked, pointing to his own back. Daphne didn't have to understand the language. It was clear to her that her own knife had been used against her, that it had been used to cause her permanent maiming. Red nodded just before coming in for an attempted strike, as if the confirmation would suffice to distract her.
Daphne blocked his blow with her borrowed blade in the irritated manner of a person swatting at a fly, while simultaneously raising her bent knee up and into Red's groin. His left hand was flung out in a loose backhand. She was surprised by how quickly Red's body responded, even while he recoiled and palmed the traumatized organs with his right hand. The other gigantic extremity swung freely, making contact with the side of Daphne's face. She allowed her body to move in the direction of the impact to minimize the pain and damage dealt by the blow, rising off of her feet as she was knocked backward, coming to lie on her back.
She sprang upright in one motion as Red steadied his revolver in his left hand.
"It's a damn shame," he said, shaking his head. "We really coulda been something, the two of us together." He peered down his barrel at her, a light smile spreading across his face. "It could've been you riding and fighting at my side." He looked her up and down as his muzzle remained fixed on her. "Yeah. I can picture it."
His words failed to get through to Daphne in her primal state. Without breaking her gaze from his, she pounced before he could react. Her legs gripped his torso, the fingers of her left hand clawing and kneading his face and right eye. At the same time, she chopped hard across the back of his left hand with the edge of her palm and pinkie, causing him to drop his gun.
Having disarmed Red, Daphne entered a state akin to berserker rage. She lowered her feet to the ground and released blow after blow to his face, both fists going non-stop at a steady rhythm. Although Red's head lolled back with each connection and he steadily paced backward with the force, he managed yet to stay on his feet. As his face ebbed again and again to face Daphne , she saw that his skin had torn in many places. Swelling and bruising were already beginning to cause distortion of his features, which were alarmingly severe even under normal circumstances.
As Daphne continued her assault of Red, striking him with her hardened, rugged knuckles, his back hit the unyielding form of a dense, elderly oak. Left with no functional hands, he tried to encircle Daphne with his huge, muscle-bound arms, intending to wrestle her to the ground. She began by ducking around to his right side, grabbing his lower arm with one hand and just below the bicep with the other. She raised her foot to force the elbow in, bending it at the wrong angle and causing a messy dislocation, complete with tearing of the tendons and muscle. She lifted his useless arm and pinned it to the tree behind him, using the dagger to stake through the muscle between his ulna and radius above the wrist. She then probed his inner right jacket pocket, producing the knife that was rightfully hers.
She focused next on his broken left hand as he babbled unintelligibly. She attempted to raise his hand so that it could be stapled to the tree. At that moment, Red became slightly more cognizant through the hazy blur in his mind induced by severe brain damage. He saw the miniature, naked aggressor raise her newly recovered titanium knife, and he had a hazy sense that she was preparing to tack his left hand to the tree, bringing it to meet the right. He summoned all the focus and intention left in him and swung the broken hand at the feral young woman, contacting the right side of her face with his left wrist and lower forearm.
She was knocked momentarily to the ground, surprised that Red was capable of any sort of final hurrah. He took the opportunity to yank the dagger free from his right hand, a howl of pain rising up from within him and fading into a fit of delirious laughter. He loomed over Daphne, attempting to utter something vaguely demeaning. To his dismay, though, the words came out garbled and meaningless. As he stood swaying over Daphne, he was acutely aware that he was quite broken. The uncommonly petite woman before him, now leaping to her feet, had done what he was certain to be irreversible damage to his brain.
He saw her lunge for her knife, which had fallen from her grip upon receiving his backhanded strike. Having significantly longer arms and legs than the young woman, he reached the implement first so that he was holding both the dagger and the titanium knife. His grip was tentative and awkward, with a broken hand on one side and a ruined elbow on the other. He just barely grasped the weapons as he lunged forward, attempting to gnash at Daphne with her own knife. His balance, however, was virtually non-existent, and he tumbled, landing prone on his front and stretching more than six and a half feet across the ground.
On his way down, he had slashed Daphne's shin with the titanium knife, producing a gash so deep that on the average woman, it would have hit bone. Daphne, being well-muscled as she was, had a bit more of a buffer, though it as still a significant wound. She narrowed her eyes, peering down at her babbling adversary.
She pounced and mounted him, plucking her knife from his weak grip. She stabbed once again through his left hand, though this time, it was affixed to the ground instead of the tree. She pushed down until the grip of the knife was barely protruding from the layer of sweetly scented, decomposing leaves.
She scrambled for the dagger behind Red's feet. Having retrieved it, she pulled his rather limp right arm from beneath him, outstretching the limb and pinning the hand to the soil with the dagger.
He was still chattering incoherently as she straddled his back and reached around the front with both hands, gripping his throat. He tried to kick his legs as she dug her fingers in between his trachea and the dense muscle surrounding it. She clamped down more tightly around Red's wind pipe, her fingers squeezing closer to one another.
Red gazed out toward the mine, his vision beginning to fade. His legs gave up their struggle to assault the attacker, and his arms went limp. In a primitive, distant manner, he was aware that he was already done for. He had hoped that she would be his queen, and she had done him in. As the final waves of his consciousness ebbed away, he wished her all the worst in the world.
Daphne felt her foe go limp, the last vestiges of life and breath leaving his body. She pulled her titanium talon free, but left Lacey's dagger embedded in Red's right hand. Standing and panting, she became acutely aware that she was cold, injured and severely exhausted. She bent down to slice away Red's right ear. Rising and starting again toward the highway, she paused and turned to do something which was unprecedented for her. She crouched and sliced off the left ear, as well. She strung them through the holes in their middles onto her necklace with the rest, making her way west as the world spun around her.
As she walked, the glow of daylight brightened to the east. She planted one foot in front of the other, but she was unsure how she would make it several miles back to her group. Red's elimination had been he
r objective, and having accomplished it, her body and mind had no remaining fuel with which to deny the maddening fatigue.
She stared up at the brightening clouds above her, determined to focus and continue ahead, when she heard movement to the north, three sets of human footsteps. She froze, listening intently. She didn't recognize the voices or the words, but she recognized the tone of self-righteous vengeance. She scaled the nearest tree, intentionally making a sufficient ruckus to draw their attention. She waited, crouching on a low branch as they approached with their guns drawn and their gazes searching the woods as they moved.
When they were roughly beneath her, she dropped down in front of them. She lunged low, rising and burying her gut hook into the lower abdomen of her first victim. She twisted the blade as she pulled it free, releasing entrails and fluids. As the sadist went down, sobbing and blubbering as they held their spilled guts, Daphne focused on the next one, swinging her limp right hand into the sadist's temple and producing a cracking sound.
The victim was sufficiently stunned to allow Daphne to focus on the third enemy. She reached down and around his body before he could respond, grabbing his ankles and yanking his feet out from beneath him. The sadist was briefly airborn, falling feet over head. The back of the skull smacked hard onto a tree root upon contact with the ground. The sadist seemed to be thoroughly lifeless, staring up at the brightening sky, so Daphne went back to the one still standing, the one with the broken skull. He stumbled toward Daphne, swinging a baseball bat studded with nails. She rushed him, easily evading his clumsy attempted strike, and knocked him to the ground, rolling him onto his front. Before he could buck her off, she plunged her knife into the base of his skull.
Behind her, Daphne heard the first of her three victims, the one who had been disemboweled, whimper and moan. She crossed over to him, rolling him over onto his belly as he protested faintly.