Dead Stop

  Buddha Boy was here.

  Harley must have seen the despair in her eyes, for he summoned a grin that at least tried to be reassuring. Unfortunately, it looked more desperate than anything else.

  “It’s okay,” he said, and moved towards the door. “I got this. I just need you to be brave one more time.”

  Not trusting herself to speak, she only nodded. She couldn’t think of anything to say now anyway. It was time to get back into action. She doubted he would be able to hold the door closed for long and moved to find something to help him brace it shut.

  “No, don’t move,” Harley waved her back as he reached towards the door handle. “I need you to just stand there, where he will be sure to see you when I open the door…”

  On second thought, there might be something that needed saying, after all.

  “When you WHAT???”

  “I gotta open the door Marisa,” he spoke in a low voice as he leaned against the buckling structure. “If I don’t, he’s going to break it and they’ll all get in. Better to let him in and face him alone.”

  “And he’s going to just waltz right in while you hold the door for him? That’s awful nice of the big guy!”

  “Well, that’s where we get to the ‘you being brave’ part.”

  Of course it was.

  “Annnnnnd my job is to be bait.” She sighed.

  “I just need you to catch his attention and draw him past me. I’ll be behind the door. Then you run around behind the car when he comes in. I’ve still got one shot left, so I’ll just step out and put a bullet in his head. It’ll be easy. Then I’ll get the keys, we’ll hop in the car, and it will all be downhill from there.”

  “Right,” Marisa nodded and faced the door again. If Harley said it would be easy then it was probably going to be difficult as hell, but that was just the way her evening was going. The gore splattered girl figured she was getting used to it. Hell, she had already done two or three death defying stunts tonight anyway. What was one more?

  “Remember, run. Don’t even try to mix it up with this thing.”

  That brought a hollow laugh from her.

  “Don’t worry, Harley. Miss Crazypants is gone for the evening. It’s just me now. Don’t you feel lucky?”

  “Actually, yes.” He replied with a sober look. “Your judgment, I trust.”

  Well, that was always good to know.

  “Aw… thanks, partner,” she smiled weakly. “I’ll be good and run away. Now please don’t die, okay?”

  As if on cue, another thunderous crash shook the door.

  “Not planning on it,” he winked back.

  Then Harley’s grin tightened and he held up one finger while grabbing the doorknob with the other hand. It was go time.

  “Okay...” He lifted his hand higher like somebody getting ready to drop the flag at a drag race. “Get ready…annnnnd…here we go.”

  Marisa watched him jerk the door open and step behind it in one smooth motion. And even though she had prepared herself for this, the sight of this new threat took her breath away.

  The monster literally filled the doorway.

  Buddha Boy’s pale bulk spanned the entire breadth of the door frame. The great body was swollen and off color, a monstrous corpse that dominated the entranceway. And at well over six foot, its bald head almost reached the top as well. There could have been an entire horde of ravenous dead behind the creature and Marisa wouldn’t have been able to tell. Whatever possible remnant that may have remained of her former berserker self melted away in the presence of this behemoth.

  Its dead white eyes practically glowed in its mottled face. They scanned the room, then stopped as they came to rest on her. Their pearly surface seemed to take on an unholy sheen at the sight of the lone girl.

  Oh looky! She swallowed. He’s taking the bait. Lucky me! Harley, you better not miss.

  “Hey, Buddha Boy!” she stammered out in mock good cheer. “You want your usual? No prob…HOLY SHIT!”

  The monster exploded in her direction.

  And in one split second she realized they had made a terrible mistake.

  They should have known that if the skeletal monsters from the cemetery could move quick, then something with fresh new muscles would be just as fast…or faster. But they had underestimated this thing. Its bulk had thrown them off, making them think it could only move like Buddha Boy in life. Now it stampeded towards her like a juggernaut of mortified flesh.

  Marisa was a split second away from being torn limb from limb.

  Realizing she didn’t have time to run around the end of the car, Marisa whipped around and began a desperate attempt to dive across the hood instead. She started from about eight or nine feet from the car, knowing the putrefying giant was already almost right on top of her. Her long legs closed the gap in three rapid strides. This was going to be close. Hearing the slap of his naked feet right behind her, the terrified young woman gathered her strength and leapt for all she was worth.

  She didn’t make it.

  The rancid titan landed on her like an avalanche.

  His mass smashed her down onto the car in mid leap, buckling the metal of the hood and driving the air out of her lungs. It felt like somebody had dropped a dead elephant on her. The girl’s spine bowed and her ribs threatened to snap under the titanic pressure. Marisa gagged and her vision became ringed in red as she struggled to get her breath back under the immense weight. The monster had her pinned like a bug. She was starting to suffocate and a whole new order of panic set in.

  Worse yet, she could feel the thing turn its head against the back of her own, and realized it was preparing to bite…and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She couldn’t even wriggle under the crushing load. Marisa clenched her eyes shut, steeling herself for the agony of its teeth cutting into her neck or shoulder.

  Benny…Stacey…I’m sorry. I almost made it back for you guys. I really tried.

  Then a thunderous explosion went off right behind her ear.

  Gladys’s gun.

  Even before the blast faded, Marisa realized what had happened. Harley must have been running behind the monster, chasing it as it charged, but not daring to take the shot until he could get close and make sure it counted. When it had caught her, he had caught it a scant second later. Then he must have put the gun against the creatures head, right behind her, and pulled the trigger.

  Her head rang from the guns report, and if felt like she wasn’t going to be hearing anything out of her right ear for a while…at least what was left of it…but the crushing weight suddenly eased. A second later it disappeared entirely.

  Marisa slid off the hood of the car in a boneless heap. It felt like she had been squashed flat. Now, instead of just her toe, ear, and hip, every bone in her body hurt. Even her chest ached as she drew in her first gasping breath. Once she got her air and vision back, she fully intended to give Harley an earful about this particular plan. Next time, he could damn well be the bait.

  “Marisa!” She dimly heard Harley yell through the ringing of her ears. “If you can hear me, slide under the car! Hurry!”

  Huh?

  What the hell?

  Marisa cracked open a blurry eye to see Harley standing about seven or eight feet away. The man crouched in a fighter’s stance, his face tight with tension. He tossed the empty pistol to the floor nearby, and she instinctively understood it was to free his uninjured hand for combat. For a second, the move confused her. Then her vision cleared further to reveal the awful truth.

  She was seeing Harley from between Buddha Boys legs.

  The giant corpse still stood.

  It must have been getting ready to go after Harley when her labored attempts to breathe had recaptured its attention. Now it twisted to turn its pearly white eyes back down to where she lay. Looking up at a naked fat man from the floor already gave her a picture she would rather not see, but the sight of the monster’s grisly cranium only made things worse. Almost half of the top of its he
ad was missing, exposing brain matter and some strange cottony fuzz.

  Harley hadn’t missed…he just hadn’t killed it. And now he was out of bullets and facing a monster that didn’t feel pain, didn’t get tired, and could punch its way through a steel door. For a second, Marisa tried to understand how this could have happened, and then the answer hit her.

  Oh shit! The doc called it hindbrain, and Harley shot it in the side of the head! He must have missed the part of the brain this thing is using!

  Now the corpulent horror looked like it intended to renew its previous hood-top acquaintance with her. And with it staring straight at her, she knew she had no chance to slide under the car in time. It shifted its feet and started to reach for her…

  “Hey! Big guy!” Harley shouted and clapped his hands together. “Over here! I’m your dance partner now! C’mon, look at me!”

  The monster paused and glared back at the man.

  Marisa held her breath and forced herself not to move. The behemoth’s meaty hand hovered less than a foot from her face. Her eyes almost crossed as they focused in on the blood crusted paw. Each finger was as thick as a sausage, and she knew they combined to form a grip capable of crushing her skull like an eggshell.

  Every fiber of her being wanted to try and scramble away. But she understood the motion would only ensure an attack, and it could grab her before she had a chance to escape. Still, it was the hardest thing she had ever done. She just hoped Harley knew what he was doing, because she doubted he would have much more chance in a hand to hand struggle with this monster than she did.

  “C’mon!” Harley clapped his hands again. “C’MON! I’m right here! Come get me!”

  The giant seemed to consider him a moment.

  “Yeah, that’s right! Come get some, fat boy!”

  CLAP!

  “C’mon! What’s the matter with you! Come get me!”

  CLAP!

  “C’mon, damn you! I’m right here!”

  Harley spread his hands, as if offering himself to the monster.

  Marisa tried to convince herself that he wasn’t just doing this for her. She wanted to believe he had some higher strategy behind this crazy move, but this time she knew better. This time he wasn’t just doing his job. If he were being ruthless and practical, then his best shot of killing this thing and saving the others was to attack it from the rear while it attacked her. But he wasn’t doing that.

  Instead, he was openly inviting a killer behemoth to close with him, just to get it away from her.

  Yet while she stared at that massive, gore-smeared hand so close to her face, she found she really couldn’t hold it against him. He was being stupid as hell but she could let that slide until later. Assuming there was a later. Right now he was welcome to play hero to his heart’s content.

  The three of them stared at each other a second longer.

  Then the monster made its choice.

  Marisa couldn’t help but yell a warning as it bolted towards Harley. It closed on the man in a flash, once again showing that astonishing acceleration to full speed in almost no time flat. She knew its momentum had to be enormous, and the man’s only hope was to find a way to dodge its charge.

  But Harley didn’t do that.

  Instead he braced himself, and drew back one hand now curled into a two pronged claw. A split second later the giant slammed into him, driving him backwards…but not before Harley lashed out and drove his hooked thumb and fingers into the monster’s eyes and buried them up to their last knuckles in its sockets.

  The effect wasn’t immediate. The monster still plowed forward, now with Harley in its grasp. The pair of them hurtled on and smashed into the cinder brick wall with tremendous force.

  Marisa heard Harley grunt from the impact and knew it must have hurt terribly. The memory of being crushed under the titan’s weight still loomed fresh in her memory. She knew being smashed against unyielding concrete by the thing had to be far worse. At the same time, she realized what Harley had just done and renewed hope caused her to scramble to her feet.

  The monster was now blind.

  And that meant it couldn’t see her coming.

  But it still had Harley against the wall with one of his arms clasped in its huge hand. He had slumped down till he almost hung from its grip, although she couldn’t tell if it was because he was hurt or just trying to avoid the monster’s other fist as it flailed wildly for a target to smash. Or maybe both. One of those blows impacted against the cinder bricks hard enough to leave cracks, and Marisa realized she needed to do something fast.

  “Hey, pendejo!” she shouted, desperately searching for a weapon that would have some hope of hurting the thing. “I’m over here!”

  She really didn’t expect it to accomplish anything. Hell, she was just yelling while trying to figure out something else to do that might make a difference. So it caught her completely unprepared when the giant corpse turned and lunged in her direction.

  Marisa jumped back with a scream as the monster stumbled blindly after her.

  She backpedaled towards the car again, her gaze locked on the monster’s mutilated face. It looked even more horrific than before. Its eyes were now torn sockets weeping tears of black ichor.

  But its ears must have worked fine because it zeroed right in on her. It couldn’t move near as fast like this, but the area wasn’t very big. She wasn’t anywhere near out of trouble yet. Even worse, the thing still held Harley by the arm and dragged him along behind like a forgotten toy.

  But realizing it tracked her by sound gave Marisa an idea.

  “Buddha Boy!”

  She shuffled sideways as she yelled, and noted with rising hope that it altered course to follow. The monster continued to drag Harley along behind it like a rag doll. She couldn’t tell if he was dazed, unconscious, or dead. What she did know was she needed to keep the creature distracted or it might turn its attention back to the “bird in the hand.” If Harley died there would be nobody to drive the truck. And that meant it was now all up to her.

  She was going to have to kill this giant…

  ….all by herself.

  But she had just figured out a way to do it.

  It was going to be a gamble. And it would involve her doing something utterly awful. Even worse, it would mean getting back within reach of those huge hands. But Marisa had long since passed the point of caring about “awful” and gambles were all she had left. The monster did have one weak point, and she had just spotted the tool to apply to it.

  Now she just needed to bring the horror within reach.

  “Hey, boboso!” Marisa yelled as she backpedaled away. “Over here!”

  The monster, who had just reached the car, now turned and lurched back towards Marisa’s new position. That was exactly what she had counted on.

  At her feet, right beside the red toolbox, lay the mechanic’s dolly. The low, wheeled platform had allowed Arnold and Leon to lie on their backs and roll under cars to work on them. Now she intended to use if for something else. It took all of her courage to allow the thing to get closer, but she waited until it was where she needed it to be. Then putting her foot against the dolly, she pushed it out into the oncoming horror’s path.

  The results were spectacular, if not exactly what she intended.

  Instead of stumbling forward with its head landing at her feet…like she hoped…the giant stepped directly on the dolly and had its foot fly out from beneath it. Its free arm flailed in the air while its foot went amazingly high for a creature with such a corpulent build. For one brief, suspended moment in time it reminded her of an old movie with a cartoon hippo playing at a ballerina.

  Unfortunately, it appeared it wasn’t going to go down. The foot started to lower as the gargantuan corpse somehow managed to regain its balance.

  But that’s when Harley struck.

  The man must have been dazed and just instinctually taking advantage of the situation she created. He couldn’t have really thought his actions through. No
t unless he was trying to get himself killed.

  In one lightning fast move he gripped the monsters hand where it held him by the upper arm. Then in the same motion he used it as a brace to swing both of his feet around and drive them into the back of its knee. His boots struck with the full weight and force of his entire body, and the nightmare came down like a ton of bricks…

  …right on top of him.

  Harley almost disappeared under the ghastly mass, and Marisa realized he only had seconds to live. He had recaptured the monster’s attention. Now it had him pinned and could bring both hands to bear on him. Even as she grasped the situation she heard a muffled cry come from the man underneath the downed colossus.

  But at the same time, she saw that Harley had accomplished getting the creature into the position she needed, even if it had been by accident.

  Grabbing the air impact wrench off the top of the nearby toolbox, Marisa charged into the fray. It was now or never. Given the thing’s attention on Harley, she would have a clearer shot than her original plan provided. Now came the “doing something awful” part. She just hoped she pulled it off, and did it in time.

  Dropping to her knees beside the blind giant’s head, she drove the socket end of the air wrench into the section of exposed brain and pulled the trigger.

  The wrench was a heavy duty tool, designed to tighten up lug nuts on eighteen wheelers, and with a torque of over twelve hundred pounds it revved up to seven thousand rpms in a second.

  It was like turning the monster’s skull into a blender.

  Brain matter flew and Marisa gagged as the spinning socket sank into the grey mass. The worst part of the back spray caught her full force and added a coat of fungus and dead neural tissue on top of her previous layer of gore.

  A split second later the giant spasmed and splayed out like a starfish. Unfortunately, that meant the arm it had underneath it in search of Harley now came flying out in the form of a monstrous backhand that caught her full in the chest.

  It felt like being hit by a truck.

  For the second time in as many minutes the air exploded from her lungs, and Marisa tumbled backwards like a puppet with its strings cut. Stars blasted across her vision as her head smacked against the hard floor. Her arm tangled in the air line as she rolled and the wrench came free of the monster’s skull. It spun itself to a stop on blood crusted concrete. The girl herself came to rest, face down on the cement, about five feet further away.